Weekend link dump for May 18

“Companies have long fought off attacks from hackers hoping to exploit vulnerabilities in their software, employees or vendors. Now, another threat has emerged: Job candidates who aren’t who they say they are, wielding AI tools to fabricate photo IDs, generate employment histories and provide answers during interviews.”

“Kennedy’s comments are an excellent demonstration of how, in the Trump era, public statements by administration figures and their congressional backers are heavily influenced by the far-right and conspiratorial internet—sometimes in addled, confused, or strangely remixed forms.”

“Energy Star has saved American families and businesses more than half a trillion dollars in energy costs. By eliminating this program, [Trump] will force Americans to buy appliances that cost more to run and waste more energy.”

“What’s happening here is more than just routine network adjustments; it’s a strategy shift that suggests CBS is no longer hedging its bets on longevity and loyalty. Instead, it’s opting for the cheaper, faster turnover of reboots and spin-offs. If Friends were airing today, NBC wouldn’t be shelling out millions to keep the cast together. They’d be pitching David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston a spin-off where Ross and Rachel move to L.A. after their wedding.”

“Fur might be just what we needed in 2025. It’s the ultimate expression of the mob-wife aesthetic: a braggadocious affect, riding the line of classiness and trashiness while taking up considerable physical and psychic space. The style is ripe for this aesthetic moment, with its maximalist textures, layers, and silhouettes—and for the sociopolitical one, which prizes fleeting dopamine hits and rolls its eyes at moral inquiry.”

“What I think we’re looking at here is an absolute distillation of the ideology of this administration, which is a thoroughgoing hostility to anything that the government does that helps people. If you want to destroy the relationship between the public and government, you’re going to target the Energy Star program.”

“But being “desirable” in the Grid does not feel like being a rare jewel or a vintage wine. It is not about growing in value over time. It is about slowly slipping into obscurity. I cannot name the extra outfielder on the 1953 Detroit Tigers or where else he might have played in the ‘60s. One day, that will be me.”

“But the selection of dolls, in particular, as Trump’s stand-in for consumer prices reflects the gendered ideas about work, money and purchasing that animate Trump’s chaotic economic policy. After all, Trump did not talk about the impact of his trade regime on toy trucks or GI Joe action figures – and he certainly didn’t mention its likely impact on things like video games, basketballs, squat racks or protein powders.”

“A Novel Concept: Will Judges Start Enforcing the Law With DOGE?”

“Amazon is rolling out new ad formats on Prime Video, including contextually relevant pause ads and shoppable inventory.”

“The Congressional Budget Office Still Works”.

“Do you realize how many thousands of balloons it takes to predict the weather?”

“A possible Alvin Scott sighting surely outweighs racing off to fabricate a handful of sham-charges against good neighbors for pseudo-misdemeanors.”

“This “gift” is wildly corrupt, even by Trumpian standards. The idea that a foreign government could “gift” a half-billion-dollar plane to the Pentagon through some sleight of hand that then becomes the personal toy of an ex-president when he leaves office is absolutely absurd from an ethics standpoint and clearly unconstitutional vis-à-vis the so-called “emoluments clause,” which Trump has already severely bent in his first term.”

“A Paris court has found Gérard Depardieu guilty of sexual assault and given him a 18-month suspended sentence.”

“I would say my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant… I don’t want to seem like I am being evasive, but I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”

“With one third of the U.S. economy—from farming to trucking to tourism—being sensitive to weather and climate, the NWS provides an overall benefit of $100 billion to the economy. This is roughly 10 times what the service costs to run, according to an American Meteorological Society white paper.”

“But if Trump seemed somewhat restrained by the appearance of ethical conflicts during his first term, he no longer has any qualms about mixing the country’s business with his own.” Josh Marshall goes a lot deeper on the same topic.

“But in Trump’s America, a run-of-the-mill report from an independent, nonpartisan agency feels momentous, like some tiny part of the government remains untouched by the rampages of Elon Musk’s ostensible Department of Government Efficiency.”

RIP, Joe Don Baker, Texas-born actor known for Walking Tall, various Bond films, and a lot more.

“Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has canceled plans to more tightly regulate the sale of Americans’ sensitive personal data.”

“Congratulations to Amazon on Its Partnership With the Saudi Prince Who Murdered Jeff Bezos’ Employee and Hacked His Phone”.

“Thursday brought an avalanche of data that all point to one outcome: Prices are going up. Just ask Walmart.”

RIP, Charles Strause, three-time Tony Award-winning composer whose musicals included Annie and Bye Bye Birduie, and also wrote “Those Were The Days”, the theme song to All In The Family. If you’ve never heard the latter, enjoy. Mark Evanier has more.

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So are we about to see the beginning of the end of the Mike Miles regime?

Maybe.

With weeks until the deadline to announce a potential extension of the state takeover of Houston ISD, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath expressed strong support Wednesday for the “spectacular” reforms that have occurred in the district since June 2023.

Morath must decide by June 1 whether to keep the nine members of the appointed Board of Managers in place for up to two more years or announce a timeline for the district’s yearslong transition back to elected board members.

He declined to say during a news conference at HISD’s Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Wednesday whether the takeover would continue. However, he said it’s something he’s “actively considering” as he praised the district’s academic improvements on the 2024 State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness and state A-F accountability ratings.

“One year after the intervention, this is the largest academic improvement that has happened at this scale in the U.S.,” Morath said. “The amount of improvement in academic potential and lifetime potential for kids is pretty spectacular.”

[…]

For the intervention to end, HISD must meet three goals under the TEA’s exit criteria, which are having no multi-year failing campuses, complying with state and federal special education laws and improving board governance. Wheatley High School also must have a C or higher rating for two consecutive years, Morath said.

“We have seen progress on all three of (the main exit criteria,) but we also still see work that remains,” Morath said.

[…]

The reform program has faced vocal pushback from multiple HISD parents and community members since its implementation, who have criticized the model for contributing to rigid, stricter learning environments, rising principal and teacher turnover, and an excessive focus on test scores within schools.

“The NES model, in particular, is a very well-structured model to ensure that children always reach mastery on every concept, that they don’t just skip a topic. That instructional design is very intentional,” Morath said. “It does require certain adjustments in the school calendar (and) in the school approach, but I don’t have any long-term concerns about sustainability of that model in Houston.”

Whatever. I don’t have the energy to debate any of this right now. I just want to get this carpetbagger out of here and get back to having a Board that at least gestures at listening to public feedback and holding the Superintendent accountable. If we’re doing so damn well, put us on the path to that.

Said Superintendent doesn’t see himself as a short-timer.

Miles said he didn’t know what decision Morath would make, but he suspected that the commissioner would extend the state takeover. Miles also said he suspected he would continue to be the HISD superintendent for “a few more years” because he was asked to stay in his role while the intervention was ongoing.

Miles said the district’s teachers, principals and students have done “great work,” and he expects that they will continue to do so on this year’s State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. However, he said it would be a couple more years before the district really hits its stride.

“You got to remember where we started, we had 120 D- and F- rated campuses, but more than that, a broken financial system and other systems that were broken in this district,” Miles said. “So to turn it around, it’s going to take more than two years. So we’ve got some work to do.”

“We’re doing great but we’re not at a point where we can take our foot off the pedal” is a perfectly reasonable and defensible position. The good cop/bad cop routine that Morath and Miles appear to have adopted to take that position is annoying, but not contradictory. If that’s where we are, then can we at least please get a look at the detailed project timeline and spell out exactly what markers we’ve achieved, what percentage of each goal we’re at, and roughly when we think we can transition back to normal business? You know, in the name of transparency? I don’t think that’s too much to ask. The Press has more.

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We really should be composting more

It’s not too late to start.

Alex Cantoran parks his truck at the final house on the block, jumps out and grabs the five-gallon white bucket sitting near the edge of the property. He unscrews the lid quickly. Inside are several green compostable bags of trash, the contents of which he hauls to the truckbed and transfers into one of his six 90-gallon barrels. He returns the bucket, hops back in the truck and repeats the process at the next house.

For Cantoran, compost collection runs like clockwork. By late afternoon, he and his partner, David Lemons, had already emptied compost buckets at over 200 houses in the city of West University Place. They started early, around 6 a.m., when they drove down from the Woodlands north of Houston with empty barrels rattling around in the back awaiting fresh table scraps and banana peels.

Tuesdays are the longest of the week; Cantoran and Lemons hit just over 400 houses. The two men work for Zero Waste Houston, a residential food waste pickup service that began in 2017. Instead of going to the landfill, the trash is turned into compost – a process that transforms organic waste, such as decomposing plant and food leftovers or yard and tree trimmings, into enriched soil.

Experts and environmental advocates consider zero-waste projects, like composting or recycling, some of the most vital solutions to Houston’s growing trash problem. Composting diverts organic waste before it reaches the landfill, lessening the need for landfill expansion and reducing methane emissions from landfills by more than 50 percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It also enriches soil with much-needed natural nutrients and stores carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

However, city-wide composting programs can be challenging. It can cost millions for local officials to set up a composting project. For cities like Houston, this means starting small and applying for competitive federal funding. Additionally, composting is a relatively new solution in some communities, where residents unfamiliar with using a separate bucket for organic waste may need education through composting classes and community outreach.

But, officials and advocates say this work is far from impossible. In the past decade, businesses like Zero Waste Houston have popped up to fill the gap and local community gardens and schools are instructing educational classes. To catch up with Houston’s growing pile of trash, however, advocates say there will need to be serious dedication from the city – in process as well as budget.

“Right now, composting is kind of looked at like a luxury service,” Lemons said on the drive. “But it’s not. Everyone benefits from it. It’s just like putting out your recycling or your trash. I really hope it catches on.”

[…]

About one-third of food produced worldwide ends up in landfills, where it makes up for 20 percent of all the waste, according to the EPA. Of the 167 million tons of garbage produced by the United States each year, 50 percent of the trash set on the curb is compostable.

Organic waste is also the leading cause of methane emissions at landfills due to how quickly the matter decays. In a landfill, as trash piles on top of trash over time, the waste at the bottom is deprived of oxygen. Tiny bacteria that thrive without oxygen munch on the trash, producing methane gas.

Because compost retains its proper airflow, the presence of oxygen keeps the methane-emitting bacteria at bay.

Methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, meaning it is more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.

Organic municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the United States, according to the EPA. The U.S. is the second largest emitter of methane in the world and Texas is the largest emitter in the country.

Of the 201 municipal landfills in Texas, Blue Ridge Landfill in Fort Bend County is the fourth top emitter of methane emissions and the McCarty Road Landfill in North Houston is the 10th, according to a 2022 EPA methane analysis conducted by the organization Industrious Labs.

“We need to tackle the trash problem with a multi-pronged approach,” said Melanie Sattler, the department chair for civil engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. “The cheapest and simplest is to just reduce the waste before it actually gets to the landfill. That’s composting, that’s recycling.”

Another sustainable practice is anaerobic digestion, said Sattler, which occurs in a tank without any oxygen. Without air flow, the digester produces methane and carbon dioxide, which can be captured, cleaned and used as natural gas for heating, cooling and electricity generation. The material left behind – a nutrient-rich semi-solid mixture called digestate – can be used as natural fertilizer for crops, gardens and landscaping.

“Digesters can be located on the same land as a landfill and they could divert organic waste, but it doesn’t have to be,” Sattler said. “A city can also have a separate container for food and yard waste and it can go to a composting facility or a digester rather than the landfill.”

In Houston, the energy company Synthica is constructing an anaerobic digester northeast of the city to take pre-consumer food – such as food manufacturing byproducts and expired produce – and industrial organic waste. The company plans to start operations in early 2026.

The methane problem is real and serious, but the more immediate issue is that Houston is running out of landfill space, as was documented in an earlier Landing story. Plus, you know, landfills are disgusting and foul-smelling and make the lives of everyone in the vicinity – mostly black and brown people – vastly worse. They also take up vast expanses of open land that could be better used for almost anything else, including primarily more housing.

We do little bits of voluntary composting in Houston, for things like Halloween pumpkins and Christmas trees. We’ve run pilot programs for more general use composting in the past, and while they were successful there was no financial support for their continuation, much less their expansion. Some of the financial support for a future program would need to go towards educating people about composting – we could learn from what the city of Austin has done – but one hopes that would decrease over time. This is one of those situations where spending money now would save money later, if only we would get started on it. I suspect we would need a different Mayor for that, but I will be happy to be proven wrong.

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It should still be the same old RenFest

Good to hear.

The Texas Renaissance Festival will soon be under new ownership, but will remain much the same as it has been for the last half century, attorney Anthony Laporte of Houston law firm Hanszen Laporte tells CultureMap.

“All of the vendor contracts are in place for 2025,” says Laporte. “Everyone who was already there will be there this year. Maybe one Dippin’ Dots guy here and there will be swapped out with another, but we’re sticking with what works. Even when the litigation was ongoing, they’re having entertainment auditions. Both the old owners and the new ones are planning to give visitors a great time.”

Founder George Coulam has owned the Texas Renaissance Festivals since 1974. Now in his late 80s, Coulam has teased selling the festival multiple times, a process chronicled in a recent HBO docuseries. After pulling out of the latest sales agreement, the prospective buyer sued Coulam for breach of contract. Grimes County Judge Gary W. Chaney ruled against Coulam on May 7, paving the way for the sale to finally go through.

The identity of the new owner was a mystery for some time. Court documents listed only the corporate entities RW Lands, Texas Stargate, and Royal Campgrounds. The prospective new owner is Meril Rivard, a real estate investor with no prior festival experience who sought to purchase the fair for $60 million. However, Rivard’s son is married to the daughter of Geoff Wilson, owner of several Greek food establishments in the festival. Wilson’s clan, referred to as “The Greeks” in the HBO documentary, were one of the groups featured in the show trying to buy the fair.

“This is a family business now,” says Laporte. “He has family that lives it, works it, and is part of it.”

According to Laporte, an appeal by Coulam and his counsel seems unlikely. He reports that all parties mostly feel relief that the case is over, though until the judgment is finalized in the next couple of months there is still the possibility that Coulam will try one last time to remain king of the festival.

[…]

Coulam will no longer have an official role in the running of Texas Renaissance Festival, though he may advise in an unofficial capacity. Laporte did say there will be no more parades in his honor.

See here for the background. Again, I’m at best a casual RenFester, but I think I speak for many people when I say that keeping it as much as possible as it is, at least for now, is the sort of thing we’re happy to hear in 2025. I’m sure there will be opportunities for innovation and improvement going forward. For now, a little stability and familiarity sounds good.

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Measles update: Maybe we really are slowing to an end

Can’t get much slower than that.

Texas health officials reported only one new case of measles on Friday, the smallest increase since the outbreak began four months ago.

The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows there have been 718 measles cases across the state since the first were reported in late January in the South Plains region. The agency provides updates twice per week on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The one new case is in Gaines County, which has been the epicenter of the outbreak. The small county along the New Mexico border has reported 406 infections in total, more than 56% of all cases associated with the outbreak.

Experts told the Houston Chronicle they are cautiously optimistic the outbreak is subsiding, but Texas residents and public health officials must stay vigilant to prevent a resurgence. They also noted that it can take seven to 21 days for symptoms to appear after an exposure, so additional cases could be reported in the next few weeks.

[…]

The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in seven counties: Cochran, Dawson, Gaines, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum. Dallam county was removed from the list because it has been 42 days since its last infectious case.

Texas has reported 15 measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the outbreak, including four in Harris County, one in Fort Bend County and one in Brazoria County. Most of those cases were related to international travel, according to the DSHS.

