ICE and body cameras

ICE plans for all of its ICE cubes, ICE bergs, or whatever, to have body cameras in the not-too-distant future, but says it will only release video when in its "best interest." Ain't how it works, ICE. It's called the Freedom of Information Act.

Max Blumenthal, red-brown antivaxxer

World Socialist Web Site, per a link posted by a likely duopoly tribalist journalist at Reddit named Shinbreaker who elsewhere claims that ALL questions about WIV were conspiracy theorizing, notes that he's an antivaxxer who back in 2022 was promoting red-brown alliances, and in nutter ways.

WSWS nutgrafs:

Seeking to cultivate a “red-brown” alliance between workers and fascists, Blumenthal declared, “This is not a left versus right issue. This is about economic rights... human rights and our constitutional rights.” 

He went on to call for an alliance of the “99 percent” against the “biomedical security state.” Instead of calling for increased protections for workers and their families, Blumenthal demanded that schools be reopened and that workers who refused to get vaccinated be allowed to return to work and infect their co-workers.

It then notes this wasn't new from Max, that he'd had a nutter piece by alleged Marxist nutter Christian Parenti promoting more of the same published at Grayzone two weeks before this rally.  (Outside of some of his tankie non-skeptical leftist modern political ideas, Parenti also thinks Zachary Taylor was poisoned.)

Top blogging of July 2026

As normal, not all posts are from the last month; whether new or "evergreen," they're the most read in the past month.

With that, and the normal reverse countdown, I dig in.

No. 10 is more than a decade old. It's about how convicted libertarian fraudster and alleged (pseudo-?) skeptic Brian Dunning hadn't changed when he got out of jail.  

No. 9 was the last Texas Progressives roundup for July; yours truly posted his piece about data centers. 

No. 8? Tim Tredwell was really fricking nuts 20 years ago and still is today. 

No. 7? The mods at Reddit's Ask Historians subreddit turned out to be pretendian pseudoleftists, not actual leftists, as is usually the case for identitarian librulz. (My refusal to accept all of their identitarian librul claims about genocide of American Indians is what led the shitheads to block me. One of the mods then committed academically unethical research about people blocked from the sub; worse, Cornell's research committee on her project did nothing.) I used the term "pretendian" in the header deliberately.

No. 6? Chris Stedman's "Faithiest" had more intellectual holes in it than Swiss cheese, which he tried to cover by melting into a tasty PR and marketing fondue, 13 years ago. It still does. 

No. 5 is straight politics, from a few years ago. It’s a roundup of some of the most odious lies by shyster-type lawyer Ty Clevenger about Seth Rich and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

No. 4 plays off No. 9; it’s my writing about Dunning’s conviction.

No. 3 is also an oldie but even more a goodie. It’s my investigative journalism about who Alan Smithee, more commonly styled as Actual Flatticus, but really named Chris Chopin, was in reality. Politically, he was a straight duopoly librul, if that, and had he not died young, IMO, would have gotten himself caught in the Seth Rich conspiracy theory morass full on.

No. 2 is from 2018: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, idiot.

No. 1 (drummmmmmrrrrrrrooooooolllllll)

My presidential rankings, of relevance in part because it’s dated coming from 2017. With nine years of hindsight and us now in Trump 2.0, I’d revise to put him in the bottom malebolge with Andy Johnson, Buck Buchanan and Frank Pierce. I’d also revise to push Lincoln from A+ to A, even with grading on a curve, and maybe even A-. I’d still keep him No. 1, which would pull Washington down to A-, too.

 

Gainesville ISD football in a world of hurt

Per a news release by the district and local media coverage, head football coach and athletic director Neil Searcy has been suspended for a year as football coach, but not as AD, after an internal school district investigation led by Superintendent DesMontes Stewart confirmed that, on six occasions this spring, in violation of University Interscholastic League rules, Searcy ran spring football practices with players in helmets and pads.

The Fort Worth StarleGram got Searcy to speak, and admit he knew what he was doing, and why:

“I’m taking full responsibility,” Searcy said. “[I was] trying to get some excitement into our program. Our numbers are not where they need to be, and I was trying to develop that. ... All good intentions, but no excuse for bad judgment.” 

Due to the practices, the UIL SEC determined Gainesville received a competitive advantage. As a result, Gainesville football was issued a four-practice suspension and will not play its first scrimmage. 

