Texas progressives: election races, racism races, hurricanes, more

Lots of stuff on this week's Roundup, a lot of it again centered on policing and Black lives.

But, we've got election news, other wingnut news and plenty more.

So, let's dive in with regional news first, then state news, and then the national stuff after all of that.

Dallas

Why does new Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, Black himself, hate the largely Black population of South Dallas, specifically Joppa, in not doing more about Shingle Mountain?

The Fort Worth cop who allegedly fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson has been indicted for murder.

Denton/North Texas

SocraticGadfly talked about the Threes Sleezekeeters: — Abbott, Fallon, Springer — while having the latest updates and some prognostication on the SD 30 special election race.

Anti-masking wingnut incumbent Sheriff Tracy Murphree faces a write-in challenge from a transsexual (sic on this blog) former county jailer.

Houston

Jeff Balke breathed a huge sigh of relief at Houston's luck in avoiding Hurricane Laura.

Texas

Yours truly said Fuck the Texas Democratic Party on its cock-blocking Green candidates.

There's actually going to be an ersatz fill-in State Fair of Texas.

Off the Kuff lauds Harris County going all in on expanding voting access, while noting the objections from the Secretary of State to the plan to send mail ballot applications to all registered voters.

Dan Solomon has some suggestions for ensuring that your vote counts this fall.

Grits for Breakfast asks why the number of police shootings in Texas keeps going up.

There's an official group called the Romance Writers of America. It — and the larger romance writing industry (and it IS an industry, I know) — also has a racist past history, it seems. As Vivian Stephens, who it pushed out, and the group, are both from Houston, Texas Monthly has the details.

Pro-life huckster Abby Johnson was profiled by Nathan Blakeslee at the Monthly when she quit Planned Parenthood. She refused to cooperate for his piece, but has recently, in the wake of an upcoming Religious Right movie about her, penned some blather for The Federalist. Blakeslee responds with a thorough refutation. She's not only doubling down on her old lies, she's telling new ones. She comes off as an opportunistic grifter in the same vein as Candace Owens.

Chernobyl on Galveston Bay? Terence O'Rourke, in the Harris County Attorney's office, says a Category 4 hurricane with a direct hit on the bay could be just that. Sorry, Houstonians, even if an Ike Dike were in place, environmental damages, certain cost overruns and everything else I've noted, it likely would do little to mitigate that.

A federal judge has ruled the state is violating federal motor-voter law by not automatically letting people register to vote when they update their driver's license online. Judge Garcia has given the state a month from the time of his ruling to fix this. Kenny Boy Paxton will surely appeal.

Despite the Texas Workforce Commission's sunny PR optimism of its commissioners on monthly unemployment news releases (and it's especially disgusting out of the mouth of Aaron Demerson, the "commissioner representing employees"), the TWC sux if you're unemployed right now, and like many red states, knew it sucked before the pandemic.

National

Knowing what I do about bad cops, or more, a bad police chief, I suspect that the Kenosha PD in its overreaction to arresting out-of-town protest supporters is probably working some sort of grapevine of rumor milling by other police chiefs. Or maybe the grapevine is with the alt-right, though that's not (yet) been documented in Wisconsin.

As for Jacob Blake? I am still certain he didn't need to be shot seven times from behind. BUT? Police were called by an ex-girlfriend, and the state's investigation has said they tried to Taser him ... and it didn't stop him. So, as Blake's attorneys squabble with the Kenosha police union and the Wisconsin AG's office continues to investigate, the latest partial news may never be fully fleshed out.

EX Sheriff Todd Wright shows why Blacks rightly need to approach police with caution.

What should NBA (and other) athletes do with their (we hope) new powers? ESPN talked to legal, civil libertarian and social justice experts. Among the answers I really like? Fight to end pretextual traffic stops. That's where cops use a "pretext" (because just about all of us do something that could be a moving violation, as noted) to stop a car, and then go on a fishing expedition when the car is stopped. Intimidated people, especially minorities, may not know their rights and undercut themselves.

Yours truly said Fuck the Movement for a People's Party, founded by a bunch of Our Revolution grifting butthurt Berners with a sprinkling of conspiracy theorists.

The USPS is likely not going to be the only thing affecting vote by mail this year. Cumbersome laws in many states about not counting mail votes before election day will be another problem. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are among states where local election officials cannot even do preliminary work on mail ballots until election day. Many would be hard to fix before election day even without Trump weaponizing this.

Michael Moore, repeating his 2016 warnings, says that Trump could pull out a win.

As long as national Democrats won't talk about accountability for climate change inducing carbon polluters, they don't really care about climate change.

Trump is trying to illegally remove his FTC chair.

Sounds like Melania Trump, to invent a mashup hyphenation, is a racio-germophobe. (In other worse, she didn't want to use Michelle Obama's White House bathroom cuz she thinks Black people have cooties or something.)

Paradise in Hell channels Melania Trump.