The full Gadfly Slate in Texas elections, 2026

First, now more than ever, I'm more and more comfortable with undervoting races rather than voting for someone from the left hand of the duopoly that is "meh." Or a hypocrite.

Let's dig in, going in order of my sample ballot in my corner of Tex-ass.

Senate: Undervote. I'd vote for independent Jade Simmons to play the piano for me — and maybe (yes, making a male observation) tickle my personal ivories. I don't need "centrist" candidates, though. Democrat? Here’s part 1 and part 2 on Talafreako the hypocritico.

Here's a Trib q-and-a with Talarico, Libertarian Ted Brown, and no-show (yes, for an emailed q-and-a) Kenny Boy being filled in from past statements. Statements by Talafreako that stand out? No, we don't need yet more Border Patrol. As for tech surveillance, the BP and the private companies that make it have played Alphonse and Gaston on the non-use of border tech designed to prevent immigrant crossing deaths.

Side note: I fault the Trib for running the absent Paxton's past-derived answers first. 

US House Dist. 26: 20,000 Mules Above the Desert (I see what I did there) couldn't make me vote for Brandon Gill. Libertarian Phil Gray, interestingly, believes in the government using ESG guidelines. Obviously NOT one of the Mises Mice. He also supports Medicare buy-in being offered. But, he spoils himself by being an anti-China Cold War 2.0 guy. And, I can't find an explicit position by either him or Democrat Steven Shook on Palestine and Israel, let alone Russia-Ukraine. Undervote.

Governor: Gina Hinojosa is a ConservaDem on reproductive choice and on other things. Libertarian Pat Gray supports vouchers. No Green here, either. Undervote.

Light Guv: Green Kevin McCormick never answered my emails on where he stood on 2025’s Proposition 4, and the Texas GP's executive committee backing it, per my latest callout of Texas Greens on this issue; I webmail contacted him last month. Three weeks later, no answer. Dem Vikki Goodwin wants to at least partially legalize cannabis, shockingly supports ranked choice voting, at least at local levels, and ALSO has in the past backed Texas joining other states and allowing citizen initiatives. Vote Democrat.

AG: Republican nominee Mayes Middleton is even nuttier than Kenny Boy Paxton. Nathan Johnson is at least somewhat on the left of Texas Democrats. That said, other than running as the anti-Paxton, he offers little. I may undervote; still not decided.

Comptroller? I have proof positive that Democratic Comptroller candidate Sarah Eckhardt is a squish on BDS. Texas Greens are generally dead to me right now over Proposition 4, but I will vote Green Shehla Fahzi in this race. Totally. 

Ag Commish: Democratic candidate Clayton Tucker has a boatload of bad stocks unethical investments, including multiple oil companies. Nate Sheets is a nutter accusing China of "agro-terrorism" and is even stupider than Mayes Middleton. The campaign has a recent interesting twist. Undervote.

Railroad Commish: Bo French is an obvious racist and Jon Rosenthal is anything but. That said, as a leftist, ex-Green and real environmentalist who knows we're in a climate crisis, I don't like that he doesn't talk about that issue himself, nor does he talk about the RRC doing more to promote solar, wind, and even geothermal. He does, like in an Inside Climate News interview, tout carbon capture. Gack. Undervote.

Land Commish: Dawn Buckingham has gone along with Dannie Goeb on politicizing the Alamo. The Land Office does to a degree have a climate change impact, but I'll probably hold my nose to a degree and vote Democrat Benajamin Flores.

State Rep. District 68: Undervote. I think incumbent David Spiller is a hypocrite on his school vouchers flip-flop as well as a wingnut, but, Jasmine Henderson? You're going to have to suffer for the PRO Gainesville stupidities of your sister, as of course she eventually did. 

Judicial races? I have rarely wasted time wading through most of them. To the degree drugs are at issue, I'm OK with supporting others pulling the Libertarian lever if they know the Democrat is not that good.

That said, I will say at least consider Libertarian Mark Ash for CCA Place 3. He supports jury nullification. I can't find his stance on the death penalty, though. Sadly, candidates generally seem to feel that they can't state an opinion on that, as that would be "discussing cases before the court."

That said, more and more, I dislike partisan judicial elections, unless necessary in a retention election system. And on principal, I refuse to vote in Strangeabbott's new 15th Court of Appeals races.

(Another option for at least part of judicial selection is Missouri's, as described by Pro Publica: For appeals courts and the state supreme court, lawyers select a three-candidate group and the governor picks from among the three.)

That said, a final reminder: This Politico piece is right, not in the sense that polling is THAT far off, but in that many MAGAts continue to say "fuck you" to polling in general, or in some cases, may even deliberately lie to pollsters. 

 

 

Texas Progressives talk pre-election updates

Off the Kuff did a quantitative comparison of the polls for Senate and Governor's races in Texas, and found that the latter was closer. 

SocraticGadfly looked at the oil contamination in Johnson County and said it smaked of similar land pollution in North Texas back in the 1990s.

If Mayes Middleton says he wants to put god back in government, doesn't that mean that Kenny Boy removed god?  

South Texas may indeed be moving on from Trump, but I doubt it's moving toward any statewide Democrat. 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project says we’ve had a number of wins at Houston City Council in ‘26 & we’ll do the work for a more progressive and responsive council in ‘27.  

Before becoming a US Senator, Kansas' Roger Marshall was a loan-sharker cosplaying a doctor. 

Faux News has apparently benched Karl Rove for being kind of outspoken. 

Contra non-skeptical leftist, or better, pseudoleftists, like Max Blumenthal, not only did China have forced labor in Xinjiang in the past, it now does again, this time with fish farming. 

 G. Elliott Morris reminds us that the fundamentals are aligned with the polls.

Isabel Latz argues that El Pasoans can’t afford leaders who ignore extreme heat.

Murray Newman eulogizes First Court of Appeals Justice Kristin Guiney. 

Your Local Epidemiologist gives you the facts as they are known about that plague outbreak in Russia. (YLE could have noted that plague is still naturally occurring in the US. But did not. And, the book she points you toward is by nutter Annie Jacobsen.)

Leo XIV, show us the money, the Observer says

The Observer, reaching way outside Texas, calls on the Vatican to crack open its $73 billion gold mine. The author is triangulating off Leo XIV's recent "Magnifica Humanitas." The problem, or the reality, is tseveral-fold, without excusing Rome. First, not all of its assets are liquid. Second, at $73 billion, not trillion, that's one-tenth of what Elmo Musk or Bozo Bezos are worth, at least on paper. And, that's just the richest of plutocrats, not the whole schmeer. Third is that the author is privileging the United States, and possibly Mexico, when il papa rules Catholics around the globe.

Fourth, you're asking a man who wears ruby-colored, and perhaps ruby-edged slippers while carrying a gold crozier to do this?

Fifth, many of the assets that would be liquified to get to this point would be bought by plutocrats. That said, if the Vatican were to sell, say, the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that alone would bring more than $73 billion.

Sixth, you're asking a religious leader who runs a body that still opposes women in leadership, still opposes  women's reproductive freedoms and other things, to show the world "magnificent humanity" through money alone? 

