Secretary of State Waffles

Commentary knows a thing or two about mail ballot voting in the State of Texas.

Keith Ingram, Director of Elections for the Office of the Texas Secretary of State (SOS), told the Harris County Clerk on Friday that the County Clerk can’t send out mail ballot applications to all registered voters.  It looks like the SOS is backtracking and waffling on this issue.

Let’s go back to the April 2, 2020 Election Advisory titled “COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Voting and Election Procedures” authored by Mr. Ingram that addressed mail ballots and the Disability excuse.  Here is what the advisory said:

One of the grounds for voting by mail is disability. The Election Code defines “disability” to include “a sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place on election day without a likelihood of needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter’s health.” (Sec. 82.002). Voters who meet this definition and wish to vote a ballot by mail must submit an application for ballot by mail.

Here is the entire advisory:  https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6824368/ADV2020-14-COVID-19-Coronavirus-Voting-and.pdf.

Commentary has addressed this previously.  Before the Democratic Party Primary Runoff Election, we interpreted the Disability excuse reference in the Advisory as a mechanism to send mail ballot applications to those under 65 years of age.  We developed a mail ballot application using the exact same language from the April 2 Advisory.  We forwarded the application to Mr. Ingram’s office for their review and here is how they responded: “That mailer looks fine to us.”

Our application even listed three steps for the applicant to go through including marking the Disability excuse.  If the Harris County Clerk follows the same language that we used, I don’t see why there should be a problem. Nothing has really changed.  We are still in the middle of a pandemic.  Folks are still getting infected, sick and dying, including voters.

BTW:  The Harris County Clerk was aware of our application and processed those applications who were sent in by the voters.

Say you are under 65 years of age and you may have an asthmatic, upper respiratory, mild heart, or underlying medical condition that never prevented you from voting in person in the past.  COVID-19 has changed this thinking.  Why not now use the Disability excuse and vote by mail? We are wearing masks for a reason. We learn every day something new about the virus.  You may have a medical condition within you that you don’t even know about that could get exacerbated by COVID-19.  The Secretary of State’s Office was willing to play it safe before the runoffs.  They were certainly aware of the health challenges facing some voters. Now they are waffling big time.

What has changed?  Back in April, they didn’t think the election in Texas was going to be this close.  They didn’t think that Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott would both tragically mishandle the response to COVID-19.  They didn’t think that Texas would be one of the world leaders in infections.  They didn’t count on an aggressive voter participation campaign by the Harris County Commissioners Court.  Oh yea, and Trump has demonized voting by mail.  It is not about safety anymore.  It’s back to voter suppression.

Take it from my experience.  Not everyone is going to fill out and return the mail application.    There are still a lot of folks who want to vote in person.  There will be some who may want to play it safe and say, “why risk it”, and return an application.

This about face by the Secretary of State is being driven by voter suppression pure and simple.  It contradicts their own April 2 Election Advisory.  It is not the attitude they had when they told me a few months ago that our mail ballot application we asked them to review looked “fine” to them.

The bright side to all of this is Mr. Ingram still hasn’t produced the part of the Election Code that will be violated if the Harris County Clerk proceeds with sending out the mail ballot applications.   Mail them, please.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his folks are encouraging violence in streets across  the cities and saying that is what the USA will look like under Joe Biden.  Huh? They have also formally declared that they want Putin and Russia to help them steal the election.  This is your corrupt GOP and they don’t even deny this tragic fact.

On the subject of changing the topic big time, Commentary was thinking about MLB records set in the modern era that probably will never be broken.  Here they are:

Johnny Vander Meer’s back-to-back no-nos in 1938.

Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak in 1941.

Cal Ripken Jr.’s 2,632 straight games played.

Ichiro’s 262 hits in 2004.

Nolan Ryan’s career 5,714 strikeouts, 2,795 walks and 7 no-nos.

Rickey Henderson’s 1,406 career steals and 130 steals in 1982.

Hack Wilson’s 191 RBIs in 1930.

Chief Wilson’s 36 triples in 1912.

Barry Bonds’ 232 walks in 2004.

Babe Ruth’s 177 runs scored in 1921.

Pete Rose’s career 15,890 plate appearances and 4,256 hits.

Hank Aaron’s 6,856 career total bases.

I will add one to the list tomorrow that I am sure will kind of blow you away.

I was watching Friday evening when the Astros and A’s decided not to play.  That was pretty powerful it being Jackie Robinson Day.

