Sunday, July 18, 2021
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
"Can You Get a Decent Taco in DC?" Tuesday Wrangle
Apparently, although that review is dated. This Yelp list has been updated this month. And here's breakfast tacos. At any rate, some Texans recently arrived from out of town are going to find out. I'll wait for Rep. Armando Walle's judgment.
Out of options in Austin, House Democrats fly to Washington, D.C., where they plan to press Congress to pass federal legislation protecting ballot access. The behind-the-scenes story:https://t.co/cWMCkad8UI
— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) July 12, 2021
POLL: Do you approve of Texas Democrats leaving the state to stall the special session?https://t.co/0JkIEtQF2I pic.twitter.com/BKUhG5uwfI
— CBS Austin (@cbsaustin) July 12, 2021
Non-scientific polling -- just the kind the GOP likes -- shows Twitter sentiment against the Donks on the Run, but I would imagine they care as much about that as they do critiques of their beer choices.
I do think one Republican got it correct.
...state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the powerful House Calendars Committee ... said in a statement to The Texas Tribune that “unfortunately, the siren call of social media fame and fundraising” had lured Democrats to D.C.
Corporate media appearances all day and night. Public speaking events before various Democratic, aligned, and sympathetic groups. Fundraisers galore. That's already a big win by any partisan establishment scorekeeper. Why it's even possible that a gubernatorial candidate will emerge from this group (not that the Texas Signal has been pimping that as hard as they can, mind you).
So will this go like 2003, when Texas House Dems fled to Ardmore, OK and waited out the special session called by Rick Perry to redistrict Texas according to Tom DeLay's liking? Followed by another special session where the Texas Senate Dems runaway-scraped to Albuquerque, NM, only to be betrayed by Judas Whitmire? I suppose time, and some exit strategy that meets with the budding future Houston mayor's approval, will tell.
A Texas Senator who wants to be Mayor of Houston would probably break quorum, you'd think #txlege
— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) July 13, 2021
Despite the Senate adjourning due to lack of quorum, the Shun and Shame Transgender Children Committee gaveled in and conducted business.
Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services continues to hear from the public on #SB2, which would bar transgender public school/higher ed students from competing on teams that match the gender identity. #txlege https://t.co/vk9F3tPaU3 pic.twitter.com/Zvko2zCFeJ
— Taylor Goldenstein (@taygoldenstein) July 12, 2021
It went about as hideously as you could have predicted.
Sen. Perry just testified that intersex people have “two full sets of genetalia that they can choose from”…. Someone get this man a science book. #txlege #sb2 #sb32 #protecttranskids
— Dr. Annaliese Cothron (@AECothron) July 12, 2021
The cash bail bill ... less ignorant but no less successful.
And the same Senate committee just approved the paired resolution - SJR3 - that would (with voter approval) change the TX Constitution to allow courts to more often keep defendants in jail without any opportunity to bail out - with cash or otherwise. #txlege
— Jolie McCullough (@jsmccullou) July 10, 2021
Never been more happy to have hours of work made irrelevant. The #txlege wasn't doing policy this year, anyway, just politics; quorum busting was the only leverage that existed to stop the bail bill. That wasn't why Dems left, but it's why I'm glad they're gone. https://t.co/LESFP5y1N2
— Grits for Breakfast (@Grits4Breakfast) July 12, 2021
Your summary, for those short on reading time:
If you for some strange reason weren't glued to the 9+ hours of bail debates in #txlege on a Saturday, I broke it down for you:
— Jolie McCullough (@jsmccullou) July 11, 2021
https://t.co/qb3erl5L2s
It wasn't all bad for the good guys.
In another First Amendment lawsuit of elected officials getting sued for blocking constituents, Texas Attorney General @KenPaxtonTX has agreed to stop blocking people on Twitter based on their viewpoints, @reeseoxner reports. #txlege https://t.co/fDq8Cu37uV
— James Barragán 🌟 (@James_Barragan) July 12, 2021
When he was a state rep., newly elected state GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi stood on the floor of the #txlege and threatened to “put a bullet in the head” of a Latino colleague.
— Progress Texas (@ProgressTX) July 11, 2021
That was in 2017. https://t.co/AwoZRcR0z6
Rinaldi is, to put it mildly, a maniac. And he does not like Greg Abbott. So while this may be another Allen West 2.0 situation for the Lone Star Pachys -- sound and fury signifying nothing -- an unsettled, divided, squabbling RPT can't hurt anybody who wants things to get better around here.
