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Monday, January 17, 2022

MLK Day Wrangle

A few things to celebrate today:


Not so much for Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton.


Or some of the GQP supporting cast.


Their pain is not necessarily our collective gain.


Emily Eby also shows how the new voter suppression law will affect your voting experience.

The omicron variant is wreaking havoc with public school teachers and students.


But not just them.


And not just omicron affecting the supply chain, either.


Here's a few climate headlines.


SocraticGadfly blogged about getting to an all-electric-car future in light of discussing, or not discussing, the environmental N-word.


And some Texas music news to close today.

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Wednesday, July 28, 2021

The Environmental Round-Up, Part 2


As I mentioned a few weeks ago in Part One, this post will have more Texas-related news.  First, a few aggregations.

Desi Doyen compiles an exhaustive list twice a week in her Green News Report for the Brad Blog, which is really the collation you want to read in order to keep up with this topic.  Here's her latest.


Corporate media is waking up to the issue at last, but they still have to tread carefully around their Big Oil and Gas sponsors.  No such smidge of conscience from our elected leaders, however.


Honestly however, the criminals are literally everywhere you look.


  This woman is NOT one of them.


"Energy Transfer Partners".  Haven't we heard of them?  Why, yes we have; just a moment ago.


The corruption is so vast and varicose that its tentacles rival the capillary nature of the Texas power grid.  Speaking of:


The deeper you dig, the worse the stench gets.


Who was president ten years ago?


Had enough yet?


It's not all bad news.  Some people are actually trying to do something.


But some suggestions have failed, and others are too little, too late.


And we still have the deniers of facts, logic, science, and truth to overcome.


I'll add a few more as a thread when this post gets Tweeted shortly.  If I missed anything, mention it here in the comments or post it there.
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Monday, July 26, 2021

The Waiting Game Wrangle from Far Left Texas

A very solid analysis by Reese Oxner of where Greg Abbott, the Lege -- those under the Pink Dome and those in DC -- and all of us watching are today.


The Texas Supreme Court has been asked to rule whether Gov. Greg Abbott’s unprecedented line-item veto of Article X in the state budget -- which pays for the Legislature and its staff -- is constitutional.

Abbott issued the veto after the regular legislative session ended, pulling one of the few political levers at his disposal to try to force Democratic lawmakers to show up for a special session if they want their staffs to keep getting paid when the next fiscal year starts Sept. 1.

It didn’t work. Enough House Democrats left the state to deprive the chamber of the quorum needed to conduct business.

Now the state’s all-Republican highest civil court -- with four of eight members appointed by Abbott and one seat vacant -- has been asked by the House Democrats who broke quorum to overturn the veto.

Legally, the case hinges on whether the Texas Constitution allows a governor to cut off funding for an equal branch of government. Politically, it’s unclear whether the court would be doing Abbott a bigger favor by upholding his veto power, or by extricating him from a stalemate that’s not going his way.

All the way back here -- before the special session began -- I suggested, referencing Quorum Report's plugged-in coverage, that this was likely the endgame.  For those who can't be troubled to keep up.

(Seriously.  If you're writing 'like I said, what else is there to say' on a regular basis, why are you even bothering?  One post a week versus three posts a day and still two weeks behind.  SMDH)

“This is well beyond the Schoolhouse Rock version of how government works,” (U of H political science professor Brandon) Rottinghaus said, referencing a children’s animated series that simplified political concepts into cartoons. “This is a political story as much as it is an institutional separation-of-powers story. So it’s going to really push the boundaries of what’s allowable in Texas, especially in its governor.”

[...]

It’s unclear when the Texas Supreme Court could rule on the issue -- or if it will at all. It could rule any day now, delay a decision or decide the court does not have jurisdiction over the case at all. The justices could also rule to disallow part of the veto — for example, legislators are allowed a per diem payment under the Constitution -- or find that the issue is not yet ripe and punt it down the road to decide at another time. Attorneys for House Democrats asked for the court to expedite its decision “well before” the new budget comes into effect.

“If I had to really put money on it, I would say that the court would back the governor’s veto, in part because they might view this as being a temporary political skirmish that can be resolved,” Rottinghaus said.

