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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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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Sunday, December 05, 2021

Sunday Morale Booster Funnies

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Friday, December 03, 2021

The Weekend Wrangle from Far Left Texas


A lot to catch up on before a weekend full of outdoor activities (Mrs. Diddie and I are doing Dickens, as we always do).


These are among the variety of hurdles and onstacles that I cannot see Texas Democrats overcoming on their way to an electoral breakthrough next year.

Still, t'is the season for optimism, so I'll try to hold that.


We're all hoping Jessica is right.


Let's do the criminal and social justice news next.


Let me take that as my cue to segue to the environmental headlines.


Two COVID updates.


Lamb founded Daystar in late 1997, in Dallas.

And a few items that don't fit easily in the previous categories.


Ending another very weird and bad week with some calm-me-downs.

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Thursday, December 02, 2021

A news update from the Republic of Gilead


It's just to the west of Dystopia.


Tackling only the last item in this post.

As the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority seems poised to uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, more than twice as many Americans (55 percent) say they want the court to reaffirm its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision as say they want it overturned (24 percent), according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

Yet when asked about the specifics of the Mississippi case, respondents are far more divided -- a sign that America’s views on abortion are not quite as clear-cut and polarized as many assume.

The survey of 1,696 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Nov. 17 to 19, found that equal numbers favor (39 percent) and oppose (38 percent) the Mississippi law when it is described as something “that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, or about three and a half months.” (Roe v. Wade currently prohibits states from outlawing the procedure before about 23 weeks.) A significant share of Democrats (19 percent), Black Americans (25 percent) and Hispanic Americans (29 percent) also say they support a 15-week ban. Another 23 percent of overall Americans are unsure.


During oral arguments Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts emerged as the leading voice on the right for a narrow decision that would allow other states to ban abortions before 15 weeks but not fully overturn Roe.

“The thing that is at issue before us today is 15 weeks,” Roberts said.

But Justice Samuel Alito disagreed, arguing that “the only real options we have” are to reaffirm Roe in its entirety or to overrule it -- a view that at least two other conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, are thought to share.

Who's to blame here?


"Vote Blue No Matter Who!"


There are ways the Democrats could save abortion and save democracy and sweep back the country’s inexorable trend toward theocratic fascism, but they all involve using power in a way that, so far, no leader from the party has been willing or able to do.

You’ve probably heard of several of these: eliminating the filibuster, packing the court, or even simply using the executive branch to ignore the right’s new grasp over judicial review, which was never in the Constitution in the first place and we can all see has clearly gotten out of hand. Even within the flawed system of the Senate and current legislature, Democrats could be making a concerted push for D.C. statehood or Puerto Rico statehood or both, giving them a better chance to secure majorities so that every single bill doesn’t rest on people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Democrats could even pass a law ensuring a woman’s right to an abortion (imagine that) right now, technically, if they chucked the filibuster and convinced Manchin and Bob Casey to support the bill that passed the House in September.

They can’t do this, of course, because Manchin and Casey probably won’t budge on abortion and Manchin and Sinema won’t budge on the filibuster. All of these people are Democrats. So while it’s potentially true that if we just elected “more Democrats,” these few ideological aberrations might be less of a problem, but the question becomes how many? How many do we have to elect? And what if we keep voting for Democrats, somehow flip a few more red states to purple, but the only way we do so is if we elect another Joe Manchin? What then? What do we need to secure these things -- 60 votes in the Senate? Obama had 59 in 2009 and barely got the Affordable Care Act passed. Political priorities have changed a bit in the past 12 years, but is there any guarantee that we’d get anything done with 59 or 60 now? Not really. And where are those seats supposed to come from?

Democrats aren't going to save Roe.  They could have long ago if they wanted, but then they couldn't raise money off the issue.

Donating to, voting for, or electing more Democrats isn't going to save Roe, or pass Medicare for All, or raise the minimum wage, or cut subsidies to fossil fuels, or anything else that needs to be done NOW and not later.

Democrats can't even save themselves from an electoral wipeout in 2022.  What makes you think they're going to do anything for you?
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Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Giving Tuesday Wrangle


No boycotts and no strikes today.  Give what you can to those who ask, and to those who need help but are too shy to ask.  It's better than involuntarily donating to corporations.


More of the latest state politics.


JoJo has been one of my favorites for a very long time.  She really gets it, and has the scars from jackasses like Bill White and many other shitlibs to prove it.  All power to her.


Does the Pope shit in the woods?  Of course he does.  I'm not interested in local school board elections, but if that's your jam, now is the time to make your vote, voice, and objections loud to the Q-Crew schoolhouse bullies working hard to Dominionize your kids and grandkids.


I post Dr. Jones' tweets here on the occasions when he manages to keep his red partisanship out of his analysis.  Which is about half the time he tweets.  When he fails in that he embarrasses himself, as Braddock shows here.

Making the effort to challenge one's thinking -- to break out of the silo, so to speak -- requires rigorous self-inspection.  I appreciate when others do the work and create the breakthroughs.  Here's an example of that not happening.


The problem here is the word 'siphon'.

As I have blogged many times in the past, votes are not zero sum.  Votes are earned.  The confusion arises due to Gohmert's intention for his bid.  It was the same as Matt Krause's before he dropped out: capitalize on the scandals of Ken Paxton by offering oneself as the Qonservative alternative to Pee Bush and Eva Guzman.  (The sticky point is obviously trying to understand whatever passes for logic in the TXGOP primary voter's mind in choosing between Paxton and Gohmert.)  Paxton would make the runoff easily -- polling suggests without a runoff -- if it weren't for Gohmert now in.  Bush's chances improve as a runoff entrant.  So if I'm laying odds today, about 90 days from the spring election date, I'm favoring K-Pax and Baby Bush as the top two.  But a lot is going to happen between now and then, not the least of which is the possibility that Tejano Republicans carry more clout than anybody has been able to measure so far.


Yes, Beto needs their counterparts to save him and the rest of Team Donkey down the ballot.  So the RGV is ground zero for March and November.  I don't think it's going to happen for him, but stranger things have.


Still pisses me off that Ms. Crockett Bigfooted into this primary and has squashed Jessica Mason, the actual progressive.  I don't really see the suddenly-presumptive nominee as anything more than another all-talk no-action Squad member.  In similar fashion, Donna Imam beat Julie Oliver to the punch, jumping in to face Lloyd Doggett in the TX-37 primary.


Moving on to the criminal and social justice links.


Even as Abbott has again mobilized Texas Guard troops to the southern border, polls show support for his immigration moves ticking upwards.


There's your cray-cray read of the day.  I'm heading on to the climate news.


The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung reports that opponents to a new quarry to be dug over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone are fighting the company, Vulcan Construction Materials, in court and in the community.


Closing today with some holiday lights and music options.

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