Some corroborating evidence showed up in Big D this past weekend.
CPAC in Dallas Was, Well, a Different Kind of Strange https://t.co/ps8fiy84ra
— Dallas Observer (@Dallas_Observer) July 13, 2021
With members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers in attendance and QAnon T-shirts for sale, there was no shortage of xenophobic, anti-semitic conspiracy theories. https://t.co/x2fzQQKCrD
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 10, 2021
On a downer, perhaps they'll fall back in line after the primaries next year, like they always have in the past. A common enemy is a great unifier.
Just don't expect great things from AllRight x3.
Matthew @McConaughey hints at 'centrist' 🙄 Texas governor bid https://t.co/bxQuzensK8 #TXLege #TX2022
— Forever in debt to your priceless advice. (@PDiddie) July 10, 2021
I think there's an opening at the top of the Serve America Party ticket, Matthew, if you can convince Bill King to step aside. Maybe suggest he run for Lite Guv.
Hoo boy, I've had enough of this for one post. A couple of calm-me-downs, and then fleeing the Lege as fast as possible to other items in the next posts.
During the 66th #txlege session, 12 State Senators hid off-site to prevent two bills from being voted on.
— David Logan (@A_DavidLogan) July 12, 2021
The Texas House would receive messages from a Senate, "Bee Man"
Lt. Governor Hobby, nicknamed them the Killer Bees pic.twitter.com/dHePlcjrmo
Good morning to everyone but NYC, #SquadUp fans & absentee fathers everywhere. Man up and embrace your responsibilities…just like @JoseAltuve27 does every time he sees @TheJudge44. Only poverty franchises are 8 games out. (Grand finale photoshop: @Northside_Mike) #ForTheH🔥🤘🏼 pic.twitter.com/o178rRQAaX
— Adam Clanton (@adamclanton) July 12, 2021
Monday, July 12, 2021
Waiting-to-Testify (*updated with Walkout) Wrangle
For the record, 295 people had signed up to testify on HB3.
— Alexa Ura (@alexazura) July 11, 2021
I don’t believe we got anywhere near that, which, you know, is to be expected when public testimony begins at 1:41 a.m. for a hearing that began at 8 a.m. the day before https://t.co/agSo3pxgzg #txlege
Bus loads of people from southeast Texas were among the crowd as they waited to testify at a Saturday committee hearing on the issue. https://t.co/lvDnA34REc
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) July 11, 2021
Bus loads secured by Sen. Borris Miles.
A Texas House committee voted early Sunday morning to advance to the floor a GOP-backed voting bill in the Texas Legislature that includes extensive new voting restrictions, the Texas Tribune reports.
Right along party lines.
Beto is now testifying before the Senate on the Texas election bill pic.twitter.com/DPpm58EfMO
— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) July 10, 2021
That's Sen. Bryan Hughes, far right, looking at the ceiling. He of the egregious exaggerations.
In defending his controversial voting bill on CNN on Sunday, Texas state Sen. Bryan Hughes claimed half a dozen times that the attorney general's office had 400 open voter fraud cases.
“That's the fact,” Hughes, R-Mineola, said in an interview with CNN host Pamela Brown. “It's documented. There's no question about that.”
Yet that number is almost 10 times larger than the number of people with pending voter fraud charges in Texas, which is 43, according to data from the attorney general’s office. Only one of those pending cases stems from the 2020 election, in which more than 11 million Texans cast ballots.
Sorry, Sen. Hughes; that's not the fact. There are more than questions about that, especially regarding your -- and Ken Paxton's -- continued insistence that this falsehood is true.
To be clear, those 511 counts are part of 44 currently pending cases. The office has resolved about 150 cases since 2005, most through prosecution diversion.
— Taylor Goldenstein (@taygoldenstein) July 11, 2021
A single case can involve multiple counts, i.e. alleged violations of law. One AG fraud case alone involved 134. https://t.co/Lbg1vttlRY
Sen. Royce West took his (graceful) shot.
For those looking for #txlege @SenRoyceWest's "44 out of 11 million" comments: here ya go. https://t.co/BGpUXwy9av
— Bee Moorhead (@BeeMoorhead) July 10, 2021
You'll see and hear (I have to read with closed captions) Sen. West say '43 cases'. The 44th occurred at the end of last week.
