Texas progressives look toward election day

Off the Kuff rounded up all his interviews and Q&As for the primary cycle, including the late-breaking interview with Rep. Sylvia Garcia in CD29.

SocraticGadfly had a Texas environmental news roundup.

Texas could be the country's largest data center state by 2030. Have fun with all that Proposition 4 water supply that's supposed to flow in abundance.

A federal judge gave student sexual orientation clubs in Houston, Katy and Plano ISDs legal protection, at least for now.

J.W. Wingate broke the color line in minor-league baseball in Texas. Texas Monthly takes a deep dive. Showing how pervasive the reach of minor-league baseball was back then? He played for a team in Lamesa.

Colt McCoy, Strangeabbott's new flunky on the Higher Education Coordinating Board, talked out of his "I'm not up to speed yet ass" about DEI and other things. Michael Hardy could have pushed him more. 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project posted about upcoming protest in Conroe regarding conditions at Texas ICE detention concentration camps, and of course ignores Leqaa Kordia. A local activist group & Harris County Democratic Club are co-organizers. Each day people realize while voting is essential, it won't be enough.

The Texas Signal shows how Austin is fighting homelessness with tiny houses.

The Barbed Wire provided a detailed Ken Paxton scandal timeline.

The Dallas Observer examines the North Texas World Cup host committee's draft plan for human rights issues.

Texas Public Opinion Research investigates the real ideological landscape of the Texas Democratic Senate primary.

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

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

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

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

Indeed. 

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

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

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

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

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

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