Monday, June 21, 2021

The Monday Wrangle from Far Left Texas


We're still reading cabrito entrails from the session just past.


And reacting to Governor Wheels' latest temper tantrum/diversion.


As well as the rest of the nutty Tejas fringe.


Here's a few posts from yesterday's rally at the Capitol.


Greg Abbott is never going to be above petty maneuvering.


The Texas Signal sums up the next moves.


I do not favor passage of the For The People Act because of its onerous penalties to minor parties.

HR 1, also known as the “For The People Act,” is sold as a way to get money out of politics and to protect voters, but it contains several poison pills for democracy and opposition parties like the Green Party. Most alarmingly, HR1 quintuples the amount of money Green presidential campaigns will be required to raise to qualify for federal matching funds: from $5,000 in each of 20 states to $25,000 per state. Other poison pills in HR1 would:

1. Abolish the general election campaign block grants that parties can access by winning at least 5% of the vote in the previous presidential election. HR1 would eliminate this provision that was created to give a fair shot to alternative parties that demonstrate significant public support.

2. Replace the general election block grants (where each qualified candidate receives a set, lump sum of public funding for campaign expenses) with matching funds through Election Day -- a huge step backwards for public campaign finance reform -- using the above-mentioned criteria designed to squeeze out alternative parties and independent candidates.

3. Eliminate the limits on donations and expenditures candidates can receive and make. What kind of campaign finance reform is that?

4. Inflate the amount of money national party committees can give to candidates from $5000 to $100 million, an astonishing increase of 1999900% that would give party bosses virtually unlimited power to flood elections with big money.

And Joe Manchin's efforts to sell it -- and anything else -- to his good friends in the Senate Republican Caucus got caught in Mitch McConnell's wedge politics.


And we already know that Texas Democrats can't play any fairer when it comes to the Texas Green Party than the TXGOP plays with them.


So as I mentioned, it's best for TexDems and best for democracy if they have DOJ sue, get the courts to suspend the laws the TXGOP passes until the SCOTUS rules (which will be a year from now at the earliest), and hope for the best.  In the meantime, do what they should have been doing all along: blockwalking, voter registration, GOTV.  The Pukes did that during the pandemic, after all.

And think about replacing that tired old Padron chairman with a Black woman.

Here's a few scenes from Juneteenth.


This program was expertly done, with both Houston and Galveston's history, conversations with activists, and a lot more you did not know.  Highly recommended viewing.  And here's a blast from Dallas' past celebrations.


And an online event today.


Finally, let's not forget that Juneteenth did not celebrate the end of slavery.  It marked the day when the US Army sailed into Galveston harbor and told Texans that slavery had ended two years before, and to cut it out.  And Texas -- and a lot of other states -- didn't.  And still don't.


Bud Kennedy at the Star-Telegram wrote about how a 1939 Fort Worth race riot sparked Opal Lee’s long effort for a Juneteenth federal holiday.  And Kimiya Factory for the San Antonio Report tells why she celebrates.

I think that catches me up to current.  I'll go back and pick up my environmental and social and criminal justice news in posts I said I would get to earlier in short order.  Here's today's soothers.

Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Sunday "Now Do Election Day" Funnies



The Pulitzer Board really did choose not to award a Prize for the Editorial Cartooning category in 2021.   Please support the work of political cartoonists here.
Posted by at No comments:

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.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)