Thursday, September 09, 2021

The Thursday Wrangle from Far Left Texas


People keep asking me: "Why do you call him Governor Fish Lips?"


SB8 -- the Texas abortion ban -- has been the hottest topic of the week, with more than enough media coverage to link to.  So I selected only a few of the secondary headlines, in case they got buried in your news review.


I'm leaving a lot out: the DOJ's announcement this morning, Mimi Swartz at Texas Monthly identifying the legal mind behind the bill, AOC's description of Abbott's ignorance.  Here's Amanda Marcotte from Salon about that.


Marcotte has it exactly right.  More Texas politics in the next post, under construction; wrapping up the Lege-between-specials business with a few more items before moving on to the rest.


Another fix-what-I-vetoed.

I thought I was caught up on environmental and criminal and social justice posts this week, but I wasn't.  So here's more of that news.


More Musk further down.  And a story I've been tardy on: meet the new Downwinders at Risk.


That's my segue.


Elizabeth Rossi of Civil Rights Corps and Amanda Woog of the Texas Fair Defense Project, writing at Grits for Breakfast, excoriate Harris County DA Kim Ogg and the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board for lining up behind the "tuff-on-crimers".  And Law and Crime tells us about a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas who has appointed himself the Emperor of ICE.

A couple of state policy developments worth noting:


If you still want to understand why Musk can pick up the phone, call Abbott, and say, "stop whatever it is you're doing and come out here and eat my ass", this time-lapse drone video of Musk's truck factory on the east side of Austin -- still under construction but nearing completion -- is nothing short of mind-blowing.

Wrapping today with these.

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Tuesday, September 07, 2021

The Tuesday Morning Wrangle from Far Left Texas




You won't find anything about Labor Day on Houston's longest-continuously published blog, but if you'd rather read about precinct data sorted by SBOE races, or some campaign finance reporting ... why are you here?


Moving on to some environmental news.


And the Texas Living Waters Project showcases a film that captures Houstonians’ memories of water outages during Winter Storm Uri.


Criminal and social justice developments include the following:


And a couple of updates (albeit aged) on two massive interstate expansion projects in Austin and Houston.


And the soothers.

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Monday, September 06, 2021

The Labor Day Wrangle



AUSTIN — All over America this weekend, people will be celebrating the achievements and advancements in society made by the labor movement. While some whose politics fall on the right side of the spectrum may only choose to use it an excuse to grill meats and drink beers, the truth is that Labor Day is all about celebrating unions and things like paid vacations, a forty-hour work week, and the minimum wage, all secured by the efforts of the labor movement.

In the Lone Star State however, a new executive order signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (Q-Gilead) means that Texans will be celebrating something else this weekend.

“With the stroke of this pen, I hereby designate this weekend as Forced Labor Day Weekend,” Abbott said as he signed the order. “We will gather together and honor the teenage rape victims who are forced by law to carry their stepdaddy’s baby to full term. We will celebrate the fact that here in Texas, we value every single life. Until it’s born, and then literally fuck off.”

Parades will be held in various cities and locales, Abbott announced.


In his new book, Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America, New Yorker writer Eyal Press profiles the workers we won't see politicians sidling up to for photo ops this Labor Day. He writes about drone operators, prison guards, poultry plant workers, and oil riggers. They do our dirty work and, as Press shows, they pay a price for it.

Flor Martinez, a Texas poultry plant worker, devours painkillers at the end of her grueling shifts. Stephen Stone's dangerous job on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig puts him in the way of a massive explosion that almost cost him his life. But Press is most interested in documenting a kind of hazard that is not typically accounted for in government safety reports: what he calls "moral injury." He borrows the term from military psychologists. It describes the impact of having to carry out tasks that violate a person's core sense of self.

Those psychic injuries can take a physical toll. Harriet Krzykowski, a mental health counselor, is so traumatized by the moral compromises her harrowing prison job entails that her hair begins to fall out in clumps. An analyst with the military's drone program suffers headaches, night chills and joint pain. Press' project is to ensure that a complacent public — those of us who consider ourselves at a remove from the jobs he describes — takes responsibility for our part in creating the conditions that allow "dirty work" to occur.


Praise the few victories and the fighters.


And prepare for the battle ahead.

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Sunday, September 05, 2021

Sunday "Texas Hold 'em Down" Funnies

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Saturday, September 04, 2021

87(3): Redistricting, aka gerrymandering


Slated, but perhaps not to be.


Scott Braddock quotes the relevant passage from the state's constitution, and Alexa Ura reports that the 5th Circuit has already appointed a three-judge panel -- one Reagan appointee, one Obama, and one Trump -- to hear the case.

Don't be surprised by the eventual lede: "In a 2-1 decision ..."  Also from Braddock:


Redistricting was done in 2003 in special session after now-Senate Dean John Whitmire reglued that year's Democratic quorum break by coming back from Oklahoma.  In 2011 the process also began in special session after the 2010 census data came in (thanks, Ballotpedia) and litigation continued through 2014.

So this seems like a novel legal argument.  I would think that precedent would be of considerable weight to the judges at every level where the case receives a hearing (though IANAL, and predicting court decisions in this arena is a bigger fool's errand than usual).  So like you, I'll watch and wait and see what happens.

Probably over the next few years.
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Friday, September 03, 2021

Deep in The Heart of Gilead


Perhaps I should start at the beginning.


I hate to burst Michelle's bubble, but electing more Democrats is simply not going to fix this problem, especially now that it's metastized to this point.


And here is where it all went off the rails for orthodox Democrats.


I just wish they could focus on their real enemies.


The topic is so tired but shitlibs are so stupid.  I can never again be in a political party full of people completely unwilling to own their failures, and worse, do absolutely nothing about them.


Let me be fair; there are lots of people ready to make good trouble and break this law.


And on that note, I'll wrap here with the cartoons.

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