No, Trump didn't "cave" on tariffs — and Xi won't either

To update what I posted on Substack yesterday? (Where we know Trump's list of 50 or 75 or 247 countries that want to talk turkey is a lie?)

Trump did not remove his pre-April tariffs in general.

And, he didn't remove ANY of his tariffs on China.

And, he made clear Thursday morning that the tariff rate on China is now at 145 percent. China, as of yesterday, had fired back up to 84 percent plus blacklisting a number of US companies. And today, Friday? It's gone up to 125 percent. And now, Vietnam is trying to cordon itself off from China. Still won't help the American shoe industry as Vietnam got socked with its own tariffs, though that's among those that have been suspended, for now.

It's why the Dow went back in the tank yesterday morning.

Ergo, contra Mark Ames, who claimed on Shitter Wednesday evening that Trump got rolled, no such thing has happened. Wishing that Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Idea" were true, as I noted over there with Trump (and Hitler and Stalin) t'aint so means it's not so for Ames, or others thinking along this line.

Add in the fact that House GOP wingnuts squared caved to Trump yesterday only underscores this. 

The likes of Ames should know better on this, too.

Besides, according to his own staff, if he was "semi-rolled," it was the bond market, not the stock market. 

Friday's stock market whipsawed, but many experts said, don't get in if you don't have to.

It will plunge again as Trump'x belief that Chinese president Xi Jinping needs to cave to him by picking up the phone ain't happening. Here's that Dum Fuq saying that "You are proud, but you need to be less proud than me," to read between the lines.

“China wants to make a deal. They just don’t know how quite to go about it,” Trump said on Wednesday during an event at the White House. “You know, it’s one of those things they don’t know quite – They’re proud people.”

To quote Poppy Bush?

Not.Gonna.Happen.

Paxton vs Cornyn: Is it close to being officially on?

One event from last week bumps the odds to 90 percent that it's on. 

Another bit of news drops that to 70 percent.

The bump up is related to what looks like bad news for Kenny Boy.

Paxton, per a NYT interview in Dallas, has already talked to people close to The Donald about getting his kiss of anointment. In fact, he had to be reminded by a "campaign" advisor that he hasn't officially announced his campaign yet.

The bad news?

Paxton's aides get $6.6 million in whistleblower suit is the story. Of course, he's appealing it. It wouldn't really hurt him in a 2026 U.S. Senate general election, but in a primary against Big John Cornyn, it will be a lead anchor. Maybe.

That said, per The Barbed Wire, if NYT's grab of internal GOP polling is accurate, will Cornyn even run? 

It puts Paxton ahead of Cornyn right now. 

Given the change in administration, Cornyn's early 2024 jibe to Paxton about running from jail is now moot. And mute.

Cornyn will be 76 years old next year. That's actually not old by the standards of the gerontocracy of the current US Senate. But, he's watched Mitch McConnell fall apart over the past 12 months. Betty Crocker Diane Feinstein die in office. Other members age out more and more.

So, given those polling numbers, it drops back to 70 percent.

If Big John pulls out early enough, does anybody else major jump in? Sid Miller might. Former Land Commish Jerry Patterson might pull a contrarian run. Bushies in Texas, whether family members or otherwise? Not a chance.

And then, who runs to replace Kenny Boy?

Not major, but John Bash has announced his candidacy for AG.

Texas Progressives talk vouchers, special elections, more

Off the Kuff encourages the filing of lawsuits to force a CD18 special election onto the calendar. 

SocraticGadfly talks about how Trump's tariffs and other actions could and will affect pro sports teams. 

We're getting closer to vouchers, with House tweaks to SB2 largely cosmetic, as are further increases to the WADA.

The TSTA Blog scoffs at the notion that the fight for vouchers is somehow a "civil rights" matter.

Elmo Musk is the latest beneficiary of the Lege's ongoing efforts to undermine local control of more and more issues.

Havana Ted is trying to put daylight between himself and The Donald over tariffs, while still leaving plenty of room to butt-kiss as deemed necessary.

No, Trib, you cannot backdate worries over Trump tariffs to late 2024. Rather, it was already likely then that momentum was building for a recession.

The political bottom line of this piece on Dallas tenant lawyer Mark Melton is "why does El Paso Democrat Joe Moody hate tenants?" I get Angie Button and the other Republicans, but, since Moody refused to talk to the Monthly, "he hates tenants."

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project reported on his remarks to the crowd of 6000 at the 50501 protest at Houston City Hall. Houston City Council must join the fight for our freedom.

Texas Monthly takes an Austin-centric view of the Tesla Takedown.  

Evil MoPac gives his next batch of Austin Truths.

 Deceleration reports on the very high cost of cleaning of Texas' fracking water.  

Mean Green Cougar Red has a bit of good news about monarch butterflies.

New confabulations from Ken Burns — the American Revolution

I was calling out Ken Burns for promoting American exceptionalism in his PBS documentaries (mockumentaries?) more than 15 years ago. That piece is a roundup of some of the worst of his issues, which I'll tackle in a minute.

But, the photo above, from this Pro Publica piece not actually focused on Ken Burns, but rather on Clarence Thomas, is proof positive of him as that "Empire Whisperer." 

Kudos to Pro Publica for noting in the caption that Koch has financed Burns' movies. He's also financed other things via "The David H. Koch Fund for Science," which long ago pressured PBS to tone down anything it said about climate change.

The latest egregiousness? Burns telling the BBC that he really does talk about the dark side of American history. Besides being bought off by the Kochs, which includes that David Koch apparently bought Burns' silence about the carcinogenic power of petrochemicals, this is simply not true. 

For starters, that link also notes him writing American Indians out of the picture in his librulz-acclaimed National Parks series. And, written out they are. (Also, national parks are not America's greatest idea; the First Amendment is.)

His Vietnam miniseries? A shitload of bland pro-Americanism. I mean, he doesn't interview Daniel Ellsberg, gets Tonkin Gulf wrong, ignores the imperialism and more.

He got both Roosevelts wrong in that mini-series. Well, more, he got the legends of both right, and everything that the legends obscure, wrong. 

He omitted Reconstruction as part of his Civil War series, getting back to the top link, pulling the same switcheroo that White folks both north and south of the Mason-Dixon did at the (in)famous 25th anniversary of Gettysburg.

In all of these things, he's been very White. He didn't talk about how much of the New Deal was Whites-only; he didn't talk as much as he could have about minority contributions to WWII; he didn't at all look at racial issues on Vietnam.

And now, per that Beeb link? He's going to do an American Revolution miniseries to cash in on the semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary? And, yes, cash in it shall be.

Let's start with this:

Burns doesn't gloss over the uncomfortable parts of US history, pointing out that, for him, being patriotic doesn't mean erasing the past; for instance, the fact that Benjamin Franklin owned slaves. "He knew it was wrong, and he kept doing it," Burns says.

Really? All of the above says this ain't so true. So, Ken, I won't hold my breath over whether or not you mention the Somerset decision as a possible factor in the revolution. I won't hold my breath looking for Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment of escaped slaves.

Then there's his pop-American historiography:

On the subject of history, Burns says he does not subscribe to the popular view that it is always doomed to repeat itself, deferring to the opinion of the 19th-Century Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," was Santanya's comment, in reference to the Holocaust. "It's [a] lovely phrase you'd wish would be true," says Burns. He also points to the famous quote that is attributed to US author Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme."

Really? As I type, Donald Trump is denying that Smoot-Hawley tariffs contributed to the Depression and his sheeple all believe him. 

Beyond that, Twain and Santayana aren't in opposition. Twain was being snarky, first. Second, Twain didn't say that; it's first attributed in 1970. Third, even if he HAD said that, it wouldn't have been in opposition to Santayana, who clearly said "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," something entirely different from some "eternal recurrence" idea.

His "10th inning" add-on to "Baseball" was meh and included hero-worship of racist commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Even when he's not actually wrong, whether for racist reasons or not, watching Burns, I once noted, is like eating stereotypical Chinese food. 

