Monday, May 15, 2017

The Weekly Wrangle

As late spring temperatures and blood pressure readings rise in places where Republicans congregate to exact their legislative punishment on everyone who isn't white, rich, and male -- such as DC, Austin, and Charlotte, NC -- the Texas Progressive Alliance isn't going to be signing off on any loyalty pledges.

Here's the lefty blog post and news roundup!


Off the Kuff considers the possibilities of Big John Cornyn's Senate seat being vacated by an appointment as FBI director.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes Sally Yates owned John Cornyn and Ted Cruz this week. Cornyn proved he's a Trump puppet and an excellent choice of FBI director -- if you want to destroy our democracy and make Trump officially god emperor.

Dos Centavos laughs to keep from crying about the ACLU's Texas travel advisory in the wake of SB4 becoming law.

On the day the world lost its mind, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs was a little dizzy and nauseous but otherwise got through it ... same as everyone else.

Texas Vox bemoans the bills killed by the House "Freedom Caucus" in a fit of legislative pique.

Ted at jobsanger sees a large partisan divide in the public's perception of the media.

The Lewisville ISD sent parents of middle and high school students a letter about the Netflix series "13 Reasons Why", which deals with the subject of teen suicide.  The Texan Journal has more about the proactive effort in their community for Children's Mental Health Month (May).

John Coby at Bay Area Houston interpreted his local school district election outcome in favor of their bond referendum as a big defeat for the Tea Party forces.

SocraticGadfly skips his writing about the Comey firing and politics in general.  It's baseball season, and he offers an update of a piece on how the Cardinals are lucky they didn't overpay to re-sign Jason Heyward.

Neil at All People Have Value attended a Trumpcare Die-in and saw a Sandra Bland memorial railroad car. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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On Mother's Day in Austin, the Texas Observer was at the Governor's Mansion with hundreds of people protested SB4, the "anti-sanctuary cities" legislation signed into law by Governor Abbott.


The Texas Election Law Blog comments on the ProPublica/Texas Tribune story that details Texas voter suppression as executed by the implementation of voter/photo ID in 2016.


At the Lege, Better Texas Blog laments the likely demise of some good school finance legislation, Grits for Breakfast has a status update on the criminal justice reforms bills, and the TSTA Blog wonders why charter schools are asking for more tax money.

A lot of beneficial medical-related bills also died as the result of intra-GOP quarreling and noted in the Houston Chronicle, and Texans for Public Justice added up how much lobbying money the predatory lenders have been spending this session.

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD secretary Julián Castro, in his endorsement of Ron Niremberg in the June 10 mayoral runoff election and posted at the Rivard Report, thinks the challenger would be more effective than the incumbent, Ivy Taylor.

Reveal sees the feds moving ahead with the southern border wall, but in typical Trump fashion, refusing to disclose the names of the contractors bidding on the job.

Andrew Edmonson tells what you can do to fight against attacks on LGBT Texans.

Paradise in Hell notes a correlation between life expectancy and Trump support.

In a flashback to the days when Republicans seemed sensible and not so much the psychopaths, Arnold Schwartzeneggar visited Houston and gave the commencement address at U of H, had lunch with George HW and Barbara Bush, and made other public appearances suggestive of a 2020 presidential candidate, as reported in CultureMap Houston.  (Apparently he's coming back, a message he left everywhere he went.)

And the Texas Progressive Alliance applauds and congratulates the 'new' politics editor at Texas Monthly, RG Ratcliffe.