Texas Progressives talk elections, third parties, more

There is no major new coronavirus related news in the last week (fortunately, in general, other than people thinking we'll have a vaccine this year continuing to see their hopes diminish), but enough minor news that the Texas Progressives Roundup will have a small split between coronavirus and other news. Also, there's enough national news rounded up in this corner that it will be split off and run Thursday.

Elections

The Trib discusses how the state GOP continues to fight expanded voting by mail while Trump continues to push it.

Off the Kuff tries to follow the back and forth of the Republican attempts to prevent Harris County from sending vote by mail applications to all its voters.

Gadfly noted Texas Greens who refused to pay HB 2504 filing fees could get back on the ballot.

At the Monthly, CD Hooks notes that, even if polls claim Texas is a battleground state, neither Trump nor Biden is treating it that way. Sidebar: Hooks notes some Beto-stanners have already formed a "Beat Abbott PAC." Texas Dems who want to win an election probably should hope it doesn't push the nomination of Robert Francis O'Rourke himself.

Other political

Therese Odell, daughter of a military family, cannot hold back her fury at Donald Trump's words about people who serve in the armed forces.

John Coby is glad to see a racist assistant Attorney General lose his job.

Other matters

The privately built border wall section is doomed to fail.

The ACLU says many school districts' dress codes are racist.

Texas Monthly appears to show its colors in its "future of beef" story by calling lab meat "fake meat" on first reference, though the body of the piece is better. But it then gets worse again, cutting blank checks to CAFO feedlots and (presumably) ignoring the methane input of natural-gas based fertilizers for corn in some of its claims.

As told by a Vietnamese-American, Black Lives Matter is a divisive subject among Houston's Vietnamese community.

A coral reef under federal protection in the Texas Gulf may get expanded in protected size.

RIP Wick Allison. Despite being from Highland Park, and despite being former publisher of the National Review, he made D Magazine a generally good sounding board for all things Dallas, and there were no wingnut politics in it. (There may have been some broadly conservative things, but that's different.) I met Wick when he was kicking the tires on buying Today Newspapers in south suburban Dallas in 2009, with the idea of adding it to his People Newspapers stable. Sadly, he didn't. I might have been at D Mag today myself, had he done so.

Reform Austin provides an update on genetically modified mosquitoes.

Eric Berger walks us through the process of forecasting and responding to a potentially devastating hurricane like Laura.