The Roundup on the end of the Lege and a Dem punking

House Dems punked the GOP, Strangeabbott and Goeb; are they prepared to do that in special sessions? Will Abbott channel his inner Rick Perry? Remember, the FAA is now under a Dem president, so he won't get the same help Tom DeLay and Perry did way back when.

With that, let's dig in.

Lege, voting

The final voting non-rights bill is ugly. Beyond what everybody else has pointed out, it targets COVID-related disability claims on voting by mail. And, it allows partisan poll watchers to move around voting precincts more. Intimidation, anybody? Recipe for fights inside polling places?

And, as of now, it's also dead, as House Dems left the floor to block a quorum. You KNOW this will be in a special session call, but, will we also have a flight to Oklahoma and New Mexico like 15 years ago?

The Texas Civil Rights Project presents the ugly highlights of the new voter suppression law.

Strangeabbott then officially entered titty-baby territory, saying he would veto the bill for Legislature funding. Can't House Dems say then that they can't attend a special session? Speaker Phelan has said he thinks it's unconstitutional.

Lege, other

Chris Tomlinson has a great piece on how the Lege's usual lipstick on a pig applies to its doing nothing of substance to prevent another Big Freeze Abbott Blackout. "Lawmakers are socializing the industry's losses."

Reform Austin condemns the lack of action on fixing the power grid.

Beyond a largely bipartisan conspiracy here, House Dems' chubbing of some of Danny Goeb's Texas Senate favorites, as noted in an Observer roundup, had him talking "special session," with Strangeabbott very publicly responding that "only I get to say the who/what and when" of that baby. That said, Abbott caved in 2017. Well, we'll see how this plays out.

Robert Rivard has had it with this legislative session and the bizarre priorities of our state leaders. 

Grits for Breakfast is even harsher towards the Republicans in Austin.

Jessica Montoya Coggins offers some advise about abortion access now that SB8 has passed.

Non-Lege

SocraticGadfly took some shots at the New Agey fluff and other platitudes in local high school graduation guest speaker and val-sal addresses.

One of Sun Myung Moon's sons, head of a nuttier-than-dad offshoot of the Moonies and a gun nut as part of the package, is coming to Texas, and not far from Waco. David Koresh, anybody?

Baseball MAY come to Austin-San Antone ... in about a decade, if then, sounds right.

Forty years ago, Mexia's Juneteenth radically changed.

The national QAnon convention in Dallas will probably wind up resulting in more movement splintering. Oh, and Dallas' pre-Nov. 22, 1963, motto, claiming it was too proud to hate or whatever? Maybe true of actual city government, but of large swaths of the Metromess? Not true then, not true today.

Off the Kuff continues his analysis of State Senate districts in the last three Presidential elections.

On a much-needed lighter note, The Great God Pan Is Dead introduces you to Houston's notorious "Darth Vader House", which is now on sale for the low, low price of $4.3 million.

Metromess

I-345 could be gone sooner rather than later.

Jim Schutze remains AWOL at D Mag's Frontburner, even on race-related issues that would have captured him at the Dallas Observer.

SMU confirms DA John Creuzot that in many places in Dallas County, Blacks were being overarrested for pot.

National

Supposedly, the Biden Admin and Congressional Dems are looking at backdoor ways to expand the Obamacare-related Medicaid expansion to resisters like Tex-ass.

Did Jamie Dimon, owner of Dear Leader's $500K checking account, get help in gray-noising his mike during testimony to Congress?

Evanston, Illinois, is actually trying reparations to Black Americans. The story gives an overview of Evanston's racial history and some of the things that led to this decision.

Global

Israeli Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin is trying to delay the not-yet-officially inevitable end of political life for Bibi.