Tuesday, May 05, 2020

TexProgBlog Wrangle II: Revenge of the Fifth


The Trump administration's own Bay of Pigs fiasco in Venezuela, reported last evening, featured two Texans in leadership roles.



Here are a couple of citizen action items for today.



Some additional accounts of the lawsuits against limitations to early voting by mail (aka absentee voting, mail ballots, and a few other names):



And other litigation updates.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided Monday that a case challenging the Texas prohibition of government entities from contracting with companies who boycott Israel is moot.

The court vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded the case to the district court to dismiss the complaints. The order did not address the constitutionality of Texas’s law.

Judge (E. Grady) Jolly wrote that the case was moot because all of the plaintiffs are sole proprietors, and Texas enacted legislation that exempts sole proprietors from the “No Boycott of Israel” certification. The plaintiffs claim that the law violates their First Amendment speech rights.


Rather than go long on the plethora of coronavirus updates from around the state, this piece from Rich Shumate of Chicken Fried Politics provides insight to the travails of governors, senators, and state legislators across the South in dealing with the competing interests of capitalism and public health and safety.  What troubles Greg Abbott is not different from what concerns the governor in Florida or the Senate Majority Leader from Kentucky; their respective reactions -- and whether they are up for re-election this year -- certainly is.

Still, we must acknowledge the shortcomings of our leaders.




In a follow-up to an item in last week's Wrangle ...


All together now: "Okay, Alex; EAT. MY. ASS."


As difficult as it is to top that, one salon owner tried her best.


The tornado that ripped through Polk County in East Texas last week produced debris that will be a long time cleaning up.  Elsewhere on the environmental front ...


Wrapping another Wrangle with some of the lighter items, such as they are.


In a pair of stories from the Valley, Jose Antonio Lopez writes at the Rio Grande Guardian about Alonso de Leรณn, another of the Spanish explorers and settlers of Texas.  And Dan Clouse at LareDOS has a tale from Uncle Billy about a map to buried treasure at Lake Falcon.



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Monday, May 04, 2020

The Weekly "May the Fourth Be With You" Wrangle

With this week's edition of the best blog posts, Tweets, and lefty news from around and about the Great State, the Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates a variety of holidays.



Beginning today with the latest from General Hermann Goehring Ken Paxton:


“Public officials shall not advise voters who lack a qualifying sickness or physical condition to vote by mail in response to COVID-19,” said Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton in a letter to county judges and county election officials (PDF). Further, third parties advising voters to apply for a ballot by mail out of fear of contracting COVID-19 without a qualifying disability “could subject those third parties to criminal sanctions.”

The letter follows District Judge Tim Sulak’s decision last month to grant a temporary injunction enjoining Travis Co. Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir from “rejecting any mail ballot applications received from registered voters who use the disability category of eligibility as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The state immediately appealed that decision to the Third Court of Appeals. Paxton said Sulak’s injunction is stayed during the appeal.

Paxton’s argued that fear of contracting COVID-19 is an “emotional condition and not a physical condition” under Sec. 82.002, Election Code and this “not, by itself, sufficient to meet the definition of disability for purposes of eligibility to receive a ballot by mail.” In his ruling, Sulak determined it was “reasonable to conclude that voting in person while the virus that causes COVID-19 is still in general circulation presents a likelihood of injuring [voters’] health, and any voters without established immunity meet the plain language definition of disability.” Paxton’s letter does not appear to address this reasoning.

Appellate briefs in the case are due by May 29.

Previously on mail voting ...


And previously on Paxton:


Moving on to the governor's restarting of the state's economy ...




JIm Schutze at the Dallas Observer writes that someday we'll know if this move by Abbott was a good one or not.



There was civil action on May Day yesterday.




Some fresh polling broke a little news:


Kuff looked at that poll showing Joe Biden with a one-point lead over Donald Trump in Texas.


The presidential race in Texas is a statistical dead heat in the latest Texas Survey released today (Wednesday) by Democratic national polling firm Public Policy Polling. Joe Biden leads President Trump, 47%-46%, well within the survey’s margin of error. Respondents to the survey favored Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, 51%-42%. Seven percent of Trump’s 2016 voters said they would vote for Biden and another 7% were not sure. Self-identified “independents” favored Biden, 50%-34%.

Biden led among Hispanic/Latino voters, 68%-21%. This is dramatically different than the most recent Univ. of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, which showed Abbott leading Trump, 50%-40%, among Hispanics/Latinos.

SocraticGadfly looked at some coronavirus conspiracy thinking and how it shows the "horseshoe theory" is sometimes true.

Better Texas Blog urges us to protect immigrants as they power our economy.

Eater Dallas explained the dangers of reopening for small restaurants.

Ken Hoffman at CultureMap Houston found that Hobby Airport is as empty as you'd expect.

Dos Centavos shared his tortilla recipe.

And a pair of books to read, courtesy their authors (and Texas Monthly).



More Wrangling with Alex Jones, Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel, Willie Nelson, Matthew McConaghey, environmental and criminal justice developments and a lot more in the next edition tonight (or maybe tomorrow)!
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