Phelan's choice

It's not Sophie's choice, but it is interesting, the future for current Texas Speaker of the House Dade "Dade" Phelan.

A majority of incoming Texas House Republicans want the practice of committee chairs for Dems to end. It's presumed that if Phelan agrees, Dems won't support him for Speaker again. It's also presumed, in that Trib piece, that Phelan would agree. Neither logically stands up. Even without getting committee chairs, Dems could still see the alternative as far nuttier, and break 100 percent for Phelan. Or Phelan, a political creature, and knowing that the 46 Rethugs so far are only a tiny majority of the GOP caucus, could tell them to go get stupid and go to business as usual. This ties with Phelan winning his runoff and meaning that GOP factionalism still exists. Weirder yet, both Trib pieces are by the same author.

Elsewhere, the same Trib author, Jacob Scherer, who's not a rookie, notes that Shelby Slawson has joined Tom Oliverson in officially running against Phelan. The old horse-racing theme of "when the favorites split" would seem to apply. So would a certain lack of horse sense from Scherer.

Besides, per the Monthly, crossover Dem voters presumably helped Phelan win the runoff.

Two other takeaways. First, I remember when $10 million being blown to run for a US Senate seat was obscene. $10 million for a state House seat? I also remember when Texas Rethugs lambasted Dems for taking so much out-of-state money. Well, with that Phelan runoff and beyond, we're shockingly in the land of the hypocrisy alert. Shock me that, at the top, it's über-Zionist nutbar and now, part of new Dallas Mavericks ownership, Miriam Adelson.

Texas Progressives talk runoffs and more

Kenny Boy is abusing Texas' consumer protection laws to investigate GoFundMe if it has the "wrong" fundraisers, along with many other such shenanigans. And, of course, his office refused to talk about it to ProPublica.

Speaking of ProPublica, in a look at the Michigan GOP, it shows this isn't even Trump's party any more. Trump-tapped candidates will lose primaries or non-primary elections for party offices and other things if they're not nutters enough.

Washington State has a law barring convicted felons from running for office. Trump's appeal, per details of the law at that link, surely won't be adjudicated until after November. He had about zero chance of winning there anyway, but it still frees up Biden resources for elsewhere and could be a downballot lead anchor for Republicans. (The political reality of Trump's conviction in general, contra Kuff's proposed intro, for this week's Roundup, will be discussed tomorrow.)

Off the Kuff reacted to the Democratic primary runoffs and the possible election redo from 2022.

Yes, Israel is committing genocide; ergo, the US is abetting genocide. BlueAnons like Kuff surely wish this would just go away. It won't.

Speaking of, at UT, Jewish students are dividing more sharply between Zionist and anti-Zionist. Bet Kuff has nothing about that, either.

Did anybody expect anything other than the actual ruling on abortion by the Texas Supreme Court? That said, I don't know what "broader challenge" would capture Justice Brett Busby's fancy.

Mike Morath goes shilling for fundagelical Christians trying to take over state school curricula. First, Mike, stop lying. Second, Mike, this won't make the likes of Wilks and Dunn any more favorable.

The Texas Secretary of State's office admits that legislation last year lessens ballot secrecy, but some election conspiracy wingnuts want it that way.

SocraticGadfly offers his latest round of thoughts on the possibility of the Presidential race going to the House.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said we should not normalize misery & we must demand our elected officials address the root causes of misery. 

The Eyewall considers possible scenarios in which this year's hurricane season won't suck so much. 

The Texas Signal presents a brief history of Pride in Texas.  

Equality Texas celebrates the HD146 runoff results. Progress Texas compiled a list of Pride events for you. 

 Law Dork reminds us that Justice Sam Alito thinks we're all chumps.

New pseudo-environmentalist head fake from Ken Salazar?

Last week, I saw a piece by Center for Biological Diversity citing Ken Salazar, our ambassador to Mexico, calling for a block of Mexican avocados being imported to the US, and I had multiple thoughts about the comment, and about the commenter.

We'll start with my thoughts about the comments, then frame them within my thoughts about the commenter.

Ken Salazar, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, recently stated that avocados produced on plantations created by illegal deforestation shouldn't have a place in the U.S. market. It's time to turn those words into action.

The United States has made numerous international pledges to halt deforestation including commodity-driven deforestation. But it continues to allow the importation and promotion of Mexican avocados from deforested lands.

The concern is loss of monarch butterfly lands in Mexico, which is legit. From earlier in the piece:

The area of land used for avocado production is predicted to grow 70% by 2050. Nearly 2,400 acres of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve have already been destroyed. Sadly this year's monarch population count was the second lowest ever recorded. If their winter home disappears, so will the butterflies.