That said, per the Beeb interview, and to riff on a phrase uttered about FDR?

If he's working on a miniseries about Dear Leader Obama, "The man and the hour have met!"

Or, per NBC, that's "Must not see TV!"

Second child dies from measles as Brainworm Bobby tries to poison others

We now have a second confirmed measles death in Texas, on top of the one in New Mexico; known Texas measles cases likely will be over 500 by the time you read this.

Related? The Trib profiles Lubbock's public health director, Dr. Katherine Wells, including her noting this has a feeling similar to COVID, including the nutters rebelling against public health measures.

Per the profile story, coming just ahead of Brainworm Bobby's visit on Sunday, he caused this:

A Lubbock’s children hospital is now treating children with severe measles who also suffer from vitamin A toxicity. This comes after Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update the measles guidance to promote the vitamin’s use, which most health experts object to. The Trump administration is eliminating pandemic-era grants that were used to boost the department’s response to the measles outbreak, including paying for employees. And Wells is navigating what could arguably be an even more delicate line than COVID — managing the outbreak of an eradicated, preventable disease, with a worn-out staff and a growing distrust from the public.

Geez o fucking Pete. Vitamin A overdoses can kill you. 

Meanwhile, Wells had her hands full during the latter stages of COVID dealing with nutters not just in the general public but the mayor and one other member of the Lubbock City Council. 

On Brainworm Bobby's visit, he said he has "developed bonds" with area Mennonites. Of course he has; antivaxxers of a feather flock together. It's also "interesting" that, while out in Gaines County, he did NOT attend a news conference being held by the CDC.

That said, he did shat on Shitter Sunday to support vaccination via his official account. To which I said:

If you really believe "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine" then why are you pushing Vitamin A, which has sent multiple kids to the hospital with Vitamin A poisoning? You look like you're trying to straddle the "sides" of science & stupidity

He has since doubled down on his mix of pseudoscience and arrogance, claiming that his measles protocol should be a model for the world.

What else IS there to say?

Well, Brainworm Bobby, unless he resists, has been asked to say more by Louisiana U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, both on pushing vaccines and on talking to his Senate committee.

Top blogging of March 2025

As is normal, these most popular posts of last month weren't necessarily written IN March. That will be noted as needed.

In No. 10, knowing Tibet's history, I encouraged readers not to shed too many tears (whether crocodile or real) for the Dalai Lama.

At No. 9, from February, Quorum Report's Harvey Kronburg was semi-pissed off. (I assume he still is.)

At No. 8, also from February, I expressed some skepticism over Sy Hersh's claims the US had a mole inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. (Since then, Sy's been Captain Obvious on several Trump-related posts that are two or three days behind the curve.)

No. 7? From January, my "blogroll update in progress" piece still rides high. (I have done some updating of moving older to newer; among stuff I've yet to move and may not, I miss Independent Political Report very little, and Counterpunch and Ballot-Access News not a lot more, nationally, and Kuff no more at the state level.)

No. 6? A late-January Texas Progressives roundup, which covered Dustin Burrows' start as state Speaker and other things.

No. 5? Speaking indirectly of Kuff? Also from January, a piece about the BlueAnon Nazi mods at r/Texas banning me.

No. 4? From late February, another TP Roundup, this one on measles and Southwest Airlines, among other things.

No. 3? From February, my riffing on David Schenck to call for real Texas judicial reform.

No. 2? The end of an era at Southwest Airlines. (Since then, I've heard from a pilot acquaintance that he doesn't like the changes and that that's very likely nowhere near a solo opinion.)

No. 1? With an ongoing bullet? Part of a semi-ongoing series about The Resistance 2.0, this being its desire to relitigate Russiagate 1.0, in part because they believe that Zelensky really is Churchill. (For a roundup of all my posts on this so far, with additional notes on each, here's my Substack piece.)

Trump's tariffs will affect pro sports, too — note to sports subreddits etc

As I first noted yesterday in a post at Reddit's r/mlb subreddit that moderators deleted — with my best guess being that they're afraid of looking political — repairs to the hurricane-shredded roof at the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field could be affected by Trump's tariffs. 

Per ESPN, on the decision by the St. Petersburg City Council voting $22.5 million to repair the roof, which must be fixed before other repairs can be done:

Under the proposed timeline, the roof installation will take about 10 months. The unique membrane system is fabricated in Germany and assembled in China, Quintana said, adding that officials are examining how President Donald Trump's new tariffs might affect the cost.

Again, I don't know, but IF that's why the post was deleted, it's pretty chickenshit. It may be an auto-delete, in that moderators have the sub automatically haul down anything with "Trump" in it. Still sad, if not totally chickenshit, if that's so.

Let's note that Canada has an MLB team. Multiple MiLB teams. Besides tariffs, various US-Canada tussles could have a pro baseball effect. Ditto on the NBA and NHL. Issues like visas for MLB's and MiLB's many Caribbean players, for example.

Besides, that was the third pull quote from the story, not the first.

As for the issue there? I copy-pasted, with added notes, and a link to the original r/MLB post, to my subreddit. I'm not enough of a Reddit genius to know if tagging a sub does anything other than a URL link, as in, does it give mods a heads-up or not?

And, I keep saying I should be on Reddit less. One more of its Farmville-style awards, and, at least as far as posting, and possibly commenting on larger subs, too, I still plan on making that happen.

Texas Progressives – national and international level

I've broken out a few items from this week's Roundup to run separately.

Trump claims he can run for a third term (and hold it if elected), and contra previous comments, this one doesn't seem like trollery. Given the way SCOTUS currently stands, absolutely five votes are against him and almost certainly Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if Thomas and Alito would agree he has such a loophole.

Gene Hackman's family wants a blanket exemption from New Mexico open records law. So far, other than pictures of the house not being released to the public, they're not getting it.

When Chuck Schumer has lost Josh Marshall, he's really up the creek. As a good left-neolib, Josh calls him out for procedural reasons as much as anything. That said, Schumer sounds like he's totally disorganized and simply not ready to take on Trump 2.0. But, since Democraps stand on procedure, there will be no move to unseat him as minority leader for the next two years

 

Of COURSE Colin Allred is sucking up to Never Trumpers, aka Bushies, for 2026

Last year's ConservaDem (he is) failed Senate candidate says he'll decide this summer whether or not to run again next year against Big John Cornyn — or Kenny Boy Paxton, or whoever is a successful enough RINO hunter to primary Big John out of office. (Cornyn is nowhere near a RINO, of course.)

Per the story, Allred announced a possible run when talking to the Dallas Snooze before meeting with the Bushies, which we all know who the Never Trumper Rethuglicans in Tex-ass are. (I saw this via Kuffner, who of course loves the idea.) I'm sure the SS Texas Democratic Minnow's new skipper, fellow ConservaDem Kendall Scudder, would also like this idea.

I do have to "love" Allred's spinning about why he lost last year.

“It was a tough election,” Allred said at the forum. “In a lot of ways, it was an election that was dominated by things that were not about the candidates … there was a malaise. There was an atmosphere that was difficult to punch through.”

No, no "malaise."

GenocideJoe broke his one term promise, refused to step aside when it looked like he was clearly also DementiaJoe, did so too late for anything other than a coronation of his Veep, Kamala is a Zionist Cop, and watched her run a crappy campaign her own self.

All that while both of them pissed off alleged pergressuve Democrat apparatchiks and leftish but not actual leftist independents.

Texas Progressives — state level; special elections, stings and more

Off the Kuff saw the failure to call a May special election for CD18 coming. 

SocraticGadfly wonders how someone like Coppell ISD's superintendent can get nailed by a sting video in 2025.

Nuclear power to treat oilfield "produced water" to theoretically make it usable for agriculture? Gee, what could go wrong with that idea? The correct answer is, like with much of Aridzona, etc.? Admit that anthropogenic climate change is real, it's too expensive to get water to farm most your crops, and move.

Kenny Boy Paxton's office is investigating an insurance company accused of spying on journalists, among other things. Paxton probably wants their secrets.