It’s a direct and clear violation of UIL rules, and Searcy said he knew that while he conducted the practices. Athletes may engage in sport-specific activities during athletic periods, but not before or after school during the offseason. Class 4A athletes also can’t wear contact equipment unless it’s during the season. 

When asked whether he thought he would get caught ahead of the May practices, Searcy said he “didn’t know” and acknowledged the practice rules are important, despite his conscious decision to break them. 

“I made the decision to have those practices,” Searcy said. “The man and the person that I am, I really struggled internally with the decision that I made. What I try to teach kids ... I failed that in making the decision that I made. ... I really had some conflict, but it didn’t stop me from doing it. ... I made a mistake, and it’s something that will never happen again.” y

The why is that they went 1-9 last year and were last in district, and were losing a lot of players from a squad that was thin for a 4A team last year. 

The Startlegram notes that 4A (and below) cannot have full spring football. 

Stewart promised to have an interim head coach named by end of day today.

Good luck with that.

When a head coach comes to a new school, they bring most their own staff, right?

If you’re a current assistant, do you feel disloyal to him by taking the interim if offered, especially since he is suspended ONLY as football coach, not AD?

Second, did any of his assistants protest, or not protest running the kids in pads? Will other assistants backbite the guy who gets the nod? How thoroughly has Stewart already investigated the assistants, on a presumption Searcy would be suspended?

Third, could UIL have ruled on this earlier? The timetable puts the district and Stewart in kind of a bind.

As for the rest of the punishment? All GISD sports are on a mild probation. None of them, including football, will be barred from the postseason. That said, the football team did lose one of its two scrimmage dates, the first one, along with a few days of practice before that.

The story confirms that a school district police officer reported him. 

That adds to the turmoil of the coaching turnover, along with a team that went 1-9 last year and was not predicted by Dave Campbell's Texas Football to be very good this year. 

Update: Neil's brother, LJ, got the interim nod. I kind of expected that, but is that totally good? 

Goodbye to Facebook

In part my fault.

It all seemed legit.

A recruiter for Volvo, setting up an interview time.

I was asked to log into Facebook to confirm an interview time. Never had that before, and my alarm bells went somewhat off, but not enough.

 

 

I try to report my account as hacked, but when I enter my email, Facebook says "nothing found." 

That's fine, IF it actually deleted my account rather than just suspending it. 

 

Texas Progressives look at the domestic news

 SocraticGadfly from vacation experience, talked about just how bad Southworst has gotten, along with an ethical reason to stop flying them.

Off the Kuff had the July campaign finance reports for US Senate and Congress. 

The Texas Ten Commandments bill faces a new challenge — in state court, under state laws. (As I said in a comment at that Substack, its 1A-based federal challenge is not dead, contra the author of the piece; it simply has yet to be heard by the US Supreme Court after the Fifth Circuit overruled a federal district court.) 

GLO Commish Dawn Buckingham is standing up to the Border Patrol, in an issue that (unironically, I am guessing) involves a private landholder called Trans Pecos Ice. Will she eventually fold like a cheap cocktail dress?

The Observer details the problems with outsourcing state foster care. 

The battle over a proposed new high-voltage power line running to and from the Odessa area (a battle flooding my office email inbox) is heating up. And, Dannie Goeb is officially on the "no line" side.

At the Monthly, Robert Downen says Paxton is taking Talarico more seriously. That said, when you leave your own press conference, how serious are you?

The Observer looks at Houston's attempt to investigate ICE's killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, including Mayor John Whitmire's problematic opening stance. It's also complicated by Strangeabbott now getting the Texas stRangers (them, not the folks in Arlington) to do THEIR OWN investigation, with which the feds ARE cooperating. I see all sorts of reasons for this, not only PR and sweeping under the rug issues, but perhaps an attempt to deliberately generate state crime double jeopardy issues. Strangeabbott IS a lawyer, after all.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project said court decision ending Houston’s woman/minority setaside program, Whitmire still saying HPD does not contact ICE & HPD over-policing of protest shows how much work remains in so many arenas. The next action is when you organize it.  

RIP Kay Granger. Did she get forgotten in that nursing home type place? 

The Current finds CD23 candidate Brandon Herrera being an even bigger douche than before.

The Texas Signal reports on the “Data Center Week of Action” at the Capitol.

The Bloggess explains why she sometimes disappears.