I warned you about Proposition 4 and now the "produced water" shit is about to hit the fan

Proposition 4 being the Texas constitutional amendments 2025 election Proposition 4.

I called out the Trib and librul blog sites like Lone Star Left. I called out Gang Green enviros at the Sierra Club. I called out Suzanne Bellsnyder for being a hypocrite. I called out the Texas Green Party. This year, I called out the Observer.

I said again this year, as I had before the election, that it would be an economic boondoggle as well as environmentally damaging. 

Now, especially on the latter, companies wanting to "recycle" fracking wastewater are pushing, pushing, pushing to go full speed ahead with minimal oversight from TCEQ, as well as minimal discussion of electric needs. Shocked? Why? 

Aridzona's day of water reckoning has come; or has it?

(My Photoshopped version of Glen Canyon Dam, above.)

Or, at least, the day of reckoning has come for the Valley of the Sun. Or has it?

The climate change deniers and minimalists will probably try to poo-poo this, starting with saying it's only for two years. Which moves back to the rhetorical question ending the paragraph above.

But, Aridzona losing one-third of its Colorado River water rights in the next two years, per the official Department of the Interior announcement, is serious. It takes the largest haircut among the three Lower Basin states as the price it paid to get the Central Arizona Project, which delivers water to Phoenix and Tucson.

Per a link in that story and discussion elsewhere, will the state actually sue? If so, between "slim" and "none," what are the odds of success? 

Beyond that, the day of water reckoning isn't enough. Per this New York Times piece:

The river’s flow is diminishing and reservoirs are drying up, but communities and farms still use unsustainable amounts of water.

That's the bottom line. 

Another version?

"The water usage is still too damned high." 

On the suits? The current proposal just makes firm, that same piece says, voluntary offers already on the table. 

Beyond that, as I said 15 years ago, Obama blew a chance to further cut water usage. He could have made Phoenix and Las Vegas recent homebuyers "whole" by letting them out of mortgages if they moved (back) to where the water is — Cleveland, St. Louis, Omaha, et. And, he could have done the same for homebuilders, mortgage brokers etc., to make them whole IF they took a "haircut" on how many houses they could build in places like Phoenix with federal mortgage guarantees. 

Beyond that? "Water banking" is semi-fraudulent in my opinion, and in some day will have an unpayable real bill to be paid. Sorry, California's Colorado River water sherpa, but be more honest than this.(At least he admitted California is way behind Nevada on cutting water use, while also saying nothing about WHY it’s way behind.)

Interestingly, on the issue of lawsuits, the first one has been filed — by Nevada. The reason they’re suing? No mandatory cuts for the Upper Basin.

Fully fraudulent? The Big Oil companies as climate denialists, who took a page from Big Tobacco. A new Inside Climate News piece says that Big Oil is responsible for half the Colorado River basin’s water loss in 2014-24 due to climate change causes. 

As for Aridzona? Per the second link, I have little doubt that groundwater pumping will only accelerate more, and that alfalfa farmers will beg the state for monetary help to pay for deeper and deeper wells. Soil subsidence will continue, and homeowners will ask for help on that.

Sadly, a super El Niño may provide enough snowpack for the seven basin states to continue to dodge a long-range new deal on the river. Per this story, that's why we're at where we are now — a two-year imposition by Interior based on a ten-year planning document. 

I've written before, most recently a few months ago, about the reality of the seven Basin states willing to continue to deny reality. 

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

Oops! And, maybe we should call the refusal to be skeptical about the water flow numbers used to create the Colorado River Compact a century ago a lie themselves.

If "water's for fighting over," per the old western bon mot, in modern terms, and contra Kumbaya John Fleck, who doesn't like my comments on his site. it's also for suing over. 

Per Nevada’s lawsuit, another thing Kumbaya John gets wrong is being wedded to the Upper Basin/Lower Basin division. If there’s going to be a lawsuit rumble over basin supply anyway, elect me president and my federal government will knock heads on this issue.

More Talafreako the hypocritico

Building on its revelation a week ago that James Talarico seems to be a hypocrite in his stance on pastors endorsing political candidates from their pulpits, written about here by me, we now have a part two from the Texas Monthly.

Ostensibly, the piece is about what they would want to ask both him and Kenny Boy Paxton in a debate, if one happens, but some of the best "issues" are Talafreako's.

He seems two-faced if not outrightly hypocritical on veganism. But, that's minor.

Sexually-affirming care (that's the word, not "gender-affirming," Monthly) for minors who hold themselves as transsexual (that's the word, not the truncated pronoun "trans") is much bigger. 

At a Pride event in 2023—after the Lege passed SB 14, which banned gender-affirming care for minors—he called the bill “the most dangerous” one of the session, and one that “infuriates me.” In early June, though, after clinching the Senate nomination, he appeared on the podcast of Houston lawyer Dan Cogdell, who served as Paxton’s personal attorney for a number of years. During that appearance, Talarico said, “I oppose gender reassignment surgeries for minors.” Then, when asked about his support for the LGBTQ community on Rachel Maddow’s MS NOW show in early August, his tone shifted yet again: “I don’t think we win by selling people out,” he told the host. “We’re refusing to do that in this campaign.”

Yeah, "code switching." Or worse. 

Texas Progressives talk books and cooking the books

With some reservations but much more scorn, Off the Kuff laughs at Dan Patrick's bizarre obsession with "dirty" books in school libraries.

Franklin Strong at Anger and Clarity has even more. 

SocraticGadfly called out Don Huffines for his immediate politicization of the Comptroller's office.

The state's maternal mortality committee's next report will omit post-Roe pregnancy death. 

If you're on city of Austin municipal electricity, or a rural co-op, guess what? State laws restricting cutoffs during heat alerts don't apply to them and so don't help you. The Observer notes how much this varies from utility to utility.

The Tex-ass Lege and Strangeabbott refuse to even consider serious floodplain building rules and building standard rules, even as more Hill Country type flooding remains likely. The Trib reports. 

But, what if Jason Arday WAS a fraud?

Yes, per the likes of The Nation, hereditarianism (formerly known as "racialism") should be called out in general, and Nathan Cofnas in particular.

That said, per the header, what IF?

Substacker Aurelien, of whom I said in restacking this piece:

On the surface, about Jason Arday, but below the surface, about much more, from someone who may be at least in the same sport, if not necessarily the same ballpark, as my skeptical leftism.

(Note the caveats.) 

Tackled just that.

Let's start here:

These ideas had been vaguely circulating at the back of my mind for a while, but they were brought into focus by the bizarre and almost unbelievable case of the late Jason Arday, the confidence trickster who secured a Chair at the University of Cambridge before being revealed as a liar, a cheat, a plagiarist and fantasist who probably needed treatment.

Painful? Yes.

Then, lots of details:

Very briefly, Arday, the youngest Black full Professor in the history of Cambridge claimed to be born autistic, not to be able to speak until about the age of about ten (the details vary) or able to write until the age of eighteen. Somehow he went on to a dazzling academic career including a Doctorate, with visiting fellowships at other universities, and he was an international athlete and an ultra-marathon runner. Oh, and he raised millions of pounds for charities and appeared a lot on TV. Again, many of these details changed over the weeks : their only common features are that they are either lies, or cannot be verified, or there are severe doubts (as with his Doctorate) about whether they were actually honestly gained.

 That's the big picture.

Assuming this is all grounded on actual claims Arday made?

Yeah, he's a confidence trickster, and if The Nation isn't going to address that, it remains partially part of the problem. 

Aurelian, who seems British, or at least from the non-American Anglosphere, by things like "-ise" versus "-ize," has more at that link. On the big picture beyond Arday, he does use the word "wokery" once. Beyond that? He does talk a lot about pomo French philosophy, i.e., Foucault, Derrida and others. He also talks about the "professional and managerial class."

But, he goes on to talk more about Arday in academia, narrowing the focus again:

To return to Arday for a second, he was awarded a Doctorate by Liverpool John Moore’s University, (previously Liverpool Polytechnic teaching trade-related skills), named after a pioneer of sports betting in the UK. A couple of things are clear. One is that he was pretty much unsupervised (it is alleged that he saw his supervisor only once), and the other is that he copied and plagiarised most of his work. It’s astounding that he was awarded his degree in the first place, but it’s actually beyond debate that he indeed copied and plagiarised, and that the university authorities knew about it, but didn’t care.

But, that's not all.