Hey, if we’re really coming to a stop, that would be awesome, and a lot sooner than expected. I too remain cautious about this, because there’s still a lot of measles and unvaccinated people out there, but it may well be that a combination of exposure and response have choked this one off. If so, kudos to all of the exhausted professionals who have worked to get to this point. I wish you all a nice vacation.

And you’re going to need it, because we keep doing stuff like this that all but guarantees more and bigger future outbreaks.

The Texas House passed a bill Wednesday that would make it significantly easier for parents to exempt their children from public school vaccine requirements. Authored by Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, the legislation allows anyone to download the exemption form and eliminates the current requirement to request the form by mail and get it notarized. The form applies to vaccines such as those for polio, hepatitis A and B, and measles.

Hull said the bill would streamline government operations and save the state about $177,000 annually in postage and labor. She repeatedly emphasized during debate that “this bill is about where a form is printed,” downplaying concerns raised by Democrats and public health advocates. Critics warn that easier access to exemption forms will lead to lower vaccination rates, threatening herd immunity and putting medically vulnerable children at risk, as first reported by The Dallas Morning News.

Democrats attempted to amend the bill to include additional safeguards, such as requiring parents to read educational materials about vaccines and mandating that schools report immunization rates. These amendments were rejected, largely along party lines. Rep. John Bucy III, D-Austin, argued that the bill’s real-world effects would be “more kids opting out of immunization, more kids opting out of vaccines.”

Asking the question “when will we learn our lesson” presupposes that learning lessons is an aspect of this. The evidence of that is lacking. The best we can do here is weaken the forces of making us all sicker and more vulnerable, and that is something we can and need to do starting next year. As a reminder, Rep. Hull’s HD138 is a district that was very purple before redistricting, and is still somewhat purple now. In a good year, with a stronger opponent, we can take a run at her.

I’m just going to leave you with this.

The cries of sick children echoed down the hallway as Gilbert Handal walked into the measles ward for the first time. It was 1964 in Chile, and the young medical student had been assigned to Manuel Arriarán Hospital’s pediatric infectious disease unit.

Dozens of beds were crammed into the building, each holding a small, feverish body. Some children were struggling to breathe; others lay frighteningly still. Their parents waited helplessly, often outside the doors, while nurses and doctors moved solemnly through the ward. There was little they could do.

“That was just immediately before we had the measles vaccine,” Handal said. “I was just a student, and you’re just studying medicine, trying to save humanity and trying to save the children.

“We tried to save those kids, but many of them died,” he added.

Now 82 years old and a professor of pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases at Texas Tech Health in El Paso, Handal is sounding the alarm over low vaccination rates in West Texas, where a measles outbreak has infected 717 people and killed two school-aged children as of May 13. Though measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. at the turn of the century, rising vaccine hesitancy has fueled the largest surge of the disease in Texas in more than three decades.

“All the outbreaks we’ve had in this country have been associated with the lack of immunization,” he said. “People stopped immunizing their kids, and that was an error.”

Back in Chile, the second floor of the pediatric infectious disease unit was secluded, reserved for children infected with measles. Measles spreads primarily through the air, when infected people sneeze or cough.

The atmosphere was one of anxiety and exhaustion. As part of a team of six doctors, Handal spent up to 120 hours per week tending to rows of children battling high fevers, painful coughs and the signature red rash covering their bodies. According to Handal, the surge in measles cases was so overwhelming that the hospital’s internal medicine unit was often repurposed to care for sick children.

He says most of the children were infants and toddlers.

“The children know they’re sick, and that’s all they know,” Handal said. “They don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know anything, and the sicker they are, the more disconnected they get from you.”

[…]

Handal said he lost count of how many children died during his time in the ward. But he never became numb to it — just learned to manage the grief.

“You don’t get hardened, that’s a bad word to use. You kind of cope with it better, I guess,” he said. “I mean, it’s just – the pain is too much.”

The problem is there are fewer people like Dr. Handal who lived through that and remember it, and more people like Lacey Hull who are blissfully ignorant of it all. I wish I had a good answer for that.

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The end of the road for the Texas Lottery Commission

And possibly for the Lottery, though not immediately.

The Texas Senate unanimously approved a bill that would abolish the Texas Lottery Commission, move the state’s game to a different agency and add several new restrictions on how lottery tickets can be purchased.

Senate Bill 3070 would move the Texas Lottery and the state’s charitable bingo operation to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and create new criminal offenses for people who buy lottery tickets online or en masse. The bill also mandates a review in two years by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission that will determine if the game should continue in any capacity.

“They have a two-year lease on life — we’ll see what happens under the new agency,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said as the bill was passed on Thursday.

SB 3070 provides one of only two paths forward for the lottery past September, as the lottery and its agency were already on the chopping block without the added action by lawmakers. The department is currently undergoing a routine review by the Sunset Commission, and requires legislation for it to continue. Senate Bill 2402 is the “sunset bill” that would maintain the lottery commission but it has an additional hurdle: legislators removed all of the lottery commission’s funding in its next budget proposal, and it would have to be placed back into the budget for the commission to continue operating.

Either bill must still pass out of a House committee by May 23 for the lower chamber to weigh in on the game’s fate. The House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee recently heard Senate Bill 28, which would ban couriers, and left it pending in committee.

For months, legislators have placed the lottery commission under scrutiny that has sparked investigationsresignations and calls to abolish the game completely. That criticism has largely stemmed from lawmakers concerned about a $95 million jackpot won in April 2023 by a single group that printed 99% of the 26 million possible ticket combinations in a 72-hour period, a process known as a “bulk purchase.” Under SB 3070, buying more than 100 tickets in a single purchase would be a class B misdemeanor.

See here, here, here, and here for some background. I have no love for the Lottery, but that indifference carries over to the online ticket broker scheme that has everyone up in arms as well. Honestly, I wish that there had been another winner on that $95 million jackpot because it would have basically ruined the scheme in the funniest way possible. Alas, the universe’s sense of humor is fickle. And if the issue here is oversight, then maybe someone should be asking who appointed all those good-for-nothing Lottery commissioners in the first place. We’ll see which of those two paths for the Lottery ends up being the way forward.

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Pour one out for the Houston Landing

CityCast Houston sends off the non-profit local news organization that deserved better.

The Houston Landing made a huge splash when it launched as a local non-profit newsroom in 2023. But this week, it’s closing down. So, what went wrong? Host Raheel Ramzanali breaks it down with Michael Hardy, senior writer at Texas Monthly. They explore the outlet’s early missteps, how funding became a challenge, and what its closure means for local journalism in Houston. Plus, we’ll hear from some of the Landing’s journalists themselves about their favorite stories, what they loved about H-town, and more.

Stories we talked about on today’s show:

See here for the background. As I’ve said before, I thought the Landing did a great job, and I will miss their coverage. I can’t speak to the financial issues, and I’m not sure what they could or should have done to better brand or market themselves. The question that I have that this podcast episode didn’t address is how is it that San Antonio, Fort Worth, and El Paso can have local non-profit news sites that provide broad, general-purpose coverage, but somehow the same thing did not succeed here. Maybe it was all about the management of their finances, in which case another effort should be able to learn from that and do better. I agree with the assertions that Houston is far from a news desert, but there’s more than enough news here to support more than what we have covering it. If it’s a matter of needing to specialize, then pick a topic – energy, medicine, technology, climate/environment, politics, diverse communities, immigration, education, transportation, real estate – and dive in, we’ve got plenty of that for you. I refuse to believe that the failure of the Houston Landing means that nothing like the Houston Landing can succeed. I hope another effort gets launched, sooner rather than later.

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Houston hospitals have done worse with the abortion ban than Dallas hospitals have

Unacceptable.

Nearly four years ago in Texas, the state’s new abortion law started getting in the way of basic miscarriage care: As women waited in hospitals cramping, fluid running down their legs, doctors told them they couldn’t empty their uterus to guard against deadly complications.

The state banned most abortions, even in pregnancies that were no longer viable; then, it added criminal penalties, threatening to imprison doctors for life and punish hospitals. The law had one exception, for a life-threatening emergency.

Heeding the advice of hospital lawyers, many doctors withheld treatment until they could document patients were in peril. They sent tests to labs, praying for signs of infection, and watched as women lost so much blood that they needed transfusions.“You would see the pain in peoples’ eyes,” one doctor said of her patients.

Not every hospital tolerated this new normal, ProPublica found. A seismic split emerged in how medical institutions in the state’s two largest metro areas treated miscarrying patients — and in how these women fared.

Leaders of influential hospitals in Dallas empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, allowing them to induce deliveries or perform procedures to empty the uterus.

In Houston, most did not.

The result, according to a first-of-its-kind ProPublica analysis of state hospital discharge data, is that while the rates of dangerous infections spiked across Texas after it banned abortion in 2021, women in Houston were far more likely to get gravely ill than those in Dallas.

As ProPublica reported earlier this year, the statewide rate of sepsis — a life-threatening reaction to infection — shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost a second-trimester pregnancy.

A new analysis zooms in: In the region surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth, it rose 29%. In the Houston area, it surged 63%.

[…]

One second-trimester pregnancy complication that threatens patients’ lives is previable premature rupture of membranes, called PPROM, when a woman’s water breaks before the fetus can live on its own. Without amniotic fluid, the likelihood of the fetus surviving is low. But with every passing hour that a patient waits for treatment or for labor to start, the risk of sepsis increases.

The Texas Supreme Court has said that doctors can legally provide abortions in PPROM cases, even when an emergency is not imminent.

Yet legal departments at many major Houston hospitals still advise physicians not to perform abortions in these cases, doctors there told ProPublica, until they can document serious infection.

Dr. John Thoppil, the immediate past president of the Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said he was “blown away” by this finding. He said it’s time for hospitals to stop worrying about hypothetical legal consequences of the ban and start worrying more about the real threats to patients’ lives.

“I think you’re risking legal harm the opposite way for not intervening,” he said, “and putting somebody at risk.”

See here for a bit of background. There’s more, so read the rest. It’s appalling that black-box hospital policies can have such an impact on these women’s health, and appalling that the only way this even came to light is because of dogged investigative journalism. This is exactly the sort of thing that patients should have a right to know about. And while I agree that the hospitals should take action and be more responsible, let’s be clear about who’s really at fault here. This is entirely on the Legislature, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton, the Supreme Court, and every Republican who had any role in passing our abomination of anti-abortion laws. All that blood is on their hands, first and foremost.

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Sexual harassment case against former candidate Agwan settled

Closing the book on an ugly chapter.

A lawsuit accusing a former Congressional candidate and a member of his campaign staff of sexual misconduct in 2023 was dropped earlier this month following a settlement out of court, according to Harris County District Clerk’s Office records.

Details of the settlement between Pervez Agwan, a Democratic primary candidate in the 2024 Congressional District 18 race, and Maha Chishtey, a junior staffer with the campaign, were not made public. An order of non-suit was signed by 55th Civil District Court Judge Lotosha Lewis Payne on May 6, according to court records.

In a statement about the settlement of the case, Agwan maintained that the allegations against him and the campaign are false.

“I am grateful to the voters in TX-07 for giving me the opportunity to serve them,” Agwan said. “It was truly the honor and privilege of my lifetime to run for office to represent Houston in the U.S. Congress.”

Agwan declined to answer questions about the terms of the settlement. He also said he has no plans to run for elected office in the future.

An attorney for Chishtey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chishtey accused Agwan of overseeing a pattern of sexual misconduct among male senior staffers working for the campaign that played out over several months in the second half of 2023. Chishtey quit her job that October after she said Agwan tried to kiss her when they were alone in the campaign headquarters after work and he prevented her from leaving the office when she rebuffed his advances.

See here for a bit of background. There are links in this story to previous stories by the Houston Landing about the allegations, and you should read them as well. I asked Agwan about this when I interviewed him for the 2024 primary, and, well. I wasn’t impressed by his response. We may never know the terms of the settlement, which come about four weeks before the trial would have taken place. The allegations were awful, and the defense was aggressive. I hope Ms. Chishtey and all of the former staffers who resigned before the lawsuit was filed are doing well.

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Dispatches from Dallas, May 16 edition

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have: May election outcomes and the meanings thereof; who dumped money into PACs and what they got for it, including one PAC that can’t even spell right; the latest redistricting news from Tarrant County and other shenanigans; plans for the new DFW terminal get bigger and more expensive; the latest on investigations against EPIC City; the impending state takeover of Fort Worth ISD and other school news; local ties to a legendary Willie Nelson album celebrating an anniversary; and more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Joan Jett and Billy Idol, whom I saw in a really good show last week. (The Dallas Observer reviewed it; I thought they were a little harsh on Joan. She’s a bar band player and there’s an upper limit on the size of the bar she can fill with music.)

Let’s jump into the news, starting with some business from the recent local election:

  • Just before the election on May 3, local journalist Steven Monacelli documented who’s behind two new PACs in the Dallas area: the Dallas County GOP and AirBnB. The local GOP (remember, run by Allen West), couldn’t even spell “The Committee for a Strong Econcomy”, the name of their PAC, correctly. KERA included this news in their roundup of who dumped money into the election. And the DMN noted Dallas City Council candidates received about $1.6 million in contributions, with about a quarter coming in the last month.
  • The DMN complains we didn’t turn out for the May election, with only 8.4% of 1.4 million registered voters showing up to do their civic duty. (I voted early.) Since, as they mention, there are bills to move Dallas elections to November, one hopes this will be less of a problem in the future.
  • The Dallas Observer has takeaways from the election results for City Council. And KERA has their own take on the results of the City Council races. The DMN spotlights the two runoffs: D8, where Tennel Atkins was termed out, and D11, where Jaynie Schultz retired rather than face the fallout of the Pepper Square redevelopment mess. We’ll get to the Tarrant County results later; there are definitely also things worth talking about.
  • Dallas’ budget is $6.5 million in the red so far rhis year. KERA also has the story. Apparently it’s all because property owners are greedily protesting our rising tax bills. The problem of Prop U, which directs our excess money, is looking smaller suddenly. (Both articles mention it.)
  • New Dallas PD Chief Daniel Comeaux was talking about hiring more officers in accordance with Prop U when he was sworn in earlier this month. The more I read about what Comeaux is doing vs what Interim Chief Igo, who resigned when he didn’t get the top job, thought was realistic, the more I think Igo dodged a bullet.
  • Dallas County DA John Creuzot will seek the death penalty for the retrial of “Texas Seven” defendant Randy Halprin, who was part of a group that escaped from prison in 2000 and killed a police officer in Irving. The retrial comes after Halprin’s original verdict was overturned over the the antisemitic views of his judge; Halprin is Jewish. This is the first time Creuzot has sought the death penalty since he became DA in 2019.
  • Over in Fort Worth, we also have some police news: they’re looking for a new chief per the Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Report. And Fort Worth PD has cleared their backlog of 900 rape kits, discovered last fall. How did they do it? They only had two of seven certified DNA scientist positions filled, so they offered signing bonuses of $5,000, an 8.5% raise for the position, and outsourcing while they onboarded the new hires and got them FBI certified. In other words, they spent a bunch of money.
  • In Tarrant County, there’s always news about Tim O’Hare: he hosted a luncheon for the National Day of Prayer, featuring Kevin Sorbo as the keynote speaker and group prayers led by, among others, Leigh Wambsganss of Patriot Mobile. Three charities benefited from the luncheon, one of which is the Mercy Culture Church organization to help sex trafficking victims. You may recall that the city of Fort Worth lost a fight with Mercy Culture when the church wanted to build a shelter for sex trafficking victims. More on this topic at the Fort Worth Report.
  • In Tarrant County Jail news, autopsy results for Kimberly Phillips, who died in the jail in February, were announced. Phillips died of dehydration. Per the article, she was a vegetarian and wasn’t offered vegetarian food. She died at JPS (the local hospital) but she is one of several inmates who’ve died of dehydration during Sherriff Bill Waybourn’s tenure.
  • Meanwhile, you may recall that we also had an in-custody death here in Dallas County in March. the Texas Commission on Jail Standards picked the Tarrant County Sherriff’s Office to investigate this death. Click through and read this: the Dallas County Jail isn’t great but Tarrant County is worse, and why on earth the state would send this investigation to Tarrant County when they don’t follow the law with their own jail is beyond me.
  • I said we were going to talk about the election results in Tarrant County. It was ugly out there for Republicans and their chosen candidates for city councils and school boards, per the Fort Worth Report. The Tarrant County GOP endorsed a slate of 26, of whom 14 lost; the True Texas Project endorsed a similar slate of 33, of whom 19 lost. This is another good read if you’re interested in the True Texas and Patriot Mobile folks and their effect on Tarrant County local politics. Along the same lines, WFAA talked to Republican consultant Brian Mayes about the election results, both the GOP wipeout and the successes of the local school bond elections. And as referenced by Mayes Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy points out the GOP went 0 for 11 in 12 key city, school and college board elections (the 12th has a runoff). Ouch. As Kennedy notes, Tarrant Dems didn’t do well either, but not as badly as the GOP. And the DMN’s Gromer Jeffers Jr. suggests that national partisan issues that sell well in Republican primaries don’t sell well with the nonpartisan suburban electorate. He also talks about the difference between November elections in even years (partisan) and November elections in odd years, which could still be nonpartisan, to the extent anything is allowed to be any more.
  • Of course, that only matters when elections are competitive, and the Tarrant County GOP would like to ensure they’re not. Unsurprisingly, the proposed Tarrant County Commissioners’ redistricting map favors Republican candidates, over the complaints of some residents who think their voices are going unheard. The Mayor of Arlington has asked the city staff to look into the redistricting, with the idea that if they find something wrong, the city council can act. The new map splits Arlington between Districts 1 and 2, instead of leaving it in District 2 where it’s currently located.
  • DFW airport is putting in a much bigger Terminal F with some help from American Airlines and it’s going to run about $4 billion dollars. Pick your poison: DMN; D Magazine; Fort Worth Report; and a DMN explainer in case you need to catch up on this project from zero. It also has the answer to the most important question: how will all this affect my flights?
  • In an announcement of a type long familiar to my Houston-area readers, we have our first West Nile mosquito in Tarrant County.
  • And in another health announcement we’re all getting too familiar with, Denton County has had its second case of measles.
  • Arlington is expanding its DFR (Drone as a First Responder) program from fireworks calls to include calls about shootings, domestic violence, burglaries, missing persons and other crimes. The idea is that the drone gets there before the police officers, not instead of, which I was wondering about when I initial heard about the program. This is another one where you might want to check out the details, particularly if you’re into the intersection of technology and law enforcement.
  • Speaking of the intersection of tech and law enforcement, the suburb of Carrollton has signed up with Flock Safety to integrate security camera data, like your doorbell’s camera, with Carrollton PD’s feed. You may remember Flock for the trouble it had in Fort Worth with unauthorized cameras last fall. You may also be interested in this 404 piece about how Flock is building a tool to integrate its license plate readers with other databases to give police insight into the movements of individuals without court orders or warrants.
  • More election news, this time from Irving. In the Place 2 at-large city council runoff, losing candidate Vicky Oduk, who had about 5% of the vote, endorsed Families for Irving candidate Sergio Porres, who had about 45% of the vote. Families for Irving is pro-school choice, single-family housing, and “traditional family values” for keeping an eye on politics in the suburbs. David Pfaff, the other runoff candidate, had about 47% of the vote in the May election. Porres is anti-casino; I don’t know where Pfaff stands after a quick review of his website.
  • Mercy Culture Church is in the news again: one of the apostolic elders of the church, a Messianic Jewish pastor, Michael Brown, has been accused of sexual misconduct in the 2000s after a third-party investigation. Mercy Culture, unsurprisingly, is standing by their man; this despite the fact that they’re about to break ground on their shelter for sex-trafficking victims. Also unsurprising to me, though I didn’t know: Mercy Culture was “planted” in 2019 by Gateway Church, which was formerly led by accused child molestor Robert Morris.
  • As you probably know, John Cornyn, in his efforts to run right against Ken Paxton in the 2026 senate primary, asked the Department of Justice to investigate the EPIC City development. They’re going to do it, per the AP and KERA. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has an editorial about what they call the “political bullying” of the business. If you’re just finding out about this case, the Dallas Observer has a timeline for you. Good luck to the East Plano Islamic Center; they continue to need it.
  • Another story that’s unfortunately familiar to my Houston readers is the runup to the state seizure of an urban school district. We’re now seeing this in Fort Worth, where Mike Morath is winding up to take over Fort Worth ISD next school year, per the DMN, the Star-Telegram, and the Fort Worth Report. The FWISD sixth-grade school that failed five times was already closed, but other schools are also struggling. And local lawmakers, like State Rep. Phil King and State Sen. Kelly Hancock, both Republicans, support the takeover. The Star-Telegram editorial board, on the other hand, doesn’t support the takeover and points to the significant changes at FWISD, including the change of superintendent and the closure of the offending school, since the failures occurred. I wish FWISD good luck, because based on the example of Houston, they’re going to need it, and more of it if Mike Morath takes over the district.
  • Having made his point, or at least threatened enough people, Attorney General Ken Paxton has dropped his lawsuit against Coppell ISD for teaching critical race theory. More from the DMN. The gist seems to be that Paxton thinks he won because the school won’t teach about racism as much; the school thinks they won because nobody (else) had to get the sack; and I think the voters and state taxpayers lost because this is one more nonsense lawsuit filed to show Paxton’s loyalty to MAGA before the 2026 senate primary.
  • The Star-Telegram editorial board would like you to know that the movement to split Keller ISD shows why we need to enforce the Open Meetings Act. They’re not wrong, either.
  • KERA has the latest on the online scandal surrounding the death of Austin Metcalf at the hands of Karmelo Anthony at the Frisco UIL meet last month. Not only are there a lot of people using the case for their own ends, there’s also a lot of general misinformation out there. For example, the DMN confirms that despite stories that say otherwise, Karmelo Anthony won’t walk in the Frisco ISD graduation. He will receive his diploma and graduate, but will not participate in any ceremony.
  • The Texas Observer has a scorcher of a profile of State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian).
  • UT Dallas is getting a new president per KERA and the Texas Tribune. Maybe Prabhas Moghe, currently Rutgers University’s chief academic officer, can figure out a better way to handle student protestors than the current leadership.
  • In a worrying development, the green card-holding drummer of an Austin metal band was detained at DFW on their way to their now-cancelled European tour. I’m not surprised when immigration issues happen on the way into the US, but grabbing someone on the way out is another example of the disturbing immigration policy of the current administration. The Austin Chronicle has more details.
  • You may remember the trouble that Johnson County folks are having with PFAS “forever chemicals”, purportedly from Fort Worth sewage biosolids being used as fertilizer. Texas Monthly has the story of how this session’s bill to limit PFAS came out of Johnson County. The Fort Worth Report has a similar story, so Rep. Helen Kerwin must be out pushing it in hopes of getting traction on the legislation. The Texas Tribune has the latest on the bill, which doesn’t look good: it missed a key deadline on Monday.
  • D Magazine asks: How Much Is a Joint Replacement in North Texas? The answer is: pretty damn expensive. The only city more expensive for a knee replacement than DFW is New York. Click through to see the charts for motivation to keep your joints in good working order.
  • If you’re feeling down about the mess at the Texas Renaissance Festival in Magnolia, you should know we have a renaissance festival in North Texas in the spring. KERA has a puff piece on Scarborough Faire’s raptor program for you to enjoy.
  • Architecture news and commentary from the DMN: first, Robert Wilonsky on how the city is going to kick the can down the road yet again on fixing the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the only theater designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And architecture critic Mark Lamster writes an open letter to Carlos Basualdo, the new director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, on his arrival in Dallas from Philadelphia.
  • I know about the Sixth Floor Museum, which delves into the John F. Kennedy assassination, but I didn’t know that it leased the building from Dallas County. They may not be there much longer if they can’t satisfy Commissioners’ Court about building updates and funding. Good luck to them trying to raise money in this economy.
  • Proof that Dallas is getting to be a Big Movie Town: Big Movie Star Tom Cruise is coming to town to surprise moviegoers at the new Mission Impossible movie.
  • A Luka Doncic-signed Mavs jersey is up for auction with bids up to $1500. What’s so special about it? It also says FIRE NICO. It’s not clear whether it said so when Luka signed it. Some people in this town are never going to get over Nico Harrison trading him away.
  • And finally, this year is the 50th anniversary of the classic Willie Nelson album Red Headed Stranger, which was recorded in the suburb of Garland, a few miles from where I live. Dallas musicians are reflecting on the legendary album and festivities in Garland will honor the anniversary this weekend.
Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Maria Rojas appeals clinic shutdown order

Keep an eye on this.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office can’t prove that a Houston-area midwife provided an illegal abortion, her lawyers say.

In an appeal submitted to the Texas First Court of Appeals on Monday, lawyers for Maria Rojas suggested that a woman who told state investigators that she received an abortion from Rojas may have actually been treated for a natural miscarriage.

The 54-page appeal seeks to throw out a March 27 injunction issued by a Waller County judge that closed four clinics operated by Rojas in Harris and Waller Counties. Lawyers argued that Texas’ 2021 abortion law doesn’t allow Attorney General Ken Paxton to seek injunctions against clinics, but rather leaves that power to the Texas Medical Board.

The appeal also attacks the legitimacy of the months-long criminal investigation into Rojas and her clinics and argues the attorney general’s office has presented little proof that abortions occurred.

“In the attorney general offices’ rush to find and prosecute someone for violating the state’s total abortion ban, it conducted a shoddy investigation and leapt to wild conclusions,” the attorneys wrote.

See here, here, and here for some background. The Trib adds some details.

Her lawyers now argue the injunction was improper because it didn’t explain why it was necessary or what it prohibited, and it didn’t set a trial date. They assert that there is no evidence that Rojas practiced medicine without a license, as opposed to providing services consistent with a midwife, and question why the chief investigator was not present at the hearing to be questioned.

Rojas is represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based nonprofit law firm that has led high-profile lawsuits against state abortion bans, including in Texas.

In the appeal, Rojas’ attorneys raise questions about whether the woman investigators claim underwent an illegal abortion was actually treated for a miscarriage. The appeal asserts that Rojas told the woman her pregnancy would not be successful and gave her a low dose of misoprostol — a treatment regimen appropriate for managing a miscarriage, not inducing an abortion. The lawyers questioned why investigators didn’t fact-check this woman’s story with the data stored on the clinic’s ultrasound machine, which they seized as part of the investigation.

Rojas’ lawyers also questioned whether Paxton has the authority to seek a temporary injunction or bring a lawsuit on behalf of the state in an abortion-related case. Texas’ abortion ban has criminal and civil penalties, but does not explicitly allow the Attorney General to pursue injunctive relief or file suit on behalf of the state, the appeal says.

This story says that Rojas still hasn’t been formally indicted for any crimes, which is wild since she was arrested two months ago, with a whole lot of fanfare and chest-thumping from Ken Paxton. The flip side of that is just how little evidence the AG seems to have, and what he does have doesn’t point to any actual crimes. Maybe there’s more that hasn’t been made public yet, but that sure sounds like the reason why indictments are pursued in the first place. The bottom line, as I’ve said from the beginning, is don’t take Ken Paxton’s word for anything, not until you hear what the defense has to say.

One last note, there’s a motion to move this appeal to the new statewide 15th Court of Appeals, as that court is for lawsuits filed by or against the state. As of the publication of this story, that motion is pending.

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Spring Branch ID to appeal redistricting verdict

As expected.

Spring Branch ISD officials plan to appeal last month’s federal ruling that the district violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by holding at-large elections, the board president said Monday night after an executive session discussion.

While awaiting the appeal, the district must comply with the court order by choosing a preferred plan for how to create geographic representation districts on the board. The district’s attorneys will submit an election map to the court on June 6 with five single-member districts and two at-large positions, Board President Board President Lisa Alpe wrote in a letter to the community Tuesday.

“Drafts of this map remain confidential right now because they have not been fully finalized. The final proposed map will be published on SBISD’s website and social media channels when it is filed with the court on June 6. If the court approves SBISD’s proposed map, the district will then develop a transition plan to adjust its election procedures to implement the new system,” Alpe’s statement says.

It would likely not be finalized until next school year.

[…]

Alpe wrote to the community last week that the district appeal to defend its at-large system.

“The at-large system promotes teamwork and reduces territorialism. It ensures that EVERY trustee is accountable to EVERY student, parent, and constituent, ALL the time. It discourages trustees from fighting over resources for “their” part of the district. The voters recognize that SBISD is one school district, and the current Board intends to fight to keep it that way. We will respect the will of the voters and appeal this case at the first opportunity,” the district statement said.

[…]

Once the district sends the details of their plan back to the court, the plaintiff can file one round of objections to the plan, but then they will have to settle on the districts, at which point Spring Branch ISD will be prohibited from conducting at-large elections in the future and must have elected trustees represent geographic districts, barring any effects of the appeal process.

The appeal will not cost the district money because the legal fees are covered by the Texas Association of School Boards’ pool risk, officials said.

See here for the previous update. I was told about this decision last week by Diane Alexander, who attended the board meeting that followed the verdict and the May election. I didn’t see a news story before Tuesday, I suppose they hadn’t formally announced the decision before then. Barring action from the appeals court, the next election should feature the new districts. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

We’re sinking

I think at some level we all knew this was true.

Groundwater and oil extraction are causing the ground beneath Houston to sink faster than any other major city in the U.S., according to a new study in Nature Cities.

A group of researchers from across the country used satellite data to measure vertical land movement in the 28 most populous U.S. cities. The academics were able to map shifts down to the millimeter.

More than 40% of Houston’s land mass is subsiding at least one-fifth of an inch per year, they said, but that rate varies drastically across the city. The worst spots are sinking 10 times faster.

“While often considered solely a coastal hazard due to relative sea-level rise, subsidence also threatens inland urban areas, causing increased flood risks, structural damage, and transportation disruptions,” the authors wrote, adding that across the nation the land was sinking “mainly due to groundwater extraction.”

In Houston, they said, oil and gas extraction has also had a major impact on the topographic shifts.

Other cities in Texas, including Fort Worth and Dallas, were among the fastest-sinking as well. Study authors pointed out the damages sustained by large cities facing uneven land shifts.

“Over time, this subsidence can produce stresses on infrastructure that will go past their safety limit,” said Leonard Ohenhen, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Columbia Climate School.

Houston’s well-known subsidence issues have been hotly debated over the years. Many companies and landowners have doubled down on their right to extract underground stores of water and oil, even as authorities like the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District initiated regional collaboration to up the area’s use of surface water in an effort to reduce the city’s sinking.

The link in the story is to the news release about the study. I have no idea what we can do about it, but at least now we know. If there are any scientists and science funding left in a few years, maybe we’ll be able to make some plans to mitigate things.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of May 12

The Texas Progressive Alliance can’t get enough Chicago Pope memes as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading

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Measles update: The wastewater still has something to tell us

Very cool.

