Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Taco Tuesday Bento Box Collation from Far Left Texas

Hungry?  Not on the keto diet?  This round-up of the best of the port side of the Texblogosphere has something for everyone.  *Updates throughout posted below.

Sorry that I have to begin again with Greg Abbott.


That's not paraphrasing him.  Here's the thing: he's not this stupid and there's no excuse for him being this ignorant.  And he's too adept at lying for this to be another put-on, just one more con of the science-resistant TXGOP base.  Rural Republicans who run cattle know all about herd immunity.  Was he too ashamed to mention out loud -- in all of the briefings he's sat through about COVID and vaccines -- that he didn't know what the term meant?  He couldn't have quietly asked someone who did know?  Luis Saenz, Mr. 'Honest Broker', where are you?

This is more in line with his usual.


Venal and catering to the worst instincts of Texas Republican primary voters is what we've come to expect from you, Governor.  You're slipping.  Besides, John Cornyn holds the crown for stupid Tweets, and you should let him keep it.


It's only Tuesday.  Gonna be a long week, especially if Dan Patrick keeps cranking out the hate.


Just when you think the conservatives in the Texas Lege have sunk as low as a catfish's belly in a sewer ditch ... they wiggle in deeper.


It's days like yesterday that I am glad that Saint Molly has gone on to her great reward and must no longer waste her beautiful mind considering the actions of these reprehensible guttersnipes.

Before I segue, let me point out one more Texas Republican behaving badly, and another whose sudden disability I should acknowledge.


West gets a pass here; he really doesn't know any better.  He's an immigrant from Florida.


Dan Crenshaw's almost-last Tweet before he was struck blind had to do with "progressive fascism" (sic), so I'll just wish the Congressman well with his upcoming retina surgery ... and an early, happy retirement from politics.  Eyesight or no, FOX News would have a collective orgasm live on The Five if you joined their stable of pundits, sir.  I hear there's an open national radio slot, daytime, for a prominent conservative demagogue as well.

I promised more Lege in yesterday's Wrangle so I must follow through.  The voting curtailment bills have been covered enough for the moment and the transgender discrimination legislation is simply too distasteful to mention beyond the above, so let's move down the ...um ... ledger.


"Today" in the above was actually last Friday.  Sports gamblers, it's time to mobilize.


Providing the assist from here to criminal and social justice news ...


Two thoughtful pieces here from Texas Monthly.


Meg O'Connor at The Appeal notes that the city of Austin is using money diverted from policing to fund substance use care.  Rachel Martin for NPR examined the lingering issue of hunger for many Texans one year into the COVID pandemic.  And CBP found two girls, ages 3 and 5, in a remote area of west Texas after smugglers dropped them from the top of a 14-foot high section of wall at the southern border.  They hope to reunite them with their mother, who is already in the US.


Some environmental news:


The second Harris County chemical plant fire in two weeks killed a worker in Crosby.  The first, an explosion in Channelview, is still under investigation as to what precisely caused the blaze.  And restart issues trouble the massive Total refinery in Port Arthur from Winter Storm Uri.  So as oil rises and frackers get back to work, expect prices at the gas pump, the grocery store, and for building materials like roofing and insulation that are petro manufacturing-dependent to keep going up, spurring that "inflation" scare word at the Fed.  If you know that the existing housing market in Texas is red hot for sellers now -- and if you know why that is -- then you can extrapolate that building materials of all kinds are hot commodities just because of renovations alone.  For that matter, even wood pulp is short, and that affects the price of everything from toilet paper to lumber.  All this demand translates to more immediate pollution here in southeast Texas, and more long-term deleterious effects to the planet.

One bright spot for our ecology.


This is still a politics blog, and while I am unenthusiastic about the early jockeying for statewide elections in 2022, I bring you the latest anyway.  Of more immediate interest will be the various municipal elections conducted this year around the state.


These days I find myself more interested in past history than current.


And that's my segue to the lighter side.


Still a few links left for later in the week.
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