Tipping Point Funnies

Nothing.

Not feeling like blogging election results today.  Later perhaps, after the blood gets mopped up and the kids who can only be identified by comparing DNA with their parents' -- because their bodies were so ripped apart by bullets that they are unrecognizable -- are mourned, buried, and mourned again.

In the meanwhile I need to do some ripping myself.  Or at least post the rips of others.

The next time @SpeakerPelosi, @LeaderHoyer, @JimClyburnSC1 or anyone else in the @DNC ask for your vote to stop gun slaughter (or to protect Roe), just say 'Henry Cuellar (NRA A rating).'
And maybe add 'Uvalde, TX'. pic.twitter.com/UIcnXR995a

— James (Jim) Cavallaro (@JimCavallaro) May 25, 2022

Looking forward to @GregAbbott_TX's speech at the @NRA convention in Houston Friday pic.twitter.com/aoVmtFHWoR

— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) May 24, 2022

Liberals will focus on guns, because they have no intention of really changing this society of alienation and extraction and exploitation. The conservatives will focus on the culture war or some other distraction because they are slavering demons who feed on the suffering.

— Daniel Baryon (@AnarkYouTube) May 25, 2022

18 children dead in Texas and ICE is on scene which means many parents will have to risk detention in US concentration camps while checking if their kid is alive

— ℮oin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) May 25, 2022

Y'all might not know: Uvalde, TX is something like 80% Latino community. https://t.co/jl80kC1Bnn

— Hillcrest Card Company (@HillcrestCardCo) May 25, 2022

Texas law, in its own way, requires public schools districts to play a part in helping financially prop up gun manufacturers.

To be eligible for underwriting Texas school bonds, banks have to certify that they don’t refuse to do business with gunmakers. https://t.co/L5UHS3kWvh

— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) May 25, 2022

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. I’ll just leave this here. pic.twitter.com/iPL4SGVqCa

— John Smith (@EE7085) May 24, 2022

“Vote” is just “thoughts and prayers” for liberals. Every year, millions of people vote to make a negligible difference in their lives. Are those urging us to vOtE implying that 14 children would not have perished today if people voted harder?

— 🅹🅾🅴🆈աrecκ ☭ (@joeywreck) May 24, 2022

This is one of the cartoons in my winning entry for the @RFKHumanRights award. How American that it was announced on the same day as another school shooting. #RFKBJA #SchoolShooting #Texaselementary #TexasMassacre pic.twitter.com/veJUy48u4S

— Clay Jones (@claytoonz) May 24, 2022

On the other hand, maybe I should just let the assholes speak for themselves.

This is Tony Gonzales, who represents the district that contains the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that just got shot up. pic.twitter.com/imRGq3Y8Nn

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 24, 2022

.@KenPaxtonTX, wearing campaign T-shirt during @Newsmax appearance after Uvalde school shooting, says people should be armed "because it's not gonna be the last time" https://t.co/lFwgwJlz9v #TXLege #TX2022

— Forever in debt to your priceless advice. (@PDiddie) May 24, 2022

Cruz on new gun laws: “Inevitably when there's a murderer of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens,” per @jessicadean

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 24, 2022

Nothing but thoughts & prayers from Republicans as far as the eye can see pic.twitter.com/IScpzFrqtK

— David Nir (@DavidNir) May 25, 2022

It never fails to amaze me how a supreme deity with -- allegedly -- the power to have prevented these tragedies should be the one summoned to comfort the grieving.  The Gawd these people worship is not supposed to be an idle bystander, nor for that matter an observer with some unquantifiable and apparently variable degree of empathy.

Here in reality, They is those things.  In Jesusland, Dey 'pose to be something bigger and stronger than that.  This inability to live in Factghanistan is a massive piece of our collective problem, as a species and a culture.  What should we do about that?

I know what we should do; what we will be doing is precisely the same thing our elected officials have done, are doing, and will do about the gun carnage in this nation.

Absofuckinglutely nothing.

Texas Election Season's End of the Beginning Wrangle

It's almost over.

This week, the FBI refused to clear Henry Cuellar of wrongdoing in an ongoing federal corruption investigation.