The bill that purports to clarify Texas' anti-abortion law may NOT fully clear up what exceptions are allowable, despite many elected state Dems jumping on the bandwagon. There's also other "backdoor" problems with the legislation. Don't forget that this is a Senate bill, not a House one.

Texas Republicans love to hate inflation, as do national Republicans, except when it allows them to cover their tracks on whether they've really increased school funding or not.

Measles cases now at 400 (officially) and still rising.

Texas' "right to farm" law may not include raising Spanish hogs inside a city limits.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project said Whitmire sent 11 HPD units to modest, calm protest about bike lanes. What will be HPD's response when we are on streets for our basic rights this Saturday, April 5?

Nonsequiteuse updates her earlier advice on how to stay safe at protests.

Evil MoPac presents the first items on their list of 100 Fundamental Austin Truths.

The Current has some bad news for San Antonio in the Trump-Canada trade war.

Bayour City Sludge shows that nobody likes Briscoe Cain.

UT alum Luke Winkie explains Signalgate from the frat boy perspective.

Texas Dems elect ConservaDem Kendall Scudder as state party chairman

So, Texas Democrats have gone from finally getting Gilberto Hinojosa to walk the plank from the water-treading SS Texas Democrats Minnow to this, Scudder getting elected in a highly contested race? (Interesting the TDP uses instant-runoff voting; now, along with stopping your effort to keep Greens off the ballot, maybe support it in state races?)

ConservaDem Kendall Scudder is, and I first met him seven or eight years ago. Riding Beto Bob's coattails then promoting Matthew McConaughey to run for gov is proof of that. More proof? In 2022, Kendall, in the DMN interviewing him for his state senate primary, said both parties had moved too far from the center.

As for his plans?

He wants the party to pay attention to areas he says it has previously written off, like rural communities, and put a priority on Spanish-language communications.

Wrote off rural Democrats? Did you forget about Beto, or Beat-0, in Muleshoe, which also involved his being a general PanderBear?

The reality is that rural Democrats, as in county-level political organizations, have long written themselves off. Those that aren't totally moribund welcomed Beto in Muleshoe for a bit of recognition in turn for a bit of his low-level grifting. That's in counties that even have a county level organization. Many don't, and the state party admits this.

And, Scudder, you served on the state party executive committee. You know this.

One other thing on Scudder, per my ConservaDem link? He bragged on his podcast about having a concealed carry permit, even with living in the Metromess. And yes, I saw it as bragging.

That, in turn, ties back to my post Friday: "With Texas Democrats, who needs Texas Republicans," as one part of that was about a majority of Senate Dems voting to get even tougher on the death penalty. In the DMN interview, Scudder wasn't asked about the death penalty. However, one of the other four candidates in that same state Senate race, Charles Gearing, twice volunteered his opposition to the death penalty, under the same question, about criminal justice reform. Maybe the fact that one of Scudder's three (step)-parents worked for either a county jail or TDCJ, as a correctional officer, per his website campaigning to replace Hinojosa, indicates he might tilt toward frying people, even if that was the dad his mom divorced. This would probably tie to his concealed carry permit, too. As would his being a "volunteer in patrol" with the Dallas PD. A more righty junior Jim Schutze? Gack.

I've done plenty of teh Google and can't find his stance. In addition to all of the above, IMO, if he actually opposed the death penalty he would have volunteered that info somewhere. 

I also don't know his position on Zionism and Palestine.

One-third trollingly, two-thirds seriously, I rhetorically asked about this on Shitter Monday night. Non-rhetorically, I asked Texas Progressive Caucus on Hucksterman, and Texas Democrats on Shitter. The purpose there is to see if THEY know, more than to get the answers themselves, since I already indicated I think I know what they are.

And, 24 hours later, neither has answered me.

So, contra Michelle Davis at Lone Star Left, in my world, Kendall Scudder is NOT a "pergressuve." Well, he surely is on LGBTQAI (If we're doing alphabet soup, I'm adding "Incel") issues, but not likely other than that. 

But, Jim Hightower supported him, because he has know-how and can raise bucks. Careful, Jim, or you'll find yourself in the neighborhood of yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

I mean, sexual orientation issues and abortion are important. So is combating US imperialism (Russia-Ukraine and NATO) and Israeli imperialism. So is real action, not fake action, on climate change. (Remember, in 2022, Beto-Bob discovered the religion of "drill, baby, drill.")

Scudder DOES know about running for office. Huntsville city council, multiple times. State Senate. The new elected member slot on Dallas County Appraisal District. Now this, and I'm probably missing something. In short, he's a permacandidate. Will he use the party chairmanship to run for office again at some point?

RIP Grandma Carole Keeton Strayhorn Rylander

RIP Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn Grandma. A symbol — one of four — of Tex-ass politics in the 2006 gubernatorial race, all of whom eventually shot themselves in the foot politically. (Libertarians had a candidate and there was a write-in, but they don't count.)

I wrote about the campaign at the time it was breaking out.

She herself? Siring future Texas GOP progeny by her first husband while eventually exemplifying Texas and national GOP hypocrisy by becoming a three-time divorcee.

Kinky Friedman? Couldn't stop cracking jokes long enough to get serious, despite advisors from then-Minnesota Governor Jesse The Body Ventura helping him out — before most quit. Frankly, I think Kinky was afraid of the possibility of winning, as I noted at his death.

Chris Bell? Eventually showed how much of a ConservaDem he is, despite Progress Texas anointing him, and that his ethics schtick was bullshit. More here, from his own mouth, on his shallowness.

Tricky Ricky Perry? Failed presidential runs and getting high on back pain meds while being tough on drugs.

Sadly, sites like "Reform" Austin (really?) have non-takedown encomium obits.

With Texas Senate Democrats, who needs Texas Republicans?

More than half of Democrats in the Texas Senate earlier this week joined Dannie Goeb and all Republicans in supporting SB 990, which gets even more ghoulish about the death penalty in the Pointy Abandoned Object State.

For the unaware, the bill now means that killing a 10-15 year old becomes capital murder, even without another crime. It also gives prosecutors, despite their 96 percent conviction rate on crimes in Tex-ass in general, "enhanced tools." Fourth degree instead of third? It also "closes legal loopholes and gaps." Like, "Hey, he's 9 years, 364 days old, or 15 years, 1 day old?" What stupidity. 

Stupidity and concern-trolling and virtue-signaling that 6 of 11 Senate Democrats voted FOR.

Before that, apparently ALL Senate Dems joined Rethuglicans in saying that K-12 public school teachers MUST tell their students about the "unique" evils of Communism.

What? They can't teach both sides, like the Southlake Carroll administrator telling teachers there to talk about "opposing views" on the Holocaust?

In reality, because SB 24 doesn't mention fascism (let alone capitalism) it's virtue signaling on those grounds alone.

It's also virtue signaling, because of what I said yesterday about national-level Democrats, that it doesn't mention Zionism.

Maybe I should be quiet, before Dan-o brings up another bill about Islamo-terrorism.

The death penalty — the US isn't totally an outlier

First, off to those nice polite Canadians.

Canada doesn't actually have the death penalty. It got rid of it long ago. But, via David Moscrop at Substack? A majority of Canadians wish they had it.

In this year’s survey, just over half of Canadians (53 per cent, down five points since 2023) think the death penalty is “sometimes” appropriate. About one in four (26 per cent, up one point) say it is “never” appropriate, while 14 per cent (up five points) say it is “always” appropriate.

Interestingly, per the story, that's a marginal decline from 2020, but not a real decline:

Starting in 2020, Research Co. and Glacier Media have asked Canadians annually about their views on the death penalty for murder. Although our country eliminated this possibility in July 1976, we have consistently seen about half of Canadians voicing support for reinstating capital punishment.

Also interestingly, that 53 percent doesn't exactly match with:

Lest one thinks, from what Americans know of politics north of the border from south of the border, this isn't all Conservatives. 

