Tuesday, December 07, 2021

The Taco Tuesday Wrangle

I still haven't had any Mexican food since before Thanksgiving, so that needs to change today.  How about you?


Fernando Ramirez at the Signal explains why this is the second lawsuit.  The first was in September. Some people are not convinced this is going to fix things for the Donks (count me among those).


By this point you don't need to be a lawyer to predict how this goes: the plaintiffs win at the district level, lose at the Fifth Circuit, and the Supremes get the case.  By the time that happens it will likely be too late to make any changes for 2022 even if the DOJ's argument prevails.  And if the GOP sweeps the Congress next year ... well, if you've ever played chess with a pigeon in the park, you know what happens when he knocks all the pieces over.  Game over; start over.  Fun.


A very good thread here by Mary Tuma.

Lege Repubs are bored again, so they're fighting with each other again.


Meanwhile Pukes in the sticks pick fights with Biden over new imaginary "problems".  Anything to keep the crackers riled up.


Dr. Jackson deserves some kind of an award for being the first of his rotten ilk to tie the omicron variant to "election fraud" (sic).

To be clear, there are some things worth protesting.

Extinction Rebellion will hold another rally today at 4 PM in Discovery Green across from the entrance to the George R. Brown Convention Center (closest to Lamar Street). I hope some of you will join us!

Locked-out Exxon Mobil Beaumont refinery workers are also protesting at the WPC.


Indeed, KPRC reports that the feds are investigating whether the project violates the civil rights of those who would lose their property by the expansion of the freeway.

Here's a collection of news items that lie outside regular categorization.

Via Ballot Access News: The Austin Chronicle's Luke Ellis answers a reader's question about how an independent candidate might get on the ballot in Texas, and the answer is detailed, accurate, and reveals how bad the law is.


More postpourri.

“It’s been three years of hell”: An air flight attendant’s fight to expose Southwest Airlines’ poisoning of its workforce.

A single out-of-state billionaire has donated 98% of the money being used to construct Greg Abbott’s border wall.

The association representing Texas credit unions slammed the practice of forced financing at some auto dealerships, promising more action after WFAA's reporting on car buyers being forced to use the dealers' lenders.  It seems that the state's auto retailers -- long coddled by the Legislature -- have completely run amuck; even the sale of illegal paper tags is bringing in millions, and the head of the DMV says she's all but powerless to stop it.

Finally: a Dallas Morning News poll found 23% of Texans unwilling or unlikely to get a COVID vaccination.  Welcome to Hell.


A few pieces on housing and the homeless.


Reform Austin laments how their city became one of the least affordable places in the country.  And the Standard also sees home prices and rents rising in Austin's exurbs, like Taylor and Bastrop.


Tax. The Gawd-Damn. Churches.

"I’m rooting for the coalition to meet its goal of decommissioning all of the (homeless) camps."

In spite of the supposed-to-make-ya feel-good story from two weeks ago, I am not.  Not in favor of what Mayor Turner, et.al. are doing, not in favor of the word "decommission" (homeless camps are not battleships), and very much opposed to this neoliberal bullshit.


Here's the latest environmental updates.


For years Wilson has been documenting this pollution by Formosa Plastics Group, the world's fourth largest plastic manufacturer. It set up shop in 1983 south of Houston in Point Comfort, near the waters where she used to catch shrimp in abundance.

"When we did the sampling on Formosa, we found 2,000 violations. How many did the state of Texas have? Zero," Wilson told AFP as she stood at the helm of a shrimp boat.

She said regulators at environmental protection agencies in Texas operate in a revolving door system. "They leave the state agencies and get a job at the chemical plant because there is no money in being an inspector or an officer."

And the Texas Observer has been busy on the ecology beat: Amal Ahmed writes about cities like Port Arthur battling the oil export boom, and a collective photographic and video effort envisions how forthcoming LNG facilities will affect the wetlands along the Texas Gulf Coast, specifically Freeport, Portland, and Port Isabel.

Two soothers to close.


Cranes, cows and meth burritos: The wild, wacky and unbelievably bizarre stories that actually happened in Houston this year
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Monday, December 06, 2021

The Monday Morning Wrangle from Far Left Texas


Opening with the latest in state political news as the filing deadline for the March primaries and the November general election approaches.


O'Rourke is also in Beaumont this Thursday.


Hinojosa appears to be in a spirited tussle for his job with Col. Kim Olson.  She has released a long list of endorsements (that are not slouches).  As an ex-Democrat, I don't care which of these two wins, but the dynamics -- Olson's white women and rural and conservaDems versus Hinojosa's incumbent, establishment, South Texas and Latin@ bloc -- will be interesting to observe.  And the race could be further scrambled from an identity politics POV if Carroll Robinson throws his hat in.

The Texas Signal talked to state Rep. Michelle Beckley about her candidacy for lieutenant governor, and to Jay Kleberg on his bid for land commissioner.  Kuff did a couple more filing updates.


Bears watching, especially if Abbott calls the TXGOP's heavily-requested fourth special session.  And Comptroller (pronounced 'controller') Glenn Hegar finally managed to get some bad publicity.


The Texas Observer also reported on this story earlier in the fall.  Last: a very good thread here about the influence of Steven Hotze on Houston elections, especially if you're voting in the school board runoffs taking place right now.


While we wait for the Supreme Court to strike down a woman's right to choose, here's some reading on that topic.


COVID next.


Your Local Epidemiologist is on top of the omicron situation.  Socratic Gadfly dove back into COVID with his post on the gain of function issues, along with Fauci and NIAID's apparent failure to monitor Peter Daszag.  And with medical news apart from the novel coronavirus, Texas 2036 warned that the shortage of doctors in the state is getting worse.  (Hey, remember when tort "reform" was supposed to fix that?)  Writing in the San Antonio Report, Doctors Junda Woo and Barbara Taylor urge Alamo City leaders to use the tools at its disposal to end HIV there.  And condolences poured in for Danny Jensen of the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, who passed away over the weekend.

Criminal and social justice news:


How about some redistricting updates?


And the latest from your local library and schoolhouse.


For Texas Monthly, Ashley Hope PΓ©rez tells what happened when a school district banned her book.


A few items about climate and the environment.


Stephen Eisenman at Counterpunch profiled the history and the dilemma of Port Arthur, and spoke to local activist Hilton Kelley there.


I'll take that as my segue to the soothers.

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