Friday, March 26, 2021

Friday Lone Star Leftist Roundup

-- Texas Democrats are playing defense at the Lege on voting rights, abortion rights, and trans rights; Texas Republicans are on offense in the Valley on ... well, pretty much everything.


Cosplay is fun, won't get the job done.


I am shocked, shockedIsayshocked, that the Pachys are outworking the Donkeys.  Twenty twenty-two is going to be a red wave of epic proportions, and Gilberto Hinojosa will never see it coming.  In the meantime, Lillie Schechter -- chair of the Harris County Democrats -- will be hosting a fundraiser spotlighting Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton for the tenth time.  Not even the Mithoffs have enough money to buy her a clue.

If only there were a political party that was actually for the people ...

Sidebar: To be serious, Greg Abbott has a ridiculous amount of stamina for a guy who has been in a wheelchair for nearly 37 years.  He also keeps himself in remarkably good condition; virtually all of the wheelchair users I know IRL carry some extra weight around the midsection; Abbott does not.  We've seen the campaign videos of his night-time workouts rolling up the ramps of parking garages in Austin, but he also must exercise a lot of discipline in his calorie intake to stay as slim as he is.

See?  I'm capable of the occasional compliment.  His commitment to physical health is commendable, but it doesn't change the fact that he is a self-loathing sociopath.  And mark "Hell No, Beto" as next year's campaign slogan.

-- Abbott's trying to boost the state's economy just in time to get re-elected, but ripping everybody's mask off has convention planners around the country saying, "thanks, but no thanks" to Austin.


If the Guvnah loses, it will only be in the GOP primary.  TexDems should focus on lower-hanging fruit, and to my thinking that would be Ken Paxton, who is simply another one of those cops who thinks he's above the law.  Either Joe Jaworski or Lee Merritt are more than capable enough to eject him.

-- Briscoe Cain, "parliamentary guru", had a super bad day at his bill hearing yesterday.  Thanks to RG Ratcliffe for pointing it out.


I thought you had to be at least 15 years old to run for the statehouse.


-- Winter Storm Uri has officially killed more Texans than Hurricane Harvey.  Damn those evil Russians.  Socratic Gadfly also blogged about the Texas Freeze kabuki theater under the Dome.

-- Harris County's new voting machines have a paper trail!  Too bad they're still shit.


I had lots more for this Roundup but my disgust in documenting the atrocities has again overwhelmed my desire to do so.  Breaking it off here to head into what will hopefully be another glorious weekend of college basketball, spring training baseball, all-I-can-eat crawfish and everything else that makes spring in Houston the best time of the year.

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Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Hump Day Tex-Left Aggregation

Not to be conflated with aggravation (which could easily occur, considering all of these bad actors and their corresponding acts).




Their junior partners in dastardliness, Austin branch, strove to keep up.


It's been a very busy week at the Lege; their spring break was canceled by Winter Storm Uri and so lawmakers had no choice but to dig in on their heavy workload.  These stories suggest that we might all be better off if they had not.


RA also reports that the push to make Texas a "2nd Amendment Sanctuary" continues unabated in the wake of the Boulder, CO and Atlanta spa killings.

Texas House Bill 19 proposes to change liability laws concerning trucking companies, those who are involved in 18-wheeler accidents, and the lawsuits that result.


I would imagine that The Texas Hammer and The Texas Bulldog -- among their cohorts at TTLA -- are going to work hard to defeat this legislation.


There are new police chiefs in Austin (interim) and Houston (permanent).  Let's expect there NOT to be the same old problems.


Kim Ogg is indeed one of the very worst Democrats in Harris County.  But reformers who ran against her last year were handily defeated, because she has the HGLBT Caucus in her corner.  If John Whitmire is successful in courting their favor in his presumptive bid for H-Town mayor in 2022 2023, then the race is over before it begins, as Kuffner finally noted yesterday (remember what I said last week about him fawning over this news?  All I got wrong was the timing of his post).

There is no f'n way I will vote for Whitmire for mayor.  I'm sick to death of old white centrist Democrats running anything, and I'm especially tired of watching emasculated Lege Democrats think the mayor's office would be a great retirement gig.

To that end (sort of), one Latino Democrat in the Valley reads the writing on the wall, and one Black Dem in North Texas throws in against Ken Paxton.


He joins Galveston legal eagle Joe Jaworski in that primary.  Moving on to some climate headlines:


And since I have plenty more for a Friday Roundup, I'll close this Aggregation with a few stories that commemorate and celebrate.

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Monday, March 22, 2021

The Ketchup Wrangle from Far Left Texas

Last week I said I would post a Great State update on Tuesday and delivered on Wednesday, followed by another promised on Thursday, which was not posted then, nor Friday, nor Saturday.  As my old former blogging friend Neil Aquino used to say, "either you run the blog or the blog runs you."  The lovely spring weather and all of the coming-out events last week took precedence over following up on our miserable political representation.  If you got outside over the course of the past several days then you know exactly what I mean.

“It’s overwhelming because we just jumped back into everything so quickly. Everyone is asking you to come do this or come do that but, at the end of the day, I’m just happy to see my friends and everybody having a good time being out and about.”

Everywhere I went people had shed their masks, were enjoying the sun and each other's company, were dressed up and made up, and living with a sense of things returning to normal after a year of hiding indoors at home, scared of invisible bugs, washing our hands until they're cracked dry, and wearing sweat pants and no underwear.

Maybe that last was just me.  Not paying attention -- whether it be to COVID safety protocols or to ongoing misbehavior at the Lege -- can have a steep price.


"Election integrity", i.e. voter suppression, is how we got started this time last week.  Governor Wheels stayed busy and on point with his hypocrisy, as you know.


He and Dade Phelan did manage to cut off Dan Patrick and SB2142 at the knees, which may or may not be a win for Texans.  The session still has a long way to go, and there will be lots of things these people won't be doing anything about.


Here I'll shift focus for this first Wrangle to the more positive and happy things happening.  Reform Austin posts "Good Bill Hunting", a semi-regular series that finds the silver lining under the Dome, this week focusing on Rep. James Talarico's $70K teacher salary bill.


And with lots on all the usual topics in the funnel, I'm wrapping here with more of the feel-good before posting the snark, the bad behavior, and the just plain atrocious later.  Whenever (but soon).

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