Sunday, May 24, 2020
Friday, May 22, 2020
Race for the White House Update: #YouAintBlack, Amy
Biden Klobuchar ticket as a sandwich pic.twitter.com/HqoZPeukUL
— pokey pup (@Whatapityonyou) May 21, 2020
“I would vote for Joe Biden if he boiled babies and ate them” is an actual sentence published in @thenation in a disgusting hit piece against @ReadeAlexandra by @KathaPollitt https://t.co/s84taelC8J pic.twitter.com/Vot70PM8Lk
— Jenn Dize 👩🏻💻 (@JennElizabethJ) May 20, 2020
He’s all but announced her. https://t.co/uWCGp5gxJE
— Markos Moulitsas (@markos) May 20, 2020
When's the perfect time to backtrack on free universal health care in favor of the employer based ACA? In a pandemic when 16 million people just lost their fucking employer health insurance. https://t.co/dmgGaRTRpR
— It's only called class war when we fight back (@IIRONINTHEFIRE) May 21, 2020
Congratulations Democrats, you played yourselves. Joe Biden is the epitome of establishment attitudes towards ordinary Americans. You're not entitled to the vote, go out and earn it.#YouAintBlackBiden #DropOutBidenhttps://t.co/yMQGviOTy5
— Movement for a People’s Party (@4aPeoplesParty) May 23, 2020
Fuck. I might just win.
— Vermin Supreme (TM) (@VerminSupreme) May 16, 2020
Jo Jorgensen wins Libertarian Party presidential nomination https://t.co/kwepKOS03x
— Forever in debt to your priceless advice. (@PDiddie) May 24, 2020
.@GloriaLaRiva got over 66,000 votes in California alone for President in 2016—the most of any socialist presidential candidate since the 70s.
— Mike Prysner (@MikePrysner) May 21, 2020
Officially on the ballot again for 2020, let’s goooo https://t.co/HtvH27Ynno
Tonight we will be hosting a call for the DSA rank-and-file and other #DemExiters to talk about our #LeftUnity campaign to provide an independent voice for the working-class.
— Howie Hawkins (@HowieHawkins) May 22, 2020
8:00 PM EST
Register for the call at https://t.co/Saig3Jv5oS pic.twitter.com/qXmbwRuXwR
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
TexProgBlog Wrangle, Tuesday edition
Raise a glass to the class of 2020.https://t.co/zz6mZuOLHo— Texas Observer (@TexasObserver) May 19, 2020
Today we'll open with a breaking development in the Harris County clerk replacement selection story.
Scoop: A week after #HarrisCounty Clerk @dtrautman announced she would resign due to health concerns, Commissioners Court plans to debate whether to appoint an independent administrator to run elections instead. Most big TX counties already do this.https://t.co/XKYvJo2Xzy— Zach Despart🖊️ (@zachdespart) May 18, 2020
With GOP officials fearful of a blue November wave, AG Ken Paxton continues to lead the charge against voting, particularly in the state's metropolitan areas.
Harris County clerk Diane Trautman’s resignation earlier this week serves as a warning about the dangers of in-person voting during the pandemic.— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) May 15, 2020
Why does Ken Paxton insist we risk it? https://t.co/cNcYkiKkap
As the US Senate contest heats up, John Cornyn's propensity to mimic Trump's bad habit of nicknaming opponents quickly comes back to haunt him.
Screen shot from new @RoyceWestTX ad in #TXSen that accuses @JohnCornyn of "racist dogwhistle." https://t.co/41rqCz5XAb pic.twitter.com/VzGgBrPmfT— Todd J. Gillman (@toddgillman) May 19, 2020
And David Collins has the very latest on the status of the Texas Green Party's candidates and the lawsuit that will settle the issue of whether they -- and the Texas Libertarian Party's candidates -- will have to pay filing fees to appear on the November ballot.
