So, what HAVE Tex-ass Republicans accomplished in 25 years?

At the end of a piece talking about how Tex-ass Democrats might actually miss Kenny Boy Paxton as state AG, as he profiles his four would-be GOP successors, CD Hooks rhetorically asks something that a former county commissioner in my county — a Republican, no less, told me several years ago on education.

He references the nutbar level of the four in a debate sponsored by the Republican Attorney Generals Association: 

Altogether, the debate painted Texas as a weak and collapsing place under imminent threat from about two dozen outside corrupting forces—Islam, gays, New York Jews, Somalians, the Chinese. Which tends to suggest a question that didn’t get asked. If everything the candidates said is true—if the Big D is being subjugated by the crescent moon—and all these things are the product of a quarter century of continuous, uninterrupted Republican rule, what possible reason could there be for conservatives to continue voting Republican?

Indeed. 

ICE is killing people in Texas, too, and yes, lying about it

ICE is killing people in Texas, both by bullets and by jailer thuggery. 

In the former case, ICE trotted out the Rachel Good claim, that Ruben Ray Martinez tried to run them over. I'll assume they're lying, as in that case, but without video here, it can't be proven.

In the latter, Geraldo Lunas Campos hit a George Floyd "I can't breathe," killing — and yes, it has been called homicide by a medical examiner. ICE has already lied twice about that, first with a made-up bullshit of "medical distress" then claiming it was suicide.

And Congresswoman Veronica Escobar suggests a prosecution loophole — this killing was by employees of a civilian contractor, so no sovereign immunity. 

In another case, ICE deported a 2-month-old baby that it sickened in ICE detention, along with its family. 

Neoliberal California climate change environmentalism in action

Shock me that the state governed by the former Mayor Pothole is doing toothless state carbon offsets by funding "renewable" natural gas plants in North Carolina, extracting and purifying the methane out of hog shit. And yes, per the piece, California FUNDS something that is not really environmental, is neoliberal greenwashing, involves cheating within that and also has environmental justice problems.

First, of course, some of that methane goes into making fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides for the food that feeds the hogs that produce .... methane and shit. It's "renewable" but in just the opposite way from Gavin Newsom's idea. 

And, as said Devon Hall, an environmental justice organizer who founded the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH) in Warsaw, North Carolina, about fifteen minutes down the road from the facility:

“Communities have been suffering with the swine CAFOs for many years,” said Hall. “Whenever you begin to talk about biogas, then it just further embeds the problem.”

There you are. 

The hypocrisy is compounded because Newsom signed into law a bill from the Cal Lege banning eggs from states that don't give chicken minimum room to roam but won't ban pork from CAFO farms.

Meanwhile, the biogas technology, a greenwashing effort by the Big Hog industry, doesn't actually solve the problem anyway:

The United States Department of Agriculture warns that the methane capture process can exacerbate certain water quality issues by increasing the water-solubility of nitrogen in livestock waste. That raises the risk of nitrate contamination of drinking water which is linked to miscarriages and infant mortality and is a particular concern in an area where most residents draw their water from wells.

Again, there you are. 

The story goes on to note that, back in Newsom's own state, biogas for dairy farms doesn't get the carbon reductions Newsom's state credits it for.

Worse yet? Newsom's California cheats:

Even more egregious, they say, is the fact that the program allows farms in Wisconsin, Texas, New York, Missouri and several other states to sell biogas credits into the California market for fuel that never makes it into California pipelines.

Cheats.

Go read more. I'm just halfway into the piece with that quote. 

No, there's more. California's hypocritical even compared to North Carolina! Yes:

Years before the LCFS existed, utilities in North Carolina were required by a 2007 state law to source some of their power from renewable sources, including 0.2 percent from swine biogas by 2018. It’s the only state in the country that mandates sourcing electricity from animal waste.

Again, there you are. The "only state that mandates" means no California. (That said, the mandate targets in NC aren't close to being reached.)

That all said, the story notes other environmental problems with the whole biogas idea. It also notes a shitload of environmental justice ideas. 

And people wonder why I don't vote Democrat, not only not for president, but also not for U.S. Senator nor any statewide state office. 

Texas Progressives get ready for the primary

Off the Kuff interviewed three Congressional candidates: Todd Ivey in CD09, Jarvis Johnson in CD29, and Justin Early in CD31.

SocraticGadfly offered up Part 1 and Part 2, with further installments likely, of Noam Chomsky in the Epstein files, and Chomsky thoughts background at this tag.

Well put thoughts by Mike Elk on singleness and Valentine's Day. 

Texans who want their governments to stop data centers should already know they're shit out of luck if they're not in an incorporated community, and if they lost an incorporation election, should STFU. 

Kudos to Lone Star Left for doing what Kuffner still won't and mentioning Leqaa Kordia. (I gave Michelle Davis a push.) Family and friends remain unable to locate where she's been hospitalized. That said, Kuff can write about things outside Texas, like ICE in Minneapolis. Pro-Palestinian protests, though? Never. 

(I omitted a link from Kuff about student ICE protests. Kuff, round me up a pro-Palestinian protest.) 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project asked if Harris County can sue Trump over cuts to FEMA, why can’t Whitmire ever stand up to Trump or Abbott?

CultureMap and El Paso Matters mark the end of their cities' Alamo Drafthouses.

The Texas Observer reports on ICE locking up longtime Texans who had been on a path towards legal status.

Texas Public Opinion Research reveals how Democrats think they can win statewide. (They're wrong.)  

G. Elliott Morris shows how low-information voters have moved strongly against Trump.

Grist says pushing people into climate change actions can backfire — so what next?

Here's the big takeaway, in a piece it wrote about a paper to that end in Nature Sustainability:

It found that climate policies aimed at forcing lifestyle changes — such as bans on driving in urban centers — can backfire by weakening people’s existing pro-environmental values and triggering political backlash, even among those who already care about climate change. The findings suggest that how climate policy is designed may matter as much as how aggressive it is.

So, what next? 

First, note that "can" is not "will." I'm not saying ignore the study's findings and damn the torpedoes. I am saying that mandates can be framed in certain ways.

First, there can a be a push-pull setup, kind of like the "nudge" so beloved of neoliberal behavioral economists. (The last one-third of the piece discusses that.)

Second, there can be non-financial "pulls," like appeals to patriotism or whatever.

That said — and the research in "law-abiding" Germany, not the US — the problem is worse than with COVID lockdowns:

While researchers found a backlash effect, or “cost of control,” in both instances, it was 52 percent greater for climate than COVID policies.

INteresting. 

The last one-third also discusses financial "pushes." Make keeping a climate-unfriendly older heater, or some similar situation, for people who can afford to change on their own, especially, so expensive that, unless they're millionaires determined to cut off their noses to spite the government's face, they'll change.

And, per Grist, the study's authors acknowledge that even in "law-abiding"™ Germany, this isn't 1960:

The authors also emphasize that they aren’t claiming mandates or bans never work — seatbelt laws and smoking restrictions have become commonplace, for instance. But those were enacted in a different era and there was little public dissent about their benefits to personal health.

Times have indeed changed.

To me, the study, or at least how Grist extracts it, misses a possible, though not guaranteed, elephant in the room.

What if a lot of people who say they care about the climate are actually virtue signaling more than anything else, especially when the need for stronger and stronger action becomes more and more urgent? 

This is an idea that's not brand new to my mind by any means. That said, Peter Brannen's new book, "The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything," which I read last month and which discusses just how dire the situation is and just how urgent the need is for serious, global action, has reinforced that.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Greta Thunberg, or the guy out west who basically won't do anything in life. (I exaggerate.) I currently drive a gasoline-only vehicle (but it was cheap and doesn't need to go to the dump), fly the occasional airplane (noting that that flight is a sunk carbon cost), eats some meat (but in the bottom 15th percentile, if not even lower, of Americans) and other things. On the other hand, I've called for carbon taxes for years, even though not that high on the American economic pedestal. 

Tex-ass primary 2026: Early voting launch day nuttery

The dreamy Don Huffines is in the polling lead to get the GOP's nod in the Comptroller's race. That's how far right Texas voters are going. Ben Rowan has a piece that's somewhat mocking of all three candidates. When Christi Craddock is your LEAST nutbar ...

