Top blogging of August

As is the norm, these were the most read pieces of last month, even if not all of them came from last month. I'll identify the date and general provenance of the resurgent evergreen ones.

No. 10? "Abandon hope and abandon the Desert Southwest," because drought is likely to continue the rest of this century and beyond, I noted at the start of August.

No. 9? "Time for a 32-team MLB? I say yes" goes back to 2013, but I posted it last month in some r/MLB comments about expansion at Reddit.

No. 8? A Texas Progressives roundup from June is surely trending again because it mentions THC.

No. 7? From July, I f-bombed the National Park subreddit because Democratic tribalists banned me.

No. 6? In March, I noted The Resistance 2.0 still wants to relitigate Russiagate 1.0. They still do, even though The Donald knocked the props out from that just days ago.

No. 5? An April Texas Progressives roundup about special elections and wingnut stings.

No. 4? In July, I said Trump was right about California's high speed rail.

No. 3? I said of the Supreme Court in May, "Three Dems, no environmentalists."

No. 2? I April, I wondered, punningly, "Oh Canada — can the Liberals win again?" They could, but the Canadian people didn't really win.

No. 1? From late July, my HUGELY snarky take on the pious Christian evangelical poem, "Footprints in the Sand."

Corpus Christi kills pricey, bloated desal plant

At least for now, it does.

It wouldn't surprise me if, as claimed, it's true that Strangeabbott threatened to cut all funds to the city if it backed out of the plant.

Council member Carolyn Vaughn, co-owner of an oilfield service company and a desalination critic, told the meeting that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s chief of staff, Robert Black, called her on Friday and said the state would cut all funding to Corpus Christi if it didn’t proceed with the plant. 

“No one has the right to use their influence to intimidate a City Council member,” she said. “We must choose options that are more affordable.” 

Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a query sent early Wednesday morning.

The plant mushroomed in size, to triple its original operating capacity, and eightfold or more on cost. 

Who's it for? Not really or ultimately for residents, but for oil frackers, refiners etc.

And, if Corpus does move to recycling wastewater? If it's good enough to drink, it's more than good enough for the Koch Bros. 

Greg Casar becomes more self-delusional

Casar, just in his second term in Congress, and current head of the Pergressuve Cucks, what I call the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and with good reason, is increasing his levels of self-delusion.

First, heading this org isn't a desired gig. Indeed, per this piece, Casar was unopposed last year; the previous head was term-limited.

That said, per my top link, progressive he is not:

He would rather build coalitions than pass ideological purity tests that have pushed voters away from the left. He espouses a more working class message, steering away from the culture wars and back to economic concerns that dominated voters’ minds this year.

Business as usual. Oh, sure, in various places in various stories, he condemns the Joe Manchins of the world, but says it wasn't that Yachtsman Joe wasn't too liberal or too conservative, but that they didn't offer enough progress. It's statements like this that lead me to use the word "pergressuve."

Or, in other words, contra the likes of Radley Balko, he believe the bullshit about "woke."

The self-delusion has now gotten worse, though.

Per the Monthly, he thinks Tex-ass is "up for grabs."

Dayum. Even though state Dems made Gilberto Hinojosa walk the plank, his "victory is just around the corner" spirit is alive and well. Contra the core of the piece, once California started going hard "blue," it was abetted by people from the OC and San Jose and Inland Empire Californicating Tex-ass (and Aridzona). Texas isn't up for grabs for, oh, at least a decade?

Lee Camp: is he now "controlled opposition" on Israel?

Yes, THAT Lee Camp, of Redacted Tonight, brave new world former RT commentariat, who writes a column about "Top 11 Signs Israel is Collapsing." No, really. It would be funnier if not so sad. 

My response? Semi-blistering, with the following being an extended version of a Substack note.

(I should note that I pretty much, though not totally, reject a literal idea of controlled opposition. For instance, nobody in the GOP is paying Democrats to act like Republicans-lite in many cases. It's all self-chosen.)

Can I have what Lee Camp is smoking?

No. 4 and 5 are laughs; Israel’s partnerships with the EU and the US are not at all “strained.” In the US, The Donald still cuts blank checks to Israel. In the EU, states that have said they will recognize Palestine, or in France's case, have done so, have made such recognitions conditional, and also still let their countries' weapons makers sell away to Israel. (Same is true of Canada.)

To quote Mondoweiss?

The sum total is that, despite the outcry over the attack on Nasser Hospital, the beginning of the massive invasion of Gaza City, and the United Nations finally declaring a full-blown famine in Gaza, the United States and Europe remain in performance mode, with little prospect of any real action being taken.

