UPDATED: TXLege big Whiff
UPDATE: Just yesterday, the Texas House made it mandatory for professional sports teams to play the National Anthem before all games. This pressing issue was a legislative priority of Radio Disc Jockey Dan Patrick, along with voter suppression and bathroom access supervision.
ORIGINAL STORY: This year, Texas has faced historic challenges – the global pandemic, the Big Freeze, and The Big Lie. Add that to existing problems like a teetering education system, a failing healthcare system, crumbling infrastructure, and now a housing crisis, the governor and TXLege had their plates full. So let’s have a look at that they did to address these issues:
- The Global Pandemic – Abbott, urged on by the Know Nothing wing of his party, played down the risk. Abbott took away the authority of local leaders to protects their citizens, lifted science driven guidance for social distancing and quarantine recommendations way too early, and slashed recommended unemployment payments to Texans who were suffering. He also dumped distribution responsibilities for PPE, and later vaccines, on local authorities in his own version of The Hunger Games, making cities/counties compete against one another. All this caused untold sickness, suffering, and death. What did the TXLege do this session? Nothing.
- The Big Freeze – Over 20 years ago, Texas decided it was a good idea to have a “free market” for powering its grid, so the TXLege unwound the state’s regulatory framework, making the power regime in Texas “voluntary”, with no deliverability requirements and no penalties for failing to deliver power. State air quality standards were also made voluntary. This system was put in place on a grid that was already mostly disconnected with the grids in other parts of the country, so when it failed in February, no one could come to our aid by delivering power. Over 200 people died and billions of dollars were lost. What did the TXLege do to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again? Nothing.
- The Big Lie – We all saw what happened after months of Trump’s ridiculous lie that an election that he had decisively lost was stolen from him. When the US Capitol was stormed, hundreds of people were injured and 5 people died. Trump actually attempted to overthrow the US government in order to stay in power. Everyone with a hint of insight knows The Big Lie is false is corrosive to our democratic system. What did the TXLege do to address The Big Lie? They amplified it, repeated it, and used it to pass the most restrictive voter laws in the US to make it harder to vote and to protect their minority power.
- Failing Healthcare System, Crumbling Infrastructure, Teetering Education System– Texas ranks 48th among the states in access to healthcare. Our education ranking is similar. Our crumbling roads, and poor public transportation systems rank among some of the worst in the country. Under more than two decades of single party rule, our state has steadily declined in a number of measures, but especially healthcare. Today, race, economic standing, and geographic location are predictors of healthcare outcomes, and the suffering from the pandemic followed these predictors. The poor and minorities suffered greater infection rates and worse outcomes from the virus which compounded the other issues caused by lack of access to competent healthcare. What did the TXLege do to address these inequalities? Nothing.
So, what did the TXLege spend its time on this session? Here’s its list of accomplishments:
- As stated above, pushing the most restrictive voting measures in the US supporting Trump’s Big Lie.
- Passing a new abortion law that bans virtually all abortions, ignoring health, rape, or incest.
- Pushing criminalizing healthcare treatments for transgender kids.
- Passing unqualified carry legislation, making it legal for any idiot to carry whatever firearm said idiot wants to carry, making it virtually impossible for law enforcement to protect citizens from mass killers.
- Abbott criminalized mask requirements which imposes a $1,000 fine on any public official requiring masks, no matter local health conditions.
This is what you get when a minority party has cemented itself into power, taking away accountability to the public. The GOP has had an iron grip on Texas for over two decades, aided by radical gerrymandering, lack of term limits, lack of spending limits, and lack of ethics laws. The governor and the TXLege are now totally corrupt and pledged fealty to a criminal who so far has evaded prosecution and continues attempts to overthrow our democratic system of government. Until The People wrest power away from such corruption, this state, among many other red states, are lost for the foreseeable future.
Life imitates art.
1TX has become Lower Slobbovia.
Good piece.
2You have to seriously wonder at what point this level of idiocy will cost the state new companies and jobs. The level of madness at the Capitol has gone well beyond the fire alarm stage.
3The legislature is 0 for the century on these issues. It got so bad in education that the Texas Supreme Court had to force them to alter their funding to be more equitable. Yet, they are officially not in compliance with the court order. They just raised the ante enough to get the courts off their back.
4(a) Are Texans ready for the new pandemic? Which would be the slaughter of Texans by Texans with no
permit guns.
(b) Will GOP legislosers be held accountable with mass murder indictments and lawsuits that will, at a minimum, wreck life in the lonely star state?
5I went to TX (and FL) once for a few days on business. There was so much I didn’t see- and don’t plan to, ever. Here’s the deal- in the northeast, taxes are high and but it shows in healthcare and education rankings. You get pretty much what you pay for.
6And don’t forget they gave Houston/Harris County ZERO for flood control while giving red counties $1.3B. That makes me want to leave Texas, but all the warm states are just as bad or worse.
7Grandma Ada @ 7,
At this point, I think I’d rather go live in a cold, blue state than live in a warm, fascist red state. I lived in FL for 17 years before I moved to AZ to care for a relative. One day I will move, and I won’t be going back to a red state. If it the situation gets worse, well Panama likes US expats.
8“Texas House made it mandatory for professional sports teams to play the National Anthem before all games.”
