Snowmaggedon and slavery

Well, Snowmaggedon 2026 did not pan out. At least not as snow.

SLEETmageddon? Different story.

I’m kind of disappointed in some ways, actually.

Wouldn’t it have been interesting, just a year after we equalled or slightly surpassed the old one-day snowfall record for any date, to shatter it by 3 or 4 inches?

Of course, that combined with the coldest temperatures since Winter Storm Uri five years ago, would have led to other “interesting” things.

First would have been, would the Texas electric grid hold up this time?

Second would have been, who would Dan Patrick blame this time if it didn’t?

Third would have been, would the Texas Department of Transportation been broken instead of the electric grid ant the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, aka ERCOT?

I’m not throwing any shade at TxDOT plows or salt, sand and brine trucks. But, if we had gotten the early forecast worst-case scenario of 5 inches of snow on Friday followed by a foot on Saturday, there’s no way they could have fully kept up, as I see it.

So, WHY did we not get a foot of snow?

I think the answer is probably primarily due to one reason, the same reason the local County Commissioners Court declared a burn ban Jan. 12.

It’s too dry.

That breakthrough of the “polar vortex” was certainly strong enough, looking at how cold it got.

But in front of it, on the ground here in north Texas, and weather patterns from further south? There just wasn’t the ready moisture available to generate that much precipitation.

So, why did the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it’s subagency of the National Weather Service, and private forecasters like the Weather Channel or Weather Underground, not get it right earlier? (There’s big bucks in private forecasting, by the way. Weather Underground used to be owned by IBM; both companies are now owned by the same vulture capitalist private equity firm.)

I mean, this is not Troy Dungan and David Finfrock of long-ago Metromess TV news, dueling over weather porn and eyeballs.

I was worried, though.

And, I thought I would keep myself stocked up on food the easy way.

So, I figured I would pre-order a Domino’s pizza delivery for once every 4 hours during waking hours, from Friday evening through Sunday morning.

And, to make sure it would get delivered, I figured I would also pre-purchase a Domino’s delivery driver at a Uber slave market or something.

Wait, what? You can’t say that, can you?

Having just read a book of essays by the dean of Reconstruction historians, Eric Foner, yeah, my mind wandered a bit.

But, just think.

TxDOT could have plantation labor running the snowplows, maybe in conjunction with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice sending out convict labor. TxDOT wouldn’t “break” at all.
(I hear nervous laughter somewhere in the background.) The only thing that might upset this is small-government plantation owners not wanting their state governments to own slaves.

Picture Uber drivers, or food delivery drivers in general, at a slave labor pen next to fast food restaurants all in a cluster. Like next door to one another in Charleston, South Carolina. Or next door to one another just off the Mall and just down the road from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

(I hear more nervous laughter.)

OK, I will stop going down the road of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.”

But, there is a reason I did that abrupt switch.

Martin Luther King Day was earlier this month, in the middle of Black History Month. Too often, in my book, he gets too sanitized, including one famous phrase quoted out of context of the rest of the “I Have a Dream” speech. (At least the speech hasn’t been totally eviscerated by some “teach the opposing viewpoint” idea, like Carroll ISD and the Holocaust a few years ago, which was even before the most recent changes in Texas education guidelines.)

Let’s not yet turn away from this issue.

In the 1850s, many northern Democrats, trying to split the difference on slavery, supported the idea of popular sovreignty, or settlers in organized federal territories choosing on their own whether to be free territories, or slave territory, before statehood.

People like Stephen A. Douglas reassured people in Illinois that the west was way too dry to support plantation slavery.

Either a silly man or a lucky man was he.

After the canals started being built in Southern California, then after people started cheating on maximum farm size allowed by the Bureau of Reclamation, then cheating again after the law was loosened up, the hue and cry for foreign agricultural workers started.

It was the likes of Japanese and Filipinos at first. Then Mexicans, later augmented by other Hispanics from yet further south.

What if slavery were still around?

Don’t you think that many California corporate farmers would push for a change in the state’s “free-soil” status?

 

Texas Progressives talk this and that

Former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus publicly confirmed the long-rumored last week: Christofascist Tim Dunn indeed did make antisemitic (being directed to the Jewish Straus) and more broadly Christian nationalist comments about government leaders needing to be Christian. Effect it will have on today's Texas GOP? Near zero.

Operation Lone Star has officially backfired with the arrest of a Texas National Guardsman for smuggling. I'm surprised this hasn't happened before, while adding that maybe it has happened and this is just the first time somebody's been caught.

