Wednesday, December 08, 2021

Hump Day Wrangle

I've caught up, finally, so these round-ups of the best of the left of Texas are going to start getting weirder, in that what-Austin-used-to-be kinda way.


Not what you clicked over for?  Okay.  Back to politics.


Chairman Padrino looks a little defensive back there (and this photo wasn't taken recently).  Maybe the Colonel was already ragging him about something.


I'm wondering if Svitek has ever written "who is White" or "who is Latin@" after someone's name. Smells like elitism to me, and that's on an upwind day.  I retweet him a lot but I have to be honest: the stench of clubby oligarchy hangs thick on the guy.  He's been snuggling with Evan Smith, the Roger Ailes of the Lone Star State, since the TexTrib first got going, and now they are two sides of the same coin.  Even Scott Braddock and Harold Cook aren't this bad (but they're still bad).


These aren't the drones we're looking for.  This isn't the democracy I paid for.


But my satisfaction wasn't guaranteed, and I don't get my money, or the decade I spent trying to change the Democratic Party from within, back.  If I could, though, I would use it to build my pie higher.  I'da been a better capitalist.  Made a lot more money and then become an expat by now.  That's still the plan.


I cracked back on Dr. Jones earlier for this.


I'll let others pick up the slack.


Democrats and Republicans should pay, since they conduct primary elections.  Greens and Libertarians nominate at convention, so filing fees for them -- as well as stringent requirements for independent candidates -- are just a ballot access cockblock.  Which is the way the Blues and Reds like it.  Couple that with the Sviteks and Smiths who won't so much as acknowledge minor party candidates, and it's a perfect storm of indifference.

To his credit, Braddock is an adept purveyor of snark without fear of its potential consequences, like losing access.


Then again, Larson capitulated to the wingnuts.  He gave up all his power, so swinging at him after he's left the building seems gratuitous.

Let's move on to the criminal and social justice news.


That's my segue to the environmental updates.


Ending today with the calm-me-downs.

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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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