Texas Progressives: Stuff Kuff missed

Welcome to this week's Texas Progressives Roundup, as we enjoy a bit of laughter at Texas Democratic House leader Gene Wu and his minions touting the success of all their ranking minority members on committees! (You know it's bad when Kuff is still submitting his election analysis of 2024 downballott Harris County races.)

And, when going to state news sites, let's lead with stuff Kuff missed (or took a pass on).

Per the opening paragraph, there's the new House rules, which officially made all committee chairs Republicans, but did officially create a state-level version of ranking minority members. More seriously, omitted in the discussion is that the Speaker, not committee chairs, now controls who sits on subcommittees within a committee.

Per a global event of earlier this month, and since Charles loves to talk about Palestinians, there's the Trib report on Texas reactions to the Israel-Gaza cease fire. (That said, the Trib is either ignorant as fuck or lying through its teeth when it says the ceasefire has held since the start; Israel's already been violating it at the margins and will probably opt out of the second phase.)

Beyond Texas Palestinians, we have the utter disgustingness of Switzerland — home of various Geneva Conventions — arresting Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada for daring to come to Switzerland to talk anti-Zionism.

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In what comes off looking like a whitewash, the Texas Ethics Commission has already dismissed Houscritter Cody Harris' intimidation complaint against state GOP head Abraham George on the grounds that it claimed it was not within its remit. Harris noted: “I think they chose the politically expedient way out.” Of course they did. Remember that when the state GOP gets sued in spring of 2026 when it tries to enforce a primary ban.

SocraticGadfly looked at issues of gullibility and bad coverage in recent Libertarian Party news reporting.

And, there's Dannie Goeb, upping the vouchers payola from 2023 to $10K now.

Patrick also wants to clarify current Texas abortion law concerning Texas doctors and mothers with at-risk pregnancies. What sort of clarification he wants wasn't spelled out in detail, and he ain't going there. 

The Barbed Wire has suggestions for spending down the rainy day fund rather than sending yet more money back to taxpayers who will get addicted to this. 

It also out-snarked the Monthly. (With more and more of its stuff getting paywalled, it's here less and less.)

RIP Cecile Richards, from the Texas Observer. Jeff Rotkoff also eulogizes Cecile Richards at The Barbed Wire.

Off the Kuff analyzed three more Harris county races from 2024, in which Democrats did considerably better.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project wrote about 8 full years & still going strong of the John Cornyn Houston Office Protest. It has never been more important for people to see others like themselves standing up for democracy.

Your Local Epidemiologist warns of the dangers that RFK Jr's "back to nature" pablum would bring. CultureMap has the snow day pictures of zoo animals you were looking for. The Dallas Observer reviews the last four years of Ken Paxton lawsuits against the Biden administration. 

City of Yes has an optimistic take on transportation policy under Trump. (We spell it out here, unlike Kuff's "Tr*mp." I should ask Brains to deliver him a pussy hat.)