SocraticGadfly, riffing on The Nation, has some critical thoughts about Richard Linklater and Lawrence Wright as squishes, based on Wright's HBO series.

Ball-less Texas House Rethuglicans, vis-a-vis the Smokehouse Fire, apparently don't believe in subpoeanas. (I assume the hearing was being conducted under auspices of the Texas House and thus had subpoena power.)

Off the Kuff sighs and reviews one more whiny sore loser election lawsuit in Harris County.

John Devine: the Clarence Thomas of the Texas Supreme Court. 

Interesting piece on school districts in or near the path of eclipse totality deciding whether or not to cut classes that day. Also interesting is the idea that Kerrville is "tiny." At 25,000, it most certainly is not. A. It's not. B. This is not the first time I've seen this type of rural-urban divide bullshit from the Trib.

Two Denton ISD principals indicted for electioneering. I hope a plea deal means no jail time, but contra the Texas chapter of American Federation of Teachers, they WERE electioneering with school district email. Pure and simple.

TxDOT is a bunch of thugs about I-45 in Houston. (That said, it's my experience that in other states, traffic engineers in general have an arrogant "we know best" attitude.)

Meet the Democrats for Ted Cruz phenomenon.

Why is the Texas Public Policy Foundation getting a tax break not really meant for it and why is weaselshit Comptroller Glenn Hegar not being more forthcoming?

The Fifth Circuit has, very interestingly, sided WITH a state prison inmate who sued TDCJ, stating that 3.5 hours of sleep a night was cruel and unusual punishment. Weirdly and sadly, multiple times in this ruling process, the appellate court has had to override federal district courts who "aren't getting the memo."

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said vote in the HCAD races & demand local elected Democrats, including Dem. Houston City Councilmembers, be part of the fight. 

The Austin Chronicle reports on the change of leadership at Ground Game Texas. 

Adrian Rocha argues that President Biden should pardon all undocumented immigrants who have been arrested on marijuana possession charges.  

The Eyewall summarizes the latest 2024 hurricane season forecast.

 

Texas Progressives talk constitutional amendments, more

Off the Kuff brings you a look at the Constitutional amendments on the ballot, including the one you should definitely vote against. 

SocraticGadfly calls Dan Patrick's bluff on impeachment-related constitutional amendments, and also offers his take on the amendments actually on the ballot. 

Stace has a few thoughts about the border, COVID, and the losing loser on another edition of Thoughts on Viernes.

RFK Jr. is flirting with the Libertarian Party. And, Rasmussen is polling him as an independent/third party candidate and the numbers say "Drop Out Joe."

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project noted that HISD Board of Managers' member Janette Lindner favors some State of Texas takeovers, while opposing others, Mike Miles begs for five years at Houston ISD.

Sarah Stogner is running for the RRC again — but on the Forward Party banner. (Independent Political Report promises an interview.)

The Texas Observer considers the plight of firefighters in a record-breaking hot summer. 

The Observer has an update, a first-person personal profile piece from Kathleen McElroy.

How hot is it? Ridiculously hot in an un-airconditioned Texas prison at night in a summer like 2023; the Observer got inmates to speak.

So, Jeff St. Clair won't run my Ed Abbey snark but will run this ... mildly amusing piece which has nothing to do with the US, or politics?

In the Pink Texas looks at the impeachment debacle through an adultery lens.

Will the AfD, through its surge, and the Greens and Social Democrats both shooting themselves in the foot, force itself into parliamentary acceptability in Germany? The Greens, after all, were once rejects.

Texas Progressives jump into the middle of summer

A state district judge has ordered DPS to release Uvalde shooting records. While DPS head and Strangeabbott flunky Steve McCraw didn't comment, contra the mush of the spox that did, this will surely be appealed. It is a good ruling and let's hope it stands on appeal.

Off the Kuff looked at the new laws that are likely to result in lawsuits over various constitutional issues.

SocraticGadfly took a look at the escalating dust-up at TSHA.

Politico gives a long profile of Democratic state legiscritter James Talarico, including the buzz that he's likely to run against Strangeabbott in 2026 AND the scuttlebutt that he had considered taking on Havana Ted next year but decided not to when Colin Allred jumped in.

The Texas Supremes said Greg Abbott's blocking of local COVID masking regs was constitutional. And, of course, this gives ammo to today's Lege continuing to erode local control.

