Thursday, December 31, 2020

We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet Toons

Just not quite yet.

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Monday, December 28, 2020

The Far Left Texas Wrangle


Ambling toward the end of a year that no one will look back upon with any fondness, I collected a few listicles to sort through; they appear close to the end of this post.  First let's catch up on the last election of 2020, and a vacant seat in the Texas state Senate that gets filled by a slightly less rabid Republican than the other one.


No Texan even moderately progressive gave one solid shit about this outcome, but had Luther prevailed, Greg Abbott would have been bloodied heading into his re-election campaign.  That might have energized Allen West and the rest of what comprises the "More Freak Right than You" caucus, and losing does nothing to soothe the savage beasts.  They will primary him regardless, and depending on how the various Lege skirmishes go, may feel stronger and more squirreley than ever in six months.  We'll be watching.

The Cornyn family brisket became a trending topic for a few days.


While John created the diversion, Ted secured a few million dollars in CARES Act funds for his friends, the Wilks brothers.


Cornyn indicated that Abbott went to DC last week and asked Trump for more time to spend the remaining $2 billion left in the pandemic relief fund, saying without the slightest hint of irony that Texas would do so "hopefully in a more effective and reasonable way”.

It is to laugh.  Not to be outdone, Ken Paxton tried to make sure nobody knew that the reason he asked the Trump administration to claw back Harris County's federal COVID-19 relief funding was because he was afraid they might use the money to expand access to voting.


By contrast, all Dan Patrick managed in the week before Christmas was to ignore his peer in Pennsylvania, who wants him to pay off his $1 million promise about election fraud.  And outgoing statehouse Speaker Dennis Bonnen caps the worst year of his life (it's a long line, dude, and you're at the very end of it) by contracting COVID.

Criminal and social justice headlines:

In the latest hypocritical effort by the governor to shrink the size of state government, Abbott wants to take over the Austin Police Department and give it to the TXDPS.  D Magazine says that the new Dallas police chief, Eddie Garcia, is not humbled.  Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast blogged that limiting police pursuits would save lives ... but cops enjoy them too much for that to happen.  The outgoing El Paso DA, Jaime Esparza, wants to be the next federal prosecutor for the Western District of Texas.  A North Texas man who filmed his son's arrest -- for making a "wide right turn" -- by the Keller PD was beaten, maced, and arrested himself.


And Trump pardoned former Cong. Steve Stockman.


The Texas eviction moratorium was extended by the SCOTX.


For some reason this has not halted evictions in Harris County.



The moratorium appears to be working much better in Austin, however.


And as promised at the top ... some lists.

Latino Decisions: TX-10, TX-21, and TX-24 are among 15 Congressional districts that an engaged and enthused Latin@ electorate should decide in 2022.

HPM's Town Square podcast reviews the year in racial and social justice, with emphasis on BLM, George Floyd, John Lewis, and Kamala Harris.

Environment Texas posts the top ten wins for the state's climate for the year.


Texas Monthly's top ten favorite books about the Great State are here.

And ending today with these.


Tom Hanks plays a Confederate Civil War veteran from San Antonio in the film News of the World, released on Christmas Day.



And there once was a Texas governor who claimed election fraud and refused to leave office. It happened 147 years ago (and no, it wasn't Ma Ferguson).

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Sunday, December 27, 2020

Sunday "Terrorist-in-Chief" Funnies


Mike Peterson at the Daily Cartoonist has updated this list of cartoons, cartoonists and their Patreon and other support pages. You don’t have to support them all, of course, but if you enjoy my weekly aggregation, please choose your favorite artists and back them up!
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Friday, December 25, 2020

Hard Candy Christmas


Twenty twenty was the year I became a fan of Comrade Dolly.