Conservative voters in 2021 are more likely to endorse this course of action (69 per cent) than counterparts who voted for the Liberal Party (56 per cent) or the New Democratic Party (49 per cent).

I guess Greens don't count in Canadian polling any more than in US polling. (Canada has no real equivalent of the US Libertarian Party. In Europe, people who identify as libertarian there think that US L/libertarians are fucking nuts, and they're right.)

There's also one other point, that we'll get to in more detail in a minute.

The intriguing fluctuations on this question are related to ethnic origin. While 31 per cent of Canadians of European descent believe the death penalty is “never” appropriate, the proportions are lower among respondents whose origins are Indigenous (20 per cent), South Asian (15 per cent) and East Asian (10 per cent).

Really? Yes.

Japan is one of four democracies, or alleged ones, that still has the death penalty. Per Wiki, it's executed 98 people this century. Aside from the US, those other countries are Singapore (shock) and Taiwan. It's also still on the books in South Korea, but on hiatus there since 1998.

And, I don't think I need to spell out the ethnicity of those places.

Now, the 98 in Japan is far fewer than the 1,018 in the US this century. 

That then said, what prompted this is that Japan, in at least one case, has shown that it can be as egregious in prosecutorial misconduct in a murder trial as in the US.

Zionist Dems trying to "own" Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe

Yeah, for shits and giggles, its "fun" watching Senate Democrats call out the trio of the Department of Defense Drunkards, Department of National Intelligence Israeliness, and Central Intelligence Agency, respectively over Hegseth's — or somebody else's — looping Jonah Goldberg into a Signal chat. (It would have been overkill to do the "Intelligence" strikethrough a second time.) A kudo, with surprise, to Goldberg for having the Atlantic run the basics of what he had.

But? John Warner, Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Jimmy Gomez in the House?

All Zionists.

All cutters of blank checks for #GenocideJoe and Kamala is a Zionist Cop over the genocide in Gaza — a genocide to which the Houthis reacted with their Red Sea maritime patrols.

In other words, these Zionist Democrats are the reason that Trump and his national security advisor Mike Waltz — the person who reportedly actually screwed the pooch — are making war plans against Yemen.

And, for #BlueAnon on Shitter? "Whiskileaks" may sound funny as a trending item, but, since Mike Waltz — who now has been shown to have left a Venmo account unsecured — is the problem, not Hegseth, it's another swing and a miss.

Oh, and since the Nat-sec Nutsacks™ class within Blue Anon hated the actual Wikileaks long before Julian Assange rightly earned hatred over Seth Rich conspiracy theory promotion, it's a swing and a miss that way, too. 

On the more serious side? Waltz is a Green Beret, Bronze Stars, not going through life "(fat), drunk and stupid," etc., the level of incompetence is more scary than if it were him rather than Hegseth.

Also on the more serious side, which the Zionists in national Democrats' contingent will also NOT like? The clusterfuck, called Signalgate now by many of them, or Signalghazi by Brian Beutler, had one good thing — it outed an Israeli spy. 

That said, per Beutler? The real issue is the one of administrative competence in general — and Trump cluelessness in general, like on not knowing about US troops dead in Lithuania.

Consider this to also be a post about The Resistance 2.0, to the degree it, as a subset of BlueAnon, applauds these callouts in Congressional testimony while ignoring the hypocrisy.

Texas Progressives talk foreign policy, abortion, measles

Off the Kuff says to be very skeptical of the arrests for allegedly performing illegal abortions announced by Ken Paxton, as all we have so far is Paxton's word for it. 

SocraticGadfly dives deep on a couple of foreign affairs issues, first looking at the at least eight sides in the Russia-Ukraine war, then looking at post-1949 Tibet-China history and the US role in it, even as a new book by the Dalai Lama ups the stakes there. 

Health experts say it could take a full year to fully contain the West Texas measles outbreak.

A judge has stricken down multiple components of 2023's SB1 on mail ballots.

Speaking of unconstitutionality, SB 2880, the Lege's latest attempt to suppress mifepristone usage and related things, almost certainly is that.

TDCJ allegedly falsified prison temperature logs? Shock me.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project noted the Houstonian who came to Council about HPD’s collaboration with ICE despite Whitmire saying that would not happen. Of course you can be disappeared to El Salvador for dissent.

Reform Austin highlights concerns that measles has on human immune systems.

The Barbed Wire observes that Texas is a testing ground for anti-abortion policies.

In the Pink feels like we're trapped in the Upside Down. 

City of Yes had a positive experience with a driverless Waymo, but doesn't want cities to learn the wrong lessons about them.

Religious beliefs and vaccination exemptions

 Yes, I know that Anabaptist types like Mennonites aren't Calvinist per se, but many of them hold to the same rigid determinism, as do the parents of the child who was the first measles death in West Texas a few weeks ago.

The child's parents make that clear.

The Texas parents of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who died from measles Feb. 26 told the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense in a video released Monday that the experience did not convince them that vaccination against measles was necessary.

“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.”

The West Texas measles outbreak, the biggest in the state in 30 years, has infected more than 270 people and hospitalizing dozens of them. Public health officials have repeatedly told Texans that studies have time and time again shown that the safest and most effective way to avoid contracting the very infectious, life-threatening disease is to vaccinate with the measles-mumps-rubella shot.

The couple, members of a Mennonite community in Gaines County with traditionally low vaccination rates, spoke on camera in both English and Low German to CHD Executive Director Polly Tommey and CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker.

“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.”

What do you say in response to that?

It's hard, but not THAT hard theologically, as I will address on my other blog site.

For here?

For the parents not keeping children home when unvaccinated, this is an infliction of their religious belief on others. Parents who don't believe their children are predestined to get measles, and have their kids vaccinated, shouldn't have to deal with a "breakthrough" case. Nor should they have to deal with more generalized school disruptions.

Nor, to be blunt, should they have to deal with, for the public eye, pretending sympathy for another family they may not feel in reality.

And, they shouldn't have to.

Especially when, reading between the lines of Covenant Hospital's statement, these parents are willing to lie for their religion.

And, with that sort of lying, they surely don't care about endangering others.

Which they are.

Health experts say it could take a full year to fully contain the West Texas measles outbreak:

“This demonstrates that this (vaccine exemption) policy puts the community, the county, and surrounding states at risk because of how contagious this disease is,” said Glenn Fennelly, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases and assistant vice president of global health at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso. “We are running the risk of threatening global stability.”

There you go.

That said, per that same piece, is this all about religion or not? One person says no:

Katherine Wells, director of public health for the City of Lubbock, during a Tuesday meeting of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a national organization for large metropolitan health departments ... said efforts to increase the vaccination rates in Gaines County, which is about 70 miles from Lubbock, and the surrounding region have been slow as trust in the government has seemingly reached an all-time low.

“We are seeing, just like the rest of Americans, this community has seen a lot of stories about vaccines causing autism, and that is leading to a lot of this vaccine hesitancy, not religion,” she said.

But, putting the cloak of religion on non-religious beliefs is an all-American pastime. 

Beyond religious issues, here in Tex-ass, as the piece notes, is state Republicans continuing to gut local control of local issues. Seminole ISD doesn't have the power to close local schools, for example.

On this and related issues, Texas gets unfavorably compared with New Mexico.

Putin is no Churchill, and no Stalin, either

A few weeks ago, I wrote in depth about Der Spiegel's piece about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a new Churchill and how he had not only gotten hoist on this petard, but was keeping himself hanging.

So, what about his counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin?

I've semi-regularly called him Vlad the Impaler, after Vlad Tepes, aka Count Dracul. But, that's a figure from many centuries ago,  that works primarily as a pun of sorts.

What Putin is NOT is Uncle Joe Stalin. First, contra the tankies, he's not a Communist. Second, while Stalin, at least theoretically, opposed Russian nationalism continuing from Tsarist times — a stance that, as Lenin's Commissar of Nationalities, helped get us into the situation we're in — Putin is indeed a Russian nationalist.