Yes!
That makes perfect sense that STATE legislation require the NATIONAL anthem is played in a taxpayer funded MUNICIPAL stadium, built by taxpayers for billionaire owners.
(Disclaimer: I watch professional sporting events, so no beef with the general principal of pro teams, just some of the financial details.)
9Grandma Ada @7 —
Actually, warm states are NOT as bad. Just across the border from Texas, there is a state of New Mexico. Granted, in the far east and south, there are too many hereditary Texans, and some of them continue to have RWNJ mind-sets; but the state as a whole is purple-ish and like most places, there are some university communities which are downright blue. Depending on your interests and needs, Carlsbad, Roswell, Las Cruces, Socorro, and Silver City could be enjoyable. Further west, Arizona — especially southern Arizona — is nothing if not warm. Friends retired to Tucson and have been enjoying it a great deal. And then to CA — which if you are rich and can afford San Diego and the North County, is delightful. Or if not, you might enjoy life between the Salton Sea and Calexico.
10Guv Abbott and the TXLege comprise a ‘one party cabal’ that is today the closest form of government in the USA and the world to those other despotic regimes past and present, such as the Communist Chinese Party [their closest analog], the Russian/Soviet Communist/Criminal apparatchiks, the fascist Nazi Reich, various royalty, et alia ad infinitum.
In the 1770s our forefathers had enough of that shit. Are we likewise ready to chase these royal pains in the ass away from our government [via the ballot of course]?
They make actual Socialists look like a gradeschool club.
11Starting decades ago the GQP began campaigning with a mantra of “local control, government by the citizens”, today they couldn’t be farther, nor more hypocritical, about that whole damn thing.
“This is what you get when a minority party has cemented itself into power”: let’s not forget how they got into power to start with. It relied on people not voting in every election. So they’ve always been a minority party, but the blame is on people who might vote in presidential election years, but not otherwise.
Once they got into power they brought out the panoply of nastiness El Jefe listed. We have to lay the blame on the original sin of apathetic and ignorant voters not doing their job. I can say this confidently because I voted in Texas until 1982. The Republicans voted en masse every time, while Democrats sorta let things float.
Now let’s talk about 2022. That is going to be the make or break year which may let them cement themselves into power for another 20 years.
12Wanking on and on about gerrymandering and voter suppression won’t hide the fact that progressives aren’t voting. It’s really not that hard…
VOTE!
13If I lived in TX, I’d get the hell out- which is what I did after living there in 2013-14. At that time, the current TX state top elected officials were running and I couldn’t stand it. As has been stated, where to go is not an easy decision. I came back to Oregon. However, now 2/3 of the counties in OR are wanting to be part of Idaho and either voted to do so or have petitions to try and make that happen. Also, E. WA and part of CA also want to become Idaho. What an awful frickin state that will be- almost as big as TX and just as obnoxious politically (but less than 1/3 the population). Good luck with that.
14OT and FWIW ~
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has convened a grand jury that is set to decide whether to indict Trump, others at his company, or the business itself.
Edit: The special grand jury “will sit three days a week for six months,” and “is likely to hear several matters—not just the Trump case,” according to the Post.
Edit: Law School professor Rebecca Roiphe, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, explained the potential significance of Vance’s move to the paper:
Edit: Roiphe said the recent step of seating a long-term panel shows that Vance’s investigation has progressed to the point that prosecutors will visit the grand jury, bring them evidence and witnesses, and potentially ask them to contemplate charges. “They were unlikely to take that step without believing they had evidence to show there was probable cause to believe someone committed a crime,” she said.
“The prosecutors are convinced they have a case. That’s at least how I read it,” Roiphe added.
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/trump-grand-jury/
15Steve #14 >> Lead an armed attack and occupation of a national wildlife refuge? No problem. Run for governor of Idaho.
Ammon Bundy files for Idaho Gov.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/555136-ammon-bundy-files-to-run-for-idaho-governor
Maybe he’s setting up for a Abbott / Bundy R Presidential ticket? That would be funny in the Onion, but….
16El Jefe’s “Update” about the TXLege Rethugs forcing sports teams to play the national anthem pretty well cinches a phrase attributed to Sinclair Lewis:
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”.
Apparently Lewis didn’t actually write or say exactly that, but he penned a damned good book that still fits: “It Can’t Happen Here”.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sinclair-lewis-on-fascism/
We got the ‘cross/church’ bit locked down too, at least here: Our local ISD [school district] just appointed a fundie talibangelical preacher to fill a vacancy on the school board. As if they haven’t already been trampling all over that ‘wall of separation between church and state’ for decades now anyway.
17So you think Abbott’s party still has a “know-something” wing? And who would that be? Adam Kinzinger? Larry Hogan? Maybe Cindy McCain?
18More “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”…
“The Texas Legislature is on the verge of approving a new law that would require some public schools and universities to display the phrase “In God We Trust” in prominent places inside all campus buildings.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/24/texas-school-signs-legislature/
195/26/2021: The San Jose Mass Shooting is the 16th in the last week. The 231st Mass Shooting this year. But yeah, let’s make “it legal for any idiot to carry whatever firearm said idiot wants to carry…” says the TX Leg. More guns “solve” almost anything is an apparent assumption.
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