The latest all things Kenny Boy Paxton as the election nears the finish line

The Monthly says Angela Paxton knows what she's doing without even mentioning the Tammy Wynette angle. Really? (Not on "she knows what she's doing," but on it not invoking the Wynette angle.) More seriously, exactly what IS she doing? Paxton's kind of a boat anchor and the state banned official straight ticket voting by voting machine lever years ago. Does she think Tammy Wynette will play well in the divorce court? Is she looking to a 2028 run for some other office? Hoping for a Strangeabbott appointment to something?  These are all possibilities, and I'm sure others exist; the Monthly explores none of them.

In a longform piece, Chris Hooks discusses snitches — three recorded snippets of Kenny Boy after the GOP midterms, but apparently from at least two different snitchers — bemoaning that he reportedly has no control over his campaign. Well, Ken, when you first decided to commit apparent securities fraud, second decided to diddle someone not named Angela and third decided to stick your head fully up Trump's ass to counter Nos. 1 and 2, you surrendered control. From there, Chris wonders who the leaker/s is/are, and speculates, by their target choices, they're DC insiders pissed the GOP is having to play defense for Paxton rather than pushing Big John Cornyn to the finish line.

Dan Solomon spins on the first and second to talk about the weirdness of new Paxton ads. Solomon's talking only about teevee/streaming ads. This doesn't include the weirdness of Kenny Boy's direct mail flyers, which seem to indicate Commies, led by Uncle Karl himself, are hiding under every small-town bush to push Talarico over the finish line.

Sorry for the wingnuts wanting "proof of life" from Talafreako Talarico while ignoring the person BlueAnon calls Moscow Mitch, but Talarico is alive, well, and back on the campaign trail. 

If Mayes Middleton says he wants to put god back in government, doesn't that mean that Kenny Boy removed god? 

Kenny Boy certainly did NOT remove the grifting, including at least $3.3 million in security detail grifting. 

We're way past the original timetable for the first of three debates allegedly originally planned between Kenny Boy and Talafreako, past the date for the second, and just past the date for the third, with early voting starting next Monday. Conclusion: No debates. Per Dan Solomon talking about Kenny Boy's nervousness even while being asked softball questions in an interview, he's probably decided that looking chicken is less bad than looking like a fuck-up. That said, how, and how well, does Talafreako exploit this? My guess? Not all that well. He said nothing when the first deadline passed, was sick when the second passed, and said nothing Monday when the third passed.

To me, this would be easy. All Talarico has to do is say something like:

I'm leading in the polls and have had a steady lead for the past two weeks. Ken Paxton must really be afraid of something if he won't debate me.

There you are. 

Meanwhile, while he still leads, per a story from Yahoo, the latest MR/Recon poll shows he has slipped back to inside the margin of error, by half a percentage point. More on the poll, which also includes the gov's race, here.

USDA announces record price support payments like it's a good thing

This came out last week:

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced that the Farm Service Agency’s Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) will generate approximately $13.8 billion in gross payments to eligible agricultural producers for the 2025 crop year; the largest annual payout by far since these key safety net programs were established in the 2014 Farm Bill. 

“President Trump has been the biggest champion for American farmers, and today's announcement delivers nearly $14 billion in funding for rural America,” said Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. “Last July 4th President Trump signed the Working Families Tax Cuts Act into law and today we are acting on it, this will strengthen reference prices to better reflect today’s farm economy. This historic economic support provides producers critical liquidity to cover operating costs, prepare for the next crop year and invest in their operations. Thank you to all the Republicans who unanimously voted for this law and put food security and rural America first.” 

The 2025 crop year stands alone in the history of ARC and PLC since Congress created the programs as key components of the commodity safety net in the Agricultural Act of 2014. Since 2015, no previous crop year has generated payments approaching this level. While ARC and PLC payments total $13.8 billion, producers are reminded that this does not account for payment limitation reductions and the 5.7% sequestration rate required by statute that will be applied to all ARC and PLC payments.

And, no, Brookie, it's NOT a good thing.

It means that, in various ways, our current agricultural system is more and more broken.

It's broken by increasing income disparity in the agriculture world, like elsewhere.

It's broken by bribery to accept fallout from Trump's tariffs.

It's broken by a system with structural problems, such as dairy price supports versus Canada's provincial quota system, which was already being attacked by Trump 1.0.

And, of course, it's broken by climate change. 

Wrong national parks move, Congress

So, Chiricahua National Monument, which gets only 60,000 visitors a year, is going to be upgraded to a national park?

WHY?

First, contra the tourism pushers (Grand Junction, Colorado area with Colorado National Monument comes immediately to mind), yes, an upgrade does cost money, and not just changing the signs.

You want this because you think an upgrade to national park status will bring more tourists.

And, assuming it does? That means the upgraded national park has to hire more rangers, both for general assistance, and for things that national parks visitors expect, like interpretive programs, evening ranger presentations and such. It has to hire more roads and facilities maintenance staff for the increased wear and tear. It has to hire more law enforcement rangers for increased problems.

And?

That all costs money.

Stop lying.

Second, doing this while still refusing to address a massive maintenance backlog, an issue on which Democraps are 75 percent as bad as Rethuglicans, is a mix of hypocrisy and abuse of the National Park Service. 

And, it's more proof that the left hand of the duopoly doesn't really care about real environmental, ecological and land management issues. 

Johnson County oil pollution story smacks of the 1990s

The Observer has a folo to a piece a few months ago about a Johnson County residential development being built on an oilfield waste dump site. The new piece looks at how little legal recourse new homeowners may have, and also about how both state and private business agencies that should be able to provide legal liability answers refuse to do so, and about how the Railroad Commission has refused to test the site.

The story is disgusting, especially with the mention of arsenic. I am reminded of the infamous Voluntary Purchasing Groups of the 1990s and their use of arsenic compounds, federally- and state-licensed in agriculture only for cotton desiccation, as part of general-purpose weedkillers, and not telling neighboring farms and ranches that the air out of their smokestacks west of Bonham might have arsenic.

This story peaked at the time a Democrat-turned-Republican state senator, Rick Perry, decided to challenge Jim Hightower as Ag Commish. Politics got involved there; Perry's campaign staff allegedly told VPG to stall out the investigation until after November 1994, because he would win.

He did and the rest is history. 

The two stories have other parallels. Residents in the area in the 1990s accused the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission, today's Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, of going in the tank like the RRC seems to have done on this.

Voluntary Purchasing Groups, or VPG, is the organization that also has, or had, an EPA Superfund site near Commerce. 

Texas Progressives talk pre-election politics

Off the Kuff interviewed four Legislative candidates: Sara McGee, Odus Evbagharu, Stefanie Bord, and Darlene Breaux. 

SocraticGadfly had two election-related posts. First, he noted that, at the Trib Fest, John Fetterman seemed to be threatening to take Senate Democrats hostage after the midterms. Second, he wrote about Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's callout of Texas and national Democrats for not talking more about climate change.

New York Times/Siena is the latest poll giving Talarico both a lead over Paxton outside the margin of polling error, and a majority, not a plurality. I predict that, after another poll or two like this, by Oct. 15 and no later, the National Republican Senatorial Committee pulls the plug on Kenny Boy. 

Hypocrite Angela Paxton "stands by her man" Kenny Boy in the election while continuing to plow fully speed ahead on the divorce. Can she talk about baking cookies? (The Trib story lies by claiming most recent polls are within the margin of error when, in this particular race, they're not. Clickbait?)

Alyssa Edwards introduces herself to Ken Paxton.  

G. Elliott Morris understands the reasons Dems in Texas and elsewhere are still leery of what polls are saying, but insists the blue wave is coming. 