An outbreak detection program found the presence of the measles virus in samples of Houston wastewater in early January 2025, before cases were reported, new findings show.

The findings were possible because almost three years earlier, a team of researchers, including from Baylor College of Medicine, the School of Public Health at University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston, the Houston Health Department and Rice University, had developed an outbreak detection program that analyzes genetic material.

A study using the program then detected the virus in samples collected on Jan. 7 from two Houston water treatment facilities that serve more than 218,000 residents. A parallel investigation confirmed on Jan. 17 that two travelers who contracted the virus resided in the same area serviced by the sampled water treatment plants. More information about the travelers and the facilities was not immediately available.

“In such cases our next step is always validating the signal with a second method, and we were able to do so through a collaboration with the Houston Health Department and Rice University,” said Dr. Sara Javornik Cregeen, a member of the team and an assistant professor in the Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research at Baylor. “They tested for the virus presence in samples from the same date and collection site and confirmed the signal using another technique, PCR.”

[…]

“Because no other cases have been reported and the detections occurred in the same area where the travelers resided, it is reasonable to assume that the measles signal detected in wastewater is from the two infected cases, which underscores the high sensitivity of the method,” said Dr. Anthony Maresso, a member of the team and a professor in molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor.

The researchers are not currently detecting measles viruses in wastewater in Houston, but they are in West Texas cities, where most of the state’s cases are concentrated.

The wastewater detection program that was started during COVID has gotten national attention for its innovation and utility. We’ve used it in the past to help detect the presence of mpox and RSV and the flu, and more recently bird flu. That it was able to detect measles, even that small an amount – just two infected people – is not a surprise but a very welcome and reassuring development. Kudos again to everyone involved.

And here’s your midweek case update.

Texas health officials reported eight new measles cases on Tuesday, with the outbreak spreading to three new counties.

The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported 717 measles cases amid the largest outbreak in the United States in at least 25 years. But the outbreak has appeared to slow recently; Texas reported 26 cases during the one-week period that ended Friday, its lowest one-week total since Valentine’s Day.

Carson County, in the Panhandle, and Collin and Rockwall counties, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, all reported their first measles cases associated with the outbreak. All three counties reported one case on Tuesday.

There have been 93 people hospitalized for treatment amid the outbreak. Two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus.

Two-thirds of cases have been in children and teens. Nearly 96% of cases have been in individuals who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown.

The DSHS estimated that fewer than 10 measles cases — about 1% of the statewide total — are actively infectious. An individual may be infectious up to four days before a rash appears and up to four days after it’s gone.

The eight new cases reported in Texas on Tuesday includes two in Gaines County. The county has seen 405 cases in total, nearly 57% of all infections connected to the outbreak.

El Paso County also reported two new cases, while Lubbock County reported one. Both counties have now reported 52 cases in total.

The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in eight counties: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.

Of the 717 cases in Texas, 211 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 273 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.

Only 30 cases have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.

Texas has also reported 15 measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the outbreak, most of them related to international travel. That total includes four in Harris County, one in Fort Bend County and one in Brazoria County.

So yeah, definitely slowing. That’s the good news. The bad news, at least potentially, is the continued appearance of the virus in much more populated counties, where the pool of possible victims is so much greater than it was in places like Gaines County. That doesn’t mean that it will start breaking out again in big numbers – these counties have better vaccination rates and more available health care – but it could. We’ll just have to see how it goes. In the meantime, the national case count is now over a thousand. And while that’s a big number, there’s no reason to think that a new outbreak, someplace else a few months in the future, couldn’t easily exceed it. There’s plenty more places like Gaines County out there.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

MLB reinstates Pete Rose

Wow.

Major League Baseball removed Pete Rose and other deceased players from MLB’s permanently ineligible list on Tuesday, an extraordinary twist to a saga that has gone on for more than three decades. The decision, announced by commissioner Rob Manfred in a letter to the Rose family’s attorney Jeffrey Lenkov, makes the sport’s all-time hit king eligible for election to the Hall of Fame.

Rose, who died from a heart condition last September at 83, was placed on MLB’s permanently ineligible list in 1989 for gambling on his team, the Cincinnati Reds, while he managed them. Rose, who collected a record 4,256 hits, has never been considered for the Hall of Fame because of a 1991 rule change that barred players on the ineligible list from election.

According to a statement from Major League Baseball, in a letter to Lenkov, Manfred wrote, “In my view, a determination must be made regarding how the phrase ‘permanently ineligible’ should be interpreted in light of the purposes and policies behind Rule 21, which are to: (1) protect the game from individuals who pose a risk to the integrity of the sport by prohibiting the participation of such individuals; and (2) create a deterrent effect that reduces the likelihood of future violations by others. In my view, once an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game. Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve. Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list.”

Manfred met in December with Lenkov, who represented Rose until his death, and Rose’s daughter, Fawn, to discuss the possibility of reinstatement. Rose’s family then filed a formal petition for reinstatement on Jan. 8, in hopes of a posthumous induction to the Hall of Fame.

Manfred’s ruling Tuesday also applies to 16 other deceased individuals, including Shoeless Joe Jackson.

[…]

Rose had long been a presence on induction weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y., selling his autograph at a memorabilia shop on Main Street for years, including in 2024. Artifacts of his career are also displayed in the museum, and the library contains voluminous material and documents related to his legacy.

But Rose understood that he would never get the glory of the induction ceremony that comes with a spot in the hallowed plaque gallery.

“I’ve come to the conclusion – I hope I’m wrong – that I’ll make the Hall of Fame after I die,’” Rose said 10 days before his death in an interview with John Condit, a sportscaster in Dayton, Ohio. “Which I totally disagree with, because the Hall of Fame is for two reasons: your fans and your family. That’s what the Hall of Fame is for. Your fans and your family. And it’s for your family if you’re here. It’s for your fans if you’re here. Not if you’re 10 feet under.”

Players are initially voted on by a group of 400 or so baseball writers, but that window closes 15 years after the player’s final game. Players not elected by the writers are considered by a 16-person committee (with Hall of Famers, front-office members and historians) on a rotating basis, with candidates grouped from different eras.

“The National Baseball Hall of Fame has always maintained that anyone removed from Baseball’s permanently ineligible list will become eligible for Hall of Fame consideration,” Hall of Fame Chairman of the Board Jane Forbes Clark said in a statement Tuesday. “Major League Baseball’s decision to remove deceased individuals from the permanently ineligible list will allow for the Hall of Fame candidacy of such individuals to now be considered. The Historical Overview Committee will develop the ballot of eight names for the Classic Baseball Era Committee – which evaluates candidates who made their greatest impact on the game prior to 1980 – to vote on when it meets next in December 2027.”

If he makes it onto that ballot, Rose would need 12 of 16 votes to be enshrined.

Before I say anything about this, let me quote Jay Jaffe, who I’m sure is writing about this for Fangraphs:

This is some fucking bullshit

[image or embed]

— Jay Jaffe (@jayjaffe.bsky.social) May 13, 2025 at 3:09 PM

He's still dead, and he died without being honored as a Hall of Famer, the thing he wanted most out of life. He didn't win, he lost.

[image or embed]

— Jay Jaffe (@jayjaffe.bsky.social) May 13, 2025 at 3:51 PM

Same, Jay, same.

The last any of us discussed this in earnest was nearly a decade ago. But between Rose’s death and a certain orange goon’s unhinged posts about him, the subject had come up again, and Commissioner Manfred was known to be thinking about this. Now we know what he thought. Here’s the MLB statement, which includes the names of the 16 other unbanned players, who look to me mostly like members of the 1919 Black Sox. I guess once you open the door for Rose, you can’t keep it closed on them.

The real issue here is if – more likely when – Rose gets into the Hall of Fame. There was a time when I would have accepted a posthumous enshrinement for Rose, who obviously belongs on a purely baseball basis. Shoeless Joe Jackson would have gone in as well, and that too would have been fine. It’s just that right to the end, the one thing this bastard could never ever do was just say something like “yeah, I screwed up, what I did was wrong, I apologize”. Just doing that much almost certainly would have been enough to get him unbanned while he was alive, which is surely what he really wanted. I can sort of see what Commissioner Manfred is doing here, even as my own definition of “permanent” apparently comes from a different dictionary. I just don’t see how this is in any way satisfying to anyone who isn’t a Rose dead ender.

But here we are. Maybe he won’t be on the next bus to Cooperstown – I will keep that hope alive for now – but he is once again in the club. I don’t like it, I would not have done it if I were Commissioner, and I definitely won’t like it if Rose does eventually get enshrined. I just hope that when that does happen, his plaque tells the whole truth about him. ESPN and CBS Sports have more.

UPDATE: And here’s Jay Jaffe’s article on Fangraphs. Again, I concur.

UPDATE: Alex Kirshner at Slate condemns Manfred for bending the knee to Donald Trump.

Posted in Baseball | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Resolution Calling for the Banning of Ted Cruz at College Playoff Sporting Events

As you know, I’m a Democratic precinct chair. As of this year, so is my buddy Bill Kelly, who had been before that the head of Governmental Relations for Mayor Sylvester Turner. After long discussion and one too many “oh my God he did it again” situations, we have decided to take action on one of the more pressing matters that we face at this time.

Resolution Calling for the Banning of Ted Cruz at College Playoff Sporting Events

Whereas podcaster Ted Cruz has a well-known curse against college teams across the State of Texas whenever he is in attendance for playoff games;

Whereas the latest example being the April 2025 Men’s National Basketball Championship between the University of Houston and the University of Florida held in San Antonio; (1)

Whereas he was also in attendance at the January 2024 Sugar Bowl between the University of Texas and the University of Washington held in New Orleans; (2)

Whereas, he also was present at the 2019 Men’s Basketball National Championship between Texas Tech University and the University of Virginia; (3)

Whereas the overall combined record for college football teams for the Texas Longhorns, the Baylor Bears, and the Texas A&M Aggies with Ted Cruz in attendance is now 1-8. (4)

Whereas sports bettors are now 15-2 since 2017 when betting the money line against teams Ted Cruz shows up to support in person, where an individual would have profited $2,344 if they placed a $100 bet on each game; (5)

Whereas Cruz has also had an “in-person” problem when it came to serving his constituents during Winter Storm Uri as he flew to Cancun while leaving his dog Snowflake at this home; (6)

Therefore be it resolved that the Harris County Democratic Party – who proudly supports colleges across the State of Texas – will work with all partners to keep Ted Cruz away from attending college playoff sporting events in person. We further urge him to spend quality time with his dog Snowflake, or share a couch with JD Vance, or work on his basketball skills – or do anything other than attend a college playoff game in person. (7)

1 “’Cruz Curse’ adds another victim after epic collapse in National Championship” by Drew Bishop. “The SportingNews” April 7, 2025.
2 Mark Yzaguirre on Twitter
3 Ted Cruz on Twitter
4 “You could’ve made easy money using Ted Cruz and college football” by Jake Swearingen, Business Insider
January 2, 2024.
5 RedditCFB on Twitter
6 “Fact Check: Did Ted Cruz Leave His Dog Snowflake Home Alone During Trip to Cancun?” by Lauren Giella.
Newsweek” February 19, 2021.
7 “Kimmel vs. Cruz – Blobfish Basketball Classic

You’re welcome. Here’s the press release we have for this:

Harris County Democratic Party Resolution Call for an End to the Cruz Curse

(Houston) – Precinct Chairs and noted college sports fans Bill Kelly (Precinct #0001) and Charles Kuffner (Precinct #0003) have come together to author a resolution prohibiting podcaster Ted Cruz from attending college playoff games in person given his record of personal failure.

“The 9 scariest words for any college fan to hear are ‘I’m Ted Cruz and I’m coming to your game,’” said Kelly, an ardent supporter and alumni from the University of Houston. “Republicans, Democrats, and Independents – hell even fans from Lubbock to Houston – can all agree that when your college team is playing, Ted Cruz is the absolute last person you want to see.”

“Just check the math,” said Kuffner, who received his master’s degree from Rice University. “The Texas Longhorns, Baylor Bears, and Texas A&M Aggies are a combined 1-8 in football with Ted Cruz in attendance. The dude is poison.”

Kelly and Kuffner are joint authoring the resolution calling for all willing partners to keep Ted Cruz from attending college playoff games for Texas teams.

“We can’t ignore it anymore. We’ve got some great teams who could win it all if not for the Cruz curse. Despite our differences, we can all join together in calling for Ted Cruz to find something else to do when our teams are playing,” said Kelly.

Kuffner added, “NASA is looking at devastating Texas job cuts. Medical research at MD Anderson and the Texas Medical Center is being gutted. Tariffs are killing the Texas economy. We are beyond asking Ted Cruz to help. “Is it too much to ask that he just do us all a tiny favor and stay away? Is that too much to ask? I hear Cancun is nice this time of year.”

The resolution has been submitted to the county Resolutions Committee of the Harris County Democratic Party for review. If recommended by the Resolutions Committee, the resolution will then go before the County Executive Committee where it can be voted on by precinct chairs. Further information including a draft copy of the resolution can be found on Kuffner’s “Off the Kuff” blog at www.offthekuff.com

Be the change you want to see in the world, right? I feel pretty good that we can make this happen. And look, silliness aside, a little mockery is a good tool to have in your belt for when it is needed.

Posted in Other sports, Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

One more poll item

A couple of points to note here.

Big John Cornyn

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) trails Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by 16 points in a new poll commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP-leadership backed super PAC.

SLF is supporting Cornyn. Their poll has Cornyn trailing Paxton 56-40, according to two people briefed on the survey.

In a three-way contest with Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), who is considering a run, Cornyn is down 10. Paxton pulled 44% to Cornyn’s 34%. Hunt got 19% in the three-way race.

The survey, which was conducted from April 27 to May 1 by The Tarrance Group, also tested a general election contest between each potential Republican candidate and former Democratic Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who is mulling another Senate run. Cornyn led Allred by 6 points in the poll. Hunt was up 4 points. Paxton was down by 1 point.

Those results underscore a real fear for Republicans — that Paxton, a MAGA loyalist who has faced a slew of legal troubles, is best positioned to win a primary but could struggle in a general election.

Yet more importantly, this poll is devastating for Cornyn, who was first elected in 2002. Privately, some GOP operatives increasingly believe there may be no path for him to secure the nomination. It’s not the first survey to suggest Cornyn is in trouble, but this one comes from Cornyn allies.

I’m not in the business of trying to guess what Republicans will do or why they do what they do. Some things are just unfathomable. My advice for what Democrats should be doing remains the same.

I have no trouble believing that Cornyn would be the stronger candidate. John Cornyn is nowhere close to my idea of a good Senator, but he does have a long and solid record of passing normal, substantive legislation. Even in this hyper-partisan post-truth world, I believe there are more people who would support that than there are that would support Ken Paxton’s performative nihilist wingnut bullshit. The downside of Paxton winning is enough that I’d almost rather than we not test that out, but as noted that’s not in my hands.

That said, let’s not go overboard with a result like this, especially when we don’t even get to see the topline numbers, let alone the poll data. We know that Cornyn leads Allred by six and Paxton trails Allred by one. (Yes, there are multiple potential Democratic Senate candidates, but Allred is the best known other than Beto and the first to suggest an interest in running. Pollsters have to make some choices, you know?) There’s a big difference between this result being “Cornyn 47 Allred 41, Paxton 41 Allred 42” and “Cornyn 47 Allred 41, Paxton 45 Allred 46”. In the former, Allred the Dem is at the same basic level while there are a handful of Republicans who aren’t ready to admit yet that they’ll vote for the Republican even if it’s Ken Paxton. This is a totally normal result. In the latter, Allred has picked up some support, perhaps in part from those “Cornyn but not Paxton” voters, and is tangible evidence that there’s some animus towards Paxton. Still just one result so possibly an outlier, but at least something you can point to and watch for going forward.

