Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Taco Tuesday, Hold the Roofie Wrangle



Texas suffers under many ailments, but one is not an overabundance of critical thinking.  Big Lies over inconvenient truths rule, man.


This was last Friday's news, which barely makes a ripple among the daily atrocities, it seems.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott dispatched a top aide to the ERCOT operations center on the night the grid operator made the controversial decision to leave electricity prices at maximum levels -- a move blamed for creating a multi-billion dollar mess.

Abbott has squarely placed the blame for the blackout boondoggle on ERCOT, which operates the power grid, and called for its CEO to resign right after the lights started coming back on across Texas on Thursday, Feb. 18. The ERCOT board eventually fired its CEO.

Unmentioned while Abbott was distancing himself from the power outage fiasco and railing against ERCOT on TV: a top energy policy adviser, Ryland Ramos, spent the previous night -- and into early Thursday morning -- at the agency’s operations center in Taylor, outside of Austin. That’s where ERCOT’s high-tech control room, handling the flow of power to most Texans, is located.

Also on hand at the previously undisclosed meeting were Public Utility Commission Chair DeAnn Walker, an Abbott appointee who later resigned under bipartisan pressure, along with representatives of four of the major electric transmission and distribution companies in Texas.

Ramos returned to the operations center Friday morning, February 19 -- right after the price cap was lifted -- and stayed there most of the day, according to ERCOT visitor logs obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

Abbott spokesman Mark Miner said neither the governor nor Ramos “were involved in any way” in the decision to keep prices at the maximum, which contributed to bankruptcies and billions in losses that will reverberate in the Texas economy for years to come. He said Abbott wanted Ramos at the operations center because he felt ERCOT was spewing “disinformation” about the crisis.


Just helping get the power back on.  Keeping those price surges under control.  Looking out for us while we froze, every step of the way.  I'm sure nobody was scream-blaming anybody for anything, regardless of what the Guvnuh was saying publicly and nevermind those heads that tumbled off the chopping block a few days later.

One thing Abbott loves is his money.  He likes to raise it, he likes to control it, he likes to hand it out to his friends and supporters.  What he doesn't like to do is spend it on anything having to do with the public good.  How would that help him at all?


With all the money Abbott has collected over the years, you'd think we -- maybe I should say 'they', since it wasn't my money -- could have gotten a little better government for their investment.  Wonder how Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn and Rich Kinder's heirs and some of those other billionaires are feeling these days about those millions wasted.  Oh well, easy come easy go.  As $60 oil reminds us, at their level money is fungible.  Like people.  Especially poor people, poor sick people, children, old folks, and Brown and Black people.  And women.  Besides, the Texas Freeze really didn't kill that many Texans, comparatively.


As long as none of our freedumbs get sacrificed, it's all good.


I'm far from Ms. Abrams' biggest fan, but when she speaks -- and acts -- on voter suppression, it comes from an unfortunate wealth of experience and knowledge.  Pay attention, Texas.

Or don't, I suppose.  Maybe that's a big part of the problem here.


It's probably time for me to move on to another topic.  More Republicans behaving badly?  There's one we haven't had enough of lately.


I'm trying to care about the TX-6 election.  It's just not registering.  Mostly because there are 23 candidates, and the latest poll shows the wife of the deceased GOP incumbent and the lady Blue Dog with the Spanish surname leading.  That sounds about right to me. *zzzz*

Here I will make space to add some Tweets that emphasize the real absurdity of what we are all going through with the Lege at the moment.


Amber Briggle is the parent of a trans child.


Yes, this one is satire, but I'd rather the first two were as well.

Two environmental updates; not at all greasy or smoky.

I don't understand why ATT and Kroger, two companies I subsidize entirely too much, keep showing up on my shit list.


 But there's good news ...


I'm not through with Lege business yet.  When they're not moving the bad bills as fast as they can, they're stalling the good ones.


Dade Phelan is a Trump/Patrick/Abbott shithole conservative, and I will keep saying it until everybody gets it.  But guess what?  If you're wondering how bad we have it in Texas, just realize there are plenty of influential Texas conservatives who think he's too liberal.