Going beyond The Nation's take on Cofnas, there's this:

[T]here are now Internet sites through which students can be instructed to submit their work, and which have an excellent record of detecting plagiarism. Arday’s work was apparently submitted to the Anglo-Saxon site known as Turnitin (there is a European equivalent called Urkund, although the two are merging.) These sites run a search, and produce a Similarity Index (SI) for each submission, flagging up extracts which directly resemble other identified texts, thus enabling the examiner to make word-for-word comparisons. In most subjects, there will be some similarities, if only because standard bibliographies and the use of common citations and a common vocabulary will produce an SI higher than zero. For the sort of subjects I’ve taught over the years, an SI of 10% isn’t necessarily a problem. Over 15% could be a problem, and if I see an SI of over 20% my heart sinks, because it means that at a minimum the student hasn’t produced work that is original enough. The risk is always, at best, of an argument held together with long quotations from other people.

In other words, somebody else, and someone not necessarily a full-bore racialist, could have outed Arday. 

Oh, but it gets worse? According to Aurelien, Cambridge knew about the possible plagiarism. The Liverpool university did before him. That, I cannot verify, so it puts him on the wrong foot.

Speaking in European political science terms, he may be a left-wing version of a classical liberal. 

But, we can turn to Arday's Wikipedia page. 

He claimed all this, and per the links, people other than Cofnas were wondering why:

Arday said that at the age of three, he received diagnoses of autism, global developmental delay, deafness, and dyscalculia, and was non-verbal until the age of 11.[9] The claim of being non-verbal was later contested in the media.[1] Arday also said he could not read or write until he was 18, and that he received a diagnosis of dyslexia in his first year of university.[10][11][12] The statement that he was illiterate until 18 also came under media scrutiny.[13] 

Arday reported being attacked at the age of 18 and developing epilepsy as a result. According to Arday, two of his attackers later became his students, with one asking him to be the godfather of his child and Arday "gratefully accepted".[3] He claimed that in 2006, aged 21, he went to Brazil with the charity WaterAid to install water pumps for poor communities in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro; media later disputed this, as WaterAid did not send volunteers abroad.[3][14]

There's more bullshit here: 

He claimed to have completed his PhD in two-and-a-half years,[18] and to have relearnt the content of his dissertation weeks before defending it due to memory loss following the removal of a brain tumour and suffering a transient ischemic attack, or mini-stroke.

Again, why weren't non-skeptical leftist opinion sites jumping in earlier? 

Wiki's page notes that questions arose on plagiarism back in 2023. And, when called out, he called the police and made a harassment report against the accuser. And, yes, Aurelian is at least semi-right on Liverpool giving him a pass:

Having been alerted to allegations of plagiarism in Arday's PhD thesis in 2025, Liverpool John Moores University—who had awarded him his PhD—established a misconduct panel. Arday did not dispute the allegations of plagiarism, but said he had not received adequate supervision given his autism and learning disabilities, and described the allegations against him as being part of an "insidious and relentless" strategy to undermine black academics. Accepting that there were problems with Arday's supervision, the panel concluded that the similarities between Arday's thesis and an earlier PhD thesis by another academic were the result of "honest and reasonable error", not deliberate plagiarism, and were "well within the accepted range of compliance with the academic standards of the time".

And again, where was The Nation? (The author of The Nation's piece doesn't mention any people, or dates, pre-2026.)

And, today, where are the "Why" questions?

That's the bottom line.

Assuming he was a confidence trickster, why? Is this, to go in a different direction than Aurelien, part of the social media world? Did some other Black second-generation immigrant from his neighborhood do better academically? Was he pressured by teachers?

As for his hurdles? Without being a trickster, being not only Black but a second-generation African immigrant were real hurdles. Without the lies, though, get a real bachelor's degree and a basic job, then night school on a master's if you're ready. 

As for that immigrant hurdle?

There are also others with hurdles to get over.

People who actually have autism.

People who actually have epilepsy.

People who are child abuse survivors.

People who grow up in the homes of drug or alcohol addicts. 

As for Cambridge? Yes, if it had only six Black professors at the time of Arday's hiring, that itself is an issue. That said, as his Wiki notes, Cambridge had other options on "people of color" they interviewed for the chair they eventually gave to Arday.

This gets back to the old bon mot of skepticism: If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

Finally, it's a reminder of my Venn diagram piece about non-twosiderism. 

Tex-ass chickenshittery on Big Bend

Per the national parks and environment half of last week's Texas Progressives roundup, I am not at all shocked that Tex-ass Rethuglicans have gone semi-AWOL to fully so on a Big Bend border wall. The Monthly has the details, complete with "Texas toughness rating."

Besides the elected officials, it adds a bonus, that also doesn't shock me. Matthew McConaughey is also chickenshit, and is being called out for it.

Texas Progressives roundup: The back end

Neil Aquino and a few of Kuff's roundup choices didn't fit into either the two big races or into national parks and environmentalism.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project went to a recruitment/organizing meeting of the Space City Marshals. The Marshals do good work to keep Houston protesters safe. Check out the post & read their pitch for support.

Chris Tackett gets into the Tarrant County election site situation, and like other #BlueAnon, ignores that the original cuts were recommended by the county's election official, not by the Commissioners Court. I don't know about the previous races he mentioned, whether it was an actual 3-2 vote, or he's just including the GOP members in a 4-1 or 5-0 bit.

G. Elliott Morris explains why primary polling is so fraught. And, if you've really been following things, doesn't explain much and doesn't talk at all about partisan polling.

The Current talks to music icon Steve Earle, in town to receive that city's Emissary of the Muses award.

The Bloggess experienced some technical difficulties.

Presidential rankings: This blogger's newest review

This is an update over an early 2017 piece, with notable changes. 

With nine years of hindsight and us now in Trump 2.0, I am revising to put him in the bottom malebolge with Andy Johnson, Buck Buchanan and Frank Pierce. I’d also revise to push Lincoln from A+ to A, even with grading on a curve, and maybe even A-. I’d still keep him No. 1, which would pull Washington down to A-, too. 

Since it’s a popular task for both armchair and more professional historians, I’m going to wade into the battle myself. In fact, it's so popular, this is an edited and updated version of one I did the year before Dear Leader was elected president. Hence, one reason for the update.

Beyond that, I've read, over that decade, numerous new historic books that have covered in detail all or part of several presidencies, including Fillmore, Taylor, Benjamin Harrison, Wilson and McKinley, among others.

Presidents are ranked by numeric order and given a letter grade on the standard A-F scale, including pluses and minuses. Contra historical writing, since I’m analyzing presidents, not presidencies, Cleveland’s two presidencies are lumped under one rating.

Several presidents have made moves several places up or down (more that a couple have moved sharply down) from my previous ranking.

I've also decided to put some "tiers" in place. And, tried to do some thematic work with the tiers.

(As for the most recent occupant? A brief preliminary take is at the bottom.)

Tier One

1. Abraham Lincoln, A/A-. Even with grading on a curve, I can go no higher. I don’t believe in perfection, but Lincoln comes very close. This is no longer true, due to how much I've read about his stance on colonization of Black Americans, an issue that, had he not been assassinated, he likely would have pushed into his second term. I don’t strongly denigrate his early views on race, but do note he was a moderate, not a true progressive, when coming to the White House. But, he evolved and grew, including through his personal meetings with black leaders such as Frederick Douglass. My final comment quotes Secretary of War Edwin Stanton: “He belongs to the ages.”

2. George Washington. A-. He set the tenor for the office of the presidency, being amongst the people without being too much of the people, something that Reagan recognized but Carter and Clinton didn’t; the same can be said of many members of the House in Washington’s own day. My one minor knock is his adding “so help me God” to the oath of office, thereby giving the “civic religion” so beloved by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia its first bit of nose under the camel’s tent. (And, per my response to a commenter below, even if that isn't true — and I'm now willing to call it "undecided" but not a myth — good old George still chose to be sworn in on a Bible.) He moves down because I still rank Lincoln higher.

Tier Two — the "good to very good, but" presidents

3. FDR. A-/B+. I can’t see any other Democratic candidate in 1928 — certainly not either Al Smith or John Nance Garner — handling the Depression nearly as well as Roosevelt did. The only major fault is that he didn’t think of a national health insurance plan at the same time as Social Security, which of course wasn’t his original idea anyway. (Actually, supposedly, Hopkins and a few others were hoping national health care would be part of the deal.) Not so much moved down as placed in Tier Two and graded lower, as I think more about how conservative his 1932 campaign was. He also had his political stumbles, like not pulling back his court-packing bill when the "Switch in Time that Saved Nine" happened just a month after he announced it. That said, Walter Karp thinks this was deliberate. It could have been to some degree, but not the way Karp spelled it out.

4. TR. A-/B+. Though not an actual bigot (well, actually, kind of yes on blacks and 'genteel Eastern Establishment' anti-Semitism0 his less than fully-enlightened (even for his day, compared to the best) racial attitudes, as exemplified in the Brownsville Army incident, knock him off the A pedestal. And, too many people give him credit for too much of what Taft did. (Grade dropped.)

