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Fitlump fucking won a Austin City Council seat, Now on to Congress 2026!


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14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

She's talking live

 

She wore that damn red dress again, didn't she?

 

Update: while watching, I noticed that Dee Harrison said in her opening statement that she was the only candidate with public safely experience.  Quite a slight to Ms. Kelly.

Edited by J.R. Juniors Junior Jr.
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13 hours ago, B00M said:

Transportation seemed like the only question fitlump had prepared for. 

Dr Jen was new to me and pretty impressive, clearly the most capable of the challengers: https://drjenforatx.com/

Kelly definitely had the script down on Prop A.    Read it almost flawlessly. 

The doctor gives me a ray of hope for pragmatism, a moderate line of thinking and some basic common sense on the council.  Not sure that would fit in too well given the current makeup of things but doesn't hurt to hope.    

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Flannigan will win.  Kelly should move on and give the doctor a chance but that's not going to happen.   

Apparent that the doctor isn't hesitant to play hardball with Flannigan.  Looks like he's gotten sideways on several occasions but this piece is a little sideways as well.  Lots of work / digging involved in it, that much we know.  

https://theaustinbulldog.org/council-member-flannigans-bad-debts/

 

 

 

 

Edited by Wally Pryor
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2 hours ago, Wally Pryor said:

The doctor gives me a ray of hope for pragmatism, a moderate line of thinking and some basic common sense on the council.  Not sure that would fit in too well given the current makeup of things but doesn't hurt to hope.    

This is what I'm talking about - when you take the Kelly/Zimmerman stuff and the Tovo/Alter/Pool zoning perspective and mix them together, but deliver them in an articulate, even way, it sounds like pragmatism even though it's the furthest thing from being that. 

I mean, no offense Wally, but didn't you have it in your head once upon a time that Lee Leffingwell was like some free spending leftist radical? I'm not sure you are great at spotting actual pragmatism or clear on who represents what. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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@Dr. Beeper what you’re saying is that she just took an intro to public speaking class, and she aced the first week’s quiz on being respectful to the host, so she decided she had learned enough and skipped the rest of the class?

Imagine last night’s performance, but in regular city council meetings.

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20 hours ago, Foggy Notion said:

IMO the reason you see a decrease in followers since her high mark of 49k in 2015 is because she probably deleted a bunch of the ones that were bad, obvious fakes in order to get her percentage of fake followers down.

I think Twitter routinely goes through and purges some bots.

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3 hours ago, J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. said:

She wore that damn red dress again, didn't she?

 

Update: while watching, I noticed that Dee Harrison said in her opening statement that she was the only candidate with public safely experience.  Quite a slight to Ms. Kelly.

You probably also noticed dee forgot to unmute herself twice and lost her train of thought at least twice. Any slight was probably an accident lol

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2 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:

How in the world can people vote for that dumbass over Doc?  

Hell, he sounds Irish as fuck, and yet people voted the bog jumper in.   It’s Austin.  In a normal city, FL would not have made it this far.

Fitlump is lucky the Doc doesn’t see her as a competitor, otherwise I think the Doc would have put her shit on blast.  

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2 hours ago, Wally Pryor said:

Flannigan will win.  Kelly should move on and give the doctor a chance but that's not going to happen.   

Apparent that the doctor isn't hesitant to play hardball with Flannigan.  Looks like he's gotten sideways on several occasions but this piece is a little sideways as well.  Lots of work / digging involved in it, that much we know.  

https://theaustinbulldog.org/council-member-flannigans-bad-debts/

 

 

 

 

 

Quote

Flannigan, 42, is running for reelection and has three opponents: Dee Harrison, 66; Mackenzie Kelly, 34, who like Flannigan ran unsuccessfully for the District 6 seat in 2014; and Jennifer Mushtaler, 49.

Jimmy is only 42 years old?  He looks old as hell for that age.  Dee has the tech savvy and mental acuity of someone at least 10 years older.  Dr. Jen seems about right for her age.  

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5 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

What about Dr. Jen do you not like?  What do you like about Flannigan relative to her?  I’m asking genuinely, as I’m largely uninformed and going off of 30 minutes of that virtual debate. 