While the rest of Houston’s legal community was adapting to COVID-19, DA Kim Ogg was determined to find who leaked an internal document—with devastating consequences.https://t.co/oXbJ1V2Euf— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) May 17, 2020
Texas is set to end a freeze on evictions and debt collections, even as almost 2 million of its residents have claimed unemployment over the past 2 months https://t.co/xex8bBQ6SM pic.twitter.com/DLFgd7k5Mh— Forbes (@Forbes) May 15, 2020
Just in from an advocate in Texas: A 61 y/o man caged in Smith County Jail died of COVID. Didn't tell his family when hospitalized. Didn't tell them when he died. Didn't tell them until they completed the autopsy. Called them at 5am this morning. No humanity. Only cruelty.— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) May 17, 2020
Miguel Gutierrez Jr. at the TexTrib via Progrexas reports that the Texas Workforce Commission had planned to modernize its outdated computer system, but then the pandemic struck.
Mary Lou Ketchum, a substitute teacher in San Antonio, has been calling the Texas Workforce Commission for six weeks and still hasn’t been able to talk to a representative.
Ketchum, 59, filed a claim in early April and was denied, but she thought she’d be eligible for unemployment benefits under the federal coronavirus relief bill, which extends unemployment eligibility to part-time workers. After appealing the decision, she said she is still waiting to hear back.
She said the commission’s website is “primitive” and outdated. Pages load extremely slowly, and whenever she uses the backspace key, the system logs her out, she said.
“It definitely has put a strain on me,” Ketchum said. “I went to the food bank -- I never thought I’d ever have to do that.”
Thousands of people lined up in Dallas by 5:00 a.m. Thursday, 4 hours before food distribution lines started moving. Each family received dry goods, produce, milk and snacks. U.S. jobless claims rose by 2.6M last week, bringing the total during the pandemic to at least 36.5M. pic.twitter.com/8dTx5Lo8Sj— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) May 14, 2020
A couple of ecological news updates: The Texas Living Waters Project interprets a SCOTUS decision having to do with the Clean Water Act.
Kinder Morgan can't even figure out how to handle water runoff from the Permian Highway Pipeline but we should believe they will be able to handle an oil spill?#NoPHPhttps://t.co/cDV9unC3Ra— Indigenous Environmental Network (@IENearth) May 18, 2020
Deep in the Rio Grande Valley, the onion harvest is in full swing, even as the state fights COVID-19 with restrictions and lockdowns elsewhere. https://t.co/g3CA7H3IGf— Texas Standard (@TexasStandard) May 14, 2020
.@kroger has ended its +$2/hour "hero pay."— Gus Bova (@gusbova) May 18, 2020
"Kroger is choosing to ignore this pandemic. This is not how we treat heroes in America," says @UFCW president. @HEB's "Texas proud pay" is set to end May 24. @WholeFoods: June 1. pic.twitter.com/uAKW21JHEb
About two-thirds of U.S. seafood consumption is done through a restaurant, whether around a table or forked out of a to-go container. So when Texas’ stay-at-home order went into effect, despite some exceptions, fishermen’s sales lines dried up. https://t.co/LaXg7T8fqP— Texas Observer (@TexasObserver) May 16, 2020
And some notable passings with Texas connections.
Sportscaster and former Miss America Phyllis George passed away last Thursday. In our March 2007 issue, Evan Smith spoke with the Denton native about her road to pageantry and the competition's transformation in modern times:https://t.co/RZsfO7Nmoz— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) May 18, 2020
Yeah ... about that time that Waylon Jennings got fired for playing Little Richard... I wonder if Waylon and Little Richard are laughing about it in rock and roll heaven now.https://t.co/KlA1UeOaJf— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) May 12, 2020
A 1994 interview with Little Richard in the HouChron allowed him to reminisce about his early years playing in Houston.
He credits Houston's robust R&B scene in the early 1950s as his starting point.
"We played on Lyons Avenue at a club called the Club Matinee," Richard said. "We had a quartet called the Tempo Toppers, and I was the lead singer."
Even in those early days, Little Richard's appearance was as much of a box-office draw as his music.
"Everybody would come to see me because I wore this wild hair, and my complexion was reddish. I think they thought I was an Indian or something. They would pack the club. Houston was really beautiful back then," he said. "I remember the Shamrock Hotel."