5. James Monroe. B. He stayed under the radar screen, didn’t screw anything up, and got Quincy Adams to pen the Monroe Doctrine. He presided over a cabinet that had two 1824 presidential candidates and a third that switched to Veep.  (Imagine Calhoun making that a five-man race; probably would have undercut both Jackson and Crawford.) He also navigated the shoals of Missouri's admission to the union as part of the larger Missouri Compromise. (Moved up.)

6. LBJ. B/B-. In his own words, that “bitch of a war,” which knocked the props from beneath the Great Society, keeps him from being in the top five. Nonetheless, as Republican hacks have shown today with politicizing the so-called “War on Terror,” LBJ’s fears of being tarred with the label of “first president to lose a war” weren’t to be taken lightly. (Unfortunately, not being a regular part of JFK's ExComm, he didn't know Kennedy swapped missiles for missiles over Cuba, and may have felt he had to be that hawkish on Vietnam.) But, even though he followed the lead of the Best and Brightest on Nam, he could have gotten off the ride sooner.

7. Ike. B/B-. I think Eisenhower deserves more of his modern reassessment than what Truman got more than a decade ago. Yes, it’s easy to skewer Levittown, duck and drop nuclear bomb drills in schools, and such, but, Ike was prescient about the military-industrial complex, in possibly the best farewell message besides Washington’s, kept those duck and drop practices from ever having to become real, and presided over the economic boom times that allowed Levittown and suburbia. (Dropped because he took the Supreme Court literally, and probably deliberately so, with its "all due deliberation" statement on its Brown II ruling. And because his administration was the heyday of CIA-coup plotting, with the military-industrial complex being replaced by the spook-coup complex.)

8. Truman. B/B-. High marks for desegregating the Army and for how he handled MacArthur, though European allies in the Korean War had hoped for even swifter action. Further kudos for attempting to get national healthcare, though he couldn't overcome the three legs of opposition from the AMA, the national Chamber of Commerce, and ... unions. But, his domestic accomplishments were relatively modest, and his administration was marred by arguably the worst cronyism in hiring since Harding. Plus, he was intemperate at time on Cold War issues, and started loyalty oaths on his own, even before McCarthy got to running hog wild.

Tier three — the "good, but" presidents

9. Jefferson. B-. Ranked lower than other presidents based on presidential years only. Louisiana Purchase was given to him, not initiated by him; the Lewis and Clark voyage was originally, in essence, espionage. His embargo on American commerce during the Napoleonic wars wrecked New England’s economy and he was basically clueless. Other high points, though, for submitting to a Supreme Court ruling defining the bounds of executive privilege, and getting the Adams-era Alien and Sedition Acts repealed. Gets dinged further for presidential and post-presidential retreat from earlier views on slavery-related issues. Gets dinged yet further for his attempt to invoke presidential privilege, his near-conspiratorial angle toward Aaron Burr and more. (Moved down.)

10. Carter. B-. A president of integrity and principle on a variety of domestic political issues, he got pummeled for it. Doesn’t get his share of credit for fall of the Soviet Union, as he started the “Reagan” defense build-up. Not ranked higher due to lack of political flexibility and acumen. Also not rated higher for being, in some ways, the first neoliberal president, a fact overlooked by many and obscured by his post-presidential career. That all said, he was less neoliberal than later presidents, and, apple-polishing aside, of higher moral rectitude.

11. Taft. B-/C+. Yes, he did initiate trust busting beyond cases inherited from TR, and he didn’t really screw anything up, but he had no vision for the office otherwise. Of course, he didn't want it as much as the Supreme Court in the first place. His wife pushed him into it, then had two strokes within his first year in office. If she had been fully healthy, he might rank higher yet. (Moved up several spots.)

12. Arthur. B-/C+. Credit for backing civil service reform after Garfield’ assassination; unclear if he would have done so otherwise. (Moved up.)

13. Hayes. B-/C+. Elected president in 1876 by a bipartisan commission of SCOTUS justices and Congressmen, that just “happened” to break 8-7 on party lines, he restored integrity after the Grant corruption years and by promising not to run for re-election. Nonetheless, he got his hands tied by GOP agreement to end Reconstruction — which the Grant Administration had been phasing out anyway. (Moved down more as I think about his strike-busting activity, among other things.

14. James K. Polk. B-/C+. If we’re ranking him solely on morals, the way he provoked war with Mexico would get him severely dinged. But, as far as achieving the goals he proclaimed in 1844, he hit a grand slam. A B seems like a compromise, if we don’t look too hard at the slavery issue. (Moved down from previous, in part because he had already written a war message ready for delivery to Congress even before hearing about Zachary Taylor's scrape with Mexican troops in disputed territory at Palo Alto.)

15. Kennedy B-/C+. Let’s puncture the myth of Camelot. He blew the Bay of Pigs by not either going all-in, including air support, or else scrubbing it. His post-Pigs obsession with Castro gets him dinged, as does the illicit sex, not on account of the sex itself, but for ditching the nuclear “football” while doing so. Pluses for calm in handling the Cuban missile crisis and offering inspiration to a younger generation.

Tier four — Reagan and his wannabes, along with names from the past

16. John Quincy Adams C+/C (would get an A+ as Secretary of State and A as Congressman). His administration itself was not bad, but honoring the “corrupt bargain” with fourth-place presidential finisher and former Speaker of the House Henry Clay by making him Secretary of State (at that time the normal stepping-stone to the presidency). He should have had the political sense to know that would guarantee a one-term presidency, and that Clay favored him over Jackson anyway. However, he had good ideas as president, even if many were laughed at. (Moved up, primarily due to slippage of several others.)

17. Clinton. C+/C. Took the worst of the edges off welfare reform and gave us a balanced budget, among other things. Gave us NAFTA and the WTO, on the other hand, and botched health care reform; probably, any bill would have been tough to get past Congress, but his plan didn’t make it any easier. The D shows how much I’m disappointed that he expanded the Bush I privatizing of the Armed Forces and started, though not to the degree of Bush II, illegal “renditions” by the CIA of terrorism suspects.

18. Obama. C+/C See this recent post for more on him.

19. Madison. C. A decent man and a great political theorist, promoted over his head into the presidency.

20. Reagan. C+/D+. Reagan wasn’t all that bad in his first term, relatively speaking, and, although he had to lie to himself about what a tax increase was in 1982, he swallowed the need for it. D+, or lower, for the second term, for Iran/Contra. Plus, it’s a legitimate question to ask if the onset of Alzheimer’s was influencing some second-term decisions, although from what we know about Iran-Contra, that doesn't seem true.

The late 1800s (and others) "meh" tier

21. McKinley. C/C-. While he didn’t screw much up, his pious platitudes about taking on the “white man’s burden” in the Philippines, while annexing Hawaii, introduced imperialist America to the world stage.

22. Garfield. C/C-. His relatively short term makes it hard to offer too much judgment. He might have done a Pendleton Act "lite" on civil service reform and not much more.

23. Cleveland. C and D. The C is for his first term, his principles on budgetary matters, and for being reasonably principled in general. The D is for his second term, for his anti-labor stance and his role in exacerbating, or at least exacerbating the pains of, the Panic of 1893, arguably the country’s first modern industrial depression.

24. Ford. C-. Political ineptitude, not to mention ethical questionability, for his pardon of Nixon, especially its unseemly speed after taking office. He could have stalled thing out until after the 1976 election, as far as the political sensibility of not pardoning Nixon right away.

25. Bush, George H.W. C-/D+. Handled the Gulf War well, but the blame is ultimately his for April Glaspie. Too slow to “cut losses” with Gorbachev rather than Yeltsin, and otherwise react to a post-Cold War world.

26. Benjamin Harrison. C-/D+. Quiet administration that didn’t screw much up. A nonentity otherwise, other than not having a clue about the rise of organized labor. However, his push to admit new Republican states on the Plains sparked the last conflicts with the Sioux, among other things. (Downgraded moderately.)

27. Adams. C-/D+. Avoided war with France in 1798; but, first president to manipulate immigration and civil liberties for political advantage by signing into law, and personally backing much of, the Alien and Sedition Acts. Arguably, with hyperworry about French radicals, THIS, not A. Mitchell Palmer in 1920-21, was the first Red scare.

28. Fillmore. C-/D+. Yes, some version of the Compromise of 1850 was probably necessary, but Fillmore was certainly lacking in leadership in some ways in crafting the bill, especially in not anticipating the reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act. However, he was pretty skilled in working behind the scenes to get the other parts passed, which passed individually in the Senate first, not as an omnibus. In addition, he thought more highly of himself than warranted. (Moved up)

29. Grant. C/D. He did enforce Reconstruction pretty vigorously in his first term, but then started backing away. (The Supreme Court's Cruikshank ruling reined in executive power on Reconstruction somewhat, but not totally.) Possibly the most corrupt administration in presidential history, and a president with a mix of obstinancy and a high susceptibility to flattery, plus a thin skin, even though often courteous to others. (Moved down, then moved back up due to Ronald C. White's new bio.)

