Trans-itory Ohio candidate thoughts

I do NOT think that Ohio transgender (we don't use those object-free prefix "trans" here) or transsexual candidates getting knocked off the ballot for not revealing a name change of less than 5 years ago have a 14th Amendment case.

Tis true that the law has a marriage exception. But, by silence in MSM reporting, tis also apparently true that it does not have other exceptions. And the lack of these other exceptions would knock the pins out from under a 14th Amendment case.

The biggie is that, to reverse the marriage issue, it does not have a divorce exception.

Second is the question of the law's intent. It was passed in 1995, when issues over transsexualism were but a small blip on the country's political and social radar screen and transgenderism wasn't even that.

Third? Ignorance of a law is never an excuse. Sorry, Arienne Childrey and Vanessa Joy, but dem's da bees.

Roundup of oil and gas pollution and infrastructure issues

TCEQ: complicit in big polluters dodging federal law. The biggest beneficiaries are often oil-and-gas related, but it's pervasive.

Kermit's infrastructure is crumbling and it's their own fault. This is the future of parts of West Texas in the new Permian boom; I don't think it's as pervasive a mindset in New Mexico, but we'll see.

Related? Midland still has a potential half-problem with wastewater injection wells and it's arguably at least partially its fault.

A German activist nonprofit is taking on Texas liquified natural gas exports on human rights grounds, not (so much)  environmental grounds. That said, in light of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, are they fighting against German government support for Ukraine back home? If not, this sounds stupid, and for the unaware, the German Green Party, unlike its US counterpart, is a bunch of total war hawks.

Texas Progressives talk lawsuits on Ill Eagles, more

As promised, Biden's DOJ is suing Strangeabbott over Senate Bill 4 empowering Texas law enforcement to make arrests for "illegal entry." I think it's likely it will lose again, given the Arizona case in 2012, where five of eight justices struck down in entirety everything but "show me your papers," and Alito concurred on the direct parallel to Texas: striking down the Arizona state crime of illegal entry. Kennedy is gone (as is Scalia and Ginsburg) but that still leaves five for the key issue if Alito doesn't change and we know that Kagan won't recuse. The three newbies of Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett are at issue, especially if Alito does flop.

Related? New York City is suing not Abbott, but the bus companies that send Ill Eagles there. It's the first suit of its type. Since it's against the bus companies, not Tex-ass, I think it would he hard to get it kicked to federal court. If nothing else, I suspect that at a minimum, while the suit plays out, these companies will want an ironclad hold harmless from Strangeabbott before transporting any more people to New York.

SCOTUS will hear, from Idaho, the case on the federal emergency medicine law being used to try to protect emergency abortion. Kuff calls the simple act, via Talking Points Memo's header, as "ominous." Rather, on it's own, it's the normal action of a Supreme Court when two circuit courts give totally differing rulings on a major issue. Now, on the big picture, I think it's ominous because Team Biden has been trying to get the law to do what it wasn't designed to do and I expect they'll lose.

 Law Dork and Steve Vladeck go deep on the Fifth Circuit's EMTALA decision. 

The Dallas Observer reminds is that there remain challenges to Texas' draconian anti-abortion law.

Here's some potential fallout from federal COVID money for schools ending this fall.

SocraticGadfly said RIP to Eddie Bernice Johnson.

Contra Alexandra Samuels, 52 degrees is BELOW normal for most of Texas outside the Panhandle in early January. Note that where I live, where the almanac on Weather Underground says the average is above 52, has actually had that many days above 52 in the last 10 days. (By next Monday, we're supposed to have sub-20s low with snow.) If Samuels had wanted to talk about something relevant to climate change this time of year and over the recent past, she would have discussed polar vortexes.

Off the Kuff analyzed the runoffs for Mayor and Controller in Houston.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said that Houston Mayor John Whitmire has no plan to protect Houstonians from the extremism of the Texas far right. 

The Eyewall explains what a polar vortex is.  

Bishop C. Andrew Doyle pens an open letter to the NY Times about its use of "taco sauce" in a crossword puzzle.  

Jeff Balke makes nine transportation-related resolutions for Houston for 2024.

Be furious AT Claudine Gay, as well as FOR her

Even before I saw a couple of pieces at Mondoweiss, one with exactly this framing, that was my thought.

There was a raft of McCarthyist (the original one and the guy just booted as Speaker, both) type of original cancel culture behind the recent House hearings by Rep. Elise Stefanik, the ones that hung Gay out to dry. Stefanik, herself arguably actually antisemitic, basically gaslighted Gay and two other university presidents at her hearing.

Gay, along with Penn's Liz Magill and MIT's Sally Kornbluth, offered Stefanik plenty of rope for the self-lynching, Mondoweiss notes, by not challenging her absurdity that "from the river to the sea" is genocidal. 

That said, this was nothing new.

For that, we also go to Mondoweiss.

Rather than than tolerating antisemitism, back in November she was trying to censor "from the river to the sea" being used on campus. A month before that, the Harvard Grad Union called on her to get doxxing of Palestinian activists and other anti-Palestinian activities to stop.

Her response? No support for them, but further tilting toward Zionism.