Anyway. I keep telling myself that I want to spend less time on polls, it’s too much energy for ephemeral malarkey. I mostly accomplished that last year, one of the few triumphs any of us can claim from that dumpster fire. And now here I am, already being dragged back in for 2026. Please send help. I’ll try to do better from now on. Reform Austin has more.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How can we stand all this winning?

Item 1:

More than 1 million people count on Houston-area food pantries, which are staring down empty shelves after losing $11 million in federal funding.

Until recently, 100 tractor-trailers full of federally-funded food pulled up each month to the Houston Food Bank’s headquarters just east of downtown. Now, it’s down 60.

“It’s been a lot like navigating a disaster,” Houston Bank CEO Brian Greene said. “The information is incoming and you have to make decisions, and then more information comes along and you pivot.”

In total, the Trump administration cut 15% of the Houston Food Bank’s budget, said Greene. Breaking it down, that’s a loss of $7 million to buy food from local farmers, $3 million to distribute goods to 1,600 pantries and $1 million to help seniors and low-income families apply for health insurance.

The food bank will keep distributing to pantries, but they’ll have fewer choices, Greene said. And more than 200 seniors won’t get their monthly food boxes to help keep their shelves full.

In the meantime, the food bank is struggling to figure out how to make up the money and food it is losing. Maybe it will be forced to cut staff. Maybe private donors or foundations will step up. Maybe grocery stores and farmers will donate too-small onions or imperfect carrots or whatever else usually hits the trash.

A lot of maybes means a lot of uncertainty.

“We’ll take our shot,” Greene said, turning to the annual impact of the cuts. “But there’s no way we can make up 20 million pounds (per year). My goodness.”

Food banks across the country are battling the same problems.

Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins explained the cuts to USDA programs that help food banks and schools as a “once in a generation opportunity to save our country from fiscal ruin.”

“President Trump’s budget will put us on the path to reducing our deficit and lowering the national debt,” Rollins said in a news release. “At USDA we have already started by eliminating wasteful spending, reprioritizing our services to put farmers first, and cutting red tape.”

But to local food pantries that rely on the Houston Food Bank for supplies, the funding is far from “wasteful spending” – it’s the basis of their ability to feed people.

See here for some background. It’s difficult to adequately convey how monstrous and sociopathic Brooke Rollins’ statement is. Not surprising, given her background, but thoroughly depraved. I’m willing to bet that a poll that asked people to prioritize between ensuring that food banks, which serve an awful lot of children, are adequately supplied or that the “national debt” is serviced by cutting funding for food banks, the former would draw support in the 80% range. Among the things we can do are to remind people of this stuff.

Item 2:

President Donald Trump [has] released a budget request that would slash NASA funding by nearly 25% and result in the end of Houston-area programs.

The 2026 budget request would allocate roughly $18.8 billion to NASA, down from $24.9 billion in fiscal year 2024. The 2026 budget would make deep cuts in science programs and prioritize sending humans to the moon and Mars, a key priority for Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Congress passed a full-year continuing resolution in March that did not give NASA a 2025 budget, so it’s operating at 2024 levels.

The focus on human spaceflight at the NASA Johnson Space Center is not likely to insulate workers from these cuts, said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group based in Pasadena, Calif.

“Houston has to worry,” Dreier said. “This budget … it’s indicative of a shift away from NASA-implemented spaceflight systems, particularly for human spaceflight.”

The International Space Station, with its operations and missions led by teams in Houston, would have its funding cut by $500 million, roughly a third of its estimated operating budget. The number of astronauts living on the station and the amount of research conducted would be reduced.

The Orion spacecraft intended to return humans to the moon and the Gateway space station that would orbit the moon, both led out of Houston, are on the chopping block. Orion would end after Artemis III, the NASA mission working to return humans to the moon, as the agency shifts to a private company’s spacecraft. Gateway would be terminated before its launch.

The budget request also detailed a $1.1 billion drop in “mission support,” which it said would entail streamlining the workforce, NASA center operations, facility maintenance, etc. Dreier said this aligns with the agency’s reduction in force plan that’s being worked on. A $1.1 billion drop could portend a 25% to 30% drop in NASA’s nationwide workforce, he said.

NASA accounts for roughly 20,000 jobs in Texas. Nearly 3,000 full-time-equivalent federal employees worked at the Johnson Space Center in fiscal year 2023, the most recent data available. Another 17,359 contractor jobs were tied to NASA in Texas.

Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, said he’s very concerned about local job losses with the International Space Station and Orion programs, which are among the Johnson Space Center’s larger programs.

But he also said Houston might be able to attract some of the budget request’s $1 billion in new funding for a Mars-focused program. The economic partnership is working with the area’s Congressional leaders and will bring a group of Houstonians to Washington later this month to discuss the importance of human spaceflight.

“There may be other opportunities down the line for human spaceflight projects aligned with where the administration and Congress want to go,” Freedman said, “and we certainly have the skills here.”

U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, a Woodville Republican who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, emphasized the importance of NASA beating China to the moon.

“This proposal marks the beginning of the budget process — not a final decision,” Babin said in a statement. “President Trump and I share a clear goal: securing America’s position as the world’s preeminent spacefaring nation. As I review the president’s budget proposal, I will work to ensure it reflects that commitment. I remain dedicated to staying the course, honoring our national space priorities, and supporting Johnson Space Center and the vital programs it oversees.”

Dreier said the proposed cuts would be the largest in NASA’s history. They come as Trump, with the enthusiastic support of Musk, who contributed at least $250 million to Trump’s campaign and leads the Department of Government Efficiency, seeks to shrink the federal government. Both Trump and Musk have expressed an interest in sending humans to Mars.

And although the budget allocates more money for crewed missions to the moon and Mars, Dreier said the overall cuts are not realistic for getting humans to the Red Planet.

“This is not a budget commensurate with American leadership in space,” Dreier said. “This is a budget commensurate with American retreat from space.”

Hey, Senators Cornyn and Cruz, it’s nice that you want to relocate the space shuttle Discovery to Houston and all. But are you going to represent your human constituents and work to save their jobs? Or are all these job cuts, which are more likely to hurt the stated goal of putting humans on Mars than to help it, fine by you? Don’t expect any help from Rep. Babin, who is an utter moron. What are you going to do about this?

Item 3:

“Chaos.” “Nonsense.” “Absolutely terrible.”

In public, at least, many business leaders have been somewhat circumspect since President Donald Trump announced sweeping worldwide tariffs on April 2, or as he called it, “Liberation Day.” But Texas executives were a bit more candid in a series of recent surveys conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which invited them to comment on the tariffs anonymously.

“A lack of a plan and the arbitrary nature of the tariffs are killing business,” said one manufacturing executive in computer and electronic product manufacturing.

The Dallas Fed surveys hundreds of executives in the manufacturing, service and retail sectors each month about business conditions, inviting them to elaborate with anonymous comments. Last month’s surveys, conducted April 15–23, included a series of special questions on the impact of Trump’s tariffs.

Nearly 60% of the roughly 350 respondents from across the state said they expected higher tariffs to have a negative impact on their businesses this year; only 3.2% were expecting a positive impact. About 55% of those expecting a negative impact said they plan to pass at least some portion of the cost increases through to their customers.

At the time of the most recent survey, Trump had announced a pause on many of the tariffs he had just proposed, after the “Liberation Day” proposals sent markets reeling and raised concerns about the potential for inflation and recession. But Trump was planning to proceed with tariffs on major trading partners including China, which was among the countries responding with retaliatory tariffs.

“I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely terrible this is in the short term,” said another. “The daily changes in policy make it impossible to attract new business currently because we cannot quote it with accuracy.”

An executive in professional services described the situation as “a self-inflicted pandemic all over again.”

“The chaotic implementation of the administration’s tariff policy and the near-daily changes are wreaking havoc on our business, our customer’s business and our suppliers,” the respondent said.

Hey guys. I know you don’t like the absolutely terrible chaotic nonsense right now, even though most if not all of you probably voted for it. I’m sorry that it’s hurting your businesses and your personal bottom lines in ways that no one at all could have predicted or warned you about. Do you think that maybe you could say some of this stuff again next year, when people are beginning to think about the next election and how they might vote in it? No rush, take your time and think about it. I know how hard the whole “thinking ahead to the future” thing is for you. I’ll check back with you later.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Mexico sues Google over Gulf of Mexico renaming

I suppose this was inevitable.

Mexico has followed through on its threat to sue Google after the tech giant switched to the name “Gulf of America” on its digital maps, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced at a Friday news conference.

Google Maps users in the U.S. began seeing the name “Gulf of America” in February following President Trump’s executive order to change the name within the federal government. Google Maps users in Mexico still see Gulf of Mexico, and users in other countries see both names displayed together.

Sheinbaum previously threatened to sue Google if the company did not respond to letters requesting that “Gulf of America” should only refer to the part of the gulf in the United States’ jurisdiction. The company said in a public statement and in a letter to Sheinbaum’s administration that it has long complied with official government sources when determining geographic features names on Google Maps.

“All we want is for the decree issued by the United States government to be complied with,” she said Friday. “The decree issued by the United States government regarding the Gulf of America names only the portion that corresponds to the continental shelf of the United States, not the entire gulf.”

In the same way that certain local buildings (Transco Tower, the Summit, Enron Field) will always be as I first learned about them, I will never call that body of water anything but the Gulf of Mexico. The NYT adds some details.

The Trump administration is well within its right to rename its own territory but the maritime zones that are under the control of Mexico or Cuba cannot be relabeled by the United States or anyone else, she said. “We would have no business in telling them to rename a state, a mountain, or a lake,” she added.

In February, Cris Turner, the vice president for government affairs and public policy at Google, sent a letter to the Mexican government justifying the change and confirming that people using Google Maps in Mexico would continue to see Gulf of Mexico.

“This is consistent with our normal operating procedure to reflect on our platforms geographic names prescribed by different authoritative government sources,” the letter said, including in places where those sources “may differ.”

The next day, Mexico’s foreign ministry said in another letter to Mr. Turner that relabeling the entire gulf, even for American users only, “exceeds the powers of any national authority or private entity.” Mexico, the ministry said, would take any legal action it deemed appropriate.

Ms. Sheinbaum did not say on Friday when or where exactly her administration brought the lawsuit against Google but she added that there had already been a “first resolution.” The presidency’s legal office told The New York Times that the suit was filed in a Mexican court in late March.

The argument that the US government can only rename that which it controls seems pretty solid to me. I would hope that Google recognizes that and comes to a settlement agreement. If that results in an orange toddler temper tantrum, too bad. They could have done the right thing in the first place and maybe made it less of a big deal. This is what you get for bending the knee. BBC and The Verge have more.

Posted in Around the world, Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Once more with Trump’s approval ratings in Texas

Of interest.

President Donald Trump is viewed favorably by 47% of Texas voters and unfavorably by 50%, putting his net favorability at -3. This is a significant decline since November, when Trump’s net favorability was +12 (55% favorable, 43% unfavorable). Additionally, the share of voters who view him “very” favorably dropped from 42% to 37%, and the share of Republican and independent voters who view him favorably dropped from 96% to 89% and from 49% to 24%, respectively. Overall, this represents the first time TPOR’s polling has registered Trump’s favorability rating as net negative.

Governor Greg Abbott’s net favorability also experienced a post-election decline. In November, 50% of voters viewed him favorably and 45% viewed him unfavorably (net favorability +5). In the latest poll, 41% of voters viewed him favorably, while 54% viewed him unfavorably, giving him a net favorability rating of -13. The share of Republican and independent voters who view him favorably declined from 89% and 45% to 77% and 21%, respectively.

Elon Musk—who is based in Texas and plays a key role in the Trump administration—has a net favorability rating of -10, with 43% of voters viewing him favorably and 53% viewing him unfavorably.

Of the political figures surveyed, Colin Allred has the highest net favorability, at +7 (37% favorable, 30% unfavorable). But despite having been on the ballot in November, one-third of voters have never heard of him or have no opinion of him.

However, from August to March, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s favorability rating improved from 32% favorable and 45% unfavorable (net favorable -13) to 35% favorable and 40% unfavorable (net favorable -5). Still, he remains underwater by five points.

The least popular elected official, political figure, or group of politicians tested is Senator John Cornyn; just 21% view him favorably and 43% view him unfavorably (net favorable -22). 29% of Republicans view Cornyn favorably, while 64% view Paxton favorably.

As with the recent Texas Politics Project poll, Trump is way less popular now than he was before. The two surprises to me are Greg Abbott’s low favorability numbers – he has usually been one of the most popular officeholders in the state – and Ken Paxton’s surprisingly strong numbers – he has never polled all that well. Abbott, like Trump, has fallen considerably since TPOR’s last look in December. Abbott does usually do worse during legislative sessions than outside of them, so perhaps this is part of that. Or maybe it’s Trump, maybe it’s vouchers, maybe it’s an outlier, maybe it’s something else. I don’t want to get too deep into this, and as always we should view these as individual data points at a particular time. I do believe Trump’s numbers will continue to wither, though I don’t know by how much and I don’t know how much of a drag he’ll be on others. We’ll keep an eye on it. This is where we are now.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Who cares about weather disasters?

Not the Trump administration.

The Trump administration’s steep staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) triggered shutdowns of several climate-related programs Thursday.

Perhaps most notably, the NOAA announced it would be shuttering the “billion-dollar weather and climate disasters” database for vague reasons. Since 1980, the database made it possible to track the growing costs of the nation’s most devastating weather events, critically pooling various sources of private data that have long been less accessible to the public.

In that time, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US triggered more than $2.945 trillion in costs, and NOAA notes that’s a conservative estimate. Considering that CNN noted the average number of disasters in the past five years jumped from nine annually to 24, shutting down the database could leave communities in the dark on costs of emerging threats. All the NOAA can likely say is to continue looking at the historic data to keep up with trends.

“In alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will no longer be updating the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product,” NOAA announced. “All past reports, spanning 1980-2024, and their underlying data remain authoritative, archived, and available,” NOAA said, but no data would be gathered for 2025 or any year after.

According to NCEI’s FAQ, every state has experienced at least one billion-dollar disaster since 1980, while some states, like Texas, have been hit by more than 100. The Central, South, and Southeast regions of the US are most likely to be hurt most by the data loss, as those regions “typically experience a higher frequency of billion-dollar disasters,” the FAQ said.

Shutting the database down now seems like a bad idea, since the FAQ confirmed “the number and cost of disasters are increasing over time” due to factors like people building larger or cheaper properties in vulnerable areas and “changes in the frequency of some types of extremes that lead to billion-dollar disasters.” Those include notable rises in vulnerability to “drought, lengthening wildfire seasons in the western states, and the potential for extremely heavy rainfall becoming more common in the eastern states,” the FAQ said.

Previously, the FAQ noted, this database also helped monitor socioeconomic vulnerabilities, helping communities plan to avert future harms by comparing county extreme weather risk scores with county data on minority or elderly populations, as well as populations living with a disability or below the poverty line.

Although the database purported to have “no focus on climate event attribution,” its tracking appeared to conflict with Trump orders prohibiting DEI and undoing climate initiatives, alongside other crippling cuts to science. CNN dubbed the database’s closure “another Trump-administration blow to the public’s view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly.”

We better not have a disaster this year, and not just because we won’t be able to put it into context. There’s more bad stuff than that.

