Merry fucking Christmas to Robert Jeffress as he cavorts with Belial

The Dallas Observer is Dallas-Fort Worth's alt-weekly, part of the (Village) Voice Media group. Its Dec. 1-7 issue (just 24 pages at about a 50 percent adhole, not counting house) had a quarter-page ad from Robert Jeffress. Yes, THAT Robert Jeffress, wingnut Trump-schlonging pastor at Dallas First Baptist. Rexella Van Impe, wife of the late Jack Van Impe, and herself 90 years old, is also tied in.

At the same, Bob Jeffress, Rexella, and Jack Van Impe Ministries have to be just as desperate to advertise in an alt-weekly that also carries ads from all the major DFW titty bars.

Looking at the event being advertised, are the pair going to try to do a resurrection of Jack, or what? 

On the flip slide of that?

Meanwhile, let's go all biblical on Bob, from Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 6:

15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[a]? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?

Well, Bob? How do you explain to members of First Baptist when they see that you're trying to cavort with Belial?

Or maybe it's Beelzebul, per Mark 3:

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

There you go. Robert Jeffress, Lord of the Flies. And Pimper of Trump.

Life after Beto, er, Beat-0, for Texas Dems

At the Observer, Justin Miller looks at the options on statewide candidates now that Beat-0 is toast. 

And, I look at his looking.

Congresscritter Joaquin Castro? Not gonna do it if he thinks Democrats can regain the U.S. House in 2024 elections. Possibility of moving up the career ladder, and maybe looking beyond that. Colin Allred? Possibly. Might be enough of a ConservaDem to satisfy Greg Summerlin. Lizzie Fletcher also an urban ConservaDem. Veronica Escobar is from El Paso, and less known than Beat-0 had made himself known.

Lina Hidalgo? Not in 2024; the COVID contracts issue with her staffers is probably, even if cleared up 100 percent in her favor, still going to be too close in time. That means a third run for county judge in 2026.

Christian Menafee? Interesting, but still low profile.

Clay Jenkins? Miller only name-checks him. He'd certainly look at Allred's seat if Allred decide to run for a statewide office. I could see him taking his own flyer against Havana Ted in 2024.

#Txlege — Dems make GOP bids on issues

Will Donna Howard's bill to do a narrow sexual assault carve-out to Texas' abortion law actually draw any GOP backers once it hits the light of day? Color me skeptical, though Joan Huffmann and Robert Nichols are on record as supporting it and have GOP-friendly districts, so it's not just campaign talk from them.

They have to get Danny Goeb to let it see the light of day, then, assuming it passes the more friendly House, have to dodge a Strangeabbott veto, es

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State Rep. Joe Moody wants to eliminate the "dead suspect" loophole to the state's Public Information Act. It's high time, and current and presumably ongoing Speaker Dade Phelan is interested. But, is he OK iwth the other parts of Moody's bill, which would broaden the PIA on police misconduct in general, and on jail deaths? I doubt it, and I know that's part of why CLEAT has vociferously opposed past such bills. Will Moody narrow the bill? Dunno. I support the whole idea, but like Donna Howard, he might need to settle for half a loaf, or less. That said, given that he's introduced similar bills in the past, I don't hold my breath on compromise.

Texas Progressives have warm thoughts

Shock me Tony Tinder(holt) has hired a Christian nationalist as his legislative director.

The White/non-White birth death gap remains high.

"Matthew Kascmaryk ruled X" should be saved in a macro for the next 20-30 years. This time, it's over blocking Biden's attempt to end "remain in Mexico."

Maybe, Aaron Dean's conviction on top of Amber Guyger's will get at least big city cop shops in Tex-ass to screen their cops better. And thank doorknob Jim Schutze's retired.

Will Republican control of the US House put any restraints on Biden's Ukrainian arms bazaar? Mike McCaul says no.

Off the Kuff takes a first look at precinct data from the 2022 election, starting with Beto versus Abbott in Harris County. 

SocraticGadfly looks at international politics and notes that, like many Americans, many Ukrainians want real peace talks in the Russia-Ukraine war.

G. Elliott Morris chats with ChatGPT about polling.  

Grungy presents a recent history of the Rice Marching Owl Band, also known as The MOB. 

Your Local Epidemiologist has a post about the bivalent boosters where only subscribers can comment, so I can't ask her thoughts on why we don't have non-mRNA boosters.

Harvey Yates, sinking his oily hands into New Mexico

I didn't realize that Yates, scion of THE Yates oil and gas plutocrats, had bought Española's Rio Grande Sun earlier this year. (Of course, it had been a semi-laughingstock itself long ago, goosing its circ by selling in Santa Fe and Duke City so that the big city folks could get their jollies laughing at the drug crimes in one of the Land of Dis-Enchantment's armpits.

That's part of the discussion in this New Mexico Searchlight piece about Yates widening the spread of his oily talons across the state.

His ultimate goal, per the piece, seems to be a drive into browbeating the Valencia County Commission into changing various zoning laws so he can drill — and frack — in the Albuquerque Basin.

As for his claims that NM Media is dominated by Gannett? Laughable. Hobbs is owned by a small scale company, or was. The Albuquerque Journal's Number Nine Media dominates print media in the Albuquerque Basin, including the Valencia County Bulletin in Belen, and No. 9 is semi-wingnut. Carlsbad and Cruces are Gannett, tis true. Duke City teevee? KOB is a smaller chain. KOAT is Hearst. KRQE is Nextstar. Farmington's paper is Gannett, but I"m unaware of it ever saying a bad word about either fracking or flaring.

It's also laughable, is his implication that Gannett, now Craphouse of course, is run by a bunch of wild-eyed bomb-throwers. However, I'm sure he hates even the slightest mention of climate change on its news pages. It's also laughable to read about his circumlocutions about fracking. He probably also hates to see the slightest mention of fracking, injection well earthquakes, etc. in any of those papers. Of course, that's assuming there's anybody left at those papers. It's a bit richly hypocritical for the Fanta Se paper folks to report on the details of Gannett's hollowing out in New Mexico, but here you go. (That said, it is the Capital City's alt-weekly, not the New Mexican.) Gannett doesn't even have a local reporter at its Ruidoso or Alamogordo papers.