Sunday, July 18, 2021

Sunday "If you can't beat 'em ..." Funnies

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Tuesday, July 13, 2021

"Can You Get a Decent Taco in DC?" Tuesday Wrangle


Apparently, although that review is dated.  This Yelp list has been updated this month.  And here's breakfast tacos.  At any rate, some Texans recently arrived from out of town are going to find out.  I'll wait for Rep. Armando Walle's judgment.


Non-scientific polling -- just the kind the GOP likes -- shows Twitter sentiment against the Donks on the Run, but I would imagine they care as much about that as they do critiques of their beer choices.

I do think one Republican got it correct.

...state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the powerful House Calendars Committee ... said in a statement to The Texas Tribune that “unfortunately, the siren call of social media fame and fundraising” had lured Democrats to D.C.

Corporate media appearances all day and night.  Public speaking events before various Democratic, aligned, and sympathetic groups.  Fundraisers galore.  That's already a big win by any partisan establishment scorekeeper.  Why it's even possible that a gubernatorial candidate will emerge from this group (not that the Texas Signal has been pimping that as hard as they can, mind you).

So will this go like 2003, when Texas House Dems fled to Ardmore, OK and waited out the special session called by Rick Perry to redistrict Texas according to Tom DeLay's liking?  Followed by another special session where the Texas Senate Dems runaway-scraped to Albuquerque, NM, only to be betrayed by Judas Whitmire?  I suppose time, and some exit strategy that meets with the budding future Houston mayor's approval, will tell.


Despite the Senate adjourning due to lack of quorum, the Shun and Shame Transgender Children Committee gaveled in and conducted business.


It went about as hideously as you could have predicted.


The cash bail bill ... less ignorant but no less successful.


Your summary, for those short on reading time:


It wasn't all bad for the good guys.


Rinaldi is, to put it mildly, a maniac.  And he does not like Greg Abbott.  So while this may be another Allen West 2.0 situation for the Lone Star Pachys -- sound and fury signifying nothing -- an unsettled, divided, squabbling RPT can't hurt anybody who wants things to get better around here.

Some corroborating evidence showed up in Big D this past weekend.


On a downer, perhaps they'll fall back in line after the primaries next year, like they always have in the past.  A common enemy is a great unifier.

Just don't expect great things from AllRight x3.


I think there's an opening at the top of the Serve America Party ticket, Matthew, if you can convince Bill King to step aside.  Maybe suggest he run for Lite Guv.

Hoo boy, I've had enough of this for one post.  A couple of calm-me-downs, and then fleeing the Lege as fast as possible to other items in the next posts.

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Monday, July 12, 2021

Waiting-to-Testify (*updated with Walkout) Wrangle

The lines were long, the wait lasted the entirety of Saturday and proceeded well into daylight Sunday morning ... and it was all for naught.  As expected.


Bus loads secured by Sen. Borris Miles.

A Texas House committee voted early Sunday morning to advance to the floor a GOP-backed voting bill in the Texas Legislature that includes extensive new voting restrictions, the Texas Tribune reports.

Right along party lines.



That's Sen. Bryan Hughes, far right, looking at the ceiling.  He of the egregious exaggerations.



In defending his controversial voting bill on CNN on Sunday, Texas state Sen. Bryan Hughes claimed half a dozen times that the attorney general's office had 400 open voter fraud cases.

“That's the fact,” Hughes, R-Mineola, said in an interview with CNN host Pamela Brown. “It's documented. There's no question about that.”

Yet that number is almost 10 times larger than the number of people with pending voter fraud charges in Texas, which is 43, according to data from the attorney general’s office. Only one of those pending cases stems from the 2020 election, in which more than 11 million Texans cast ballots.

Sorry, Sen. Hughes; that's not the fact.  There are more than questions about that, especially regarding your -- and Ken Paxton's -- continued insistence that this falsehood is true.


Sen. Royce West took his (graceful) shot.


You'll see and hear (I have to read with closed captions) Sen. West say '43 cases'.  The 44th occurred at the end of last week.


Greg Abbott went on Chris Wallace's Sunday morning program and chose to get, shall we say, exotic with his rationalizations.


Abbott, Paxton, Hughes, et.al. are obviously gaslighting, but Texas Democrats are trying to teach these pigs to sing by offering actual facts, truth and logic to them.  They are not going to be persuaded.  Because if it ain't in the Bible, they don't need to know it.  Exhibit A:


Back to Reality: do you think Abbott and Luis Saenz and the rest of the governor's brain trust sit around and spitball these, or does he just make them up off the French cuff?  Because I'm beginning to wonder who he/they think they're fooling.

On the other hand, I -- and everybody else -- know exactly who he's fooling.


In a survey of 446 Republican primary voters conducted between June 14-17 by Public Opinion Strategies, 77 percent of primary voters said they would vote for the Governor, while 15 percent said they would select another Republican candidate.

[...]

The poll found in a hypothetical primary race, Abbott won 69 percent of the vote, while (former RPT chair Allen) West received 13 percent and (former state Sen. Don) Huffines had 3 percent. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller also received 3 percent, but since the poll was conducted, he has decided against running for governor and will instead run for re-election.

