Good on McKinney going ahead with a passenger airport terminal

I thought, after McKinney voters rejected a 2023 bond issue, this would be dead.

But, the city has enough money without going through a bond to start work on a commercial terminal, in part through state budget funding and a TxDOT grant, per this story of the airport's history. It's too bad the 2023 Lege hadn't funded this; it would already be open by now.

I'm not ignoring or dissing questions about environmental impacts.

I am saying that the greater Metromess could use a third airport. Now, what airlines are going out there? I think the FAA should put both American and Southwest at the back of the bus on gate requests. I expect UnitedContinental or whatever the hell it's called would love to fly from here to Houston and Denver, two of its hubs. 

I wrote more about that in the run-up to the 2023 bond election, here. One pullout:

Presumably, given Southwest's near monopoly at Love, and American's at D/FW, the FAA would have Delta and United Continental first in line for gate slots. With that, almost all United flights would go either to its big hub at Houston Bush, and anywhere else from there, or secondarily to its Denver hub, with anywhere in the Western states from there. (A few nonstops would go to Chicago.) Delta, of course, would send all sorts of flights to its massive hub in Atlanta (cue old joke) and probably a few to its secondary hub in Salt Lake City. Starter (in the past decade) airlines might get a gate or two. And McKinney Mayor George Fuller says he can't name names, but, the interest is there. His assistant city manager says the same. 

Cactus Ed Abbey would cringe at the DFW Metroplex

The fact that Metromess exurb Princeton is over 35,000 people shows in a nutshell all the manifold things wrong with much of modern Merikkka. Cactus Ed Abbey was 127 percent right with "growth for growth's sake is the theology of the cancer cell." 

Mushrooming suburbs are bad enough. Mushrooming exurbs are horrible.

Next comes demands for widened highways so these people can commute to Wylie, Allen, Mesquite, Rockwall or wherever they should live.

Then comes the bitching when other folks move out to exurbia after them and they find out they can't pull the ladder up behind them.

After that comes the bitching when their formerly small-town school district gets overwhelmed and needs new buildings, but Joe and Jane Exurb won't vote for a bond issue.

Next comes the cringe when the school district deteriorates because of vouchers, courtesy of the Gov. Strangeabbott and Lite Gov. Dannie Goeb they voted for.

Princeton in specific? I remember, per Wiki, when it was a wide spot in the road of 3K people. That said, it looks like the escapees aren't so White as the long-ago population.

Shit, I remember when McKinney was a small town and Melissa and Anna were wide spots in the road.

Texas progressives talk coronavirus

As I did a couple of weeks ago, because the amount of political news running up to Super Tuesday was so heavy, this corner of the Texas Progressives is splitting the weekly Roundup into two parts this week. Part 2 is here.

(Update: For the March 23 week, the same split is in effect. More coronavirus news here. And ditto for the March 30 week; COVID news here. And for April 7 week, here. Week 5 is here. Ditto for Week 6. Here's Week 7, and Week 8.)

Part 1, per the header, is obvious. We're talking what's real, what's over-reacting and what's just  plain stupid. Remember, this is coming from Tex-ass. Sadly, we gots us some Democrat Dum Fuq overreacting as a major player this week.

MAIN POINT: CDC is still, as of yesterday, at 50 on recommendation for maximum public gathering size. But Panicky Don said 10, and hence the overreaction. Plus, the CDC recommendations specifically exempted businesses. (And schools.)

1. Here, the Gadfly offered up four pieces. The first was on how the coronavirus was the biggest puncturing of the eggshell of American exceptionalism since 9/11. The second was about how the coronavirus highlighted the need for science and math literacy, and among public health experts, the need for precise and detailed communication. The third was about what he totally agreed with, partially agreed with, and more disagreed with than agreed with on sports closures. The fourth was about the ugly nationalism and PR lies emanating from Beijing.

2. One of the nuttier parts of the coronavirus panic was/is the run on toilet paper. Folks, this is a flu-like virus, not Montezuma's revenge. (Or Corona-virus, in another world, if you will.)

Besides, we don't need no steenkin toilet paper!