Federal judge issues injunction blocking all border work in Big Bend and says plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits. 

Some cities and counties are betting that Strangeabbott's 90-day pause on Flock camera funding is indeed the political stunt that it is and keeping up as many as they can, or getting extensions. 

Those bazillions Tex-ass voters approved for new state parks on the 2023 constitutional amendments? Congrats on getting your (checks notes) 1-square-mile new state park at Lake Palestine.

Further pandering to senior citizen homeowners on property taxes, with Dannie Goeb wanting to reduce the age limit to 55, shows what's wrong with Tex-ass' tax system, its school finance system, and the state structurally. And, too many ConservaDems play along. Most these seniors are better off than I am at near-seniorhood. 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project reported on City Hall developments. City for the moment not applying for Trump DOJ Model Cities grant that would tie HPD to bigoted & authoritarian goals of federal government & arrogant, pompous Chris Brown remains employed at $127,000 yearly, 15 hour weekly city job. 

The Current finds another example of Brandon Herrera being an absolute piece of garbage.

City of Yes does a deep dive into Austin's housing and real estate market.

Steve Vladeck calls the SCOTUS third-country removal order "profoundly ugly".

"Librul" Eugene, Oregon, wants to charge $2.5 million for a public information request about a cop. I think that, when it comes to cops, many "librul" cities are like this.

A sad presidential election in Brazil. Jailed coup-plotting former president Jair Bolsonero's son vs. incumbent Lula, now 80 and who either couldn't get anybody good to succeed him or else has become enamored of power.  The race is going to a runoff.

Pass The Loot: Jim Bakker is dead

We all know that's what PTL actually stood for. (Unless, in the case of Jessica Hahn, it also stood for Pussy That Lives.)

Anyway, the man is dead. USA Today, almost as dead, has a photo roundup. This is not going on my other site, as Bakker was not a theologian or a biblical critic. He was a stereotypical conservative charismatic evangelical TV preacher who could fake cry on command.

Looking through the photos, he seems like some mix, facially, in hindsight, of parts of Howard Cosell, parts of Herve Villechaize, part Reagan economic Svengali David Stockman, and parts of I don't know what. 

And, of course, he was part of a Venn diagram intersection three fakes. His fake emotions (but real felonious grift, as Wiki notes), Jessica Hahn's fake boobs (and other plastic surgery) and Tammy Faye's fake face, though, overall, she was the most real of the three. 

The fakery in the televangelist and megachurch world's gotten slicker today, but it's not gotten any better morally. 

And, we can't forget that Hahn hung out for a while with Sam Kinison, himself an ex-Pentecostal preacher. I thought he was funny in college, but in reality, he's just a Pentecostal preacher with full-on yelling, not shouting, a dirtier mouth than Lenny Bruce (per Phil Hartman playing Frank Sinatra, you don't have to go blue), and too many racial jokes. And, I didn't know he was hit by a truck at 3 and that gave him epilepsy, and other brain issues.

While I'm here, contra the plastic surgery link, I've never believed Hahn's claim that Bakker drugged her to initiate sex. All the other stuff in that Chicago Trib interview indicates that, per the old bon mot, Jim Bakker diddled her before she became a virgin.

And, with all but Hahn dead, and for her, her getting affection or attention dead, this sordid triangle with additional subpoints is itself dead. 

==

Yikes, I didn't realize Bakker had gotten into bed, metaphorically speaking, with My Pillows coke-sniffer Mike Lindell. 

Counterpunch going in the crapper once again and more

After removing it from my main blogroll, I hadn't even visited it before my July vacation until the end of September.

Ye gads. It's got issues.

Beyond giving the late Ward Churchill a pass on being a pretendian, here's some of the recent "fun."

Wait, wait, here's the start of the fun. Per Counterpunch's search bar, the word "pretendian" isn't even in the entirety of Counterpunch online. Gads.

The DSA Roseys are like anarchists! Wingnuts will take a bong hit off that.  And why do Jeff St. Clair and Joshua Frank have someone who has written for places like the WaPost and Guardian writing for them? This other person gets it more right, without identifying what he's discovered, perhaps because he doesn't know. When I saw him talk about how "caucuses have a level of power within DSA that is absurdly disproportionate to the number of people they represent," I said, he's talking about the Green Party. Caucus-based tribalism is not anarchism.

Speaking of, via surrogates, St. Clair continues hating on the Green Party with running this interesting, or "interesting," takedown obit of David Cobb, via a presumable flunky contributor. (That may be the same person I ran into via Silverstein's "Washington Babylon" revamp. It is and oh no.) You know what? Mine's much better, in part because it doesn't turn into a laughable paean to the DSA Roseys, whom the author claims are more effective than Greens. Beyond that lie, there's others. First, Nader had never officially registered as a Green in 2000, part of the reason for his 2004 party demise. Basically, per this paper, he tried to play footsie, like Jesse the Body Ventura in 2020 and Cornell West in 2024, wanting the nomination on a platter but refusing to engage before that. And(rew)ie Stewart's also a conspiracy theorist on Malcolm X's death.

(Stewart originally ran the piece on that person's [sic] Substack and St. Clair picked it up. Speaking of? Again, fuck you; and I'm sorry that I went out of my way to challenge High Country News for stopping running you as well as Felice Pace and others. And, per my editing of that person's first name? A "transgender woman" would be a woman wearing men's jeans and Carhatts. You're a transgender man, clearly male, Clyde. Or, perhaps better yet, to use that old-time word? You're a transvestite.)

"Pergressuve" John Ferrer gives off the vibes of a Cold War 2.0 Russiaphobe in this piece with the inaccuracy early on of claiming Ukraine has gained territory in 2026. It has, but Russia has gotten more, in areas that were Ukraine-held before this year. Even fucking Ukrainian Pravda admits this. Feffer is a George Soros neolib. Why's he writing for Counterpunch?

Looking outside Counterpunch's pages, Frank has a new book: "Bad Energy." I quote from the editorial blurb on Goodreads: 

In Bad Energy, award-winning journalist Joshua Frank argues that the green energy transition is driven not by an effort to save the planet but by profit incentives. We must stop burning fossil fuels if we have any hope of saving the planet, but the significant, haphazard expansion of green energy in recent years—from large solar projects to wind energy to mining for renewables—has destroyed communities and ecosystems. And worse, renewables simply cannot match our ever-expanding demand for energy, driven in no small part by the rapid proliferation of data centers in the world’s wealthiest nations.

I'm not saying he's all wrong, but that's an oversell at a minimum. 

The first claim? No, something more accurate would be:

The green energy transition, launched as an effort to save the planet, has been taken over by a profit-first focus.

There you go.

Second, you can't have small solar or wind projects. Even without data centers being pushed, pushed, pushed, we need more renewable electricity as is. Conservation might be nice, but, and not wanting to sound like Darth Cheney, by itself, it's not a major part of the answer. 

Third, no, not all such projects have "destroyed ecosystems," and many have actually boosted rural communities. Get out west of the 97th meridian, but before you get to full desert, wind or solar farms have allowed family cattle ranches to stop overgrazing, and thus cut a few cow farts and belches out of the system while at least partially protecting the natural vegetation that still remains. 

Counterpunch has an extract from the book. The last one-third is still partially general environmentalism, but it also steers into NIMBYism. 