However, voters in his district received a fake newspaper in the mail falsely claiming he’d been cleared by the Department of Justice. https://t.co/B1k7DQcspR

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 22, 2022

Keeping fingers crossed, but not holding my breath, that TX-28 Democrats are smart enough to take out the trash tomorrow.

“It took me having to go to Washington to actually figure out what type of representation we were actually receiving in this district,” @JCisnerosTX said of @RepCuellar and Democrats' walkout last year. https://t.co/kDtMgy79z3 #District28 #runoff

— Texas Observer (@TexasObserver) May 21, 2022

Senator @BernieSanders in TX28 with @JCisnerosTX ahead of Tuesday runoff against @CuellarCampaign @GarrettHaake will be in LAREDO next week to bring you the very latest on this HOT race (it’s 108 degrees in Laredo today… send us buckets of sunscreen pls)

—> https://t.co/806dyqXBZo

— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) May 20, 2022

Heat hot (caliente) and spicy hot (picante) too.  Yeah.  More on the rising outdoor temperatures in the environmental round-up, below.

Is @JaneHamilton running a "dirty campaign" against @JasmineForUS? @RepEBJ told @TexasObserver yes. https://t.co/Ki1NUfVotv #Dallas #RunOffElection From @by_jmiller

— Texas Observer (@TexasObserver) May 21, 2022

Yes she is, and the orchestra's conductor is Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, still holding the ignominious title of the state's most flea-bitten Blue Dog.  Thanks for calling him out, Texas Signal staff, but next time put somebody's name on it and his name in it.  Be bold, be brave. This shit isn't going to stop on its own, and none of us have time to wait for these centrist shitlibs to die off.

We're all enjoying a nice respite from the heat at the moment, but nobody should overlook the fact that this might be one of the hottest summers on record.  And maybe the coolest for years to come.

ERCOT expects "at least 40 days of 100 or greater in DFW"... "20-30 days is a reasonable expectation" for Houston ..."at least 50 days" in Austin and 40-60 days for San Antonio. Govt's should be seeting up lots of cooling centers. This is dangerous heat. #txlege #txenergy 6/

— Doug Lewin (@douglewinenergy) May 19, 2022

Quadfecta today for record highs at our climate sites:

College Station: 98 breaking the old record of 96 set in 1925
Houston: 95 tying the record set in 1890
Houston-Hobby: 94 breaking the old record of 93 last set in 2003
Galveston: 90 breaking the old record of 89 set in 1875

— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) May 18, 2022

Six of the state’s power plants went offline last week due to maintenance problems. This is just the beginning. https://t.co/wfXcRmvsER #ClimateEmergency #ClimateChange From @_e_delger

— Texas Observer (@TexasObserver) May 20, 2022

A week ago, Texans were asked to literally sweat it out through another potential grid failure.

Unreliable fossil fuels are not the answer. Wind and solar are keeping the lights on and the AC running in Texas. #txenergy #txlegehttps://t.co/ypy4IU4RSb

— Public Citizen Texas (@PublicCitizenTX) May 20, 2022

RT @tx_poster: "Texas expands the fight against agencies that are fighting climate change created by humans.

"Texas remains anti-human and pro-fossil. #txlege

"Boy howdy." https://t.co/26PwNzIru4

— Forever in debt to your priceless advice. (@PDiddie) May 20, 2022

Why Shale Drillers Are Pumping Out Dividends Instead of More Oil and Gas
Compensation plans that once paid executives to boost output without regard to energy prices now foster cost cuts and shareholder returns https://t.co/npYMOHW8oQ #txlege

— Dick Lavine (@dlavine) May 23, 2022

Many members of OPEC can produce oil for less than $20 a barrel but paying brutal security forces and operating luxury yachts gets expensive. Just one reason gasoline prices will remain high for a while. There's another way: https://t.co/cOFVBiIPyo @HoustonChron #txlege

— ChrisTomlinson (@cltomlinson) May 20, 2022

More than half of car buyers say their next car will be an #EV, representing a jump of 22 percentage points in two years. #txlege #txenergy https://t.co/kl9iTnJt9o

— Texas Electric Transportation Resources Alliance (@TxETRA_TX) May 23, 2022

At the same time Samsung Electronics was receiving an environmental award from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the same agency was actively investigating the company because of a toxic wastewater discharge last year. https://t.co/59FoDgU1pL

— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) May 20, 2022

The Army Corps' proposed 'Coastal Spine' will be one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in U.S. history.