Under the branding-iron Texas sun, the corner of Lyons and Hill, Times Square of the Bloody Fifth (Ward), drowses and stirs and drowses again. But let the sun go down behind the Lewis Undertaking Parlor -- “You overtake him, honey; I’ll undertake him” -- and the corner comes alive. It becomes Pearl Harbor, heart of the city to the people who named this town Heavenly Houston.
Pearl Harbor, named that by a weary homicide detective who once had to investigate, in one night, 11 killings in a radius of one block from Lyons and Hill.
By eight bells, Pearl Harbor is a revolving stage, a spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. But you can’t go there at night. Or you can, but you won’t. You can hear it though. Each workday night at 8, Henry Atlas, owner of the Atlas Radio and Record Shop, corner Lyons and Hill, sits down at a broadcasting console in his store. Through a corner of plate glass he can watch the languid tumult of the dusty night unfold in at least three dimensions, while he produces a marvelous radio program called Jive Session.
There’s a piano waiting behind the console, in case live talent drops in. Among the vocalists and musicians who have appeared live on Jive Session are Duke Ellington, Ivory Joe Hunter, Earl Hines, Johnny Hodges, Buster Cartwright, the Ward Singers, the Soul Steerers, the Pilgrim Travelers, the Angelics, the Clouds of Joy and the Stars of Harmony.
“This is Henry Atlas speaking from the word-famous corner of Lyons and Hill. Dig me with a boogie beat and let the good times roll.”
Henry is a white man who loves the people of the Bloody Fifth. And they love him. He spins a biscuit on one of two turntables. Ray Charles singing “I Got a Woman All the Way Across Town.”
The music goes round and round. It comes out of a loudspeaker on the corner, over the cart of Oscar the peanut vendor, echoing against the walls of the Busy Bee Barbershop and a gumbo house. The Atlas Jive Session comes out of speakers all over town via Radio Morales, KLVL, 1480 kilocycles. And when the show begins the characters of the Ward drift down to the Harbor.
Monday, May 18, 2020
The Weekly "Hey, Bartender!" Wrangle
2 weeks after Texas began to roll back coronavirus restrictions, the Lone Star State counted its largest single-day totals in new cases and deaths as local and state governments grapple for power over reopening https://t.co/8ObdXJk6YD pic.twitter.com/Niz2ZjWKiJ
— Forbes (@Forbes) May 15, 2020
.@GovAbbott says childcare services are allowed to open starting immediately.
— Alexandra Samuels (@AlexSamuelsx5) May 18, 2020
— Restaurants 50% by Friday; bars and wine rooms can open at 25% capacity
— Professional sports without spectators in Texas can reopen on May 31
— In-person summer school can begin on June 1 #txlege
NEW: Rules for bars in Texas:
— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) May 18, 2020
* 25 percent capacity.
* No loitering at bar, and people should be seated.
* Dancing is discouraged.
* 6-feet between parties.
* No tables of more than 6.
