Ronny Jackson, other Texas wingnuts want to pay to fight climate change without calling it that

Straight from a Jackson "news" release:

Today, Representative Ronny Jackson (TX-13) introduced the Providing Our Law Enforcement with Adequate Recourses for a Response Act, or the POLAR Response Act, which would add polar vortexes to the list of disaster-related emergencies when the Department of Defense (DoD) is considering law enforcement for the transfer of excess property and equipment as part of the 1033 program. This could include equipment such as vehicles, generators, sleeping bags, tools, and first aid supplies.

The 1033 program gives the Secretary of Defense authority to transfer excess DoD property to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for law enforcement activities, including counterdrug, counterterrorism, and border security. This also includes responding to disaster-related emergencies such as hurricanes, tornados, or high water. The POLAR Response Act would add polar vortexes to the definition of major disasters included under the 1033 program.

Jackson said: "When Texas experienced an unprecedented polar vortex earlier this year, we identified vulnerabilities in our disaster response capabilities that should be addressed. That includes making sure our brave law enforcement officers are prepared to respond to the most unconventional challenges, even polar vortexes in Texas. Adding polar vortexes to the definition of major disasters for the DoD’s 1033 program will help ensure officers have the best possible equipment at their disposal to protect citizens, mitigate fallout, and get communities back on their feet as quickly as possible. The POLAR Response Act will do just that.”

Jackson is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Link to the full bill text can be found here.

Co-sponsors include Representatives Troy Nehls (TX-22), August Pfluger (TX-11), Tony Gonzales (TX-23), Jodey Arrington (TX-19), Pat Fallon (TX-04), Randy Weber (TX-14), Jake Ellzey (TX-06), Pete Sessions (TX-17), and Van Taylor (TX-03).

And back to interpretation.

Not only is this hypocritical for not admitting Winter Storm Uri was at least partially connected to climate change, it ignores that Tex-ass will get hit by more than polar vortexes. The PUC says it will mandate summer weatherization rules next spring. We'll see if they have any more teeth than the winter weatherization rules — and if that adds more to the electric bill. We'll ALSO see, if that latter is a fear, if the PUC punts again until after the first Tuesday in November. 

None of this is on Ronny et al's agenda.

Texas primaries 2022: A few thoughts from up on the Red

Updated with TRULY strange new information.

In House District 68, incumbent David Spiller is being challenged by blooming permacandidate Craig Carter, and some smaller ones. But? That's likely changing soon, at least as far as a viable challenge. Carter was recently arrested on the north end of Fort Worth. Charge? A biggie. Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Sadly, it doesn't stop there. Not even close. Carter now claims there's a criminal conspiracy behind the arrest. AND, it doesn't stop THERE. In that same piece, he ALSO claims that said criminal conspiracy is behind the serious accident a year ago that killed his daughter and mother-in-law and seriously injured his son-in-law.

Here's the actuality of that accident. Here's the reality of who caused it and how. I don't know if his claims above are some weird throw-off of mourning, or just worse.

Craig Carter needs a LOT of psychiatric help, it's clear. Sadly, this might make him more attractive to some voters in this area.

==

And now, the original post.

Presuming he wins the general as well as the primary, it will be relatively nice to be represented by Michael Burgess rather than Ronny Jackson. Burgess has five primary challengers. Had to go snoop around to find that. Texas SoS as of Wednesday had no info on CD 26, or CD 25, for that matter. Burgess had a general election challenger two years ago in a contested Dem primary; no L or G challengers.

Drew Springer appears to have no opposition in his run in SD 30, period. Democrats list one candidate, but status is "rejected." No idea on Libertarians, and surely no Greens.

That said, remember when Libertarians once boasted of candidates in every state Senate district? They didn't have one in the SD 30 special election. Nor have they ever primaried every Congressional District. They never primaried Mac Thornberry when he had CD 13. Jackson, as a newcomer, would have seemed an easier target, but nobody jumped in there, either.

So, you may be bigger than Greens, Texas Libertarians, but that doesn't say a lot and you're slipping backward, by that token.

Cooke County actually has a Dem running for county judge. That's better than neighboring Grayson County to the west, over 100K and theoretically getting more trickle-up from the Metromess, where no donkey could be troubled to run.

The most interesting race in chess board terms is, of course, the GOP's AG primary. I'll give 50 percent odds it goes to a runoff, but no more than that. I'll also give 50 percent odds that Eva Guzman, with her "clean campaign" attempt, is NOT one of the two in that runoff, unless she changes up her race. Especially with Gohmert Pyle now in the mess, most of the oxygen is being sucked out unless she creates some of her own.

