Saturday, June 19, 2021

Texas Republicans Behaving Badly Round-Up *Updated


Far too long a post, y'all.  Starting with yesterday's news and the latest from the worst governor in the long history of the Great State.


Update:


Abbott was determined to make this past week all about him and his Trump-ish agenda, and he didn't necessarily fail at that.


It's particularly insulting that this occurred as Juneteenth, a state holiday since 1979, finally became a national holiday.


He also managed -- along with several of his friends -- to show his ass at the gun bill signing at the Alamo, just prior to the start of Fiesta in San Antonio.


During a question-and-answer session, one reporter asked the governor about the timing of signing these bills after a recent shooting in downtown Austin that killed one and hurt 14 others. The crowd behind Abbott booed, and he remarked, “you must be from out of state,” at which the crowd cheered.


Then there's his wall.


He also made sure critics of the electricity grid's second potential failure this year clearly got his message: contempt.


For the record, I don't think Abbott is a Neanderthal.  I DO think he is a menace to society, a devoted plutocrat, and a self-loathing sociopath.


But Abbott wasn't alone in his atrocious conduct.


Updates:


Sanford Nowlin at the San Antonio Current had the "Louie Gohmert, Space Cadet" news.  And the Lege never fails to get in on the act, even out of session.


Reform Austin also shined a light on the Legislature's lack of transparency.  I would still like to do a separate post on Texas Monthly's Best and Worst listings, since they're always so good, and include some thoughts about Mark Jones' far right-to-far left rankings of the statehouse and Senate, but I still have an environmental and a criminal justice post to get to, so I'm not sure if anything I have to say about those will be timely.  We'll see.  You can enjoy them without my commentary.

As teased, lots more on the way.
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Friday, June 18, 2021

Happy Juneteenth, Pride, Fiesta Wrangle

It's been a reasonably good week for progressive and liberal causes.


The newest federal holiday commemorates June 19, 1865 -- the day Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas with word that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years before.

For years, Juneteenth has been celebrated in Houston and Galveston to commemorate General Order No. 3, issued a month after the formal end of the Civil War. Galveston was one of the last places in the U.S. where enslaved people learned of their emancipation. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who sponsored the national holiday bill in the House, told Axios Juneteenth becoming a national holiday affirms the experiences of people of Houston and Galveston -- the descendants of those who celebrated the first Juneteenth.



(As a leftist, maintaining this health insurance company long-term stimulation plan is less than half a loaf.  Americans are still dying for profit margins and CEO bonuses, and that must end.  Hopefully before the planet cooks us all.  Which is to say that my environmental post is on the way.)


DOJ preclearance for Texas voting laws, redistricting, and all the bad GOP bills in the pipeline is the game, set, and match for Team Donkey.  No amount of rallies, protests, marches, quorum breaks, petitions, or other performative actions matter.  Tie it all up in court and let the SCOTUS ultimately decide.  So far the track record with the Nine is encouraging, and Ken Paxton is as incompetent there as he is at everything else.  More on all the TXGOP fails in the next.


So celebrate these wins in the way that you choose this weekend: with your Black, Brown, and LGBTQ friends, and with Dad if you can.  If for whatever reason you can't, then please find something else to be happy about and celebrate that.


Here's another Fiesta guide from San Antonio Magazine.


As many more topics as I can get to still on the way.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Texas grid fried; Abbott roasted


The trouble began Monday afternoon.


As with the gun carnage on Austin's Sixth Street, reaction was quick ... and relentless.


Indeed it was.


“Dang those frozen wind turbines ...” tweeted Laura Beil.  Meanwhile, Jennifer Hiller is “Just over here shouting at my kids to close the door already so we don’t cause the Texas grid to collapse.”  “Republican leadership in Texas is doing well, unless you like electricity,” posted Mark Jacob.


Some were nicer -- and more policy-oriented -- about it.


Some elevated their snark.


Some were just blunt.


Some spread the recriminations to Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton.


So what was Greg Abbott's response to this epic failure?  Why, he signed the critical race theory outlaw bill into law, invited Trump to join him at the southern border at the end of June to demagogue the border wall, and followed Steve Bannon's -- and several other scam artists' -- lead in soliciting public donations to fund its construction.

It was just Sunday night when John Oliver pointed out that Texas inmates were cooking in the state's prisons because the TDCJ won't provide air-conditioning.


Now we are all going to do so (unless you can afford your own generator), especially those who couldn't pay their electric bill previously.


I have to believe that at some point all of the corporations and all of the conservatives moving to Texas from elsewhere are going to start reconsidering the wisdom of that, as Mayor Adler observed above.  Low taxes aren't all there is to living.

Before this post runs too long, I'll hold the other Lege business -- Texas Dems in Washington meeting with Pelosi and the Lone Star delegation to receive their heroes' welcome for stopping SB7, and entreating their DC counterparts to stop the steal, to appropriate a phrase, by passing legislation that will block suppression efforts better than another walkout.  And also Texas Monthly's "Best" and "Worst", Mark Jones' ideological ranking, and a few more things having to do with Juneteenth, and environmental, and whatever fresh hell may pop between now and tomorrow and Friday.

Here are a few calm-me-downs.

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Monday, June 14, 2021

The Updates Wrangle from Far Left Texas


I promised this on Friday so before I get way behind again ...
First however is the news from Austin regarding the shooting on Sixth Street.


Reaction has been swift.


Especially the reactions associated with defunding the Austin PD.


It's the same in San Antonio.


And everywhere else.


The state's capital is far from the only Texas city plagued with gun violence.  This was Houston over the weekend.


And Grits for Breakfast wonders what will happen to all those old convictions for unlicensed carrying of a weapon.

Governor Strangelove had to quickly come up with yet another diversion from failed Lege policies, and his choice was ...


You got it straight.


Braddock with the win.


Abbott is not one to let the grass grow under his wheelchair.  Part of his re-election strategy is to set the agenda and have others react to him; he never responds to what happened yesterday or last week, and rarely if ever to his critics.  This is his definition of "leadership".

Case in point: the swelling national backlash over critical race theory.


The whitewashing has been going on for almost two centuries.


Shell Seas with the less-than-280-character executive summary.


Abbott and the Lege have an unfinished piece of business: the voting suppression bill due in the first special session.  More skeezy details have leaked about SB7 in the just-concluded regular.


Accolades are still pouring in for the brave Donkey blockers.


And Beto's Texas tour brought him to the Bayou City yesterday, where he fired up the troops for the coming rematch.


Political watchers of the "expert" variety seem skeptical that Tex Dems will be able to reach their 'two million new registered voters' goal, along with the usual pessimism regarding their biannual electoral prospects.

More Texas 2022 election developments:


I should give a COVID update since I haven't in a long while.


Texas Republicans (like Louie Gohmert, Space Cadet and Ken Paxton, Thug) behaving badly and some environmental news still to come this week.  Here's the soothers.

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