It don't matter if you're black or white

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson.  I'm afraid it still does.

Police in Ferguson, Missouri fired tear gas, stun grenades and smoke bombs to disperse some 350 protesters late Wednesday, the fourth night of racially charged demonstrations after police shot to death an unarmed black teen.

Some demonstrators hurled rocks at police as others scattered, while smoke engulfed the area. A Reuters reporter saw two young men preparing what looked like petrol bombs in a bus-stop shelter, their faces covered by bandanas. Police said protesters had thrown petrol bombs at officers.

Protesters have gathered every night since Saturday when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot to death in the mostly black suburb of St. Louis, during what authorities said was a struggle over a gun in a police car. Some witnesses say he was outside the car with his hands up.

Police have deployed camouflage-clad officers in body armor, including one manning a rifle on a tripod atop an armored car, to Ferguson.

"I've had enough of being pushed around because of the color of my skin. I'm sick of this police brutality," said one protester, who gave only his first name, Terrell, 18. "I'm going to keep coming back here night after night until we get justice."

Yeah, that's pretty much the story now.  Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis, and this week, Michael Brown.  Next week it will be another black man, dead fairly quickly at the hands of police officers or vigilantes who are not, in questionable circumstances.

Racism is over in America, say conservatives.  Their children aren't the ones, of course, being carried to the cemetery week in and week out.  But the most important thing to keep in mind is that the riots in Ferguson aren't only about these dead black men.

It's also about the ones still with us -- not 'living' so much as just trying to stay alive.

...(I)t is about the bitter sense of siege that lives in African-American men, a sense that it is perpetually open season on (them).

And that too few people outside of African America really notice, much less care. People who look like you are every day deprived of health, wealth, freedom, opportunity, education, the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence, life itself -- and when you try to say this, even when you document it with academic studies and buttress it with witness testimony, people don't want to hear it, people dismiss you, deny you, lecture you about white victimhood, chastise you for playing a so-called "race card."

They choke off avenues of protest, prizing silence over justice, mistaking silence for peace. And never mind that sometimes, silence simmers like water in a closed pot on a high flame.

One can never condone a riot. It is a self-defeating act that sells some fleeting illusion of satisfaction at a high cost in property and life.

But understanding this does not preclude recognizing that the anger we see in Ferguson did not spring from nowhere, nor arrive, fully-formed, when Michael Brown was shot. It is the anger of people who are, as Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Silence imposed on pain cannot indefinitely endure. People who are hurting will always, eventually, make themselves heard.

So maybe you have heard about the rally in Houston's Fifth Ward this weekend being held by the supporters of Open Carry Texas. 

The event on Saturday afternoon is set to be located at the corner of Lyons Avenue and Lockwood, and scheduled to last about two hours, with two guest speakers included. It will not be a march, as past Open Carry Texas appearance have been, but a static event.

On Wednesday night members of the local Open Carry Texas group and (leader CJ) Grisham will be meeting with members of the community and the Houston Police Department to discuss what's coming up. Grisham says that he will not subject his members to an unsafe environment.

Maybe we'll hear today they called it off.  Because maybe Grisham took note of Quanell X's response.  Update: First it was no, then it was yes.

Meanwhile community activist Quanell X has had some terse words for the Open Carry people. He told KPRC-TV that if the group shows up armed that people from the community will show up with weapons too to counter them.

"Coming like this is totally unacceptable. So if you do come, I guarantee you we will not bring a butter knife to a gun fight," Quanell X told KPRC-TV.

Gun rights activists, overwhelmingly Caucasian and conservative, travel to Houston's most predominant African American neighborhood with their rifles slung across their backs in order to stage a rally.  What could possibly go wrong?

Sure does feel like the '60's all over again to me.  The race cauldron is boiling once more across America, which means it's coming to a neighborhood near you.