Hervis Rogers captured national attention in March 2020 when he waited for hours to vote on Super Tuesday.
— Houston Public Media (@HoustonPubMedia) July 9, 2021
Now, Rogers is being prosecuted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office for allegedly voting illegally.https://t.co/eyT0B4SeuK
Greg Abbott went on Chris Wallace's Sunday morning program and chose to get, shall we say, exotic with his rationalizations.
One of @GovAbbott's more creative excuses to suppress the vote #TXLege https://t.co/8Lh1Re0uqO
— Forever in debt to your priceless advice. (@PDiddie) July 11, 2021
Good interview by Chris Wallace this morning—Abbott suggests Rs want to ban 24 hour voting because it’s hard to find (partisan!) poll watchers for the overnight shift— #txlege https://t.co/8l1T9ge9ne
— EricaGrieder (@EricaGrieder) July 11, 2021
Abbott, Paxton, Hughes, et.al. are obviously gaslighting, but Texas Democrats are trying to teach these pigs to sing by offering actual facts, truth and logic to them. They are not going to be persuaded. Because if it ain't in the Bible, they don't need to know it. Exhibit A:
At the morning prayer at CPAC, the pastor says that God made heaven and earth, “and that’s all the science we need to know.” On brand. pic.twitter.com/UpcsKkEXHy
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 11, 2021
Back to Reality: do you think Abbott and Luis Saenz and the rest of the governor's brain trust sit around and spitball these, or does he just make them up off the French cuff? Because I'm beginning to wonder who he/they think they're fooling.
On the other hand, I -- and everybody else -- know exactly who he's fooling.
#ICYMI Exclusive: Amid a primary fight, internal polling for the @AbbottCampaign shows @GregAbbott_TX with a big lead over his 2 major challengers @AllenWest & @DonHuffines among Republican primary voters. Polling also shows what all voters think. https://t.co/V7XSqJxBng @CBSDFW
— Jack Fink (@cbs11jack) July 9, 2021
In a survey of 446 Republican primary voters conducted between June 14-17 by Public Opinion Strategies, 77 percent of primary voters said they would vote for the Governor, while 15 percent said they would select another Republican candidate.
[...]
The poll found in a hypothetical primary race, Abbott won 69 percent of the vote, while (former RPT chair Allen) West received 13 percent and (former state Sen. Don) Huffines had 3 percent. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller also received 3 percent, but since the poll was conducted, he has decided against running for governor and will instead run for re-election.
Abbott fares better among those who consider themselves “strong” Republicans, who represent 61 percent of primary voters. He received 75 percent of the vote, while West won 11 percent, and Huffines had 3 percent. Eight percent were undecided.
All of this business, or con job if you prefer (I do) regarding the voter suppression bill is leading in one direction; a path we've been down before.
The possibility of Texas Democrats staging a second walkout to again stop one of America’s most restrictive new voting measures is getting bigger.https://t.co/7ie13e9QNY
— KXAN News (@KXAN_News) July 10, 2021
I don't think they're bluffing, Governor.
Update: And sure enough, they weren't.
Breaking: A plane has taken off carrying at least 51 Texas Democrats.
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) July 12, 2021
Democrats are leaving to block the special session and a GOP voting restrictions bill that would ban drive-thru voting, enhance access for partisan poll watchers and more. https://t.co/2YCdDNg202
Since I've run long here, I'll put the bail bill (hearings and passage out of committee also done over the weekend), summaries of the laundry list of other neo-fascist legislation, a few more election items, the spike in COVID's Delta variant cases, criminal and social justice news -- including the surge of gun-related deaths -- and whatever else I have left in posts later this week. Also Part 2 of the environmental collation. Soothers to close.
Glasstire's 20th Anniversary Auction is here! Work from over 30 artists is available for bidding. To see all pieces available in this years auction, click the link below.#texasartist#artauction#goseesomearthttps://t.co/ES9lT79N14 pic.twitter.com/gh6GqkDnCd
— Glasstire (@Glasstire) July 10, 2021
After more than nine years in the works, a documentary about Houston's legendary Numbers nightclub is finally set to debut later this monthhttps://t.co/odjXY366Ki
— Eater Houston (@EaterHouston) July 11, 2021