Monday, March 15, 2021

The Far Left (Bracketville, Texas) Wrangle *updates

First we have to play word games with Greg Abbott and his Lege capos.



They talked specifically about SB7.  Here's more about the press conference this morning, the hastily-arranged protest, and the legislation.


Just another of his Grand Diversions, one that caters to the "Stop the Steal" Caucus in the TXGOP, which he'll need next year to fend off a challenge from Sid Miller ... or Dan Patrick.


After the freeze, Patrick said the head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas should go, along with Abbott’s three appointees at the PUC. All but (Arthur) D’Andrea are now gone, evidence that the lieutenant governor has taken some control of the situation.

That’s a political move, whether that was his aim or not. Patrick is exerting his powers at the expense of the governor, a member of the same party — albeit of a different wing of the GOP — who has been both an ally and an adversary since the two men were elected to their current posts in 2014.

I had discounted Patrick as a gubernatorial contender as recently as last Friday.  But you just can't blow off Dan shoveling sand underneath Greg's wheels.  I still think Patrick knows he really does have the best job in Austin, bar none, and also wouldn't mind having some greenhorn like Miller or Allen West in the Governor's Mansion to groom as opposed to the wily and wealthy Abbott.

Yes, it's that bad here in Deep-In-The Hearta.  Somebody like that could win.  I'll have more on Abbott's presser this afternoon.  Update:


Texas is either at the top of the wave or the bottom of the trough as it relates to COVID:


Where we go from here -- down or back up -- will be determined by our collective personal actions, and not by anything the state government says or does.


And Houstonia Magazine looked back on the year in COVID.

I have a ton of criminal justice news.  Here's just a smattering; more tomorrow.


Absolutely spot on by Barajas here.  When Acevedo came to Houston from Austin, he carried the heavy baggage associated with how three APD undercover detectives infiltrated the capital city's OWS protesters, who in late 2011 staged a protest at the Port of Houston and were arrested for 'felony possession of a criminal instrument', which were "dragon sleeves" that the cops made for them.  That's called entrapment.  Acevedo is fairly masterful at gaslighting; he marched with BLM protesters this past year in downtown H-Town, then disappeared just as his SWAT team moved in.  Art Acevedo is a bad cop pulling off a long con as a good cop.  He's been doing it for at least a decade.  I sure hope he doesn't run for political office in Florida as a Republican.  He'll be swept in.

It's no wonder, though, that he's getting out just as Sly Turner is winding down his time as mayor.  Acevedo and Turner are two bedbugs in a rug when it comes to law and order.


Keeps the Abbott/Adler heat off Turner, I suppose.


Tribune of the People also covered this story.  And Grits for Breakfast mentions "bootlicking public officials as a barrier to police reform".  Whooda thunk? 

I have still more 'cops behaving badly' for tomorrow; for now we'll move along to the humanitarian crisis at the southern border.


El Paso Matters reports that an ICE facility there has frequently violated rules for handling sick detainees, according to legal activists.  All of these wretched things have motivated some Congressional Democrats to demand the Biden administration make some changes, but so far there's only been a few milquetoast words from Homeland Security Dirctor Mayorkas.  I wonder if this calamity will eventually put a dent in Biden's popularity ratings.

I'll hold other Lege news for later.  Here's the environmental update.


CNBC says that the flaring message is getting through.

For many oil producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the shutdown put upstream and downstream operations in a squeeze. Downstream, multiple refining operations flared during shutdowns, releasing air pollutants from processing units. Upstream, as oil drilling came back online, there was risk of needing to flare or halt oil production in the field until the broader energy market, including refining and utility generation, stabilized. Indeed, satellite imagery showed increased flaring at oil and gas production sites in the Permian Basin did take place, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

But at Occidental, a choice was made to shut down some operations.