Tier XXX?

30. Coolidge. D+. Failed to address the agricultural depression happening throughout the “Roaring ’20s” and also failed to see the stock market house of cards building up already in 1928. Term otherwise undistinguished. But, not as laissez-faire as sometimes pictured, and tried to override the worst of isolationism.

31. Hoover. D+. Far more intellectually qualified than any other of the D-rated presidents, his stubbornness about his idea of the role of the federal government, even though he tried some tinkering at the edges later in his term, get him ranked here. I did give him a plus because this is partly myth from the chameleon on plaid, FDR.

32. William Henry Harrison. D/Inc. Yes, he only served a month, but giving a two-hour inaugural laced with Latin maxims while standing without a hat in the rain indicated a lack of common sense.

33. Tyler. D. Stuck by his principles when succeeding W.H. Harrison; nonetheless, outside of hating Jackson, such principles should have kept him firmly in the Democratic party. Little accomplished.

34. Van Buren. D. Cluelessness about the country’s first major recession and its causes, and failure to step out from Jackson’s shadow, say enough to put the country on a better financial footing.

35. Woodrow Wilson. D. At times, one wishes Wilson’s two terms could be considered separately, like two presidencies. That said, the major accomplishment of his first term, the establishment of the Federal Reserve, is probably overrated, and just as Taft inherited some trust-busting from Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson inherited some from Taft. The four constitutional amendments of a direct income tax, women’s suffrage, Prohibition and direct election of U.S. Senators, were the doings of Congress and state legislatures; Wilson could have used a bully pulpit, especially on women’s suffrage, but didn’t. Besides, Taft got the 16th Amendment voted out of Congress and sent to the states. And his racism, which began from the start of his first term and his official segregation of the executive branch is an indelible blot. Plus, even though stroke-afflicted, he presided over the first Red Scare. With giving Hoover a D+, plus what Coolidge already had, I needed to move him down, and decided going below all other D's besides Biden was right.

36. Biden. D. It wasn't an actual promise, but breaking the hinted-at idea of running just one term, and him digging in his feet before being pushed out, are half of why he ranks no higher. The other half is Israel and Gaza, and willingly letting Secretary of State whitewash Israel. Actually, this is overdetermined. His mid-level response to COVID plus an early removal of the degree of advanced safety net he extended is another one-quarter. So is his continuing the NATO "barking at" Russia via Ukraine, then presumably agreeing with Boris Johnson on nuking peace talks, is yet another one-quarter.

The bottom tier, with an asterisk

37. George W. Bush, D. The only reason he is not ranked dead last is the following three presidents’ failings were even more egregious, and at more dire times in our country’s history. (Moved up primarily because others moved down.)

38. Taylor. D/D-. While his Jacksonian resolve to hang Southerners who refused to accept the admission of California as a free state is admirable, it, if he had lived, would have thrown gasoline on the Compromise of 1850. And, his idea, as influenced by the Svengali named William Seward, that he could ram through the admission of New Mexico as a free state after California, was ludicrous. His death spared the nation the possibility of a civil war a decade earlier.

39. Harding. D-. Not an F, because he recognized, if belatedly, the cronyism and corruption in his cabinet and started trying to do something about it when he died. But, he never, ever should have been there in the first place, and he didn't pass on the opportunity to run.

40. Jackson. D-/F+. His blatant disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Cherokee removal (even if some of that is mythical), combined with his cluelessness about the Bank of the U.S. and his temper, amply earn this ranking, for the first imperial presidency.

41. Nixon. D-/F+. Gets bumped out of pure “F” territory for having more brains than the four below him. The combination of Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, on the one hand, and Watergate on the other, offset détente and environmental legislation.

42. Trump 1.0. D-/F+. A somewhat greater level of caution in action than Trump 2.0 has shown gets this rating.

The bottom malebolge of hell

43. Pierce. F+. The slightest of bumps above the three bottom dwellers, but his signing off on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and Missouri slaveholder corruption in Kansas that led to “Bleeding Kansas” and accelerated the march toward secession, is bad enough.

44. Andrew Johnson, F. Intemperate when sober and even more so when drunk — stubborn, petulant and politically a butterfingers — Johnson refused to see that he in fact wasn’t following what Lincoln’s Reconstruction policy had been moving toward before his assassination. Lincoln never would have been Thaddeus Stevens, but he would have been closer to him, far closer in spirit, than to Andrew Johnson.

46. Buchanan, F. His failure to stand up for the United States of America in the face of secession says enough.

46. Trump 2.0. F.

==

As for Donald Trump? Per this good piece from Counterpunch, I think he'll need work indeed to get in that bottom malebolge. He might be in the "bottom tier" just above it, but even that isn't guaranteed. Very tentatively, I'll but him somewhere between Taylor and Harding at this time.

Texas Progressives talk environmentalism, Big Bend, and national parks

For the third or fourth week in a row, the annual Texas Progressives roundup got too big and too diffuse in focus to run in one piece. So, here's the second half.

SocraticGadfly, from his summer vacation, snarked on Yellowstone concessionaire food.

A group affiliated with the Lipan Apache and a Terlingua-based river rafting company are suing the feds to block a border wall in Big Bend. That said, the rafting company's real problem is lack of water on the river; it should be suing BOTH duopoly parties over the climate crisis. The Observer has more

The Monthly reports in detail about bulldozers on the ground and other things at Big Bend. It's right in noting the noise pollution this involves, as well as other things. Much of the story is pull quotes, like this:

When I saw the photos of the bulldozers in front of Santa Elena Canyon, I thought of another sickening image: the two colossal, 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in central Afghanistan being blown up by the Taliban in 2001. What is happening in Big Bend is an act of mindless zealotry being sold as border security. And it forces us to realize that the things of this earth that are beautiful and sacred and mysterious to most of us will always be regarded by a cynical, powerful few as just being in the way. 

—Stephen Harrigan, longtime Texas Monthly contributor and former staff writer

Give it a read. Then click on the Monthly's construction photo album.

Olivia Julianna has a lot of questions about the Big Bend border wall.

Supposedly, work on the wall has now been paused, whether what was being installed was a physical wall or not. 

Related: A federal judge has extended a pause on border wall work in the Valley along the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. (It's still on my bucket list to get down there to that and the National Butterfly Center.)

Meet the guy running the Thornscrub Sanctuary. 

Would-be lithium mining from the Salton Sea hit a roadblock. 

Per new STAAR results, Austin ISD is closer to falling in the hands of slimy evangelical TEA commish Mike Morath. The Observer talks about how much these takeovers cost local districts.

 

Texas Progressives talk Strangeabbott, data centers, Talarico, polls, hypocrisy

For the third or fourth week in a row, the annual Texas Progressives roundup got too big and too diffuse in focus to run in one piece. The second half, on environmental and national parks issues, runs this afternoon.

Off the Kuff finds that even Greg Abbott's pollster thinks the Governor's race is close. (Your correspondent thinks Kuffner's reading too much into this. Shock me.)

On the other hand, late last month, Faux News' polling said Strangeabbott was just 1 percentage point ahead. The one normal big asterisk for Tex-ass polling is that it's registered voters, not likely ones; other than that, it looks totally solid.

Side note: It also puts Talafreako 3 points up on Kenny Boy. Will that push Paxton into agreeing to participate in already scheduled debates?

Second side note: Inflation is listed as the No. 1 concern. The border is next, then health, jobs, and political divisions tie for third. "Environment," which would include the water side of data centers, is not listed. "Inflation" right now is driven above all by gas prices, which means Strangeabbott's November future is tied to Trump's stupidity on Iran, which is ultimately in the service of Zionism and Islamophobia, stuff Kuff really doesn't cover much, especially not the former.

Related to the subject matter of the first paragraph, the Trib reports that Strangeabbott plans an electric usage audit of about 300 projects, primarily data centers. That said, another story there notes how specifics-free (shock me) Abbott's "audit" is. It's also unclear how much or how little any of this addresses water as well as electricity.

Regina Vanburg argues that Greg Abbott isn't going to save anyone from data centers.

Also also related? The Observer says its still unclear who will pick up what on the electricity tab cost. 

As for Talafreako? A new round of his hypocrisy has popped up. 

Texas Ten Commandments case headed to the Supreme Court

SCOTUSBlog reported yesterday, and has more thorough legal analysis than what the Trib does.

Here's the nutgrafs:

The justices have considered a similar law before. In 1980, in Stone v. Graham, the court ruled that a Kentucky law requiring public schools to display a framed copy of the Ten Commandments in classrooms violated the Constitution. In an unsigned opinion, the court wrote that “[i]f the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause,” which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another. 