From that? This:

There is only one certainty: No matter how conservative an elected official is, there is always someone further to the right of them. Much of the grassroots right wing in Texas believe Abbott—who has signed a near-total abortion ban, a bill letting Texans carry firearms without a permit, and legislation mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms—is a quisling.

Is your takeaway. 

(I have long called Huffines "dreamy," because married and all, well ... you know ...)

==

Rethuglicans SHOULD nominate Bo French in the Railroad Commission race. He's so nutbar he'd make Wayne (Not A) Christian look sane.

Forrest Wilder has an in-depth profile of French, so nutbar that even Danny Goeb called him out — for antisemitism, the one sin that you can't commit in Texas wingnut circles, unless you're Nick Fuentes and Matt Rinaldi is protecting you. And, two years ago, the Dreamy Don pulled out of an event where he was at.

There's yet more Bo French nuttery in the Gene Wu article at the Monthly.

==

Trump's campaigns steal use of copyrighted songs all the time, so he should STFU when a Rethuglican, unendorsed by him, uses his image in a primary that has a Trump-endorsed candidate as well.  

==

Nationally, Thom Hartmann goes duopoly-sheepdogging. "Shock me."

 

Texas environmental news roundup

Does radioactivity from oil waste threaten a school in Johnson County? That's the Observer discussing the issue;

The Barbed Wire has something even more in-depth. As both note, there's also a 2,500-home residential development in the area. And, the whistleblower about the situation, Mike Oldham, has credible medical history about how the radioactivity has affected him from his time in burying that waste.

That story notes that the county is actually investigating, with someone who has relevant background.

The piece also notes that people who know, from another fracking state like Pennsylvania, think HOW the waste got there is fucking nuts. 

Will Hawk Dunlap talk more about radioactivity and oilfield waste between now and election day? (Living in a small county, I'll likely be voting the GOP ballot due to contested local elections; assuming I do, I definitely vote him on the RRC election.) 

Downwinders at Risk are among Texas environmental nonprofits kneecapped by EPA grant cuts. 

A 66-96 PECOTA for the St. Louis Cardinals vs deep denialism by many fans?

When I saw #STLCards trending on Shitter shortly after noon yesterday, then Baseball Prospectus' email came in my inbox shortly after that, I quickly put 2 + 2 together.

And, I think BP did as well, on their PECOTA for the Cards. All of MLB is here. 

So, I of course posted to Reddit.

Shortly after that, the first big reaction on Shitter that I saw was from Bernie Miklasz. He's far less of a Cards homer than Derrick Goold, so I generally trust his judgment on the Birds. 

His YouTube was linked and here he is:

I think he's mildly overoptimistic, but not totally so.

Cards fans? Yeah, 70 wins is not unlikely. But 75 probably is. And, beyond actual counter-comments with alternative numbers, the fact my post was only at a 60-percent upvote two hours later rate reflects, IMO, the deep denialism mentioned in the header. (It did get to about 70 percent a couple of hours after that.)

Bernie mentioned FanGraphs as the best. I went there. And laughed when I saw:

All told, ZiPS sees St. Louis as, you guessed it, about a .500 team.

To put it bluntly? FanGraphs is full of shit. And so I told one person on Reddit who referenced it.

But? I'm sure there are Cards fans who actually believe that.

Get ready to get crushed. And, you need to be crushed. I've long seen, over the past two or even three seasons, the level of denialism by many Cards fans on Reddit. Many of them said, "Look, we had a winning record in 2024," ignoring the Cards' Pythag being negative. (Speaking of, despite the team winning 78 last year, its Pythag was at 74 wins. The amount of subtraction in trades? At least 6 wins. PECOTA's not off the mark.)

As for the team, the National League and MLB? My active baseball fandom, besides the Cardinals, has been in the decline for a few to several years. The denialism of other Cards fans only hastens that. And, they need to be crushed. I hope the team doesn't even hit the 66-win mark.

Shock me that Western states and the feds still don't want to face Colorado River reality (updated)

Or, in specific, Glen Canyon Dam reality. (My Photoshopped version of the dam, above.)

High Country News, actually getting back to its roots in some ways, has a good piece on the dam, the Colorado River, and the status of a new Colorado River Compact. Here's the latest:

Indeed, a state of crisis has been building on the Colorado for decades, even as the parties that claim its water argue over how to divide its rapidly diminishing flows. Lately, things have entered a new and perilous phase. Last Nov. 11 was a long-awaited deadline: Either the states involved — California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming — would have to agree on a new management plan, or else the federal government would impose its own, something none of the parties would welcome. Meanwhile, the 30 tribes that also hold claims to the river have historically been and continue to be excluded from these negotiations. 

That deadline came and went, and instead of acting, the government punted, this time to Feb. 14. Nobody was surprised: Unmet deadlines and empty ultimatums have been business as usual on the river for years. Decades of falling reservoir levels and clear warnings from scientists about global warming and drought have prompted much hand-wringing and some temporary conservation measures, but little in the way of permanent change in how water is used in the Colorado River Basin.

That deadline is, of course, just a couple of days ahead now passed. I semi-guarantee you won't lose any money if you bet that the seven states of the Colorado River Basin do nothing by then and the feds kick the deadline down the road.  (Shock me that the lower basin states want more concessions from the upper basin. That said, contra John Fleck, the current basins division is itself part of the problem.)

After all, in the Biden Administration, BuRec did a head fake about doing anything serious. (There was semi-serious stuff around the edges, and that was that, but it motivated the states to do nothing.) 

In response, Interior says it will move forward with new operating guidelines. Well, those are guidelines, no more, and per Interior head Doug Burgum and his department's press release, they're kicking the can down the road just like Team Biden. (Per the second of the two links above, Biden's DOI jumped over BuRec to pontificate and do nothing.)

“Negotiation efforts have been productive; we have listened to every state’s perspective and have narrowed the discussion by identifying key elements and issues necessary for an agreement. We believe that a fair compromise with shared responsibility remains within reach,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. “I want to thank the governors of the seven Basin States for their constructive engagement and commitment to collaboration. We remain dedicated to working with them and their representatives to identify shared solutions and reduce litigation risk. Additionally, we will continue consultations with Tribal Nations and coordinate with Mexico to ensure we are prepared for Water Year 2027.”

Let's unpack that sack of shit. 

Bottom first.

"Consultations" with tribal nations mean they'll keep getting screwed, especially in Aridzona.

The stuff within the top half of the quote? Nah, not within reach, not without an actual hammer, which Burgum will use no more than Biden's BuRec head, Camille Touton. (As is the case in many departments, Trump has a nominee, Ted Cooke, but no actual commissioner.)

The stuff before "tribal nations"? BS boilerplate. 

That said, as HCN goes on to note, part of the problem is Glen Canyon Dam itself:

The 710-foot-tall dam was designed for a Goldilocks world in which water levels would never be too high or too low, despite the well-known fact that the Colorado is by far the most variable river in North America, prone to prodigious floods and extended droughts. But the Bureau, bursting with Cold War confidence — or hubris — chose to downplay the threat. In the record-breaking El Niño winter of 1983, the Bureau almost lost the dam to overtopping, due to both its mismanagement and its design, because the dam lacks sufficient spillway capacity for big floods. Only sheets of plywood installed across its top and cooler temperatures that slowed the melting of that year’s snowpack saved Glen Canyon Dam.

And yes, it was serious.

Marc Reisner opened his magisterial "Cadillac Desert" with that scene, going into much more detail than HCN's story. 

Of course, Glen Canyon Dam was itself built on a lie, a lie that's inside the visitors' center:

Oops! 

For those who haven't lived out there, there is no good farm land above the surface of Lake Powell, so no irrigation in the immediate area. There are no towns of more than 10,000 in the immediate area, though Utah, pursuing the cancerous idea of growth for growth's sake, continues to talk about pumping water for municipal needs some 250 miles west to St. George.

It has not improved water quality, and has killed fish below the dam.