Then later on we sadly found out about the death of Chadwick Boseman who played Jacking Robinson in “42.” Wow.  That was a shock.

It was an emotional evening.

We swept the doubleheader Saturday and yesterday’s game was postponed thanks to someone in the A’s organization who tested positive.

We have today off.

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Reckless

When it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 response, every GOP elected official just ought to get out of the way and shut the fu_k up.

The USA is fixing to hit 6 million infections, over 180,000 have died, we are trying to get folks back to work and we are trying safely open up our schools and universities.  To satisfy Donald Trump’s desires to accept his party’s nomination in front of a crowd, 1,500 gathered at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue last night with most not wearing masks and absolutely zero social distancing.  It was a horrible and disgusting scene – thanks to the Donald Trump convention and the GOP elected officials whose arses he owns.

If I am a bar owner in the USA who has been shut down for months, I would be irate and livid. Just don’t misdirect your anger at Democrats like Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.  Direct your ire at Trump bootlickers like Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, State Sen. Paul Bettencourt and Cong. Dan Crenshaw who have enabled Trump’s reckless behavior.  Oops, add U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to the bootlicker lists.

Trump, the fella who has botched the handling of the pandemic, hosted a super spreading acceptance event.  He’s the only one who could have pulled something off like this.

How can we expect college students and others not to gather in crowds and party if the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue disregard social distancing guidelines?  I got news for you.  COVID-19 isn’t going away before November 3.  A lot of us are going to be masking up, social distancing, and staying home, and folks like Commentary are going let everyone know that the GOP is to blame. The GOP has full ownership of COVID-19.  Just look at what happened last night.

Fu_k the GOP!

Reports from Kenosha yesterday said that Jacob Blake’s leg was cuffed to his bed.  The fella is paralyzed, and he is cuffed.  Does anybody still need schooling on racial injustice?

The A’s are in town for 3.  That means the rat, Mike Fiers, is here.

On a much better note, the teams will celebrate Jackie Robinson Day this evening.  Commentary will be wearing my T-Shirt from the Civil Rights Game played at The Yard between the Astros and B’More back in 2014. We won that night, 2-1.

Stay safe.  That means when it comes to COVID-19, don’t listen to what a GOPer has to say.

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Powerful Images

H-Town didn’t get Laura.  That’s the way it goes.  My Dad’s eye exam had to be rescheduled and my newspaper got delivered right before 9 am.  That was it.

Hope the folks that got hit will recover soon.

Our Vice President nominee Sen. Kamala Harris will give a prebuttal speech today.

Commentary has to hand to the folks who are running the Donald Trump convention.  They know that Trump is on the wrong side on the racial injustice issue.  They know they face getting routed in record numbers among African American voters.  That’s why they’ve gone out and had every African American who has ever voted for a GOPer speak at Trump’s convention.

The NBA is on pause.  The WNBA, MLS and some in MLB paused.  They have had enough.   Listening to former Rocket Robert Horry pretty much said it all.  The WNBA players who wore those T-Shirts yesterday with the seven bullet holes on the back was as powerful an image as you can get.

You watch the video of Jacob Blake getting shot in the back seven times and you ask why did the cops have their guns drawn in the first place?  Absolutely senseless.

Trump and his folks would love the protests and the racial justice issue to go away.  That’s for sure.

Same thing with COVID-19.  It barely gets a mention at Trump’s convention.  They don’t wear masks or social distance.  Now they revise testing guidelines that scares the sh_t out of the scientists.

Trump and his folks wish we were in the pre-COVID-19, pre-George Floyd days.

That’s not how it works.

Like I said yesterday, let’s spend our time preparing to vote their lousy arses out of office.

Tiger will tee it up today in the BMW.

We have the day off.

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Corruption Acceptance

Commentary went to Baytown yesterday.  I did notice traffic was up westbound on I-10.  The evacuation thing.  My Dad’s zip code is under voluntary evacuation.

It looks like H-Town won’t take a direct hit.  I won’t be one of those that says it’s a good thing because our neighbors up the coast are going to get clobbered.  They could get hit by a Cat 4 later this evening.  Stay safe.

We all know that if Presidents Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had done convention stuff from the White House, arseholes like Lindsay Graham and Trey Gowdy would have been holding hearings out the arse.

Ditto if former Secretary of States Hillary Clinton and John Kerry had speaking roles at conventions.

Ditto if Clinton and Obama family members were getting a lot of campaign dough.

You get the picture.  You know what Hatch Act violations are.  I don’t need to explain it to you.