(Not familiar with critical race theory?  It's not the boogeyman.  Tangentially, expect some long and long-winded bloviating on this topic from Gadfly shortly, if he hasn't posted about it already.  You know he's the expert on everything.)

Gerrymandering will be hot, but not until the special session, commencing sometime this summer (or perhaps fall), and it's worth boning up on now.


Fun to look forward to.  I've run long here again so I'll save the rest -- criminal and social justice posts and assorted what-not -- for tomorrow or the next day.  Here's the "calm down" portion.

You a fan of beer and bicycle riding?


ACL posted Denny Freeman's obituary.

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Monday, April 26, 2021

The Monday Wrangle from Far Left Texas

Recent developments among members of the Texas Legislature -- and those who lobby them -- compel me to open this edition of the collation of leftist views from around the Lone Star State with 'Republicans Behaving Badly', and this time it's not about Tweets or even shitty bills.


Meanwhile, one of the heads of the prominent Austin lobbying firm HillCo Partners wrote in a Sunday email to state lawmakers that the group had hired outside legal counsel and “a respected former law enforcement official” to launch an internal investigation into the matter.

“If facts come to light that anyone associated with HillCo partners had any involvement with such conduct, that person will be immediately terminated,” HillCo co-founder Buddy Jones wrote, adding that the firm would also cooperate with the DPS investigation. [...] Later Sunday, Bill Miller, the other HillCo co-founder, told the Tribune that the firm had been “tipped off” that one of its employees "is a person of interest" in the DPS investigation.

HillCo has been the most influential Republican-based lobbying firm for over twenty years.  (Some might take issue with "Republican", so just replace the word with "corporate" if you're 'some'.)  And maybe you're 'today' years old, hearing the names Buddy Jones and Bill Miller as two of the most powerful people in Texas politics.  That's okay; these guys prefer working in the shadows.

Miller is the public face and spokesman for HillCo Partners, and former legislator Neal T. “Buddy” Jones is the lead lobbyist (they co-founded HillCo in 1998). The firm’s clients include the City of Dallas, the public employee pension funds in Dallas and Houston, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Houston Astros, as well as various interests of Koch Industries. At (71) Miller remains a central figure in Texas politics -- so central, in fact, that it’s not easy to narrow down just what he’s up to. He seemingly has a hand in just about everything.

[...]

Texas Monthly once observed of Miller that “nobody knows exactly what he does, but they know he does it very well.” Officially, he’s a lobbyist and consultant, but that doesn’t really cover it. He’s also an adviser, a soothsayer, a pundit, and a sage. Perhaps he’s best described as a fixer: someone who generally makes the lives of public officials easier.

Journalists love Miller because he is politically insightful and gives good quotes. Politicians like him because he gives consummate back-scratching. His most infamous favor came in 2004, when he arranged for then-House Speaker Tom Craddick, a devout Catholic, to have an audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. Before that, Miller employed Rick Perry’s wife, Anita, as a consultant, when the future governor was the agriculture commissioner, and Miller then helped her land a job with political economist Ray Perryman. “I’m happy to do favors. I’m happy to be helpful. That is what I like to do,” Miller once told the Houston Chronicle.

Some of the links embedded above go to stories filed in 2017, but if you think anything's changed since then -- in Austin, at HillCo, at the Lege -- maybe you had better talk to some of the women who've been working there.


Update: Jeramy Kitchen at Texas Scorecard names the accused.


A few years ago my state senator, Borris Miles, was at the center of a sexual harassment scandal under the Pink Dome.  He was by no means the only legislator involved.  Miles gives every indication that he's learned better, and the voters of SD-13 have returned him to the Capitol to serve them.  But the climate, as Rep. Minjarez notes, remains the same.  And I honestly do not know what it will take to change it at this point, short of outlawing bad actors.  I really hope that happens, but Speaker Phelan and Lite Guv Patrick aren't likely to suddenly show up as men who advocate for the needed reforms.  And if the Lege follows through on blocking cities and counties from lobbying them, expect a lawsuit on First Amendment (i.e., Citizens United) precedent.  That would of course be far from the only bills eventually passed that will have to withstand a SCOTUS challenge.