“There were a couple of plants that had difficulty coming back online,” Occidental’s CEO Vicki Hollub said during a recent CNBC Evolve event focused on energy innovation. “We could have put our production back online and just flared the gas. We chose not to do that. We left the production shut down because we didn’t want to flare.”

And the Texas Living Waters Project warned that the state's aging water infrastructure is another vulnerability highlighted by Winter Storm Uri.


I got some hoops.

There was a time when men's college basketball in the Lone Star State wasn't such a big deal.  But that was before Guy V. Lewis and Billy Tubbs and Pat Foster (and a few others, like Don Haskins).  Nowadays it's all about Kelvin Sampson and Shaka Smart and Scott Drew and Chris Beard (and a few others).


This is the week, the best time of the year, to take the afternoon off and day-drink, eat crawfish (or Irish stew), watch the March Madness or spring training baseball.  I plan on doing some of all of that.

Just make sure you observe the holiday properly.



And to close out:


More tomorrow, hopefully not this long.

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Sunday, March 14, 2021

Sunday Extra Large Spring Forward Funnies

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Friday, March 12, 2021

Friday Round-Up from Far Left Texas

In this collation of the best of the left of Texas from the past week, I bring the latest on our electeds Tweeting badly and behaving worse; another 'Dazed and Confused' strip tease, and the usual social justice and legislative session updates along with some items that make light of these trying times.

Greg Abbott is simply unable to roll himself fast enough to escape all of the problems he's created.



He saw an opening to take a shot at Allen West, though, and took it.  Texas Republicans are probably not tracking his hypocrisy.


Yes, this is the same governor who told Harvey contractors to desist from supporting BDS or he wouldn't grant them FEMA relief funds.  So Abbott's gambit is not about free speech and it certainly isn't about the frequently-abused definition of anti-Semitism.  But Jewish Republicans came together a couple of nights ago to celebrate anyway.


Besides West and Luther, there's a few other people not named Matthew McConaughey lining up to take a shot at Gov. Wheels, and Jeremy Wallace has the too-early and too-speculative dance card.


Of these, only Sid Miller -- who was referenced in Monday's Wrangle -- would be deemed a legitimate contender against the incumbent, who is sporting high grades for his handling of the pandemic (!!).


With respect to Rust Coyle Mark Hanna Ron Woodroof Wooderson:


I do not think he would run in the GOP primary, even though that is clearly his affiliation.


Not only have we seen this movie before, it's just as tired the second time.


I'd like to move on to more serious matters.


By way of his stooge Ken Paxton, Abbott is suing the city of Austin and the county of Travis for not kneeling to him regarding his undoing of the statewide mask requirement.  This was Mayor Steve Adler's response.


Lite Guv -- or Little Guv, as Scott Braddock prefers -- Dan Patrick was feeling left out of the limelight, so he showed his ass a few times.


Ted Cruz is offering a 'Cancel Culture' collectible.


And just this morning, John Cornyn stepped in his own shit again.


Three for three for Big John.  One more from Little Dan, which bridges us to immigration news.


Mayorkas' boss is catching hell for what's happening with the children at the border.  I'll wait for a less-inflamed update to post on his visit, probably Monday.  Going on to other social justice/injustice developments ...


Let's take that off-ramp to additional Lege business, starting with some positive developments.


Talarico's bill will put pressure on some Republicans who'd rather quietly vote against it.  Talarico looks like a rising star in Austin for the Dems.  Bryan Slaton, by contrast, looks like a chud.


That's not very "pro-life" of him.  Slaton had the gall to introduce this bill two days after International Womens Day.


I'll save the criminal justice and COVID news for next Monday, as this Round-Up's corrals are full.  Here's a few of the lighter-side pieces to close.

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Monday, March 08, 2021

The Far Left "Texas is Messed Up" Wrangle



Kuff focused on the maskless mandate and the widespread negative reactions to it.  John Coby at Bay Area Houston is mad about the damage Republican political leaders have done to our reputation (?!).  Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher vents her spleen at Greg Abbott.

