Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Lone Star Round-up catches COVID

TPA's second Wrangle this week lassos the coronavirus (news, finally).

Update: Devastating.



But first, a digression; The free-range political implication-chickens have come home to roost for the South's "Puttin' Bidness First and Lives Second" governors, of which ours isn't even the worst.


Abbott is managing his balancing act, even as the Allen West/Dan Patrick posse ride tall in the saddle and sight him in for '22.  His still-rich friends in the Trump Disillusionment Caucus have built him a big beautiful wall made of cold, hard cash to keep the barbarians outside the gate.

The same cannot be said for 2020 downballot Texas Republicans.


Fun!

Not so for all of those suffering mightily from the TXGOP's fuckups.


I simply cannot muster the same amount of sympathy for the state's fossil fuel industry as can Justin Miller at the Texas Observer.  YMMV.


Yeah, yeah bankruptcies houston economy blah blah state budget shortfall blah blah cuts to essential services blah blah especially for poorest Texans blah.

Almost nine billion in the Rainy Day Fund (double the estimated shortfall).  Ten billion annually for Medicaid expansion waiting to be claimed.  A Lege that won't legalize (and thus tax) weed or casino gambling, for openers.  It ain't the state's money people want to cry about; it's theirs.  At core, they simply cannot accept change.

Texas families, children, their mental health, and their right to live in their communities without being poisoned are always going to be more important to me than some roughneck or landman or corrosion engineer's livelihood.

And it seems there are many others besides me who notice and are pointing out the glaring and disparate inequalities.

 
I got plenty more -- environmental updates and other election developments -- but I'll wrap today's Wrangle with the lighter side.

The San Antone Current reports on the plight of the Kerrville Folk Festival, which is soliciting donations to stay afloat after canceling its 2020 event.

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Monday, July 27, 2020

The TexProgBlog Wrangle: Fascism Rising

The round-up of blog posts and Tweets and links to news from the best of the left of, about, and around Deep-In-The-Hearta begins today with reports of Trump's fascist supporters surging in Austin, Tyler, and Weatherford over the weekend.


Shell Seas, blogging at Living Blue in Texas, has more.

In northeast Texas the Democratic challenger to Louie Gohmert tried to hold a rally to protest Louie's latest effort to cancel the Democratic Party.  Hank Gilbert was shouted down by Republicans who scared off most of his supporters, then fought with the few who remained.


Gilbert's Twitter feed has three links to East Texas media accounts of the skirmish, all with video.

And from the state capital, Saturday night:


I'll save the political and corona-related posts for a later Wrangle (most of the pandemic-related ones I've been holding are too dated to use anyway; last week's news ages pretty fast these days).  Here I'll keep going with the theme of lives lost and threatened due to the spread of corporatism, militarism, and fascism in our still-beloved Texas.


And last:


Much more Wrangled -- and to be posted -- shortly.
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Saturday, July 25, 2020

Sunday 'Cognitively Fascist' Funnies

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Thursday, July 23, 2020

White House Update: Leave Kanye Alone

-- He really needs to spend more time in his basement.

Kim Kardashian West has shared a message about her husband Kanye West and mental health.

In an Instagram Stories post on Wednesday, Kardashian West acknowledged that West has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and said it's "incredibly complicated and painful" for many to understand.

It's not easy to have empathy for a man who has been given every single material thing life could possibly offer ... who also seems to be trying very hard to throw it all away.  So we'll hope everything turns out okay for him, he gets the help he needs, takes his meds, and never hear any more about his presidential aspirations ever again.

-- I'd very much like to say the same of Joe Biden.  But part of his strategy, as we know, is to stay quiet and out of sight, and for reasons so painfully obvious by now you can almost predict them.



This is one of those off-the-cuff gaffes Biden is renowned for.  His staff -- in this case, the obnoxious Symone Sanders -- nearly always gets to clean up his mess.  Bless their shitty, dark little hearts; they can't stop him.  They've kept him from wandering off camera, (now you know why he's always sitting down) but they can't do anything about him wandering off script, and that's on his good days, when the Aricept is working.

-- Still, 'Muricans trust Old Joe's cognition more than do Trump's, and with damn good reason.


And this is the man with the nuclear codes.


Yeah, he's leaving.  Like it or not, wants to or not.  It's just a crine-ass shame Biden will be the one replacing him, for however long that happens to be.  Yes, we're all on tenterhooks for another week or so.  Still no promises as to whether a woman of color is the choice, either.

“I am not committed to naming any but the people I have named, and among them are four Black women. So that decision is underway right now. And by the way, Black women have supported me my entire career. You all act like all of the sudden there was an epiphany in South Carolina.”

[...]

“We have gone through about four candidates so far in the two-hour vetting, and we will get all the vetting done of all the candidates, and then I am going to narrow the list, and then I will have personal discussions with each of the candidates who are left,” Biden said.

He has indicated that he expects to name a running mate around Aug. 1, which is next week.


Getting a little bored of this game, personally.  I just don't think it's him making the final call.

-- So while I have Tweeted more than enough this week about Trump's fascism in Portland, it's creeping into other cities now.  This will be the worst, most dangerous legacy of this president.


It's not, naturally, the only destabilization effort Trump is making.  I have zero doubt he would like to get an actual war started in order to declare himself an actual wartime president ...


... especially since he's gotten bored with the coronavirus wars that he and the Republican governors have so abjectly lost.

Update: The convention celebration he moved from Charlotte to Jacksonville, FL because North Carolina was restricting indoor gatherings?  Yeah, he had to cancel that because Florida is aflame with the 'rona.  Or maybe because of this.

-- All this cheery news might make a person feel that it would be really important to vote for Biden as the only realistic option to eject Trump from the White House. 

That would be a hard NO from me.


Whole lotta BS lately about how great Biden's climate plan is.


Congratulations to Jef Rouner; he's the the first "Daily Jackass" of 2020.  It's almost like a record skipping on Joe Biden's turntable.


-- I should wrap this up with some thoughts about John Kasich speaking at the convention.


Not the Unity Strategy I can get on board with.


-- Are we all in agreement, finally, that Russiagate was bullshit?


-- Rest in peace, Michael Brooks.

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