Sunday, January 17, 2021

Sunday 'Capitol Punishment' Funnies

Please read this essay by Jack Reilly about the slow demise of political cartooning. And support the craft if you can.
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Thursday Lone Star Leftist Round-Up




Not as small a Round-up as I wished, given that the topic of shithole state insurrectionists is ... worn thin with me.


Ted Coupz, briefly.


Trump in South Texas. As updated in the Monday Wrangle ...


Meanwhile back in DC:


And at the Lege ...


Outside the Texas Capitol, members of a group called the Southern Patriot Council said they believe Joe Biden's election as president was illegal. One member, who would only identify himself to Texas Public Radio as "General E" predicted states would pass laws to stop protests like theirs.

"You won't be able to assemble anymore," he said. "So the bottom line is, assemble now while you can, because they are attempting to make it illegal for us to do that."


Houstonians didn't want to be left out.


I'm throwing James Harden under this bus also. So is Judge Hidalgo and his former Rockets teammates. That's no way to open a restaurant, Mr. Beard.


Criminal and social justice news, first from (the real) Alamo City.


The San Antonio Current finds numerous "alternative facts" on the Texas police union's anti-reform website. KXAN reports on a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the City of Austin regarding a teenager’s suicide in the back of an APD patrol car. Grits for Breakfast rounds up more like these stories from a week ago and today. It's almost like a virus that's out of control.

A couple of environmental updates.

Four of the state's environmental groups -- the Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club, Environment Texas, and the Port Arthur Community Action Network -- sued the EPA last week, alleging that the agency stood by while Texas failed to enforce the nation’s federal environmental laws and adequately control air pollution in the state. DeSmogBlog reports, with the assistance of some of Texas' foremost environmental activists: Sharon Wilson, Bryan Parras, and Hilton Kelley.

Texas Standard brings the news that an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that a gas leak from a pipeline damaged during replacement work performed over 20 years ago likely caused an explosion that killed a 12 year-old girl in Northwest Dallas in 2018.

Finally, we'll roll into the weekend with Comrade Fidel's Bayou City barbecue tasting event, over 60 years ago.

Posted by at No comments:

Monday, January 11, 2021

The Far Left Texas Wrangle *updates




I am going to make an effort to keep the focus forward, as the Lege gavels in tomorrow and the Traitor-in-Chief visits South Texas to celebrate something.


Something tells me our junior senator will be greeting him.  Update:


(Original:)


More about last week's sedition in an extended version of "Texans Behaving Badly", downpost.  Returning to the Lege, one seat needs to be filled in the first election of 2021; TXElects.

HD68 special: Early voting begins (Monday) for the January 23 special election to fill the unexpired House term of Sen. Drew Springer (R-Muenster). Five candidates are on the ballot:
  • John Berry (R), Jacksboro financial planner and former Jack County Commissioner
  • Jason Brinkley (R), Gainesville attorney and Cooke County Judge
  • Craig Carter (R), Nocona boot manufacturer who has twice unsuccessfully run for SD30
  • Charles Gregory (D), Childress retired postal employee; and
  • David Spiller (R), Jacksboro attorney and Jacksboro ISD board member.


Later this morning, Comptroller Glenn Hegar will release his estimate of the state's revenue for the next two years.  Raise Your Hand Texas, advocates for public education, runs it down from their "Across the Lawn" newsletter.

The state’s current budget is already facing a $4.6 billion shortfall due to the recession caused by the pandemic and downturn in oil prices. Legislators will likely use a mix of the Rainy Day Fund, which has $8.8 billion on hand, and federal stimulus dollars to fill that hole ... What worries most budget writers, legislative members, and advocates is the estimate may be similar to 2011, when the state faced a $27 billion shortfall and cut $5.4 billion from public education.

Read on at that link about the $900 billion stimulus Congress just passed, the $5.2 billion it contains for Texas schools, and the chances that the state's teachers and children won't see any of that money invested in education because of the games the Lege is likely to play.

Update:


Speaker-to-be Phelan is already pouring cold water on the possibility of casino gambling becoming a tax revenue stream for the state.


Update: The death of GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson -- announced Tuesday morning; he was investing heavily in a lobbying effort for casinos in the Lone Star State -- further clouds the possibility of that legislation being approved.  Let's look at the state's worsening COVID crisis next.


Joe Deshotel for The Texas Signal does not want COVID-19 to be used as an excuse to shut the public out of the legislative process.  And RG Ratcliffe, writing at Texas Monthly, puts the blame for the state's vaccine rollout chaos on Greg Abbott.

So will things get better or worse before they improve?  Magic 8 Ball says, "Ask again later/Better not tell you now/Don't count on it/Outlook not so good".

As much of a selection of "Texans Behaving Badly" as I could tolerate.


Kuff demands swift prosecution and punishment of everyone involved in the violent assault on the Capitol, and points to Cruz and Paxton as the top two priorities for those who value democracy.


Larry R. Brock is from Grapevine, actually.  His 'uniform' had a vinyl sticker of the Texas flag overlaid on the skull of The Punisher, the Marvel comic book character.  His ex-wife recognized him from the photos and turned him in.


Cudd ran for mayor of Midland last year.



Steve Jackson, a Wichita Falls city councilman who attended the January 6 rally at the state Capitol, displays a Trump campaign poster ... with Mike Pence's name cut out.

That's all I can manage.

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, January 10, 2021

"Death to America" Toons



Please read this essay by Jack Reilly about the slow demise of political cartooning. And support the craft if you can.
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, January 07, 2021

RU!N

...I couldn’t help but see it as something more ominous -- a blunt declaration about the state of the country or perhaps a warning or, even worse, a prediction of what’s barreling down on us like a runaway train: RU!N.


I know a bit about ruin. Like most people my age, images of national ruin are burned into my memory: the Challenger rising into a blue sky and then breaking up in an orange ball of fire; Los Angeles burning after the Rodney King verdict; the Twin Towers collapsing and sending a shockwave of smoke, debris and sorrow through Manhattan’s canyons and across the country; and puddles of blood on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in LA, on a balcony in Memphis, on Jackie Kennedy’s dress, on a classroom floor in Newtown, CT, on the sidewalk outside a Manhattan apartment building forty years ago last month. There’s no end, it seems, to the ruin people inflict on people, only brief reprieves between catastrophes. Of course, it can be tough to recall those reprieves when we’re in the midst of a pandemic with no clear end in sight and we’re bombarded with news of the endless litigation that encourages a large part of the population to deny the clear and inevitable result of the election.


But we’re all human, which is what we should remember. Human, first and foremost, and both capable of wondrous kindness and invention and prone to despicable wrongs and violence. We’re also bound to one another by blood and providence as parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, partners and friends. And we devote ourselves daily not just to being but to becoming: teachers and preachers; nurses and artists; plumbers, farmers, fire fighters, and writers. And finally, beyond all that and whether we want to admit it or not, we are Americans. And it’s this part of our identity and the impossibly complicated and contradictory perceptions of what “American” means and includes that has set us against one another, that has put us on the track to this ruin, the scale of which is yet to be determined.


Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)