Moving on to Rep. Dan Huberty, also a so-called leader in the Texas House.


We've officially reached that point in the session that when you're a Tex-Pach and Mucus has you in his crosshairs, you know you're in deep shit.

The first Census numbers have been compiled and released; here's a summary of reactions from earlier this afternoon.


This evening's update is late arriving so I'll save everything I have -- election, COVID, social justice, environmental updates, and some of my artistic soothers for tomorrow.  Here's a few scattershots to tide you over until then.

Kuff joined me in deriding that ridiculous Abbott/McConaughey poll, which could have told us something about 2022 but failed to do so.  Socratic Gadfly also echoed my Earth Day post, blogging about the ecosocialist Earth Day to May Day framing by the Green Party of what a real Green New Deal entails.

(No, I don't mind linking to TPA blogs who don't link to me any more.  I've never had a problem linking to blogs or bloggers that I happen to have minor -- or for that matter, major -- disagreements with.  That's for small-minded, petty people.)

Grits for Breakfast reminded that under current Texas law, a police officer has to be fired twice before they can have their law enforcement license revoked.  John Hryhorchuk at Texas 2036 explained what's holding up federal stimulus money for Texas public schools.  And Jef Rouner for Reform Austin gave a legislative marijuana bill update.

Closing today as we began.


Last: a voice from Dallas goes silent.


Lots more coming.
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Sunday, April 25, 2021

Sunday "A Stone of Hope" Funnies

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Friday, April 23, 2021

EOW Wrangle from Far Left Texas

A bit more than a month until Sine Die, and we're ready for this legislative session to be over.


Poor Garnet Coleman got gaslit.  Of course, so did all of the rest of us who thought Medicaid expansion had enough votes to pass.  I'ma go ahead and blame Dade Phelan.  You can't tell me he didn't lean on those turncoats.  In other Lege business, there were some good things that happened.


Sorry, bitches.  You're still the Ridiculous Party.  Sometimes, though, even the Donks can find a way to shit their bed a little faster.


I did a piece for Earth Day yesterday ICYMI, and the only party whose candidates will get my vote in 2022 without reservation.  The Greens are mobilizing from yesterday to May Day for their issues, local candidates this year, and statewides in 2022.



There has never been a greater urgency for their cause.  Please help by volunteering, donating, or just voting for them.


More election news, and then I'll get back to environmental updates.


Don't let the assholes win in Austin, y'all.  Because there's bigger assholes than Greg Abbott that want his job, and I'm not talking about Matthew McConaghey or Sid Miller.


Read this thread from John Arnold, the Enron billionaire and hedge fund operator, about how he sees the long-term financial prospects of fossil fuel companies changing.


Yesterday a new green project kicked off here in H-Town, and it has the support of the oil and gas companies, Rice University, and a few other corporate and national and local big shots.


Maybe this can be a good thing.  The trends are certainly promising


Some of these I'll take with a grain of salt, much as I do Joe Biden's promises, declarations, etc.


Yeah, I just had to get that in there.  Here's some social justice items.


And a couple of COVID updates.


Here's some developments on cannabis in Texas.  Perhaps drafting off the Green Party's "Earth Day to May Day" (above), Willie Nelson has declared this same period "holy".


I doubt that it's a coordinated campaign, but "Go Green" in whatever fashion suits you is a sentiment I can heartily endorse.


And in case that gave you the munchies, I have some links to share on the topic of La comida Mexicana.


I was turned down by eleven banks before I finally got a loan. Every loan officer I talked to told me the same thing: “Oh, we did a restaurant loan back in 1952 and we lost our ass. We’re never doing that again.” Finally the president of one bank did it because he liked me. He liked the ideas and thought it would be good for the bank—they had a lot of minority depositors but hadn’t made any minority loans. So I got an SBA loan for $100,000, plus I had $500 from selling all my musical instruments and equipment from the band I had been in. [...] I found a carpet place selling shag carpet pieces in different colors and we put those in the cantina. When tortilla chips fell on the carpet, we used garden rakes to get them out. Then we took the cardboard tubes from the carpet rolls, cut them in half lengthwise, and painted them to look like weathered Mexican roof tiles. [...] Mariano’s was the most expensive Mexican restaurant in Dallas when it opened. Customers would tell me, “When we go to El Chico or El Fenix, we take the kids and go early. When we go to Mariano’s, we get a babysitter, we have frozen margaritas in the cantina, an elegant dinner in the dining room, and then we go back to the cantina for flaming coffee or after-dinner drinks.” We helped break the image of cheap Mexican food in Dallas.


