Texas Progressives call the score: Hong Kong 1, Rockets 0

This corner of the Texas Progressives says Boomer Sooner in anticipation of Saturday's Red River Shootout, while also hoping the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Atlanta Braves in Game 5 of their NLDS showdown Thursday.

Meanwhile, we've got lots of state and national politics for you, and an intersection of them and Texas sports.


National / international / Texana / sports

The Houston Rockets and Daryl Morey led this, followed by owner Tilman Fertitta big-footing him, but more and more people in the NBA are looking bad on kowtowing to China, even as Adam Silver himself is ahead of some of the more "woke" players and coaches.


Dallas

Yours truly offers his thoughts on the Amber Guyger trial and sentencing, along with thoughts on Judge Tammy Kemp's disregard for the First Amendment.

And after the verdict, Grits offered his thoughts on the trial and the case as a whole.

Texas politics

SocraticGadfly looks at his state rep, Drew Springer, sees that he's NEVER faced a general election and says that if Democrats are serious about turning Texas blue, they need to challenge even candidates like him.

Long time Houston-area Green Party activist David Bruce Collins is eyeballing a run for Senate. Stay tuned to his blog.

Not so fast on relief from surprise medical bills. Loopholes abound in the Lege's legislation and doctors and hospitals groups are scrambling to exploit them.

Off the Kuff looks at the recent PPP poll of competitive Congressional districts in Texas.

At the Trib, Ross Ramsey offers the latest of what will surely be many political analysis pieces of Texas being a crucial state in 2020 elections.

G. Elliott Morris describes Texas now as "magenta" rather than "purple", but says it is on the way there.

Texana

The Observer reviews "Big Wonderful Thing." I've got it checked out from my library and am one-third through. No Texas myth-making so far, but could have stood a few more pages on American Indians, Spanish Texas and Revolutionary Tejaños IMO.

Christof Spieler runs through an autonomous vehicle thought exercise.

National

Rick Perry, getting side flak from the Trump-Ukraine issue, although supposedly not personally involved (isn't that a Beltway catch phrase?) is stepping down as Secretary of Molecules of U.S. Freedom. And, presumably precisely because he is stepping down, Trump is throwing him under the bus on the Ukraine issue. OTOH, Tricky Ricky has admitted he pushed Cheetoh to call — just not anything connected to alleged extortion of Ukrainian President Zelensky. The scandal has now spread to indicate lawyer friends of Giuliani were in on Hunter Biden type grifting. Surely the OTB stenos will ignore that, with Aaron Maté et al calling this Resistance sour grapes or something.

Gus Bova notes that both within Texas and nationally, due to Trump, the private prison industry is losing financial support.

Brains kicks "secrut librluz in the CIA" Markos over his latest claims of poll-spamming. So what if it IS, Kos? Can't you spend more money on Daily Kos to prevent repeat voting?

Perry Bacon, via Brains, explains why black Democrats tilt "establishment" more than whites in intraparty tussles.

Noah Horwitz, gracing the roundup with his first contribution in a year, is endorsing Lizzie Borden, I mean Lizzie Warren, in the Dem primaries, presumably as the best chance to head fake some people she's kind of like Sanders, and so head him off at the pass. Dew Drop Inn is calling, Noah. OTOH, Noah does believe she's better than any Dem not named Bernie, gives her style points, and admits he was wrong about 2016, and about Obama. He also notes Warren's DNA problems.

Therese Odell goes to town on Day One of Impeachment Inquiry TV.

National/duopoly

Down with Tyranny shows how even allegedly pregressuve Democrats will abandon principle in the quest to whore after Democratic Congressional gains, as in this case, rubbing their hands over Trump undercutting ethanol subsidies is seen as a good deal when we actually need to stop subsidizing ethanol and we also need to ditch the renewable fuels standards, let alone ditching the push for expanding E15 sales. Stuff like this, from allegedly pergressuve Dems, is why I'm not one.