So, if not Stalin, and not Vlad Tepes, as he predates post-Thirty Years War modern nationalism, who is he?

Could he be, per Montefiore's book on Stalin as the Red Tsar, some sort of Black Tsar? A quasi-fascist tsar? I mean, post-Yeltsin, he shook down the oligarchs just enough .... to line his pockets, keep them in line, yet keep them loyal by protecting them.

But, not a fully fascist one. Yes, Prigozhin owned a few things, but government ownership of the means of production without a dictatorship of the proletariat? Putin's not a fascist; of course, compared to Mussolini, Hitler wasn't totally a fascist,either.

As for trusting Putin? Or, per Norm Finkelstein, saying his invasion is "justified"? Uhh, no.

Let's start with John McCain vs. George W. Bush. Without supporting McCain's idea then, or others today, of expanding NATO to included Ukraine (or Georgia), he was right when he responded to Bush by saying that, contra Shrub, when he looked in Putin's eyes he saw three letters — "KGB."

In one of the KGB's more odious moments, in the early 1980s, it was the apparent originator of the claim that the US had engineered the AIDS virus for population control of African-Americans, Black Africans, or both. And, in South Africa under President Thabo Mbeki, this led to horrendous AIDS deaths. In the US, it built on Black mistrust of the medical world because of things like the Tuskegee experiments. You know, the KGB in which Putin served 1975-90.

Ken Paxton, Coppell ISD and falling for "sting" videos

Setting aside the asshattery of Kenny Boy Paxton suing Coppell ISD for being DEI or whatever? If you're a school superintendent in Texas, how do talk to some rando coming to your district without thoroughly vetting them, which Superintendent Evan Whitfield apparently failed to do with Accuracy in Media's non-ambush videographer?

I mean, to get into a building, AIM's dude had to present a driver's license. In these days, at a school district of any size, if I don't know who "Accuracy in Media" is (assuming the dude was truthful about who he was working for), I do teh google. I also google dude's name. And, since we have his DL, I use Google Images or similar to match his face with what's available online, and to see if that matches otherwise.

I mean, it's 2025. How do you fall for a sting video, especially on a subject like this? James O'Keefe's ACORN sting happened back in 2009.

The word is not "trans" — you're missing a modified noun at the end

The story of a formerly (sic) transgender (sic, we don't use just "trans" here) person stuck in legal ID document limbo — in fair part because of a ruling by Texas AG Ken Paxton that has since been extended has several caveats — and not just for the BlueAnon (and beyond among actual leftists) crowd on this issue.

First, of course, is that sex is not gender, something I've said a gazillion times.

Don't believe me? Philosopher friend Massimo Pigliucci, holder of dual PhDs, in philosophy and evolutionary biology, has taken on fellow philosophers on this issue.

Second, per, or rather, contra, Texas Monthly's first story on the plight of Razavi, this is why we don't use the bare prefix "trans" without either the "-sexual" or "-gender" at the end.

Third, the actual story of Razavi in the TM second link? Obviously, "detransitioning" is a lot more difficult, and tougher, biologically and even sociologically, on the matter of sex than gender. Related, if Razavi thinks that being transgendered would always leave him as a "second class citizen," and notes in both stories that he's 6-5 with a beard .... why did he want to and try to play a different gender role in the first place?

Shed not too many crocodile tears for the Dalai Lama

Actually, for many people, tears for his post-1959 plight would be real.

And, this is not an apologia post for defending Xi Jinping's minions hacking computers and devices of modern exiled Tibetans.

But, as Tenzin Gyatso officially has announced that his successor, the to-be 15th Dalai Lama will come from outside China, let us take note that, even if he's being truthful in denying original knowledge himself, his brothers were major assets in a CIA campaign of skullduggery against Beijing, a campaign that also involved Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang in Taiwan. Wikipedia has a page about it that, while it gets a flag for possible "original research," is still worth a read. Indeed, per the Wiki page, before the 1949 "fall" of China, the older brother of Tenzin Gyato (who was born Lhamo Thondup), Gyalo Thondup, lived in Nanking 1947-49 and boasts about eating dinner at Chiang's table.

The backstory is that, before Beijing invaded in 1950, Tibet was not part of China. And, we'll get to backstory to that in a minute. Essentially, the Dalai Lama and other lamas ruled it as a semi-feudal theocracy. Now, it was not religiously or otherwise coercive in the way the mullahs are in Iran, let alone the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the way some Christian Right folks would like to be in the USofA, but it wasn't exactly enlightened.

Before that, Lhamo Thondup was officially declared to be that 14th Dalai Lama in 1939. His birthplace was in a northeastern borderland which has both Tibetan and non-Tibetan people and was ruled at this time by a warlord whose nominal superior was Chiang.

Even today, per the map at the top of the Wiki page on Tibet, Tibetan exiles claim a vast amount of land beyond what is clearly Tibet. The orange and red areas on the map contain, by ethnicity and/or language, Han Chinese, Mongolic peoples, peoples of Southeast Asia that live in various parts of southern China, Turkic peoples in its northern areas, etc. And, vis-a-vis this piece, ethnic Han have lived in large numbers in much of that area since the Yuan Dynasty if not earlier. (In today's Tibetan Autonomous Area within China, Beijing trod more lightly in Western Tibet in the first decades, not just first years, post-1950.

Looking back in Tibet's history, the Qing Dynasty, at peak, had semi-full control over Tibet. The Ming, before that, claimed they did, but many scholars reject that. The Mongol Yuan Dynasty indeed controlled the area, but Chinese dynasties before that generally did not. At the tail end of the Qing, in response to "Great Game" meddling by both Britain and Russia, the Qing in the early 20th century for the first time staked a formal legal claim to the land, and began a process of "Sinifiction."

As for long ago history, before Genghis Khan and his descendants and the Yuan Dynasty, there was a "Tibetan Empire" about the same time as Tang Dynasty China, pictured above. As you can see, at its maximum, it controlled or had influence over all of today's Tibet, all of today's Xinjiang, and much if not all of today's Gansu, Yunnan and Sechuan areas of China. To the west, it went into Kashmir and Turkic Central Asia.

See Wiki's "History of Tibet" for more on Tibetan history in general.

The point of this part of this piece is that Tibet does not have something unique and special in its cultural DNA, no more than the Hopis of the US Southwest, or other modern Puebloans. With the Hopi, Awatovi should tell you that. (If that doesn't, Ekkehart Malotki has said that, contrary to legend — whether first propagated by Hopi or by Anglos — that the etymology of the word "Hopi" is NOT related to any Hopi word for "peace.")

Now, one could counterclaim that this was pre-Buddhist Tibet. And, I would counterclaim back to that? The murderous Islamophobia of the 969 Movement in today's Burma, as well as past history in Buddism; I've covered this in a bit of depth.

Back to closer to where we are now. Tibetans eventually resisted the 1950 invasion — with help from the US. The Dalai Lama himself first appeared to encourage some degree of passive resistance against China, including limiting how many troops they would send, while signing off on a 17-point agreement that he repudiated after escaping to India in 1959. What led to that was him becoming, by the middle 1950s, a symbol of resistance whether he was personally leading it or not. Per that link, he may well have lied about signing the agreement under duress.

After he fled into exile, China stopped trying to do its version of Sinification through Tibetans and rather through direct Chinese control and action. Meanwhile, Tibetan exiles continued to resist as they could.

The Dalai Lama himself, at best, made a devil's bargain with his brothers. Could he have done better? Maybe. What led to Beijing's invasion was a decision by parts of Tibet's complex leadership — but definitely not all — to boot all Chinese. It appears to be a bid for "neutrality" after Mao and the Communists had chased Chiang and the KMT off the mainland. But, it was too late for that, it would seem. Even if the Dalai Lama himself were not directly involved, as a teen, he might have been asked for thought. Today? Could he be forthcoming about what he knew and when about the CIA a few years later? I don't totally buy his claim that he was originally ignorant of his brothers' activities.

