Provincial Insecurities

On this day in 1836, the Alamo fell. Remember! Now there is your Texas history.

This about sums up the weekend. From a Jake Tapper tweet:

POTUS makes wild accusation w/zero evidence

WH searches for evidence & cant find any

WH tells Congress to find evidence/no further comment

More from Jake:

4/Moreover we cannot pretend we haven’t been here before, w/POTUS putting out wild accusations that are untethered to reality.

And:

5/Obama’s birth certificate/ Vaccines/ Ted Cruz’s father & Lee Harvey Oswald / crowd sizes/ Vince Foster / Murder rate / 3-5 illegal votes

And:

WH officials with whom I spoke said POTUS got the info about wiretap from media – Breitbart, Levin – not from govt sources.

The FBI Director is saying it didn’t happen.

The Russians have Trump by the you know whats.

One thing is for sure. You pretty much give up your dignity when you go work for Donald Trump. The press secretary gave his up on day 2. Yesterday, the press secretary sent out his deputy to do the news shows and her dignity was shredded away. Pitiful.

The ‘Stros have 55 Opening Day games under their belt. Of the 15 NL teams, we have played 13 of them on Opening Day. Name the two that we haven’t played on Opening Day?

Now this one is probably a put down of sorts. Commentary is talking about yesterday’s E-Board take on the #HTownTakeover of the UT Chancellor. This is how the take starts:

There have been times in Texas history when small-minded meddling by elected officials has hampered, hindered or derailed efforts by the state’s colleges and universities to push beyond the regional, to be innovative and far-sighted. To lead.

That’s the role University of Texas System Chancellor William H. McRaven sought to play when he announced last year that the System would begin exploring opportunities to establish more of a presence in the state’s largest city. Perhaps the native San Antonian should have been aware that thinking big, particularly in the realm of higher education, occasionally makes folks nervous in this state.

He could have recalled Gov. “Farmer Jim” Ferguson, who, before being impeached, vetoed almost the entire budget of the University of Texas because he couldn’t oust professors and a president who provoked his ire. He might also have remembered Homer Rainey, the UT president fired by regents appointed by Govs. W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel and Coke Stevenson. Rainey lost his job in part because he refused to fire an English professor who assigned the John Dos Passos novel “USA.”

McRaven’s misbegotten Houston venture is less momentous than the aforementioned incidents, simply because plans for the 300-acre plot of land UT purchased in southeast Houston never got beyond the conceptual stage.

It goes on to say UH backers who opposed the UT move were “provincial” and during this effort, UH “allowed its insecurities to show.”

The end of the take is here:

Granted, McRaven could have kept this community and its elected officials better informed, particularly on the land deal that set the plan in motion. He could have worked harder to assure UH that UT wasn’t encroaching. As far as Houston is concerned, the chancellor’s mistakes are now academic, so to speak.

More pertinent to this community is the message we convey about our openness to big ideas and ambitious plans. Jesse Jones, Dominque de Menil, George Mitchell and Dr. Denton Cooley, among a host of Houston visionaries down through the years, would have said yes, we believe. Unlike Boston, New York and other cities eager to advance the frontiers of knowledge, Houston reverted to the Jim Ferguson, Pappy O’Daniel tradition.

Here is the entire take: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Burned-orange-10977202.php.

Missed opportunity? Depends on your point of view. The E-Board take still is a put down of sorts.

From today’s Chron:

Harris County Democrats tapped a consultant and party fundraiser for chair Sunday, with hundreds of precinct chairs voting in a close race.

Lillie Schechter will replace Lane Lewis, who resigned in February after about five years of service.

Schechter said Sunday that the party must immediately begin recruiting and training candidates to run in 2018. Democrats must expand fundraising efforts by attracting new donors online, at events and in the membership of local progressive and millennial groups, she said.

The local party comes off sweeping success in the 2016 election, winning every countywide position on the ballot.

Ok. I wonder if that means recruiting candidates to run against Hunker Down and for Precinct 2 Commissioner. We will soon find out.

The ‘Stros have never played the D-Backs or Mets on Opening Day of course. FYI: We played the Nationals when they were the Expos.

Opening Day is four weeks from today.  You going?