Talarico Pander Bear alert: Gas tax holiday

I knew that Donald John Trump had proposed a gas tax holiday from federal fuel taxes to try to ameliorate his continued shooting of himself and Merikkka in the foot over the Iran war.

I somehow missed that Teenybopper Talarico had also proposed that, and way back on April 21, which is before Trump did, IIRC. The Observer has the details, along with at least a mild call-out of TT. 

Per that callout, what if the federal gas tax isn't restored in, say three months? Second, even three months, even if it comes back, and is indeed only like scrounging for quarters in a junk drawer, causes problems. Third, doesn't this just encourage national Rethuglicans to not really care about federal deficits until they're not in power? Fourth, doesn't this ignore that, in a non-punitive way, we do need some sort of federal, and state, road use tax for EVs? Fifth, speaking of EVs, doesn't it ignore something else?

Here's pundit Mark Jones:

“Especially here in Texas, they would prefer not to raise the climate issue, because that just opens the door to Republican accusations that Democrats are bad for the oil and natural gas industry,” said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University. “We’re increasingly seeing Democratic politicians fight fire with fire by engaging in populist rhetoric similar to that of Donald Trump, even if from a policy perspective it’s irresponsible.”

Amen.

The piece also notes that Dementia Joe, er, Uki-Tankie Joe, proposed a holiday in 2022. 

As an independent non-duopoly leftist, it's another reason not to trust Talarico, who talks about ending the Iran war while still not having a clear and unambiguous statement about the genocide in Gaza. 

Hey, Democraps, Trump is clearly not under Putin's thumb

I had originally scheduled a piece about pumping the breaks on calling Trump a fascist for this time slot. 

In the wake of multiple news stories from the G7 summit this week, I've moved that back to next week, and this makes a good lead-in for that.

The first was from Tuesday, where Trump said he supported returning to the pre-Iran war level of oil sanctions against Russia.

The second was from yesterday, with the background of French President Emanuel Macron playing Trump, a cheap pawnshop fiddle, as though he were a Stradivarius, including making the Donald think he is a Strad.

The upshot of that story? This:

The G7 countries, including the United States, backed more sanctions against Russia and on Wednesday pledged “unwavering support” for Kyiv, promising new defense capacities while praising its “new momentum” on the battlefield. 

“The tide is turning on Ukraine,” European Council President António Costa tweeted. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said: “There has been a change in the United States’ position in the discussions on Ukraine, we consider this position to be more realistic regarding the situation on the battlefield.”

Beyond Democrats, I am wondering how two other classes of people will play that.

One is the "realists" of political science and international studies, the John Mearsheimers.

The other is the Russian flaks, flunkies and fellow travelers on Substack like Simplicius.

Contra both groups, I don't think Russia is winning. Mearsheimer has talked about the war becoming frozen at some point, while continuing to claim Russia is currently still winning.

I disagree. I think the battlefield is close enough to being frozen that, per Spock, the difference makes no difference. 

I'm more curious what fellow leftists, and non-imperialist conservatives, have to say.

Setting aside Trump's flightiness, any commitment to further Ukrainian armament by the US, along with the return of previous oil sanctions, let alone new ones, will squeeze him harder. Will he take inspiratoin from Trump TACO-ing to Iran and finally pull back from his maximalist demands? How much CAN he afford to pull back? 

All's fair in love and war but gads the Russkies are stupid

Supposedly, according to the Beeb, the son of a senior Russian official, himself a diplomatic official, recruited a Ukrainian national to set fire to British Prime Minister Der Starmer's [sic] house.

OK, here's teh stupidz. It is the same teh stupidz of Guccifer 2.0, the Russian hacker who got into Democratic National Committee computer servers — AND into Republican National Committee ones as well, the best refudiation of the godawful Seth Rich Conspiracy theory nutters. For more on the truth of all of the above, see my very long piece.

Anyway, here's teh stupidz, per the Beeb's reporting on the trial of the originally recruited person and two confederates:

There was no mention in the trial of what the posters put up by Lavrynovych on EL's orders actually advertised: a purported far-right group called Direct Action UK. 

The group sought to appear as an organic British creation. But we found that Direct Action was created online by Russian operatives to cause division among ordinary people in the UK. 