We desperately need some leadership on the various issues of social justice, and we need it most -- right now -- from some of our leaders who don't look like Barack Obama.  Has anyone checked in with Hillary Clinton lately?

Update: The treatment of the media covering the developments -- while important -- is the secondary story.

Final Update (to this post):

County police in riot gear and armored tanks gave way to state troopers walking side-by-side with thousands of protesters as the St. Louis suburb where an unarmed black teen was shot by a city police officer overwhelmingly avoided violence Thursday after nearly a week of unrest and mounting public tension.

The dramatic shift came after Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon assigned oversight of the protests to the state Highway Patrol, stripping local police from the St. Louis County Police Department of their authority after four days of clashes with furious crowds protesting the weekend death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

"All they did was look at us and shoot tear gas," said Pedro Smith, 41, who has participated in the nightly protests. "This is totally different. Now we're being treated with respect."

Payday loansharks again

John Oliver -- fast becoming a must-watch -- with the assist from Sarah Silverman (NSFW).

Comedian John Oliver had some fun at Texas’ expense Sunday night, devoting three minutes of a television segment on the payday-loan industry to conflicts of interest in Lone Star State efforts to regulate lenders.

The segment, which circled the Internet on Monday, continued a trend of ”Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” segments going in-depth on policy issues.

Oliver is the "60 Minutes" version of Jon Stewart, and he is just knocking it out of the park.

After providing an overview of the industry, which gives high-interest, short-term loans to poor people between paychecks, Oliver turned to a 2011 debate in the Texas Legislature as an example of the lobbying power the industry has nationally.

Oliver showed video of state Rep. Gary Elkins, R-Houston, who owns a company with 12 payday-lending locations, speaking against a bill to regulate the industry from former state Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller.

“Isn’t it true that you stand to add to your personal wealth considerably by killing these bills?” Truitt asked Elkins at one point, prompted a mumbling response. “Mr. Elkins, do you know the meaning of the term conflict of interest?” Truitt piled on.

Oliver then cut in.

“You might be thinking that that woman, Vicki Truitt, is awesome — fearlessly calling out how the payday loan industry influences politicians,” he said. “Which is why it’s going to be so hard to tell you that just 17 days after leaving office, she signed on as a lobbyist for ACE Cash Express.”

If you want to see it, skip to about the 7-minute mark.  Moneyshot (around 11 minutes in): "Even clusterfucks are bigger in Texas."

Oliver then focused on the chairman of the Finance Commission of Texas, which oversees payday lenders: William J. White, who also happens to be a vice president at Cash America International, Inc.

“So let’s just quickly break all of that down,” Oliver said. “If you were hoping to protect Texans from the payday loan industry, you would need to approach a commission overseen by the vice president of a payday loan company, and then introduce a bill into the state Legislature where the owner of 12 payday loan stores will debate the merits of the payday loan industry with one of the payday loan’s future (expletive) lobbyists.”

Proverbs 22:22 says: "Do not rob the poor because they are poor".  Keep in mind that I am the atheist here.  Also keep in mind that Greg Abbott -- that fine Christian man -- is the one who held the door open for the payday loansharks to set up their money-changing tables inside the temple of Texas, our Texas.  See, if I believed there was a Hell, I would also have to believe that Abbott, Elkins, Truitt, White, and everyone else making money by robbing the poor were going to it.

I am made to understand that military personnel can be court-martialed simply for walking in the front door of these places.  Is that accurate, anyone?

Why does Greg Abbott hate our troops?

Update: John got up ahead of me.  And, celebrating Shark Week, Public Justice.  And still more: "The reign of payday lenders may soon be over".  I wouldn't go that far; they'll always have Texas.

Greg Abbott and the EPA

It doesn't matter whether it's cleaner air for Texans to breathe or cleaner water for them to drink; Greg Abbott, his corporate overlords, and even the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are going to fight against it.  Charles has the definitive response to the Texas Public Policy Foundation's little confab on the topic of the EPA's new carbon emission guidelines, and while you should read his full post, here's the takeaway courtesy the TexTrib, and straight from the head of the TCEQ, Bryan "Lickspittle" Shaw.