And some art and literature links to soothe for the weekend.


Here's an excerpt from Goodreads.

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Thursday, April 22, 2021

Earth Day and the Greens



Today's Climate Summit is being well-attended by global leaders and well-received in the corporate media, but like so many of Joe Biden's other initiatives, what he's offering is half a loaf.

And with respect to the climate crisis, we need everything in the bakery.


Platitudes R Them.  It's what Kamala brought to the ticket, it's what got Mayo Pete another job in government, and it's apparently what sustains the sycophants among the Donkey orthodoxy who are breathing easier, sleeping well, and brunching every weekend.  These compromises, like the $1400 stimmys, the still-not-enough $15 minimum wage killed by Joe Mansion and Kristen's Enema, the initiative to expand the Supreme Court that died at Nancy Pelosi's hand last week, and all the other things that would keep this sentence running on to infinity and beyond are leaving me with a very sour taste in my mouth again.

So I really didn't need to hear that Biden hasn't canceled the Enbridge #3 pipeline yet to know that there's a lot he'll give lip service to, but only so much he's willing to do.

Ed Markey and AOC have introduced Bernie Sanders' watered-down Green New Deal once more, to the expected huzzahs and hosannas.  They'll have to fight not only Pelosi and Schumer but MTG and Ted Cruz every step of the way, so it's performative, an art the Queen of Queens (and the Bronx) is burnishing of late.  Their highest hopes are by aiming low, maybe they can slip under the bar, much like old Joe himself.


I'm gonna take a hard pass on all of that.

Twenty twenty-two is the statewide cycle, which means that a whole bunch of Blue Dogs will try to show that they're not as bad as the TXGOP.  And our state media will focus on the Republican primary, because their self-fulfilling prophecy for about 30 years now has been that's the only election that matters.  Meanwhile the Permian farts methane like a small gaseous planet -- from fracking flares to uncapped, abandoned wells; the Amazon burns, our oceans are full of plastic and our air is full of carcinogens.  Does that sound like something we ought to keep doing?

If it is then you must be on the waiting list to buy a ticket on the first Elon Musk rocket flight outta here.  Good luck with that.

The pandemic, and the resulting economic slowdown, demonstrated that reducing our consumption of fossil fuels could heal the Earth.  But we're getting back to business now.  That's a death sentence.  Now a very wise man once said that repeating the same action and expecting a different result is a symptom of insanity.  So now you know why I will be voting for NO Democrats who don't indicate that they understand this simple logic.

In the case of Governor of Texas, the choice is easy.


David Collins interviewed her some time back, and she's got an active and engaged Tweet feed, so direct your questions there if you have any.

Don't expect her to get much publicity.  That's up to you and me, unless you think voting for a conservative Democrat again -- or Dishrag forbid, Matthew McConaghey -- and anticipating that person to defeat Greg Abbott is a smart idea.  (Hint: Abbott isn't going to lose a November election, no matter what that recent poll says.  If he gets upset in his primary, that Republican will win.  Which means Texas will have a farther-right-wing freak than him calling the shots.)

Even Rick Perry got re-elected running against another Republican and Kinky Friedman not so long ago.  And the other Republican, in this case, wasn't Chris Bell.  So you might as well vote for someone with some principles you believe in, as opposed to 'lesser evil', 'harm reduction', etc.  And maybe the Democrats will catch a clue and stop running GOP-Lite.

Maybe that last is too much of a stretch ...?
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Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Happy 420 and DogeCoin Day Round-Up from Far Left Texas

Celebrating your intoxicants and cryptocurrencies -- not to be confused with non-fungible tokens (although I can certainly see how that might happen) -- on this Taco Tuesday.