WHAT #toiletpapercrisis or #ToiletPaperApocalypse or #ToiletPaperEmergency?

Here in Tex-ass, I use Dan Patrick's press releases. They're pre-shitted, after all.

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

That said, Dan Patrick's paper, like Dan Patrick himself, is pretty coarse.

3. #Schadenfreude is a bitch, and sometimes a bitch-slapper. Mexico wants to close the border because of all the dirty coronavirus infected Yanqui gringos. (Guatemala has already done so.)

4. Speaking of that? John Cornyn, a month behind the curve, made a "Corona" joke that was weak a month ago and is reprehensible now.

Be smart; don’t panic. We will get us through this #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/SyvOAWXItK

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) March 14, 2020

And, even as John Cornyn's pisswater swilling ass was joking and lazing around, the latest Trump clusterfuck? Not having DFW Airport and  others of the 13 airports officially permitted to receive returning US travelers ready for the massive onslaught.

So? I kicked Cornyn's ass:

John Cornyn? .@JohnCornyn

Get off your fucking Corona-swilling ass and get your feudal master Trump to fix the real coronavirus problem at DFW Airport. https://t.co/srE6YJPHPz

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 15, 2020

5. Ted Cruz seemed better when he self-quarantined, responsibly. Unfortunately, he wingnutted from there.

6. Speaking of, if there's a Typhoid Mary in all of this, it may be Trump himself.

7. Also on the more serious side? Not panic, but yes, IMO overreaction, and from the CDC. I think its call to ban gatherings of 50 or more, and for eight weeks, is overkill. Fauci's indication that he would, beyond that, favor a 14-day national shutdown? Ridiculous. China didn't do that. But now, Dum Fuq leaders in Texas are actually doing a local version of this.

8. Gov. Strangeabbott (haven't used that one in a while) proclaimed a state-level state of emergency and talked about drive-through testing in San Antonio. Too bad he didn't mention that one wasn't open to the general public.

That said, as of now, Abbott is less panicky than Harris County and the City of Dallas, both run by Democrats.

Bullshit. Even the CDC's latest recommendation was no crowds bigger than 50. Houston and Dallas are fucking panicking.

AND ... don't even fucking go there. I'm not a Rethuglican of ANY sort.

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 17, 2020

And, I will mute or block Dems who can't read.

9. Too bad in 2015 wingnuts in the Lege killed a bill to stockpile emergency medical supplies. Also too bad that nobody brought it back in 2017 or 2019 and that Strangeabbott and Danny Goeb didn't make it a priority.

10. Speaking of wingnuts, Gohmert Pyle remains stupider than Strangeabbott on a daily basis, and on a House coronavirus bill.

11. The closure of more and more rural hospitals (including one 30 or so miles southwest of my current newspaper locale) could make treating coronavirus in Texas even harder. OTOH, in my opinion, this article is an overreaction and we're not going to have 500 cases of coronavirus in Texas counties under 30,000 and west of I-35 (that paramenter excluding most rural folks who went to the Houston Livestock Show cookoff).

12. Alex Jones is hawking nanosilver toothpaste as an alleged coronavirus fighter. NY State's AG has already filed a cease and desist order, and Missouri's AG sued Jim Bakker for similar grifting. Kenny Boy Paxton? AWOL, as usual.

13. On the more serious side? If you actually want some science? Here's how these zoonotic viruses are causing epidemics and pandemics, and why they're more likely to happen in the future. (If the link isn't loading, it's a Nautilus issue, not a bad link or your computer. The gist is population growth, increasing affluence in some parts of the developing world and ultimately, from this and more, an increasingly dense urban-wildland interface. A second Nautilus piece, near the end, also talks about disturbed ecosystems.) After reading the article? I'm surprised that something like the white nose disease among bats here in the USofA hasn't made the "necesssary" mutations to jump. Fortunately, it's fungal, not viral.