Since Day 1, January 20, 2017, the GOP has been okay with Donald Trump violating the law.  There is no arguing on this point.  It’s corruption acceptance by the GOP. I won’t spend a whole lot of time moaning about this.  I would rather spend my time getting friends, family and acquaintances to vote the worthless GOP arses out of office.  Then we can return to normal decency.

For those counting, there are only two nights left of the Trump Convention.  Here is what I like.  The line about how Trump built a great economy and he can do it again.  Well, why does he have to do it again?  Because he fuc_ed up handling the pandemic.

Have to admit, I have been entertained by the proceedings and I catch myself talking to the flat screen and making comments out loud.  Like when they swore in the new citizens last night, I caught myself saying out loud, “now which shith_le country are you from?”

While I was at my Dad’s, we watched “13 Hours”, the Benghazi flick.  Some of the accuracy of the movie is disputed, which movie isn’t?  The movie was very intense.  You know how it is going to end, but it was still intense.

The Rockets play today.

The Astros have the next couple of days off.

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Hurricane Coming

It is now Hurricane Laura.  It looks like the H-Town region will be impacted.  How bad?  Don’t know.  Commentary filled up my gas tank yesterday evening.  I have what I need to ride it out in case we lose power.  Stay safe.

All day yesterday, the CNN folks were saying that they were hearing the Donald Trump convention would be “uplifting.”  I was kind of wondering how was that even remotely possible?  There is absolutely nothing uplifting about Trump.  Commentary was right.  There was nothing uplifting about last night.

Trump’s folks are definitely not going to listen to Commentary. I would just skip any reference about Trump doing a great job on handling COVID-19.  You just can’t pull that off without a real convention.  Sorry.

Melania Trump is speaking this evening.  What does she do anyway?

Seventy days until Election Day.  Between now and then we are going to see on a regular basis Trump try to hijack the science and FDA to come up with a COVID-19 cure, vaccine or super aspirin.  When over two-thirds of the voters say he bungled the handling of the virus, that is his only play.  Stay tuned.

I wonder if Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s best movie line is from Chance the Gardner from “Being There.” You know.  “I like to watch.”

One of my favorite actors is 90 today.  Happy Birthday to Sean Connery!  He’s the best James Bond.  I loved him in “The Hunt for Red October”, “The Rock”, “The Man Who Would Be King”, and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

One of his first starring roles was in Disney’s “Darby O’Gill and the Little People.” I saw it.

Of course, he won an Oscar for playing Jim Malone in “The Untouchables” where he had the famous lines: “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.”

One of my all-time favorite Sean Connery movies is “The Wind and the Lion” with Candace Bergen.  Great flick.

The Rockets lost yesterday.

The Astros won and we are 16-13.

Because of Hurricane Laura, the Astros play a doubleheader today with the Angels starting at 3 pm.  Tomorrow’s game will start at noon.  Thursday’s game is part of today’s twin bill.

New rules: Doubleheader games are seven innings each.  If we win without having to bat in the bottom of the seventh, there won’t be a seventh inning stretch.  Got it?

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Pandemic Sticking Around

The past Saturday evening, a neighbor on my street hosted a lawn concert in their driveway.  It lasted a couple of hours or so.  There were live performers.  Maybe about 60 or so folks showed up.  Adults and kiddos.  Those without masks way outnumbered those with.  There were adult beverages.  Folks weren’t six feet apart.  I didn’t see anyone with those head thermometer gizmos going around and checking temperatures.  Nobody was administering those instant COVID-19 tests either.

Did I miss something even though I have the flat screen on CNN, watch Channel 2 News early in the morning, read the Chron and monitor twitter.  Did the virus magically disappear?  One would think the way some of the folks were going about at the lawn concert that all is well.

When I have to go out, I wear a mask, keep my distance and use my hand sanitizer after I touch something.  You never know.  I did step outside my door Saturday evening and checked out what was going on, but I did not participate or go near anyone.

Who knows if anyone had the virus Saturday evening? Who knows if there was any spread?  I do know that if folks keep up with this type of behavior, the pandemic is going to be staying around for a while.

It is pretty obvious to Commentary and a whole lot of other folks.  The GOP has acquiesced to corruption.  They would rather choke the USPS to death just to try to win this election.  They’d let their seniors go without their meds and other vital needs in order not to piss off Donald Trump.

Donald Trump will have his convention starting this evening.  The GOP has been invited to attend and participate.  Don’t argue with me.  Trump decided there will be no platform.  The platform are his tweets.