Anything short of striking down Abbott's veto is a wipeout for the Q-Breakers.  That's actually less of a long shot than expecting Joe Biden to suddenly support killing the filibuster, though.

Talk about being left to twist in the wind ...


As for Beto: he's already said he will wait for the final outcome of the voter suppression bill before he decides to run for something (Donks pray every day it's governor).  I've already said -- and this requires no crystal ball -- that the bill will eventually pass, Beto won't run, and Texas Democrats will be drowned in a red tide in 2022 unless they can break through in the AG race with Joe Jaworski (or, I suppose, Lee Merritt).

Maybe the best hope for the Blues is another statewide power outage. This week?

I think I can get around to more blogging as long as I don't lose electricity.  For now, let's chill.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2021

"Can You Get a Decent Taco in DC?" Tuesday Wrangle


Apparently, although that review is dated.  This Yelp list has been updated this month.  And here's breakfast tacos.  At any rate, some Texans recently arrived from out of town are going to find out.  I'll wait for Rep. Armando Walle's judgment.


Non-scientific polling -- just the kind the GOP likes -- shows Twitter sentiment against the Donks on the Run, but I would imagine they care as much about that as they do critiques of their beer choices.

I do think one Republican got it correct.

...state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the powerful House Calendars Committee ... said in a statement to The Texas Tribune that “unfortunately, the siren call of social media fame and fundraising” had lured Democrats to D.C.

Corporate media appearances all day and night.  Public speaking events before various Democratic, aligned, and sympathetic groups.  Fundraisers galore.  That's already a big win by any partisan establishment scorekeeper.  Why it's even possible that a gubernatorial candidate will emerge from this group (not that the Texas Signal has been pimping that as hard as they can, mind you).

So will this go like 2003, when Texas House Dems fled to Ardmore, OK and waited out the special session called by Rick Perry to redistrict Texas according to Tom DeLay's liking?  Followed by another special session where the Texas Senate Dems runaway-scraped to Albuquerque, NM, only to be betrayed by Judas Whitmire?  I suppose time, and some exit strategy that meets with the budding future Houston mayor's approval, will tell.


Despite the Senate adjourning due to lack of quorum, the Shun and Shame Transgender Children Committee gaveled in and conducted business.


It went about as hideously as you could have predicted.


The cash bail bill ... less ignorant but no less successful.


Your summary, for those short on reading time:


It wasn't all bad for the good guys.


Rinaldi is, to put it mildly, a maniac.  And he does not like Greg Abbott.  So while this may be another Allen West 2.0 situation for the Lone Star Pachys -- sound and fury signifying nothing -- an unsettled, divided, squabbling RPT can't hurt anybody who wants things to get better around here.

Some corroborating evidence showed up in Big D this past weekend.


On a downer, perhaps they'll fall back in line after the primaries next year, like they always have in the past.  A common enemy is a great unifier.

Just don't expect great things from AllRight x3.


I think there's an opening at the top of the Serve America Party ticket, Matthew, if you can convince Bill King to step aside.  Maybe suggest he run for Lite Guv.

Hoo boy, I've had enough of this for one post.  A couple of calm-me-downs, and then fleeing the Lege as fast as possible to other items in the next posts.

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Friday, June 18, 2021

Happy Juneteenth, Pride, Fiesta Wrangle

It's been a reasonably good week for progressive and liberal causes.


The newest federal holiday commemorates June 19, 1865 -- the day Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas with word that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years before.

For years, Juneteenth has been celebrated in Houston and Galveston to commemorate General Order No. 3, issued a month after the formal end of the Civil War. Galveston was one of the last places in the U.S. where enslaved people learned of their emancipation. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who sponsored the national holiday bill in the House, told Axios Juneteenth becoming a national holiday affirms the experiences of people of Houston and Galveston -- the descendants of those who celebrated the first Juneteenth.



(As a leftist, maintaining this health insurance company long-term stimulation plan is less than half a loaf.  Americans are still dying for profit margins and CEO bonuses, and that must end.  Hopefully before the planet cooks us all.  Which is to say that my environmental post is on the way.)