In the 46 years since the Stone decision was handed down, both the court’s make-up and its religious-freedom jurisprudence have changed significantly. In particular, the court’s ruling in Stone rested on its conclusion that the Kentucky law failed the “Lemon test” – a three-part test, outlined in the 1971 case Lemon v. Kurtzman, to determine whether a law violates the Constitution’s establishment clause. Under that test, a statute had to be found to have a secular purpose, the statute could not promote or restrict religious beliefs or practices, and the statute could not foster excessive church-state entanglement. In 2022’s Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which the court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who lost his job after leading post-game prayers on the field, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion for the six-justice majority indicated that Lemon had been “long ago abandoned.” Instead, Gorsuch wrote, courts should look at history and the understanding of the drafters of the Constitution to determine whether a law or practice violates the establishment clause.

Well put. 

Part of the problem is that Gorsuch and others of the "six" badly framed Bremerton, and I suspect deliberately. That said, beyond that, the Court was presented a case that was itself deliberately misframed by Kennedy and his backers, and it became a tool for wingnuts. See Wiki's summary.

The plaintiffs are saying that Stone has not been rejected, whatever the standing of Lemon is. 

That said, per SCOTUSBlog, the plantiffs have another angle:

The majority also rejected the families’ effort to rely on Mahmoud v. Taylor, a 2025 decision in which the Supreme Court agreed that a Maryland school board violated the rights of parents to freely exercise their religion when it refused to allow them to opt their children out of instruction that included LGBTQ+ themes. S.B. 10, the majority stressed, “authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’).”

It's been speculated by many court-watchers that the Supremes would vote to overturn the Texas law, and a similar Louisiana one, on this basis or similar. I can see a 5-4 or 6-3 coalition possibly breaking that way, in what will be a three- or four-way fractured opinion. 

Per the 9-8 Fifth Circuit ruling, it's clear that majority there rejects entirely the Jeffersonian "wall of separation" not just broadly construed but narrowly.

If five or six justices agree, we're really in trouble. 

Talafreako hypocritico — now on pulpit endorsements

James Talarico, by late July Fox polling, and other sites, continues to post a small polling edge over Ken Paxton.

Kenny Boy remains much more ethically challenged than Talafreako, but the latter is not simon-pure.

Shock me again, but he's apparently violating his pledge not to accept endorsements from church pulpits. And, though he's not a lawyer, he's doing so in Strangeabbott-type legal-Jesuitical fashion: 

The Sunday before he’d announced his Senate candidacy, he’d gone to his home church of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, he said, where his pastor, Jim Rigby, had addressed it explicitly. 

“He said, ‘You know, the new IRS rules mean that I can now endorse candidates from this position,’ ” recalled Talarico. “And he said, ‘But I won’t be doing that, because I still believe in the separation of church and state.’ That’s exactly how I feel. I will not seek, nor will I accept, any endorsement from the pulpit anywhere, because that boundary is sacred in my mind.” 

It’s a strong statement—one on which he seems to have compromised. On Sunday morning, at the Luke Church, in Humble, Pastor Timothy Sloan brought Talarico up to the pulpit and made a strong statement of his own. “In the spirit of my pastor, Reverend William Alexander Lawson—he would always say this whenever he had an official that came to the church. He’d say, ‘Now, we don’t endorse candidates. That’s not the church’s role. However, you should know who your pastor endorses and believes in.’ And I want you to know my full, total, and complete weight is behind James Talarico.” Talarico’s team shared the clip across its social media accounts, touting the endorsement of “one of the most respected pastors in Houston.” 

Sloan’s caveat that he is endorsing the candidate in his personal capacity, and not as a representative of the Luke Church, is delivered as a knowing wink—the congregation bubbles up with laughter at his “however.” It’s a technical loophole—not that such things matter anymore, as far as the IRS is concerned—that is pretty well annulled by the fact that it is being delivered from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

Yet more reason to either undervote the race or hope some write-in candidate is entered. And, yet one more thing that Kuff either will ignore or else put in his spin cycle. (The Monthly story was Aug. 11 and as of Aug. 18, Kuff had nothing, so it's on his ignore cycle. I know he reads the Monthly online often enough.)

And, per the next paragraph, Team Talarico immediately put it in their spin cycle:

When I reached out to the team, citing Talarico’s previous denouncement of pulpit endorsements and asking whether his position on the matter had changed, spokesperson JT Ennis pointed to the distinction. “James is honored to have the support of Pastor Sloan, a dedicated and trusted spiritual leader in Houston. As Pastor Sloan made clear, it is not the church’s role to endorse candidates—but that does not preclude faith leaders from speaking out in their personal capacities,” Ennis said in a statement. “As James travels across Texas to engage with places of worship, he will continue speaking beyond political talking points to address the deeper spiritual crisis facing our country.”

Gads. 

 

DSAcrats and the Bradley Effect and the Klippenstein Kronicle

It's clear that the the DSA Roseys are self-inflating expectations (while running away from past social media statements). Barring some new piece by Ken Klippenstein, per his most recent one, it seems many fellow travelers, per an old Deep Purple song, think it's not about the kill, but the thrill of the chase.

That seemed true enough after Abdul El-Sayed's much narrower than self-projected win of the Democrat nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan. It seems more true than ever after Francesca Hong's loss for the Democrat gubernatorial nod in Wisconsin.

And, yes, BlueAnon, leaving off the "-ic" is deliberate, from the left, not the Rethuglican world.

So, why?

Part of it, per CNN, is crappy polling. Mainstream media — and not just print media, but national cable teevee people like, er, CNN — are spending less and less on polls. That means partisan polling rises to the front. Add in the corruption of prediction markets like Kalshi, and partisan polling then feeding back off that to try to create a narrative that may often be almost as fallacious as The Donald claiming he's winning in Iran, and there you go. 

As for Ken claiming "The Rebels Already Won," er, no they didn't, and this comes off in hindsight as flat-out performative spin. Especially with your ongoing refusal by silence to admit even a partial political mea culpa on Graham Platner, you come off looking less and less like a political analyst on Democratic party elections and more and more like the Substack version of a talking head. 

If that's what you want to be, fine. Be honest about it, because if you aren't, I'll keep hanging that label on you. As I read you more and more, I see less and less in the way of actual political analysis in actual electoral races. (For example, Ken in that piece, and notes after the election so far, has said nothing about Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both refusing to endorse Hong, and why he thinks they didn't.) 

Beyond that, as I noted off this Time piece, per the parentheses in the first paragraph, Hong was looking like a Pander Bear even before Wisconsin primary day. That said, my concerns about that Time piece includes Hong not being quoted, whether the author chose not to reach out, or she chose not to respond, while Crowley was. (I'm assuming lack of reach-out; the author never mentions the old journalistic "We contacted Francesca Hong but she chose not to respond.")

So, Wisconsin didn't even have a rebel running, not in all aspects. 

Speaking of all of the above? Here's a Substack restacking note I had to Ken's Aug. 14 piece about The Third Way ready to label certain Democrats, whether restricted to the DSA or not, as "extremist":

If only Ken recognized that third parties exist, and as part of his talking-head-ism, encouraged more readers to think about that. 

Also, wouldn’t this have been a good chance to ask AOC and Bernie, since he’s using their picture, why they didn’t endorse Hong, and what they think about this new Third Way policy statement, if they know about it?

As is, I think Ken wants the sweet spot of putting talking-headism on top of investigative reporting leaks, but without always getting into actual analysis behind those leaks. 

The Bradley effect? The degree of its effect, and even its existence, have been debated since it was first posulated. And, to the degree it exists, if at all, is it primarily or only about race? This:

While there is widespread belief in a racial component as at least a partial explanation for the polling inaccuracies in the elections in question, it is not universally accepted that this is the primary factor. Peter Brodnitz, a pollster and contributor to the newsletter The Polling Report, worked on the 2006 campaign of black U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford, Jr., and contrary to Edelman's findings in 1988, Brodnitz indicated that he did not find the race of the interviewer to be a factor in voter responses in pre-election polls. Brodnitz suggested that late-deciding voters tend to have moderate-to-conservative political opinions and that this may account in part for last-minute decision-makers breaking largely away from black candidates, who have generally been more liberal than their white opponents in the elections in question

Offers definite food for thought, as it can apply within primary races as well as general elections. Plus, with much wider use of early voting today, election-day voting, especially outside of senior citizens, still continues to break Republican.

So, if Abdul El-Sayed does lose in Michigan, you heard it here first. (The state has a minimum of nine days of early voting.)

On Hong? Per Ken's interview of her, she won a seven-way primary (presumably for a safe Democrat seat — Wiki confirms with noting it's the east side of the People's Republic of Madison) for the Wisconsin Assembly in 2020, with 28 percent. As for her "consistently leading polls"? Well, per the above, WHOSE polls, first? Ken doesn't say. Second, even if by quality independent pollsters, sure, when other candidates keep dropping out, you might float to the top.