It used to be easier to nose around GOP and Dem state websites for this info. Not today. I couldn't even find "filed candidates" links or menus. The Greens do post candidates as straight news on the website. The Libertarians don't. 

And, thank doorknobs it does! Because now I know already NOT TO VOTE for Green gubernatorial candidate Delilah Barrios, at least as of this moment. I have little love lost myself for Robert Francis O'Rourke, but if part of why she doesn't like Beto is "Attacks on 2nd Amendment rights," then I want nothing to do with her. First, even though he said he's not repudiating his "we're going to take your AK-47," he surely doesn't mean that 100 percent literally.

And, what if he did? I still believe in a "corporate" interpretation of the Second Amendment, with the "well regulated militia" clause governing. So did the Supreme Court, before Heller. And, an AK-47, at least on full auto, has zero non-military purpose. And, I don't give a fuck for what SCOTUS has said from Heller onward.

I Tweeted her Wednesday night to ask exactly what she means. If I have it before this goes live, you'll get it. And, as of late Thursday night, as I finished this up, she hadn't responded, though a liberal Democrat friend had retweeted it. That said, if David Bruce Collins is part of her campaign staff, I would think he saw the tweet, or else, this one:

Oh for fuck sake.

While I have not a lot of love lost for Beto, if Texas Greens' gubernatorial candidate Delilah Barrios dislikes him because "Attacks on 2nd Amendment rights," I sure as hell ain't voting for her .@TXGreens #GunControlNowhttps://t.co/e9MRWUV2vs

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 16, 2021

And, it's meant. And, her platform makes this more clear. Yet elsewhere, she says she wants more restrictions on the gun purchasing process and that she supports the buyback of assault weapons. So, we're in the land of either actually foolish inconsistency, or one of hypocrisy.

And, update Dec. 23, it looks like Barrios is also an antivaxxer or fellow traveler, as well as a gun nut of fellow traveler.

Green Party Assembles Circular Firing Squad With its Support of Mandated COVID-19 Jabs https://t.co/hY9mKQU8pJ via @CovertActionMag

— DelilahForTexas💚☮🌻🌎 (@DelilahforTexas) December 21, 2021

Having seen other dissident Greens spew scads of misinformation over this issue, I suspect she does, too. The link she posts is full of other nuttery, with claims that the likes of COINTELPRO infiltrated the GP's Steering Committee. 

(Other "dissident Greens" are touting, of course, ivermectin and HCQ, and of course, even more stereotypical Green claims like vitamins and herbs.) With Barrios being a health care professional, though exactly in what capacity (a CNA can be a "health care professional") if she's in agreement with this quackery, it's worse yet.

And, no, vax mandates aren't racist. Hours of operation may not be perfect, but when Walmart and your local grocery story have been offering vaccines for a year, Blacks and Browns have had opportunity. As for the "indemnified pharmaceutical industry"? That saved it from being bankrupted by autism-pseudoscience antivaxxers.

And, with these addenda, I smell a separate blog post about just Barrios coming up after the new year.

That's especially as I see a "third strike" on the "she says" link ... that's transgender vs transsexual, and how that all plays out in various ways.

So far, I know that the Greens are running Barrios for governor and emerging perma-candidate, youth division, Hunter Crow for the RRC. Update that: Alfred Molison is listed as running for land commish.

So, "congrats," Texas Greens, or rather, congrats Molison, so I can vote for somebody running for statewide office.

As far as the gov race in general, 2018 Green of convenience is the only Dem I recognize off the top of my head in that primary besides Beto. And, Texas Libertarians' top candidate is "Taxation is theft" Dum Fuq Dan Behrman. As I said above? Texas Libertarians, you're moving backward.

But, Behrman isn't even the looniest candidate in the local election mix.

There's NOTHING "shocking" in the new JFK/Oswald document dump

That's contra the breathlessness of this piece (and surely others) and the claim that, per Elizabeth Lea Vos, Seth Rich conspiracy theory promoter, Greenwald is also a JFK falser, per screengrab:

What? Greenwald is a fucking JFK conspiracy theorist now, too? Since .@ggrenwald has me blocked and I'm told .@ElizabethLeaVos limits Tweet viewing, I don't know if this is true about Glennwald, or just her spinning. See screengrab. pic.twitter.com/KCb5gqbUri

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) December 15, 2021

OK, on to reality.