Within the past few days:

  • The interim head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides disaster relief and assists local and state agencies with response and recovery efforts, was ousted Thursday after testifying before Congress that he did not agree with proposals to dismantle the organization.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday announced it would no longer update its “billion-dollar weather and climate disasters” database that has allowed the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events.
  • As regional National Weather Service offices across Texas grapple with staffing cuts and unplanned vacancies, three Houston-area members of Congress are seeking answers from administration officials.

Because these federal agencies guide and assist state and local agencies and individual Texans during disasters, any instability in leadership or staffing gaps could leave us more vulnerable when the next major hurricane hits Houston or the Texas Gulf Coast.

Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL who has only run FEMA for a few months, had told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill Wednesday that he was concerned that the agency had “evolved into an overextended federal bureaucracy, attempting to manage every type of emergency no matter how minor,” the Associated Press reported.

But Hamilton said he did not agree with President Donald Trump’s proposals to end FEMA.

“I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” he told Congress.

Last July, after Hurricane Beryl caused the death of dozens of Texans and left millions in Southeast Texas without power, FEMA played its familiar role in Texas as a partner in local recovery efforts and benefactor. Since 2017, Texas has received $18.6 billion in FEMA funding, more than any other state except Florida.

But later in the year, as Trump campaigned for president, he repeatedly criticized FEMA and, in particular, its response in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. Trump not only falsely accused the Biden administration of shifting money for disaster relief to undocumented migrants, but also suggested that states, not the federal government, should manage hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and other crises alone.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, named David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa, to run FEMA for now. He had been serving as the DHS assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction.

The upheaval in leadership, as well as job cuts, at FEMA comes as the nation, led by Florida and Texas, has been experiencing increasing numbers of large-scale natural disasters. Former FEMA chief of staff Michael Coen told the Chronicle’s James Osborne in February that without leadership and proper staffing, the disaster response system that has helped rebuild the Gulf Coast for decades could be overwhelmed by a major hurricane.

“To diminish FEMA and these other agencies at a time they’re challenged by the increased frequency and severity of storms will leave this administration in jeopardy,” said Cohen, who left FEMA in January. “States are relying on these programs for guidance and approval. I don’t know how that money would get administered if you don’t have the staff.”

I got nothing. There’s going to be a disaster sooner or later, the federal response to it is going to be completely fucked up, and the only upside, as grim and horrible as it is to contemplate, is that it might be another 16-ton weight on Donald Trump’s approval rating. I don’t know what else to say.

Posted in Hurricane Katrina | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Harris County claims early victory in lawsuit over mass federal layoffs

First round to the good guys, but there’s a lot more to happen.

Harris County was among local governments and others claiming victory Saturday after a judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off federal employees.

The county, local governments, labor unions and nonprofits sued the Trump administration in the Northern District of California in late April. The suit accused President Donald Trump of violating the constitution by seeking to transform government agencies through large-scale layoffs, some which the plaintiffs alleged only Congress was empowered to do.

“This is a big win for Harris County and communities across the country that rely on the federal government to function,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said in a Saturday news release. “It’s a win for residents, for federal workers, and for anyone who believes government should work for the people — not be torn apart by President Trump’s overreach.”

The order puts on hold new and existing layoffs under Trump’s Executive Order 14210, which outlined his vision for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and granted it the authority to implement sweeping personnel changes.

Menefee said the firings had resulted in a decline in quality across many government services, including the Veteran’s and Social Security administrations.

“President Trump would have Harris County residents stuck with slower Social Security services, longer VA wait times, slower disaster response, and the loss of federal grants that fund food safety and emergency preparedness,” Menefee said. “We filed this lawsuit to stop him.”

The temporary restraining order issued by the San Francisco judge overseeing the case pauses all new and existing layoffs ordered by DOGE cross federal agencies for two weeks. Attorneys for the Trump administration appealed the order the same day it was issued, according to court records.

See here for the background. Law Dork gets into the weeds.

“It is the prerogative of presidents to pursue new policy priorities and to imprint their stamp on the federal government. But to make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his co-equal branch and partner, the Congress,” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston wrote in the decision. “Federal courts should not micromanage the vast federal workforce, but courts must sometimes act to preserve the proper checks and balances between the three branches of government.“

Illston, a Clinton appointee who will have served on the Northern District of California bench for 30 years later this month, issued the ruling following a Friday hearing in the case brought by unions, nonprofit organizations, and local governments to challenge the “large-scale reductions in force“ set in motion by President Donald Trump’s February 11 executive order purporting to “Implement[] The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative.“

“The Court notes … that its order does not prevent the President from exercising his Article II powers, it prevents him from exercising Congress’ Article I powers,” Illston wrote at one point in the 42-page ruling, a reference to the portions of the Constitution laying out executive and legislative powers, respectively.

As detailed in the ruling, Trump’s executive order was followed by a joint memo from the heads of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management on February 26 implementing Trump’s order. That, in turn, was to be followed by “Agency RIF and Reorganization Plans (“ARRP”),“ which were required, under the February 26 memo, to be submitted “to OMB and OPM for review and approval“ in two phases in March and April.

The plaintiffs challenge Trump’s order; the related actions of OMB, OPM, and the non-department Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE); and the agency ARRPs.

Although Illston lays out a meticulous case for her ruling, the bottom line is that she found that, with his actions — specifically, with these actions being taken without congressional authorization — Trump likely has gone too far.

“Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the President’s Executive Order 14210 is ultra vires” — or beyond the president’s legal authority, in other words illegal — “as the President has neither constitutional nor, at this time, statutory authority to reorganize the executive branch,” Illston wrote.

The case, filed on April 28, is led by lawyers from Altshuler Berzon LLP and Democracy Forward, with support from many other lawyers due to the broad array of plaintiffs.

In issuing her TRO, Illston blocked any further implementation of the executive order for the next two weeks and also set forth a schedule such that a preliminary injunction motion can be briefed over the next two weeks, with a hearing set for 10:30 a.m. PT May 22.

It goes on from there, so read on if you want the full treatment. It is not clear to me exactly what the local effect will be, now and in the future however the case goes, but there’s no reason to believe that anything the Trump administration is doing is beneficial, well thought-out, or in good faith. Fight on every front and then fight some more.

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Weekend link dump for May 11

“Since its publication last Sunday, The New York Times Magazine article “Have We Been Thinking About ADHD All Wrong?” has been called provocative and controversial. We would like to add a few adjectives: misrepresentative, biased, and dangerous.”

Doxxing the Secret Police to call them to repentance”.

“The Easy Way to Uphold Birthright Citizenship”.

Shōgun Season 2 begins filming in January. I thought Season 1 was great, but it also told a complete story. I have no idea where they go next, but I will be interested in watching.

“But questions remain about what these tariffs could mean for F1 and the teams in the long term. The sporting side may largely be insulated from the impact, but could the sport be susceptible to the global financial market?”

RIP, Skype, now fully dead.

“How Trump Accidentally Sabotaged His Own Case Against Abrego Garcia”.

I’m sure the reason for Trump’s obsession with Alcatraz is because he watched that movie with The Rock and Sean Connery and thought it was cool.

Also, what the hell is a foreign film tariff, and who is supposed to pay it?

“Bodybuilding is the first digital radicalizer of the twenty-first century.”

“If you ask women what they want from the government to make childrearing less onerous and more accessible, the research shows that people that do want children, or want more children, overwhelmingly report that they want childcare, family leave, and/or child subsidy payments, for starters—things that make the sheer cost of parenting doable in the way that all our peer countries do.”

Leave Richie Rich alone!

“Politicians have always lied. But getting caught in lies — especially really obvious ones — used to be a political problem. There were social penalties for lying: Newspapers and TV channels would run negative stories; clarifications or sheepish apologies would be issued; voters might lose trust and punish you at the polls. Being a liar was stigmatized, in the political realm and the personal. This was a good thing. I don’t know how a society survives if we don’t agree that when someone knowingly and obviously lies to your face, that person should lose your trust and esteem.”

Hackers have targeted GlobalX Air, one of the main airlines the Trump administration is using as part of its deportation efforts, and stolen what they say are flight records and passenger manifests of all of its flights, including those for deportation”.

“President Trump’s Media Company Is Offering Movies About ‘Lizard People’ And Other Wild Conspiracy Theories”.

“Microsoft isn’t the only company switching law firms lately amid President Trump’s ongoing battle with Big Law. Some in-house lawyers are quietly pulling work away from some law firms that have made deals with President Trump, citing their objections to such deals, according to interviews with legal department chiefs.”

What we know about Trump’s immigrant detention deal with El Salvador, and what we still need to know.

“Tesla’s attempt to trademark the term “Robotaxi” in reference to its vehicles has been refused by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for being too generic”.

“Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates ratcheted up his feud with Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through what he said were misguided cuts to US development assistance.”

RIP, David Souter, former Supreme Court Justice.

Tesla is in deep trouble in Europe. The electric vehicle maker, which once dominated EV sales in the region, is facing sales declines of more than 50 percent in France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK. Sales in Germany weren’t quite as bad—they fell by 46 percent in April, with slightly smaller decreases in Portugal and Spain. Only Italy and Norway saw any kind of sales growth.”

“Only four months into his term, when a president’s political capital should be at its most plentiful, and with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress working on a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill, Trump is incapable of winning support for a cherished policy proposal.”

“It is with love, respect, complete irreverence, and a midwestern sense of pride that I share my favorite Chicago Pope Memes from the last 12 hours.”

“Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk has been released from an immigration detention center in rural Louisiana in response to an order from a federal judge.”

RIP, Chet Lemon, three-time All Star centerfielder who won the World Series with the 1984 Detroit Tigers.

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The turnout effect in those school board races

In yesterday’s post we talked about the possible voucher effect in the recent school board elections, which were by and large a rout of the wingnuts. That same Chron story offered one more explanation at the end.

While some of the conservative candidates and groups that lost Saturday did not respond to requests for comment, social media discourse blamed low voter turnout for these results, which was lower than some previous May elections.

Turnout was highest in Clear Creek ISD, where less than 8% of registered voters in the area cast ballots, while in Tomball ISD, turnout was the lowest, with about 5% of registered voters turning out to make their voices heard on the four bond options. Spring Branch ISD representatives said voter turnout data will be available after the canvassing of the votes on Tuesday, May 13.

Still, Rottinghaus added that while it’s unfortunate that more people did not vote in this election, low turnout, low information elections have typically favored conservative candidates in school board elections, so this election may have bucked that trend.

“Low turnout in municipal elections is as common as bluebonnets in spring. It’s totally expected,” Rottinghaus said. “I will say that the side that’s better organized and that has more momentum on an issue is likely to come out the victor, and that might mean a couple 100 votes.”

Either way, Rottinghaus said that it’s possible people are becoming more aware of the importance of school board elections because they’ve noticed the impact of state and national politics in their child’s classrooms.

“People are more aware now of what’s happening in their local school districts and are reacting accordingly,” Rottinghaus said. “They’re recognizing that these policy changes are real.”

The subject was also addressed in the Fort Worth Report story. What Prof. Rottinghaus says here is correct, there’s nothing as low-turnout as a May election. What I was interested in was whether these races were low turnout in comparison to the same races in earlier years. As it happens, both Katy and Fort Bend ISDs have three-year terms, which means they have these elections every year. So I took a look at their recent turnout numbers, and this is what I found:


Katy ISD
Year   Turnout
==============
2025     7.45%
2024     6.96%
2023     5.13%
2022     5.06%

Fort Bend ISD
Year   Turnout
==============
2025     7.54%
2024     4.63%
2023     6.82%
2022     6.78%

In other words, relatively speaking, this was a high turnout year, more so in Katy than in Fort Bend. I don’t want to go crazy with this – these are still single-digit turnout numbers, and in such a situation it’s very much about who bothers to show up – but my point is simply that saying “these are low turnout elections” elides that bit of context. The elections this year were very much not low turnout in comparison to the three years before them.

In fact, since we’re going back as far as 2022, we can make a couple of more direct comparisons. In Katy ISD, Victor Perez won in 2022 with 5,706 votes out of 11,180 votes cast. He lost in 2025 with 7,561 votes out of 18,026 votes cast. In Fort Bend ISD, Rick Garcia won in 2022 with 9,131 votes out of 17,665 votes cast. He lost in 2025 with 7,566 votes out of 23,112 votes cast. Perez got more support this year than in 2022, but only 27% of the excess voters supported him. Garcia, who faced two opponents this year, lost support from three years ago. Make of all that what you will.

Again, I wouldn’t go overboard with any of this. It is correct to call these low turnout elections, and it is correct to be hesitant to draw any conclusions from them. All I want to do is add some context, which is one of my goals in life, or at least on this blog. You’re welcome.

(The FWR story noted that there were about 1900 more votes cast in the Mansfield ISD races this year compared to 2022, but it didn’t note turnout percentages. I just looked at these two districts because I thought they were sufficient for these purposes.)

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Be wary of the Trump mifepristone strategy

Hmmmm.

On Monday, Trump’s Justice Department slotted into a long-running, right-wing effort to get the abortion drug mifepristone restricted or yanked from the market altogether. Instead of joining forces with the red states challenging the drug, though, it largely picked up where the Biden administration had left off, arguing that the case should be dismissed.

This case, initially brought by anti-abortion doctors who wanted the drug restricted, reached the Supreme Court last summer. The justices ruled that the doctors lacked standing, as they were unable to prove that they were hurt by the Food and Drug Administration’s current set of restrictions on mifepristone. A group of red states tried to take the doctors’ place back at District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s court, creating a glaring jurisdictional issue: None of the states had any connection to north Texas.

“The three Intervenor-Plaintiff States — the States of Missouri, Idaho, and Kansas (“the States”) — do not dispute that their claims have no connection to the Northern District of Texas and that, if the States were to file their own suit in this District, that suit could not proceed due to improper venue,” the Trump DOJ wrote Monday.

If that’s where the brief ended, it’d be a pretty paltry “win” for the abortion rights side. The case was only limping along because Kacsmaryk, a judge known for his extraordinary sympathy toward conservative causes, had control of it; the minute it reached another judge, it would likely be dismissed.

But the administration went further, also poking holes in some of the states’ legal arguments. It raised an eyebrow at the very speculative theory of harm the states were pushing: that an earlier, more restrictive FDA regulatory regime should be put back into place to avoid some possible future conflict with state laws. It also echoed arguments made by the manufacturers of mifepristone that the window has elapsed for challenging the FDA’s 2016 loosening of regulations.

Some legal observers theorize that the administration’s unanticipated stance in the case boils down to its unwavering support for executive power, even when it creates odd bedfellows. It doesn’t want its FDA to be hamstrung — including, perhaps, when it gins up its own reason to restrict mifepristone in the future.

Others think it’s a gambit to create cover while it pursues other avenues of restriction, pointing to a suspect “study” published by a right-wing think tank last week.

“The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event,” blares the headline of the paper from the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

It bears many of the hallmarks of anti-abortion junk science — no peer review, refusal to publish the underlying data, an ad hoc expansion of definitions (undefined “other, abortion-specific complications” for half the patients they claim experienced severe adverse effects).

EPPC declined to publish its dataset when asked by HuffPost to do so, and told the outlet that the paper was not peer reviewed because “the extensive pro-abortion bias in the peer-review process” creates “no opportunities to publish peer-reviewed analysis that offer major substantive critiques of the abortion pill or abortion.”

See here and here for some background. Slate also covers this.

Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho may be making ridiculous assertions. But what does it mean that the Trump administration is pointing this out? Is it a sign that Trump will defend the status quo on mifepristone and keep his promise to leave the states alone when it comes to abortion?