Third, Joshua, in January 2025, when you went from Montana to Los Angeles, how did you get there? Flight? Big old Montana gas-guzzling pickup? Midsized car? Hybrid? (Disclosure: I have a 2011 CVPI ex-cop car. It was cheap, but yes, uses more gas than smaller cars. But, because it was cheap, I'll run it until it gets near the point of needing more major repairs.)

The biggest issue, though, is one that I called out eons ago. No consistent editorial direction. It plays out in detail in a variety of issues. Russia-Ukraine is perhaps the biggest current example; besides that Russiagate-sounding piece, you may have others giving more support to Russia withstanding NATO. You may even have someone halfway like Max Blumenthal.

Speaking of Max, from Counterpunch's past of a few years ago, more than today, takes on China in general and Xinjiang in particular are all over the fucking board. And, that's not just in the past. Note this April 2026 piece, of a type with which I would agree. That said? One of the two authors called out, Vijay Prasad, writes for Counterpunch! Although he's not written there about Xinjiang in 2026, he did as recently as two years ago. Maybe St. Clair or Frank finally put an editorial thumb on a scale?

Yes, one can argue you'd like people to think for themselves. You'd also like a magazine of politics and opinion to take an actual stand, though. Wouldn't you?

Top blogging of September 2026

As is normal, these are the 10 most-read pieces last month. They were not necessarily written within the last month, just popular, at least according to Blogger’s stats that may be crashed by bots that Google doesn’t filter out in its modern enshittification, for all I know.

With that, let’s dig in.

No. 10 was from last month as “All Things Paxton …” offered an initial post-Labor Day view of Kenny Boy Paxton’s campaign for the US Senate in Texas.

No. 9? It’s from a dozen years ago, but in the post-Roe Merikkka, surely of interest connected to the 2026 elections. I talked about abortion as a “Gordian knot” for many liberals.

No. 8 was from late August (and also over on Substack) where I asked, somewhat rhetorically, “What if Jason Arday WAS a fraud?” and then delved into how society should address the issues behind that issue. And, yes, it’s a rhetorical, but here, unlike there, I did use the indicative “was,” not the subjunctive “were.”

No. 7? My takedown obit of 2004 Green Party presidential candidate David Keith Cobb. And, yes, with taking an extra day or two of time, it’s much more of a takedown obit than my relatively mild Substack version. (Sidebar: At Counterpunch, one of Jeffrey St. Clair’s flunkies spun another way, using a semi-takedown obit of Cobb to kick the Green Party in general because of St. Ralph of Nader. I will have a separate piece here in a few days about the most recent decline and fall of Counterpunch.)

No. 6? A July Texas Progressives roundup. I talked about how in Tex-ass, data centers have a staged, progressive expansion all planned in advance but don’t tell you.

No. 5? “Clutching pears, without tots, at Lone Star Left.” Short and sweet snark.

No. 4? A mid-August, split in half version of a Texas Progressives roundup, because, doing it my way, I snarked on both halves of the duopoly as the election finish line started coming into vague sight.

No. 3? My talk about Aridzona facing a POSSIBLE! day of water reckoning over BuRec saying it was turning the Colorado River taps down a skoosh. From late August.

No. 2 is from a decade ago, but remains popular, my bidding an RIP farewell to “Actual Flatticus,” aka “the dead and deified god of a cult.”

No. 1? My schadenfreudic (yes, I can invent that adjective) posting a dozen years ago about the conviction of fraudster, grifter, and fuser of skepticism with libertarianism, Brian Dunning. AFAIK, he STILL remains unrepentant, and an Italian-American philosopher’s occasional links to him are mildly disconcerting, though less so than other political issues and far less so than several actual philosophical issues, in the process of being individually covered at my second site at Blogger.

The hell with Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra et al

 I'm talking about them signing off on the Paramount-Warner merger last week. 

One additional reason they caved, IMO, beyond Gov. Pothole wanting to be President Pothole and Becerra wanting to succeed him?

I doubt Paramount would have fully left the state. Couldn't afford to. 

But, Larry Ellison probably threatened to play the antisemitism card. 

Or, per Ellison's Oracle hat, he may have made other threats to suing states, like one to a New Mexico data center under development about not paying if it was delayed. Yes, that's Oracle, not Paramount, but he would have tied the two together. 

The fight may not be over, but with California AG Rob Bonta essentially being told to settle? It's not good. That said, the plaintiffs and friends of them, more, who want the suit to go forward, aren't alone in saying this is unenforceable. Read Capital and Main.

That said, the first piece from The Wrap doesn't mention that Bonta himself is running for re-election. He may have been told to settle, but he may have gotten hints. 

 ==

That said, Skydance (Paramount) is getting gifted a colossal turkey with Warner Bros. "Digger." Beyond the merged studio turkey? It couldn't happen to a nicer guy in the acting world than Tom Cruise.

==

More on Gov. Pothole's sellout to the wining and dining Oracle of Zionism here. 

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse talks climate change with a callout for Texas, national Democrat apparatchiks

I didn't know Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was this ardent about climate change and its concerns. His interview with Inside Climate News includes calling out the party apparatchiks on having their heads in the sand and saying climate change isn't a good political issue:

We actually did polling, for instance, in Texas that showed that 92 percent of Texans are concerned about the cost of homeowners insurance. 66 percent of them connect that problem to climate-driven extreme weather. So this is red state, oil patch Texas, and you’ve got more people concerned about the cost of homeowners insurance than own homes in Texas, which shows how big an issue this has become. And fully two-thirds of voters ascribe it to climate-driven extreme weather. So the public is a mile ahead of where the Democratic think tankery and consultant class is.

Gee, AOC et al, while calling out Democraps' New New Left for being anti-woke or whatever, don't do that on climate change, unlike this. 

Speaking of? He specifically mentions that in Florida (the state he discusses next after the pull quote above) that the Democrats' candidate for governor is running specifically on climate change concerns. Missing by their absence from his piece are Ginojosa or Talarico.

He looks cautiously ahead to the next Senate, where, with a change of power, he could be heading the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Texas Progressives have a pre-election run-up

Off the Kuff eagerly awaits the outcome of Rep. Vikki Goodwin's complaint against Dan Patrick for his illegal AI deepfake ads. 

SocraticGadfly talked about which Republicans have and have not called out Bo French and about Texas Monthly writing a clickbait article on this.

Mondoweiss has all the dirt on Robert Kraft's decades-long massive support of Israeli Zionism.

Where's the beef, prices that is? Could be going even higher. Why? Because of ICE, per various Southern Plains livestock associations. Possible hidden lining? People eat less of the climate-wrecking bovine meat.

The Observer reports on what could be Santa Ana's last stand — the one-n is for the wildlife refuge in the Valley. 

The Monthly looks under the hood of evangelical Christian TEA Commish Mike Morath's takeover of Fort Worth ISD, and notes how Senate Bill 1882 has charter school control (read: evangelicals or Catholics) under its own hood.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project spoke at City Council about possible city application for Trump Justice Department Model Cities funds. Accepting these funds would tie HPD to Trump immigration & racial policies. It goes as far as policing "loitering."

The Tech Edvocate does a deep dive on why the oil and gas industry has stood by Bo French.

The Dallas Observer writes about AI-powered cameras on Dallas garbage trucks, and how few citations for alleged code violations have resulted from them.

Steve Vladeck untangles what the Eighth Circuit did in their bizarre Missouri redistricting ruling.

The Current has a look at the first segment of the border wall being built on private property in Big Bend.

