Monday, May 17, 2021

Turn for Home Wrangle from Far Left Texas

Employing a horse racing analogy in the headline because, ya know, t'is the season.  And as a reminder to beleaguered Donkeys ... long-shot upsets are possible.


I can't help but love a Speaker pro tem that quotes Tool.  For those of you who need a refresher on last week, here's Bob Garrett at the DMN.


There's also an eventful and ominous week ahead.


Rick Casey at the San Antonio Report calls the anti-trans bills in the Lege the real child abuse.  And Houstonia Magazine clarifies what the new booze-to-go law will mean.


In criminal and social justice news, Houston turned out on Saturday afternoon at Discovery Green to stand up for Palestinians in Gaza.


By some accounts, the newspaper of record was nowhere in sight.


Dallas and Austin held marches as well.


Back to the Lege again for more.


And some environmental updates (and action items).


With a sports report ...


More on COVID, the dropping of masks, some politics news (Matthew McConaghey, George Pee Bush), Republicans behaving badly (the usual suspects: Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, and Dan Crenshaw, back from his eye surgery on the Sunday Talking Heads) and a few other things coming later.  Closing with these.

Sanford Nowlin at the San Antonio Current informs us of a saga involving Cruz, Joe Biden, and Chick-Fil-a dipping sauce.

The Houston Art Car Parade was stationary this year due to lingering cornavirus protocols, but that didn't mean everybody missed out.

Saturday, May 15, 2021

RIP to Bills Good and Bad Wrangle *updated


That would be "rest in peace" to the good and "rest in pieces" to the bad.


More good, bad, and ugly:


And then there are the zombie bills.


(I planned on a longer post but Blogger ate this one's updates twice, so this is all until I have some assurance that I won't be rebuilding it a third time.)

New Mexico Republicans are convening in Amarillo this weekend to dodge the Enchanted State's stricter COVID protocols.  And the CDC has beaten Greg Abbott and everybody else to the punch -- I'll call it Kool-Aid -- on ending the mask mandate.

I think this is remarkably foolish.  I'll go on wearing my mask despite having gotten my two Moderna shots, probably for the rest of my life when I'm out in public.  If for no other reason ... because Texas is full of idiots and assholes.


Here's my post on the Texas Green Party's state meeting in June.  And here's the soothers to close.

Friday, May 14, 2021

Texas Greens come together next month


In cyberspace.



Registration is now open for the GPTX Annual State Meeting, to be held online, June 26th & 27th. Individuals wishing to attend as Delegates must register by June 1.

Meeting business will include election of officers as well as Bylaw & Platform amendments. Individuals wishing to affect the direction of Green Party efforts in Texas should be sure not to miss this important meeting!

GPTX is seeking candidates for the 2022 general election, and will host a prospective candidate information event on August 28th. Candidate filing will take place November - December 2021, so prospective candidates are encouraged to begin preparing their campaigns now for 2022.

Texas appears poised to enact SB 2093, which will entrench charging convention-nominating party candidates a primary filing fee upon application to run, before they are certain of winning the GPTX nomination, and of course still omitted from the state-run primary. Most voters do not understand that the reason they don't see Greens during the primary in Texas is because minor parties are not permitted to participate in it. They are instead relegated to a do-it-yourself convention process which must conform to antiquated rules, and now to be paying a fee to reimburse the state for a process in which they can't participate. No matter that this new fee provision was under injunction during the last week of the 2019 filing period, and is still in question as a subject of pending litigation; Texas is set to double-down on the requirement in the 2022 election cycle, so Green candidates should plan for it.

The Green Party presently has ballot access in Texas through 2026. That means we need candidates who subscribe to our platform to step up and carry our message to the public, win office, and implement change.

GPTX can offer little beyond a path to the general election ballot line.

We need Greens across Texas to build their own local groups & help us fill out all of the things we'd like to see the party doing.

While political rhetoric has shifted considerably in the last decade, we still have not seen substantial policy changing the course of US empire. Maintaining and building Green Party political pressure remains an imperative for putting people, peace, and planet over profit. While the duopoly parties maintain a stranglehold on ballot access and the electoral process, Greens will not give up the struggle to call out and break this unconstitutional capture of our supposed democracy.


I've been promoting Delilah for Texas in these pixels for quite some time now.


I just can't with Texas Democrats any more, y'all.  Here's some of the most recent reasons why.


Poor Jana Sanchez.  I feel like she knew this well in advance of being shut out of the runoff for TX-6 but kept it quiet, hoping she could still eke her way in.  She could not, thus becoming the latest self-fulfilling prophecy of 'loser' by the king- and queenmakers at the DCCC.

Shell has some bad advice for those of you living in the district, which I wouldn't take if I lived up there.


I love Michelle and her blog, but this is just ... no.  Not no but HELL no.  "Not Trump's candidate" is not a good enough reason to vote for Jake Ellzey.  And regarding reasons: there's obviously a very good one why Sanchez didn't make the runoff beyond the DCCC ignoring her.  And there isn't a single good one for voting for the allegedly less-evil Republican.  No measurable amount of harm reduction. Pick another battle.

And I've blogged plenty about the flea-bitten Blue Dogs in the Lege.


Don't get me wrong; I'm glad the Bexar County Donks did what they did, but that's not going to change a thing.  Democrats in and around the Alamo City are riven with internal strife like nowhere else in the state, and the Bexar County Greens have the strongest Lone Star chapter as a result.

Unfortunately, we all know that's not saying a whole hell of a lot, but it is what it is: the GPTX needs new blood itself, and is ripe for changes in leadership.  And the plain truth is spoken above in the excerpt; unless somebody like me hits the Powerball and can suddenly fund GPTX candidates, infrastructure, etc. then your mission, should you choose to accept it ...



... is going to be more of an "All By Myself" ride than an "All for One and One for All" quest.

Or you can keep voting blue for another 25 years, see if something changes.

The work stands ready for the able-handed. You in?