The Trib wonders if, in the wake of the national Supremes gutting affirmative action as part of college admissions, if other states will adopt some version of Texas' Top 10 percent plan. The Trib ignores that his applies to public universities in Texas only, and that, in general, public universities don't have class-based and luck-birth-based legacy admissions. It also admits that Top 10 is itself only a partial, and only a modest, semi-solution.

The Monthly remembers John Goodenough, who, if he did not "perfect" the lithium ion battery, certainly made it good enough to kick off today's electronics world, and above all, hybrid and electric cars, as well as consumer electronics.

Meet the Bushman of the Riverwalk.

What's worse than ROTC or active-duty military recruiting captive kids on on high school campuses? TDCJ doing the same, whoring for prison guards.

Brandon Rottinghaus collects a list of issues the next Mayor of Houston will be facing.

One urban demographics and economy site ranks Dallas 53rd most expensive city in the world. Believable, indeed, with soaring housing prices, the Lege's electric surcharges + disconnected grid, swinging temps to drive electric use, and more.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted the Project's weekly report on the pre-trial hearings for the horse hockey Harris County Republican election-denial lawsuits. 

The San Antonio Report reports on the initial construction of a new and long-envisioned bus rapid transit system in that city. 

Michael King ponders the "bookends" of the 88th Legislative session, Bryan Slaton and Ken Paxton. 

Charlotte Clymer catalogs Lance Armstrong's many transgressions.

Independent Political Report is often good, though its third-party reporting is massively Libertarian. That said, George Phillies appears to have jumped into the deep end of an empty pool with his recent First Amendment fear-mongering.

Corey Robin claims 303 Creative was NOT about religion. Oh, in a technical sense, he's right. The plaintiff (besides having a fake basis for the suit) cited Freeze Peach, but it was ultimately free speech in the service of religious issues. Wiki gets that right, Corey.

Smoke on the US East Coast from Canadian wildfires, mainly in Quebec, will probably last until the end of summer.

Reason 1,074 I'm not a Dem/am not voting for Joe Biden? Warmonger Joe wants to name convicted felon and Henry Kissinger Jr. level neocon Elliott Abrams to an inside-baseball diplomacy committee.

Thomas Knapp, who has left me semi-hot and definitely cold in the past, is running for prez as an "independent." Unless he's repudiated his Boston Tea Party Veep run, what he's really running as in as a Ron Paul-tard. Beyond being an idiot on "fiat money," by being radically anti-abortion and other things, Paul was and is not an actual L/libertarian. And, per the announcment, Knapp also worked for the campaign of the late, not-so-great, drive without a license Michael Badnarik.

Texas progressives kick Royce West, Eddie Lucio, Goeb, Abbott

The Texas Progressives wishes blowhard Donald Trump would follow blowhard Hurricane Dorian and Sharpie himself out to sea. Short of that, we wish short-term forecast meteorologists would stop the reverse weather porn of forecasting seasonal, or even slightly below average temps, for the Pointy Abandoned Object State™. Until then, here's your roundup for the week.


Texas politics

The Trib bemoans the potential effect the end of straight-ticket voting could have on downballot races while, in a matter of framing, ignoring the boost it could have for third-party ballot access maintenance in downballot statewide races. #Fify, Trib.

Off the Kuff discusses some strategies for dealing with the latest voting restriction ploys.

The Observer looks at ConservaDem Eddie Lucio getting not just one but two primary challengers. Gus Bova notes that Lucio has consistently "punched down" on a lot of people in his 30 years under the Pink Dome. Many Hispanics as well as Anglos in his district hate him. Question is: Are there enough of them — and will enough of them turn out — to unseat him? Now, if only some Dems in Houston would do the same to the Texas Senate's No. 2 ConservaDem, John Whitmire.

Also at the Observer, Christopher Collins talks about homeless NIMBYism. (Of course, homelessness has more than two sides on its causes as well as its solutions. And, there's bits of NIMBYism in all of that.)

Federal judge Keith Ellison is threatening to lock up some TDCJ folks if they don't stop the cruel and inhumane sweatboxes without air conditioning in Texas prisons.

Danny Goeb, our Lite Guv, after the Odessa shooting, backed some mostly cosmetic changes, but did include closing the "stranger to stranger" gun sales loophole, and the NRA (Nazi Redneck Assholes) is so wingnut it's even sniping at him.

Austin's ABC station collected the emails that pissed-off people flamed Greg Abbott with after the El Paso mass shooting.

Dan Solomon doesn't see much value in "expedited executions" for mass shooters.

Guest columning at the NYT, Chris Hooks offers his explanation for the so-called Texodus.

