Barak Ravid is MOU-whispering

Is the MOU indeed in danger? At the middle of last week, it and initial technical discussions looked to be going swimmingly. Now, after the weekend, not at all. So, perhaps, per my thoughts 10 days ago that the MOU was looking MIA, I was more right than wrong.

First, on the Iranian side, who's doing the attacks? The government? The Revolutionary Guards, who claim responsibility? A subset of them?

Second, per the MOU, and per the status before the Iran war started, while Gulf Arab states may want a closer relationship with Tehran, including loosening ties with Washington, an Iran-only, not Iran-Oman, Hormuz, will never be accepted.

The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its location in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side in an evacuation effort backed by a United Nations agency. 

Iran insists that it alone must govern the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated the claim on Sunday.

Period. (Also, per my analysis, Point 2 of the MOU supports the status antebellum.) Now, per two paragraphs above? Is Araghchi officially representing President Masoud Pezeshkian? Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei? The Revolutionary Guards?

Now, Barak Ravid. Beyond him being a Trump whisperer and a Satanyahu whisperer, this new piece about an Israel-Lebanon deal only extends the trend. How do sources outside the current government of Lebanon feel? Not told. Is Iran actually worried? Not told. Gulf Arab states? Not told. (That's beyond his Captain Obvious piece about MOU troubles, where the paywall came too soon for me to see his "angle.")

THAT said, a non-walled version of the piece indicated Ravik may be overselling it, and not commenting on one key angle: an Israel pullback, even if but a small one. On the other hand? The Dissident notes that Israeli pullback is contingent on Lebanon disarming Hezbollah. Ain't happening. 

THAT that said, going back to Hormuz? Mearsheimer notes that Iran still holds all the trumps in the deck. (I see what I did.) 

A couple of Texas political items of note

First, via Independent Political Report, with link there to original story by Ballot Access News, former Democratic lite gov candidate Michael Collier, trying to get on the ballot this year for the same spot as an independent, is suing the state over the petition signature gathering window, and is now backed by the Forward Party.

Kuff, of course, hates this. He hates it to the point that in his last graf, he pulls out the old left hand of the duopoly line, state-level version, to essentially say that a vote for Collier is "really" a vote for Patrick. I told him he had better not ever say that to my online face.

Also, the Trib piece he links to writes Green Kevin McCormick and Libertarian Anthony Castro out of the election. Shock me. (And, it's useless to get. the Trib, or the Monthly, to ever admit wrongness.)

Second, also via IPR, the Texas Libertarian Party is rejecting AIPAC-funded candidates. Yes, it's highly unlikely that's happening anyway, but still nice to see that for the record. 

Birding lifers on spring vacation

I had an incredible vacation this spring, as attested by my posts about my time at Death Valley and Sequoia.

While the three national wildlife refuges I hit weren't scenic, between them and parkland in Las Vegas, I saw nine lifer and three semi-lifer birds. (By semi-lifer, I mean I had seen it before, but had either no photo or else a crappy one.) As I said on Reddit's r/birding, I'm not counting the magpie duck I saw, because they're a domestic AND they're non-native.

Let's go in order.

The first was at Red Rock Canyon, a Woodhouse's scrub jay:

Full album is here.

Next, Clark County Wetlands Park plus a city park on the north side.

We first have a common gallinule:

Then a ruddy duck:

I saw more ruddy ducks, many, at Kern National Wildlife Refuge, but this was the closest I got to one as well as being the first I saw.

Full album here.

Desert National Wildlife Refuge, just a little bit further north?

I heard the Lucy's warblers, which I knew nothing about before getting there. They're basically the one US warbler that lives entirely in desert and semidesert. They're hard to shoot, even for warblers, in mesquite shrub.

I also saw what I puzzled out to be a Nashville warbler:

I kept both of these smaller as they're lower-grade photos.

Full album, including some cool spiny lizard photos, here.

Next, at Death Valley, my first semi-lifer, an American pipit.

Showing the suckitude of Google's own AI-bot search through Google Photos, "pipit" returned nothing; I had to go into the individual album for Salt Creek.

I had seen one before at Bombay Beach, which I didn't realize at the time, but with a crappy photo. I saw one at Pixley NWR after Sequoia.

After that, in an area where I was just putzing around, some national forest land near Lake Isabella, I spotted a new member of the wren group, a northern house wren.

Full album is here. Again, a low-resolution photo that I'm keeping smaller.

Next, in what Google Images first tried to tell me was a golden eagle, a Swainson's hawk from Pixley NWR.

They don't normally come as far east in Texas as where I am. And Google Photos is teh suck again, not returning photos for "Swainson."

Next? The second semi-lifer, a Bullock's oriole.  I had seen one before in Salida, Colorado, but no photos. They do semi-regularly come this far east in Texas, but I've never seen one locally.

Full Pixley album here.

Next, an eared grebe at the other wildlife refuge, Kern.

Google was again teh suck on searching my albums, so I had to search by file name on my computer to remember where I had seen it. Again, this is a kind of ragged photo so keeping it smaller.

