Texas Progressives talk back alleys and neolib Dems

The back alleys have arrived, with a Texas woman in the Valley, Lizelle Herrera, charged with murder after a self-induced abortion. And, since then, Starr County DA Gocha Allen Ramirez has said the charges will be dropped. How much role did public pressure play? And, why did the sheriff's office get an indictment in the first place, and why aren't they talking now?

I thought we cared about Ukrainians? Guess not, as Biden's CBP looks as hard-assed as Trump's, on at least one Ukrainian minor refugee.

In which Ruy Teixeira shows his national neoliberal Dem colors. Of course, when you name your Substack "The Liberal Patriot," you've already done that. Cue Samuel Johnson's bon mot.

SocraticGadfly takes note of the new IPCC climate CRISIS report, which basically says we're up shit creek and doubts either major party will take the actions needed to address this as a crisis. 

Off the Kuff notes that the state of Texas is seeking to do violence to the Voting Rights Act as it defends itself against multiple redistricting lawsuits.

Blame Strangeabbott, in part, for the supply chain delays with his latest border antics. That's on top of his most recent previous border antics, which, parallel to his early COVID days order, fall apart upon reading the fine print.

And, will Strangeabbott do anything for Melissa Lucio?

The Monthly has an update on the rehab/overhaul of the Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells. Why can't somebody do similar to the Falls Hotel (No. 8, by age, on the list of Hiltons, and also home of hot springs) in Marlin?

A border county is getting tired of wingnut militia that is led by a Pizzagater. The "tiredness," though, isn't due to local wingnuts thinking the militia is too wingnut; instead, it's all about the grifting. Isn't it always?

Legal pot was supposed to empower Black entrepreneurs. It still hasn't. Not all of the reasons why are explicitly, or even implicitly, race-based, but many are.

Texas 2036 announces the results of its poll about younger Texans' preference for electric vehicles.

The San Antonio Report reports on the city's settlement of two "sanctuary cities" lawsuits filed by Ken Paxton.

The Texas Signal highlights Dan Patrick's obsession with Florida's heinous "Don't Say Gay" law.

Teddy Wilson explains how much worse it can get after Roe v Wade is overturned.

Texas progressives look at COVID-related, other hypocrisy

As hinted at several times, after "Lucky 13" last week, we've ended separate breakouts for coronavirus news at this corner of Texas Progressives. Per Yascha Mounk, let's hope we can continue that not only through the summer but through the fall. I'm not as pessimistic as him, but I'm not "optimistic," either. Nor, via a piece at Massimo Pigliucci's latest readings, do I care for the use of the "war" metaphor. (Mounk, a Cold War 2.0 guy, likely loves such metaphors.)

That all said, for the second week in a row though, I DO have a separate breakout on police racism, brutality and related issues. It's coming up on Thursday.

With that, let's dig in.


Texas coronavirus

Texas Monthly notes that Gov. Strangeabbott et al have shifted to a "it's your responsibility" plan for "fighting" COVID. And? Isn't that what, on paper, Texas Republican voters have voted for? Of course, blue-ish urban areas have the higher population densities. If they act on their own, how short of a leash will Strangeabbott try to put them on? VERY short, and he's not up for re-election. How would this affect, say, state Lege races?

COVID testing? The Guard helped. Results of said tests? Still AWOL for many for several days.

And yes, cases are continuing to climb.

Space City Weather revisits the question of COVID-19 and the Texas weather.

Texas politics

TM notes Strangeabbott is a hypocrite (in multiple ways, not all enumerated there) for calling on county GOP chairs to resign over racism. Reality? Behind closed doors, Abbott thinks the state GOP stables aren't that Augean.

The Monthly suggests renaming Fort Hood for Roy Benavidez. How about defunding it?

The House District 24 Dem runoff is getting nasty. Olsen's a sort of ConservaDem and vet; that said, Valenzuela is trying to score cheap points off her comments, and I get what Olsen was saying.

Steve Toth makes it into "The Encyclopedia of American Loons."


National

It's official. We're in a recession. Here in Tex-ass, Comptroller Glenn "We're not an oil economy" Hegar's office used the R-word at the start of the month.

Punch Trump in the face enough, metaphorically, and he caves in. He's now admitted he could lose, and if he does, he'll move on, not barricade himself in the White House.

In a surprisingly insightful piece, given its last two or three years of history, High Country News notes that Democrats as well as Republicans like border walls in some way, shape or form.

David Bruce Collins looks at this year's Green Party platform amendment proposals. (The social justice chapter is especially good. That said, I'm with him on cops carrying liability insurance; it would feed the I part of the FIRE maw and might be prohibitively expensive for small governments.)

COVID

A philosopher of science has a great piece on viral virulence evolution in general, and specific information on what we know to date on COVID evolution, and philosophy of science issues behind that.

Fired Florida data scientist starts her own data website. Meanwhile, Florida cases continue to rise even as the GOP moves its convention to Jacksonville to meet in person.

Global

Despite the pandemic being, on paper, a big boost for Amazon, what if people want to shop online, but LIVE and with video assistance? Amazon could get undermined — even though, per the story, it's tried that on a minimalist scale before.

Build the "wall" — out of fiber optic cable?

Business Insider reports on this intriguing option.

First, it works, and was already tested and proven to work a decade ago.

And, contra kneejerk responses by MAGA-heads it worked well enough already back then to tell the difference between weights of people and between individuals and groups.

Indeed, even the Border Patrol is down with it. Well, people on the line are:

"We have a tactical advantage of being able to classify a report, a sensor hit, whatever indication we have of possible illegal activity along the border," Stephen Spencer, an assistant chief patrol agent in Tucson, told the agency in a press release posted Thursday. 

He continued: "It might take 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get to point of that indication. The benefits [of the new technologies] are a rapid response to make the judgment call whether that is something we need to assign assets to look at. If I spend an hour and a half walking to discover a goat tripped a device, I've just wasted three hours of my patrol time."

Customs and Border Protection refused to respond for comment.

Here in Tex-ass, the not-totally wingnut Rep. Will Hurd is down with it. Of course, the biggie is Senate Republicans.

More from Hurd here, in part echoing Spencer

"A physical barrier in some places does make sense, when there's urban-to-urban contact," he said. "But it's not along all 2,000 miles of the border, and there's probably only a handful of miles where something like that is needed." 

The main problem with a physical wall, he said, was that Border Patrol's response time can take between hours and days in remote areas, rendering a wall effectively useless. 

"You need something that can detect a threat and track that threat until you're able to deploy your most important resource — the men and women of Border Patrol — to do that interdiction," he said.

Bingo. As opposed to this stupidity I got on Twitter:

Ye,s and add speakers to tell them to stop since the nearest available Border Patrol is 200 miles away. https://t.co/Oie6IzfvQy

— scott (@mhscott16) February 7, 2019

And, of course, Spencer and Hurd directly refudiate this guy.

So do other news stories, which show immigrants climbing Trump's precious wall with ladders, mayors of border cities saying a wall isn't needed and more.

Don’t take your Dell to town

Or at least, if it’s a laptop don’t take it on an overseas flight, because you could literally never get it back.

Per newly-announced policies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement claim they can take a computer they seize at an airport check to an off-site location and hold it for an unspecified period of time. They also claim the right to share its files with other government agencies or even private entities as needed.

And, this can happen “absent individual suspicion.”