South Africa did it for decades.
Yes, but they started with Apartheid. It will be a little harder to go from universal voting rights backwards to a South African model from the 50’s. I hope.
I hope so too. But the next step will be to overthrow previous Supreme Court decisions that legislative districts must be fairly equal in population. Once that goes away, Odessa could have as many legislative representatives as Houston.
I wish I were joking.
This infuriates me even more than the voting issues:
FFS, if you’re going to run the state like a dictatorship, at least try to keep people healthy. Oh, wait… we don’t want those people to be healthy. Or, frankly, even to live.
Yeah, that has been a RW peeve for 60+ years now and not just in Texas. How dare the court not protect them from the tyranny of the urban majority.
So, instead of using those $750 million to winterize Texas’s power grid, they’re putting it towards a wall that half the population doesn’t want, and which won’t improve border security anyway?
I’m sure a good portion of that went to bribe people to say it will never get that cold again.
Still dancing to trumpy’s tune.
Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican leaders of the Legislature are shifting $4 million from the state’s prison system to fund audits of election results as former President Donald Trump has pressured them to do.
On Thursday, Abbott requested emergency funding from the Legislature, saying the secretary of state doesn’t have the funding it needs to conduct election audits needed to assure the public they can trust results. Abbott said the funding will create a new Election Audits Division within the Secretary of State’s Office.
Republican leaders of the House and Senate agreed to the request Friday, calling the lack of funding for the audits division an emergency. They moved the $4 million on Friday morning, and Abbott signed off on it.
…“How much taxpayer money is it going to take, to convince former President Trump that he lost the 2020 election?” said Stephanie Gómez, associate director of the Common Cause Texas advocacy group. “Wisconsin taxpayers are spending almost $700,000. Arizona taxpayers are on the hook for millions. Now, using emergency powers, Governor Abbott has got Texas taxpayers on the hook for $4 million more.”
That’s an easy question to answer: Donnie will never admit publicly that he lost the election. I’m 100% sure he knows it privately, but there’s nothing in it for him if he admits it publicly. Stirring up shit is what he does and he will keep doing it indefinitely.
Gov. Greg Abbott promised that the state’s electric grid would be able to withstand pressures caused by any potential winter storm that occurs this year in a television interview Friday.
“Listen, very confident about the grid. And I can tell you why, for one: I signed almost a dozen laws that make the power grid more effective,” Abbott said. “I can guarantee the lights will stay on.”
Signing laws! That’s the ticket!
I can guarantee one thing: the lights will stay on in the Governor’s mansion.
After the winter storm in February that left millions across the state without power, the Legislature passed a number of bills requiring additional “weatherization” measures for companies that maintain the state’s electric grid.
But experts have expressed concerns that loopholes have allowed some natural gas providers to exempt themselves from the weatherization requirements, potentially leaving the system still vulnerable.
“Loopholes”? Don’t know nuttin’ 'bout no loopholes. Move along, folks.
In a poll from the University of Texas-Austin and the Texas Tribune, voters were asked their opinion on the policies advanced by the Legislature throughout the regular and special sessions this year. Among the most popular were gun rights, public safety and the election laws, while “reliability of the electric grid” was dead last, with a negative 42 percent favorability rating.
In interviews earlier this month, a Republican political consultant and two political scientists said this amounted to a potential political vulnerability for Republicans, particularly if another winter storm hits that shuts down the grid.
Political liability – that’s the ONLY thing that matters, amirite? How many people died? Who the F cares?
I think the poll results are more about controversy- “gun rights, public safety and election laws” could be rephrased as “open carry, BLM/Defund police, and voter rights curtailment”. Those were all three hot button topics this last legislative session for Republicans AND Democrats, so of course it’s going to be something that’s going to register as having a lot of popularity.
I have to ask when the timing of the poll happened- Senate bills 2 and 3 of the last legislative session addressed ERCOT and the grid failure. In the House, the power grid bills were house bills 10, 11,12, 13, 16, and 17. Each house had over 2500 bills introduced in the last legislative session, so having them as low as they were indicates something of their relative priority, since they’re numbered sequentially from the filing date.
That said, Abbott is still the leader of the Texas GOP, and could have pushed for more strict changes or more changes in total, and he didn’t. I guess we’ll see what happens when the next severe cold snap occurs in 10 years.
Here’s more on the poll. I’m in a hurry and didn’t scrutinize carefully.
Actually that poll is about how voters approve/disapprove of the items addressed in the legislative session. Most did NOT like the way they handled the power grid issues. Which is fair, they didn’t do a great job, and that shows an uncharacteristically lopsided result at 18% approve, 60% disapprove, 22% unsure, unlike others which are mostly in the 40% approve, 40% disapprove, 20% not sure realm that indicates partisanship at work.
Anti-vaxxers have a new way to rat out employers who want them and their co-workers to avoid getting COVID.
Texas has a new hotline for workers to report employers requiring COVID-19 vaccines in violation of Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning such mandates.
…“While I encourage Texans to get the COVID-19 vaccine, it will always be voluntary, and never forced, in Texas, and we are committed to ensuring Texans’ livelihoods are not jeopardized by federal overreach,” Abbott said in a release.
The Texas Workforce Commission sent a letter to Texas employers on Wednesday reiterating that position. There, the agency advertised its new hotline, which can be reached at 800-939-6631 or vaccine_job_loss@twc.texas.gov.
What about ensuring Texans’ livelihoods are not jeopardized by 1) getting reeeeally sick and/or 2) being dead and/or 3) making other people be sick or dead?
FREEEEE-DUMB FIRST! 
Yippee-ky-yay mother-vaxxers!
Supreme Court has allowed Texas abortion ban to stay. Feel like I’m living in a theocracy for sure now. Thanks a lot, trump voters.
They didn’t strike it down, but they did say that it can be challenged in Federal court by providers. That punts it back to the Federal district court where it may yet be struck down.
That, combined with the state district court judge ruling that the state can’t give standing to people who don’t suffer damages (i.e. to sue, you have to be able to show damages), that sounds like maybe a tactical draw and a tactical victory, even if the war’s not won yet.
Let’s make ever-body happy. Or at least let’s throw ever-body a bone with no meat on it.
My understanding is that abortion providers are still limited as to which state officials they can sue. Plus every minute that this law remains in effect, which is way too long already, likely drives away abortion providers who will never return, even if the law is eventually successfully challenged. Texas Republicans are basically getting what they want - forced birth - and the rest of the country is next. It’s going to take forever to untangle this situation. Maybe someday.
As well as even if the law is NEVER successfully challenged.
Bingo!
This is “governing” by gumming up the works.
My understanding is: in Kentucky, “He needed killin’” is a legitimate affirmative defense to a Murder charge.
/s
Wouldn’t “but it offends the baby Jebus” be a similarly valid affirmative defense ([slash] substantiation of damages and standing to sue] in these civil cases, in The Lone Star State ?
Time will tell …