Abbott fares better among those who consider themselves “strong” Republicans, who represent 61 percent of primary voters. He received 75 percent of the vote, while West won 11 percent, and Huffines had 3 percent. Eight percent were undecided.

All of this business, or con job if you prefer (I do) regarding the voter suppression bill is leading in one direction; a path we've been down before.


I don't think they're bluffing, Governor.

Update: And sure enough, they weren't.


Since I've run long here, I'll put the bail bill (hearings and passage out of committee also done over the weekend), summaries of the laundry list of other neo-fascist legislation, a few more election items, the spike in COVID's Delta variant cases, criminal and social justice news -- including the surge of gun-related deaths -- and whatever else I have left in posts later this week.  Also Part 2 of the environmental collation.  Soothers to close.

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Sunday, July 11, 2021

Sunday "Delta is Ready" Funnies

Which brings us to this piece of gaping idiocy, and I’m not in the habit of expressing my disapproval in quite such stark terms, but we are, after all, talking about Ben Garrison, who delights in over-the-top attacks and who has not only failed to read Don Quixote but hasn’t even grasped the concept of “tilting at windmills.”

Which failure, Derf Backderf points out and documents, he has demonstrated over and over, because, if you’re going to act the fool in public, why not repeat your folly?

And Garrison hilariously follows up: "When a Quixotic Analogy is Wrong but Still Right".

Please support the work of (lefty, intelligent) cartoonists here.
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Friday, July 09, 2021

The Environmental Round-Up, Part 1

Long promised, finally delivered.  It's not all about Texas, as most of my blogging this year has been; the state of the planet -- as much as our Great State's contribution to the climate crisis -- is what's been on my mind.

And the news is bad for any of you who may not have been paying attention.  I decided I'd just embed a few Tweets from the past few weeks to convey that, and keep them in some kind of loose chronological order, unless there was a point to be made by skipping a few days forward or back.

If you're like me, you won't be able to read to the end.  That's okay.  It's a lot to absorb.  Come back later when you feel stronger, or bookmark for weekend reading.  Just don't bury your head in the sand, or in your hands.

We're past the point of mourning.


Where should we start playing the blame game?  Sixty-four years ago, as referenced above?  Fifty?


More recently?


We already know ExxonMobil bought these guys off.  Let's maybe fault the actual source of the greed and corruption.


That's it for now.  More bad news, some good news, some local (i.e. the Permian, coastal Texas and even poor, forsaken Lake Charles, La.) coming in Part 2.
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Tuesday, July 06, 2021

Pre-Special Wrangle

Maneuvering for perceived advantage in the forthcoming 30-day special legislative session is in high gear, and among the developments to watch is, as Harvey Kronberg at Quorum Report has noted, the level of trust shown between Abbott, Patrick, and Phelan.

With his veto, (the governor) has terminated an entire support staff for an independent branch of government by vetoing funding. He has suggested he will not put Article X back on the agenda until he gets legislation he wants. In other words, the governor is offering a financial quid pro quo in exchange for specific legislative performance.

Democrats have filed a case with the Texas Supreme Court. Unlike most of what they do, there is no tort issue involved so we are unlikely to find a wink and a nod from their primary benefactors at TLR. And while some of the justices are serious people fully comprehending the precedent they will be setting, they are still under the thrall of the state’s current financial power structure.

That's all we get from Harvey w/o a subscription.  But it's enough to suggest that there may be some conservatives coming back to Austin with a chip on their shoulder ... just like all the Dems.  It's worth mentioning that two former Speakers and one previous lieutenant governor -- two of them Republicans -- have weighed in via amicus brief at the SCOTX against Abbott's veto.

So I'm anxious to see how, and how quickly, that goes.  In the meantime, if you'd like a briefing on the upcoming special, join Every Texan on Facebook tomorrow.


Lt. Dan and his Schutzstaffel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation stayed busy during the interim practicing their Lone Star-styled fascism.


Scott Braddock examined Patrick's deep and abiding convictions about "freedom of speech".  The Dallas Observer updated us on the latest assault on free speech being committed by Collin College trustees.  And Robert Rivard reviewed our state's long history of suppressing the vote, a topic given yet more urgency with the SCOTUS decision last week.


Among the items I'd like to see the governor add to the special session call are medical cannabis and Medicaid expansion.  Both have widespread public support.


Previewing my environmental post:


I'm amazed that Ted Cruz missed this list.  Not so much that none of our Texas Congresspersons found the courage to mention it; neither did the president.


Here's a look at the latest in social justice news ahead of a longer post.


Stace at Dos Centavos also had some thoughts about DA Ogg and Dr. Gokal.

David Collins highlighted the Texas Green Party's state meeting.  Houston mayoral also-ran Bill King thinks the answer is a new centrist party, aimed at Democrats disaffected with the liberal wing (LOL) and anti-Trump Republicans.

I have a lot more to get to before Lege coverage once again takes center stage.  Until then, here's the lighter-side items.

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