But, Ken Salazar?

I thought: is this THAT Ken Salazar? The "Kenny Boy" along with Ken Lay of Enron and Ken Paxton of today? The man who I said was Dear Leader's worst Cabinet member outside of Tim Geithner? The man who told lies on behalf of BP and the Deepwater Horizon blowout? Repeatedly? Whom Obama kept around?

The man whom Gang Green kowtowed to over wolf ESA delistings? The man whom the aforementioned CBD was part of the kowtowing to?

The man who was in cahoots with Susan Combs on fake protections for the dunes sagebrush lizard?

The man who Hillary Clinton said in 2016 would lead her presidential transition team if she were elected?

First, by the person, yes, it's the same.

Second, by the persona, I expect it's the same, and don't trust this.

My first thought was that Salazar's statement was a fig leaf for trade protectionism for US-grown avocados.

Friend Chris Nagano offered another thought on Twitter.

This is a substitute for ESA listing for the monarch in the US. Do this, and say, "we've done all we can," Chris said.

(Spider milkweed, author photo at left, is among types liked by monarchs, and other butterflies.)

After all, in 2020, Fish and Wildlife said, in essence, "hey, they need help but they're going to have to sit at the back of the bus." They haven't updated that, but they have boasted since then about, "look at them visit milkweed at a fish hatchery!"

Option 2a would include "voluntary conservation habitats," of course. Like FWS fish hatcheries!

There's also the issue of just how sustainable avocados are as a crop. So, from the CBD link, this:

Since most avocados come from legal, longstanding avocado farms, banning imports associated with deforestation won't hurt the livelihoods of law-abiding avocado producers or keep people in the United States from eating avocado toast and guacamole.

Maybe we need to be eating less guac and avocado toast?

Seriously, the idea that we can continue current US avocado consumption when deforestation in Mexico has been fueling an import surge for a decade and leading to monocropping, whether or not from technically legal farms? (Per the first link, many of the farms are technically legal, but no more than that.) That's laughable, CBD.

Also laughable is that the top link is tied to a fundraising ask. Gotta get those millennials to donate while they eat their avocado toast. CBD coming close to Gang Green territory?

Part of the problem is avocado having become viewed as a "superfood," too. All good environmental agencies should be preaching against that nonsense.

Climate scientists in despair

As we should all be, per this Guardian piece.

And, the piece was written before the latest sweltering in Mexico. 

This:

“I think 3C is being hopeful and conservative. 1.5C is already bad, but I don’t think there is any way we are going to stick to that. There is not any clear sign from any government that we are actually going to stay under 1.5C.”

Is your entree nutgraf.

It's true. Much of the second half of the piece talks about how 1.5C is a political game. Only about 25 percent of surveyed scientists think the world will hold there. I'm on record as saying that I think James Hansen is right and there's a good chance we hit 4C by the end of this century.

What I find most interesting, is one biggie, with two subparts.

Not a single United States scientist is cited, and definitely not the Climate Change Obamiacs like Michael Mann and Katharine Hayhoe. That's because they're part of the socio-political hackery on this issue.

Otherwise, those who think we can hold the line below 2.5C, even? They seem to expect too much from what I call salvific technologism or what Yevgeny Morozov calls solutionism.

More EVs? Will be partially offset by more data centers.

Replacements for concrete will be slow and very partial.

Most of the developed world cutting its meat eating by 70 percent rather than holding out hope for vaccinating cows against belching and farting so much (and with what currently unknown side effects?) is not likely.

This:

“The good news is the worst-case scenario is avoidable,” said Michael Meredith, at the British Antarctic Survey. “We still have it in our hands to build a future that is much more benign climatically than the one we are currently on track for.” But he also expects “our societies will be forced to change and the suffering and damage to lives and livelihoods will be severe”.

Is at least halfway realistic. But, would a Mann or Hayhoe even say it right now?

And, don't look, but as we see that cleaner marine diesel may be a contributor to warmer ocean waters, the push for geoengineering will likely increase.

COVID: The truth is still in a triangulated third side on St. Anthony of Fauci and Blue Anon vs wingnuts

Dr. Brad Wenstrup is probably less wingnut than many GOP Housecritters. But, at the same time, he's ex-military, ie, Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ material. Dr. Raul Ruiz is is certainly among idealists among House Democrats.

That said, the truth on COVID, and on Anthony Fauci, is in between.

Fauci has lied before, contra many Democrats who still do a blank-check defense.