Also at Kern, but much better? Greater white-fronted goose:

I was pretty sure this was a new bird when I saw it, and knew it was not a grebe and pretty sure not a duck, even at distance, though it was mixed in with shovelers and other ducks. Full album, with many other birds, is here.

Screwy about screwworms

The Texas Observer semi-laughingly hopes for a quick end to screwworm, without mentioning climate change, and also without interviewing a representative of the Texas Farmers Union, like you know, Democrats' candidate for Ag Commish. Bernard Rapoport is turning over in his grave again. 

Laugh my ass off that auctioneers and ranchers are talking about the New World screwworm ultimately being good for cattle cuz "survival of the fittest."  

Most ranchers and auctioneers claiming this ignore that climate change allows the fittest screwworms to overwinter ever further north, which is why I said "semi-laughingly" about the Observer. What if it crosses the Red and stays across the border in a mild, wet El Niño winter? Oooopppsssss.

And, the typical rancher probably rejects the broader theory of evolution by natural selection. Many ranchers, and even more, farmers, admit something about climate change while still being in a degree of denial about how bad it's going to get. 

(That said, TFU's parent, the National Farmers' Union, is bad on climate with its support of E15 fuel.) 

Texas Progressives talk

Off the Kuff contemplates the plight of the unhappy Republican and what they might do about it. 

SocraticGadfly talks about all the loopholes in Strangeabbott's executive order for data center electricity supply.

State Board of Ed is finalizing its list of bibul verses for K-12 students to be brainwashed into. Cue your next First Amendment lawsuit.

Presidio's EDC is suing Team Trump over border walls AND/OR other possible barriers in the Big Bend area. 

The Observer wonders why Laredo-area officials aren't being quite as tough. 

Black history unveiled and preserved in San Antonio. 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project said HPD has unlimited $ to police rank & file Democrats advocating for basic rights, but Texas State Republican Convention offers bigoted, anti-democracy hate with no impediment.

Melissa M. López and Dylan Corbett call on Congress to protect DREAMers for the benefit of us all. The Texas Signal looks at the joy and the fear around the World Cup in Texas.

Texas Monthly notes the surge of AI-generated political ads in our campaigns.  

Law Dork analyzes the latest Trump Justice Department attack on ICE protesters in Minnesota. Franklin Strong makes one more appeal to try to influence the SBOE's statewide reading list.

Self-hating Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims attend Texas GOP convention

This picture should say it all, or nearly so:

Samar Halabi is the lady on left. That's clearly an African-American woman at right, and apparently a Hispanic in back.

And, they are self-hating, the Black and the Hispanic, even if they don't recognize it.

 

The Texas Trib has the details of the Texas Republican state convention. 

It's a version of Martin Niemoller's old poem, augmented by the fact that racist wingnuts HAVE ALREADY come after you in the past, and some, whom the Texas GOP, or at least its biggest donors, have not disavowed, like Nick Fuentes, are trying to come after you again today, along with Mooslims.

But, I included Muslims in the self-hating, did I not?

First, the lady pictured:

Halabi, a teacher, declined to say how she would vote in November, but said that she is a Republican and always votes.

Well, there you go.

And more, from her husband:

Well, there you really go.

Halabi and her husband, Amjad Muhtaseb, were both registered as delegates for the convention. 

Muhtaseb, an engineer and business owner, said Muslims are conservative by nature. 

“We believe in Adam and Eve,” he said. “We don’t believe in this, multiple gender. We don’t drink. We don’t gamble. We are against pornography.” 

They hope to bring more Muslims into the Republican Party.

And this:

When it comes time to vote in the midterms, Tarek Hussein plans to support his party where he feels it’s deserved. 

“I will vote Republican for the good Republican candidate,” he said.

You've been kicked in the teeth, and told things will get worse in two years at the 2028 state convention, but you're back for more.

Yes, it will get worse.

Strangeabbott last year designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations a terrorist group. Muhtaseb and Tarek Hussein, who founded its Houston chapter, were both not just state GOP attendees but delegates.

Here you are on that:

Throughout the week, members of the convention attempted to remove them as delegates. 

Ultimately, the party concluded that even the full convention did not have the power to boot them. However, the convention on Friday updated its rules so that next time it meets in 2028, the Credentials Committee could vote to remove delegates with ties to a terrorist organization.

Have fun coming back in 2028.

 

Let's add in that CAIR national is suing Strangeabbott over the designation. 

Side note: This illustrates to a T the problems with a Westminster first-past-the-post political system when combined with a strong-presidential leadership model, or strong-governor model at the state level. Conservative Muslims have no home in a party rife with bigotry and third parties that might have room have no traction. That said, the American Solidarity Party, an American version of the Catholic-oriented Christian Democrat parties of Western Europe, would welcome conservative Muslim voters, I'm sure.

 

That said, sometimes, you move. Period. As a third-party voter who’s extended that third-party voting past presidential races to governor and senator, and now past that to lower-level races, I know that.

 

None of this is to suggest that every Black and Hispanic Republican is "self-hating." But, every one engaging in open bigotry against some other race, or here, a world religious organization, or elsewhere, against sexual orientation, is "self-hating" in my book. Note that I did not say you had to become Muslim — or teh gay. But, tolerance without open bigotry? Yeah, short of that, you're self-hating.