Fetterman says he could take Senate Democrats hostage after midterms

John Fetterman lied about his political self at the Texas Tribune's annual Trib Fest, and probably didn't get much pushback. Even worse, he's indicated he could hold Pennsylvania and national Senatorial Democrats hostage after the midterm elections.

In a statement earlier this month, Fetterman said he would “still be the 51st vote that I ran on” if Democrats take the Senate, referring to the tie-breaking vote. But closing out the festival, he said speculation about the next Congress was irrelevant until after the November election. “Wait till the midterms. See what I do,” Fetterman said. “Let’s revisit after the midterm and see what happens if I happen to be 51.”

Great: Dems will have another Yachtsman Joe Manchin in their midst, and will probably coddle him as much as Manchin.

Meanwhile, as part of the hostage-taking, he's already all but daring Dems to expel him from the party, as part of a longer conversation, that starts with just how much he has one foot in the Keystone State GOP tank, starting here:

Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvania Democrats view Fetterman unfavorably, according to a poll conducted last month by The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena University. Although Pennsylvania Republicans view him more favorably than they do their GOP senator, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, Fetterman said he has “no path as a Republican.”

Then this:

Fetterman’s trip to Texas comes less than three weeks after he introduced McCormick in a surprise video at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas.

OK now. 

Now this:

It's like he's daring them. 

“If the Democratic Party votes me out or expels me, they’re always entitled to do that,” he continued.

He also had a telling Freudian slip, when asked by an audience member, but NOT the moderator, why he didn't flip:

“Because I’m a lifelong Republican,” he said, raising his hand to his head, embarrassed after he realized the slip. “I guarantee you that will break through. That will get clipped.”

Oops. 

Meanwhile, even while daring Democrats to boot him, he's taking Republican money as I type, and he's not up for re-election this year.

Another fundraising email sent this month from the gopsquad handle came with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah listed as the sender. It was focused on Fetterman, and began, “I just got an email from John. He's basically a Republican now.”

Oy.

Already in July, he was getting big bucks from Tex-ass Republican Harlan Crow. 

But Dems, even if they had a two-seat Senate majority, wouldn't have the balls to boot him. 

Forest Service dumping Maroon Bells Scenic Area

This is in part the fault of BOTH hands of the duopoly 

Wikipedia photo, Creative Commons license, user Rhododendrites.

CRAP.

And, yes, this is the camel’s nose in the tent of privatization, per the High Country News story.

Fortunately, in this case, it’s not actually going to fall into the hands of vulture capitalists. USFS gave a “right of first refusal,” if you will, to Pitkin County, Colorado, and the county commission said yes.

On Sept. 23, Pitkin County, Colorado, commissioners unanimously approved a special use permit to take over operation of the Maroon Bells Scenic Area. They also approved a new fund, raised from site fees, to cover maintenance and other costs associated with upkeep of the heavily trafficked area.

Why? The largely (but not entirely, hold on to that thought) Trump-based cuts:

The U.S. Forest Service currently manages the area but says it lacks the personnel and resources to do so properly. The agency lost almost 6,000 employees in 2025, and President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 would slash its budget still further, cutting it by 75%. The White River National Forest has lost a third of its year-round staff since 2024, going from 169 to 111 employees, according to an analysis by Aspen Journalism.

As I noted, not entirely. Let’s pick back up the end of that paragraph above:

Its budget has been declining for over a decade, and Forest Supervisor Brian Glaspell says that Maroon Bells is running in the red by more than $300,000 a year.

OVER a decade? That would not only cover all of the Dementia Joe/Genocide Joe presidency, it would go back PAST Trump 1.0 to the tail end of Dear Leader’s second term.

That’s the thing that more people need to get through their thick heads. Their left-hand-of-the-duopoly tribalist thick heads.

The sub-Reddit of r/nationalpark banned me for pointing out Dear Leader’s National Park Service cuts as contributory to the incineration of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon a year ago. And, in fact, those started in his FIRST term. So, too, did him making a backdoor push for privatizing NPS.

The left hand of the duopoly doesn’t like this? People like this guy probably is?

Roaring Fork Valley residents and organizations appear to support the county even as they criticize the conditions that forced the transfer. “The county is responding to unfortunate circumstances on behalf of our community,” said Will Roush, executive director of Wilderness Workshop, an environmental watchdog group based in the Roaring Fork. “The real tragedy is this administration’s failure to adequately invest in and staff our federal land-management agencies and the places that are so fundamental to our state’s identity.”

Or Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails. Or Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities.

According to Tennenbaum, the Forest Service had said that if the county couldn’t take over management, it would have to ask for bids from private concessionaires. Critics warned that under a private concessionaire, given the need to make a profit, access fees would likely increase even more than is expected under county management.

“The Trump administration is pulling a ‘That’s a nice mountain you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it’ routine,” said Weiss.

I.Don’t.Care.

I know that maintenance there isn’t cheap. I’ve hiked there, a little ways into the wilderness. MASSIVE traffic. One of those non-national park places getting loved to death.

Budget cuts have led to deferred maintenance and repairs, and Pitkin County has already helped repair and reopen the area’s bathroom facilities and clean up mudslide debris, according to Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails. Tennenbaum dismissed concerns that the management transfer sets a worrisome precedent, noting that “the precedent has already been (set) that the federal government is not going to fund these things.”

So, why weren’t fees raised under any and all presidential administrations of, say, the past 20 years? Or 30, per Tennenbaum?

Tennenbaum pointed out that prices have not changed since 1997, so the increase merely brings them in line with similar areas. The cost for vehicles will go from $10 to $30, and camping will rise from $15 to $33, though shuttle fares will stay the same.

And, why won’t people who surely have looked at federal budgets, while still primarily blaming Trump, also call out Biden and Obama?

As for Congress? Biden controlled both halves of it his first two years. Ditto Obama. Next two were split, as were first two of Obama’s second term.

It is true that the Trump Admin's attempt to fast-track such moves is something Obama or Biden didn't do, per information near the tail end of the story. But, both their administrations backed smaller, more subtle workarounds on various environmental regulations. 

As for what's being lost, no, it's by no means near the totality of the area. But, yes, it is a precedent setter. That said, the Forest Service, albeit with the normal paperwork, offered the state Sweetwater Lake in the same general area. 

The state of play on 2026 Texas elections from the Trib Fest etc

Per the header, much of this is observations and takes on various comments at last week's Tribune Festival by the Texas Tribune.

Per the Trib, multiple polls show Talafreako Talarico leading Kenny Boy Paxton by an amount larger than the polls' margin of error, and two of them, if we give him one polling vote above 50 percent, give him a majority not a plurality. 

Turd Blossom Karl Rove, without saying he WOULD vote for Talafreako, unlike promising to vote for Railroad Commish Democratic candidate Jon Rosenthal, said Paxton can't win but that Big John Cornyn would already be across the finish line. 

Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach said Paxton should stop being chickenshit and agree to debate Talarico. Odds are he won't, even though Talafreako even said he was OK with Fox's Bret Baier being the moderator.

Rosenthal and French HAVE agreed to such a debate — according to Rosenthal but not French, as of Sunday. 

Contra the Observer, I think Joe Rogan knows more about both candidates, and politics behind them, than he lets on, and rather, he is willfully acting like a stereotypical politician. Just like Talarico, who told Rogan that "purple" is the best political color for Texas. (Sidebar: How many people are actually fooled by such statements?)