Also per that Wiki page on Hong? Ken doesn't tell you she was a carpetbagger into that district in 2020, first. Second, it discusses those polls, saying her rise only really took off in July — after the Dem straw poll endorsed Sara Rodriguez, then other candidates dropped out, then she dropped out. There was nothing inevitable about her before that.

Third, the bottom portion of her Wiki page confirms what I say above and already said on Shitter: She was turning into a Pander Bear. (Ken didn't tell you that, either, in his interview story. It's true that this only started happening after the date of his interview, but Ken didn't append a note to that piece, do a follow-up or anything else.)

Update, Aug. 19: Angie Nixon's win in the Florida Democratic Senate primary may spin things further. 

I'll thank Don Huffines to stop further politicizing the Texas Comptroller's office

Glenn Hegar, the last regular elected comptroller, was bad enough. Strangeabbott-shenaniganed interim comptroller Kelly Hancock was worse.

And now, here's Huffines with the normally halfway anodyne news release about monthly sales tax allocations:

Texas Comptroller Don Huffines said many cities and counties can reduce property taxes due to increased sales tax revenue as local governments will receive $1.4 billion in sales tax allocations for August, 13.6% more than in August 2025. 

These allocations are based on sales made in June by businesses that report tax monthly and on sales made in April, May and June by quarterly filers. “The increased sales tax revenue distributed to local governments is a strong sign the Texas economy continues to grow,” Huffines said. 

“It is also a clear signal that many local governments with increased sales tax revenue can dedicate much of that to property tax reduction. Lowering property taxes is one of the best ways to make housing more affordable and help Texans with the cost of gas, groceries and other living expenses.”

First, as I noted, school districts don't have sales taxes.

Second, property taxes are high because .... capitalism, which Tex-ass Rethuglicans don't like when it gores their ox.

Third, they're high because no income tax.

Fourth, Dannie Goeb, with repeated jackings of the homestead exemption, rather than putting a reasonable increase on that, then a COLA, has played politics with property taxes for years. 

Fifth, the cost of living is up right now because of Warmonger Don's Zionism-driven illegal war against Iran. 

==

It gets worse,

Aug. 22, Huffines sent out an email mirroring the Workforce Commission's Aug. 21 monthly unemployment report and it talking about the nation's leading job growth.

First, this is Twain's lies, damned lies and statistics. Texas has the highest population growth in the nation, so unless its economy is really in the crapper, it should be leading the nation in jobs growth.

Second, there's TWC's lies by omission. The unemployment rate went UP 0.1 percentage points in June from May, and again in July. It was 4.3 percent in May; it's now 4.5 percent. 

I can haz AOC's babies? Especially if they're presidential ones?

You know, like the old "I can haz cheezburger?"

AOC publicly announced she's freezing her eggs so the world has a long-term future possibility of little AOC-lets popping up. 

The piece has all the other funness you'd expect.

First, there's her distancing herself from the radical Democratic Socialists of America while still trying to triangulate off them for support of a lot of people who do back them. That said, per my riff on Klip, she was already creating her own Overton Window on Israel on official foreign policy a full year ago. And, even before that, she was one of the leading Pergressuve Cucks in the push to throw Ilhan Omar under the bus over "the Benjamins." THAT, in turn, was way back in 2019; a full year before that, she showed herself a squish on BDS.

Second, there's the attempt to thrust herself into the headlines by saying she's "open" to running for US Senate or President. She is old enough to be already eligible for the former, and for the latter as of 2028.

On the Senate? Chuck Schumer's seat comes up in 2028. To successfully primary him, she'd definitely have to fully claim an anti-Zionist line she's been reluctant to grasp. Frankly, I don't think she can pull it off. She'd also probably have to be honest, and not merely performative as in the past, on any "tax the rich" angle vs Chuck being in bed with Wall Street. He'd still be under 80 and would surely run for re-election. Kirsten Gillibrand comes up again in 2030.

Indeed, AOC the presumable pretendian JAP might shift yet more right vs Schnorrer Schumer. 

President? With her tacking right while Kamala is a Zionist Cop pretends to tack left on Israel, two women of color will have overlapping lanes. 

Update, Aug. 21: Per The Nation, 2026 AOC and her egg-freezing neolib self is more and more trying to run away from the pretense of her old self. She's running for something in 2028, whether Schumer's Senate seat or beyond.

If you really want to understand the world of oil and gas

Read this piece, "Nobody is Denied Energy," then this piece, "A Barrel of Crude is Not Just a Fuel," to understand how both hydrocarbons play out in the global economy, and what's likely ahead for the short-term future.

In terms of "shocks" on both fuelstocks, and the Cold War 2.0 that both US duopoly parties produce, and aim even more at China than Russia? In the short term, China is pretty insulated on both. In the longer term, it is increasing its insulation on oil with EV buildout. Its exposure on gas is primarily on gas as feedstock for foodstuffs, whether fertilizer, pesticide or herbicide. But, it's ongoing pivot to Brazil as food exporter versus the US gives it some degree of insulation from US-based gas shocks.

Here is my Substack comment on the first piece:

Well put all around, especially on the coda of China and EV build-out. Yeah, five years from now, the oil window will look differently there. And, per what I said elsewhere on gas issues and food, China is free to continue to import more foodstuffs from places like Brazil and less from the US.

And on the second:

Great stuff all around. And, on 1941, Roosevelt underlings, while he was hobnobbing with Churchill, were the ones who actually tightened the screws on Japan on aviation fuel, and by the time he found out, a couple of months of screw-tightening were deemed too much to reverse. 

On fracking, you know like I do that much of it the 2010s was financially underwater, ergo, contra American exceptionalists, oil division, did not disprove Hubbert's Peak. And, per the general theory behind Hubbert, the fracking portion of America's oil and gas both will get tighter in the future. How much tighter and how quickly, I don't know? 

Per your one linked piece, on "Fortress America" pivoting to Latin America? Still won't affect China in Cold War 2.0, right, and also, under the current American regime, will be the old Dual Monarchy's "hotbed of nationalities." This sets aside continuing Chinese efforts at increasing inroads in Latin America. Then there's the issue of how much more sharply Japan and South Korea eventually look at the American alliance, kind of like the smaller Gulf states today, and what they can actually do, or try to do, to slip it. (Shorter answer is: It all depends on how much more rapproachment they want with China, right?) Pakistan? Already a failing state (that's a continuum, not a single point) a few steps down the road in the wrong direction toward failed state.

Go read both, along with pieces linked off them. 

Texas Progressives talk this and that

As I did last week, I have split this week's Texas Progressives roundup into two parts.

SocraticGadfly, with last Thursday being Aug. 6, did a roundup of old thoughts, with some new additions, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Houston-area parents' bid to get an immediate hold placed on the Texas Senate's 10 Commandments bill failed, but a hearing on an injunction is set for Aug. 17.  

The Porvenir massacre site is under threat from a Big Bend-area portion of Trump's border wall. (I was last in Presidio County before the marker erection, but via Doug Swanson and others, am familiar already with the story.) 

The Observer says Mike Miles appears to be resorting to cheats to inflate campus accountability ratings in Houston ISD. 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project visited the site of the ICE murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Steve Vladeck strongly questions the notion that this SCOTUS is somehow "independent" from Donald Trump.

Mustafa Tameez observes that AI has developed intelligence faster than it has earned legitimacy.

The Houston Press urges the passage of a real immigration reform law to reduce the chances of more ICE killings.

Texas Public Opinion Research reports on what the people want with a variety of policy ideas.

Texas Progressives talk Paxton and Talarico and call out both halves of the duopoly

As with last week, I've split the weekly roundup into two parts.

Off the Kuff is following the polls in the Senate and other races. 

Related? Outgoing Ag Commish Sid Miller says Republicans will lose statewide races because of Strangeabbott's support for data centers and backlash to that. He thinks Abbott is trying to game the banana republic Texas Lege system to pass out favors within data centers, to boot.

Christofascist Tim Dunn is back in the arena to at least indirectly and in a small way support Ken Paxton financially per what Texas Monthly reports. Farris Wilks remains AWOL.

Kenny Boy failed again in his attempt to force gunz into the State Fair of Texas.

James Talarico, like Paxton, has a voting registration issue. (It makes me wonder if the top tier of non-duopoly candidates nationally has a similar problem anywhere. Dr. Jill Stein, have you always lived where you've claimed?) It makes me not wonder if Kuff will wrote about it, at least with a non-spinning take, because, unless snowballs freeze in hell, I know the answer is no. And, as of the afternoon of Aug. 9, the answer was indeed no. Shock me. The Trib story went up Aug. 5, plenty of time for him to write. 

