Category Archives: Show Business for Ugly People

Paxton double-talks on that SOS advisory

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Ken Paxton really can’t be trusted. Not exactly earth-shattering, I know, but always good to remember. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton assured lawmakers on Friday that his office hadn’t launched criminal investigations into nearly 100,000 voters flagged by the secretary … Continue reading →

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Equality Texas poll on non-discrimination laws

Posted on February 11, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox: New data released by national polling organization Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows majority support from every major demographic group for laws to protect LGBTQ Texans from discrimination. “This poll shows that Texas has turned the corner, … Continue reading →

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Paxton manages to restrain himself from prosecuting anyone on the SOS list – yet

Posted on February 9, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Mighty decent of you there, Kenny boy. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told lawmakers Friday that his office has yet to take action on a deeply flawed list of nearly 100,000 Texas voters flagged last month for citizenship review. Paxton … Continue reading →

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SOS advisory lawsuit update

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Add another plaintiff, litigate till done. A naturalized citizen — who immigrated to Texas from the United Kingdom and is a registered voter — is joining a Latino civil rights group in suing top Texas officials after her voter registration … Continue reading →

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SOS walks its advisory back even more

Posted on February 2, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Just rescind the whole damn list and let’s pretend this never happened. A week after it flagged tens of thousands of voters for citizenship checks, the Texas secretary of state’s office is now advising counties on how to check their … Continue reading →

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Eh, what’s a few thousand mis-identified non-citizens among friends?

Posted on February 1, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

No biggie. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott downplayed concerns Thursday about the voter citizenship review initiated last week by his secretary of state, even though it has since become clear that the state’s list of flagged voters swept up thousands of … Continue reading →

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As the SOS advisory numbers get revised down

Posted on January 31, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

This really can’t be emphasized enough. State officials on Tuesday acknowledged widespread errors in their list of 95,000 Texas voters flagged as potential non-citizens, reinforcing the concerns of advocates who say the state’s effort amounts to illegal voter suppression. In … Continue reading →

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A trio of updates about that bogus SOS letter

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Most counties reacted skeptically, as well they should. The Texas Tribune reached out to 13 of the 15 counties with the most registered voters on Monday; Galveston was the only one that indicated it would immediately send out letters, even … Continue reading →

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Civil rights groups push back on bogus SOS letter

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Good. Lawyers with 13 organizations — including the Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU of Texas, the League of Women Voters of Texas and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund — are demanding that the state rescind an advisory sent to … Continue reading →

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It’s “Let’s lie about vote fraud” season again

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

The Trib wrote about this in the best possible way, but the shrieking ghouls are out there in force doing what they can to whip up fear. The Texas secretary of state’s office announced Friday it would send local election … Continue reading →

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The Russia-Texas-secession connection

Posted on December 20, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

So many people got played. A sprawling Russian disinformation campaign aimed at influencing the 2016 elections found success with social media accounts promoting the idea of Texas secession, according to a report commissioned by the U.S. Senate that was released … Continue reading →

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Yeah, we’re still talking about the risk to our elections

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

And when we talk about these things, we talk to Dan Wallach. When we think about those who defend the territorial integrity of our nation and state, we tend to imagine well-equipped members of the U.S. armed forces, or perhaps … Continue reading →

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Planning to fail

Posted on September 30, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Big surprise. Anti-abortion activist Carol Everett had no experience running a family planning program when the state of Texas awarded her millions in taxpayer funds to help rebuild a network of low-income women’s health providers. The state knew that. So … Continue reading →

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There are reasons why “suspect addresses” may be legit

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Real talk here. Texas law requires voters to register where they live. At the same time, state law requires counties to take voters at their word that their voter registration applications are truthful. Registrars who suspect an address may be … Continue reading →

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High schools need to do a better job of making voter registration available to students

Posted on August 19, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

As the Texas Civil Rights Project notes, it is the law. In a report published today by the Texas Civil Rights Project, new data from October 2016 to February 2018 shows that just 34 percent of high schools in Texas … Continue reading →

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We really need to replace our crappy old voting machines

Posted on August 12, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

This is embarrassing. Local election administrators in Texas are eager to replace voting machines purchased more than a decade ago in time for the 2020 presidential election. Increasingly susceptible to malfunctions, upkeep for the aging machines can exceed $300,000 annually … Continue reading →

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If we actually wanted to increase voter participation

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s what we’d do, courtesy of the Center for American Progress: This report examines the problem of low voter participation in America, which includes structural barriers that keep Americans from having their voices heard as well as widespread disillusionment with … Continue reading →