TX US @replouiegohmert rails against proposed proxy voting in House, calls those afraid of coronavirus exposure "wishy washy"
— ChickenFriedPolitics (@ChkFriPolitics) May 15, 2020
--ChickenFriedPolitics.com is The Place for Southern Politics--https://t.co/02cAVSbhCC
The pandemic’s next blow: Over 1 million Texans will lose health insurance https://t.co/rTiLVRLClV
— Dallas Morning News (@dallasnews) May 18, 2020
The Texas Supreme Court won’t meet in person because of coronavirus but imposes voters to cast their ballots in person and be denied the opportunity to vote by mail — Judge safely, but risk death to votehttps://t.co/KbBHhvMl1T
— Alfons López Tena (@alfonslopeztena) May 17, 2020
As a reminder - it’s not fear of COVID-19 that is the reason all Texas voters should be able to vote by mail during a once-in-a-century public health crisis, it’s the lack of immunity to this deadly, highly infectious virus. @ACLU @ACLUTx @TXCivilRights @TBuserClancy @S4ldivar https://t.co/VSguVwMzar
— Sophia Lin Lakin (@sophlin229) May 16, 2020
Vice President Wallace was run out of the Democratic Party for being too principled. Read this book. https://t.co/sH7yb2Dswp
— Alexandra Halaby🌹 (@iskandrah) May 15, 2020
As 5 p.m. filing deadline nears for #SD14 special election, @TXsecofstate has six candidates filed, no big surprises:
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) May 13, 2020
- Waller Thomas Burns II (R)
- Pat Dixon (L)
- @sarah_eckhardt (D)
- Jeff Ridgeway (I)
- @EddieforTexas (D)
- @DonZimmermanATX (R) #txlege
In a new XL episode, @joestwat and I share our #QuarantineLife, update the #worststatepowerrankings (covid edition), roast Trump, Cuomo, and Pelosi, and openly dream of moving to Canada. Rate/Review/Subscribe:https://t.co/7Ef2dcu3x4
— Los Twostonians🎙️ (@TwoStonians_Pod) May 11, 2020
J.C. Penney files for bankruptcy, capping a long decline in the department store chain that was dealt a final blow by COVID-19 https://t.co/PJ0PP72ef4 https://t.co/PJ0PP72ef4
— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) May 15, 2020
Tesla's next factory is going to be in Austin https://t.co/ZUa71BavSQ
— Forever in debt to your priceless advice. (@PDiddie) May 16, 2020
After advocating for solar energy for twenty years, I finally pulled the trigger and put solar panels on our home this spring. Solar prices have declined 60% in the last decade and financing our system meant my family didn’t have to pay any money out of pocket. The pandemic meant the timing was even better than I had anticipated.Amid all the social upheaval, I feel more secure knowing I'm producing my own power. With utility workers declared “essential”, there thankfully hasn’t been any major disruption in service. But even when utilities are fully staffed, a couple of downed power lines can leave thousands of people without power and cause large human and economic consequences. Homes and buildings with enough solar energy and energy storage capacity installed may be able to keep their own lights on during and immediately after outages.With my new rooftop panels, I’m also saving money on my energy bill at a time when we’re using a lot more electricity working and schooling from home (and with our A/C about to be working real hard). According to Energy Sage, the average Texan who goes solar would save a net of $13,000 over 20 years. And by installing solar panels, consumers protect themselves from the unpredictable swings and spikes in utility electricity costs. Solar panels also help reduce demand on the grid, which can lower electricity rates for all customers.As an environmentalist, I’m happy to do my part to reduce air pollution as COVID-19, a respiratory disease, rages. Research shows people living in areas with polluted air having a higher chance of dying from the disease. Austin, with 108 days of elevated particle pollution in 2018, is unfortunately one of those areas. But replacing coal- and gas-fired power plants with solar energy reduces the particle emissions that harm our health, while cutting the pollution fueling global warming (which itself is helping spread dangerous infectious diseases).
When this Texas newspaper started looking into the death of a woman in jail, the local sheriff told them it was "not news."
— NPR (@NPR) May 17, 2020
Now, the Palestine Herald-Press has won a Pulitzer for its work on the story.https://t.co/NiCNcHoQym
Tonight my dad and hero Bob Watson has passed away after a long fight with kidney disease.. #Astros #Yankees #RedSox #Braves #Athletics #USABAseball #MLB #1stBlackGM pic.twitter.com/obKe1mwJYc
— K Dubb (@TheReal_KDubb) May 15, 2020
Bob Watson's wife, Carol, delivered a fitting tribute in March as the #Astros honored him at their Urban Youth Academy: ‘Job well done, Bob Watson. Life well lived, and time well spent.’ https://t.co/OYew9cX87W
— David Barron (@dfbarron) May 15, 2020
A bathing girl revue in Galveston, 1922. Proving I guess that, for just about forever, men have done almost anything to try to get women to show a bit of skin. pic.twitter.com/Gwj85vhHek
— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) May 14, 2020
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Sunday "Maskuline" Funnies
Major League Baseball's proposed safety protocols call for no finger licking; no spitting; no mascots; no bat boys/girls; no swapping of lineup cards; no high-fives or fist bumps; no restaurants for road teams; and showers at the ballpark are discouraged.