Texas Progressives talk pre-election politics

Off the Kuff interviewed four Legislative candidates: Sara McGee, Odus Evbagharu, Stefanie Bord, and Darlene Breaux. 

SocraticGadfly had two election-related posts. First, he noted that, at the Trib Fest, John Fetterman seemed to be threatening to take Senate Democrats hostage after the midterms. Second, he wrote about Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's callout of Texas and national Democrats for not talking more about climate change.

New York Times/Siena is the latest poll giving Talarico both a lead over Paxton outside the margin of polling error, and a majority, not a plurality. I predict that, after another poll or two like this, by Oct. 15 and no later, the National Republican Senatorial Committee pulls the plug on Kenny Boy. 

Hypocrite Angela Paxton "stands by her man" Kenny Boy in the election while continuing to plow fully speed ahead on the divorce. Can she talk about baking cookies? (The Trib story lies by claiming most recent polls are within the margin of error when, in this particular race, they're not. Clickbait?)

Alyssa Edwards introduces herself to Ken Paxton.  

G. Elliott Morris understands the reasons Dems in Texas and elsewhere are still leery of what polls are saying, but insists the blue wave is coming. 

Federal judge issues injunction blocking all border work in Big Bend and says plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits. 

Some cities and counties are betting that Strangeabbott's 90-day pause on Flock camera funding is indeed the political stunt that it is and keeping up as many as they can, or getting extensions. 

Those bazillions Tex-ass voters approved for new state parks on the 2023 constitutional amendments? Congrats on getting your (checks notes) 1-square-mile new state park at Lake Palestine.

Further pandering to senior citizen homeowners on property taxes, with Dannie Goeb wanting to reduce the age limit to 55, shows what's wrong with Tex-ass' tax system, its school finance system, and the state structurally. And, too many ConservaDems play along. Most these seniors are better off than I am at near-seniorhood. 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project reported on City Hall developments. City for the moment not applying for Trump DOJ Model Cities grant that would tie HPD to bigoted & authoritarian goals of federal government & arrogant, pompous Chris Brown remains employed at $127,000 yearly, 15 hour weekly city job. 

The Current finds another example of Brandon Herrera being an absolute piece of garbage.

City of Yes does a deep dive into Austin's housing and real estate market.

Steve Vladeck calls the SCOTUS third-country removal order "profoundly ugly".

"Librul" Eugene, Oregon, wants to charge $2.5 million for a public information request about a cop. I think that, when it comes to cops, many "librul" cities are like this.

A sad presidential election in Brazil. Jailed coup-plotting former president Jair Bolsonero's son vs. incumbent Lula, now 80 and who either couldn't get anybody good to succeed him or else has become enamored of power.  The race is going to a runoff.

Pass The Loot: Jim Bakker is dead

We all know that's what PTL actually stood for. (Unless, in the case of Jessica Hahn, it also stood for Pussy That Lives.)

Anyway, the man is dead. USA Today, almost as dead, has a photo roundup. This is not going on my other site, as Bakker was not a theologian or a biblical critic. He was a stereotypical conservative charismatic evangelical TV preacher who could fake cry on command.

Looking through the photos, he seems like some mix, facially, in hindsight, of parts of Howard Cosell, parts of Herve Villechaize, part Reagan economic Svengali David Stockman, and parts of I don't know what. 

And, of course, he was part of a Venn diagram intersection three fakes. His fake emotions (but real felonious grift, as Wiki notes), Jessica Hahn's fake boobs (and other plastic surgery) and Tammy Faye's fake face, though, overall, she was the most real of the three. 

The fakery in the televangelist and megachurch world's gotten slicker today, but it's not gotten any better morally. 

And, we can't forget that Hahn hung out for a while with Sam Kinison, himself an ex-Pentecostal preacher. I thought he was funny in college, but in reality, he's just a Pentecostal preacher with full-on yelling, not shouting, a dirtier mouth than Lenny Bruce (per Phil Hartman playing Frank Sinatra, you don't have to go blue), and too many racial jokes. And, I didn't know he was hit by a truck at 3 and that gave him epilepsy, and other brain issues.

While I'm here, contra the plastic surgery link, I've never believed Hahn's claim that Bakker drugged her to initiate sex. All the other stuff in that Chicago Trib interview indicates that, per the old bon mot, Jim Bakker diddled her before she became a virgin.

And, with all but Hahn dead, and for her, her getting affection or attention dead, this sordid triangle with additional subpoints is itself dead. 

Counterpunch going in the crapper once again and more

After removing it from my main blogroll, I hadn't even visited it before my July vacation until the end of September.

Ye gads. It's got issues.

Beyond giving the late Ward Churchill a pass on being a pretendian, here's some of the recent "fun."

Wait, wait, here's the start of the fun. Per Counterpunch's search bar, the word "pretendian" isn't even in the entirety of Counterpunch online. Gads.