And what brings us to today is the Dalai Lama's announcement above, in a new book, which directly confronts Beijing's claim it will chose the 15th Dalai Lama.

Today, per Wiki's article on the Kashag, a Qing-era body of Chinese governance reconstituted by the Dalai Lama after his 1959 flight, Gyatso has himself repudiated the idea of full independence for Tibet or a political role for either himself or successor Dalai Lamas. On the former, what degree of autonomy does he want, and what degree of confessional vis-a-vis his ties to the CIA, and other things, will he do to get even a mildly lighter hand by Beijing? On the second? I think you are playing a political role as is. And, playing with a self-dealt bad hand by rejecting Tibetan independence.

That all said, since this is the site for non-twosiderism, isn't the regime of "godless Communists" in Beijing hypocritical for saying it will choose the next Dalai Lama rather than declaring the office abolished? (That said, Lenin and Uncle Joe Stalin didn't abolish Russian Orthodoxy, they just made it more servile inside the country.) That said, this secularist awaits the idea of dueling Dalai Lamas and anti-Dalai Lamas, like the papacy of the late 1300s and early 1400s at the end of the Avignon period. That then said, since Qing times, formalized in 1793, the Chinese government has claimed the right to select, or denote, or whatever term we should use, the next Dalai Lama. It may not always have exercised that right, but it has claimed it. And, we already have dueling Panchen Lamas. (Per the matter at hand, that link notes the Panchen Lama has traditionally been involved with selection of the Dalai Lama.)

And, otherwise? Most the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ world inside the DC Beltway knows at least the basics of the story above. They're the ones being called out for decades of crocodile tears.

THAT then said, the likes of Max Blumenthal are wrong about Xinjiang. And, good leftists like Cory Doctorow have written much more on that, so it's not just Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ talking about the labor camps, etc., there.

Texas Progressives talks state water, more

Off the Kuff notes that the Trump "Justice" Department has dropped the redistricting lawsuit filed by the Biden Justice Department after the 2021 redistricting.

SocraticGadfly talked about the end of an era at Southwest Airlines, looking at the end of "your bags fly free" — and other items Southwest announced.

The Lege wants to ban uncertified teachers, at least from "core" subjects. It sounds good; how will they address shortages in those areas, though? (Will it crack down on charter schools, where it's more of a problem, too?)

Texas could indeed face a water problem. Do either the House or Senate bills that purport to address that target conservation? Probably not. We know that, on the Senate side, Perry pushes desalinization, which remains overhyped.

How much is Houston Mayor John Whitmire himself, a known ConservaDem, behind Helltown PD's degree of cooperation with ICE? That' missing from the Trib story.

Linda McMahon's Department of Ed is targeting Rice and UNT for their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Nationally, DOE is weaponizing anti-Zionism as antisemitism.

Greenhouse gases are drastically shrinking our upper atmosphere, causing more problems for the future for satellites. Grist reports, as republished by the Observer.

Ethics reform under the Pink Dome? Dead as a doorknob, despite the RINO hunters claims this was why McDade Phelan had to be shown the door.

Trump is bribing El Salvador (even if its president calls it "a very low fee") to accept deported Venezuelans, who might have been deported in the face of a court order. (We know the Trump Administration has violated at least one other such order, in a deportation to Lebanon.)

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project reports from a protest at a Houston Tesla dealership & says the next protest will take place when you organize it.  

Your Local Epidemiologist answers some questions about the MMR vaccine. 

The Austin Chronicle reported from a SxSW panel on modern cars and the amount of our personal data they hold.  

Law Dork worries about SCOTUS taking up a case involving state bans on conversion therapy.

The Houston Press looks at the ethos behind "pay what you can" theater tickets.

There's at least EIGHT sides on Russia-Ukraine, along with a deeper dive on Zelensky

About 10 days ago, I posted here about John Mearsheimer hitting a foul ball on this issue.

Then, after Bagger Vance as Trump's flunky sandbagging Zelensky, I expanded that on Substack to at least seven sides, along with an extensive rewrite.

But, I missed an eighth side, and missed some things about the original seven that I put into comments to the piece. So, we'll further rectify that back here.

1. Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ in the professional governmental and academic world, shading into neocons; almost all Democrats, and Never Trumper Republicans, fall here. So do the NAFO Nazis (sic) on Shitter and elsewhere.

2. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, et al, who probably still represents a plurality of Ukrainians vis a vis the shakedown, without a lot of concrete guarantees, being offered for peace. This of course does not excuse him not wanting a peace deal that would include letting go of the Donbas, without a Trumpian shakedown. (And, just because Boris Johnson allegedly sabotaged things in 2022 doesn’t mean that Zelensky would have gone along then, either. That said, he didn't actually sabotage them. We'll get there.)

3. Trump and his sheeple. (On Substack, I thought that would cut more than "MAGAts".)

4. John Mearsheimer-types who, while not Trumpian sheeple, have as their ultimate desire on this issue the desire of owning the neocons to the point that they can't condemn Trump. (A LOT of people on his Friday afternoon YouTube said, too bad he and Bagger Vance won't talk to Bibi that way. Mearsheimer wishes that were so, and the Trumpian sheeple do not. Link coming up below; his Feb. 27 Substack post, of discussion with Andrew Napolitano, pre-Trump/Zelensky clusterfuck, spills the beans enough.

That said, on March 7, he said he wants "Ukraine to get the best deal possible," about a minute into that short video. OTOH, he then quickly spoiled it again by saying that "Donald Trump wants peace. He wants to improve relations with the Russians and he wants to help create a security architecture in Europe so everybody can prosper and we don't have any more war."

No, he wants to create his own, transactionalist and grifting version of the American imperium. It's what he wants in Gaza, but Ukraine is too big for his direct control, unlike his dreams for Gaza.

Mondoweiss gets it totally right here, in talking about Trump and direct negotiations with Hamas, which have some in Israel worried.

Donald Trump is very difficult to predict. His mercurial, transactional, and self-centered approach to policy is often ill-defined and is subject to change on a whim as he fancies himself more king than president.

Well put. If only Mearsheimer would put that on an equal footing with his desire to own the neocons.

Trump may not be a warmonger, in part because he's like the bully afraid of getting punched in the face. But, peacemonger?

The difference between Ukraine and Gaza is there's nothing to exploit in Gaza, other than Israeli tourists looking for beachfront sand in Trump's eyes.

4A. Simplicius, if he's not in Group 6. Per his piece after the dust-up, I was open to putting him there. Sadly, but not surprisingly, he, unlike the Dissident and people like me, ignores that Trump wants to establish an American imperium, just like the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™. It's a different one, and a nakedly transactional one, but it's still an American imperium. 

That said, with this piece March 13 and this one March 11 about Trump's fake cease-fire plan, he has redeemed himself to a fair degree. But not totally. He still gets one skeptical eyeball from me.

5. Norman Finkelstein and types like him who think Putin’s invasion was “justified.”

6. Putin blank-checkers of various sorts. These are often Communists of some sort who, delusionally, think Putin is one. A subset is non-Communist anti-imperialists of the left, non-skeptical version, who can't condemn Russian and American imperialism both. 

7. Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté types. Grifters. They may have some sincerity of being in Group 6 as well, but still.

These two, 5 and 6, are in some degree triangulations on 4, but still separate.

8. People who read the likes of Ivan Katchanovski, and are well informed about Tsarist Russia, USSR and post-breakup history of Russia and Ukraine, but don’t fall into any of the above groups.

OK, now the hot takes.

The first group can shut the fuck up until admitting they’re Cold War 2.0 warmongers, with NATO expansion, etc. There's nothing further to be said to my typical audience.

The second group? Zelensky can semi-shut up, but still with fucks, until he can get non-US members of NATO, and the EU, to propose peace talks that accept some version of accepting reality on the ground. I covered this is much more detail in my "Zelensky as Churchill" piece.

The third group? Trump himself, Bagger Vance (Trump’s Dan Quayle, it appears more and more, see below), and Trump’s sheeple can definitely STFU, just as much as the Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™.

