How was your weekend?
Photos, TFG Rally of Hate today 30 miles of me. Some have been there since Thursday. The Orange Fascist doesn’t spew his hate and lies until 7 tonight. These pics are from Montgomery County Sheriffs Department fb page. pic.twitter.com/2crN6ylRUv
— Jo 𖤐 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ 𖤐 (@Jo_IsABitch) January 29, 2022
At the Texas Covid Infection Festival:#TrumpRally pic.twitter.com/SfY7cgqpbZ
— Roshan Rinaldi (@Roshan_Rinaldi) January 29, 2022
Greg Abbott realizes that the only way to keep the MAGA crowd from booing him is to just keep saying, ‘Donald J Trump’ over and over again. So he does. pic.twitter.com/wzQ3csB5cE
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 30, 2022
"If this sounds familiar, it’s because similar politics emerged during the Weimar period in Germany, were honed by the Nazis, and later trafficked into mainstream politics via the John Birch Society — one of the sponsors of the event at the border."https://t.co/93nj6fXIxr
— steven monacelli (getting worried) (@stevanzetti) January 31, 2022
There were two polls regarding the Texas primary elections released over the weekend. The first, on Friday from the Hobby School of Political Affairs at the University of Houston, has most GOP statewide incumbents -- Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton, Sid Miller, Glenn Hegar -- holding comfortable leads for renomination. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian, not so much. The Republican primary for commissioner of the General Land Office, vacated by George P. Bush in his bid against Paxton, is a tossup (80% of those queried are unsure for whom they might vote).
In the Democratic primary, Beto O'Rourke leads handily. In the lieutenant governor's race, Mike Collier is ahead with 24% but 58% are undecided. Rochelle Garza (14%), Joe Jaworski (12%), Lee Merritt (7%), and two others with 7% portend a runoff in the scrum for attorney general to face off with Paxton (60% of Dems are unsure). Same in the contest for GLO, with Sandragrace Martinez leading Michael Lange, Jay Kleburg, and Jinny Suh with 64% undecided.
While these numbers don't seem out of place, it's possible that the pollsters could be weighting Latin@ voters a bit too much and under-sampling Black Dems for my interpretation. But there was also a general election matchup polled, and IMO these results are the closest to accurate for predicting the ultimate fall outcome.
Texas Nov. 2022 Gubernatorial Vote Intention@GregAbbott_TX 48%@BetoORourke 43%@Mark4Gov 2%@DelilahforTexas 1%
— Mark P. Jones (@MarkPJonesTX) January 30, 2022
DK/Unsure 6%#txlege #TX2022
Via @hobbyschooluh https://t.co/u8KcyCticu pic.twitter.com/7o0PA7tLfH
Six percent uncertain is a rather stunning number nine months away.
The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler's poll, out yesterday, looks somewhat the same... and somewhat different.
New @dallasnews/@UTTyler poll:
— Bob Garrett (@RobertTGarrett) January 30, 2022
Abbott: 47
O'Rourke: 36
GOP gov:
Abbott: 59
West: 6
Huffines: 4
Perry: 4
GOP AG:
Paxton: 33
Bush: 19
Gohmert: 8
Guzman: 7
Dem LG:
Beckley: 17
Brailey: 13
Collier: 10
Dem AG:
Garza: 11
Jaworski: 11
Fields: 7
Merritt: 6https://t.co/f1ALbADO5F
Robert Showah has more on Texans' opinions from that survey, including this:
Texans are divided on Roe v. Wade, 53-45 oppose overturn. The partisan overlap and margins among Latinos, Catholics and White Evangelicals is striking. #txlege
— Robert Showah (@robertisnthere) January 31, 2022
Overturn/Don't
Dem: 36/64
Ind: 42/56
GOP: 54/44
Latino: 48/51
Women: 42/58
Catholic: 53/47
White Evang: 51/45
I did not want to open today's Wrangle with an overflowing vat of stupid and crazy, but I can't leave the topic of conservatives behaving badly without a few more items.
This is Stephen Balch.
— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) January 27, 2022
He’s a conspiracy theorist who called Biden’s election a “literal coup” and pushes White Replacement Theory.
The Texas State Board of Education just picked him to revise our social studies standards. The Big Lie is coming to a textbook near you.@TXSBOE pic.twitter.com/Appr29XDIl
And when it can't get more idiotic ---"MAGA Candidate Caught on Tape Menacing Butterfly Sanctuary on Texas Border"--which closed this weekend of Trump MAGA rally in McAllen. Let the delirium rage on #txlege https://t.co/ggM0iDJTuv via @thedailybeast
— harvey kronberg (@HKronberg) January 28, 2022
Kandy Kaye Horn, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in Texas, spent a million dollars putting up campaign billboards across the length and breadth of Texas. I wrote something about who she is and why she did it.https://t.co/2mcJN2sB3t
— jonathantilove (@JTiloveTX) January 29, 2022
ICYMI -- 'Let the Dogs Eat Her': Frisco Pastor Calls Denton County GOP Chair a 'Jezebel' in Bizarre Tiradehttps://t.co/Myod8gZs9t
— Dallas Observer (@Dallas_Observer) January 29, 2022
Perhaps anti-Semitism by powerful evangelicals doesn’t count? #txlege https://t.co/iOmROjfRym
— 𝕛𝕚𝕞𝕞𝕪𝕠 (@jimmyotx) January 28, 2022
On Thursday, Granbury ISD confirmed it has pulled 130 titles from school libraries in the district to be reviewed by a committee for inappropriate conduct. https://t.co/xSwgIrO9lV
— WFAA (@wfaa) January 28, 2022
They simply outdid themselves this past week.
I have a few criminal, legal, and social justice headlines; the first deals with the previous Tweet regarding Tim Dunn above.