I found it interesting that the GOP Governors from Florida, Georgia and Texas – states that fuc_ed up handling the virus – are not scheduled to speak at Trump’s convention.  That may change.

I will be watching.

Remember when Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and nobody would give a rat’s arse. We all know he meant it figuratively.  We all remember the “Access Hollywood” tapes.  We have seen folks who worked closely with Trump describe him as a piece of sh_t.  Same thing with his niece.  Same thing with his older sister on the recently released tape recording.  Trump’s base doesn’t give a rat’s arse about any of this.

Kellyanne Conway said yesterday she is stepping away from being a public liar.  Her and her lying arse can go to hell.

Speaking of bozos, I wonder what the three GOP bozos – Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen – have to say about the latest shooting in Wisconsin.  Where is their moral authority?

There was a front-page story in yesterday’s Chron about task forces and other groups the H-Town Mayor appoints and doesn’t take a lot of their recommendations.  Oh, well.  Maybe it will be the end of H-Town Mayoral task forces in the future.  I wonder if the Mayor has the record for most task forces and such ever appointed by any H-Town Mayor?

This is from a Chron story yesterday on H-Town Downtown being dead these days:

While some white-collar workers have trickled back to their jobs, the office population has plunged to less than 10 percent of pre-pandemic levels, according to a survey by Central Houston, a downtown business group.

Sad.

Just over ten years ago, on May 28, 2010, the Chron E-Board said the following from one of their takes:

The election administrator system has worked well in other Texas counties, and we would like to see it considered for Harris County at some point in the future.

However, to do so before the next county clerk and tax assessor take office and can participate in the debate would smack of the kind of Commissioners Court manipulation we’ve seen too much of in the past.

This time, the voters should be allowed to make their choices before the court parcels out the responsibilities of those being elected to yet another appointee.

Here is the entire take from 2010: https://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/Bad-timing-Redistributing-Harris-County-election-1714542.php?utm_campaign=premiumchron&utm_source=sitesearch&utm_medium=result.

It is a different E-Board these days.

We had a bad weekend in San Diego.  We are back at The Yard this evening as we host the Angels.

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Happy Birthday, Dad!

My Dad is 97 years old today.  Yep, 97.  He’s in as good as shape as you can expect at 97.  He will read his hard copy of the Chron this morning with a cup of coffee.  He will also have a couple or so so beers later on.  He will be ready to vote by mail when he gets his ballot in a little over a month.  This will be his 19^th presidential election.  A lifelong Democrat, he is 8-10 in presidential elections.  BTW: He was also a delegate to the 1992 National Democratic Convention.  Too bad we can’t have a party for him today.  I am sure his grandkids and great grandkids will be calling him today.  Happy Birthday, Dad!  Happy Birthday, Tony Campos!

It’s a wrap.  Commentary is talking about the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Former Vice President Joe Biden nailed it in his acceptance speech.  That’s all you need to know.

Someone needs to do a side-by-side of Biden’s and Donald Trump’s speech after next Thursday

Sarah Cooper dropped in yesterday and that was cool.

Here part of today’s column by Ken Herman of the Statesman:

I’ve got a question: After TV was invented, why did we ever do national political conventions the way we always used to do national political conventions?

I think the Democrats’ virtual or whatever-we’re-calling-it national convention was pretty darned good.

Of course, it’s possible I’m overreacting as someone weary of too many evenings of looking for something to watch and asking this soul-searching question for our times: Do we really need that many zombie movies?

This week’s made-for-TV Democratic National Convention worked well, a notion for which I drew some pushback Tuesday night when I tweeted, “Impressive Dem convention setting high bar for GOP convention, which very well could be four days of praising Dear Leader.”

Someone who tweets as Ollie Lama (love it) didn’t appreciate me “comparing the President of the United States to a Communist dictator.” OK, so he’s not a commie and he only aspires to dictatorhood.

And GOP operative Brendan Steinhauser responded with this salient point: “In fairness, didn’t the Dems just spend all their time praising Biden? Isn’t that the point of the conventions?”

Yes, but …

And this:

Back to the Dems. When at national conventions (and I like being at national conventions, even in Cleveland), I’ve always had the feeling I was in the studio audience at a made-for-TV event. I’ve always had that feeling because national conventions long have been made-for-TV events.

As made-for-TV events, live conventions could be clunky.

What’s missed the new way? Plenty. I miss the daily breakfasts at which delegations hear from featured speakers, often national figures. I miss the energy of a live convention. I miss funny hats.