The fourth? Mearsheimer and any others in his orbit or line of thought? They can shut up for now, without fucks, until they, per the Dissident, accept that Trump is proposing his own form of American imperium. The more Mearsheimer cuts Trump blank checks by not calling him out, the further downward he goes in my estimation. (Trump’s sheeple already know this and are applauding.) To put it as bluntly as hell for the Mearsheimer types? Trump’s proposal is about as trustworthy as his plan to “own Gaza” and rebuild it as “Tel Aviv South Beach.” The only difference here is that in this case, Trump is trying to rope the American government in as backstop. Mearsheimer can also STFU until he talks to some leftists of the world, not just the Napolitanos and the RT-paid talking heads like Glenn Diesen, even if Diesen reportedly opposed Putin's invasion. Has a, say, Counterpunch Radio asked to talk to you, John, and you said no?

Simplicius? Not in comments because he only lets subscribers comment, but in quote/restacks, I first politely, then moderately less politely, called him out. If he gets worse, he gets a STFU up too, and I suspect that, by not getting better, he'll get worse.

The fifth? Without mentioning Finkelstein by name, nearly two years ago, I wrote a piece rejecting the idea of “justified” war in Ukraine. (Per Walter Kaufman, and rejecting the idea of “justified” vs “unjustified” on many serious moral issues, I also reject the idea of it being “unjustified”; trying to call it either one, for any of groups 1-6, is bad framing.) On the likes of Finkelstein, another reason I don't use "justified" or "unjustified" about the Russia-Ukraine war is that risks falling into another version of twosider framing.

The sixth? I've not directly run into anybody, by full posts, on Substack. But, they're all over the place on Shitter. 

The seventh? No, I don’t know if Max is getting paid in any way by Russia (or China); if he is, which is certainly possible and even plausible, it’s being laundered through sufficient third, fourth and fifth parties to disguise its origins. In addition, per Ken Silverstein, I just remember who Max’s dad is to think about the likelihood of his grifting. Also per Ken, I just think about Assad’s minders leading Aaron Maté around the nose several years ago. To the degree people like this are right, I don’t have to cite them as support. And won’t.

Let's not forget that, besides his long-ago RT work, RT was found to be laundering money to multiple conservative pundits last year. (That said, has there ever been a similar investigation related to Chinese $$, because I know Max is wrong on things like Xinjiang and plenty of good leftists have the goods on that? Folks, Max is full of shit on Xinjiang, on Danny Ortega in Nicaragua and more. And, I don't believe it's for entirely idealistic reasons. That said, beyond Max, many other alleged left-liberals and leftists, including Green Party thought leaders, are full of shit on Xinjiang; it's another argument in favor of the reality of horseshoe theory.)

The eighth? Maybe I’ll have further triangulation in the future, but that’s enough for now.

This week in vouchers in the Texas Lege

The Observer looks at the voucher industry of middleman companies that are behind the Lege's claim in defense of vouchers that "parents never directly touch this money," not a direct quote, but a summary of repeated statements by state Sen. Brandon Creighton. It notes that vulture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz are behind this. It also looks at a growing conservative parent backlash — a backlash that most the wingnuts in the Lege, especially on the Senate side, will conveniently ignore. 

“This is a vendor bill,” said Hollie Plemons, an education activist and GOP precinct chair in Tarrant County, in her testimony before the Senate education committee in January. Plemmons called it a “subsidy” for businesses and criticized Creighton, saying, “You are going to be taking our tax dollars … for each one of these [CEAO] businesses.”

Amy Fennell, a former city council member of Willow Park in North Texas and a Republican, told the Observer: “It’s an industry that would not exist without a government subsidy.”

There we are.

The Observer also reports on the massive public hearing last week on the House-side's voucher bill. It too drew anti-voucher conservative critics:

“I’m coming to you as a Texas retired teacher and as a conservative from Harris County. I’m a Republican precinct lead, and I wanted to remind you to please represent your Texas constituents. … My input for you today is to kill this bill,” Mary Ann Jackson said. Mary Lowe, who testified as a member of the conservative public education group Families Engaged, said the debate around vouchers was “ripping the party apart.” She added, “This bill has an open-ended check for the taxpayer.”

Will they have any effect on the House side? Perhaps at the margins when House and Senate bills head to conference. 

Related? The Texas Signal notes some bad polling for school vouchers.

A new head-fake in the jobs world from BlueprintUSA

I am texted March 4 about a job and asked if I can do an initial interview the next day.

I say OK, trying to remember when and where I might have applied at Blueprint USA, and yes, you're getting named. Not LinkedIn; not in my recent applications. They're not on Indeed.

So, I never did actually apply to them. 

But they texted me again the next day about the Zoom. That's after saying in the March 4 text that they would email me information the next day.

Another red flag — I didn't get any such thing.

Then, the interview on March 5? Turns out to be a group marketing video to a dozen or whomever people have been roped in.

And, the job? "Event marketing."

OK, "danger Will Robinson" time. 

They then texted me about two hours after the interview, saying "we missed you" (I typed the Zoom link into my computer; I don't do smartphone apps in general and certainly not on an Android) and asked if I could do it on March 6. No way I'm being fooled.

To schadenfreud or not to schadenfreud — that is the question

"Schadenfreud" is obviously a verb, possibly one I have invented. Its meaning should be obvious.

What it addresses, if not already obvious, will be soon.

Back in Trump 1.0, this was also an issue. Occasionally, like with Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, on the Kentucky coal ash floods, it was taken too far.

Already this administration, though, many individual librulz, and certainly centrists and Never Trumper Rethuglicans, are saying "don't schadenfreud."

Wrong!

Per Markos? About anything short of death is OK to schadenfreud.

After all, these are people who are actually rejoicing in their own family members being fired.

Schadenfreud away.

If the NOAA/NWS cuts stay in place and a major hurricane hits the Gulf Coast with less warning than before on intensification? One can feel sorrow for the other victims, yet schadenfreude for these. Ditto for western wildfires. Ditto for being scammed on bitcoins. Fill in other things you can think of.

==

That said, this isn't just about MAGAts, even if the people I am about to mention are ardent Trumpers.

Take the Mennonites in Gaines County, Texas. The Atlantic interviewed the family of the first measles death there. The father is apparently leader of its church.

I don't take pleasure in her death. I do understand Mennonites traditionally have a complicated relationship to governing agencies. But, I don't really extend sympathy to them either, at least not the parents.

That's especially since, per NBC, the family cooperated with Brainworm Bobby's Children's Health Defense and, AFTER the child's death, did an antivaxxer video.

Texas Progressives talk schools, national parks, more

Undisclosed bonuses paid to charter school superintendents — along with the state having no cap on such bonuses — hint at another subsea level part of an iceberg in the Lege's possible charter school bill.

Dems in the Lege want superintendents of regular public schools to get louder about their funding needs.

The state Senate wants to do an end run around portions of 2023's HB 900 and create parental councils for school libraries. Sadly, the Lege's website doesn't report on committee votes, so I don't know the Dems, all but one, as well as Rethugs, who passed this on a 10-1.

The Monthly looks at how the Musk firings in the National Park Service are affecting Big Bend.

Atlas Obscura reports on a new plant species found there.

Off the Kuff considers the special election possibilities in CD18 following the tragic and untimely death of Rep. Sylvester Turner. (Note: Re Kuffner's language, Sly Turner's death may have been untimely in one sense, but in the sense of being unexpected, it was not, and because of that, while his —like any death — may have been tragic in a personal sense, it was more ... stupid? in a political sense as he shouldn't have run for the position. In reality, though he wasn't Nancy Pelosi, it's another footnote on the gerontocracy of Congress.)

I am SHOCKED that Mercy Culture Prep is the private school bragging about a vaccination rate below 15 percent for MMR. (The Barbed Wire's homepage tease didn't mention names, just "Fort Worth pastor brags about low school vaccination rates." It linked to WFAA, the link above, with "North Texas pastor celebrates lowest vaccination rate in the state."