Federal judge blocks enforcement of Texas's anti-BDS law https://t.co/Hr9fQWls43 pic.twitter.com/9Yg83ooOA2
— The Hill (@thehill) January 30, 2022
Records show the cop who killed a young Houston mother and left her 3-year-old son fighting for his life had past issues with properly operating his cruiser.https://t.co/UyTTwCg1TO
— Chron (@chron) January 29, 2022
A Texas A&M professor of economics said a livable wage in Texas is about $40,000 a year.
— WFAA (@wfaa) January 29, 2022
https://t.co/0ksfcOo0N7
Texas DMV caps number of temporary tags auto dealers can get. Sort of. https://t.co/hPTCHXNRTS via @houstonchron #hounews
— Matt Schwartz (@SchwartzChron) January 28, 2022
@TexasCJE &SLC have done it again. The community showed up, & had a productive discussion about what transforming the TX justice system could look like. Great work! @OfRestorer @TexasAdvocates @PureJustice_HTX @dieter_cantu @MarcALevin @BeFrank4Justice pic.twitter.com/KvNowT7ft4
— Savannah Eldrige (@savannah1214) January 30, 2022
Karankawa nation protests dangerous pipeline expansion into sacred land ✊🏽https://t.co/nF2nQD48k4
— Honor the Earth (@HonorTheEarth) January 30, 2022
On January 22, members of the Karankawa Nation and several hundred supporters gathered in front of a Bank of America location in Austin (to speak out) against the planned expansion of an oil pier owned and operated by Canada-based oil giant Enbridge. The expansion would cross sacred land at a Karankawa village site near Corpus Christi Bay in south Texas. Pipeline construction would also endanger burial artifacts and have a disastrous effect on the sensitive and biodiverse wet marshes.
Chiara, a Karankawa organizer, gave an impassioned speech defending the environment of her people’s homeland and called out Bank of America for financing fossil fuel extraction. Bank of America invested $42 billion in fossil fuels in 2020 alone.
That will be my segue to the environmental news.
Sulfuric acid waste from Samsung’s Austin factory leaked into a pond and then a tributary of Harris Branch Creek, officials report.
— Austin Statesman (@statesman) January 28, 2022
The leak totaled up to 763,000 gallons and might have gone on for more than 100 days 1/ https://t.co/LpvWu2EftD
The Nightmare Valero Site Claiming Fossil Fuels Are 'Essential for Life' https://t.co/s2twqhavb2 pic.twitter.com/vsWgPcltMd
— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) January 27, 2022
“I’ve seen a lot of Big Oil ads, but this has to be one of the creepiest,” Jamie Henn, the director of Fossil Free Media, said in an email. “Valero wants us to feel like it isn’t just our cars, but the very lives of our children that depend on their product. There’s an unsaid threat in these commercials: transition to clean energy and the world as you know it will cease to exist. That’s of course false ..."
"East Texas, North Texas residents push back against solar plant construction" via KLTV
*heavy sigh*
Dozens of people living in Crawford, just half an hour west of Waco, raised concerns at a school district meeting about the company, OCI Solar Power, building facilities just outside the city. The company is based out of San Antonio, and it proposed a $115 million solar farm. A company official managing the project said the project will not cost the community any tax dollars if approved -- now it’s up to the school board to designate land as commercial property.
A farmer in Crawford said he’d been offered more money than he could make farming to sell his land to make way for construction, but said his neighbors, “would not be happy living next to a plant.”
A similar situation is happening in Southmayd, near Texas’ border with Oklahoma. The school district board there voted to agree to a deal with Galactic Energy. The solar development company is proposing the construction of a 1,750 acre solar farm. Some residents there said they don’t want to lose the landscape and property they’ve lived on for generations. People raising their concerns are asking the school board to reconsider, and say they’re considering starting a petition against construction.
EPA Rejects Texas’ More Lenient Standard for Highly Toxic Air Pollutant — ProPublica. This is huge won for @TexasSierraClub @airallianceHOU @tejasbarrios and more importantly the community gone to court on this! #txlege https://t.co/SfVnPSdW9c
— Cyrus Reed (@cyrustx) January 29, 2022
Going extra long on the calm-me-downs to wrap today.
I have fond memories of working with Molly Ivins (and others!) in the FWST Austin bureau. Tomorrow (Jan. 31) marks the 15th anniversary of her death. Wrote a little bit about Molly and the bureau in this first person piece that ran in 2012 #txlege 4/ https://t.co/oJ0jcPZ30G
— Jay Root (@byjayroot) January 30, 2022
*more cool @sxsw stuff*
— Austin 360 (@austin360) January 28, 2022
Creative collective @MeowWolf, known for its immersive and visually wild art attractions, join festival lineup with "interdimensional portal" https://t.co/KmOcDQHMTl
AUSTIN HISTORY ON THE MOVE: Where did the famed Chisholm Trail cross the Colorado River? https://t.co/4AEdH1CsoR via @statesman
— Michael Barnes (@outandabout) January 31, 2022
El Paso's Scenic Drive turns 100! 🏞
— City of El Paso (@ElPasoTXGov) January 30, 2022
This year, the City celebrates the 100th anniversary of the completion of Scenic Drive.
A plaque was placed at the top of the scenic route to commemorate the 100-year milestone of the most iconic roadways in El Paso. pic.twitter.com/bKosconbBm
Lucille Ball in San Antonio on Fifth Street before the start of Parade of Stars through downtown, 1943. Courtesy a remarkable collection of photos of celebrities in San Antonio from UTSA (Mae West, Babe Ruth, Rock Hudson, Robert Frost etc...) here: https://t.co/UR9jeOiAM4 pic.twitter.com/kcUzhbXqi6
— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) January 29, 2022