Friday, April 22, 2022

"We Have Issues" Wrangle


Enough for a few subscriptions, and not just those associated with the climate emergency or the vast depth of the corruption in state government.

But that's our jumping-off point today.


This news must have been painful for Fox's Groogan to break.


Here come the tabs for Governor ASSTax's border crisis.


ProPublica's team did the digging on two decades' worth of political stuntery on the southern border, going back to Rick Perry's re-election campaigns.


But racial hatred is what Texas was fought over and founded on.  Why should we expect there to be any change after almost 200 years?


I have a lot to get to, so I'll put more Earth Day posts in a separate Wrangle.  Here's more news from the RGV.


And here are a few legal, criminal, and social justice updates.  Alex Jones hit the trifecta in this category.


Between ShotSpotter and this, it shan't be long before Mayor Sly interviews Tom Cruise to head up a local Department of PreCrime.  With Democrats like these in Texas, who needs Republicans?

Which brings me to Kim Ogg.


Ogg IS a Republican.  She won't be coming out of the closet until she runs for re-election in 2024, but the leopard's spots can't be changed.


It wasn't enough that her assistant DA defeated him in the primary last month; she wants him off the bench six months early.

Ogg has -- like so many DAs before her -- devolved into a megalomaniac.  Harris County Democrats are going to have to do better two years from now.  I'm looking at YOU, HGLBTQ Caucus.

A few more of these:


Edinburg Politics reported that the Orwellian-named Texas Privacy Act was overturned on a First Amendment violation by US Judge Robert Pittman last month.  Techdirt followed up on the amicus brief filed against Texas at the Fifth Circuit regarding free expression online.  And with some developments on women's right to choose ...


Notably, not Kim Ogg of Harris County.  More from Alternet on the tipping point of Oklahoma's abortion ban, and the Texas Signal on the Frontera Fund's promised fight.  All power to Wendy Davis and her lawsuit, but I am past the point of believing she is an effective advocate for anything.


"Texas Republicans Behaving Badly" features the usual lineup.  I'll add the cops also.


Lots more but running long so I'll close on the calm-me-downs and promise more later.

Monday, April 18, 2022

Earth Week Wrangle

I'll get to the depressing stuff and the rotten people in just a moment.  I'll begin today with the Chron's feature of Willow Waterhole, the former coastal prairie turned rice field turned detention basin turned into one of the best green spaces in Houston.  And it's right across the street from my house.


Please peruse the pictures and read the story.  There was a music festival weekend before last that seems to have finally raised the profile of the area as a destination spot.

Here's your Black History read.


Yes, I opened with the calm-me-downs first because the state news last week was just so...


And if these conservative serpents weren't bad enough...


Jessica Shortall collected tweets from politicians who put their logos on Good Friday images.  And the San Antonio Current reminded us of that time Chip Roy wanted to steal the 2020 election.

But Texas Democrats are badly positioned to take advantage of the worst Republicans in the world due to their infighting and incompetence.  SocraticGadfly offered thoughts about the Texas Democratic Party leadership battleStace at Dos Centavos provided insight after Beto O'Rourke called out the Biden administration on the repeal of Title 42.

With Earth Day coming, I'll post frequently on ecological topics this week.


"Build the Ike Dike" is a running, unfunny joke.

Here's a few legal updates:

Texas 2036 presented some actual data about crime in the state, while the Texas Observer did more digging into the arrest of Lizelle Herrera.


Meanwhile, actual socialism is coming to the state capital.


And a few more lighter items/Texana to close today.

Saturday, April 16, 2022

"The Easter Bunny is Species-Fluid" Funnies

"I'm Starting A Big Special Submarine Operation Now!"

Easter Egg Wrangle


Click the tweet for the full view.


Greg "Abbott is The Crisis" decided -- in what he believes was a demonstration of his foreign policy skilz -- to resolve himself after the week of domestic terrorism he inflicted on the nation's economy.  Let's survey the damage.


No shortage of disaster-related adjectives.  There remains, astonishingly, some question as to whether Governor Helen Wheels will pay a political price.


After everything that's happened this year (the erosion of women's rights, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, children's reading rights, etc. ad nauseum) that Texas businesses large and small have voiced both loud and mumbled objection to, on which side of the fence will Lone Star corporate leaders and their PACs be dumping fertilizer?  We all know that ATT hasn't changed their plans.