DOJ preclearance for Texas voting laws, redistricting, and all the bad GOP bills in the pipeline is the game, set, and match for Team Donkey.  No amount of rallies, protests, marches, quorum breaks, petitions, or other performative actions matter.  Tie it all up in court and let the SCOTUS ultimately decide.  So far the track record with the Nine is encouraging, and Ken Paxton is as incompetent there as he is at everything else.  More on all the TXGOP fails in the next.


So celebrate these wins in the way that you choose this weekend: with your Black, Brown, and LGBTQ friends, and with Dad if you can.  If for whatever reason you can't, then please find something else to be happy about and celebrate that.


Here's another Fiesta guide from San Antonio Magazine.


As many more topics as I can get to still on the way.

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Monday, April 12, 2021

The Weekly Wrangle from Far Left Texas, Midday Edition

Too much to corral into one pen.  More on the way, hopefully later today.

I have never seen a mass shooting disappear so quickly from the headlines.


Governor Second Amendment Sanctuary set a new land speed record for looking asinine.


Abbott is only capable of hearing what's screamed into his right ear.  Polling us on this topic reveals a gaping partisan chasm.


But Texans are united with respect to legislation pending in Austin.


Let's cut our legislators a little slack; they have some really important bills to get to.


Moving on to less trivial matters, the Lege's actions to curtail voting were a hot topic among Texas bloggers -- and newshounds -- this past week.


Progress Texas highlighted the efforts to put pressure on the Rethugs under the Pink Dome to reject voting restrictions.  Kuff posted his take on the Senate and House bills.  Jef Rouner for Reform Austin makes a good point; don't count on the courts, SCOTX or SCOTUS, to bail us out here.  And the Texas Civil Rights Project reminds that there's other malicious voter suppression legislation to watch for.

The delay in processing data from the decennial Census so that lawmakers can perform their redistricting function will -- very probably -- lead to putting off the Lone Star State's 2022 primary elections.  TXElects details the latest.

The Senate approved legislation that would move this year’s filing period and next year’s primary and runoff elections based on when a redistricting plan becomes law. Senate Bill 1822 by Joan Huffman would establish temporary provisions in the Election Code that would be triggered depending on when redistricting plans can be created by the Legislature.

-- The primary would remain on March 1, and the runoff on May 24, if a redistricting plan becomes law on or before November 22, 2021. A truncated filing period would run from November 29 through December 13.

-- The primary would (move to) April 5, and the runoff on June 21, if a redistricting plan becomes law between November 23 and on or before January 3. The filing period would run January 10-24.

-- The primary would be (delayed until) May 24, and the runoff on July 26, if a redistricting plan becomes law between January 4 and February 14. The filing period would run from February 21 through March 7.


And weed is on the agenda.


Socratic Gadfly says that with new legislation on the table in Oklahoma and passed in New Mexico, Texas faces new pressure to liberalize its marijuana laws.  And Jacob Vaughn at the Dallas Observer wonders if we will at least normalize medical cannabis rights.

More Lege, more Abbott and Republicans acting like fools, more environmental, criminal and social justice updates will all appear in the next Wrangle to keep this one from extending too far.  Here's some art projects going on around the state.

Glasstire brings word of brewer Pabst Blue Ribbon and San Antonio’s Aztec Theatre hosting a free immersive pop-up, "In Living Pixels", in the Alamo City this week.  The Houston International Film Festival kicks off on April 22.  And LareDOS announces that Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises, will headline Casa de Misericordia’s April 22 virtual fundraiser.

The award-winning journalist will share her exploration of the domestic violence epidemic via Zoom link. Her book is the recipient of the Book of the Year Awards of both Esquire Magazine and The New York Times.

Casa de Misericordia, directed by Sister of Mercy Rosemary Welsh, empowers survivors of domestic violence and their children to move forward with their lives by receiving holistic, comprehensive, long-term services that support abuse victims as they reclaim their lives.


And here's a couple of my favorite soothers to close.


That's real grass the teams were playing on.  It died within days because the Dome's roof wouldn't let in enough sunlight, and the cost to re-sod the field was prohibitive.  This led to the invention of something called Astroturf.