14. Terese Odell talked about the effect coronavirus was having on TV production.

15. Paradise in Hell translates Trump's coronavirus speech.

Texas Progressives tackle cheating, missing ballots and the high cost of Texas living (no really)

This outpost of Texas Progressives reminds an in-state wingnut climate denialists that weather isn't climate, that any cold blasts you feel are normal, and that none of the above refutes the fact that we had the hottest decade on global record, with eight of the 10 hottest years on record, and that last year was the second hottest year on global record. (Even nutters at the Daily Mail admit it!)

Texas sports

SocraticGadfly did a non-political double dip on Texas sports, first talking about the glories of Luka Doncic, then noting why he, along with a majority of other non-Houstonians, thinks the cheating Astros got off light.

And, while we're here, from Twitter:

So, a bunch of Texas pro football fans, knowing the Dallas Cowboys haven't been to the Super Bowl in 20 years & might not go 4 another 20, and ditto for the Houston Texans, are out of butt hurt jealousy tweeting "Dallas Texans" & "Houston Oilers"?

Got it.

Go fuck yourself. #GFY

— reallyDonaldTrump 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) January 19, 2020

Yep, that's about right. (Yes, I know some, per Brains, are trying to claim this was just a riff on the roots of the two teams in the 1962 AFL title game. Lemme see, December 1962 was FIFTY-SEVEN years ago. About 2 percent of Twitter users are old enough to have been alive, let alone old enough to remember, the original game. It's butt-hurt jealousy tweeting, no matter how much of the actual history you can present, if you didn't actually experience it.)

Cort McMurray gets to the heart of the Astros' cheating scandal.


Texas politics

C.D. Hooks talks about "schadengreg" on his refugee rejection, which has since been blocked by a federal court.

Texana

Not quite Duke of Duval County George Parr and Landslide Lyndon, but a ballot box that went missing after a November bond vote in Midland ISD finally resurfaced and has now (finally???) flipped the bond vote to "no." And, really? Midland ISD said it needed not one but TWO new high schools? Why?

Trump's lies about wanting to do something about gun control are more fully exposed now that he is allowing 3D printable gun blueprints back online.

The Observer, after a series of stories on rural hospital closures and other country health problems, asked for reader stories. They got plenty. The solution, as I've said before? A British-style National Health System.

Blacks got less favorable coverage than women from Texas newspapers over protests.


Dallas

D Magazine notes that, while Dallas County DA John Creuzot appears committed to bail reform, the reality on the ground is a hot mess. The piece is a good read about Creuzot's efforts, his department's work on the Amber Guyger case and more. Will OK Jim Schuetze be kind enough to reference that Guyger part?

And, interesting indeed, on the civil justice side. Judge Tonya Barker wants to ramp up instructing civil juries, as part of their deliberation instructions, to work to avoid implicit bias.

Bizzy week for problems in Dallas. Due to environmental concerns and other things, the Byron Nelson is leaving Trinity Forest. The course's co-owner, who got a sweetheart deal from the city to build the course, admitted it wasn't the ideal spot. Nelson ticket sales confirmed that. Of further concern is that, although the city incentives required 25 percent of rounds to be offered to the public, ie, nonmembers, that wasn't actually happening.

The Dallas Observer also notes that the city just took it in the shorts on a First Amendment case re the city's panhandling ordinance.


The Metromess and Helltown ain't cheap

When transportation sprawl, and housing and other costs relative to pay are all factored in, both Dallas and Houston are LESS affordable than New York City. For whatever reason, even though the Metromess and Houston are almost dead even on these costs, Texas Monthly writes its story on the issue only about Houston. (Unless it does the rewrite I suggested.) Related? Contra former Houston mayor Annise Parker's past bragging about how Helltown would eventually pass Chicago? The Windy City is cheaper, per the first link. And that ignores the humidity, skeeters and flooding of Houston, along with the climate change that will exacerbate all. Do we file this under "Rick Perry's Texas Miracle" or "Greg Abbott's Texas Miracle"?

The Dallas Observer DID pick up on the Dallas angle.


Houston

Off the Kuff interviewed three Democratic candidates in HD138: Akilah Bacy, Josh Wallenstein, and Jenifer Pool.

John Coby wraps up the 2019 city of Houston finance reports.