As for that infrastructure? HCN goes on to note that, already in 2023, it has come close to "minimum power pool."

If Hoover Dam gets that close, the theoretical solution is to open the penstocks at Glen Canyon Dam. For Glen Canyon Dam, Flaming Gorge is further away with less water. There's not much on the main stem of the Colorado, and dams above Black Canyon of the Gunnison would help even less. 

The story notes that is actually above the generators' intake level but that, due to the force of water flow, getting down to that mark would cause cavitation in the dam's penstocks. Some of that happened in 1983 because water had to be released from the dam so fast, and with such a head weight due to the lake being full, that the water pressure caused small boulder size cavitation, if I recall correctly.

HCN's Wade Graham notes the dam has two additional outlets, called river outlet works. But, they're not designed for extended use, and can deteriorate when water levels are low. (I can't recall if they were used in addition to the regular penstocks in 1983.)

That water level is what is known to those of us in the know as "dead pool." But, as Graham notes, that's still 240 feet above the base of the dam. That's 240 feet of fetid, stagnant, algae- and mosquito-breeding water. 

Graham notes that old BuRec head Floyd Dominy, subject of John McPhee's "Encounters with the Archdruid," talked long ago about drilling into the sandstone around the dam with emergency outlet valves.

That's interesting. But, knowing the nature of that sandstone, also discussed by Reisner, if those valves aren't concrete lined, that water migrates. Does any of it "gnaw away" at the base of the dam?

And, the author's explainer on that:

In 1997, the former commissioner sketched on a cocktail napkin how new bypass tunnels could be drilled through the soft sandstone around the dam and outfitted with waterproof valves to control the flow of water and sediment. What it prescribes is treating the patient — the Colorado River, now on life support — with open-heart surgery, a full bypass. Dominy’s napkin, which he signed and gave to my colleague Richard Ingebretsen, the founder of Glen Canyon Institute, is effectively a blueprint for a healthier future for the Colorado River and the people and ecosystems that depend on it.

Needs a caveat. 

It would be healthier than dead pool, but not healthier than much other options. Like not building the damned thing. Or else blowing it out. 

(I'm with the Monkey Wrench Gang!) 

To add to the concern, the Upper Colorado Basin Snowpack index is horribly low.  It's far and away the worst in the past decade and well below the 30-year average. Now, as 2023 shows on that graph, sometimes, middle and late spring snow will bail things out. But, one shouldn't hang their hat on that, and even before the big surge, 2023 was well ahead of this year.

And, the big concern for the long term? The US Southwest is likely to remain in drought for the rest of the century. 

Texas Progressives

SocraticGadfly talked about the difference in coverage — including in the "progressive" world, and including right here in Texas, so no need to look outside the state between anti-ICE protestors and pro-Palestinian protestors. 

Off the Kuff interviewed three candidates for HD131 - Erik Wilson, Staci Childs, and Lawrence Allen - plus Danny Norris for HD142.

One of the best things about Taylor Rehmet's win was it telling Mercy Culture — who endorsed Leigh Wambsganss — to essentially fuck off.

Haven't gotten a new voter registration card, even though they were due two months ago? Here's why — a mix of redistricting and state software fuck-ups.

Contra Strangeabbott, and now Kenny Boy's suit to try to shut it down (also not mentioned by Kuff, IIRC), CAIR is not a foreign terrorist organization. 

A 2021 state law barring state investment in companies divesting from fossil fuels is unconstitutional. It will have zero effect on state investments, but will have effect indeed on the Comptroller's office chasing after other business investors. 

A new lawsuit wants Camp Mystic shut down, period. 

And, since fracking has now invaded the Guadalupe River floodplain, albeit more than 100 miles downstream and Tex-ass Rethuglicans (and plenty of Democraps like Beat-0 O'Rourke) are either dismissive of climate change or minimizers, and also since, as the story notes, there is NO state floodplain policy!, it maybe SHOULD be shut down. 

Is the government of China possibly behind all the John Mearsheimer video deepfakes? 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project reported on ongoing discussion at Houston City Council regarding proposals to lessen HPD interaction with ICE. There was not much progress, but we very much retain the ability to organize ourselves outside conventional political structures.

The TSTA Blog warns us to be ready for the unleashing of the voucher monster.

David DeMatthews wishes the state would focus on helping children learn how to read rather than dictating to them what they must or must not read.

Egberto Willies catches Marjorie Taylor Greene telling the truth.

Pre-early voting Tex-ass political hot takes outside the MSM or #BlueAnon

Let's dig in with the Democrats' hot race. 

Talarico-Crockett

At the Monthly, Allegra Hobbs notes how seminarian James Talarico has backpedaled off Jeebus in his primary with Training Wheels Jasmine Crockett, including paying for a Jesus-free Super Bowl ad.

Hobbs, though touting his "scriptural literacy," does NOT tell you that seminarian James Talarico is either a liar or an idiot about Luke 1 and the Annunciation to Mary having any connection to reproductive choice. That, along with the above, of course makes him a Pander Bear. 

We then go to CD Hooks for his take on Pander Bear the Seminarian vs Training Wheels. He starts with the whole Colin Allred brouhaha. My take? He was mediocre, if even that, as a Senate campaigner. And a ConservaDem as a politician. That said, Training Wheels is a semi-pander bear on Zionism and Seminarian is trying to pretty much avoid the issue. You'll not find Hooks discussing that.

He does indicate Tex-ass Republicans, given the statements by Lois Cockwhore, may fear Talarico more.

He next claims spox for the two candidates misunderstand each other. False, dude. They indeed at least halfway understand each other, which is why they deliberately speak past each other.

He then discusses Talarico taking money from Mirian Adelson, as noted by a pro-Crockett anonymous website, but refuses to use this as an entree to discuss the Z word. (That would be like most members of Texas Pergressuves.)

The Barbed Wire adds the sidebar take of Crockett backers jumping into the land of conspiracy theories. 

That last one is laughable, and will probably get doubled down in a Talarico win.

Cornyn-Paxton

Also at the Monthly Hooks gets out a big can of bromance for "he looks like a senator" John Cornyn. And yeah, Hooks, that's what it is. Deal with it.  Otherwise, see above.

Sid Miller-Nate Sheets

The Trib looks at how and why incumbent Ag Commissioner is in so much trouble, so much trouble that included Gov. Strangeabbott giving his first-ever endorsement of a GOP challenger in an executive branch race, and includes also — contra Miller's bravado— major orgs like Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers breaking for Sheets.

AG race for Dems

This is one of four primaries where the Trib interviewed all candidates. I won't be voting in the Dem primary, in all likelihood, because of small-county primary needs, but would consider Nathan Johnson in the general.

AG race for GOP

Trib interview; Joan Huffman is the only one not a total hack. 

Senate GOP

All three Rethuglicans refused to respond to the Trib. 

Senate Dems

The Trib did ask both Training Wheels and Seminarian Pander Bear about weapons sales to Israel. Crockett wanders beyond Israel. Talarico goes down the road of offensive vs defensive weapons, touts the Israel-killed two-state solution and other things. Neither mentioned pro-Palestinian protestors like Leqaa Kordia. I won't be voting for either in the general and I'm not shocked by this.

To put it more firmly?

I won't be voting for whoever wins this shitshow, mainly because of Zionism, but also, because of Talarico's level of Pander Bear on misinterpreting Luke 1 if he's the winner. That means an undervote in the general, barring an independent write-in candidate, as Greens aren't running anybody.  

It also asked both about oil. Crockett explicitly backs "all of the above" on energy and Talarico does on the down low. Barf and yet more reason I'm not voting for either one. 

==

In the general, I may vote Molison, the Green candidate for Ag Commish. But I'll only do that if he says publicly what's wrong with Proposition 4. If not, forget it.

 

Noam Chomsky in the Epstein files? Not shocked

That's unlike Vijay Prashad at Counterpunch.

Reality is, Chomsky's not such an anti-Zionist as portrayed. More on that and other things below.

A LOT more. Let's dig in. 

That then said, Chris Knight notes, also at Counterpunch, that Noam taught at MIT, which got plenty of military-industrial complex money. 