If Kelly garners more votes than Dr. Jen or even approaches her, conservatives or “pragmatists” or whatever have lost their goddamned minds. Not sure about Dee, but unless she has a lot of money behind her campaign, she basically falls in the Kelly camp with me - a non-factor. The fact that she had to be reminded about her mute button multiple times and admittedly lost her train of thought weren’t confidence inspiring. 

I'm praising Dr. Jen for identifying a political crease and delivering her position well. She misrepresents efforts to reform Austin's land use code and in general isn't very far from Kelly in terms of either policy or level of substance. Flannigan busts his ass non-stop on the nuts and bolts of issues that impact his district. I respect people who work on things nobody pays attention to, like sidewalks and potholes and trash. He also rides the bus because he's willing to walk the talk. 
 I don't vote in that district, so I'm strictly an observer. 

Kelly appears to be the top contender at this moment from what I've heard. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I'm praising Dr. Jen for identifying a political crease and delivering her position well. She misrepresents efforts to reform Austin's land use code and in general isn't very far from Kelly in terms of either policy or level of substance. Flannigan busts his ass non-stop on the nuts and bolts of issues that impact his district. I respect people who work on things nobody pays attention to, like sidewalks and potholes and trash. He also rides the bus because he's willing to walk the talk. 
 I don't vote in that district, so I'm strictly an observer. 

Kelly appears to be the top contender at this moment from what I've heard. 

I saw a yard sign for her in a nice district 6 neighborhood full of Biden signs and couldn't believe someone could put it up with a straight face. Presumably their neighbors just have no clue who she is.

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3 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This is what I'm talking about - when you take the Kelly/Zimmerman stuff and the Tovo/Alter/Pool zoning perspective and mix them together, but deliver them in an articulate, even way, it sounds like pragmatism even though it's the furthest thing from being that. 

I mean, no offense Wally, but didn't you have it in your head once upon a time that Lee Leffingwell was like some free spending leftist radical? I'm not sure you are great at spotting actual pragmatism or clear on who represents what. 

 
Leffingwell? Given the current state of things I can definitely say now that I look back on his tenure in a different light. 
 
Maybe we put Mushtaler’s level of pragmatism on the sideline and simply boil it down to her, or someone /anyone, bringing in alternative opinions or viewpoints, providing some component of balance to the council.  I don’t have to always agree with that person’s policies and / or agendas but I do want there to be some level of discussion instead of the current situation where all 11 have agreed in advance on what’s going to happen. And it’s just a formality of taking the vote.   We just need discourse, alternative points of view and some back and forth as there is none, zero, of that right now on the council.  
 
And on the subject of Mushtaler you infer, or state, that she lacks substance.  Really?    Okay, perhaps we can take a chance on her having some integrity?  I go back to last summer when the council almost shoved that Banister homeless shelter purchase down taxpayer throats.  At 2X of its FMV.  With basically. no stakeholder input.  In a matter of 10-15 days, cradle to (almost) grave.   Thankfully, some commercial real estate owners in the area, along with Aleshire, filled ORRs.  Surprise, magically, the council said "Oh, let's forget about that."  In lieu of the zombie-like-follow-the-leader cultish bullshit, I would have loved for someone on the council to raise their hand in consideration of the taxpayers.  Please tell me you would have as well.

 

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34 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Dude, saying she isn’t far from Kelly in policy or level of substance is absolutely ludicrous. Anyone without any preconceived bias that viewed those two would recognize in 2 minutes that the Dr. runs circles around her, and Kelly has no “policy”. 

Flannigan rides the bus because he’s a grandstander. I don’t care how much he pays attention to potholes; if he votes for an initiative that creates your homeless issue, or defunds the police, he should be out. The police thing can be explained away, I’m sure, but he should never put himself in a position to have to explain why he’s decreasing, or not increasing, funding to police. That’s a bad policy. 

I have never donated a dime to any current member of council but I am very close to policy in certain areas. Dealing with potholes  and trash collection and what not is the essence of what a good council member does. The homeless stuff and police stuff are important as well, and you are entitled to disagree, but he's probably the most pragmatic member of council and a person who has performed with high integrity and focus. That's not true for others. 
Dr Jen isn't more substantial or materially different from Kelly. She speaks better and if she's elected it will be less of a circus than Kelly would. That being said, at the moment she is apparently in third.  Welcome to Austin, right?

