Texas Progressives have a big old roundup

Activists claim the new Houston ISD board of managers appointed by the state is restricting meeting access, though they don't claim it's in violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act. (It appears not to be.) Meanwhile, Jim Schutze came out of retirement to write a guest column for the Chronic about how new HISD head Mike Miles means business on third-grade reading skills as very much a hill to die on. (From the edges of the Metromess, Schutze is totally right on this.0

Good luck to the new elections administrator in Tarrant County. And, #BlueAnon, if R.F. O'Rourke had spent more time there and less in Muleshoe last year, none of this might have happened.

Strangeabbott continues to be an even bigger whiny pouty face than normal with his property-tax related vetoes. I assume he'll do the same when rural Texas House Republicans continue to tell him "no" on vouchers in his special, ignoring the year Tricky Ricky Perry called multiple specials only to get his hat handed to him multiple times.

I can totally support this: a one-stop shop for small town grant writing help and applications information.

The Lege voted $1 billion to qcuire land for new state parks. (It will need public approval as a constitutional amendment.) At the Monthly, Forrest Wilder has some specific suggestions.

Meet Opal Lee, Fort Worth's "Grandmother of Juneteenth."

Chad and Jennifer Brackeen of Fort Worth failed to overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act, which is good for it in general and also good in specific, as the Brackeens remind me of the type of people that led to the ICWA to be written in the first place. And, Reed O'Connor, who made the original district court ruling in their favor, per internet search is generally one of the worst judges in the US. Justice Neil Gorsuch had a fantastic concurrence; as Elie Mystal notes, if only he would translate that love of Indian rights into civil rights in general.

Thuggish Rethuglicans and scaredy-cat Democraps continuing to try to outdo each other on "tough on crime" will probably ignore that murder in the US is dropping again this year, and also that the early COVID spike was still far lower than that of decades ago.

The Texas stRangers are the only MLB team not to do a Pride event.

At The Hill a nutter named Chip Muir lists nine reasons for Biden to pardon Trump. As The Hill doesn't run taglines on guest writers, a quick Google says he was acting chief of staff for the Trump Administration Office of National Drug Control Policy, and also a general counsel at the White House. Of course. One of the reasons The Hill is one-third a piece of shit.

Anti-third party duopolists at the Nation, in the form of Hillbot Joan Walsh, and at NY Mag's The Intelligencer, in the form of Jon Chait, got past third-party "spoiler" history WRONG (shock me), when talking about Henry Wallace, according to Ballot Access News.

So, who DID do the Nord Stream? The WSJ reports that two months before the explosion, the CIA warned off the Ukrainian government.

Betelgeuse has a chance of going supernova in our lifetimes. Getcha popcorn!

Off the Kuff has still more Paxton impeachment news.

Upon his death, SocraticGadfly warned against reading too much into the life and actions of Ted Kaczynski.

Evil MoPac reveals what Austin politicians look like they do for a living.  

The Eyewall tries to make sense of the major Gulf hurricane activity since 2017.  

Your Local Epidemiologist does not like the cuts to public health that resulted from the debt ceiling hostage negotiations. 

The Houston Democracy Project provided an update on the Republican lawsuit to overturn numerous Harris County elections in 2022.