There were, I believe, always two ‘Noam Chomskys’ – one working for the US military and the other working tirelessly against that same military. This contradiction cannot explain every aspect of Chomsky’s puzzling friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. But it is the underlying contradiction that helps us understand why someone as radical as Chomsky ended up being involved with someone as reactionary as Epstein.

Bingo. Or, sort of. As I note above, I have long seen Chomsky as not being all that radical. And, I've also known for 20 years or more that his linguistic theories are non-scientific and generally overrated. Knight definitely gets into that, below.

Beyond that, Chomsky's association with Epstein has been known since 2023, per a link in Knight's piece. 

But, the details are out now.

Jeff St. Clair notes:

The latest batch is very ugly and, I think, indefensible. It’s especially disgusting that Noam saw it necessary to shame the victims as hysterics. When it was first revealed that Chomsky had some kind of relationship with Epstein, I was surprised, but not terribly shocked. I assumed he was trying to pick Epstein’s very deep pockets for money for his MIT projects. Hell, Noam had taken money from the Pentagon, DIA and other unsavory sources in the past. There’s no such thing as clean money.

And follows with:

It’s also very hard to understand how he could have maintained such close ties to someone who was a hardcore Zionist and, if not an Israeli agent himself, certainly an asset whom Israeli intelligence used frequently. It’s baffling. A couple of years ago, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and wrote off his dismissal of Epstein’s predatory sexual behavior as similar to Nader’s stubborn refusal to endorse gay rights during the 2000 campaign, when there were several gay marriage/rights initiatives on state ballots, by saying, “I don’t do gonadal politics.” But this is much more appalling and inexplicable.

That's the thing. 

Or not the thing. By the end of his piece, St. Clair goes halfway back in the Chomsky apologetics tank. Jeff, I think you're still giving him too much benefit of the doubt.

So, back to Knight. 

Knight follows with more, showing just how bad this is.

Anyone who reads the correspondence between Chomsky and Epstein in the January 2026 release of the Epstein files, however, will now find it difficult to respect Chomsky’s opinions on Gaza or anything else. 

One email from Chomsky and his second wife Valeria describes the couple’s friendship with Epstein as ‘deep and sincere and everlasting’. Another from Valeria describes Epstein as: ‘our best friend. I mean “the” one.’ Meanwhile other messages – signed only by Chomsky himself – are equally generous to the convicted sex offender, saying, for example, ‘we’re with you all the way’ and ‘you’re constantly with us in spirit and in our thoughts.’ 

Other documents suggest that Chomsky visited Epstein’s properties not only in New York but also in New Mexico and Paris. The files even show that shortly before Epstein’s arrest and death, in July and August 2019, Chomsky was still intending to be interviewed for a documentary that Epstein was making. It seems that Chomsky really was loyal to Epstein until the end. The question is why.

First, that's bad.

But, again, not surprising to me, per my second paragraph above. (Other than the victim-shaming, which is both surprising and disgusting.) 

I'll get back to Knight on his "why" in a minute.

First, my most recent writing about Chomsky, when everybody thought he was dead. 

On Zionism or anti-Zionism? He's been chickenshit on BDS, and also opposes the Right of Return. Also per that piece, he reportedly considered living on a kibbutz in Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s and DID live on one in the 1950s.

He's also long been a sheepdogger for the left hand of the duopoly. 

Now, back to Knight's "why."

First, he notes that Chomsky was in financial straits of some sort several years ago. So, Epstein bribed him? That said, per the Guardian piece Knight links, the financial issue wasn't THAT bad. And, maybe old Noam was a bit more of a capitalist than he admitted. 

On the non-financial side? Knight simply says straight-up he thinks Chomsky had antediluvian views about women in many ways.

He then goes back to the military issue. He says that even Chomsky's once-heralded (but non-scientific and now passé) ideas about linguistics were also focused on military needs. Related? Knight also shows just how non-scientific, if not even pseudoscientific, Chomsky's ideas on language were.

I quote again: 

In Chomsky’s view, to talk of language emerging in our species through Darwinian evolution would be like discussing the evolution of the soul. Like the soul, Chomsky says, language is either present or not present – you cannot have half a soul. So it makes no sense to envisage language evolving by degrees. 

In response to those of us who have asked him how he thinks language really did emerge, Chomsky has offered little more than what he terms a ‘fairy story’: the brain of a single prehistoric human was ‘rewired, perhaps by some slight mutation’. It all happened suddenly and without building on any evolutionary precursor. 

Again like the soul – if we are to believe Chomsky – language has no special connection with communication. It can be used for communication ‘as can anything people do’ but, Chomsky says, ‘language is not properly regarded as a system of communication’. He then adds the still stranger claim that the concepts we use in language, such as ‘book’ or ‘carburettor’, have existed in the human brain since the emergence of our species tens of millennia before real books or carburettors even existed. 

To claim that language did not evolve for communication, or that prehistoric humans were hardwired with such concepts as ‘book’ or ‘carburettor’, simply makes no sense. For this and other reasons, many contemporary linguists have now concluded that Chomsky’s theories are completely unworkable, having reached what the eminent evolutionary psychologist Michael Tomasello calls ‘a final impasse’. But the question remains, why did someone as intelligent as Chomsky so consistently espouse such ideas? 

In my own book on this topic, I argue that by equating language with something like the soul, Chomsky was able to slip unnoticeably from real science to a kind of scientistic theology, insulating his linguistics from any possible military use.

There you are.

It also shows how tenuous of a grasp Chomsky had on the whole idea of evolution by natural descent. Substitute “eyeball” for “language” and a creationist or “Intelligent Design” person would say, and has said, exactly what Chomsky does.

In reality? A “partial language” would be of just as much value, relatively, as a planarium’s light-sensor spot is.

Seriously? At this point, I say, not only is Chomsky wrong about language AND not so real a leftist, he’s not so much the genius he has long been anointed as being. Let’s kick him off his pedestal in general.

Knight has a book on the origins of language coming out himself later this year, in a side note. 

Piling on? Chomsky was crafting a psychology-based response to B.F. Skinner and his behaviorism when he created his views on the origins of language. I note above he did no research. 

Let me add this. The suck-ups were out in force on the r/chomsky subreddit. No surprise, from my previous experience there.

And tankies are in other spots. Here's a Chomsky tankie on Instagram, claiming the photo of him with Steve Bannon, as well as Chomsky's emails to Epstein, aren't genuine. Wow; AI framed Chomsky. When I first wrote this, that would have been the lamest excuse, but I'm putting the "mark" in No. 1 now. 

==

NEW SINCE ORIGINAL POST, and I'll eventually do a second one. 

It's gotten worse, like this guy citing Michael Tracey on Shitter as a defense of Chomsky. (Tracey goes on to claim that call-outs of Chomsky are antisemitic.) 

I'm going to quote all of Tracey's original Shit, rather than embed the Shit:

The slander against Noam Chomsky is utterly outrageous. And the refusal of certain people to defend him against this torrent of defamatory slime is sickening cowardice. 

Perversely, it's become one of the most repellent aspects of the entire Epstein saga. 

The man is 97 years old, had a stroke a few years ago, and cannot even defend himself as he's being tarnished as some sort of depraved pedo enabler. 

It's pure, unvarnished Salem Witch Trial-style hysteria. 

Anyone perpetuating it has no standing to chuckle at the feeble-minded townsfolk in Colonial Massachusetts who thought they were being terrorized by literal witches. 

Chomsky did nothing wrong. [Emphasis added.] Epstein helped him with some unfortunate financial problems stemming from his first wife's death. They also occasionally socialized and maintained an email correspondence. 

WHO GIVES A FUCK? The supposedly damning PR advice that Chomsky gave Epstein also happened to be substantively correct. He was right that trying to use antiquated concepts like "reason" and "facts" in the public arena was totally pointless when it comes to hallucinated Pedo Panic theories. 

Most ironic of all, Chomsky has been demonstrably harmed by this fiasco far more than most of the supposed "victims" who took a luxury vacation to the US Virgin Islands in the early 2000s and then years later decided to call it "trafficking" so they could collect millions of tax-free settlement money and proclaim themselves "survivors."