Better Texas Blog worries about lower Medicaid and CHIP enrollment numbers.


Texas politics, US Senate race

Dems seeking to replace John Cornyn debated in Frisco recently. Gunz was the big issue; most candidates said they support some sort of buyback program. (I'll have a "roundup" piece coming soon.)

Yours truly saw the Texas Trib's piece on Royce West's federal financial disclosure forms, and knocked out an update to his old "baggage" pieces about Royce.

Dallas

Jim Schutze writes about how Eddie Bernice Johnson is apparently ready to sell out South Dallas. (If she's involved, surely Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price, is getting a cut somewhere, somehow.) Schutze also says Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson's real conflicts of interest are far greater than his on-paper ones. And, for the trifecta (including the third time he's done this) Schutze continues his "interesting" or weird Amber Guyger bromance.


Houston

Gwendoline Wu presents ten apps to improve your Houston living experience.

Texana

The latest Permian oil boom is sending the Pecos cantaloupe (they're grown on both sides of the state line, at least a few) to the graveyard.

The Current reviews a new animated series set in San Antonio.

The TPA wishes The Bloggess good luck with her planned bookstore.

National politics

SocraticGadfly took an initial look at Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins and his intra-Greens controversial statements on Russiagate shortly before his visit to Texas. (A follow-up post is coming, about his Dallas stop.)

Columbia Journalism Review, with input from climate journalists, says that the CNN climate town hall was better than many expected. Well, within Democrats, it did.


Other national

Urban Edge examines the connection between wealth and tree distribution in American cities.

Cell phones in prison a growing problem

Since I first blogged about this issue back in 2007, it seems like the problem is only becoming more serious.

As the new story notes, California state penal officials confiscated more than 2,800 cell phones last year, double that of 2007. Texas could confiscate nearly 1,500 this year.

Why? Federal law prohibits jamming cell phones, though Congress is considering new legislation on that, targeted at prisons. As for what you can do with one inside the stir?

You can call in drug deals, either from the outside or within prison. You can talk to sympathetic guards. You can use them as a form of prison currency for those two reasons. You can rent them out, for reasons one and two. Probably, you can get, like condos, time-share cell phones.

More seriously than that, you can orchestrate prison gang work, set up outside crimes and harassment, arrange getaway rides for escapes, call in bribes for those more friendly prison guards and more.

Here in Texas, Grits for Breakfast picked up on some issues back in 2007, following up on a National Public Radio story that highlights the problem nationally, including this Texas example:

Last month, a warden in Texas also got a call — from the mother of one of his inmates. She was calling to complain that her son was getting poor cell-phone reception inside the prison.

“She was paying for the service, and she felt that she should get good service out of the prison,” says John Moriarity, the inspector general of the Texas prison system. “That cell-phone company assured her it was within the coverage area, and she wanted to know why they were having some difficulty getting a good cell-phone signal out of the prison.”

(NPR also reports that a Maryland state senator got a cell-phone call from an inmate complaining about prison conditions!)

Henson noted, speaking of friendly prison guards, that a cell phone, being metal, can’t get past a detector, so a corrupt guard is allowing each one inside.

Give the Time story a further look; I've just summarized it.

Henson has more on the phone calling reform ideas here.

And, back in 2007, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was already worried about BlackBerries, not just cell phones.

Oh, if you want an unvarnished look inside TDCJ, try The Backgate, a blog by TDCJ staff. It’s so renegade it’s even pro-union!

Cell phones: The new prison contraband

Hat tip to the excellent blog on Texas criminal justice issues, Grits for Breakfast:

Scott Henson notes that more than 300 cell phones have been confiscated from inmates in recent years. But, if you know anything about prisons, you’ll know many of those weren’t found for some time, and there’s plenty more that never were found.

He links to a National Public Radio story that highlights the problem nationally, including this Texas example:

Last month, a warden in Texas also got a call — from the mother of one of his inmates. She was calling to complain that her son was getting poor cell-phone reception inside the prison.

“She was paying for the service, and she felt that she should get good service out of the prison,” says John Moriarity, the inspector general of the Texas prison system. “That cell-phone company assured her it was within the coverage area, and she wanted to know why they were having some difficulty getting a good cell-phone signal out of the prison.”

That cell phone was one of more than 300 that Texas prison officials have pulled out of inmates’ cells in the past three years. Moriarity says it's not just happening in Texas and Maryland.

“I’ve spoken to some of my fellow [inspectors general] across the country, and I believe everybody’s having a problem with it,” he says.