Could the worst be yet to come?


Let's take that as our segue to the coronavirus.


Isobella Harkrider for Reform Austin documents the COVID variants now in the state. Alison Medley at the HouChron spoke to Memorial Hermann Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Linda Yancey about the pros and cons of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and the effectiveness of all the shots compared to each other, and to the variants.

"When you compare efficacy data, Pfizer ranks at the highest with 95 percent effectiveness in preventing COVID-19, compared to Moderna at 94 percent.  The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was found to be 66 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19, and  85 percent effective if disease is critical.  The concern has been whether the current vaccines will hold effectiveness against new COVID-19 variants, including the UK, New York, California, South Africa and Brazil variants.

"This vaccine is still effective against all these variants, as well as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines," Dr. Yancey reassured. "If we can get people vaccinated as quickly as we can, the virus will stop spreading."

Let's shift to the Lege, which gavels back in this week with more on their plates than ever.  Still desperate to change the subject, Abbott is diving into the culture wars.


Former RRC candidate Chrysta Castaneda opines in the DMN that the Railroad Commission and the PUC should be folded into a new energy commission (and those commissioners should be elected instead of appointed).  Socratic Gadfly looked at the Census delay and wondered if that will make redistricting even harder and more of a fistfight in a Lege special session, including the possibility of internecine Republican fights as well as R-D battles.  And Charles Miller for Texas 2036 appraises the new federal Medicaid proposal, which could mean $3 billion more for Texas.

Next, in criminal and social justice updates ...


And in political and election headlines:


Nearly two dozen candidates filed for the special election to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright (R-Arlington) in a district that has become increasingly competitive in general elections over the past decade. President Trump carried the district by 3 points over Joe Biden in 2020, and the average Republican won the district by just over 6 points. Trump won the district by 9 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Mitt Romney carried it over President Obama by 17 points in 2012.

This is not a general election, and turnout is expected to fall well short of the 69% of registered voters who came to the polls in November. The 2018 special election for CD27, which was held in June, drew 15% of the number of voters as in the 2016 general election. A similar result for CD6 would result in around 55K votes cast. All candidates run on the same ballot regardless of party, and the top two candidates advance to a runoff, regardless of party, if no one secures a majority vote. Given the number of Republicans (11) and Democrats (10) in the race, a runoff is almost certain. The question is, what will be the partisan makeup of the runoff?

The last time a field this size ran in a special election was 1993, when 24 candidates filed to win the unexpired term of former U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D). There were 10 Republicans, five Democrats including the appointed incumbent, one Libertarian, six independents and two other minor party candidates. The Republicans collectively received 58.2% of the vote to the Democrats’ collective 40.5%, and the minor party and independent candidates combined for 1.3%. Eighteen of the candidates each received less than 1% of the vote, 16 of which received less than 0.5%. That left three Republicans and three Democrats with more than 1% of the vote.

Comparing a statewide race from 27+ years ago to a north Texas Congressional special election is IMHO a failure of analysis (which TXElects rarely makes).  Special elections are about ground game, and the Democrats failed there in 2020, by their own declaration.  I expect them to do so again in this contest, despite having 60 days to gear up for it.  Too bad they can't blame the Green Party.

It appears that Ag Commissioner Sid Miller is preparing to challenge Greg Abbott for the Republican nomination for governor, from his right.


And some environmental updates.


Last month Environment Texas released bold environmental agendas for Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.  In recent years these three cities have demonstrated their environmental stewardship, but now EnTx is challenging them to improve their clean energy initiatives, bolster clean air and water protections, and put wildlife over waste by banning the worst single-use plastics.

Texas wildlife indeed suffered mightily during the freeze, and will keep bearing the brunt of the Lone Star State's refusal to move away from fossil fuels to cleaner, sustainable energy sources.

Speaking of wildlife ...


Stopping here; more later this week.
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