There you are.

But, it gets worse. There's an agreement Shit by a Cheryl Hudson with a respondent that says:

I haven't seen much of this but increasingly this whole saga has such a flavour of antisemitism about it.

And Tracey's agreement. 

Yeah, I noticed...

Yes. So, per Tracey, who's not a leftist or even a librul, but a quasi-Greenwald type, calling out genocide in Gaza would also be antisemitic. 

But, let's get past the first Shit.

The tone-deafness of claiming that Chomsky has been hurt worse by the revelations and how people are handling them than Epstein's victims would be laughable if it were tone-deafness. It's not. It's a deliberate smear campaign.

The rest of it is flat lies. They did more than "occasionally socialize." Chomsky's PR campaign advice was more than throwaway. The handwaving and gaslighting about his stroke tries to hide that the Chomsky-Epstein ties go back more than a decade and also are deeper than previously thought. 

There's other sites that also feature Chomsky tankie-dom. I found two at a place called "Counter Currents." This one is the worse of the two. Justin Brown claims Noam was a "mark." That's the lamest excuse for him yet. 

Let's get into "interesting" stuff. Back to R/Chomsky, here's a commenter claiming Wittgenstein is the antidote to Chomsky. Not really, sir. He was a Platonist, and like Chomsky, a Platonist on linguistics. 

But wait, this gets better! /s 

Aaron Mate has posted in full a statement by Valeria Chomsky on his Substack. I saw it on r/Chomsky. My thought? 

As stated there, and in restacking Aaron's Substack, since he has not limited comments to paid subscribers but has turned them off, period?

This doesn't talk about Noam's PR advice to Epstein and other things. At a minimum, it looks like a degree of whataboutism or hand-waving. In maximum, it walks, talks and quacks in the neighborhood of gaslighting. And shock me that Aaron has disabled comments on his Substack.

Gack.

That said, some specifics of the "gack."

First:

As is widely known, one of Noam’s characteristics is to believe in the good faith of people. Noam’s overly trust[ing] nature, in this specific case, led to severe poor judgment on both our parts.

Really? The author of "Manufacturing Consent" was too trusting?

And this:

Epstein began to encircle Noam, sending gifts and creating opportunities for interesting discussions in areas Noam has been working on extensively. We regret that we did not perceive this as a strategy to ensnare us and to try to undermine the causes Noam stands for.

Valeria, you yourself called Epstein "the one." In 2017.

Then, some possible selective amnesia, or handwaving further, or more gaslighting, with this:

Noam and I were introduced to Epstein at the same time, during one of Noam’s professional events in 2015, when Epstein’s 2008 conviction in the State of Florida was known by very few people, while most of the public – including Noam and I – was unaware of it. That only changed after the November 2018 report by Miami Herald.

In reality, a quick teh Google shows the Daily Mail published an interview with Virginia Giuffre in 2011. Gawker published his "little black book" in 2015. (Sidebar: The Peter Thiel-funded lawsuits against Gawker hit the fan a year later.)

As for the insinuation that the Chomskys cut their ties and their losses after that 2018 reportage? A late 2025 piece from the same Miami Herald begs to differ:

With Jeffrey Epstein’s reputation in tatters following a 2018 Miami Herald investigation into his sex crimes – and how he evaded serious consequences – the financier hit on a plan: He would produce a documentary to present himself in a favorable light. He had several ideas about who could appear on it and provide favorable testimonies, emails and phone messages show. And one of the first friends to allegedly give Epstein the thumbs up was famed left-wing academic Noam Chomsky. “Spoke to Chomsky, he’s all in,” Epstein wrote in a text message to an undisclosed associate.

Pretty straightforward. If that's not enough? This:

[T]he Herald’s findings reveal that Chomsky continued to correspond with him at least until the summer of 2019, even after the Herald’s series led to widespread outcry and the Justice Department publicly announced a fresh probe.

Straightforward.

In reality, per Chris Knight's piece, Chomsky surely knew that the oleaginous Alan Dershowitz negotiated getting 2006 charges against Epstein dropped, as far as the Chomskys taking the issues seriously. And, Epstein also met Dersh at Harvard as well as Chomsky. At the same time, as Harvard Crimson admits, the university refused to return Epstein's money in 2006.

So, this idea that Noam would assume that because Epstein had "done his time," he was rehabilitated, is also bullshit. That's bullshit on his part, though, not Valeria's. As for the rich and powerful's ability to get matters criminal squashed, Noam is, once again, a fake leftist if he doesn't take that into account and hasn't done so before. 

As for Valéria’s insinuation that she and Noam are all alone in the darkness?

She was quick and hot to react two years ago when certain leftists like Yanis Varoufakis were rushing like good little online-world tribalists to be “first” or nearly so to talk about Noam’s alleged death and how close they were to him.

Let's now, since he was mentioned above, move on to Glennwald!

Having now looked at a 2023 email from Noam Chomsky to Glenn Greenwald, in a note where Glenn not only turned off comments from non-subscribers but did the same on restacks, I’m not sure what’s worst — Noam’s hypocrisy, Noam’s gaslighting, Noam’s flat lying, or Glennwald’s passive-aggressive pontificating cant.

But, let’s look at the key part:

"Moral panic" is right. The country has been sex-obsessed since the Puritans. I then told her I'd be glad to tell her about a close friend who spent decades in prison, but had a clean slate after release according to the laws and norms they are supposed to honor — all that was known about Jeffrey Epstein at the time.

There you are. (Unknown who the "her" is.)

Gaslighting? Claiming this is about Puritan sexual mores.

Lying? Epstein never spent “decades” in prison (sadly).

Hypocrisy? Linguistic mathematics in this case. Gaslighting x lying = hypocrisy.

Glennwald’s passive-aggressive pontificating cant?

I’m not endorsing or rejecting it.

As for turning off restacks, not just comments, except for subscribers, don’t forget that when Aaron Mate posted Valéria’s comments Feb. 7, he turned off comments entirely.

The passive-aggressive pontificating cant continues when called out:

I’m a journalist. The idea that one is “picking a side” merely by allowing a person at the center of a controversy to speak for themselves is absurd, especially when they can’t speak for themselves directly.

Noam was speaking for himself at the time he wrote that. Did you give him a pass then as well? Silence and survey says yes.

This is also from the Glennwald whose always been a columnist journalist above all else. You could have said something then, or today. You chose not to.

That said, that fits with your own long history of sexism. (It also, of course, fits with Chomsky's own apparent history of sexism, which, as we already know, in correspondence to Epstein, includes dismissing the "MeToo" movement.) 

It’s also fun to watch one person complaining in a comment saying Glenn never was like this before.

Ahh, the suckers getting burned.

I will be doing a part 3 post over at Substack on Chomsky now, clearly. And here it is.

And I intend a part 4.

==

New since Parts 2 and 3 at Substack. 

Beyond Chomsky's presuppositions about Epstein's rehabilitation? Which I will tackle in more detail there.

Per Valéria, on this Substack, he may have gotten a bit bigger financial mess of pottage from Epstein than many people realize. $290K cash plus the plane flights plus the stays at Epstein sites.

Chomsky's signing of that infamous 2020 Harper's letter, discussed here, tied with his mischaracterization of what that letter is actually about, and (willful?) ignorance of the background to that letter, should tell us that, whether due to general aging or whatever, that he was already getting intellectually lazy, at the most charitable of interpretations, or that, for both its better and its worse sides, he simply could not — and WOULD not — accept identitarian culture leftism. I think that less charitable interpretation is more likely. Or I can go maximalist and say that this shows he's such a squish on Zionism he willingly signed off on the original cancel culture idea that partially backgrounded the letter.

While I've noted above that r/Chomsky is full of Chomsky tankies, credit to this guy, r/Doppelercloud, for going to far as to call Chomsky a "liberal tankie." He elsewhere calls Chomsky "corrupt." He also says he disagrees with Chris Knight's claim that Chomsky's use of his linguistics ideas was an act of academic resistance. I don't totally agree with all of his takes on Noam. But kudos to him in general on battling the Chomsky tankies.