My family misses the cheesy “Limited Convention Edition” Kraft mac and cheese (donkey-shaped for Dems, elephant-shaped for Repubs) that was a convention souvenir staple for years and is destined to become a coveted and possibly litigated portion of my estate.

I don’t miss the conventions as another opportunity for high-dollar corporate donors to throw high-dollar corporate dollars into our political machine.

Though the speeches seem more intimate without the crowd interruptions, I do feel sad for delegates for whom the national conventions are a highlight as well as a reward for their activism.

Is this another thing that 2020 will forever change? Will we never see another in-person national political convention? Check back with me in 2024.

But here’s hoping we never have another year like this year. This is not a year for balloon drops.

Gov. Greg Abbott is a bumbling fool for sure.  The headline in the hard copy of today’s Chron says it all:

Abbott’s key metric in virus fight unreliable

Unf__kingreliable! We are into our sixth month fighting COVID-19 and this fella still hasn’t gotten it right.  Yet, he has the gall to act like a bully with our Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.  What a four-star dumbarse.  Here is from today’s Chron:

AUSTIN – As schools begin to reopen and Gov. Greg Abbott faces pressure to relax shutdown measures, it is impossible to determine where Texas stands on a COVID-19 metric that has guided the governor’s decisions on when to tighten or loosen restrictions on businesses and public activity.

Over the past week and a half, the state began reporting coronavirus data from a backlog of 500,000 viral tests that officials say accumulated because of coding errors from Quest Diagnostics, Walgreens and CHRISTUS Health — all private entities that process the tests.

The result has been an ongoing miscalculation of the “positivity rate,” the rate at which people test positive for the virus.

Last week, it reached as high as 24.5 percent, and suddenly dipped back down again to about 11 percent this week as more backlogged tests were included in the data. Abbott has said a sustained positivity rate below 10 percent would allow for further reopenings in the state.

The influx of backlogged tests, dating as far back as March, has also exposed a convoluted reporting system that requires state officials to receive lab results, send them back to counties and wait for them to return to the State Department of Health Services before counting them.

The result is a mess of information reported recently to the public in “data dumps” that include test results from months prior, skewing statewide coronavirus statistics and positivity rates.

“The timing of it is horrible because it’s right at the beginning of opening the schools, when you want your data to be as accurate as possible, and it’s not,” said Darrell Hale, a Republican commissioner in Collin County.

Here is the entire read: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/texas-gov-greg-abbott-covid-fight-positivity-rate-15498320.php.

Sheesh.  When a GOP County Commissioner from Collin County is unhappy, well, that says a lot.

My pal Jose de Jesus Ortiz tweeted out yesterday that right wing arsehole Curt Schilling is on the Advisory Board of Steve Bannon’s We Build The Wall outfit.  That’s the group that ripped off another bunch of arseholes. Schilling, in case you didn’t know, is a former MLBer. Jose, who is a past President of the Baseball Writers of America, said he voted for Schilling last year for the Baseball Hall of Fame.  He said he won’t this year. Good.

Schilling got 70% of the baseball writers vote when it was announced back in January.  You need 75% to get into the Hall of Fame.

The Rockets won yesterday and play tomorrow.

We have won eight in a row.  We are 15-10 and in San Diego this weekend.

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The Final Night

It was another great night at the Democratic National Convention last night.  One of my favorite parts was the video on immigrants.  It was very moving and told it like it is.  Right up there was former Cong. Gabrielle Giffords – an American hero for sure.   Former President Barack Obama and Sen. Kamala Harris knocked it out of the park.

I have to hand it to the convention organizers.  They are putting on a superb show.

We get to hear former Vice President Joe Biden this evening.  I wonder how they are going to stage the balloon drop.

I will be watching the final night.

Gov. Greg Abbott took a shot at Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo yesterday.  What a bozo.  He has still not gotten over the fact that she’s been right from the beginning on how to handle the pandemic and he’s been clueless.  Now apparently, he is threatened by her leadership.  Abbott has been exposed big time.

Grifters got to grift.  Commentary is talking about Steve Bannon getting charged and arrested this morning by the feds. Lock his arse up. He and a few of his buddies were ripping off dumbarses who gave millions to a private fund to build the wall.  Commentary definitely does not feel sorry for the victims. Like I said, dumbarses.

The TV announcer for the Reds was suspended for using a homophobic slur last night.  The f_g word.  He is saying that is not who he is.  I heard the clip.  You don’t drop that slur and say that is not who you are.  He is gone from the game and that is the way it should be.