National

Brains offers a wrap on the latest Dem Debate, especially its "she said, he said."

Therese Odell revisits Impeachment Corner.

Miscellaneous

The Great God Pan Is Dead revises its Best Comics of the Decade list.

The Lunch Tray looks at a new effort to eliminate "lunch shaming".

TX Progressives look at municipal elections and more

Change came to locales across the state with municipal and school board elections, as well as a number of bond elections, last Saturday. The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes things went your way where you live while offering you this week’s roundup from members and other contributors and news sites.

That includes one unindicted soon-to-be-ex mayor leaving a Dallas suburb and also proving that John Creuzot's prosecutorial reform is in some cases misguided, overboard, or just not all it's cracked up to be.

Off the Kuff goes down the redistricting rabbit hole one more time.

Stephen Young analyzes the Dallas mayoral and city council races, and pending runoffs.

SocraticGadfly asks, in the wake of his recent arrest, is Julian Assange a journalist?

Michael Li reports from the Texas Voting Rights Act bail-in hearing.

Christopher Hooks summarizes the fight over paid sick leave in the Lege.

The Trib notes the sales tax for property tax swap appears dead.

Grits for Breakfast calls for indigent defense to be separate from the judiciary.

John Coby recaps Tony Buzbee's political history.

Christof Spieler analyzes the forthcoming Metro referendum.

The Bloggess gets better Amazon recommendations than you do.

Vince Liebowitz in his paper talks about how the LCRA is intervening in a Colorado County water pollution case.

In a twofer here, Stephen Young sniffs at former Sen. Konni Burton's "news" outlet.

I used to think state legiscritter Chris Paddie was a relatively sane conservative. His bill to charge activist environmental protestors with disrupting projects under construction — under construction, not built — is ridiculous. It’s Gohmert Pyle East Texas nutbar ridiculous.

Could the Driver Responsibility Program finally be dead? 

Jim Schutze offers his update on the Botham Jean shooting with the release of the Amber Guyger 911 call recording. 

TX Progs salute Earth Day, offer Lege updates

Texas Progressives hope you had a "good" Earth Day and are serious about doing something concrete not aspirational about it.

Here's this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff reviews some Senate election data from 2018 to make some postulates about 2020.

SocraticGadfly has a trifecta of posts about hot recent news. When the Mueller Report was released, he offered up a non-twosiderism take about what it said and what it didn't. When Beltway stenos and The Resistance refused to let go of collusion etc., he called them out in a follow-up. Earlier, after Julian Assange's arrest, he gave a non-twosiderism assessment of the history leading up to that.

And here are some posts of interest from other blogs and news sites.

The Texas Observer discusses SB 9 and other attempts to restrict Texas voting. (NPR notes that other Rethuglican-controlled state governments are considering similar laws.)

Robert Rivard bemoans the continual lack of interest in San Antonio municipal elections.

The Tribune reports on new “tent cities” about to open for detained illegal immigrants.

For better AND for worse, the Metroplex is estimated to have led the nation’s metro areas in 2018 growth.

The Trib also reports on how Plano State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican himself, is facing unspecified security threats for not letting Tony Tinderholt’s nutbar bill criminalizing all abortion to leave his committee. 

Brains updates his 2020 weekly presidential thoughts, focusing on some “downballot” Democrats.

Juanita remains the go-to source for Louie Gohmert news.

Dan Crenshaw is doing his best to catch up to Louie Gohmert, aka Gohmert Pyle, as Texas' most nutbar congresscritter.  Wardah Khalid also calls out Crenshaw's hypocrisy. More establishmentarian Rethug Roger Williams decided to throw his hat in the nutbar ring too. 

How National Dems at the DNC suck, Part 101: Lotsa "power brokers" tried to get Lil Joe Kennedy to run for Prez. 

BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Peterson gets Waco more correct than she did Beto when she talks about the rise of the cult of Chip and Joanna Gaines.  That said, she does still give them, and some aspects of Waco, a bit of a pass. She also ignores Bernard and Audre Rapoport’s history in Waco. How you can do that even while mentioning a Rapoport Academy I have no idea.