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Killing Obamacare softly

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

With cuts to the budget for state outreach programs. Which doesn’t scan well lyrically, and I doubt any of the people on the pointy end of this will care about how it came to be, but here we are. The … Continue reading →

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Farenthold finds a trough

Posted on May 16, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

It’s the circle of life. Former Republican U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold has accepted a lucrative position lobbying for a port in his ex-Texas district — mere weeks after resigning in disgrace amid fallout from using public funds to settle a … Continue reading →

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Someone needs to sue Blake Farenthold

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

That’s my response to this. Four months after U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold promised to repay an $84,000 sexual harassment settlement funded by taxpayers — and 11 days after the Republican resigned his Corpus Christi seat — he has yet to … Continue reading →

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Sid Miller and the unqualified creep

Posted on April 14, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

I missed this when it came out last Friday, and now that I’ve seen it I wish I was still blissfully ignorant of it. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in late 2016 appointed to the state’s Rural Health Task Force … Continue reading →

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Abbott’s anti-anti-redistricting task force

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Alternate title: Dude with deep pockets gives Greg Abbott a wad of cash to stop those evil Democrats. As Gov. Greg Abbott sounds the alarm about Democratic efforts to influence the post-2020 redistricting process, he is being backed up by … Continue reading →

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Congressional maps from an alternate universe

Posted on January 28, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

FiveThirtyEight goes a little nuts. Drawing clever political districts is one way politicians in Texas and elsewhere avoid accountability — by protecting themselves from voters who disagree with them. They do this by stuffing weirdly shaped geographic districts with voters … Continue reading →

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The life and times of Kinky Friedman

Posted on January 6, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

I have feelings about this. With Friedman, it’s showtime most of the time. On this occasion, he’s in town with Mary Lou Sullivan, his biographer, who attempted to condense his strange life into 300 pages. Hers was an unenviable task. … Continue reading →

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The Nation on Our Revolution in Texas

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s a feature story in The Nation from before the holidays about Our Revolution, one of the many grassroots groups that have become prominent post-Trump to organize and get better people elected. The focus of this story is on what … Continue reading →

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That sexual harassment day of reckoning in Texas politics has begun

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

The Daily Beast follows up its initial reporting about the secret sexual predators of Texas politics with a story that names names. Two names, in particular. Rather than excerpt at length, allow me to quote the Texas Monthly Daily Post … Continue reading →

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Just a reminder, CHIP is still running out

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

In case you were wondering. Nearly 400,000 Texas children could lose healthcare coverage in late January unless Congress renews funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a decades-old federal program that provides health care to millions of children across the … Continue reading →

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Rep. Al Green’s revelation

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Not totally sure what to make of this. More than a decade ago, Congressman Al Green had a “romantic encounter” with a former aide in Houston, which later led to an allegation of sexual assault and talk of lawsuits and … Continue reading →

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The secret sexual predators of Texas politics

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Come in, sit down, make yourself comfortable. Maybe a nice cup of hot tea? There now, all settled in? Good. Now steel yourselves and read this. More than a year before the now-infamous “shitty media men” list, women in Texas’s statehouse … Continue reading →

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By the way, CHIP is still running out

Posted on October 28, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Just in case you were wondering. Advocates say Texas will run out of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program sooner than they thought. The program, which Congress failed to reauthorize last month, covers nearly 400,000 children from working-class families … Continue reading →

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Now is not a good time for HHSC to be dysfunctional

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

And yet here we are. Under Charles Smith, the longtime ally of Gov. Greg Abbott picked to lead the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, Texas’ government health care infrastructure is hemorrhaging veteran employees and facing criticism for its response … Continue reading →

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Trump nominates two to the Fifth Circuit

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

This is why Republicans put aside their doubts to vote for Trump, and it’s why they stick with him. This is the prize they kept their eyes on, and it’s paying off for them bigtime. President Donald Trump on Thursday … Continue reading →

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So were we targeted by Russian hackers or not?

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Depends who you ask, I guess. A top state official is pushing back against the federal government’s claim that Texas was among states whose election systems were targeted by Russian hackers ahead of the 2016 presidential election. “At no point … Continue reading →

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Texas was a hacking target in 2016

Posted on September 28, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

We’re just finding out about this now? Hackers targeted Texas and 20 other states prior to the 2016 presidential election, the United States Department of Homeland Security has formally informed the states. But the hackers who tried to mess with … Continue reading →

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