And to quote further?

Unfortunately, with feckless leaders in Europe and the autocratic, impatient, and ignorant Trump in the White House, Netanyahu has a lot of potential for manipulating diplomatic affairs around the Middle East.

And, it's not just Israel vs Gaza, it's Israel against Palestinians, period. In what is surely against international law, Trump has had Lil Marco Rubio revoke the visas of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other Palestinians in advance of the kickoff for a new session of the UN General Assembly. 

Mondoweiss ALSO reports that the Washington Post has a leaked document about Team Trump officially backing ethnic cleansing in Gaza, part of Trump's "Gaza Riviera" idea floated this spring.

A leaked 38-page document details the Trump administration’s “Gaza Riviera” plan to forcibly relocate 2 million Palestinians and place Gaza’s territory in U.S. trusteeship for over a decade. 

The Washington Post reported on the prospectus for the plan, which calls for “temporary relocation” of Gaza’s population so that “AI-powered smart cities,” and a manufacturing hub named after Trump-donor Elon Musk could be erected. 

“Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets… resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments,” states the document.

But, Lee Camp would have you believe the US partnership with Israel is "strained." 

No. 2? The US will bail out Israel’s economy if it really goes that far in the dumpster. Otherwise, this sounds like a #BlueAnon Democrap saying Russia's economy will collapse at any moment.

No. 6? The UN case for genocide? Rather, the ICC’s head is facing hasbara-like charges and it’s otherwise largely being ignored by the US, the EU, and even the Gulf Arab states, at least for public consumption. Ditto on the ICC arrest warrants. Hasn’t Bibi been in Merikkka since then? Survey says yes and less than two months ago.

No. 10? BDS having a profound impact? Most Western multinationals facing boycotts in Muslim-majority nations know those nations’ elites still buy a Starbucks latte. Also note that, per Lee’s own story, we’re actually talking about franchises that aren’t owned by Star Bux or McDonald’s and in many cases franchise only in Israhell. That's Economics 101, and I was getting hits on that with 30 seconds of searching.

Small companies may be avoiding Israel, and certainly academics? Fortune 500 types? Not so much, and of course that doesn’t count the defense contractors eating this up.

Also, this column may be a recycled and updated version of an earlier one, or else he pulls some stuff out from behind the paywall after a month or two, which adds to the idea that he's become controlled opposition, relatively speaking. 

If THAT's the case, as the original is from nearly three months ago, he looks stupider yet. 

He's also a liar. 

The first two words of the header are "New Column." If all he did pull out an old column from behind a paywall and spiff it up around the edges, it's not new.

That's also self-plagiarism, and yes, that's a journalistic issue.

As a member of the media, I respect that issue. I may, at certain points on the calendar, write about a subject that is time-sensitive about which I have written before, even a theme related to that. But, I don't pull up an old saved column to that end on my computer and give it some tiny tweaks, not even if it was several years ago.

Per Stravinsky, on a long-ago column, I may "steal" some of the talking points, but it still gets a rewrite. 

Finally, it's intellectually lazy. In this case, the talking points weren't true in the original paywalled version and you did nothing to defend them in the un-paywalled one.

Texas, New Mexico settle Rio Grande water rights suit

Several years after the Supreme Court tossed an earlier settlement deal because the feds hadn't been looped in enough, a new agreement on part of the water rights issues, which includes federal sign-off, has been reached. The full deal was set to be reviewed by the special master judge in the case at the end of the month.

First of all, killing that original deal, on those grounds, was the correct legal action. The Rio Grande is governed by international treaty from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico; the federal government had to have a say on Texas-New Mexico dealings.

Part 1 of this deal:

Under the settlement, New Mexico could transfer water rights from the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) in Southern New Mexico in order to meet its obligations to Texas. The state agrees in the settlement that it would compensate EBID.

The case began when Texas alleged that groundwater pumping in Southern New Mexico deprives the state of water it is owed under the Rio Grande Compact. Colorado and the United States are also parties to the case. Local irrigation districts, cities and agricultural interest groups have been involved as friends of the court. The case has evolved from a dispute between Texas and New Mexico to encompass conflicts between groundwater and surface water users in the area.

The backstory:

The Rio Grande Compact, signed in 1938, lays out how much water Colorado, New Mexico and Texas can use from the Rio Grande. The compact only addresses surface water in the river. But hydrologists now understand that aquifers and rivers are connected. Wells drilled into adjoining aquifers can reduce the flow of water into the Rio Grande.