The DSA Roseys are like anarchists! Wingnuts will take a bong hit off that.  And why do Jeff St. Clair and Joshua Frank have someone who has written for places like the WaPost and Guardian writing for them? This other person gets it more right, without identifying what he's discovered, perhaps because he doesn't know. When I saw him talk about how "caucuses have a level of power within DSA that is absurdly disproportionate to the number of people they represent," I said, he's talking about the Green Party. Caucus-based tribalism is not anarchism.

Speaking of, via surrogates, St. Clair continues hating on the Green Party with running this interesting, or "interesting," takedown obit of David Cobb, via a presumable flunky contributor. (That may be the same person I ran into via Silverstein's "Washington Babylon" revamp. It is and oh no.) You know what? Mine's much better, in part because it doesn't turn into a laughable paean to the DSA Roseys, whom the author claims are more effective than Greens. Beyond that lie, there's others. First, Nader had never officially registered as a Green in 2000, part of the reason for his 2004 party demise. Basically, per this paper, he tried to play footsie, like Jesse the Body Ventura in 2020 and Cornell West in 2024, wanting the nomination on a platter but refusing to engage before that. And(rew)ie Stewart's also a conspiracy theorist on Malcolm X's death.

(Stewart originally ran the piece on that person's [sic] Substack and St. Clair picked it up. Speaking of? Again, fuck you; and I'm sorry that I went out of my way to challenge High Country News for stopping running you as well as Felice Pace and others. And, per my editing of that person's first name? A "transgender woman" would be a woman wearing men's jeans and Carhatts. You're a transgender man, clearly male, Clyde. Or, perhaps better yet, to use that old-time word? You're a transvestite.)

"Pergressuve" John Ferrer gives off the vibes of a Cold War 2.0 Russiaphobe in this piece with the inaccuracy early on of claiming Ukraine has gained territory in 2026. It has, but Russia has gotten more, in areas that were Ukraine-held before this year. Even fucking Ukrainian Pravda admits this. Feffer is a George Soros neolib. Why's he writing for Counterpunch?

Looking outside Counterpunch's pages, Frank has a new book: "Bad Energy." I quote from the editorial blurb on Goodreads: 

In Bad Energy, award-winning journalist Joshua Frank argues that the green energy transition is driven not by an effort to save the planet but by profit incentives. We must stop burning fossil fuels if we have any hope of saving the planet, but the significant, haphazard expansion of green energy in recent years—from large solar projects to wind energy to mining for renewables—has destroyed communities and ecosystems. And worse, renewables simply cannot match our ever-expanding demand for energy, driven in no small part by the rapid proliferation of data centers in the world’s wealthiest nations.

I'm not saying he's all wrong, but that's an oversell at a minimum. 

The first claim? No, something more accurate would be:

The green energy transition, launched as an effort to save the planet, has been taken over by a profit-first focus.

There you go.

Second, you can't have small solar or wind projects. Even without data centers being pushed, pushed, pushed, we need more renewable electricity as is. Conservation might be nice, but, and not wanting to sound like Darth Cheney, by itself, it's not a major part of the answer. 

Third, no, not all such projects have "destroyed ecosystems," and many have actually boosted rural communities. Get out west of the 97th meridian, but before you get to full desert, wind or solar farms have allowed family cattle ranches to stop overgrazing, and thus cut a few cow farts and belches out of the system while at least partially protecting the natural vegetation that still remains. 

Counterpunch has an extract from the book. The last one-third is still partially general environmentalism, but it also steers into NIMBYism. 

Third, Joshua, in January 2025, when you went from Montana to Los Angeles, how did you get there? Flight? Big old Montana gas-guzzling pickup? Midsized car? Hybrid? (Disclosure: I have a 2011 CVPI ex-cop car. It was cheap, but yes, uses more gas than smaller cars. But, because it was cheap, I'll run it until it gets near the point of needing more major repairs.)

The biggest issue, though, is one that I called out eons ago. No consistent editorial direction. It plays out in detail in a variety of issues. Russia-Ukraine is perhaps the biggest current example; besides that Russiagate-sounding piece, you may have others giving more support to Russia withstanding NATO. You may even have someone halfway like Max Blumenthal.

Speaking of Max, from Counterpunch's past of a few years ago, more than today, takes on China in general and Xinjiang in particular are all over the fucking board. And, that's not just in the past. Note this April 2026 piece, of a type with which I would agree. That said? One of the two authors called out, Vijay Prasad, writes for Counterpunch! Although he's not written there about Xinjiang in 2026, he did as recently as two years ago. Maybe St. Clair or Frank finally put an editorial thumb on a scale?

Yes, one can argue you'd like people to think for themselves. You'd also like a magazine of politics and opinion to take an actual stand, though. Wouldn't you?

