Thought about putting this in the in the Controversial encounters thread but decided on this one.
Since the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde in 2022, school districts across Texas have spent billions of dollars to station police officers on every campus in the state. The effort, the most ambitious in the nation, was intended to protect students from similar tragedies.
But the constant presence of officers has transformed the way many public schools manage discipline, subjecting students to heavy-handed police tactics for behavior that once would have landed them only in the principal’s office, The New York Times and The San Antonio Express-News found.
Officers in Texas displayed startling belligerence at times, grabbing or tackling students a fraction of their size over misconduct that often appeared to be minor. Children in elementary school, including one as young as 6, were handcuffed. Teenagers were arrested, charged with crimes and even jailed. In the most extreme cases, they wound up in hospitals, bruised or concussed, after being body-slammed or shocked by Tasers, which are prohibited in the state’s juvenile detention facilities but allowed in its public schools.
I was not surprised to see that every child mentioned in that article appeared to be or had a name that suggested that they were people of color. The author was asked about this in the comments section but said that they did not have the breakdown by race and so couldn’t verify any bias.
I don’t know about ‘deserve’ but we certainly get the government we voted for, at least until one of them suspends that right. Like it or not, there were enough Americans who wanted this and others who didn’t care enough to vote against (or even vote) that this was the result
Well, if Paxton’s [former] mouthpiece has any say in the matter, he just might. Kick ass, that is:
“I defended Ken Paxton for years in the impeachment trial and in state criminal cases,” Cogdell said during the podcast. “But in my view, respectfully, I think Ken has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”
He added that he thinks Talarico, a Texas state representative, believes “in unity over division” and can bring together Democrats, independents, and Republicans—an argument the Democrat has made central to his campaign.
Yeah, I believe that Paxton is a very poor choice, too. But that motherfucker has been elected statewide several times. Here’s to hoping he’s reached beyond his grasp this time.
That is a perrenial D talking point. The Rs in thrall to Paxton don’t want unity; they want total victory over the Hated Other.
The $64M question is whether there are any Rs left in Texas who might want unity with sanity over their fever dreams of authoritarian white xian paradise.
I know I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure the fascists will spend or cheat what it takes to win. Losing Texas would be a huge blow to their momentum.
Well, that’s the thing. Texas is generally conservative but it’s not entirely MAGA. So, the party diehards pick a terrible candidate in the primary but then the moment those are over, they try to scrub all the attack ads off the air and pivot to not-the-center but conservative-but-not-insane.
There’s a lot of Rs in the state who don’t give a damn about unity or authoritarianism or any of that. They do care about the price of eggs and property taxes and data centers.
So, Abbott, who is not an unpopular governor, is trying hard to cover for the atrocious slate of R candidates for statewide office. The state won’t be ‘lost’ by any means but they may actually lose one or two statewide offices for the first time in 30 years. And that’s a message that is having trouble penetrating the right wing media ecosystem that controls not only national but local news - things have gotten steadily worse in Texas for decades now but how are Republicans supposed to be the party to change that when they’ve held every major statewide office for over a generation?
Just might. I expect Abbott will cruise to re-election, unless something goes terribly wrong.
But Paxton is terrible enough that it is actually possible Talarico could win. The last few Senate and Gubernational elections were interesting. They aren’t 80-20 blowouts. More like 55-45 and one (Ted Cruz vs Beto O’Route) was a 51-48 squeaker.
At any rate, the GOP is scared enough to devote real resources to the campaign. And that’s hilarious. A halfway decent person running with an (R) next to their name would be able to coast to victory. They can’t even do that right.
And yet… we have Texas Muslims who are still considering voting for members of a party that just told them to either convert or leave. I can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. At a certain level of voting against your own interests rational arguments no longer work.
The fact that MAGA even exists at all is already proof that there are incredibly stupid people in this country. Muslims voting for people who essentially want genocide against them is par for the course in that environment.
The state-mandated list of assigned reading — which includes Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” and excerpts from the New Testament — appeared to be among the first of its kind of the nation and will take effect starting in 2030.
I’m pretty sure this is going to get shut down before 2030. And they know it. But it signals to the Christian Nationalists that the Republicans are on their side and will help rile them up when the courts stop it.