So what if Oswald met a KBG agent in Mexico City. We already knew he visited the Soviet embassy there, and ALL Soviet embassies have KGB agents. Just like Russian ones today have FSB agents. Just like US embassies then and now have CIA agents. NOTHINGBURGER.

An anon caller Down Under said the Russkies would finance a hit? Australia and the CIA considered another call, also in Australia, a crank.

Castro loomed large in the CIA investigation? Really? Fidel actually knew about Operation Mongoose and was afraid the US would use JFK's death as an excuse to invade.

Coronavirus, week 88 — the global south and more

Good Atlantic piece here about vax hesitancy outside of "the West." It starts with South Africa, where Whites are more vax-hesitant than Blacks, but are still vaccinated at a higher percentage because of access. "Privilege," maybe we should call it. Or wingnuttery, with White South Africans circulating clips by the likes of Cucker Tarlson, I mean Tucker Carlson.

From there? Russia. A mix of organized anti-West antivax trolling, combined with Sputnik having even worse transparency problems than any Chinese vax plus having efficacy problems after a quick rollout, and on top of that all, the air of Russian fatalism and Russian government mistrust, and finally, a quasi-mystical tradition of Russian folk cures, and you've got problems.

==

Will omicron plus lack of booster shots, plus general vaccination slowness in America, make COVID somewhat a pandemic of the vaccinated, too? The Atlantic has thoughts. 

Derek Thompson says that more and more data from South African seems to confirm an emerging semi-consensus: Omicron is a superspreader, but relatively mild on case severity.

Zeynep Tufekci notes that, even if it is relatively mild, it could still hit nursing homes hard. She notes that, even with vaccination, the immune system of senior citizens is less robust than it is for youngers. Plus, she notes that omicron already is becoming known as a superspreader variant. But, in a new open thread, she largely agrees with Thompson.

And, Dr. Peter Hotez is more worried than Derek Thompson.

With a Wisconsin wedding a superspreader event, even among reportedly vaccinated, do need to stop talking about a "pandemic of the unvaccinated? Or will people lie about vax status, even to friends? I lean to the latter. Or, even if the vaccinated do get infected, and nobody was lying about vaccination status, will severity remain greater among the unvaxxed, and thus, especially if 51 percent of new cases are among the unvaxxed, our trope stands? Or is the sample size too small to say much of anything.

Your Local Epidemiologist describes her holiday plans.

Should the Denver Nuggets tank?

Sounds shocking to even think about talking about this, doesn't it? Especially for a Nuggets team that was in the Western Conference finals two seasons ago.

I don't think it's "shocking." Red Satan, after all, ran a piece a week ago talking about how the Nuggets were now at play-in round level. Nikola Jokic was banged up, and missed a few games. He's back, but still. And, how well can he bear up carrying an ever-heavier share of the offense?

Yeah, Aaron Gordon is doing pretty well. But, still? You don't know when Michael Porter is coming back from that back surgery. All reports say not this year. What I'm getting at is, you don't know about next year. Jamal Murray isn't coming back before the All-Star break. Backup guard PJ Dozier recently dropped for the rest of this year.

You're not finishing better than the play-in round.

And, if you win that? You play either the Dubs, with Stephen Curry and the bunch, especially with Klay Thompson back at any level of play, or the Suns, with Devin Booker, Chris Paul et al.

Win that? It's either the Lakers with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, or the Clips with Paul George and presumably Kawhi Leonard.

If you tank, you are higher up in the draft rankings than you are if you're in the play-in round but don't make the final eight in the West. And, this is a decent draft year. Any place in the top 10 has you doing well.

So, I think it depends most on Joker. If he doesn't stay banged up AND you KNOW you're getting either Jamal back BY the All-Star break, don't tank. Otherwise? Tank away. Given MPJ's back injuries and surgery issues, you need to have a high draft choice next year.

The question is, how low can you tank? You can probably drop below the Spurs, cuz Pops would eye the No. 10 spot like a dog on a bone. Even more so the Kings, starved for any playoff appearance. The East is better overall, so you can probably fall below everybody but the Magic and Pistons. That puts you at No. 6, with a halfway decent shot of one of the three lottery Ping-Pong balls and a guarantee of no worse than No. 8.

Texas progressives roundup: Reproductive choice, election stupidities, more

As many have heard, SCOTUS said SB8 would stand for now, while letting legal challenges proceed; it also narrowed the range of lawsuits available to abortion providers, including letting most politicos in Texas, like Kenny Boy Paxton, off the hook. That was after a state district judge said it was unconstitutional the day before. The district judge, like the Supremes, said the law would stand while legal challenges played through state courts; in other words, no injunctions.