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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9 minutes ago, Wally Pryor said:
And on the subject of Mushtaler you infer, or state, that she lacks substance.  Really?    Okay, perhaps we can take a chance on her having some integrity?  I go back to last summer when the council almost shoved that Banister homeless shelter purchase down taxpayer throats.  At 2X of its FMV.  With basically. no stakeholder input.  In a matter of 10-15 days, cradle to (almost) grave.   Thankfully, some commercial real estate owners in the area, along with Aleshire, filled ORRs.  Surprise, magically, the council said "Oh, let's forget about that."  In lieu of the zombie-like-follow-the-leader cultish bullshit, I would have loved for someone on the council to raise their hand in consideration of the taxpayers.  Please tell me you would have as well

For the record I didn't like that purchase.  As for substance, See my comment above. I just don't see it. I think her positions as she expresses them (particularly on land use) are unserious and shallow. She's smart, I'm sure she can develop substance. It's just not there today. 

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2 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I'm praising Dr. Jen for identifying a political crease and delivering her position well. She misrepresents efforts to reform Austin's land use code and in general isn't very far from Kelly in terms of either policy or level of substance. Flannigan busts his ass non-stop on the nuts and bolts of issues that impact his district. I respect people who work on things nobody pays attention to, like sidewalks and potholes and trash. He also rides the bus because he's willing to walk the talk. 
 I don't vote in that district, so I'm strictly an observer. 

Kelly appears to be the top contender at this moment from what I've heard. 

I respect people when they don't skate on their debts.   A hit job or otherwise, he comes off as a slimy guy in that piece.   

I'd already lost respect for Flannigan after his reaction to the Garrett Foster shooting.  A whack lost it when running into protesters marching down the middle of Congress on a Saturday night.  He subsequently shot a guy.  Terrible tragedy all around.  From that point the last thing the city should have been allowing was people to march unencumbered, down a major thoroughfare, on a Saturday night.  At least it should have taken a timeout on things.  Lessons should have been learned. Instead, less than a week later, Flannigan came out and said that people should continue to march on Congress in the middle of a Saturday night because there was "no traffic during the pandemic on weekends anyway, so let them march."    Kidding? The 10th largest city in the country, its main downtown artery, on a Saturday night?  And no traffic?   Holy shit, man. 

Care about potholes and trash all you want.  But also care about exercising some common sense.   

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adding @Wally Pryor I do think at that moment the city was beyond letting people march. In part due to the Brad Ayala tragedy there were a couple thousand local kids in the 16-19 range who were prepared to go into "burn-the-mother-fucker-down" mode downtown. My understand (could be wrong) of the consensus at the time was that letting people continue to march was a deescalation tactic because all parties were afraid of mass violence involving local high school-aged kids followed by a portland-type siege of 7th and I35 by anarchists from out of town. Flannigan spoke up while others didn't, because he's not hiding from the public like others. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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That would be a lot of substance.  

On Homelessness I’ve covered my opinions elsewhere.
On police funding, I think there are a bunch of things we don’t need police to do so I think some transfer of responsibilities is both prudent and workable. 
macro-level- I spent a decade and a half teaching my kids to respect police and the job they do. The police undid all that in less than a week. 
Most of the nuisance activity you are seeing with homelessness right now is a violation of the law. Where are the cops?  Are you OK with the police standing on the sidelines while the law is flouted?
Bottom line:  is a huge disconnect between city management and the Police Union. I think Both sides want the best but but sides have painted themselves in a corner. Not sure how much control Manley has of the rank and file right now or how they resolve things. It’s a very bad and very dangerous situation.
But it’s not a policy issue at this point and replacing smart, detail oriented council members with people who make pleasing mouth noises to one faction or another will not make material progress towards resolution.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Unfortunately there isn’t a good, consensus solution for the homeless problem. Sure, cops can break up camps and/or crack some skulls but that didn’t help anything other than allow the good citizens of that city to not have to see a camp. 

we can offer temp housing options but that won’t do much for the chronic homeless and some citizens balk at giving homeless people more govt paid shelter.

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9 hours ago, baboso said:

Are you people actually debating the relative merits of electing her?  The only reason to do so would be to observe the complete and utter fuckup she would be. 

Lulz.  Kelly seems like an unbridled whack and I'm not endorsing her.  But if you're going to use the words "utter fuckup" you can go ahead and apply that to the lunatics currently serving on the council.  And if you don't think that applies you need to being paying a little more attention to the unbridled shit that goes on downtown. 