Framing and spinning voting issues in Tarrant County

Lon Burnam was arrested over voting rights  issues at a special Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting, part of a larger protest. Per the first link, Burnam is talking about suing Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare, who may also have violated the Americans with Disabilities Act with a previous speaker.

But, per the second link, and per both Republicans and Democrats on the court, the county elections official, a nonpartisan appointee, Clint Ludwig, suggested the cut in voting sites, which the court eventually decided to table.

We'll see what Kuff says about that one. As of Aug. 9, nothing, not even about the Burnam arrest, let alone that the protests were misguided; the Trib stories went up Aug. 6.

Lone Star Left reported on the situation in Tarrant County and tries to spin it as a D win with O'Hare "caving" when the full court, presumably 5-0, tabled action on the proposed cuts. It doesn't even mention county elections head Clint Ludwig. So, it did Kuff's dirty work for him; he submitted the link as part of his set for this week's Texas Progressives roundup, and I separated the whole schmeer, with my links above, out of the mix. I also restacked Lone Star Left's piece with a shorter version of the first sentence of this paragraph. And, Michelle Davis, with a "you're free to believe what you want" opener, responded. In her response, she ignored what I said then, and two paragraphs above. 

From the second Trib link:

[T]he commissioners — both Republicans and Democrats — said at the meeting that they didn’t suggest the plan.

There you are, Michelle. 

Actual Constitutionality vs McKinney's Islamophobic nutters

Texas Monthly goes in-depth about McKinney's Islamophobic nutters who lie about Islam and also either are ignorant of or else lie about the First Amendment. They hated the McKinney city council following standard zoning — and being cognizant of past Supreme Court rulings about religious structures and zoning reguluations, surely — to approve the expansion of an already existing mosque and religious center. It also notes the "don't sharia Tex-ass" stems directly from Strangeabbott.

Speaking of, here's somebody who does understand:

After four hours of public comment, city employees gave a brief but thorough presentation on the actual site plan—the purported reason for the agenda item. Then the council was asked if any of them would like to speak. Justin Beller of District 1 asked to say a few words. As far as concerns about traffic and parking went, the Islamic Association had shown a willingness to work with its neighbors. “I’ve struggled to find words to address the other opinions that are injected into this discussion. This is a site-plan approval, nothing else. But it’s disheartening to be asked to break my oath of office or to defy the constitution because of some algorithmic rage or misinformation. Watching partisan politicians, with power to gain, use fear and outrage is disappointing. I would encourage all citizens to resist this reckless political rhetoric, which in my opinion amounts to election-year fearmongering.” He was, of course, drowned out by loud booing.

There you go. Per the First Amendment and those Supreme Court rulings, every elected official in the United States is required to swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. 

On Shitter, in addition to responding to them last week, I also started reporting their posts under the "hate" checkoff. 

ICE and body cameras

ICE plans for all of its ICE cubes, ICE bergs, or whatever, to have body cameras in the not-too-distant future, but says it will only release video when in its "best interest." Ain't how it works, ICE. It's called the Freedom of Information Act.

Max Blumenthal, red-brown antivaxxer

World Socialist Web Site, per a link posted by a likely duopoly tribalist journalist at Reddit named Shinbreaker who elsewhere claims that ALL questions about WIV were conspiracy theorizing, notes that he's an antivaxxer who back in 2022 was promoting red-brown alliances, and in nutter ways.

WSWS nutgrafs:

Seeking to cultivate a “red-brown” alliance between workers and fascists, Blumenthal declared, “This is not a left versus right issue. This is about economic rights... human rights and our constitutional rights.” 

He went on to call for an alliance of the “99 percent” against the “biomedical security state.” Instead of calling for increased protections for workers and their families, Blumenthal demanded that schools be reopened and that workers who refused to get vaccinated be allowed to return to work and infect their co-workers.

It then notes this wasn't new from Max, that he'd had a nutter piece by alleged Marxist nutter Christian Parenti promoting more of the same published at Grayzone two weeks before this rally.  (Outside of some of his tankie non-skeptical leftist modern political ideas, Parenti also thinks Zachary Taylor was poisoned.)

Top blogging of July 2026

As normal, not all posts are from the last month; whether new or "evergreen," they're the most read in the past month.

With that, and the normal reverse countdown, I dig in.

No. 10 is more than a decade old. It's about how convicted libertarian fraudster and alleged (pseudo-?) skeptic Brian Dunning hadn't changed when he got out of jail.  

No. 9 was the last Texas Progressives roundup for July; yours truly posted his piece about data centers. 

No. 8? Tim Tredwell was really fricking nuts 20 years ago and still is today. 

No. 7? The mods at Reddit's Ask Historians subreddit turned out to be pretendian pseudoleftists, not actual leftists, as is usually the case for identitarian librulz. (My refusal to accept all of their identitarian librul claims about genocide of American Indians is what led the shitheads to block me. One of the mods then committed academically unethical research about people blocked from the sub; worse, Cornell's research committee on her project did nothing.) I used the term "pretendian" in the header deliberately.

No. 6? Chris Stedman's "Faithiest" had more intellectual holes in it than Swiss cheese, which he tried to cover by melting into a tasty PR and marketing fondue, 13 years ago. It still does. 

No. 5 is straight politics, from a few years ago. It’s a roundup of some of the most odious lies by shyster-type lawyer Ty Clevenger about Seth Rich and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.

No. 4 plays off No. 9; it’s my writing about Dunning’s conviction.

No. 3 is also an oldie but even more a goodie. It’s my investigative journalism about who Alan Smithee, more commonly styled as Actual Flatticus, but really named Chris Chopin, was in reality. Politically, he was a straight duopoly librul, if that, and had he not died young, IMO, would have gotten himself caught in the Seth Rich conspiracy theory morass full on.

No. 2 is from 2018: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, idiot.

No. 1 (drummmmmmrrrrrrrooooooolllllll)

My presidential rankings, of relevance in part because it’s dated coming from 2017. With nine years of hindsight and us now in Trump 2.0, I’d revise to put him in the bottom malebolge with Andy Johnson, Buck Buchanan and Frank Pierce. I’d also revise to push Lincoln from A+ to A, even with grading on a curve, and maybe even A-. I’d still keep him No. 1, which would pull Washington down to A-, too.

 

Gainesville ISD football in a world of hurt

Per a news release by the district and local media coverage, head football coach and athletic director Neil Searcy has been suspended for a year as football coach, but not as AD, after an internal school district investigation led by Superintendent DesMontes Stewart confirmed that, on six occasions this spring, in violation of University Interscholastic League rules, Searcy ran spring football practices with players in helmets and pads.

The Fort Worth StarleGram got Searcy to speak, and admit he knew what he was doing, and why:

“I’m taking full responsibility,” Searcy said. “[I was] trying to get some excitement into our program. Our numbers are not where they need to be, and I was trying to develop that. ... All good intentions, but no excuse for bad judgment.” 

Due to the practices, the UIL SEC determined Gainesville received a competitive advantage. As a result, Gainesville football was issued a four-practice suspension and will not play its first scrimmage. 

It’s a direct and clear violation of UIL rules, and Searcy said he knew that while he conducted the practices. Athletes may engage in sport-specific activities during athletic periods, but not before or after school during the offseason. Class 4A athletes also can’t wear contact equipment unless it’s during the season. 

When asked whether he thought he would get caught ahead of the May practices, Searcy said he “didn’t know” and acknowledged the practice rules are important, despite his conscious decision to break them. 

“I made the decision to have those practices,” Searcy said. “The man and the person that I am, I really struggled internally with the decision that I made. What I try to teach kids ... I failed that in making the decision that I made. ... I really had some conflict, but it didn’t stop me from doing it. ... I made a mistake, and it’s something that will never happen again.” y

The why is that they went 1-9 last year and were last in district, and were losing a lot of players from a squad that was thin for a 4A team last year. 

The Startlegram notes that 4A (and below) cannot have full spring football. 

Stewart promised to have an interim head coach named by end of day today.

Good luck with that.

When a head coach comes to a new school, they bring most their own staff, right?

If you’re a current assistant, do you feel disloyal to him by taking the interim if offered, especially since he is suspended ONLY as football coach, not AD?

Second, did any of his assistants protest, or not protest running the kids in pads? Will other assistants backbite the guy who gets the nod? How thoroughly has Stewart already investigated the assistants, on a presumption Searcy would be suspended?

Third, could UIL have ruled on this earlier? The timetable puts the district and Stewart in kind of a bind.

As for the rest of the punishment? All GISD sports are on a mild probation. None of them, including football, will be barred from the postseason. That said, the football team did lose one of its two scrimmage dates, the first one, along with a few days of practice before that.

The story confirms that a school district police officer reported him. 