The Rockets play this afternoon.

We lost reigning AL Rookie of the Year Yordan Alvarez for the season.  It was a knee injury.  He only played two games for us this season.

Then last night, Alex Bregman came out of the game with a hamstring injury and he is day-to-day.

We won and are 14-10.  That is seven straight wins.  We play this afternoon.

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Virtual Is Cool

Commentary has enjoyed the first two evenings of the Democratic National Convention.  What I thought was going to be a boring roll call turned out to be pretty cool.

Why do we have to have in person conventions anyway?  Think of the money delegates could save by not traveling across the country.  We would not have to have special interests serving as sponsors and hosting the parties and breakfasts.

Here is part of tonight’s line-up: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Gov. Tony Evers, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Former President Barack Obama and Sen. Kamala Harris.

Sen. Ted Cruz put out a tweet about Sen. Warren being the next Treasury Secretary.  I don’t  think she would be using government jets for her personal use.  I don’t think she would pose with sheets of newly minted currency. More importantly, I don’t think she would give up a senate seat that a GOP governor would fill, Teddy Boy.

The COVID-19 crisis in Texas has exposed Gov. Greg Abbott as a dithering, inept two-bit fraud.  Commentary is not going to say much about his half-baked threats to local governments who make law enforcement budgetary decisions that best serve their communities.

Donald Trump says that if he loses the election, it will be because the election was rigged.  GOPers like Abbott stay silent on this.  Abbott and other GOPer’s silence contribute to the denigration of our democracy.   Ditto on hijacking the post office.

The Rockets won last night.

It was kind of weird yesterday when the ballgame on the flat screen went to the Spanish language announcers. It stayed that way for an inning or so.

The Astros are 13-10.  Six wins in a row.  We are in Denver for two.

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Latinos, Texas Not Dissed

The first day of the Democratic National Convention is supposed to set the tone.  It did last night and Commentary felt very much included.

Let me say again, what I said yesterday and Friday here:

Commentary is not going to get worked up on who does and doesn’t speak at the Democratic National Convention next week.  If they want to let GOP former governor John Kasich speak and Mike Bloomberg speak and they bring some of their friends over to vote for Joe Biden, have at it.  Once Joe Biden starts speaking Thursday evening, we will have forgotten who spoke before him.

Here is today’s online headline of the Chron E-Board editorial:

Editorial: The Democratic convention is missing Latino, Texas voices. That’s a mistake.

Here is the headline from the hard copy:

Missed opportunity

Team Biden appears to be taking Latinos, Texas for granted at Democrats’ convention

Here is the beginning of the editorial:

No party should take for granted the votes of any group tied together by race, ethnicity, gender or religion. And yet for all the focus they’ve put on diversity in recent years, Democrats appear to be doing just that as they gather virtually beginning tonight for the party’s four-day online convention.

Latinos, part of a voting bloc that is expected to play a large role in determining the outcome of the election, are all but shut out of the prime speaking spots. In fact, Texas itself, where Latinos are an especially big factor and helping to make the state competitive for the first time in decades, is nearly absent from the podium. That’s a big mistake on both fronts.

Here is the entire E-Board take: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-The-Democratic-convention-is-missing-15490674.php.

Wrong.

Commentary knows as much as anyone on exclusion and inclusion politics.  Eva Longoria hosted and emceed the first night of the convention and did a great job. Eva Longoria is an All Star in the Latino Democratic activist community in the USA.  She is one of our leaders that is out front on our issues.  She is also a Texan to the bone.

She has been part of the Latino Democratic effort across the country and in Texas for a decade and a half. She is one of our go to leaders.  She rolls up her sleeves on our behalf time and time again. She doesn’t just show up every four years.  She handled her duties well last night.  She was prominent and substantive. Commentary was proud to see her front and center.  To say we were excluded is dead wrong.

Nice job, Eva!

Arguably, one of the best lines from last night came from a Latina, Kristin Urquiza.  Her father died from COVID-19 and here is what she said last night:

“His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.”

It was a great first night for sure.

Here are some of the featured speakers for Day 2:  Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Former Secretary of State John Kerry, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Former President Bill Clinton, and Former Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden.

No on to Bozo politics.  Texas’ GOP state leadership will hold a press conference today to respond to defund the police.

BTW:  They – Texas’ GOP state leadership – have unconditionally surrendered to COVID-19.  Sad.

The Rockets start their playoff run late this afternoon.

The Astros have won five in a row.  It is 2 pm start today.  That’s good.

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