Contra the Observer, you don't have to go way out to west Texas, to a place like Crane, to see 80-20 party voting splits in more rural counties. Also contra the Observer, Politico, and Texas Democrats, they're not flipping a dozen or more state House seats. Flipping the governor's spot is just possible, beyond Talarico beating Paxton; don't hold your breath for more. The story does well in distinguishing between real Democrat candidates and "ghosts," something that has plagued the Texas Green Party.

 

Final -30- thoughts on Pretendian Ward Churchill

Via Nick Estes, I didn’t know he died about 5-6 weeks ago. Nick writes about one thing, ultimately, the NYT’s obit and its whitewashing of Churchill being a pretendian.

He was.

Counterpunch had a member of his defense team from his wrongful dismissal suit against the University of Colorado do his obit there. No mention of “Pretendian,” just the suit. Managing editor Joshua Frank republished a 2014 piece with no mention of “Pretendian” in the update header and no asking him about it in the original interview of Churchill, even though it was pretty well known by then.

As for that suit? Yeah, the university was wrong, and may have perjured itself too.

My focus is mainly on this issue.

I’ve said before at Blogger and in comments on Substack that American Indians are not Rousselian noble savages and were not such, nor, if you don’t like the philosophy term that way, “Rousselian nobles,” before 1492, or even circa 1000 CE with Norse contact. My piece there and comment here, is mainly about American Indians and environmentalism, legend vs reality.

But, back to the main.

First, it’s long been known to other Whites besides me. High Country News wrote about it in 2019 before they went down the Rousseau road during COVID. Beyond the likes of HCN, non-skeptical leftist environmentalists like Wrong Kind of Green, have done the same.

Second, Gary Kamiya, way back in 2009, fired a blunderbuss. He indirectly tackled the Pretendian angle, noting that the Rocky Mountain News had covered it even further, but also took on the Rousselian noble savage angle in ways far beyond me, and did so both in Churchill’s own allegedly historical work and beyond. He also had a potshot five years into the future for Frank, who claimed Churchill was being picked on by librulz as well as conservatives. Actually, Churchill played tribalist librulz like a violin. And even academics, or maybe I should say especially academics, liked being played, and like those at Reddit’s r/AskHistorians, reverberated Churchillian notes.

Per Kamiya, Churchill repeated the BS passed along by librulz, some non-skeptical leftists, and yes, some actual American Indians.

By overreaching, Churchill did damage to his field — and that is the thing that is hard to forgive. … The ultimate lesson of the Churchill case is that no cause, however just, benefits from being taken up by a propagandist.

That’s true, period.

Beyond Kamiya, to wrap it up with a bow? Being a capitalist propagandist while pretending you’re not — which is usually the Pretendian bottom line — does even more damage.

ADDENDUM Per Counterpunch's search bar, the word "pretendian" isn't even in the entirety of Counterpunch online.  

Nuclear porn and cancer

Inside Climate News has the details on the status of decommissioning New York State's Indian Point nuclear power plant and how that relates to the congressional race there. Per my piece on Substack about the bullshit from Stewart Brand, cosigned by James Hansen, about wanting even breeder reactors, and about how they're so much safer than other power, and going back way back when, how coal plants kill so many more people?

This: 

A recent study led by Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found higher cancer mortality rates in counties near operating nuclear plants.

Wrong.

And, in the paragraph before that, if you're a real environmentalist, not a fake one like Brand, and I don't know what Hansen has written about conservation and wildlife biology, this:

Over the years, the plant leaked radioactive waste into groundwater, vented an estimated 600,000 gallons of radioactive steam into the atmosphere, spilled some 3,000 gallons of dielectric fluid and 100 gallons of oil into the river and on occasion raised nearby water temperatures by 15 degrees, killing fish and triggering environmental concerns.

Real environmentalists talk about the real issues with nuclear power. Period. 

I will have a more in-depth piece at Substack. 

A preliminary Tex-ass election preview and "Gadfly slate"

Location: Ranch fence line along US Highway 82, Texoma area of North Texas. Author photo.

Yes, I’m a third-party voter, but seeing a Talafreako sign on a ranch fence line is something. That’s even more when it’s not alone, and it’s accompanied by a Hinojosa one.

I think the issue of yard sign counts is overstated, as I said in a comment to another post in last week’s Texas Progressives round-up on my Blogger site. I remember Beto-Bob, aka R.F. O’Rourke, had lots of them in 2018 and some Havana/Cancun/Calgary Ted backers started freaking out. Well, 8 years later, R.F. is trying to make a reputation as a political influencer or whatever the hell he’s doing these days, because he’s not sitting in the upper half of the U.S. Senate.

Anyway, here’s a roundup of stuff from Blogger that I’ve written recently.

On the Talafreako sign? I still have my doubts that rural voters will turn Texas blue, having heard and read a full decade of former Texas Democrats’ jefe Gilberto Hinojosa claim that demographic destiny would turn Texas blue.

Second, I have proof positive that Democratic Comptroller candidate Sarah Eckhardt is a squish on BDS. (Texas Greens are generally dead to me right now over Proposition 4, but I will vote Green in this race.) That said, ANYbody would be better than interim head Dreamy Don Huffines, who has taken the politicization of the office to new levels. (I have filed an official complaint.)

Third, “All things Paxton” (thanks, NPR) details Kenny Boy’s ongoing struggles for money as compared to Talarico, plus his most recent ethics violation.

Democratic Ag Commish candidate Clayton Tucker has a boatload of bad stocks unethical investments, including multiple oil companies.

Here’s part 1 and part 2 on Talafreako the hypocritico.

Next, per one of those Pergressuves roundups, the Monthly mildly called Hinojosa for a recent campaign ad that it noted was essentially a pro-life ad and even more, stressed that her ad that the Tex-ass Lege’s anti-abortion law has pretty much eliminated the medical assistance she had to take a problematic pregnancy to term.

From earlier this summer, I’ll eat my hat, I said, if Texas Dems flip TWELVE state House seats. (That would still leave them one short of a tie.) And, even if Kenny Boy, or Trump’s gas prices, or Strangeabbott’s see-through hypocrisy on data centers and Flock cameras, or all of the above, are boat anchors, I’ll stand by that.

From last week, contra this Siena / Recon poll, which says it polled likely voters, I will doubly or triply eat my hat if Vikki Goodwin defeats incumbent Lite Guv Danny Goeb. It also has a lead for Talafreako outside the polling margin of error and for Hinojosa, right at that. Marist has now released its latest poll and it too has Talarico with a lead outside the margin of error (even as a majority of respondents think Kenny Boy will win) and Hinojosa ahead. In both polls, the Democrat is still at a plurality, not a majority, but as pundits and pundit-watchers know, for incumbents to be underwater this late, even if their opponent does not have a majority, is not good news for them.

On the GOP side, people who know something about Texas probably HAVE heard of the Railroad Commission. And, yes, Bo French is that nuts. Karl Rove, yes, Turd Blossom himself, has said he’s not undervoting the race, he’s voting for Democrat Joe Rosenthal. And, the lying liars at the Texas Monthly claim Republicans as a class have repudiated French when they haven't.

==

My preliminary “Gadfly ballot” is:

Undervote Senator

Undervote Congresscritter (gack)

Undervote Gov

Possibly undervote Lite Guv, depending on what answer Green Kevin McCormick has about 2025’s Proposition 4, per my latest callout of Texas Greens on this issue; I webmail contacted him last week.

