Texas education: Looking at Bibles, books and more

The Texas Education Agency's offer to bribe local school districts to use "Bible-infused" curriculum is troubling indeed. And, it is surely unconstitutional. The bribery part makes clear this is the promotion of religion. And, the means by which it was done is one of Strangeabbott's most vile acts in his gubernatorial tenure, using a recess appointment to the State Board of Education.

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That said, the recess appointment vote was unnecessary for the SBOE to say it wants more control over local school district libraries. The hypocrisy of another tenet of modern conservativism is pretty glaring.

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Strangeabbott has said he will keep in place for another two years a tuition freeze at state universities. Places like Texas Woman's University, especially if they're not "flagships" like the Tea-Sippers or the Aggies having faced the state making up a smaller portion of their budget for several years, wonder if Strange is going to get the Lege to offer them more aid, and if not, where do they cut?

That’s because they have smaller budgets and endowments, fewer research grants and fewer deep-pocketed donors to make massive gifts. Faculty and higher education experts say they’re worried the state won’t step up to make up the difference.

There you are.

For details? Austin gets just 18 percent of its budget from the state. UNT, up here, it's 40 percent or more. Satellite schools like UT-Arlington, it's at least that high.

That said, the UT System is expanding the cutoff on its free tuition program to up to $100,000.

Texas Progressives approach the holidays

Even as news slows with the approach to Christmas, we've got the post-Brexit "walkaway" between the UK and EU about to collapse, actual bits of common sense from Republican politicos in Texas, lies by alleged environmentalists and more.

Let's dig in.

State

Who kidnapped the SBOE and replaced half of its members brains with working models? The State Board of Education is now calling for abstinence-plus rather that abstinence-only sex ed at the middle school level.

Solar energy is growing in the state. So is disinformation about it. The real issue is that, without a state income tax to allow state deductions, and without a clear feed-in tariff to allow surplus solar to be sold back to utilities, there's little incentive for homeowner rooftop solar. That said, it's "interesting" that this bullshit is spread by the likes of alleged environmentalist Michael Shellenberger, per links within the story. (I told the Observer that it was good, but needed to cover things like the feed-in tariff.)

Off the Kuff analyzed the Presidential vote in Congressional and State Rep districts in Harris County.

The 19th interviews Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo about COVID, racial justice, and more.  

Steve Vladeck gave a simple explanation of the Ken Paxton overturn-the-election lawsuit, then explained the SCOTUS order.  

Grits for Breakfast lists the top ten Texas criminal justice stories of the year.  

Christopher Hooks attempts to explain Ken Paxton to a new audience.  

Paradise in Hell sides with HEB against anti-maskers.  

Elise Hu listened to 252 TED talks so you don't have to.

National

I gave a spanking to The Resistance over its knickers-knotting over Joe Epstein's "drop the Dr" column to Jill Biden.

Matt Taibbi almost made it to half right in his most recent Substack. I have receipts. 

Wild Earth Guardians et al are again suing US Fish and Wildlife for failure to do its job on wolverine protection.

World

Is Boris Johnson's Britain doomed to decline? That's assuming the EU continues to call his bluffs, even though some EU negotiators say there's still time for some sort of deal. As for people who said last week, "but Boris didn't walk away," that's small potatoes. He's still trying to bluff his way through because he's known all along that "walk away" isn't a good option. Scotland's devolved government doesn't like the Dec. 31 deadline for a post-Brexit deal falling in the middle of a pandemic, among Dec. 12 updates from the Beeb.

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi has reportedly resigned from the PLO Executive Committee, allegedly because the Palestinian Authority is resuming security patrol cooperation with Bibi's Israel. She also called for reforms within the PLO.

"Wrestling with Zionism," as reviewed at Mondoweiss, might fit on an informed world citizen's holiday reading list. It looks good.

Move over (PLEASE), Elon Musk. A former top assistant of his, after a failed previous try at an electric car, is back, and Henrik Fisker looks poised for success. The fact that Musk (unsuccessfully, natch) sued Fisker for breach of contract would make this success all the more sweet.

Texas runoff elections recap

Not much to add to what Brains had to say, but I'll do a few notes.

First, living in SBOE District 9, it was gratifying to see gay prostitute monger Mary Lou Bruner go down to defeat in the GOP runoff. I think her appearance on WFAA's talking heads last Sunday killed her. Bud Kennedy wasn't harshly confrontational, but he and his cohost strongly grilled her, her conspiracy theories, and the conspiracy theory-driven lies she and her campaign spread about opponent Keven Ellis' campaign. Her staff probably told her, or she told herself, she couldn't afford to duck the appearance once the offer was made to both, but she probably should have. Ellis got a lot of exposure, and her nuttery (collected at this spot) got just as much.

Second, to snark ... if religious conservative Wayne Christian is the GOP nominee for the RRC, then shouldn't he want to clean up the messes by Big Oil? After all, oil spills and fracking waste are both noxious enough they can cause spontaneous abortions, I'm sure, and abortion is right up his alley.

To be more serious, the win of Grady Yarbrough on the Democratic runoff for RRC underscores another point.

The Railroad Commission, along with Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, is one of two MUST-FOCUS races for the Texas Green Party to hit the 5 percent threshold and maintain party-line ballot access in 2018. Yarbrough is a doob.

Unfortunately, as of this time, all Green candidate Martina Salinas has is a Facebook page with no updates in more than three months, and no website.