(In a Twitter exchange, to one of two separate tweets, in all fairness, Peterson said a lot of stuff ended on the cutting room floor, and it was a long read. I encouraged her to do something else, even if it doesn't fall under her "culture" gig, about the history of the Texas Observer, as few non-Texans know about it. In fairness for me, she didn't respond to the other Tweet, and she never responded to any of my Tweets last fall about her Beto Bromance, which has led to my skepticism about her writing in general.)

Should Texans vote AGAINST Prop 6?

Fellow progressive blogger Harman on Earth rounds up good reasons for clicking the "no" on Nov. 5 or in early voting.

Why?

Briefly, there's really nothing in the proposition itself to push for conservation efforts, and North Texas and the Hellhole, namely snootier DFW and Houston suburbs, aren't doing anything about it on their own, and didn't during this summer's drought. 

Here's a nugget:

The Texas Water Development Board confirmed that some households in the Fort Worth area have provided irrigation of landscaped yards through the winter months in spite of the drought. In 2011, the state’s driest year on record, much of Fort Worth’s public water, estimated 45 percent, went to landscape watering. By contrast, the City of San Antonio estimated 25 percent of public water was used for watering and landscape purposes for the same period.

The Metroplex and Greater Houston as a whole as a whole use about 40 percent more per capita than not just dryland El Paso, but also as Austin.

Harman notes there's weasel words about how the TWDB should "undertake" to fund water conservation projects, too.

So, unless the state gets power to trump municipalities in times of water crises, we don't need a bill that's going to finance pipelines to big cities and call it "water project."

I agree that the state is woefully behind on what it needs for funding water projects for a growing economy and growing 21st-century population. However, sometimes the good can be the enemy of the best, and with what were already limited strivings for more conservation work weakened further in the final version of the legislation that put this issue on the ballot, I wouldn't object in any way if others voted "no," even if that would lead to tea party folks' crowing.

Metroplex could get ratings downgrade

The AP notes that a federal debt default won't affect the state of Texas, but that Dallas and Tarrant counties could see their financial ratings downgraded.

Dallas PD pencil-whips tickets in own favor

Imagine getting a traffic ticket for one violation, then getting a demand letter with additional citations and fines. In Dallas, you don’t have to imagine .

As the ACLU of Texas notes in the story, this sounds like a pretty clear-cut Sixth Amendment violation, preventing people from knowing charges against them. And, since the Supreme Court has said police departments can arrest you for moving violations such as seat belt offenses, this qualifies as “charges.”

The practice would also appear to be illegal, tampering with a government document.

Questions abound.
• How common is this?
• Does Dallas PD’s internal affairs division have an effective way to monitor this? The manpower to do so? The willpower to do so?
• Why has no cop ever been fired over this? How is this different from writing blank tickets?
• Will Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins consider filing criminal charges?

Answers:
• It’s hard to detect, so who knows?
• On the first question no, and the second, probably no. The third, definitely no, if it’s just sending out a memo about the issue, and not even considering the idea this is unconstitutional and illegal.
• Given that Dallas officers have been fired for writing blank tickets and filling in all charges later, a “charge add-on” ticket seems no worse. Chief David Kunkle needs to get a grop.
• Unknown and unlikely — if Kunkle acts.

Other questions:
• How common is this elsewhere in the Metroplex? Texas? The nation?
• What preventative measures do other police departments have?

Housing rebound still a long ways off

Local economists agree with city of Cedar Hill Finance Director Hardy Browder — housing market recovery here in the Dallas-Fort Worth is a ways off.

How far off? Economists and housing industry leaders meeting in Dallas said very late 2008 or 2009 before the housing market begins to recover.

“I think we are at the bottom but I think the bottom is very rocky and long,” said Robert McLeod, chairman of San Diego-based Newland Communities, which has several housing community projects in Texas. “It’s not going to feel very good until about the third quarter of 2009,” McLeod told members of the Urban Land Institute on Friday. The international real estate

Nationally, with about $680 billion in ARMs due to reset this year, Texas A&M economist Jim Gaines said recovery might not start until 2010.