Texas Progressives look at national and global nuttery

This corner of Texas Progressives saw so much nuttery outside the Pointy Abandoned Object State™ that he broke out a separate national and global roundup this week.

National

Mondoweiss notes that long-time Democratic House veteran James McGovern has explicitly called on Biden's Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, to "unambiguously denounce" Israel calling six Palestinian human rights and social groups terrorists. McGovern explicitly said "expressing concern" is not enough.

Stop buying so much shit. No, really. Even I had no idea American consumerism had gotten that bad. And, some liberals and some leftists may accuse me of guilting the poor, but if you live in a household with total income of under $40K and have more than 1 TV? The reasons you're poor or near-poor are partly your own.

I forgot that Ammon Bundy as well as Idaho's Lite Guv is primarying Gov. Brad Little, who hasn't formally announced yet but presumably is running. Bundy's now gotten Ron Paul's endorsement. Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachen's already gotten the Trump endorsement, so getcha popcorn.

Okie pot growing, which is essentially recreational-legal in all but name, is now a big fat legal mess.

The Flint water crisis legal settlement is indeed bullshit, both on lack of money and on lack of criminal sanctions for flunkies of former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.

Judge orders city of Portland to reveal secret, taped-on police ID numbers.

Global

The Atlantic reports on the latest mind and society control efforts of Xi Jinping Thought. No, really; kids get monitored for how many hours of online video games they play, for starters in the story. Michael Schuman notes not only the background picture of Mao's shadow and the longer-term attempt to make sure Chinese businesses, especially in the tech world, don't get too uppity, but the Communist Party Congress a year from now when Xi will stand for a third term, unprecedented in terms of either formal or informal power since the death of Deng Xiaoping. Schuman adds that some of this comes from a puritanical streak toward the excesses of capitalism that Xi reportedly has. In all of this, asterisks must be appended, started with the magazine this appears in, then going to Schuman being a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Sidebar off Atlantic's rail: the reality of cause, effects and fallouts of the one-child policy.