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Kelly's irrelevant and will probably be cozying up to a pole as soon as COVID is done. 

The existing council is relevant because they're in place, enacting a lot of shit policy and are unbridled lunatics likely to continuing doing so.   As mentioned, a little sanity, different points of view and open / sensible discourse by some new blood would be welcome.  

I'm not holding my breath. 

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3 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:

My fault. It is difficult to hear Bozo equate Dr. Jen with Kelly. It’s ridiculous. 

I’m not saying they are the same at all. I’m saying they would vote about the same with the same results. Best case the dominant block on council on divided issues would move from 7 votes to 6, with Jen or Kelly joining Tovo, Alter and Pool (and Kitchen most of the time) on zoning issues. 
Dr. Jen would be less embarrassing than Kelly and I’ll give Dr Jen the benefit of the doubt and assume she would be good about potholes and trash, but you already said you don’t care about that. 

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20 minutes ago, Jerry Callo said:

But what, just spit balling here, what if there were a way to fill potholes with homeless people?

I like your forward thinking, but after about the third time of being run over by a car, maybe not a little Miata, but I'm talking about a good ole Amerkan car, the bones in the body completely lose their structural integrity, and then you've just a hole with a liquid in it.

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46 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

God damn Bozo it sounds like you think Kelly is a wash with Jen... I mean.. fuck the voting stuff which you assume Kelly would even show up for.. really. Dude.. seriously? Come on. Really? REALLY?!?

REALLY. And of course Kelly would show up. What else does she have going on? I would actually be more concerned about Dr. Jen. She's a practicing MD and City council is a full time job.  
The last time I was asked to run I told them that I could afford to run, but I couldn't afford to win, in other words, doing the job right would mean a loss of income to my family the  would force us out of our home and prevent my kids from attending college.  There are three categories of people who can afford to live in Austin on council or mayor's salary:

1) Independently wealthy people

2) Retirees

3) Young people 

You get what you pay for. 

Look, I'm praising Dr. Jen., I like her style. I'm just saying she's like a smarter, sane Kelly from a policy standpoint. There just doesn't appear to be much there and what little there is I don't like.  It's not like Troxclair, who I disagree with about many things but was quite good on council. 

45 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

You’re discounting the potential positive impact Dr. Jen would have because of her ability to convince others, and deal. I don’t know about her ability to do so, but I damn sure know Kelly ain’t got those abilities. In no way would they be the same. 

Maybe she does. Right now her positions are so insubstantial it's hard to take them seriously or imagine them as a negotiating position. 

37 minutes ago, Jerry Callo said:

But what, just spit balling here, what if there were a way to fill potholes with homeless people?

A modest proposal

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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39 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Wow... That post says way more about you than you think.

I have always been pretty close to agreement with you on many issues, but my respect for you just dropped substantially. Not that you care, but it is fact.

I do care, actually. Not that this thread is about me, but what part and what does it say? If it's the part about running for office I'm not sure what to say other than that I can't afford it. I'd rather volunteer and help the city where I can as an expert on a few things, beholden to nobody.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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20 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Look, I'm praising Dr. Jen., I like her style. I'm just saying she's like a smarter, sane Kelly from a policy standpoint. There just doesn't appear to be much there and what little there is I don't like.  

Can you elaborate on what you don't like or Mushtaler's "insubstantial" positions?   For example, she came out in that forum as saying she was against Prop A.  Are you simply saying that you support it, for example, and thus don't "like" what she seems to support?   

Just trying to understand why she seems unqualified in your mind or is it that you fundamentally disagree with her positions (from what you've heard at least).   The latter may disqualify her in your mind but maybe not in the mind of others.   Again, just trying to clarify as I may be missing something.    