What could it mean for the Houston region?

Register below to learn more next Wed (5/25):https://t.co/0MsNlyQGDm#ikedike #Houston pic.twitter.com/sdAQrkMoMg

— Texas Living Waters (@txwater) May 18, 2022

Expert: A monster hurricane season is coming https://t.co/xHs2KKyGKQ

— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) May 18, 2022

Hi, I'm the environment reporter @TexasTribune & we're asking for your help documenting climate change in Texas.

Climate change doesn't hit countries, communities, and people equally. It is fundamentally a local problem, even as it requires global solutions.

THREAD:

— Erin Douglas (@erinmdouglas23) May 20, 2022

The TexTrib's crew is doing much of the heavy lifting in today's Wrangle.  Also providing the segue between the climate tweets and the social injustice ones.

Of the more than 300,000 homes in Texas damaged by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, none were in Coryell County.

Nevertheless, Coryell is slated to receive $3.4 million in Hurricane Harvey aid. https://t.co/pzkugEwvUd

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) May 21, 2022

In November, under pressure from politicians, the hospitals who ran this doctor’s program for trans youth dismantled it.

This week began a brief resumption of care.

She said, after waiting months, many patients she is seeing are now suicidal. https://t.co/YjunZhugZx #txlege

— 🌟 Lauren McGaughy (@lmcgaughy) May 20, 2022

The Texas child welfare agency has resumed at least some of its investigations into parents who provide gender-affirming care for their transgender children, family lawyers have confirmed to The Texas Tribune. #TXlege https://t.co/QE858gF8kM

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) May 20, 2022

New: 14 Texas Republican lawmakers (so far) plan to support legislation that would ban any corporation from the state if that business helps employees or customers or anyone else access abortion care in other states. https://t.co/O6uNkGEE1C

— Zach Despart (@zachdespart) May 23, 2022

In one email, a longtime Southern Baptist lawyer, August "Augie" Boto, called the work of outspoken survivor advocates @ChristaBrown777 and @R_Denhollander a "satanic scheme."

Factcheck: These women are not scheming with the devil.https://t.co/5VIPIpo3BG #sbctoo #hounews pic.twitter.com/loPKZyJK4F

— John Tedesco (@John_Tedesco) May 22, 2022

This patchwork of care exists in part because the state of Texas’ primary way of supporting children with diabetes in classrooms is not enforced or tracked by any state body. https://t.co/ABmzdiasm9 pic.twitter.com/aaDGAi9jJI

— Fort Worth Star-Telegram (@startelegram) May 22, 2022

It wasn't all social injustice last week, though it may have seemed so.

A Texas restaurant owner and father of three has come to the rescue of hundreds of parents struggling to find infant formula amid a national shortage of the product. https://t.co/lvo6Hz3Fd3

— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) May 20, 2022

The program is in partnership with a coalition of more than 60 mayors engaged in the advancement of a federal guaranteed income, with direct recurring cash payments to the poor and middle class. https://t.co/Mh97OktWvw

— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) May 22, 2022

Seven years after the momentous traffic stop that sparked Sandra Bland’s arrest, and ultimately her death, Prairie View officials this week unveiled a historical marker honoring her life. https://t.co/mQ4ZnLQihG

— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) May 18, 2022

Here's the rest of the calm-me-downs (and two crack-me-ups).

There are few things that get a wealthy, powerful man more incensed than to hear someone question his integrity. Witness Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban bickering over who cheats the most after the latter accused the former of buying all of his players. https://t.co/A7iieVcvb4

— Texas Monthly (@TexasMonthly) May 19, 2022

links in cases, tried successfully. https://t.co/FT53CiDmFh pic.twitter.com/9osKeOj9DA

— RiverOaksProblems (@RiverOaksPrblms) May 21, 2022

I won't lie: I very much appreciated the kindly words @outandabout wrote about me in his Austin American Statesman article re: the best digital tools for Texas history buffs: https://t.co/9prz5KwAf3

The article got picked up by Yahoo News. Little 'ol me. Yep. Thanks, Michael!

— Traces of Texas (@TracesofTexas) May 20, 2022