Sunday, October 24, 2021

Sunday Spooky Funnies

Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Sine Died, Autopsied Wrangle


The executive summary, in case you've been taking some time off from the creepshow that the Texas Lege has been for the past ten months.


Lt. Dan has decided he wants a fourth special, but Governor Fish Lips says "not now, asshole".  Maybe later.  We have a few wieners and loosers ranked.


And sightless gerrymandering being the hottest topic ...


It wouldn't be the silly boundary season without some litigation.


Attention finally turns to 2022.


Kuffner has all the Donkey shuffling covered, and TXElects -- and his Tweet feed of the usual suspects, appearing to the right on his blog's landing page -- covers the Pachyderm dances.  I'll wait until after the filing deadline in December to muse about primary challenges.  I will say that I like the idea of Julie Oliver taking on Lloyd Doggett, whose reputation far exceeds his current value.

I'm looking forward to blogging on the regular about some things besides our state lawmaker goons, so praise the Lawd for small blessings.  First: some housing news, broken out from the criminal and social justice headlines.


Here's Kuff's catchup.  I note he still hasn't mentioned anything about it.

The Harris County District Attorney confirms a "pending criminal investigation" connected to Houston City Hall. In a letter obtained by 13 Investigates, the DA denies access to documents related to the probe, because in their words, "this investigation has yet to be resolved" and is "in the course of preparing for criminal litigation."

13 Investigates requested documents from the city weeks ago when the City of Houston's now-former Housing Director shocked City Hall with allegations of a "charade of a competitive process" to award millions in housing subsidies. According to sources and documents at that point, the DA was asking about specific payments made to specific individuals starting in 2018.


It's not all bad news.


Here's more criminal and social justice and injustice news from around the state.




And here are a few items specific to the border region of Texas.


I'm starting to wake up to the fact that Republican Latino/as in the RGV (and elsewhere) don't consider themselves Hispanic.  They call themselves Tejanos; they praise themselves for their good fortune based on hard work and Jeebus and not on luck or cronyism, just like whites; and they hate immigrants, 'gobermint handouts', and worship the flag and the military.  Sounds like any other MAGAt to me.


A few environmental updates.


And the soothers.

The South Texas Music Festival is this Saturday, October 23, in San Benito.

T'is the spooky season, so get out there and get scared of something beside the Texas GOP.

Posted by at No comments:

Monday, October 18, 2021

The Monday Wrangle from Far Left Texas


“Shortly before Texas' new abortion law went into effect, the SAFE Alliance, a nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual abuse, was counseling a 12-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her father.”

Any minute now, Governor Strangelove is going to eliminate all rape in Texas.  He told us so.  And he always speaks the truth.


After taking a General Strike break at the end of last week, I have more than enough for a very long post.  I'd rather not subject either you or me to that, so let's just hit the highlights.  Or lowlights and lowlifes, if you prefer.


Yes.  Well, Texas Democrats in the Lege could have honored the general strike, or perhaps thrown some other wrench in the gears, but I feel certain they did not have the stomach for a fourth special session.  They all -- mostly -- want you to re-elect them next year anyway.  To keep fighting.  Something.

My personal general strike extends to voting in this current election.  I see no point in weighing in on constitutional amendments.  Similarly, I won't be voting n next spring's Democratic primary.  They can choose who they like and I'll choose whether to vote for any of them in the fall.

There is -- as I have come to understand -- a messsage being sent to government's leaders in not voting.  And that message ranges from "FU" to "IDGAF".

I'll move on while I still have the will, or the interest, to provide these news updates.  Documenting the atrocities is hard.

Environmental developments:


The Axios Dallas newsletter (subscribe here) says that illegal emissions were lower across the state in 2020.  But...

... but North Texas saw an increase in unauthorized pollutants, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project and Environment Texas.

Why it matters: 2020's pollutant decline was mostly due to pandemic shutdowns of manufacturing and oil and gas production and not due to increased enforcement of environmental protections, the report says.

The Dallas Observer's Jacob Vaughn writes about a west Dallas neighborhood's concerns about yet another concrete plant's pollution.  HPM says that Galveston Bay researchers are literally fishing for data on chemical runoff.  And the Statesman's op-ed board says that the EPA must save Texas from itself.  In more newspaper news, D Magazine says that the DMN should retire its editorial board, and El Paso Matters reports that the El Paso News is now printing the paper in Cuidad Juarez.

A few too many criminal and social injustice updates.


One spot of good news here.


And a few calm-me-downs.

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Sunday "Democracy's Boundaries" Funnies

Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, October 16, 2021

The Weekend Wrangle from Far Left Texas


A very antiseptic take on the end of the week's election-related Lege actions from TXElects.

The House passed Senate Bill 4, the Senate’s redistricting plan for itself, without adopting any amendments.

Both plans head to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk in plenty of time to keep the filing period and primary elections on schedule.

The House will take up Senate Bill 6, the congressional redistricting plan, (today).

Early voting begins Monday for the November 2 constitutional, general and special elections.

Let's go elsewhere for some analysis.


As mentioned, Congress maps later today.


Redistricitng/gerrymandering wasn't the only debacle.


There was too much ugliness in the deliberations (sic) on this bill to be repeated here.


The repercussions of previously-passed bad laws are quickly being felt.


“What is the other side of the Holocaust?” he asked rhetorically. “Are you going to assign fourth graders Mein Kampf? Are you going to make them listen to Seb Gorka’s radio show? I just don’t know what she actually had in mind. But again, this is exactly what you get when you have politicians playing culture war and then trying to ram that into badly thought out draconian legislation.”

He added, “Republicans in Texas have been conservative for a long time, but there was a time when conservative Republicans in Texas were not absolutely batshit crazy.”


Moving on to criminal and social injustice news.


And there will be some justice.


A few climate items.


And some updates to news that haven't been made here recently.


One snarky bit: "Brain Flakes". They need to be eating more of those in rural Texas, but Mr. Hart needs to be paying his people more to move those boxes.


And a soother.

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