Top blogging of September 2026

As is normal, these are the 10 most-read pieces last month. They were not necessarily written within the last month, just popular, at least according to Blogger’s stats that may be crashed by bots that Google doesn’t filter out in its modern enshittification, for all I know.

With that, let’s dig in.

No. 10 was from last month as “All Things Paxton …” offered an initial post-Labor Day view of Kenny Boy Paxton’s campaign for the US Senate in Texas.

No. 9? It’s from a dozen years ago, but in the post-Roe Merikkka, surely of interest connected to the 2026 elections. I talked about abortion as a “Gordian knot” for many liberals.

No. 8 was from late August (and also over on Substack) where I asked, somewhat rhetorically, “What if Jason Arday WAS a fraud?” and then delved into how society should address the issues behind that issue. And, yes, it’s a rhetorical, but here, unlike there, I did use the indicative “was,” not the subjunctive “were.”

No. 7? My takedown obit of 2004 Green Party presidential candidate David Keith Cobb. And, yes, with taking an extra day or two of time, it’s much more of a takedown obit than my relatively mild Substack version. (Sidebar: At Counterpunch, one of Jeffrey St. Clair’s flunkies spun another way, using a semi-takedown obit of Cobb to kick the Green Party in general because of St. Ralph of Nader. I will have a separate piece here in a few days about the most recent decline and fall of Counterpunch.)

No. 6? A July Texas Progressives roundup. I talked about how in Tex-ass, data centers have a staged, progressive expansion all planned in advance but don’t tell you.

No. 5? “Clutching pears, without tots, at Lone Star Left.” Short and sweet snark.

No. 4? A mid-August, split in half version of a Texas Progressives roundup, because, doing it my way, I snarked on both halves of the duopoly as the election finish line started coming into vague sight.

No. 3? My talk about Aridzona facing a POSSIBLE! day of water reckoning over BuRec saying it was turning the Colorado River taps down a skoosh. From late August.

No. 2 is from a decade ago, but remains popular, my bidding an RIP farewell to “Actual Flatticus,” aka “the dead and deified god of a cult.”

No. 1? My schadenfreudic (yes, I can invent that adjective) posting a dozen years ago about the conviction of fraudster, grifter, and fuser of skepticism with libertarianism, Brian Dunning. AFAIK, he STILL remains unrepentant, and an Italian-American philosopher’s occasional links to him are mildly disconcerting, though less so than other political issues and far less so than several actual philosophical issues, in the process of being individually covered at my second site at Blogger.

The hell with Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra et al

 I'm talking about them signing off on the Paramount-Warner merger last week. 

One additional reason they caved, IMO, beyond Gov. Pothole wanting to be President Pothole and Becerra wanting to succeed him?

I doubt Paramount would have fully left the state. Couldn't afford to. 

But, Larry Ellison probably threatened to play the antisemitism card. 

Or, per Ellison's Oracle hat, he may have made other threats to suing states, like one to a New Mexico data center under development about not paying if it was delayed. Yes, that's Oracle, not Paramount, but he would have tied the two together. 

The fight may not be over, but with California AG Rob Bonta essentially being told to settle? It's not good. That said, the plaintiffs and friends of them, more, who want the suit to go forward, aren't alone in saying this is unenforceable. Read Capital and Main.

That said, the first piece from The Wrap doesn't mention that Bonta himself is running for re-election. He may have been told to settle, but he may have gotten hints. 

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That said, Skydance (Paramount) is getting gifted a colossal turkey with Warner Bros. "Digger." Beyond the merged studio turkey? It couldn't happen to a nicer guy in the acting world than Tom Cruise.

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More on Gov. Pothole's sellout to the wining and dining Oracle of Zionism here. 

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse talks climate change with a callout for Texas, national Democrat apparatchiks

I didn't know Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was this ardent about climate change and its concerns. His interview with Inside Climate News includes calling out the party apparatchiks on having their heads in the sand and saying climate change isn't a good political issue:

We actually did polling, for instance, in Texas that showed that 92 percent of Texans are concerned about the cost of homeowners insurance. 66 percent of them connect that problem to climate-driven extreme weather. So this is red state, oil patch Texas, and you’ve got more people concerned about the cost of homeowners insurance than own homes in Texas, which shows how big an issue this has become. And fully two-thirds of voters ascribe it to climate-driven extreme weather. So the public is a mile ahead of where the Democratic think tankery and consultant class is.

Gee, AOC et al, while calling out Democraps' New New Left for being anti-woke or whatever, don't do that on climate change, unlike this. 

Speaking of? He specifically mentions that in Florida (the state he discusses next after the pull quote above) that the Democrats' candidate for governor is running specifically on climate change concerns. Missing by their absence from his piece are Ginojosa or Talarico.

He looks cautiously ahead to the next Senate, where, with a change of power, he could be heading the Environment and Public Works Committee.