Much more in the next Wrangle.
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Monday, March 08, 2021

The Far Left "Texas is Messed Up" Wrangle



Kuff focused on the maskless mandate and the widespread negative reactions to it.  John Coby at Bay Area Houston is mad about the damage Republican political leaders have done to our reputation (?!).  Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher vents her spleen at Greg Abbott.

Could the worst be yet to come?


Let's take that as our segue to the coronavirus.


Isobella Harkrider for Reform Austin documents the COVID variants now in the state. Alison Medley at the HouChron spoke to Memorial Hermann Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Linda Yancey about the pros and cons of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and the effectiveness of all the shots compared to each other, and to the variants.

"When you compare efficacy data, Pfizer ranks at the highest with 95 percent effectiveness in preventing COVID-19, compared to Moderna at 94 percent.  The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was found to be 66 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, and  85 percent effective if disease is critical.  The concern has been whether the current vaccines will hold effectiveness against new COVID-19 variants, including the UK, New York, California, South Africa and Brazil variants.

"This vaccine is still effective against all these variants, as well as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines," Dr. Yancey reassured. "If we can get people vaccinated as quickly as we can, the virus will stop spreading."

Let's shift to the Lege, which gavels back in this week with more on their plates than ever.  Still desperate to change the subject, Abbott is diving into the culture wars.


Former RRC candidate Chrysta Castaneda opines in the DMN that the Railroad Commission and the PUC should be folded into a new energy commission (and those commissioners should be elected instead of appointed).  Socratic Gadfly looked at the Census delay and wondered if that will make redistricting even harder and more of a fistfight in a Lege special session, including the possibility of internecine Republican fights as well as R-D battles.  And Charles Miller for Texas 2036 appraises the new federal Medicaid proposal, which could mean $3 billion more for Texas.

Next, in criminal and social justice updates ...


And in political and election headlines:


Nearly two dozen candidates filed for the special election to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright (R-Arlington) in a district that has become increasingly competitive in general elections over the past decade. President Trump carried the district by 3 points over Joe Biden in 2020, and the average Republican won the district by just over 6 points. Trump won the district by 9 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Mitt Romney carried it over President Obama by 17 points in 2012.

This is not a general election, and turnout is expected to fall well short of the 69% of registered voters who came to the polls in November. The 2018 special election for CD27, which was held in June, drew 15% of the number of voters as in the 2016 general election. A similar result for CD6 would result in around 55K votes cast. All candidates run on the same ballot regardless of party, and the top two candidates advance to a runoff, regardless of party, if no one secures a majority vote. Given the number of Republicans (11) and Democrats (10) in the race, a runoff is almost certain. The question is, what will be the partisan makeup of the runoff?

The last time a field this size ran in a special election was 1993, when 24 candidates filed to win the unexpired term of former U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D). There were 10 Republicans, five Democrats including the appointed incumbent, one Libertarian, six independents and two other minor party candidates. The Republicans collectively received 58.2% of the vote to the Democrats’ collective 40.5%, and the minor party and independent candidates combined for 1.3%. Eighteen of the candidates each received less than 1% of the vote, 16 of which received less than 0.5%. That left three Republicans and three Democrats with more than 1% of the vote.

Comparing a statewide race from 27+ years ago to a north Texas Congressional special election is IMHO a failure of analysis (which TXElects rarely makes).  Special elections are about ground game, and the Democrats failed there in 2020, by their own declaration.  I expect them to do so again in this contest, despite having 60 days to gear up for it.  Too bad they can't blame the Green Party.

It appears that Ag Commissioner Sid Miller is preparing to challenge Greg Abbott for the Republican nomination for governor, from his right.


And some environmental updates.


Last month Environment Texas released bold environmental agendas for Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.  In recent years these three cities have demonstrated their environmental stewardship, but now EnTx is challenging them to improve their clean energy initiatives, bolster clean air and water protections, and put wildlife over waste by banning the worst single-use plastics.

Texas wildlife indeed suffered mightily during the freeze, and will keep bearing the brunt of the Lone Star State's refusal to move away from fossil fuels to cleaner, sustainable energy sources.

Speaking of wildlife ...


Stopping here; more later this week.
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