Probably not. One of the most striking features of the brief is that it says nothing about the merits of the states’ arguments about mifepristone and the Comstock Act. Compare this with similar filings from the Biden administration, which went into painstaking detail about the Comstock Act and the FDA’s authority.

None of this is missing from the Trump administration’s brief by accident. Trump wants to leave himself room to maneuver on mifepristone. His problem with the attorneys general isn’t necessarily that the two groups of Republicans are on different sides when it comes to the drug. It may simply be that Trump wants to control if, or when, he does something on the issue. He doesn’t want to be pushed around by the anti-abortion movement or its allies in the states.

There’s another possibility too—one that Trump could have learned from the 2024 election. During his first term, the anti-abortion movement scored its biggest win in more than half a century, when the president was able to reshape the Supreme Court with three new appointments who would eventually be critical to overturning Roe v. Wade. And yet that fact—and the tremendous unpopularity of the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—didn’t stop Trump from winning a second term. It seemed he’d found a perfect formula: shifting blame to the courts, then claiming he wouldn’t change the status quo on his own. Cases about mifepristone are already in the pipeline—the Missouri suit is just one example. If passing the buck to SCOTUS worked once before, Trump might be hoping he can do the same with abortion pills.

We don’t know what will happen in this case, or others on mifepristone. The bottom line is that Trump isn’t defending abortion pills. He’s defending his own power to control what happens to them.

Trying to understand what Trump is thinking is a losing game. But we do need to think critically about what he and his minions actually do, so we have some hope of anticipating what might come next. Whatever they’re doing here, it’s not because they believe in mifepristone and the need for women to have access to it. Jessica Valenti has more.

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A brief digression on wacky fan contests at sporting events

I love this kind of stuff, and I hope you do too.

Every night across the country, fans vie for prizes in contests staged during breaks in the action at sporting events big and small. In basketball, it might be halfcourt shots or length-of-the-court putts. In football, it might be throwing a ball at a target or kicking a field goal. In hockey, it might be taking a shot from center ice.

The vast majority of these real people efforts come and go with polite applause from the crowd, an amusing distraction while the real athletes are getting a rest. Some of them are a lot more fun than that, with explosions of joy and disbelief that something great just happened — and it’s been that way for a long time.

Jim Kahler, director of the Sports & Entertainment Management Program at Cleveland State University, said in-game contests have been part of the fan experience since the mid-20th century. Bill Veeck was famous for the wacky ways he engaged fans as a minor and major league baseball owner — you may remember his 1979 Disco Demolition debacle at a Chicago White Sox game — and Kahler said the late NBA Commissioner David Stern encouraged franchises to emphasize entertainment as much as the game itself.

“Those breaks at halftime and quarter breaks and two-minute timeouts became valuable inventory,” said Kahler, who previously was chief marketing officer and senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“You could tie it to the growth of sponsorship,” Kahler said. “You’ve got more and more sponsors than ever before. Teams are smart enough to sell those spots. The sponsor and the team have to figure out something that’s interactive and engage with the fans in a way the fans appreciate. Then it kind of became the arms race of who can come up with the better idea.”

Of course, there is risk involved with offering prizes worth tens of thousands of dollars. About a half-dozen companies in the United States assume that risk for sponsors and make good on payoffs to contest winners.

Bob Hamman, who founded Dallas-based SCA Promotions in 1986, and his son and company vice president Chris Hamman base their fees on the odds they set for each contest. For example, Bob Hamman said, there’s a 50% chance a person picked at random will make a free throw. That drops to 14% for a 3-pointer and 2% for a halfcourt shot.

[…]

Chris Hamman said a watershed moment for in-game contests occurred in 1993, when Chicago Bulls fan Don Calhoun’s overhand throw from the opposite free-throw line swished through the hoop 80 feet away for $1 million.

The insurance company balked at paying because Calhoun had walked on to play basketball at two junior colleges a few years earlier and played in a handful of games. That was disqualifying, according to the insurance company. The Bulls — reportedly with Michael Jordan’s involvement — and sponsors ended up making good on the payoff.

This is risk analysis in its purest form. It’s no different than what actuaries at insurance companies do – calculate the odds of a thing happening, then offer to insure against it based on those odds. Not for the faint of heart or light of cash.

Two items of note for me. One, if you’ve read this blog for awhile you know that I used to play tournament bridge, mostly in the 90s. It was a lot of fun, and one of the joys of that particular interest is that you can sit down and compete against players who are legitimate national and world champions. Bob Hamman, a longtime resident of Dallas, is on anyone’s short list of greatest players ever. I had the pleasure of sitting down against him a couple of times. I knew his son Chris reasonably well in the 90s – he was pals with several guys I knew at UT at the time, and I played on a couple of teams with him, though I don’t think I ever partnered with him. Texas – Houston and Dallas in particular – have long been full of high level bridge players, and you don’t even have to go to the big fancy tournaments to run into them regularly. I haven’t played competitively in 20+ years and I miss it sometimes – I met a lot of really interesting people through bridge.

And two, back in the 70s when the New Jersey Nets were playing their home games at Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ, my dad’s law firm had season tickets and I got to see a bunch of games. They had a regular contest in which you could enter a drawing to match or exceed the number of free throws a current or former player made (out of five) and win some modest prize. One night, when I was maybe 9 or 10, my name was drawn. The player they had for me to match made all five of his attempts, so no pressure at all. I did my free throws underhanded, because I was too skinny and short to have any hope of reaching the rim otherwise, and managed to sink the first one, which got me a rousing round of applause. It was all downhill from there as I missed the next two (they always counted the first contestant miss as a “practice shot”) and went away empty-handed. I can’t remember what the prize would have been, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t need any risk assurance firm to cover it for them.

(You should definitely watch the videos of Don Calhoun’s three pointer and that court-length putt some dude in Nebraska sank to win a Porsche.)

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Saturday video break: AV Undercover is back

Very good news.

Since 2010, AV Club has been inviting artists to cover songs from a list chosen by our readers. Once a song has been chosen, it’s crossed off the list for that season, leading to fewer and fewer options as the season goes on. We’re in the process of restoring our archives on The AV Club YouTube channel and will add links as they’re republished. After seven years, we’re bringing AV Undercover back, so stay tuned for Season 9.

You should click over and see the premier video they have for Season Ten, because it’s…something else. Trust me on this.

Some of their past videos that I am a big fan of, starting with this one, a go-to for me when I need a little pumping up:

How I would have loved to be in the room when that was made. That was from season two. This is from the most recent season, in 2017, and it made me a fan of the band that performed it:

Go look for Lake Street Dive on YouTube, they have some terrific covers and good originals, too. They have a couple of Tiny Desk Concerts, one done from home during the pandemic and the other five years before that, at the titular tiny desk.

“Stop Dragging My Heart Around” is a good song to cover – hell, it’s a good karaoke song, which I say with experience, as the Tom Petty part was within my vocal range back before I became more of a bass. Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, joined by Jackie Tohn, does my current favorite version, but they weren’t on the AV Club roster. Sharon Van Etten, along with Shearwater, was:

It’s hard to do that without imitating Stevie Nicks, but you have to try and you have to make it your own without getting too far away from what Stevie did. Jackie Tohn and Sharon Van Etten both hit that sweet spot. That was from Season 3; Van Etten also covered “She Drives Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals in the same season as the TMBG cover of “Tubthumping”. That shows how deep the legacy of this series is.

Finally, here’s Ted Leo and the Pharmacists doing an excellent non-synthesizer “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears for Fears:

Honestly, it’s how much fun everyone is having while also delivering top-notch performances that makes this series great and a joy to have back. Dig in and find some new music and artists, and have some of your own fun.

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Measles update: It would help if the people with measles stopped traveling while sick

I don’t know what else to say.

An El Paso resident’s two-day visit to Austin has prompted a warning from city public health officials, after the person was confirmed to have measles.

The person was in Austin from April 25 through April 27. Austin officials said El Paso’s Department of Public Health has gathered “limited details about the individual’s visit to Austin.”

However, the individual may have exposed the public at Terry Black’s Barbecue on Barton Springs Road on Saturday, April 26, between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m.

The city of Fredericksburg posted on its Facebook page that the same person may have exposed people in Gillespie County, also on April 26.

The city said the person visited four locations on East Main Street in downtown Fredericksburg:

  • Burger Burger between 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
  • Loca on Main between 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.
  • Felt Boutique and Allens Boots between 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

More details on the Fredericksburg exposure can be found online here.

Additional locations may be identified as the case investigation continues. The city of Austin said updates will be posted at austintexas.gov/measles.

Austin health officials said in a media release that this case “underscores the importance of community-wide vaccination and awareness.”

Putting my cybersecurity hat on for a minute, one of the main entry points for malware on a computer or network is people doing the wrong thing. Clicking on links or attachments in phishing emails, downloading software from sketchy websites, allowing some “tech support agent” who called you out of the blue to say that they had detected a threat on your machine to install some remote connection tool so they can “fix” it for you, that sort of thing. Some of these threats are more sophisticated than others, and even highly knowledgeable people can fall for the right scam, but a lot of the time it’s just someone being extremely unaware. Many companies nowadays spend a lot of time and resources on employee training and phishing simulations to help their staff recognize these situations and reduce the risk of them becoming victimized.

All of this is a longwinded way of saying that one way to reduce the risk of measles transmission, given that some stubborn rump of the population refuses to get vaccinated and must be coddled for it, is to try to make these people aware of the fact that if they are actively sick, they need to stay home and not be around other people until they’re not sick anymore. I don’t know what it’s going to take to craft and deliver such a message to the people that need to hear it in a way that they will be receptive to it, but it’s clear from this story that the risk is real and we’ve gotta do something about it.

Anyway. Measles keeps finding its way to other states, though not all of that is connected to the ongoing outbreak. These new cases are almost always related to travel in some way, either as above a sick person visiting somewhere or a healthy but often unvaccinated person visiting a country – or now state – with an elevated risk of measles and getting themselves infected. I don’t have a whole lot of hope for any kind of travel safety communications happening given the current administration’s unhinged zeal for cutting funds for medical research, mostly as a way to attack its perceived ideological enemies. None of that is directly related to the measles outbreak, but it’s very much all of a piece, and we are all a lot worse off for it.

And that brings us to the Friday update.

The measles outbreak centered in northwest Texas appeared to slow on Friday, as health officials reported just seven new cases since earlier this week.

The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows the state has seen 709 measles cases since the outbreak began spreading in late January. So far, 89 people have been hospitalized for treatment and two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus.

Texas has reported 26 new measles cases over the past week, down from 37 new cases during the one-week period that ended May 2, according to DSHS data. The state had been reporting about 50 new cases of measles per week since Valentine’s Day, aside from a two-week surge in late March and early April.

Approximately two-thirds of cases in Texas have been in children and teens. More than 95% have been in individuals who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown.

The outbreak, the largest in the United States in at least 25 years, has also spread to New Mexico and Oklahoma. New Mexico reported 71 cases on Friday, while Oklahoma reported 17. New Mexico has reported one suspected measles death, an unvaccinated adult who tested positive for the virus after dying.

The DSHS estimated that fewer than 10 of the Texans who have contracted measles — about 1% of the total — are actively infectious. An individual may be infectious up to four days before a rash appears and up to four days after it’s gone.

Six of the seven new cases reported on Friday are in El Paso County. The county has now reported 50 cases in total.

The other new case is in Lamar County, which has reported 51 cases amid the outbreak.

For the second time in a week, the update did not include any new cases in Gaines County, which has been the epicenter of the outbreak. The small county along the New Mexico border has reported a total of 403 cases, nearly 57% of all cases associated with the outbreak.

The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in eight counties: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum. Garza and Lynn counties are no longer considered to have ongoing measles transmission.

Okay, I’ll accept that the outbreak is slowing down. That just emphasizes my point about the need to keep the fairly small number of infectious people isolated, and especially not traveling through much more heavily populated areas, because that’s how you reignite this flame. NBC News gets into this a bit.

Ninety-one people have been hospitalized since the beginning of the outbreak. About two-thirds were kids.

But for the second week in a row, no children are hospitalized with the virus in West Texas, said Katherine Wells, the public health director for the city of Lubbock, located at the epicenter of the outbreak.

“I’m hopeful that things are slowing down,” Wells said.

Still, she and others who’ve been on the front lines of the outbreak were cautious.

“I don’t think it’s over, but I do think it’s beginning to taper a little bit now,” said Dr. Lara Johnson, a pediatrician and chief medical officer at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock. “That could change tomorrow.”

Measles is so contagious, Johnson said, it can easily infiltrate vulnerable, mostly unvaccinated, communities. At this point, she said, it seems the virus has made its way through many West Texas communities with low vaccination rates.

“Outbreaks burn themselves out,” Johnson said. “Everyone who’s susceptible in the community becomes not susceptible, either because they have the illness, or perhaps they choose to vaccinate.”

Doctors on the ground said there’s been a slight uptick in people choosing to get themselves or their children vaccinated. Others have been convinced to stay home while contagious to prevent further spread.

Mostly, however, measles has likely run out of people to infect among the vulnerable population.

Even as the outbreak slows in West Texas, it’s growing elsewhere.

As of Tuesday, there were 987 measles cases nationwide, according to an NBC News tally of state health departments. It’s the largest number of measles cases since 2019, when more than 1,200 cases were reported, driven by an outbreak in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York.

Most of the current cases are related to international travel. Montana and North Dakota are now reporting eight and four cases, respectively.

But some of the outbreaks in other states are linked directly to cases in West Texas.

That includes the 46 cases in Kansas, not mentioned in the Chron story. By the way, the 403 total cases in Gaines County, which as noted hasn’t reported any new ones in two weeks, represents about 1.8% of that county’s population. A similar case rate in Harris County would have infected about 87,000 people. And this outbreak, whether it is truly waning or not, is still the biggest in the nation in 25 years. Let’s please not have a repeat of that any time soon.

NPR has another nice story on Katherine Wells, the indefatigable public health commissioner in Lubbock. I wish her a long, relaxing vacation when this is over. And to close on another positive note, here’s some more good news. Item one:

Far fewer babies went to the hospital struggling to breathe from RSV, a severe respiratory infection, after the debut of a new vaccine and treatment this season, according to an analysis published today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RSV, or respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus, is the leading cause of hospitalization for infants in the US. An estimated 58,000–80,000 children younger than 5 years old are hospitalized each year. Newborns—babies between 0 and 2 months—are the most at risk of being hospitalized with RSV. The virus circulates seasonally, typically rising in the fall and peaking in the winter, like many other respiratory infections.

But the 2024–2025 season was different—there were two new ways to protect against the infection. One is a maternal vaccine, Pfizer’s Abrysvo, which is given to pregnant people when their third trimester aligns with RSV season (generally September through January). Maternal antibodies generated from the vaccination pass to the fetus in the uterus and can protect a newborn in the first few months of life. The other new protection against RSV is a long-acting monoclonal antibody treatment, nirsevimab, which is given to babies under 8 months old as they enter or are born into their first RSV season and may not be protected by maternal antibodies.

Item two:

In the summer of 2020, death engulfed Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

Delia Ramos recalls the eerie prevalence of freezer trucks lining hospital parking lots to store the bodies, as a novel virus battered the mostly Hispanic region. When her husband Ricardo eventually fell ill, he entered the hospital alone, and she never got to see him again.

The demand for services for the dead was so high, she had to place her name on a waiting list to have him cremated.

“People were passing away left and right,” said Ramos, 45, of Brownsville.