The biggest takeaway at the federal level is that the Umpire, John Roberts, has officially "lost" the court on abortion issues. Dahlia Lithwick vividly concurs, complete with umpiring analogies. The second-biggest takeaway is that the "five" tipped their hand. Gorsuch said they weren't ruling on the constitutionality of the law or not, but by leaving the "citizens lawsuit" enforcement in place, that providers couldn't sue Paxton, district judges or district clerks, but only the head of DSHS and medical licensing boards, means they really WERE ruling on its constitutionality. Per Lithwick, yep, that's gaslighting by Gorsuch.

Off the Kuff reviewed the state and federal Supreme Court rulings on SB8. (Editor's note: Kuff's BlueAnon take on SCOTUS is somewhat more "spun" than what I have listed above as part of this week's Roundup, re who can be sued, though he admits at the end that damage has been done.)

===

GOP wingnuts in Amarillo are going to run their own primary, outside of the county clerk or election board apparatus. Complete with paper ballots. Contra county Rethuglican chair Dan Rogers, we know turnout increased nationwide in 2020 and surely there, too. That's just the start of this. County officials will still manage mail ballots, for both Rethuglicans and Democraps. But, Rogers says that, contra normal practice, on early voting in person, it will have to be like election day — vote your home precinct only. Yep, this, per election pros, WILL piss people off. Like his own Rethuglicans. As for the possibility that hand-counting paper ballots will INCREASE errors, supported by research? "I don't need studies," he says, sounding like a true modern anti-science Rethug. Even more fun? If he violates the ADA in any of this, he can be fined. Possibly sued. And, he's personally liable.

==

SocraticGadfly talked about the latest lawsuit against Texas election law.

Meet Texas' "Dead Sea."

"Stand your ground" meets "Blue lives matter." Which one wins in the wingnut world? In Midland, it's stand your ground (and not shocking to me). That said, the Monthly needs to edit more carefully. I never "knew" that Snyder was south of Midland.

Once again, DPS and the Secretary of State are being a joint clusterfuck on voting eligibility challenges.

Did you know there's an EPA Superfund site in metropolitan Dallas, in Grand Prairie? Details here. Naturally, it's in a low-income, high-minority neighborhood.

How much more will a boom in LNG exports, and an increase in oil exports, wreck the Gulf Coast?

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins supposably has a Dem primary opponent. Billy Clark can't be much of an opponent if, as of Dec. 11, last Saturday, his campaign website doesn't work. (In addition, attorneys who put "Esq." after their names are usually laughably pretentious, even with the overall pretentiousness in the legal profession.)

John Coby notes the "critical race theory" flareup in Clear Creek ISD.

Mean Green Cougar Red comments on the problems transit agencies are having hiring and retaining bus drivers.

The Austin Chronicle has a South by Southwest update.

The Current is on top of one San Antonio ISD's willingness to pull library books off the shelf.

Top blogging November 2021

This is backdated to before my post about the Veterans Committee skyrocketed, so here goes. As is usual, not all items were posted in November. This is just the ones that were the most popular in the past 30 days. That said, this month's overview is sports-heavy.

No. 1, in fact, was from 10 years ago, but is still relevant today, although Xi Jinping Thought surely has less angst about strongarming Google today than back then, while Google, and Western companies in general, media, Internet, or others, have generally shown less compunction about kowtowing to Beijing.

No. 2? Further debate about just how special (or not) Shohei Ohtani's season was. Related? No. 4 was from October, about how Ohtani is still not Babe Ruth.

No 3 and still trending from October? The St. Louis Cardinals' dastardly firing of Mike Shildt. Related? No. 10, my postmortem on the Birds' 2021.

No. 5? It's a link in the middle of my disclaimer on the right hand rail, snarking on Marcy Wheeler, aka Emptywheel. I guess that, as some hot blog posts trend, especially on political news, it draws attention. And, it's as relevant as ever, as #BlueAnon like her largely fellate #StatusQuoJoe on foreign policy.

No. 6? As Omicron puts COVID issues back in the headlines, and COVID obstructionists as well, my summer piece about just what happened to John Ioannidis started trending.

No. 7 and trending back again, after falling out of my top 10, on the sidebar, in the middle of the month? My old post, complete with Photoshopping, kicking BOTH Bill Nye and Ken Ham.

No. 8? Hall of Fame related thoughts on the retirement of Buster Posey, tied to Yadier Molina.

No. 9? With lab meat big news last month, and plant burgers along with that, I retweeted an old story about how Impossible Burger et al aren't all that healthy.