"Because the Dallas Morning News needs to sell papers and generate clicks for their website" is the answer to Charles' question.


The DMN Opinion writers have me blocked on Twitter because I've excoriated them so many times that their blisters have blisters.  They're the most conservative bunch in the state, but it appears they have finally become as revolted as everybody else at the extremism of the TXGOP.  And we all know the real problem: the TXDonks are unable to offer anything of substance to counter them.  This affirms my premise that the reason Texas has the worst Republicans in the world is because Texas Democrats are completely inept.


And like everyone else in state media -- and most everybody else in the blogosphere -- the DMN is a bunch of blinkered duopolists. (With Earth Day this week, I'm going to suggest the best alternative.  Stay tuned for that.)

There's a paucity of Tex Dems willing to take a shot at somebody next year, and so far they're mostly rich white men: Mike Collier, Joe Jaworski.  Judge Lina Hidalgo (probably) won't be running.  Beto just isn't sure what he wants to do next year, and that's as honest an answer as you'll get from him.  The Castro brothers are stale masa; they've been sitting out too long.  Waiting for the Latin@ vote to show up for Democrats has resulted in south Texas Latin@s turning into Republicans, as they got tired of waiting for the Dems to listen to their concerns.  And all the other secondary solar systems have recently burned out; Wendy Davis, MJ Hegar, Christine Ramirez, etc.


So the Snooze, bored to tears and with a bit of Confederate controversy at the moment, throws out a poll with Alrightx3 against Abbott, never mind polling's accuracy being at an all-time low, never mind messy complications like party affiliation or contrast in Matt Mac's policies (?!) or any other thing that citizens might actually consider when they vote.

And while it is certainly true that the citizenry gives a far smaller shit about policies these days than ever, what the Dallas News is executing here says far more about our democracy -- or our Republic, if you're picking nits -- than anyone would like to admit.

When we started writing our blogs 15 years ago, this parlor game of speculating on who might run in the next election was about the most interesting thing we did.  Today we do the spreadsheets and the investigating and the corporate media does the prognosticating and the simping.

In an effort to retain relevance in a world where they are increasing irrelevant, the stuffed shirts sitting around a conference room table in Big D are almost the last people I want selecting our politicians.  We don't need any W.R. Hearsts or Roger Aileses, Lone Star version.  End of rant.

Greg Abbott's gun buddy Ted Nugent caught COVID-19 (although I'm surprised he didn't catch 14, 15, 16, or 17.)  Matt Angle is being nicer than me.


John Cornyn stepped in his own shit again


Ted Cruz should just delete his account.


Catching up with Lege business: the Biden administration says the state can't use the waiver for Medicaid that the Trump admin gave them, so the choice is to either expand the program under the original (read: Obama) guidelines or do nothing.  Guess which of those Abbott/Patrick/Phelan will very likely choose?


I have to rant again.

It is Dade Phelan who does not want to expand Medicaid.  And it is Dade Phelan who appointed Briscoe Cain to head the committee to shepherd these voter suppression bills through the lower chamber.  Dade Phelan is the guy with the gavel standing by and watching as the House jams through these bills outlawing abortion, legalizing permitless carry, and making trans kids the object of scorn and hate.  And it will be Dade Phelan who will make sure that gerrymandering the Republicans in power for another decade happens.

If there are any Democrats in the Texas House who thought they were going to get a fair shake from this Speaker, wake TF up and start fighting back.  He's as bad as the other two of the Big 3.


Let me update 'cops behaving badly', or in this first case, "Fire chief caught with his pants down".


I'm sure he hopes the Politifact Texas crew doesn't score this 'pants on fire'.

This video below is graphic.  Use your discretion.


I have a lot more on this topic but I'll move on to the social justice headlines after posting Alexandra Samuels, late of the TexTrib, now for 538.


Okay, let me wrap with a few things that will make me -- and hopefully you -- feel calmer.


More local election news, the environmental and COVID updates I left out of here, and some other stuff tomorrow on Friday. Earth Day, and the Greens, on Thursday.
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