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.
