TX Progressives look at family separations

Due to a heavy load of links, thanks to Brains' version, this week, the weekly roundup of the Texas Progressive Alliance is being split into two parts. Here's part one, the latest on family separations issues. Part 2 comes tomorrow, with a look at the Texas Democratic Party convention and other issues.

Off the Kuff notes the cowardice and dishonesty displayed by Republican state leadership on the family separation scandal.

RG Ratcliffe calls out Greg Abbott's duplicity on family separations.

News Taco points to Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) as one of Congress' largest beneficiaries of campaign cash from the GEO Group, one of the many companies profiting on child detention.  Another is Southwest Key, which plans to operate the 'baby jail' being proposed in Houston.  In  framing that would make George Orwell spin in his tomb, the company's CEO described its operation as "daycare".  One of SW Key's employees was found to have an arrest record involving child pornography.

Glenn Smith checks some facts on the Trump administration's kidnapping of immigrant children.

Carlos DeLeon tells his immigrant's story.

Bob Libal and Judy Greene call for the decriminalization of immigration.

There are severe mental health-related ramifications associated with forcibly removing young children from their parents, and that does not include instances where the children have been injected with psychotropic medications, as has happened at the facility in Manvel, TX operated by Shiloh, a company that has already received millions in federal dollars to detain migrant children.

Mayor Sylvester Turner  and several city council members have declared their opposition to SW Key's proposed operation in the Bayou City, but the Houston Press has uncovered a very cozy relationship between the City and the owner of the building who is leasing it to Southwest Key: David Denenburg of 419 Hope Partners LLC, a real estate mogul well-entrenched in H-Town's political and social circles.

Here's your blogger's take on Trump's executive order and what's likely to happen next.

Finally, there are nationwide protests against Trump's family separation policy scheduled for this Saturday, June 30.

Related, and trending on Twitter Monday? The Charles Blow column about "white extinction anxiety." From ages 0-9, the U.S. is already a majority-minority nation.

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And, TPA bloggers and others take on other issues

Socratic Gadfly talks about why, if the unemployment rate is so low, there aren't more jobs out there.

Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer wonders what comes next after the Texas Supreme Court nullified Laredo's plastic bag ban, and thus several similar laws passed by other Texas cities.

The public hearings in association with the plans to reimagine Alamo Plaza were loud and unruly, as reported (in somewhat irritable tone) by the publisher of the Rivard Report.

Red meat allergies are on the rise due to bites from Lone Star ticks, and their range is expanding in the US, reports NPR. 

Texas Vox's Citizen Stephanie went to Washington to testify against the EPA's roll-back of the Chemical Disaster Rule.

Downwinders at Risk reports on the state's first permanent smog monitor overseen by civilians, up and running in Wise County.

Jim Schutze talks about the strange marriage of Dem-leaning teacher union types and tea partiers that has fueled the rise in charter schools.

Finally, the GOP Texas Lege largely won the gerrymander battle at the Supreme Court.