In part 3 of my Substack series, I called Chomsky a liar. Chris Knight does so in this piece at his website calling out Chomsky's defense of militarists among academic fellows at MIT in Vietnam days. Via r/Chomsky, Knight notes that his co-edited 2019 book, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," based on Chomsky's 1969 book of that name, included what he calls an "intemperate response" from Chomsky over the callout. He notes near top:

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to tell the truth. By this standard, Noam towers above most of his peers. But one thing he finds difficult. He just cannot and will not tell the truth about the US military’s intimate involvement with his own academic institution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

That's not all. 

Knight busts Chomsky selling out for Pentagon money even in 2021! 

That said, in reference to this piece, his 2019 book and his 2016 book, I don't know why he continues to cut Noam semi-blank checks on this issue. On the Counterpunch piece earlier this month, he posited two Chomskys. I'd rather go with the idea that more and more of us are saying maybe this is more of the real Noam and always has been, and that we need to give him at least as much, if not more, skeptical scrutiny than Knight. 

That then said, Knight's Wiki page notes that Noam was already dismissive of that 2016 book, "Decoding Chomsky." And, per his Wiki, while he's not as well known as Chomsky, he might have a similar degree of intellect. 

Or let's note, from my own past reading, Michael Corballis. In his book, "The Truth about Language," he says early on that he knew he would butt heads with Noam, but hoists him by his own petard, even. As part of that, while not explicitly calling Chomsky a Platonist, he draws the picture that can lead to that conclusion. (Re-reading my review, it's clear now.) 

But, Noam is stubborn not only on defending militarism but on defending his non-scientific, even pseudoscientific, ideas on linguistics. Go to the 1- and 2-star reviews of "Why Only Us: Language and Evolution," co-written with Robert Berwick, to see how, just within the last decade or so, when massive modularity of the mind had been kicked to the curb, the brain working like a massive computer shoved aside, and so forth, how Chomsky and his coauthors could still trot out such nonsense. (Actually, the 1-star halfway defends him, but is largely devoted to claims of plagiarism against his co-author, claiming this is why Chomsky was roped in. If true, Noam again failed the responsibility of a public intellectual.)

To summarize Knight's presentation here, from the 1960s up to maybe the mid-1990s or so (I didn't check exact dates in footnotes) Chomsky basically compartmentalized his relationship with militarism at MIT. After that, he started lying, which in some ways, per his hypocrisy on the responsibility of an intellectual, is more intellectually honest than compartmentalizing. I'm not totally sure what triggered the switch, but by the tentative timeline, affairs in the Balkans after the breakup of Yugoslavia could be the key. 

=== 

Let's get back to Noam being a squish on Zionism. Multiple meetings with Epstein also included former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. Yes, Barak has had some mild callouts of Bibi Netanyahu on how Israel responded to Oct. 7, 2023. But, that's been around the edges. In addition, Barak went to Little Saint James, per Wiki. 

Let's add in, per Joe Costello, what Slick Willie might talk about to Congress, given Epstein funded the Clinton Global Initiative.  

I want to wrap up by going back to Counterpunch, though.

First a detour, via a piece I wrote a month ago. Counterpunch had its own resident tankie, Michael Albert, do the hand-waving back then. Among other things, he says Chomsky would abhor systems but try to look graciously at individuals. Got it. So. Epstein's system wasn't created by Epstein. Like Nazism wasn't created by Adolf Hitler, but just evolved in a system from the Dolstochgestabbe. Got it.

Now, back to the February, current, Counterpunch. 

St. Clair's piece looks like he hoped, a month ago, that the initial Chomsky-Epstein news would be it and this would go away, or even get swept under the rug. Maybe he's a bit of a tankie himself. Per his new piece, I think he's definitely a tankie for Ralph Nader, welcoming him to write more for Counterpunch in 2024 even when, or maybe I should say especially when, he started sheepdogging for the left hand of the duopoly. 

As for Knight's "two Chomsky" angle? Maybe the one was simply a "public facing" Chomsky, at least in part. Something he was surfing like a wave after getting all the kudos for apparently hauling down language origin theories of the generally illiberal behavioralism.

Many leftists who had "pedestaled" Chomsky need to de-pedestal him. 

Or, per this guest piece at Counterpunch, be like Norman Finkelstein:

It appears Noam Chomsky contains a sales tag while Norman Finkelstein told Epstein to go piss up a golden rope line.

There you go. 

Hagerman NWR is turning 80 in a week, and I'm not going to the celebration

Why not?

Because, as with a year ago with a special presentation by the Friends of Hagerman support group, the national wildlife refuge is whoring itself out to the world of oil and gas. 

Indeed, the Feb. 14 presentation of Hagerman's history sounds very much like what the Friends group did last year, per its monthly e-newsletter from a year ago. (Scroll not quite halfway down.) Then, it was Mary Maddux, then a regional oil and gas specialist with US Fish and Wildlife. I can't find her listed as that in the past year with teh Google. Maybe she retired or got pushed out with Trump's cuts across Department of Interior in general and USFWS in general.

That said, next week is providing essentially the same person:

Step back in time with Mary Istre, Acting Deputy Refuge Manager, as she explores 80 years of conservation at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge. Using historic photographs and engaging stories, Mary will bring to life the people, decisions, and defining moments that shaped the refuge’s landscapes and wildlife. You’ll also discover how lessons from the past continue to guide conservation efforts today—and why this history matters more than ever. 

Mary Istre has spent 15 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, serving as the Southwest Region’s regional oil and gas specialist. She is currently the Acting Deputy Refuge Manager at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, bringing extensive experience in energy, conservation, and collaborative resource management.

Hard pass. 

Her predecessor lied about how little or how much oil pumpjacks might have damaged Lake Texoma and the refuge in 2015 flooding, and Istre will probably tell the same lies if asked about last year's flooding.

(Not that I suspect anybody in attendance will.) 

Texas "Progressives" — active on ICE and Hispanics, silent on Gaza

I pulled part of this week's Texas "Progressives" items from the normal weekly Roundup put together by Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff for just that reason.

We start with something I picked up, as, contra former member of the Texas Progressives Alliance Brains, I have long done my own additions (and subtractions) to Kuff's material.

Kuff will surely talk somewhere about Texas public school ICE protest walkouts, even as he remains radio silent on collegiate pro-Palestine protests. Ditto for Neil Aquino, the hypocrites.   

And now, to all of last week's roundup as organized by Kuff. 

The Current catches Greg Abbott trying to squirm out of his ICE fetishism.  

José R. Ralat gave his account of being accosted by ICE.

G. Elliott Morris shows why immigration as an issue has hit a tipping point in public opinion.

Isaiah Martin cheers on the athletes who have called out Alex Pretti's murder by ICE. 

Deceleration gives ten rules of resistance against ICE. Finally, as a public service, the two major immigrant-run organizations who are resisting ICE in Minnesota are Unidos MN and Monarca.

For more specific places to donate to, Stand With Minnesota is a clearinghouse for ways to help.

And now, to Gaza. And the United States ties with the Zionism that continues to kill Gazans. 

Even as Israel continues to break the cease-fire in Gaza, even as Israel and Trump's Peace Force or whatever he calls it plan biometric-controlled gated communities in Gaza that will surely come back to Merikkka, even as Jeffrey Epstein's connection to Mossad in particular and the Zionists running Israel in general becomes ever more clear, even as, as late as the end of last month, people continue to demand the release from ICE detention of Leqaa Kordia — held HERE IN TEXAS — Kuff, Neil Aquino etc remain silent. Maybe it's because the Biden Administration's complicity in genocide becomes ever more clear.

Texas Democrats — including elected ones! — are demanding Kordia's release. Where are Texas "progressives"? 

That's The Barbed Wire. Elsewhere, I have linked to the Texas Observer. Kuff uses both in the Roundup, which means he deliberately refuses to talk about her. That's anti-anti-Zionism, which is Zionism on the down low.

 

Texas progressives

Off the Kuff looked at Ken Paxton's latest lawsuit against an out-of-state mifepristone provider.