His original one over mask efficaciousness was perhaps a Platonic noble lie, but at the same time, for setting the stage for the level of tribalism and COVID denialism we're at today, was arguably the worst of his lies. That was followed by a somewhat less Platonic one over herd immunity and vaccine percentages. And, his leaked emails revealed further lies and his reveling over being BlueAnon's St. Anthony of Fauci, as well as showing his decades-long skill at bureaucracy and political infighting. Much more on those emails here.

Shortly after that, on his emails, he started getting more publicly butt-hurt.

Meanwhile, he (and Collins) lied by minority-accepted-only definition on supporting or not supporting gain of function research, which ties directly to Peter Daszak and his EcoHealth Alliance.

And, the lab-leak remains plausible on COVID. That said, contra Republicans, these lab leaks have happened in the US, too, often associated with Peter Daszak and his EcoHealth Alliance.

So, today's latest grilling of Fauci will likely have turned out to once again be Kabuki theater as much as anything. Until EcoHealth gets federal sanctions (which Dems and Team Biden won't support) Daszak won't run a better ship in either the US or China. A lawyered-up Fauci will continue to give buttoned-down answers.

And, the tribalism? Gaslighting Peter Hotez. Cheap-points-scoring American Humanist Association.

There's tribalism on the other side, too. Wenstrup is not running for re-election, so probably not him personally, but the Rand Pauls of the world, yes. See above about how Fauci indirectly fueled some of this.

As for the possibility of a lab leak? Fauci's lies by definition had him also stating that we should continue to fund the then-stonewalling and still-stonewalling Wuhan Institute of Virology. Try defending that one, Ruiz. (Hotez has also gotten gain of function funding.)

As for the possibility of a lab leak? I still support what ProPublica wrote two years ago, and its defense of that. The indefatigable (on COVID ONLY!; he's getting a takedown here next week) Jamie Metzl pushes this even more, along with a blistering call-out of Daszak.

As for more nefarious possibilities? I originally rejected a weaponization idea. I have since let that door open a crack, but still lean against it.

==

Testimony takeaways: The biggest, per CNN, is that Fauci threw Daszak under the bus and supports suspending funding for EcoHealth.

Disagree with MLB including Negro Leagues stats as MLB

Yes, I know Baseball Reference was doing it two full years ago, and I know that MLB players of today are celebrating Rob Manfred's action to make it official. That still doesn't make it right or smart. Or accurate. Or anything more than cheap marketing.

I mean, this IS the guy who gave us "ghost runners" at second base for regular season extra inning games, and before that had his famous "hunk of metal" comment. (The MLB World Series trophy, in reality, IS BETTER LOOKING than either the Lombardi or O'Brien trophies. The Stanley Cup is sui generis.) The pitch clock? MLB always had one for bases empty; nobody enforced it for decades.

One commenter on Reddit's r/MLB last week (not the post below, but that gets into it more) summed it up for me and, I think, many others.

First, the stats are bigly incomplete. (B-Ref admitted that 2 years ago, but did it anyway.)

Second, it's a whitewashing of baseball history.

On the first, B-Ref should have continued to list Negro League stats as they were, with WAR comparisons and other sabermetrics within the Negro Leagues. That's part of the problem with B-Ref. It claims the Negro League stats are "major league," but any sabermetrics it does have, AFAIK, are purely intra-Negro Leagues.

Related? As MLB admitted, park dimensions varied widely in the Negro Leagues, even versus MLB oddities of that era like Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds.

The COVID-shortened season was still played in regular MLB ballparks, and should not have been an influence in the decision.

As for B-Ref? It could, at a minimum, do like its Basketball Reference cousin does with NBA and ABA stats, on career and season totals, give me three columns: MLB-only, Negro Leagues-only, and combined. But it won't.

Beyond the whitewashing, it comes off as another marketing stunt from Mr. Hunk of Metal. And, I don't care if even the often illuminating John Thorn backs this. It's wrong. And, it doesn't undo past wrong.

Plus, it assumes that all Negro Leaguers were MLB caliber.

They weren't.

So, I agree with a number of Reddit commenters in this r/mlb thread. It IS apples to oranges, especially on sabermetrics. And, yes, it does seem like a cheap marketing play by Commissioner Hunk of Metal. And, another reason to continue to have less and less interest in the history of baseball. So, no to both Major League Baseball and to Baseball Reference: Josh Gibson ain't the all-time batting leader.

Now, why B-Ref went down this road, other than MLB first discussing this idea after the COVID season, I don't know. It didn't have to. It's not owned by MLB. But, it did.