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I had to turn left at Manchaca this morning to get to Fort View.  And a standard-sized Austin recycling truck had just pulled up to that tent encampment on the east end of the underpass, parked in the right lane ROW.  And I watched him through two cycles get out and meticulously gather up bundle after bundle of trash from that encampment and throw in the back of his truck.  Meanwhile, once a month by bins don't get picked up because we're on a cul-de-sac and if there's too many cars parked on the street (my neighbors are bad about this)...he'll just drive along until the claw can get at 'em.  I don't blame him.  We also got notices saying our brush pickup and bulk pickup would be suspended for the time-being so as to put resources towards picking up Covid-19 trash, whatever the hell that is.  Then I see dedicated resources picking up trash that shouldn't be there in the first place.  And I realize, hey---maybe Fitlump is on to something.  Then I read this thread and realize, "No, she's not."  But my god, somebody get Ann Kitchen to give fuck one about her district.  /rant

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1 hour ago, Wally Pryor said:

Can you elaborate on what you don't like or Mushtaler's "insubstantial" positions?   For example, she came out in that forum as saying she was against Prop A.  Are you simply saying that you support it, for example, and thus don't "like" what she seems to support?   

Just trying to understand why she seems unqualified in your mind or is it that you fundamentally disagree with her positions (from what you've heard at least).   The latter may disqualify her in your mind but maybe not in the mind of others.   Again, just trying to clarify as I may be missing something.    

I don't think she's unqualified. I keep praising this person. But, for example, on her website she states the following:
"The current District 6 Council Member has attempted to foist on residents a controversial and resoundingly unpopular proposal that seeks to eliminate single-family neighborhoods. Such unwanted proposals include establishing transition zones that essentially abolish single-family housing along the exterior blocks of neighborhoods. The actions taken by the Council majority not only seek to limit public and neighborhood input in the rezoning process, but has gone so far as to actually hand the process over to City staff and developer lobbyists. In large part because of deference to the interests of developers, this code disproportionately focuses on growth alone while ignoring critical infrastructure issues that accompany such growth, such as traffic, fire protection, emergency evacuation and flooding"

The above is nonsense. I realize that a vocal minority of neighborhood activists has been led to believe all that by people who know better, but this is like Donald-Trump level bullshit.  And I say that as somebody who did not like the last several CodeNextNextNext drafts at all. Nobody is eliminating single family neighborhoods or abolishing single family housing. They didn't seek to limit public input and the process was never handed over to developer lobbyists or staff, and in no way were any of those infrastructure issues ignored. 
 

38 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

No No, not running for ACC for logistical and fiduciary reason is absolutely fine and in fact respectable.

My consternation, despite knowing little about Jen is that, her politics and potential voting aside, you don't see a variance between her and Lump. 

That specific issue is what flummoxed me about your post.

I'm sure I'll get over it, but man that is a big negative against someone who I still like and largely agree with but.. ack. 

It's the Lumpster dude. She is a known liar, attention whore POS. Perhaps Dr Jen is too, but I don't know that for a fact as I do with Princes Lumpalot.

Again - I keep praising Dr. Jen for style, presentation, and savvy. I have no idea but I'm inclined to think her intentions are good, because we almost never have CC members with bad intentions. I don't think she is a similar human being to Kelly. I just don't see much difference from a policy perspective and I don't like bullshit about the most important policy set in front of council at this moment, which is land use. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I don't think she's unqualified. I keep praising this person. But, for example, on her website she states the following:
"The current District 6 Council Member has attempted to foist on residents a controversial and resoundingly unpopular proposal that seeks to eliminate single-family neighborhoods. Such unwanted proposals include establishing transition zones that essentially abolish single-family housing along the exterior blocks of neighborhoods. The actions taken by the Council majority not only seek to limit public and neighborhood input in the rezoning process, but has gone so far as to actually hand the process over to City staff and developer lobbyists. In large part because of deference to the interests of developers, this code disproportionately focuses on growth alone while ignoring critical infrastructure issues that accompany such growth, such as traffic, fire protection, emergency evacuation and flooding"

The above is nonsense. I realize that a vocal minority of neighborhood activists has been led to believe all that by people who know better, but this is like Donald-Trump level bullshit.  And I say that as somebody who did not like the last several CodeNextNextNext drafts at all. Nobody is eliminating single family neighborhoods or abolishing single family housing. They didn't seek to limit public input and the process was never handed over to developer lobbyists or staff, and in no way were any of those infrastructure issues ignored. 
 

Again - I keep praising Dr. Jen for style, presentation, and savvy. I have no idea but I'm inclined to think her intentions are good, because we almost never have CC members with bad intentions. I don't think she is a similar human being to Kelly. I just don't see much difference from a policy perspective and I don't like bullshit about the most important policy set in front of council at this moment, which is land use. 

it says abolish single family housing along exterior blocks of neighborhoods.  Which is what it proposed.

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