SocraticGadfly said "GACK" about Suzanne Bellsnyder, and also about "librul" Mother Jones magazine.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project reported on the Houston City Council session where HPD/ICE & giving the public the proper time for Council meetings was discussed.   

Representatives of the Lege promise more action on cannabis next year, and that Congress will reverse a nationwide THC ban set to start in November. 

At the Monthly, CD Hooks has a long longform about Texas A&M, both its history and its current discombobulation, and the legends going back and forth between the two. 

Data centers are bringing gas-power plant ginormity, along with its air pollution and climate change, to West Texas. 

Your Local Epidemiologist took a moment to cope and talk about community.

"Librul" justices further hate the poor

"Librulz" Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the six conservative Supreme Court justices to further limit avenues for relief to impoverished inmates. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenter.

Pre-primary election briefs

A lot of Texas Dems are NOT fired up about either Choir Boy James Talarico OR Training Wheels Jasmine Crockett. Shock me. A fair chunk of both candidates' active supporters say flipping Trump supporters is big, along with "electability." (Gazans, you just got thrown further under the bus.)

G. Elliott Morris, in the wake of Rehmet beating Wambsganss, speculates the U.S Senate seat will be in play if One-Eyed Spavined Mule Kenny Boy Paxton gets the GOP nod. Color me skeptical. 

Special elections briefs

First, Taylor Rehmet kicked Leigh Wambsganss' ass in Tarrant County to fill Kelly Hancock's Texas Senate seat. And, the Lege can't redistrict this. That said, given Tex-ass banana republic part-time Lege, it means not a lot. The pair face again in November for the spot's full term.

Sidebar: This once again underscores how Beto-Bob O'Rourke fucked up in 2022 by campaigning too much in Muleshoe, not enough in Cowtown suburbs, thus not having coattails, thus letting Christofascist Tim O'Hare get elected county judge. This again needs to be repeated not just to kick Beto-Bob's butt but to also try to warn off new Texas Democrap head Kendall Scudder from similar stupidities, since he's already shown himself doing other stupidities, and he's a Beto-Bob bird-dogger.

Second, Christian Menafee defeated Amanda Edwards to fill the remainder of the term for the late Sly Turner's 18th Congressional District. Both are facing 9th District incumbent Al Green in the March primary for a redrawn 18th.

Another GACK on Suzanne Bellsnyder

I'm going to focus on personal reasons for the GACK, not professional; I've taken care of that angle elsewhere.

Per communication I've seen, she's peddling an op-ed by Hawk Dunlap for other newspapers besides hers to use.

Problem? One on the professional side; actually, a serious of connected issues there.

Who is Dunlap? 

He's a currently active candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission. (He also ran in 2024, as a Libertarian. I'll just leave that there for now.)

As for Dunlap the candidate? He's almost certainly better than GOP incumbent James Wright. Doesn't matter. 

Yes, he wants oil companies, especially the majors who buy up old wells of many independents when their money gets tight, to "do the right thing."

Mother Jones just did a semi-puff piece on him. Takeout:

Dunlap is well acquainted with the problem. For 30 years, he worked for oil and gas companies to fix and plug wells all over the world. “I enjoy the outdoors,” he explained. “I used to hunt. I fish, I scuba dive, I play golf. I’m not housebroke, so I’m not inside an awful lot. I care about land, I care about landowners’ rights, I care about water. If that makes me an environmentalist, then so be it. That’s a label that, you know”—his tone turned mocking—“‘Oh, you’re an environmentalist.’ Yeah, okay, I’m a tree hugger. I’ll hug any tree that doesn’t have thorns.”

Is he actually an environmentalist? Uhh, no. Does he care about climate change? Does he even think climate change is "real"? Probably not.

As for Dunlap thinking Chevron used to be "good guys"? Bullshit, as severe-weather venting at Permian natural-gas plants during Winter Storm Fern showed. Chevron is among listed companies.

As for this puffery:

Dunlap has become part of an unlikely band of folks living in West Texas who are trying to force the government and industry to address the abandoned oil well catastrophe. There’s Ashley Watt, the owner of Antina Ranch, who has sued oil companies, including Chevron, for the damage they allegedly did to her land. There’s Laura Briggs, whose family runs two local newspapers and who has been a critic of state regulators for years. There’s Schuyler Wight, a fourth-generation rancher, who for the past three years has traveled hundreds of miles to Austin almost every month to give officials a piece of his mind. And there’s Stogner, a take-no-prisoners attorney whose talent for making viral videos—including a campaign ad she filmed of herself straddling a pumpjack wearing nothing but star-shaped pasties and a cowboy hat—has gotten tens of thousands of people to pay attention to this complex issue.

Uh, no, Sharon Wilson and her fellow methane hunters are the real environmentalists. (Per the link immediately above, she notes that severe-weather venting happens in extreme summers, too.)  Yes, the folks listed above are addressing well blowouts. And, anything else?

Well, even with well blowouts, it's more personal than environmental, and MoJo at least gets Watt to admit it:

In Texas, where landowners often do not control the rights to the minerals under their property, and oil and gas companies regularly do, a unique political identity has emerged. “I’m not necessarily an environmentalist on all land, but I’m definitely an environmentalist on my land,” Watt said. “That is a very common flavor of West Texas landowner. As you can imagine, West Texas ranchers skew conservative. From an environmental perspective, they could probably care less about saving the whales, but they care a whole lot about their land.”

A Houston Chronic piece makes that even more clear, noting Watt is a "Houston energy entrepreneur," and that the site is inherited family property.

To add to this, MoJo author Molly Taft identifies herself as a "climate journalist," but the phrase "climate change" is nowhere in her story. She does once mention methane as a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. 

SO, why run a piece this long? 

It should also be noted, contra the implications of the article, that "split estates" are common in most oil and gas states, except, I believe, California and Alaska, and in Alaska, the North Slope is federal land. Feds can reserve mineral estate rights when selling surface land, too. And, the "mineral estate" means just that — coal, iron ore or gold, not just oil and gas. To be more technical, per this piece, there's a difference between mineral estate, ie, what's below the surface, and mineral rights, ie, exactly what a mineral estate owner can and cannot do to get at that estate. In general, throughout the US, a mineral estate has dominant rights position over the surface estate. Cleanup issues are worst with oil and gas drilling, but within that industry, alleged remediation lackadaisicalness is not limited to Texas.

As for the election? Dems have a candidate for the general. Greens? Nobody. Alfred Molison, who ran in 2024, move over to the Ag commissioner race. 

Finally, on Bellsnyder pushing Dunlap? "Not an environmentalist" would apply to her seemingly wanting the blank checks of Proposition 4 to keep overpumping the Ogallala Aquifer. Per a not-so-hot quip of hers, I don't know if she found the "right" to do that in her Constitution or her Bible.

 

Texas progressives talk elections and more

Off the Kuff has interviews with Harris County Judge candidates Annise Parker and Letitia Plummer.

Socratic Gadfly talked about the RRC stiffing Midland 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project posted on possible progress at Houston City Council about limiting non-safety traffic stops by HPD to lessen prospect of HPD contacting ICE & how you can be part of the discussion/debate at Council.

Pete von der Haar has a few bracing words for his fellow Gen Xers.

El Paso Matters reminds us that MLK's legacy was neither comfortable nor silent.

Isaiah Martin has a modest proposal for how to end the Trumpian obsession with Greenland.

The Texas Signal looks at the two upcoming special elections.

The Dallas Observer advises on minimizing your risk when filing ICE agents.

Lone Star Left got left behind. 

Top blogging of 2025

As with my monthly roundups, while these were the most read pieces of 2025, not all of them were written IN 2025. 

And, as with the monthly roundups, I'll note the original date of "evergreen" pieces. I'll also, if they are older than 2024, take a guess as to their ongoing, or renewed, popularity.

And, with that?

No. 10: "Fuck r/NationalPark for a duopoly tribalist ban." It was an additional piss-off because I had extensive facts to document the non-duopoly comment that got me banned, and because r/Texas had pulled the same shit not too much earlier. 