(The other is Place 5 for the Court of Criminal Appeals. Judith Sanders-Castro is the Green nominee. As I blogged during primary filings, Betsy Johnson appears to have been a last-minute Dem recruit with a mix of just wanting to fill out the Dem slate and perhaps wanting to cockblock Greens. Given what I read about Gilberto Hinojosa, no surprise. That said, I can't find even a Facebook page for her.)

A basic, Wordpress-driven website costs what, $39 a month to host with GoDaddy or something? A professional, but part-time, web/IT person, for a third-party candidate on a quasi-volunteer basis, shouldn't cost more than $100 a month right now, maybe $100 a week after Labor Day.

So, Salinas, and Sanders-Castro, it's time to up the ante. And, I've Tweeted Texas Greens already to pass this along.

Texas GOP voters: You reap what you sow

Texas Supreme Court
Justice Don Willett

For the first time ever, in the two-decade-plus history of multiple school financing lawsuits against the state of Texas, the state won on Friday. The full opinion is here.

And hence, the headline of the post. It's like "What's the Matter with Kansas," only more so.

Yes, the Texas Supreme Court's been all-GOP for some time, but it has shifted steadily further right. And steadily backward.

Sounding like something from the pre-Brown v Board of Education era, straight out of Plessy v Ferguson, Justice Don Willett, who wrote the opinion (there were two concurrences) said that money doesn't equate to educational quality.

Really? Then why do urban parents move to richer suburbs, from either the central city or poorer suburbs? Part of it is racial, but part is financial.

That said, out in small towns and rural areas, there's no rich suburbs where to move. But, people continue to vote against their own self-interest.

I'm in a part of the state where one of the two State Board of Education candidates believes President Obama used to be a gay prostitute, and stuff arguably even weirder. How does electing a candidate like that help rural schools get more money from the state?

It doesn't.

Worse yet, Bruner used to be a kindergarten teacher herself.

And, contra Cherokee County GOP Chairwoman Tammy Blair, Bruner is NOT "a nice older lady." Bigotry normally has hatred behind it. Her comments appear to reflect racism that she's projected back onto Obama (East Texas, especially Deep East Texas, still has plenty of that), gay-bashing, and more. There's nothing nice about that.

And, contra her opponent in the runoff, Keven Ellis, sorry, but for many people, thoughts like hers ARE conservative, and ARE Christian.

That said, there's no guarantee Ellis will be that much more enlightened, should he win the GOP runoff, and presumably, the general election.

And, it's the Texas Lege, not the SBOE, who make the funding decisions. And, so far, my Republican state rep and Republican state senator are both practicing duck and cover politics on this issue. And, that's with my state senator not up for election this cycle and my state rep facing no general election race.

Per the header, I feel sorry for Texas children in central cities, poorer first-ring suburbs, and small towns and the country.

Do I feel sorry for their parents, though?

If they voted Republican, not really.

Their own scriptures tell them that, in the old KJV: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," or in modern English: "As a man sows, so shall he reap."

Yes, the state Supremes, as well as the Texas Lege and the statewide executive offices, have been all-GOP for more than a decade. But, their holders, and their party, have drifted barreled hard farther right in the past half-dozen years or so.

I mean, former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson was a plaintiffs' lawyer! The court rejected a man formerly one of its own, who was part of the 2005 school finance ruling that said, yes, Texas did have a de facto statewide property tax.

UPDATE, May 18: The surest sign yet this ruling was fucked up is that Justice Willett is on Trump's SCOTUS short list.

If you think the Texas SBOE is bad ...

A losing candidate can be even worse.

Perry names Lowe to chair SBOE; afraid of Kay?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry named Gail Lowe, publisher of the Lampasas Dispatch Record, to chair the State Board of Education. It’s better than Cynthia Dunbar, at least. A semi-chastized Rick Perry? Playing to more moderate Republicans because of Kay Bailey Cheerleader fears?

Of course, Lowe is not that much better than Dunbar, and her more easygoing personality and modicum of flexibility may lull some people to sleep as to just how ardent she is on not just creationism, but per the KERA link above, other education issues, too.

For example, she’s been right there with other board righties in trying to keep Cesar Chavez out of textbooks. And even Thurgood Marshall.

Science in public schools gets a reprieve in Texas

A split vote by the State Board of Education keeps the creationist/IDer camel’s nose of evolution’s “strengths and weaknesses” out of classrooms. My SBOE rep, Mavis Knight, recovering from surgery, cast her vote the right way, by video.

‘Strengths and weaknesses’ next ID and creationism in Texas

And, the latest spinmeistering battleground for how to indoctrinate school students into religion masquerading as science is right here in Texas.

As the story points out, the big question is who gets to define “weaknesses”?

Take, for example, intermediary forms on the evolution from australopithecines to homo sapiens, or “missing links.”

Any time a new intermediary form is discovered, creationists/IDers/strength-and-weakness types claim, “that means you now have two missing links.” (You have to fill in each and every “gap” after all.)

And, with ardent IDers having seven of 15 votes on the State Board of Education, the battle is getting tense.

That begins with the lies, self-delusions or both of the chairman of the SBOE, Dr. Don McLeroy:

McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. “I believe a lot of incredible things,” he said, “The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.”

But Dr. McLeroy says his rejection of evolution — “I just don’t think it’s true or it’s ever happened” — is not based on religious grounds. Courts have clearly ruled that teachings of faith are not allowed in a science classroom, but when he considers the case for evolution, Dr. McLeroy said, “it’s just not there.”

Well, to riff the famous science line, “you’re so incorrect you’re not even wrong.”

So, too is the Strengths and Weaknesses website.