In several criminal cases, inmates have used cell phones to run gangs operating outside of prison, to put hits out on people, to organize drug-smuggling operations and, in one case, trade gold bullion on international markets.

(NPR also reports that a Maryland state senator got a cell-phone call from an inmate complaining about prison conditions!)

Scott notes that some inmates are just doing this to have their families avoid getting gouged by collect calls, but also spots that I do, namely that drugs or money can be smuggled inside a phone. And, since he observes that a cell phone, being metal, can’t get past a detector, a corrupt guard is allowing each one inside.

Beyond that, inside a unit, a cell phone can be used to:
1. Set up drug deals, either supplies from the outside, with the same corrupt guard taking a cut, or deals inside a unit;
2. Set up prison sex, either between inmates or with guards;
3. Coordinate gang activity inside a unit;
4. Plan an escape.

Answer? The state of Texas needs to improve its phone plans for prisoners, so those who are just trying to beat costs don’t have to worry. And, it needs to raise guards’ wages enough to at least lessen the temptation of corruption. At least within a unit, the state also needs to look at rotating guard assignments more frequently, to cut down on contact with the same inmates.

Scott has more on the phone calling reform ideas here.

Two additional notes:

First, as NPR reports, there is cell-phone snooping detection technology. It isn’t cheap (try several hundred thousand per prison unit), but this problem isn’t going away.

That’s because …

TDCJ is already worried about Blackberries, not just cell phones.

Oh, if you want an unvarnished look inside TDCJ, try The Backgate, a blog by TDCJ staff. It’s so renegade it’s even pro-union!

How Mental Health Mental Retardation and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have failed, and crushed a man: the local story

My news story and column on a local mentally ill person's horrors in the criminal justice and mental health systems.

News story: The nightmare: Mental illness George's ultimate jailer; county staff, funds 'jailed' too

For many years, Aaron George has all too often been trapped by prisons of his own mind.

Unfortunately, when George is mentally incarcerated due to the effects of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, plus post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety disorder - and, for the last year, a brain cyst - he often winds up also being physically confined in a jail cell.

His current residence, since Thanksgiving Day, is the Grimes County Jail.

Sheriff Donald Sowell has the unpleasant, and often frustrating, duty of being his jailer.

He, too, is incarcerated, in a sense. He is "locked up" by a small county's small jail budget, which includes not only a relative lack of manpower but no special facilities and no special training to give full care to people like George, who is the worst but not the only casualty of the state's, and nation's, mental health system to end up in his custody.

Read here for the rest of the news story:

And the column: The state of Texas' mental health care: It's criminal

Aaron George sits in the Grimes County Jail, deteriorating every day, becoming less and less functional, less and less himself, less and less "human" as a human being, all while leaving the sheriff and jail staff frustrated and helpless.

Sheriff Donald Sowell, through no fault of his own, is in an unenviable position. District Attorney Tuck McLain is left to potentially prosecute a case he'd rather not, even as the wheels of the judicial system grind so slowly George's case has not even gone before the grand jury yet for possible indictment.

It's criminal.

Whether Aaron George is a criminal now, or was in 1992, it's criminal that a bipolar schizophrenic sits in a county jail cell rather than a state mental hospital.

It's criminal that he sits there without proper medication, literally beating himself against the walls because voices and compulsions tell him to do so.

It's criminal that Donald Sowell, a small-county sheriff has to deal with cases like George's because jails like his become dumping grounds for mentally ill people who may commit crimes because of inadequate treatment.

It's criminal that the state mental health system leaves them stuck there, sometimes for a year or more.

It's criminal that mental illness, besides any actual crimes committed by a mentally ill person, still has a quasi-criminal taint to it, whether in Grimes County or anywhere else in the state.

It's criminal that many people may still think mental illness issues can just be swept under the rug.

It's criminal that state officials believe this enough that the prison system faces another serious lawsuit, this one from advocates for mentally ill inmates.

It's criminal that the Mental Health Mental Retardation budget gets slashed year after year.

It's criminal that MHMR doesn't have more state hospitals and beds, along with halfway houses or group homes.

It's criminal that more and more of the functions of Child Protective Services get privatized to untrained people by Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Legislature.

Read here for the rest of the column.

For an excellent blog with more on Texas criminal justice issues, including mental health and due process, read Read Grits For Breakfast.

For information and links on the new lawsuit against the state of Texas, alleging that criminally confined mental health patients are being deprived of Constitutional due process due to their cases taking WAY too long to process, read Read this post of his.