Texas Progressives talk state GOP, Uvalde, environment

State GOP convention

The Trib has a roundup of major platform planks which doesn't even note that the Rethugs shifted even further rightward on adult gay rights. Well, wait, that was in a second piece that noted the Rethugs called being gay or lesbian "an abnormal lifestyle choice," along with claiming Biden's win was illegitimate and booing Big Schmuck John Cornyn for trying to pass a weak tea gun control bill at the federal level even as he backs away from it. A third piece's header nails it: "Texas Republicans meet in a climate of mistrust, conspiracy and victimhood."

==

Much of the above stands in contrast to last Sunday having been Juneteenth, which gives an opening to teach actual history. (Unfortunately, it's not during the school year.) After two years of COVID hiatus, Juneteenth returned to Comanche Crossing at Lake Mexia.

==

Is a coverup fix on over Uvalde? Will Alito et al use fake originalism to further gut gun control?

Off the Kuff wrote about the utter uselessness of DPS at Uvalde, and the ongoing effort to keep secrets about what did happen by those who were there.

==

SocraticGadfly has a pair of environmental postings. First, he extends a heaping helping of summer schadenfreude to all the Californians who moved to Austin and elsewhere in the last 18 months and are learning about real Texas summer. Second, he remains opposed to an Ike Dike both on its own grounds and as part of general boondoggling by the Corps of Engineers.

Meet the yucca whisperer.

Meet the do-nothings at Chevron and the RRC, trying to ignore saltwater blowouts in the Permian.

The Texas Signal warns of the "endgame" for reproductive rights and abortion access.

The Observer reports that abortion activists are nonetheless still hard at work doing what they do.

Texas 2036 worries we are not preparing for the kind of droughts that are to come.

Reform Austin points out how much of Greg Abbott's border "mission" turns out to be arrests for marijuana possession.

D Magazine connects Texas' anti-abortion laws to greater trauma with miscarriages.