SocraticGadfly after perusing last week's must-read longform by Der Spiegel, took a deep dive on the image of Zelensky as Churchill and related issues.

Zionists are getting ICE to do their dirty business with pro-Palestinian college protestors who are not American citizens. (ICE could do the same at UT and Kuff might still ignore it.)

Alice Rothchild, Jewish doctor, and retired Harvard prof, blocked from speaking at Harvard over claims she's antisemitic for supporting Palestinians. That's weaponized anti-Zionism in a nutshell. 

DOGE terminated the lease (later rescinded) for the building housing the New Mexico field office of the Department of Energy that overseas the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the repository for much of DoD's nuclear waste.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted about what each of us can do to fight Trump/Musk with a focus on Houston/Harris County.

The Dallas Observer highlights some North Texas musicians with disabilities forging a path for themselves.

Evil MoPac explains why taking a stand against private school vouchers matters.

The Current adds up the cost of the NIH cuts to San Antonio.

The Lone Star Project calls out Greg Abbott for his non-response to the measles outbreak.

Sara Cress gives us notice of the forthcoming mandate for the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

RIP Kevin Drum — a scatblogging roundup tribute

I heard earlier this evening of the passing of Drum, whose most recent journalism home had been Mother Jones, which posted his obit.

As I said when sharing it on Shitter (hold on to that word) and Substack, he was too much of a BlueAnon squish for me. But, he was more personable by far, at least through the online prism, than other big names of early 2000s liberal blogging. Like Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. Atrios? I don't have a read on Duncan Black from way back then. Josh Marshall? As lucky as Kos, and more so than Black or Drum. Plus, Kos banned me for from the site there for being too Green and Josh? Way too Zionist, even if Oct. 7, 2023 has forced him to smell a tiny bit of coffee — or largely ignore Middle East affairs. (Markos seemed early on like a political operative at bottom line and Black like he would be a slightly less fastidious, but not much less, lawyer version of Niles Crane. Beyond the big political disagreement with Marshall, he also came off as too didactic.)

I did note one other thing.

It was about part of Kevin's non-political blogging.

Riffing on the "Friday catblogging" that Drum had already been doing, at least occasionally, at Calpundit and then brought to Washington Monthly, starting in 2008, for a period of roughly three years, into 2011, I did semi-regular Friday SCATblogging. Yes, scatblogging; that's the tag for it if you click that link.

It was often about animal scat, though not always.

The most popular, by eyeballs, was tracing coyote scat in Cook County, aka metro Chicago.

Second most popular? Scat you don't want to see, as in fresh grizzly scat while out hiking. 

Third was ecological, but also about a big critter — tracking expanding moose populations by scat.

The fourth most popular was also about a cat, for better riffing on Drum — a cougar wandering the Twin Cities that was also tracked into Wisconsin by its scat.

Fifth was back to big animals, with a San Diego Zoo subsidiary creatively dealing with elephant scat.

Other scatblogging about cats included Macho, er jaguar Macho B scatblogging, with a follow-up on a criminal case over his death.

I blogged about other things that fit "scat" as well, like riffing on a giveaway by Sarasota County Area Transit (since renamed).

The most popular there? Metaphorical scat — a San Francisco activist trying to get a new city sewer plant named after Shrub Bush.

Another? Scat-singing.

As noted, I was riffing on Drum. And on people who followed in his wake.

About a month after starting it, I explained why — I said it was in reaction to things like a catblogger writing about giving a cat antidepressants.

My opening post? I actually used the word "crapblogging," not "scatblogging," but it was about archaeologists using human coprolites in the Americas as one avenue of support for "before Clovis." Not long after, I wrote about a dinosaur coprolite selling for nearly $1,000.

I eventually got the reaction to catblogging out of my system. I think the "I can has cheezeburger" meme "triggered" me as much or more than Kevin. (I do read Bruce Schneier's Friday squidblogging semi-regularly today, I'll add.) 

Unlike the person wanting to put their cat on Elavil, though, Kevin never shoved cats in your face. Nor did he shove obnoxious cat memes in your face. This, too, he kept personable.

NOTE: I have no doubt you'll hit a lot of broken links. The blog posts show a lot of broken picture links.

Anyway, condolences to Kevin's family, A kudo to Mother Jones for linking to Kevin's piece about death with dignity, which is what it is. Briefly a one-time adjunct professor, I taught a course on issues in death and dying — at the time of Jack Kevorkian's first trial, and in Michigan no less.

THIS is the end of an era at Southwest Airlines

Not the end of cattle-car seating.

NOT the related offering premium seating with extra $$$.

NOT EVEN its first-ever layoffs.

Southwest instead announced yesterday that your bags, and mine, will no longer fly free, effective May 28. 

That story repeats what was said last year, when Southworst was trying to fend off Elliott Investment Management:

As recently as Southwest’s investor day in late September, airline executives described the bags-fly-free as the most important feature in setting Southwest apart from rivals. All other leading U.S. airlines charge for checked luggage, and Wall Street has long argued that Southwest was leaving money behind.

The airline estimated in September that charging bag fees would bring in about $1.5 billion a year but cost the airline $1.8 billion in lost business from customers who chose to fly Southwest because of its generous baggage allowance.

Still true. Especially because, as I said yesterday on Shitter and Hucksterman? I'll immediately look at American flights out of DFW. Southworst may still be cheaper, but, it won't be where I start my searches. And, I suspect this is another shoe dropping, and maybe not the last, in last fall's cave-in to Elliott. Per that piece, we know now what Southworst chairman Gary Kelly's "significant new operational initiatives" that his PR flunkies mentioned at that time actually are.

Speaking of, beyond the "will no longer fly free" news story link, Southworst's news release on this looks like they've really been taken over by Elliott. If you're a high flyer, you do still get one or two bags flying free. Related? The Rapid Rewards system has been tilted toward higher-dollar business travelers. And, it admits that.

The one plus side, and only? Since they'll now be listing on Expedia, I can compare their prices at Love to American and anybody else at DFW without having to run two browser windows at once. (I checked, and per the release, they're already up. But, it's pre-May 28, so I don't know what their bag fees are yet.)

That said, from Southworst's corporate point of view, I think that's a minus. Let's say that its bag check fee is half of American and one-third of the real nutters, like Spirit, ValuJet and other crapper airlines that drive the Elliott philosophy. If you're still selling flights only on your own site, most buyers will soon enough recognize that these fees are relatively low, and won't be tempted to look elsewhere. But, instead? They, like me, will nose around on Expedia.

A possible plus? This lower-rate "Basic" fare, if it is indeed lower than the "Wanna Get Away" that's currently the bottom dollar. We'll find out on May 28. We'll also find out what sort of restrictions it has. They'll likely be plenty. Especially on more popular Southwest routes, weekends and holidays are likely to be blacked out, for example. It also, in addition to not being refundable, like Wanna Get Away, may not even have a credit for cancellation. In other words, when you book, you're stuck.

As for that cutoff date? I suspect that summer vacation flights will be booked heavily, for whenever they fly, before May 28. From the way I read the presser, it's the booking date that's the cutoff date, so if you have an August vacation? As long as you book before May 28, your bags still fly free on that trip.

The one other item that would have made this somewhat more palatable — flights to Canada — is still nowhere to be seen, either. 

And, these changes would explain why Southwest has been hammering my email inbox recently.

Per the old metaphor, I suspect Herb Kelleher is rolling over in his grave. If he were alive, I think he would have taken Elliott's head vulture capitalist, David Singer, out in a back alley, given him a joking noogie first, then kicked his ass.

Update: Southwest has had other, lesser, issues in recent years that have not totally floated my boat. One is flying to Southern California. They used to run more flights through Ontario (San Bernardino). If I wanted to go either east to Joshua Tree, or north to Death Valley, this was much more convenient than any other airport. Theoretically, Burbank would have been better for going northwest to Sequoia and Yosemite, the coast, etc., but that's a tiny airport.

Today? Southwest barely flies to Ontario.