Texas Progressives discuss bad cops, Lege races and more

Protests about racial injustice, bad cops, and federal bad and intrusive policing continue. A truce of some sort appears to have taken hold in Portland, Oregon, but there's no guarantee on how long that will last.

Meanwhile, here in Texas, the first early polling is discussing whether Texas Democrats can regain the state House. So, let's dig in!

Texas

SocraticGadfly, in light of ongoing protests about policing, talked about bad cops he has personally known.

Texas Elects' latest predictions on the Lege are for Dems to pick up six seats. Not enough for a majority, but enough to tempt a Joe Straus disciple to replace Dennis Bonnen. And, there are some still in the Lege, less wingnut than Bonnen; many, like Bonnen, represent suburban metro areas, and presumably are less interested than Bonnen in throwing those cities under the bus. (Capitol Inside, a month ago, predicted a 15-seat flip, which I find hard to believe.)

Off the Kuff pondered the implications of having a Democratic State House on the redistricting process.

Gus Bova peeks at the battle to unionize the Dallas Snooze. This is the same A.H. Belo of the infamous ad "welcoming" JFK to Dallas, of a current editorial page editor being a former Shrub Bush flunky and all sorts of wingnuttia in between, with the occasional non-wingnut columnist claiming to be a librul. And I haven't even mentioned homophobe Rod Dreher's time there. At D Mag, Eric Celeste and Jim Schutze (nutbar alert!) weigh in as well.

Texas Elects also predicts three Congressional seats will flip. That said, on the Congressional side? Dems are raising more money than Republicans.

Gadfly also said there are more than two sides in the case of Garrett Foster's death in Austin at the hands of Daniel Perry.

John Coby castigates CD22 candidate Troy Nehls for racial profiling during his time as Fort Bend County Sheriff.

The Texas Signal brings news of a mutual aid effort for Hurricane Hanna in the Rio Grande Valley

Reform Austin urges greater vigilance in protecting the right to vote.


National

Federal judge in Portland considers idea of federal cops being required to wear numbered jerseys.

Smart or not, on James Murdoch resigning from the board of News Corp, leaving his dad and brother in editorial power? It's even less likely he'll get them to change from outside.

ProPublica looks at some of the laundry list of complaints against NYPD cops.

Big Oil (along with big banksters) has funded many nonprofits that have funded police militarization and other police-friendly initiatives, above all, police foundations.

The racism history in what is today Manhattan Beach, suburban LA, illustrate the Black-White wealth gap. Land being taken from Blacks on primarily racist grounds. Redlining. Restrictive covenants. Even if these things eventually stopped, land and other wealth are heritable, so the effects continue for generations.