I'll be fine and dandy
Lord, it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
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Thursday, December 24, 2020

Holly Jolly Toons




Back with another Lone Star Round-Up and the regularly scheduled Sunday Funnies this weekend. If you need a last-minute stocking stuffer, Mike Peterson at the Daily Cartoonist has updated this list of cartoons, cartoonists and their Patreon and other support pages. A great gift is a subscription to one of your (and their) favorite artists!
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Monday, December 21, 2020

Weekly Far LefTX Wrangle



Ross Ramsey, TexTrib:

The Texas economy was one of the early victims of the coronavirus, as precautions like social distancing and staying close to home made it nearly impossible for many businesses to thrive. And in the interest of public health, a markets-oriented governor found himself stuck between fighting the spread of the coronavirus and keeping Texas businesses open to customers.

As the economy faltered, so did the underpinnings of the Texas state budget that depends on taxes and fees those businesses generate. The Legislature will return on the second Tuesday of January to figure out how to keep providing the services Texans want during a recession.

Ramsey links to several of his columns there. Every Texan (previously named the Center for Public Policy Priorities, Austin's liberal think tank) has posted its top five intiatives for the 87th Session.

  1. Use the Economic Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund), an estimated $9 billion in resources, as it was intended to avoid cuts to education, health care and other services essential to the livelihood of Texans in times like these.
  2. Accept Medicaid expansion for 2.2 million uninsured Texans, removing barriers to children’s coverage, food security and unemployment benefits.


  3. Do not reauthorize the massive school property tax giveaway program, Chapter 313, that gives corporations unnecessary tax breaks. Use that revenue instead for public schools, health care and higher education.
  4. Reform unemployment insurance to make sure benefits are adequate and that the insurance system does not put unnecessary hurdles in Texans’ way.
  5. Expand affordable access to college by protecting and increasing investment in need-based financial aid programs.

The Lege has a hard road and difficult choices looming, and matters won't be eased by some of the worst Republicans (yes, we're all looking at you, Mayes Middleton) in the entire country.


Not just the electeds but those who elected them.


Writing for the Houston Press, Jef Rouner talks to Dr. Peter Hotez about the coming anti-vaxxer backlash. Bud Kennedy for the FWST covers the GOP evangelical beat: they believe keeping Trump in the White House is a mission from God. (Cue up the Blues Brothers.) And Progrexas sees newly-elected GOP Rep. Beth Van Duyne as the anti-Squad leader.

You may ask yourself: "PDid, why is it that Texas Democrats cannot beat the worst Republicans in the nation?" That's a good question. Trust me: after 25 years of getting their asses kicked (pun intended), they still don't know why, either.


I'll have the post-mortem from the usual suspects on the SD30 special election result later in the week. Here's my environmental collation.


This has been a goal of Downwinders at Risk for many years now, amd it's good to see it finally come to fruition. Coastal News Today republished the Chron op-ed written by Ken Adler and Elena Craft about the Port of Houston's self-defeating efforts to become an environmental advocate (dredging the Ship Channel in the manner they plan is crap).

The port is sponsoring a nearly $1 billion project to dredge the Ship Channel to make it easier and safer to navigate. But the project plans to use old, cheap dredges that will burn even more dirty diesel, dumping thousands of tons of extra toxic pollution on these families. How much pollution? It’s comparable to adding another refinery or power plant in their neighborhood — except that would have at least required an impact review and the best available pollution control technologies.

No one’s controlling this pollution. Tasked with protecting Texas’ air quality, the state environmental agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, approved the port-sponsored project. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, acting as the contractor, is weeks away from doing the same.

DeSmogBlog's Dana Drugman wrote about San Antonio's public utility company, CPS Energy, paying $250,000 a year for memberships in fossil fuel advocate organizations like the American Gas Association. And the Texas Signal published an op-ed by Madeleine Pelzel and Noah Hardaway of the Houston Democratic Socialists of America, and Marco Garcia of Sunrise Movement Houston, excoriating Cong. Lizzie Fletcher for sucking up to Big Oil during her first term.



With the criminal and social justice updates:

Dallas Police Chief candidates all put emphasis on community policing in their online public forum last week. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that Alfred D. Brown must be compensated by the state after he spent nearly ten years on death row for a crime he did not commit. And HPOU head Joe Gamaldi suddenly resigned his position as head of the HPD union (go there for the background).

Let's close today with a few items to get in the holiday spirit.




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