Then, the day after Gay's resignation, a new guest commenter at Mondoweiss, Aaryan Morrison, a South African-American and fellow Black American, noted she was both furious FOR Gay for being the target of racial and/or sexual related bullying and also furious AT Gay for putting up with ongoing blatant anti-Palestinian activities at Harvard and even, arguably enabling them. She notes the doxxing affected the safety of Black students at Harvard, among others.

This:

Let me be clear: President Gay was forced out not because she is antisemitic and/or anti-Zionist but because she is not Zionist enough. The Congressional hearing on December 5 was little more than political theater in which right-wing leaders created and seized an opportunity to undermine core tenets of liberal arts institutions and divert attention from the genocide in Gaza.

What else can you say? Well, you can say, as I did above, that all three presidents gave Stefanik et al the rope to hange them after gaslighting them. And as linked via Mondoweiss, Gay's post-resignation inked NYT op-ed STILL doesn't push back against this.

It's even worse than Michael Arria's one quote at Mondoweiss. Per the linked piece above by Aaryan Morrison, Gay's column is groveling to Harvard. 

This, a different quote than Arria's:

Those who had relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument.

Indicates how she doesn't get it. The antisemitic smears were of a piece with and intertwined with the racist ones. Gay simply doesn't get the whole issue of weaponized Zionism.

That said, Gay was stringing out the self-hanging noose long before the Stefanik hearings.

This afternoon, NPR was discussing the Gay resignation, through an interview with the editor of the Harvard Crimson. And, got almost nothing correct, or at least, hid the reality of Gay's last two months.

And, tying the two issues together? At The Nation, Dave Zirin says that DEI's lack of objective metrics and such allows Zionists to claim they're being picked on whenever a Palestinian flag is waved in their direction.

Cooke GOP candidate forum an eyeroll

Cooke County Republican Women had the first of two candidate forums Jan. 4. At the regional level, it featured the four contenders for Texas Senate District 30, and locally, the four for County Commissioner Precinct 1.

It was a hoot even before the forum itself, in the GOP wimmin's business affairs. A speaker said they were soliciting for thank you cards for the border, presumably for Border Patrol agents and Texas National Guard members also serving there. I imagine something like this:

Thank you cards for the border? 

“We’re glad you’re tonking a tonk!” 

So, are La Migra, and the Texas National Guard, not getting enough money? 

Why doesn’t Strangeabbott directly pay them?

Naturally, this is called an Americanism project. I tried not to laugh out loud, thinking of Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce mentioning exactly this on a M*A*S*H episode.

The forum? They're nutters. (I had not yet googled full bios of any of them.)

On State Senate District 30, Jace Yarbrough is, if not a full antivaxxer, then a COVID nutter. Brent Hagenbuch, like Yarbrough, is a wingnut culture warrior. Cody Clark sounded humane, but wearing a baseball cap at such a debate looked a bit off-putting. And, after his intro, he sounded like just another Republican, also mentioning “woke” and supporting book banning. Yarbrough thinks a health clinic in Denton ISD is the camel’s nose for “trans care,” though he didn’t say that. Carrie De Moor a nutter on health issues, claiming that even Republicans were trying to promote universal health care, while at the same time claiming that this was about insurance companies, too. De Moor said Arizona’s system works on vouchers. Her answer otherwise seemed to indicate she opposed standardized testing for private schools or homeschooling with voucher money. (And thus my idea that she wasn't good enough for Dan Patrick on vouchers is kaput.)

At the local level, in the commissioners court?

None of the challengers knocked off the king, Gary Hollowell, at least in public, on the Precinct 1 County Commissioner race. Casey Fain came closest with his repeated emphasis on a capital improvement plan. Phil Elmore was the one candidate of the four to mention being a constitutional conservative.

Top blogging of December — Israel-Gaza related

As normal,  these were the most read items of last month, but not necessarily written last month, and I'll note posts that weren't "fresh."

At No. 10? I said, on behalf of Kate Cox, fuck the Texas Supreme Court. Related? No. 3 was a Texas Progressives weekly roundup that was in part about her.

In No. 9, I noted that, once again, for a variety of reasons, that vaunted Texas economic miracle just isn't.

At No. 8? I wrote in 2020 about Jesse Singal stanning for an odious letter in Harper's Magazine, odious because many of its signers who were bitching about alleged cancel culture were and are themselves big practitioners of a particular type of cancel culture — Zionists cancelling any pro-Palestinian comment. People like Bari Weiss. I posted it in a comment at Ken White's Substack and it's retrending.

No. 7? I said in June that I might owe Sam Husseini an apology over not just a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology but possible bioweaponization. I'm still not sure that I owe such apology; "might" is still the operative word.

No. 6? For some reason, my top blogging of November piece trended.

No. 5? RIP Craig Watkins, the trailblazing Dallas County DA who gave himself some self-inflicted wounds and was also kneecapped by Jim Schutze.

No. 4? I called out The Nation (which will do its normal sheepdogging next year) for running another piece of dreck by "goysplaning" Alexis Grenell. This one was about Israel-Gaza, natch. And, beyond dreck, I noted it was 190-proof hasbara.

No. 2? Also about cancel culture, but fresh. It's about the #BlueAnon world that wants to cancel a Frasier reboot cuz Kelsey Grammer but not a Spinal Tap reboot, despite Genocide Rob Reiner.

And, in No. 1, .....

Drumroll ...

My take on the #AbandonBiden movement by Muslim movers, shakers and past Democratic donors.