Messages sent in the group bore a Moscow timestamp, used Cyrillic letters, and placed pound signs at the end of numbers, rather than at the start - as in Russian.

Can you NOT hide this better? (EL is the initials of the diplomatic official.) 

As for the amateurishness? Julian Assange used the similar amateurishness to claim that proved Guccifer 2.0 was indeed Russian. No, it proved they were amateurs, though not as much as this time — unless the bad timestamps and other things were deliberate, as part of sending a message. 

Texas Progressives talk Strangeabbott, Talarico, more

Off the Kuff notes Greg Abbott's minor flip flop on data center mania. (My take, updating a previous piece calling out Kuff for thinking this would become a Democratic electioneering point, is here.)

SocraticGadfly offers his thoughts on a trio of All Things Talarico. First is a brief look at former Ken Paxton impeachment lawyer Dan Cogdell's Talarico endorsement. Second, he notes that the Observer is interestingly somewhat non-sanguine about Talarico's chances. Third and also over an Observer piece, he does a detailed, skeptical, even somewhat crushing dive into Sam Brockman's framing of Talarico's religious background.

A Boston federal judge told Kenny Boy to stick it on his suit against ActBlue. 

Mimi Swartz infiltrated Turning Point USA's Women's Leadership Summit, led by Erika Kirk (there's three KKK letters in that name!) her own self. (I disagree with Swartz about one thing. Kirk ain't that good looking, and leans way too heavy into the makeup.) 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project visited friends & family in Cincinnati. While there, he connected with pro-democracy advocates doing the work just as so many in the Houston-region are doing.

Steve Vladeck pens an obituary for the Purcell Principle.

The San Antonio Report documents how the Kerrville Folk Festival became a hub for recovery.

D Magazine talks to the daughter of I. M. Pei, the architect of Dallas' City Hall, about the proposal to tear it down.

Evil MoPac talks to Austin journalist Hannah Rucker about her work with foster children.

Robert Wilonsky is back in the journalism saddle. Good deal.  

Reporting from the Tex-ass GOP confab

For the Monthly, CD Hooks wrote about heading to the state GOP confab, complete with its ousting of current chair Abraham George and his replacement with another far-right wingnut-squared. He adds observations that Scott Presler, aka The Pustulence as I call him on Shitter (and did not know he was gay) was in town campaigning for Kenny Boy. 

The Trib stuck its nose in as well, noting unity is still not there, to the point that state House Speaker Dustin Burrows, the first to attend a GOP convention, got booed. 

It adds this note about Dannie Goeb and Big John still fighting:

In his Friday speech, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was a “sore loser” after being defeated in his primary runoff by Attorney General Ken Paxton. He chastised Cornyn for making “bad comments” after the May 26 race and not backing Paxton. 

“Patrick is worried about losing in November,” Cornyn said Saturday. “He should be.

Hah! That said, wake me up when Big John shakes himself free of Donald John in DC.

But, per that piece, the Islamophobia bullshit remains the biggest crowd-pleaser. 

The Trib also notes that beyond the usual nuttery about Sharia law, Strangeabbott also repeated the usual nuttery about 2/3 votes for local property tax increases. 

Strangeabbott's bullshit executive order on data centers

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how Kuff was surely wrong on issues with data centers were a big campaign issue for Democrats, or could be.

Well, now we have Strangeabbott's order on firm electric supply (though the issue of needing water was left semi-AWOL) insuring this isn't a Democratic talking point. And, yes, Strangeabbott did talk about them needing a closed-loop water supply, but the water in that closed loop can still be stolen from existing water, exacerbated by the fact that Tex-ass still thinks groundwater and riverine water are largely separate things.

That is only one part of how this is more bullshit as politics than anything else. 

It should also be noted that Strangeabbott's executive order says not a thing about cryptomining. The Observer notes a cryptomine in water-starved Corpus Christi used 11 million gallons last year, and this year, its water usage is being hidden. Oh? State law allows Corpus to hide individual users' water consumption. 

So, first of all, wake me up when Strangeabbott has a similar executive order on crypotomines.

Secondly, wake me up when both EOs say more about water usage, and water pollution.

Thirdly, wake me up when they mention noise pollution.