"I’m concerned that if this is not contested, if we don’t dispute this, if we don’t win, the implications … are only the camel’s nose under the tent..."

That is the state's top environmental regulation compliance officer speaking.  Not 'how do we comply', but 'how do we fight -- and defeat -- compliance with' federal environmental protection regulations.  He's turned his job description completely inside out.

This is just one of the many reasons why people outside Texas laugh and then shake their heads in disgust.   And also this reason.

About 150 people attended the event Thursday to hear Shaw and two other panelists speak about the proposal from the Obama administration, which could require Texas to reduce its carbon emissions from power plants by close to 200 billion pounds in the next two decades.

The general consensus among both the panelists and the audience was that the state should sue the Environmental Protection Agency over the rules if they are finalized, and should refuse to follow them. Karen Lugo, director of TPPF’s Center for Tenth Amendment Action, said she is working with state lawmakers on legislation affirming that Texas should ignore the rules unless Congress acts on climate change legislation, which it has never done.

TPPF has a department devoted to "Tenth Amendment action".   Probably a large responsibility.

The last time Texas regulators refused to implement federal environmental rules, lawmakers ended up reversing the decision. In 2010, the Obama administration started requiring companies that wanted to build new industrial plants to get “greenhouse gas permits” before beginning construction. When the TCEQ refused, the EPA had to take over, causing delays for some companies that lasted up to two years.

The result was legislation — supported by Koch Industries and the Texas Conservative Coalition, among others — that explicitly gave the TCEQ authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions so that companies could get their permits quicker.

It's like a merry-go-round inside the House of Horrors.  And you're belted in.

But like I said at the top... you're not just breathing this shit, you're also going to have to drink it.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is poised for another clash with federal environmental regulators, this time over proposed water protections.

The Austin American-Statesman reports that Abbott wants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to scrap a proposal to expand the definition of federal waterways. The Republican gubernatorial candidate submitted a written public comment to the federal agency Monday. He threatened to sue if the proposal isn't withdrawn.

The EPA proposed expanding the definition of federal waters to include seasonal and rain-dependent waterways. The agency said the move would stiffen penalties for polluting those waterways that supply drinking water to more than 11 million Texans.

With his track record, I just don't think anybody needs to be worried about Greg Abbott suing.

The proposal "is without adequate scientific and economic justification and, if finalized, would erode private property rights and have devastating effects on the landowners of Texas," Abbott wrote.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokesman Terry Clawson said the regulatory agency is "concerned that EPA's proposed rule expands its jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act without Congressional approval."

David Foster, who heads the Texas office of the advocacy group Clean Water Action, said the TCEQ has shown little appetite for regulating the waterways.

"We need a federal backstop," Foster said. "I shudder to think how the political leadership in this state would regulate these waterways."

A roller coaster inside the freak show that you can't get off of.  But still, a couple of things here: first, a Republican used the word 'scientific'.  True, it was after the word 'without' and before the word 'justification' but since it was Greg Abbott who used that word, we should be accommodating and give him some credit.  How many other Republicans just on the statewide ballot with him even know or understand what science means?

This is some (infinitesimal, I grant) progress.  See, if he had left out 'scientific', the sentence would just contain the modifier 'economic'.  Which as we know is the only actual consideration, but he's at least making a pretense of acknowledging science.  This is closer to the reality-based world than is typical for Texas Republicans.

Second, we are reinforced in our belief that the TCEQ is not actually in charge of environmental quality, except as it pertains to how bad the quality of the environment can be made by the oil and gas giants that actually run it.  So with their mission properly defined, they're doing a heckuva job, Brownie.

'Brownie', in this case, is the color of your air and water.

We all have our once-every-four-years opportunity to change this coming up shortly.