There's a history of hypocrisy on Texas' side. It and New Mexico have different state rules on connecting groundwater to riparian water, namely, that Texas generally considers the two entirely severable. Texas wants New Mexico to follow its law on this, but refuses to adopt anything similar on its side of the state line.

I tie that issue with Texas wingnuts claiming that killing the original deal was kind of like Agenda 21 in this piece.

The deal also notes that the Bureau of Reclamation will make changes to its operations manual for the Rio Grande Project. No details on what that will mean as of this time.

What's next?

Judge Smith, the special master, has called the parties to appear in court in Philadelphia on September 30 to explain the agreements. The details of the other parts of the settlement package have not been made public.

Finally, how much water will New Mexico have to deliver? Not much:

The settlement comes as Elephant Butte reservoir is at less than four percent capacity, nearly a record low, and the Rio Grande south of Albuquerque has run dry for over a month.

And, is this being factored in? Tex-ass' state government, and Trump 2.0, are both filled with climate change minimalists and deniers.

But, versus your lies and denialism, I have the facts that the U.S. Southwest will likely stay in drought for the rest of this century and maybe beyond. That's why a drying Rio Grande won't fix itself.

Texas Progressives talk Fish and Wildlife, redistricting, THC

SocraticGadfly dropped a trio of Texas-tied, interconnected environmental posts. First, he noted how the lesser prairie chicken lost its Endangered Species Act listing in part due to botched filing actions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Second, he discussed the killed expansion of Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, including how USFWS caved on that. Third, he eff-bombed USFWS in general as a bunch of pseudoenvironmentalists in general, politicized suck-ups to the oil industry and more.

Off the Kuff looks at the Congressional scramble and has the latest update on redistricting litigation.

Brainworm Bobby and other COVID nutters will love the Lege's wingnut virtue signaling of making ivermectin an OTC medication.

Dannie Goeb is getting no love from the Texas House on THC, which means it's likely the status before this year's regular session of the Lege remains in place, unless Strangeabbott wants a third special for a final showdown on this issue.

The ACLU and others have sued the state over the K-12 DEI ban. Per the story, which I already knew, they've got a generally uphill sled.

SB 15, the bill to let police misconduct grow in the dark like mushrooms in shit, has stalled out, at least for now.

Hidalgo County Dems are backbiting, possibly imploding.

Texas Monthly's "The Texanist" hates on American Indians.

A white supremacist attorney represents people of color as a court appointed defense lawyer in Denton County.

"Our Man Downtown," John Wiley Price, gets called out for bad behavior by a Black Dallas civil rights leader.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said many Houstonians spoke at Houston City Council about HPD cooperation with ICE, but Houston City Council Democrats had not a word to say. (Neil doesn't understand state open meetings act rules on city councils not being able to comment on public forum items, or else omitted that.)

The Barbed Wire says we can, and really must, course-correct in Texas.

Franklin Strong urges us to not look away from evil.

Texas Rural Reporter calls the Lege's recent "campaign finance reform" bill a "half-measure that looks good in the headlines while protecting incumbents back home."

The wingnuts come out for Radley Balko

Radley Balko, whose studies of militarized cops means he knows authoritarianism, tells librul Democrats to STOP believing the “woke” bullshit as being a political problem.

Sadly, half or more of the responses there by last Friday afternoon were either ex-ConservaDems now in anti-woke Never Trumper GOP land or else true wingnuts who tout election denialism and other things.

That said, these people in the first group, like previous rounds of former ConservaDems, were just looking for excuses to jump ship. In 2028, they'll pretend that Bagger Vance is a nice guy.

An hour after I had posted, the worst nutters, who I blocked, obviously were responding to me, but I wasn't seeing it as Substack was doing a back-and-forth flickering on comment numbers.

Sept. 1 means new laws time in Tex-ass in an odd-numbered year

Aside from the vouchers bill, per the Trib, here's some of the biggies.

SB 10, the Ten Commandments in schools bill, is selectively on hold per a lawsuit. Note that it's not on. hold statewide, so if you're a parent, your kid will face religious indoctrination starting tomorrow. Even if you're a Christian, your kid may face indoctrination from a brand of Christianity that's not yours.

SB 12, banning diversity, equity and inclusion language at the K-12 level, also faces a lawsuit, but one with less chance of success.

SB 13, the school libraries bill? Some wingnut will probably believe something on Shitter and try to ban the book "My Three Furries."

SB 17?  Too bad Israel isn't on the list of land-owning banned nations.