No. 9 came from early in 2025, just a couple of months into Trump 2.0's reign, and explains the title of the short piece: "The Resistance 2.0 wants to relitigate Russiagate 1.0." That said, Trump continues to give BlueAnon and Never Trumper Rethuglicans ammo for this, and no, MAGAts, not in a trolling way, but in an increasingly Trumpian stupidity way. 

No. 8 was political prognostication. "Oh, Canada, can the Liberals win again?" They and PM Mark Carney did indeed, but Canada lost in large part due to the utter implosion of the New Democratic Party, which saw the radioactivity of its previous confidence and supply agreement with Trudeau come home to roost. Meanwhile, for denizens of parliamentary democracies who laugh at, or scratch their heads over, the lengthiness of US presidential elections, why does it take a full year for the NDP to choose a new party leader, or over in Britain, a new party, the Your Party, the same amount of time to choose an official first party leader. In addition, if your country's upper house of government is not that much more democratic than the US Senate (looking at Canada, Great Britain, Germany and France for starters), you have additional lack of room to mock.

Speaking of mocking?

No. 7, "The REAL Footprints in the Sand," mocked indeed that hoary old Christian chestnut. 

No. 6 was one iteration from the weekly Texas Progressives blog roundup. I have no idea why it trended, but it did.

No. 5 was from way back in 2018, about my approval of the St. Louis Cardinals trading for Paul Goldschmidt. I'm guessing it trended because of him being let go by the Cards after the 2024 offseason, then signing a deal with the Yankees.

No. 4 was a brief post from last summer, "Trump is actually right on California's high-speed rail." 

No. 3? Cannabis is always a good hot topic. That said, while I said, or claimed, back in 2021, that there was "More pressure on Texas to loosen pot rules," the state has done no such thing other than to have Strangeabbott and Dannie Goeb get in a fight over THC gummies last summer. 

No. 2? "Three Dems on SCOTUS, no environmentalists," summarizes part of why I'm a non-duopoly voter. 

And the most popular post of last year?

.....

Drumroll ...

Was from 2019.

"Early 2020 Democratic presidential oddsmaking, desirability" ranked all halfway serious contenders on both, the latter ranking from a non-duopoly leftist point of view. I wasn't totally wrong on odds. Saint Bernard of Sanders was No. 1 on that for me, followed by Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala is a Cop tying for second and Dementia Joe in fourth. 

Bernie of course got shivved by a mix of Dear Leader and Harry Reid, who rallied the insiders around Dementia Joe at the same time. That said, as I documented elsewhere, Bernie showed his own balllessness in the campaign, which didn't help. Kamala got the token (it was) Veep nod, while Gillibrand disappeared. 

Snowmaggedon and slavery

Well, Snowmaggedon 2026 did not pan out. At least not as snow.

SLEETmageddon? Different story.

I’m kind of disappointed in some ways, actually.

Wouldn’t it have been interesting, just a year after we equalled or slightly surpassed the old one-day snowfall record for any date, to shatter it by 3 or 4 inches?

Of course, that combined with the coldest temperatures since Winter Storm Uri five years ago, would have led to other “interesting” things.

First would have been, would the Texas electric grid hold up this time?

Second would have been, who would Dan Patrick blame this time if it didn’t?

Third would have been, would the Texas Department of Transportation been broken instead of the electric grid ant the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, aka ERCOT?

I’m not throwing any shade at TxDOT plows or salt, sand and brine trucks. But, if we had gotten the early forecast worst-case scenario of 5 inches of snow on Friday followed by a foot on Saturday, there’s no way they could have fully kept up, as I see it.

So, WHY did we not get a foot of snow?

I think the answer is probably primarily due to one reason, the same reason the local County Commissioners Court declared a burn ban Jan. 12.

It’s too dry.

That breakthrough of the “polar vortex” was certainly strong enough, looking at how cold it got.

But in front of it, on the ground here in north Texas, and weather patterns from further south? There just wasn’t the ready moisture available to generate that much precipitation.

So, why did the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it’s subagency of the National Weather Service, and private forecasters like the Weather Channel or Weather Underground, not get it right earlier? (There’s big bucks in private forecasting, by the way. Weather Underground used to be owned by IBM; both companies are now owned by the same vulture capitalist private equity firm.)

I mean, this is not Troy Dungan and David Finfrock of long-ago Metromess TV news, dueling over weather porn and eyeballs.

I was worried, though.

And, I thought I would keep myself stocked up on food the easy way.

So, I figured I would pre-order a Domino’s pizza delivery for once every 4 hours during waking hours, from Friday evening through Sunday morning.

And, to make sure it would get delivered, I figured I would also pre-purchase a Domino’s delivery driver at a Uber slave market or something.

Wait, what? You can’t say that, can you?

Having just read a book of essays by the dean of Reconstruction historians, Eric Foner, yeah, my mind wandered a bit.

But, just think.

TxDOT could have plantation labor running the snowplows, maybe in conjunction with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice sending out convict labor. TxDOT wouldn’t “break” at all.
(I hear nervous laughter somewhere in the background.) The only thing that might upset this is small-government plantation owners not wanting their state governments to own slaves.

Picture Uber drivers, or food delivery drivers in general, at a slave labor pen next to fast food restaurants all in a cluster. Like next door to one another in Charleston, South Carolina. Or next door to one another just off the Mall and just down the road from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

(I hear more nervous laughter.)

OK, I will stop going down the road of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.”

But, there is a reason I did that abrupt switch.

Martin Luther King Day was earlier this month, in the middle of Black History Month. Too often, in my book, he gets too sanitized, including one famous phrase quoted out of context of the rest of the “I Have a Dream” speech. (At least the speech hasn’t been totally eviscerated by some “teach the opposing viewpoint” idea, like Carroll ISD and the Holocaust a few years ago, which was even before the most recent changes in Texas education guidelines.)

Let’s not yet turn away from this issue.

In the 1850s, many northern Democrats, trying to split the difference on slavery, supported the idea of popular sovreignty, or settlers in organized federal territories choosing on their own whether to be free territories, or slave territory, before statehood.

People like Stephen A. Douglas reassured people in Illinois that the west was way too dry to support plantation slavery.

Either a silly man or a lucky man was he.

After the canals started being built in Southern California, then after people started cheating on maximum farm size allowed by the Bureau of Reclamation, then cheating again after the law was loosened up, the hue and cry for foreign agricultural workers started.

It was the likes of Japanese and Filipinos at first. Then Mexicans, later augmented by other Hispanics from yet further south.

What if slavery were still around?

Don’t you think that many California corporate farmers would push for a change in the state’s “free-soil” status?

 

Science news: Oliver Sacks, the man who mistook bullshit for the truth

Maria Konnikova, late last year, riffing on a New Yorker piece, had a strong takedown of psychologist Sacks. Turns out he made up a bunch of both clients and case histories in his books — and like Jonah Lehrer and others, in New Yorker essays.

That New Yorker piece is based on author Rachel Aviv being gifted with decades of Sachs diaries and  correspondence by the Oliver Sachs Foundation. It shows a Sachs with other issues — acting-out sex when he decides to break things off with a European lover, major amphetamine use, followed by essentially a sublimated non-consummated relationship (on his part) with a counselor that he continued to see for decades.

As for the matter at hand? This:

Sacks wrote that “a sense of hideous criminality remains (psychologically) attached” to his work: he had given his patients “powers (starting with powers of speech) which they do not have.” Some details, he recognized, were “pure fabrications.” He tried to reassure himself that the exaggerations did not come from a shallow place, such as a desire for fame or attention. “The impulse is both ‘purer’—and deeper,” he wrote. “It is not merely or wholly a projection—nor (as I have sometimes, ingeniously-disingenuously, maintained) a mere ‘sensitization’ of what I know so well in myself. But (if you will) a sort of autobiography.” He called it “symbolic ‘exo-graphy.’ ”

A number of people at the Substack linked up top, and the Facebook comment where I saw it, have wondered just how much we've lost in terms of replication and related. 

Beyond what has been lost? A lot of Sachs' fictionalizations seem to involve a fair amount of psychological projection. There's a lot of that in "Awakenings."

Ultimately, there's a lot of sadness in Sachs' personal life, beyond this. I empathize.