Possibly undervote AG

Green Shela Faizi for Comptroller

Probably undervote General Land Office.

Probably vote Rosenthal for RRC.

Definitely undervote Ag Commish.

"Iran’s president says Tehran wants a deal with U.S. before midterm elections"

#BigIfTrue but …

But why would you, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, say this out loud? TRUMP saying the similar? No surprise.

But, Iran, which has kept the upper hand? Aren’t you surrendering it?

“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Pezeshkian said Thursday in a brief meeting with NBC News and other news organizations on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We wish Americans to return to the MOU before the midterms,” Pezeshkian added, referring to a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran that laid out plans for a temporary ceasefire.

Sure sounds to me like a surrender.

One option of what’s behind this? Wrongfooting Trump’s comments at the UNGA:

“I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” Trump said. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.”

In this case, we’re in the world of Shrub Bush strategery. Pezeshkian thinks Trump’s comment reflects that he’s worried about the midterms, and somebody is telling him that he’s got one week, no more, left before it’s too late to even mildly and consistently influence downward oil, gasoline and diesel prices before the election, and definitely before early voting starts in many states.

And, that bolded “consistently” is key.

We’re in the world of Trump peddling the latest round of Norman Vincent Peale vs Pezeshkian peddling the latest round of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumenei or something. And, since the ultimate audience for Trump’s peddling of Peale is one person — himself — Pezeshkian should know better.

I mean, even during Trump 1.0, it was pretty much a mug’s game for anybody trying to outthink him. Now, in Trump 2.0, the word “think” isn’t even operative.

Option 2 is that Iran is worried that in the “lame duck” session, Trump will be more pissed than now, especially if Democrats retake the Senate as well as the House in midterms. In that case, they must be looking at Kalshi and other predictions markets.

Option 3? Hardliners in the mullahs, Revolutionary Guards or other elements are pushing Pezeshkian and this is ultimately a statement for internal public consumption. Exactly what that pressure might be, I don’t know. I’m not an Iran expert, but, that said, I’ve heard nothing recently about such pressure.

There had been pressure before the UNGA, but that appears to have abated, per this piece. Note this:

A notable signal came from Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who now serves as military adviser to [Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei].

“If the leader of the revolution has now deemed it in the country’s interest and has left the government open to negotiations, that is a very important act of prudence,” Maj Gen Safavi said, leaving room for talks without requiring Iran’s security establishment to describe them as a retreat.

So, right now, he’s OK again. Or is he?

Also from the same piece, note this:

The ultraconservative Kayhan newspaper warned that “New York is not a place for smiles and negotiations”, urging Mr Pezeshkian instead to turn the UN into “a courtroom for American crimes”. Other hardline voices have questioned whether Iran should have attended the General Assembly at all.

There you are.

Option 4 could be trying to further undercut Netanyahu’s UNGA visit, but per this piece, I don’t think that needs much help.

==

More from Drop Site News, as Iran is threatening to attack Gulf Arab states' airlines over them participating in a new round of sanctions. 

And more Substack blocks — vile Islamophobia and antisemitism

Gary Bolyer, a fundagelical who includes Islamophobia as part of his fundagelicalism.

Boatsailor566, an all-around creeptard. 

Nurit Steinfeld, an Israeli Zionist exceptionalist. 

Shirli Ganske — low-level Zionist, big level Trump Delusional Syndrome parader. 

==

Jordan Nuttall. Antisemitic not anti-Zionist with multiple "Rothschild" pieces. General conspiracy theorist about "great families," and adenochrome and other nuttery.

Books Behind Borders. Holocaust denialist. Damn, I need to remember to pull the trigger quicker; she blocked me first, and Substack blocking is non-reciprocal, another teh suck. I did report her before quote-stacking her.

==

Ronin: Supports BBB's Holocaust denialism, and is a 9/11 falser. 

==

Texas Progressives

Off the Kuff covered the most favorable poll Democrats have seen in many years. 

SocraticGadfly, from taking a wrong turn on summer vacation, wrote about "breeder reactor porn," of relevance with the continued push for data centers and such.

The Monthly notes that many Big Bend businesses are refusing service to people associated with border wall construction, and that this in turn is part of a larger division in the area. 

The Trib profiles the wingnut diaper dandy (and chickenshit friend of Mucus) who is the Dreamy Don Huffines' right-hand man in his overt politicization of the comptroller's office as its acting head. 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said upcoming October 17 No Kings protests have themes of early voting & election protection. Just the program. There will be No Kings protests across the Houston region. You can set one up on your corner. The next action is when you organize it.

Your Local Epidemiologist explains what AI can and cannot do in biosecurity.

The Dallas Observer notes Rep. Jasmine Crockett's Chris Brown troubles

 Space City Weather tells you what you need to know about Super El Nino.

Suzanne Bellsnyder reminds us that a state income tax is expressly forbidden by the constitution, no matter what those ads on TV say.

The Current argues that Trump's mass deportation scheme has left us a weaker nation.

Clickbait liars at the Texas Monthly vs Bo French's weaselshits and defenders

Texas media inaccuracies alert! Contra the header, and as the Monthly admits in the body of the story, no "Republicans" (as a body) have NOT NOT NOT "rebuke[d]" Bo French's racism.

More accurate? The Trib notes the awl bidness, the guys he could be regulating, have been largely silent about French's racism. 

More accurate yet? The Observer does a roundup of Rethuglicans still explicitly defending him. 

Among French’s defenders in the GOP is Matt Rinaldi, former chairman of the Texas Republican Party, who lauded French for “pushing the Overton window on immigration.” Texas state Representative Andy Hopper, who represents a North Texas district, attacked Cornyn as a “smug globalist” after the senator spoke out. State Republican Executive Committee member Rolando Garcia wrote that French’s post was not evidence of successful assimilation—the students are all wearing burnt orange and celebrating the sport of American football—but rather the problems of “mass migration” and “ethnic enclaves.” Monty Bennett, the publisher of the Dallas Express and a major Republican donor who has contributed $5,000 to French’s campaign, shared French’s post with a statement that appeared to endorse French’s assessment: “The problem is much bigger than UT. … America must prioritize Americans, always.” Brandon Hall, an elected member of the State Board of Education, wrote that he stood with French and asserted that the issue wasn’t about “skin color” but rather “preserving our Texas way of life.” And Jake Lloyd Colglazier, president of the Fort Worth Young Republicans, who was reported to have ties to white nationalists in 2022 and previously worked for a group Bennett quietly funded, wrote that French’s “perfectly reasonable post demonstrates the deleterious effect of mass immigration on our democratic system.”

And, re the Trib's "silence" of the oil and gas world, the Monthly goes on to note the silent weaselshits in the GOP. 

Instead of clearly picking a side, two of the most influential statewide Republicans also found ways to make statements without saying much about French at all. Governor Greg Abbott, who backed French’s opponent in the primary but has since endorsed him, didn’t condemn French, instead saying “that’s not my message,” calling the photo “selective,” and touting his recent freeze of H-1B visas at Texas universities. Texas Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton condemned “racism in all of its forms” without mentioning French while accusing his Senate election opponent, James Talarico, of being racially divisive.

Finally, there's past backbone, current weaselshit. 

At least once in the past, French backed down in the face of criticism over a similarly offensive post. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick demanded French resign from his role as the Tarrant County GOP chair last year after French published a poll on X asking whether Jews or Muslims were a bigger threat to America. French deleted the post and said he regretted it. (Patrick has so far remained silent on social media regarding French’s latest post.)