That adds to the turmoil of the coaching turnover, along with a team that went 1-9 last year and was not predicted by Dave Campbell's Texas Football to be very good this year. 

Update: Neil's brother, LJ, got the interim nod. I kind of expected that, but is that totally good? 

Goodbye to Facebook

In part my fault.

It all seemed legit.

A recruiter for Volvo, setting up an interview time.

I was asked to log into Facebook to confirm an interview time. Never had that before, and my alarm bells went somewhat off, but not enough.

 

 

I try to report my account as hacked, but when I enter my email, Facebook says "nothing found." 

That's fine, IF it actually deleted my account rather than just suspending it. 

 

Texas Progressives look at the domestic news

 SocraticGadfly from vacation experience, talked about just how bad Southworst has gotten, along with an ethical reason to stop flying them.

Off the Kuff had the July campaign finance reports for US Senate and Congress. 

The Texas Ten Commandments bill faces a new challenge — in state court, under state laws. (As I said in a comment at that Substack, its 1A-based federal challenge is not dead, contra the author of the piece; it simply has yet to be heard by the US Supreme Court after the Fifth Circuit overruled a federal district court.) 

GLO Commish Dawn Buckingham is standing up to the Border Patrol, in an issue that (unironically, I am guessing) involves a private landholder called Trans Pecos Ice. Will she eventually fold like a cheap cocktail dress?

The Observer details the problems with outsourcing state foster care. 

The battle over a proposed new high-voltage power line running to and from the Odessa area (a battle flooding my office email inbox) is heating up. And, Dannie Goeb is officially on the "no line" side.

At the Monthly, Robert Downen says Paxton is taking Talarico more seriously. That said, when you leave your own press conference, how serious are you?

The Observer looks at Houston's attempt to investigate ICE's killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, including Mayor John Whitmire's problematic opening stance. It's also complicated by Strangeabbott now getting the Texas stRangers (them, not the folks in Arlington) to do THEIR OWN investigation, with which the feds ARE cooperating. I see all sorts of reasons for this, not only PR and sweeping under the rug issues, but perhaps an attempt to deliberately generate state crime double jeopardy issues. Strangeabbott IS a lawyer, after all.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project said court decision ending Houston’s woman/minority setaside program, Whitmire still saying HPD does not contact ICE & HPD over-policing of protest shows how much work remains in so many arenas. The next action is when you organize it.  

RIP Kay Granger. Did she get forgotten in that nursing home type place? 

The Current finds CD23 candidate Brandon Herrera being an even bigger douche than before.

The Texas Signal reports on the “Data Center Week of Action” at the Capitol.

The Bloggess explains why she sometimes disappears.

Sam Husseini supposedly "may" run for Congress — I'm "mid" on this

Sam Husseini may run for Congress in Maryland. Sam, as long as you steer away from the conspiracy theory that Zionists whacked Jack, you'll get all the non-monetary support I can give from afar. Go down that road, though, and you're toast with me, and I'll bet with voters as well. 

The "may" is in scare quotes in the header because the Maryland Green Party has already chosen him. What, is Husseini going to pull an Uncle Billy Sherman and decline to run? I just learned that with teh google after already working on this piece, which adds an additional bit of spicyness. 

But, on his website, all he says is "exploratory committee" (which still asking for dinero). Sam, you've been nominated, and as a Green, not part of the duopoly. Intellectual dishonesty, like napalm, is apparently leaving a morning aroma. 

So, let's nuance that support more. I may nuance it completely away by the end.

A couple of years ago, Husseini went beyond legitimate (legitimate in terms of science, not in terms of thought-policing) questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology to claims about bioweaponization of COVID. Husseini does nuance himself on his Substack by noting a lab leak is not necessarily indicative of lab origin. But, in that same piece, he then goes down the nutter shitpile with:

The attempts to further define away dangerous lab work are even more nefarious when one considers that this entire field is arguably a euphemism for biowarfare.

Uhh, no. First, as I've noted on this issue, China would never allow US scientists access to Wuhan in such a case. Second, like the USSR with its pre-1989 bioweapons research, a Chinese bioweapons lab would be in a place far less populated than Wuhan. That's a serious level of lack of critical thinking.

He continues in that same vein in the next paragraph, using "accidental lab leak" and "biowarfare" in the same sentence.

Two paragraphs later, we go further down conspiratorial rabbit holes:

"Lab leak" implies accident. From the available information, it's possible that the pandemic origins had nothing to do with a lab (less and less likely by the day), it's possible that it accidentally leaked out a lab in Wuhan -- and it's possible that there was intentional release. There are a number of possibilities on the last possibility that I plan on fleshing out in a future piece. The most obvious is that someone was out to frame the Chinese.

Again, no. How could US government agents break into the Wuhan Institute of Virology and leak coronavirus-19? With that question mark, I now place Husseini into the realm of "just asking questions." Hold on to that thought. 

Oh, I'm not alone in wondering. Black Agenda Report, when it was still good, called him out. (This was the just about the top hit when I googled "Sam Husseini" + conspiracy theorist.) It nails the same things I did with this:

Husseini first pulls off this canard by arguing that there is no meaningful difference between biowarfare and biodefense. This is hardly true. Although there is always some overlap between basic science, medicine, preventive research, and warfare, there are also serious differences in emphasis, approach, practice, and funding that he glosses over. Husseini has to assert this tenuous proposition in order to implicate the Wuhan lab in suspected biowarfare malfeasance (or error), and to claim that there is a global biowarfare arms race between China and the US (rather than by the US against its opponents). That linguistic sleight of hand, in particular, the equivalence of biowarfare and biodefense is factually not true, and is certainly not true in one very obvious way regarding the Wuhan lab: if there were a biowarfare arms race happening around the world, the countries putatively at war with each other--the US and China--would not share or allow access to their labs to a competitor state, collaborate, or exchange their research and researchers.

And, the other shoe on that? 

As a point of contrast, no one, not a single Chinese national has ever set foot in Fort Dietrick, the key US biowarfare research lab. No Chinese university has ever collaborated with them. No Chinese funding has been directed to it. No one knows exactly what they are researching.

Yeah, handwaving, conspiracy theory version. 

Also at my second piece, tying to the top link in the third paragraph, he claims Mossad whacked Karen Silkwood. My take is that someone was indeed trying to intimate Silkwood, to the possible point of running her off the road, but not killing her, first, and that said person was working for Kerr-McGee, if anybody, and not Mossad.

He's also kind of clueless with VotePact. 

And, per the "about" page on his Substack, he also thinks the 2014 Ebola outbreak was a lab leak. Here's more that he's written on that. The main problem is that the paper argues from silence. Even if the "official" individual line that bats caused Ebola didn't find infected bats in the relevant area of West Africa doesn't mean that lab leak is the automatic alternative. (His own piece notes that Ebola symptoms are highly variable and West Africans on the ground suggested malaria as an alternative in some cases.) Wiki's long page on the outbreak indicates the "official" framing was never as precise as Husseini portrays it.

Now we get to the nutgraf, 1/3 through his piece on Ebola. That's that it could have been a lab leak from a US lab in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Wiki's page addresses that; it notes a 2014 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed the viral strain there closely related to previous outbreaks in Central Africa, but the West African outbreak showed no links. 

And, at this point, I don't really feel like even grokking through the other 2/3. Why? Because it's the same level of fucking stupidity as his take on COVID.

Let's add that he has defended Brainworm Bobby against charges of antivaxxerism. Speaking of, here's Brainworm Bobby aping Husseini's line of thought with nutbar claims that Lyme disease and RSV were also created by gain-of-function research. Per the first link in this paragraph and my top link, it also sounds like Husseini was already a JFK conspiracy theorist before latching on to the "zionists did it" angle. This Shitter link of his offers further confirmation. Furthering the nuttery, the person he quote-Shits, Monika Wiesak, apparently believes that JFK Jr was also "whacked" rather than being an underskilled, irrationally overconfident pilot. Otherwise, Monika Wiesak is a total fruitcake herself, and contra her "JFK: Myth vs Reality" the real myth vs reality is guzzling the Camelot Kool-Aid versus knowing the reality of NSAM-263 in Kennedy foreign policy and knowing that in domestic policy the best thing Jack ever did for civil rights was to have Lee Harvey Oswald blow his head off so LBJ could make him into a martyr for the cause.

So, actually, my thought is, best of luck against Glenn Ivey. I do know that Maryland has a fairly strong Green Party to help. But, I won't go out of my way in offering support from afar. And, if you were running against a non-Zionist Democrat, I wouldn't give you the time of day. Even against Ivey, were I in MD-4, I'd have to hold my nose.

My second thought is, once again, contra Noah Berlatsky, who's not really a leftist himself, this shows that horseshoe theory is true and the likes of Husseini illustrate that.