By that summer’s end, it was clear: Texas Hispanics were dying at a rate faster than any other ethnic group. In 2020, Hispanics made up nearly half of all COVID deaths in Texas. White Texans — whose share of the state’s population is the same as Hispanics — made up only 38% of all deaths that year.

In the Valley and in several Hispanic communities, many Texans like Ramos’ husband, who was a driver for a transportation contractor, worked in jobs outside the home, exposing them to the deadly virus. They often lived under the same roof with children and grandparents, increasing the risk of spreading the infection.

“What we’re seeing really is historic decimation among the Hispanic community by this virus,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, Texas’ reigning infectious disease expert and physician, to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Sept. 30, 2020.

It has been five years since Gov. Greg Abbott issued a series of orders reopening the state for business in May 2020 — a move that accelerated a disproportionate amount of deaths for Texas Hispanics in the immediate months that followed. Today, COVID deaths have fallen dramatically.

An analysis of COVID mortality data by The Texas Tribune reveals the trends have flipped since the beginning of the pandemic: White Texans are the most likely to die of COVID compared to other race and ethnic groups, while the proportion of Hispanics dying of the disease has plummeted. In 2024, Hispanics made up 23% of COVID deaths in Texas, while white Texans made up 63%.

Vaccines work, y’all. Try them, you won’t be disappointed.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The tariff effect on chocolate

Chocoholics beware.

For weeks, businesses across the U.S. have scrambled to plan for President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs. That includes two Houston Heights dessert shops.

Pudgy’s Fine Cookies and Underground Creamery at 1010 N Shepherd Dr. have been on edge as news about Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs roll out. According to Josh DeLeon, owner and operator at Underground Creamery, and Pudgy’s owner Van Teamer, tariffs threaten to raise prices on dessert staples like chocolate, coffee, and matcha.

Known for their “thick AF” chocolate chip cookie, Pudgy’s cookie menu relies heavily on quality chocolate. Instead of pedestrian brands like Nestle and Tollhouse, Teamer looks to culinary grade chocolate brands like Valrhona and Cacao Barry from France and Callebaut from Belgium. Imports from the European Union are subjected to a 20 percent tariff, which came into effect on April 9, according to the BBC.

According to Teamer and DeLeon, chocolate is the most expensive ingredient at both businesses. Though Underground Creamery doesn’t regularly include chocolate in its beloved ice cream pints, DeLeon admitted to stocking up prior to the tariffs, buying around $7,000 worth of high-quality chocolate before the tariffs hit.

“Chocolate is scarce already,” DeLeon said. “It’s not growing as much, same with coffee and matcha.”

Even before Trump’s tariffs, the global chocolate industry was having problems as early as the beginning of 2024. Producers in West Africa began noticing that cocoa trees were producing less healthy pods. In Ghana, cocoa farms saw the rise of “black pod disease” and weeks of high temperatures, which severely impacted the harvest, according to Food Chain Magazine. Globally, chocolate prices have skyrocketed and are projected to continue climbing this year. Similar issues have also plagued the coffee and matcha trades. Ongoing shortages, combined with the tariffs, have raised prices even higher.

DeLeon said other ingredients, like hazelnut chocolate and vanilla, are also at risk for price hikes. Hazelnut chocolate costs around $600 per case now, but could go up to $800 with tariffs. Vanilla paste and extracts from Madagascar cost around $550 now, but are subject to a 47 percent tariff.

[…]

Alongside tariff concerns, Pudgy’s and Underground are still dealing with other financial challenges. During the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl, the two businesses lost power for at least a week. Teamer and DeLeon gave away their ice cream and cookies for free to passersby during the outages, then claimed their losses through insurance. Unfortunately, Teamer said, their claims were capped at $10,000–way below the pair’s losses. “We’re still recovering…all that chocolate we had to rebuy,” she said.

But will the tariffs increase Teamer and DeLeon’s prices?

“If push comes to shove,” DeLeon said.

So there you have it. These places (which I totally need to try for myself) deal in life’s little luxuries, which means that they really can’t afford to jack up prices. People will just find substitutes for their wares, of which there are plenty at lower price points. Remember when Republicans were supposed to be business friendly? Boy, those were the days.

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Renaissance Festival to be sold

There’s always drama with this thing.

A Grimes County District Judge has ruled the the Texas Renaissance Festival must be sold, ending a two-year legal battle over the popular festival.

Judge Gary W. Chaney of the 506th state District Court issued the ruling Wednesday following several days of testimony last week in the civil case filed in August 2023. Chaney also said the festival’s owner must pay over $23 million in damages to cover money lost by the buyer during the dispute, including attorney’s fees.

The original lawsuit, filed by RW Lands Inc., says Texas Stargate, Inc., Royal Campground, Inc., and Texas RF, Inc. agreed to purchase the Renaissance property, assets and nearby property for $60 million.

However, the suit claims festival founder George Coulam and his company did not provide the required documents for the sale, and the plaintiffs learned on April 7, 2023, that Coulam would not close the sale on April 8, 2023, as planned.

“Indeed, the August 8, 2023 closing date came and went without (Coulam) complying with their closing obligations,” the suit states.

In a response filed with the courts on Sept. 11, 2023, Coulam denied the allegations and claimed the plaintiffs had not complied with their obligations to close the sale.

“Defendants deny that either party was ready to close on August 8, 2023. Defendants deny that there was a valid contract on August 8, 2023, as all parties expressed the need to alter the contract provisions to provide more specificity and clarity,” court documents state.

I don’t think I knew that there was supposed to be a sale, or that there was litigation over the fact that there was a disagreement about there being a sale. I did know that there’s been some ongoing drama over who might take over from founder and reigning monarch George Coulam, who can fairly be described as “a piece of work”. We’ll see what happens next. CultureMap has more.

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Did vouchers play a role in the May school board elections?

Interesting hypothesis from the Chron.

Several conservative candidates with right-wing support lost their bids for Houston-area school boards Saturday night, a change that some experts said could reflect dissatisfaction with the current state of national politics.

Even though school boards are supposed to be nonpartisan entities, many ultra-conservative candidates have been elected with support from outside political organizations and large private donations, leading to book banscensorship of instructional material and restrictive gender policies. In Katy, Fort Bend and other districts across Texas, trustees who supported those conservative policies, lost their bids for re-election.

“You could call it a kind of a mini-reactionary bump … A lot of voters may choose to go vote because this is the only way that they can show their displeasure at the current moment,” University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said. “(It’s) a global factor that would definitely produce an outcome where you have more moderate to liberal candidates winning.”

[…]

With Cross and Redmon winning their [Katy ISD] elections, parent Anne Russey, co-founder of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, said she hopes the board will stabilize over the coming months.

“We’ve been in the news a lot for controversial, and kind of embarrassing things, and I think people are tired of that,” Russey said. “The majority of people in Katy love our schools. We love our teachers. We support public education. And just to continually be bombarded by stories of more books being banned or more students being targeted, it doesn’t feel good to read about yourself in that kind of light.”

Russey railed against the notion that Katy ISD was now seeing a “leftist takeover” as neither candidate who won their races was openly political.

Statewide, comfortably conservative boards were disrupted by local elections on the same day that Gov. Greg Abbott signed a $1 billion school voucher proposal into law.

“In communities like Keller and Katy, where it’s felt like we’re just continually losing, our voices are continually being ignored, … this was kind of a reckoning,” Russey said.

She hopes the statewide trend would be a wake-up call for legislators that book bans and culture war themes were not “winning issues politically.”

Despite the area losses, Harris County GOP spokesperson Vanessa Ingrassia said the group was “not discouraged by the results of this election” and pointed to misinformation about school vouchers as a potential reason for the shift.

“Elections surrounding midterms are historically challenging, especially for the party in power. In this case, widespread misinformation, particularly from anti–school choice campaigns, created an added layer of difficulty for our candidates,” Ingrassia said. “Despite these setbacks, the Harris County Republican Party has a strong track record of electing local leaders and remains fully committed to supporting our candidates at every level. … (We) will continue to work toward policies that reflect the values of our community.”

Rottinghaus said the discussion on school vouchers this year could have swayed voters toward more liberal candidates or coalesced protestors around the anti-vouchers issue.

“This is a classic move from protest politics to policy making, where a lot of local organizations who’ve had less success either getting the state to spend more money on the basic allotment or on fighting vouchers, have now transitioned into running for office,” Rottinghaus said.

And he doesn’t expect his to slow down over the next few cycles.

“We’re going to see more people who are going to find dissatisfaction with the state of funding in Texas public ed and seek to find a way to involve themselves in the process politically,” he said.

See here and here for some background. Gotta love the copium from the local GOP spokesbot. I don’t know what role, if any, the voucher saga may have played in these elections. School boards aren’t direct participants in that debate, and as we know there were plenty of other hot-button issues at play in these and other races. I can believe that the people who voted to oust these odious incumbents or block equally odious non-incumbent candidates were also largely opposed to vouchers, but that doesn’t really tell us anything. I sure hope that vouchers are a motivating factor, especially next year, but safe to say that remains to be seen.

For what it’s worth, in this Fort Worth Report story about the local elections in Tarrant County, Professor Rottinghaus doesn’t mention the V-word.

In recent election cycles, local races have gradually become the “latest battlefield for policy making” for both sides of the political spectrum, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

“We are seeing more money poured into local races, more attention to individual candidates and more advocacy policies,” Rottinghaus said. “That competitiveness of local politics makes it easy for people to see clearly where candidates stand ideologically. That’s not something that was sort of obvious in the past.”

He said it’s difficult to gauge broader political sentiments based on local, off-cycle elections, which consistently see lower voter turnout than November elections with national candidates on the ballot. The results in Mansfield are likely more the result of a group of passionate, civically engaged residents who are angry about the partisanship they’ve seen in recent years, Rottinghaus said.

About 8% of registered Tarrant County voters cast ballots in the May 3 election. Across the three Mansfield ISD races, an average of 12,263 voters cast ballots — up from an average of 10,393 voters in the four May 2022 school board races. School board members are elected at-large, allowing all voters in the district to weigh in on candidates.

“It would be misleading to read too much into these results, or to ascribe what’s happening as a direct rebuke to what’s going on at the federal and state levels,” Rottinghaus said.

Clayton Waters, who as founder of MISD Future PAC supported the school district challengers, said he feels conservative voters weren’t motivated by the incumbents’ partisan message. He said the results were a “loud and clear message that partisanship isn’t welcome on the school board.”

Conservative leaders agreed their voters weren’t motivated this election cycle, but they don’t agree that it’s due to a rejection of partisanship.

“I know the Left will spin this to motivate their troops saying Tarrant is blue. It’s not. One election can’t make that determination,” Julie McCarty, CEO of True Texas Project, said in a statement to the Report, adding that it was only six months ago that Republicans swept Tarrant County in the November election.

“The problem for the Right is we win in Federal and State elections, and we let that lull us to sleep,” McCarty said. “The Right needs to learn to stay the course. We will rally, and we will win again. Just watch.”

[…]

Rottinghaus said there is a possibility that Republican PACs were “off the mark” this election cycle or too extreme, leading to less Republican turnout. If Republican-backed incumbents have already addressed the issues they previously campaigned on, voters likely won’t see those issues as a threat anymore and will be less motivated to cast ballots.

“It could be that the issues didn’t motivate the way that they used to because they weren’t quite as raw and didn’t touch a nerve in the same way,” he said. “It’s also conceivable that the groups went too far that they’re out kicking their coverage and making arguments that people don’t believe.”

With just a few thousand votes to analyze, Rottinghaus added: “It’s impossible to say definitively what’s going on.”

That latter bit comes after a discussion of the flameout of the Patriot Mobile PAC candidates. This story covered municipal elections as well as school board races, so the spectrum of issues in play is even wider. The wingnut PACs cited here have likely been playing in legislative races as well. What Rottinghaus says here is consistent with his remarks on the Houston-area races, just less specific on that one item. And if he’s right about the Republican PACs going too far, in part because they’ve already passed lots of their bills, that would also be nice for 2026. Again, we’ll have to see.

There is one more possible cause for these election results that gets mentioned in both stories. I’ll cover that in a separate post.

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Fort Worth ISD could be subject to takeover

Look out.

The Texas education commissioner is now officially weighing his options for Fort Worth ISD after a now-closed school triggered the state’s school intervention law.

In a May 5 letter to Superintendent Karen Molinar and board President Roxanne Martinez, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said the district’s accountability ratings triggered a state law that requires him to intervene.

The issue: The Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade failed to meet state standards for five straight years — a threshold that mandates either a campus closure or the appointment of a board of managers to govern the entire district.

Although the failing campus no longer exists, its closure does not absolve the district from consequences, Morath said.

“Since the campus earned its fifth consecutive unacceptable academic rating in that year, the school’s subsequent closure has no bearing on, and does not abrogate, the compulsory action the statute requires the commissioner to take,” he wrote in the letter.

District leaders closed the sixth grade campus — formerly known as Glencrest Sixth Grade — at the end of the 2023-24 school year. It was absorbed into Forest Oak Middle School as part of a consolidation plan TEA approved. The school is now marked “obsolete” in the state’s directory.

Still, the delayed release of 2023 academic accountability ratings due to a lawsuit showed the campus earned an F that year. Because the campus had also failed to meet standards in 2022, 2019, 2018 and 2017, the five-year mark was reached.

[…]

District officials previously told the Fort Worth Report they believe Fort Worth ISD is not at risk of a takeover. They said the Forest Oak Sixth Grade closure and campus consolidation already addressed the issue — and that academic performance has improved.

“We are proud of the growth that we have seen in Forest Oak Middle School since the expansion and consolidation to one 6-8 grade campus,” Molinar wrote in an April 24 community letter.

In his letter, Morath emphasized that his hands are tied by law.

“Commissioner action under this section of the (Texas Education Code) is compulsory,” he wrote. “The commissioner does not have discretion whether to act under this provision.”

Morath will not make a final decision until after the ratings are finalized later this summer. Fort Worth ISD has the right to appeal the preliminary rating for the now-closed campus. That process will conclude in August.

The district plans to appeal the rating, a spokesperson told the Fort Worth Report. Fort Worth ISD remains focused on improving student outcomes, the statement said.

A copy of Morath’s letter is embedded in the story. It may be that FWISD officials are right and they’re not at risk of a takeover, but Morath used that same language about him not having discretion in these matters right before HISD got invaded. Make of that what you will. The TEA took over South San Antonio ISD in February, so they’ve got their hands even more full. We’ll see what happens here.

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Buc-ee’s settles with Duckees

Peace has broken out.

Buc-ee’s, Texas’ favorite beaver-branded convenience store has reached a settlement with a Duckees, a Missouri company peddling duck-branded snacks and gas that it alleged was a copycat, according to court records.

The lawsuit, filed in November, alleged that Duckees was seeking to capitalize on Buc-ee’s brand recognition by using similar advertising — particularly the store’s anthropomorphic duck, which Buc-ee’s said “copies the most important aspects” of its logo. The lone Duckees drive-thru liquor and convenience store is in Kimberling City, near Branson, Mo.

The trial was to begin May 15, according to court records, but the companies reached a settlement in mid-April. The details of the settlement were not publicly disclosed, but images on Duckees’ Facebook page appeared to still use the anthropomorphic duck Buc-ee’s alleged the company stole.

[…]

In a response filed in February, Duckees argued that it operated in a geographically remote area and said it was protected under the prior use doctrine, which allows small companies to use similar trademarks to established brands so long as they operate in an area where the brand is relatively unknown.

See here and here for the background. I thought this was one of the weaker lawsuits Buc-ee’s bas brought, and perhaps that was indeed true. You can’t accuse them of not defending the trademark, that’s for sure.

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