There you are. 

Clutching pears, without tots, at Lone Star Left

Lone Star Left, which I consider meh at best, has a callout of Republicans for calling out Bo French's racism in the past while allegedly being racist themselves. Fail on the major premise that mid-decade redistricting was prima facie racist, but not shocked by Michelle Davis making the claim. It's also funny, with a photo showing an anonymous lady clutching "pearls," for Davis' text to repeatedly say "pears." Now, Rethuglicans WILL clutch pears when offering "tots and pears" for people killed in gun violence, but that's about it.

Davis is also one of those tribalist Dems who have quit Shitter but stay on Fuckbook, Hucksterman, or whatever you want to call it. You know, like hypocritical Popehat Ken White. Of course, being on Substack would itself be hypocritical.

The decline and fall of John Whitmire

The Observer does a deep-dive takedown of Houston Mayor John Whitmire, and even more, the position in which he's in, both on the state and feds eroding more and more of Houston's strong-mayor powers, and with the city of Houston itself not what he — and maybe not just Sly Turner before him but Annise Parker before that — have claimed about it. 

Speaking of that? This pull quote:

Taken altogether, Whitmire is a nominally “strong” mayor with a relatively meager voter mandate, presiding over a once-mighty fiefdom in decline. And while Houston is no stranger to tragedy, he appears hardly able to confront the torrent of problems washing over his city. Municipal procedure here has for years been captured by the “task force” that goes nowhere, the “committee” that solves nothing. In those all-too-brief moments when the council chambers suddenly show signs of life, state Republicans are quick to intervene. How, then, did the strongest mayor in America become so weak? And even if Whitmire could get his way, what would that way look like?

Is a good summary. Read the whole thing. 

I knew Whitmire was a fair chunk of ConservaDem, but didn't know the details. 

ON the other hand? The idea that Houstonians are fleeing for the outer suburbs? Per Wiki, Houston's rate of population growth since 2020 has been faster than Phoenix, albeit slower than San Antonio. Here in Tex-ass, it's the same rate as Austin. Among major suburbs, it's faster than Plano and Houston's own Pearland and almost as fast as League City, both of which are outer suburbs if not exurbs. And, it's not losing population, unlike Sugar Land.

As with the Observer in the past, like the Monthly and the Trib, I've tagged the mag and the author on Shitter. As in the past, I expect no response, and even told Russek this.  I have created a new tag: Texas media inaccuracies.

Your latest callout of Democraps and Greens as well as Rethugs for backing Prop 4

This study from the Texas Water Journal says that on-site detailed inspection at sites in Texas shows:

[P]ermitting of surface discharges of produced water must be carefully regulated, and the downstream water quality containing signature produced water constituents must be continuously monitored.

Boom. I don't normally bold pull quotes, but this one needed it.

Continuously monitored? Yeah, sure, the Railroad Commission that can't even keep track of abandoned oil wells will do that, right? Or the Texas Water Development Board, in the middle of development? 

Here's the full abstract of the piece; the sentence bolded above is the last.

West of the 98th meridian, sufficiently treated produced water from oilfields can be legally discharged into surface water for beneficial reuse. However, its long-term impacts on the water quality of downstream waterways are poorly understood. 

In this study, we investigated the water quality evolution for segments of the receiving streams in the Nueces River watershed, namely the Lower Atascosa River and the Petronila Creek. The former site is associated with the permitted discharges from an active oil extraction operation, while the latter site represents a “legacy” site that is known to have been contaminated despite oil and gas operations being terminated in 1987. 

We analyzed datasets, including the historical water quality data from selected upstream and downstream locations relative to the discharge outfalls, to characterize the temporal and spatial trends of the key water quality parameters, including chloride and total dissolved solids. We also conducted correlation analyses between upstream and downstream water quality to describe the spatial relationship of the constituent concentrations and their association with hydrologic dilution effects. 

At both sites, the concentrations of key constituents were consistently and significantly higher than the upstream counterparts. Correlation analyses suggested the influence of additional downstream processes or inputs rather than simple longitudinal transport. Precipitation influences solute concentrations episodically, whereas the dominant drivers appear to reflect longer-term changes in solute inputs rather than hydrologic variability alone. 

While the causality of the worsening downstream water quality must be interpreted cautiously, the analyses showed a strong influence of external inputs impacting the water quality of these receiving streams. As such, permitting of surface discharges of produced water must be carefully regulated, and the downstream water quality containing signature produced water constituents must be continuously monitored.

There you are. 

This shit is why I called out the Texas Green Party's executive committee for backing Prop. 4. Texas Democrats are mainly urban and pretty clueless about agriculture in West Texas, even more, west of the 100th meridian than the 98th. I mean, even the Sierra Club, which ALSO SUPPORTED Prop. 4, admitted that the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas allows fracking wastewater, aka produced water, projects and that Prop 4 tax money would go to that. It's why I am officially no longer a Green at the state level as well as the federal.

For the unknowing, the 98th meridian is a bit west of Fort Worth and Austin, but east of San Antonio.  

Texas Progressives talk this and that

Off the Kuff interviewed four Democratic statewide candidates: Rep. Jon Rosenthal, Sen. Nathan Johnson, Clayton Tucker, and Sen. Sarah Eckhardt. (Your author wrote about Eckhardt yesterday and Tucker last week.)

SocraticGadfly, with author Jack Herrera providing his email on Twitter and asking for feedback, strongly critiqued and fact-checked Texas Monthly's piece on the Rio Grande water crisis, and got no response from Herrera — and, unsurprisingly, none from the Monthly, either. (Side note: Not for this reason, but others, no Monthly links this week; its updates since last week are meh.)

John Cornyn and a few other Republicans have condemned Bo French's latest racism. Too little, too late, especially since Strangeabbott was always in his corner and Dannie Goeb flip-flopped after he won the GOP primary for Railroad Commish.) Karl Rove said he's doing more than condemning, and voting for Democrat Joe Rosenthal.

Texas Supreme Court tosses out Galveston County's midsummer redistricting. 

US Senate Majority Leader John Thune's Super PAC is finally dropping some money for Kenny Boy Paxton.

What the Trib calls "public pressure" other people would surely call "corporate pressure" as the PUC approves yet more 765 kV power lines.  It does disclose its sponsors at the bottom, but doesn't disclose, as these lines are supposed to help the Awl Bidness, that it has pulled its punches there in the past.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project noted that Mayor Whitmire & HPD changed city policy on mandatory investigation of shootings involving federal law enforcement not long after Trump started his 2nd term. Maybe this action had a part in Whitmire saying off the bat that the city had no role in the ICE killing of Salgado.

Paradise in Hell did a yard sign survey. (Your author's note: Yard signs mean little; Beto-Bob outnumbered Havana/Cancun/Calgary Ted by about the same ratio in certain areas. Plus, per the infamous Literary Digest poll, this is nowhere near scientific. The link even admits that, then tries to deny it admitted that. I leave it in part for the possible mocking should Talafreako lose to Kenny Boy.)

Laura Rodriguez considers a lesson she learned from 9/11.

City of Yes reflected on the absence of the Twin Towers.

The TSTA Blog finds no moral imperative to send public funds to private schools.

Chris Tackett documents the polling place closures ordered by the Republicans on Tarrant County Commissioners Court.