Sidebar: after I kicked Kuffner in the shins for lazy-ass blogging, he came back with a respectable post.  Although "I'm at a loss here" and "I don't know what else to say" is more of his -- and Texas' and all Democrats' -- by-now-predictable weakness in confronting fascism, "it's a start" (another of his go-to tropes).

I'm not through with ASStax Abbott yet.


Okay, that's enough for today.  It's a holiday weekend, after all.  Let's turn to some other dumbasses in the news.


The seditionist calls are coming from inside the House (and Senate).  And apparently the Democrats on the January 6th committee are just too scared to do anything about it.


Not a good look for the Texas Central folks when the project still has public disapproval in the Republican hinterlands to overcome.  Maybe they can join the chorus of whining on the Right about onerous property tax burdens and garner some sympathy.


A commercial threat by Mr. Tesla that slipped under the radar this week, what with all of his -- and everybody else's -- histrionics.


Fucking W Bush.


Tempted to go with a Kuffner quote, but I'll pass.


The southern border, as we should all know by now, is not being invaded.  The people who are seeking asylum there are fleeing for their lives.

Here are your organizing/action items.


One calm-me-down.

Thursday, April 14, 2022

The Political Stunt Express Wrangle from Far Left Texas


Let's do a duopoly politics update.  We have to start with Governor Border Crisis, because he's all the rage this week.


As has been the case for the past 25 years, the Republican goober's Democratic opponent is failing to capitalize on the mistakes and meanness of the incumbent.


Beto and his people are useless.  "Touring an empty warehouse" -- that'll really draw the cameras -- while Abbott bused asylum-seekers halfway across the country for a publicity ruse after creating miles-long truck traffic jams at border entries, aggravating the nation's inflation crisis.  The man in the wheelchair has yuge Trump energy.  (Clue: This is how you do it.  I predict a staff shakeup soon.)

Here's a polling round-up.  I see that Chuckles hasn't gotten to them yet, probably because he's busy with those community college candidate interviews and bicycle trail updates and scolding the media for noting Ted Cruz's latest culture skirmish.


BTW, regarding Cuellar...


Hidalgo is pushing back defiantly against the charges leveled against her staff.  (One more example for O'Rourke in how to fight back.)


But she and all the rest of Team Blue have enormous headwinds.


Not the least of which is Joe Biden's albatross around their necks.

One more thing before moving on: the story of Pee Bush's -- and by extension his family's -- pending political demise is officially overtold.  These fetishes by the state's media are reminiscent of the way they fawned over Matthew McConaughey last year, and before him the Castro brothers for numerous cycles.  Get over yourselves, starfuckers.  Even Texas Republicans don't care about the Bushes any more.  Once he's defeated, we'd all like to see you write about the people who are running for office who aren't corrupt, or pandering, or demonstrably ignorant and stupid.


Here's the environmental news.


And as typical, a lot of social injustice developments.  Guns up first.


I am in dire need of some pleasantry.

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

"Bad Monday for your Favorite Texas Politico" Wrangle


A couple of extensive profiles of our self-loathing psychopath of a governor hit the social media airwaves yesterday.  Mimi Schwartz and Michelle Davis showed no mercy, just as Greg Abbott conducts his own life.


“There is a seething anger in him that reveals itself in really hateful ways against the weakest people."


I've been blogging about Abbott since David Van Os ran against him for the SCOTX in 2004.  These two long reads don't reveal anything new to me.  The worst part is that he's not in as much electoral hot water as the Harris County judge, unfortunately.


Kuffner finally had something to say about this case, but it was as little as he could get away with.  No real surprise there.

I'll return to Abbott's latest clusterf at the border momentarily.  This next article seems newsworthy for its reveal of the president's, shall we say, mental adeptness.


Himself?  Abbott?  Hey, wasn't Ted Cruz riding around with truckers in DC a couple of weeks ago? Probably too much to ask of our junior senator to step in and do something here.


After all, there's probably some book that must be banned from schools or a nervous, insecure child that needs to be bullied about their sexuality.


It's not as if Texas has any real problems that they've created while they sucked up to the extremists among the GOP primary voter base.


I feel increasingly less confident that we are going to be able to vote our way out of this morass.  Maybe it's just me.


I don't have any soothers or calm-me-downs today.  You're on your own.