Muskian rampage could close hundreds of federal buildings in Texas

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Look around, here today and maybe gone tomorrow.

Mickey Leland federal building

Billionaire Elon Musk’s chainsaw diet for the U.S. government could shutter near 450 federal offices across Texas that do anything from assisting ailing veterans to answering questions about retirement and disability benefits, records show.

The closures, which also could include as many as 25 San Antonio properties, would gut the government’s ability to deliver vital services Texans access daily, critics charge. Sites on the chopping block include offices of the Social Security Administration, the Farm Service Agency and the Small Business Administration along with Veterans Administration facilities, according to a federal website listing holdings by the General Services Administration, the government’s real estate arm.

“Elon Musk is on an authoritarian rampage through the federal government,” said Rob Weissman, co-president of watchdog group Public Citizen, which at press time has filed at least three lawsuits to rein in the billionaire Trump donor’s DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency.

“While Musk tried to say that this is all about improving efficiency, it’s not efficient to get rid of government offices that directly serve the public and play an important function,” Weissman added. “It’s completely arbitrary, dangerous and puts the cost back on all of us.”

As evidence of the closures’ unintended consequences, critics point to the Musk’s downsizing efforts at the Department of Energy, which were paused over fears they could affect the nation’s nuclear defense programs.

Citing communications from Trump administration officials, the Washington Post reports that DOGE’s plans to slash government spending include eliminating half of all federal nonmilitary real estate nationwide. Those cuts are planned on top of personnel reductions that have already taken place, including a mass firing of thousands of probationary employees on the job for fewer than two years.

[…]

Should Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency carry through with its plans, Texas would be hit especially hard. The Lone Star State is home to 894 federal offices, at least 50 of them in San Antonio, according to the GSA’s online inventory. That means up to 447 statewide could be on Musk’s chopping block.

Four people with knowledge of internal GSA talks told the Post that the property selloff is part of DOGE’s effort to force federal field workers to quit by decimating morale.

“We’ve heard from them that they want to make the buildings so crappy that people will leave,” one senior GSA official told the paper. “I think that’s the larger goal here, which is bring everybody back, the buildings are going to suck, their commutes are going to suck.”

Trinity University economist David Macpherson said a widespread closure of government offices would result in a glut of vacant space across San Antonio and other affected cities. However, he said the larger impact would come from the hemorrhaging of government employees, whose salaries and buying dollars play a significant role in local economies.

“It will increase unemployment, decrease spending and harm the city,” he said. “Economically, it can’t possibly do any good.”

The story says there’s at least 50 federal buildings in San Antonio, housing some 70 agencies. I don’t know what the comparable figure is for Houston – that GSA website allows you to search by state or Congressional district, but not by city or county – but it’s got to be larger than that. It sure would be nice to know what kind of effect we might be looking at. We know that Republicans won’t care, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Rebooting Texas’ film incentive program

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Everything old is new again.

A promise to make Texas the film capital of the world has left local creatives raring to cash in — and preparing for a legislative battle.

The Texas Senate has proposed injecting $498 million to revamp the state’s film incentive program, a historic sum that rivals most other states and more than doubles the $200 million lawmakers plugged into the program during the last budget cycle.

Film industry insiders, who have for years been fighting for a larger and more consistent funding stream, could hardly believe it when they heard the $498 million figure, a line item in the draft budget the Senate filed last month. According to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the funding would include $48 million in grants for small films and television commercials and up to $450 million in new tax credits, contingent on a bill passing.

“It’s like we are in a ‘stars aligned’ period,” said Brian Gannon, director of the Austin Film Commission. “There’s alignment across industry, across government. Everyone is excited.”

That excitement is palpable across Texas. From the 4,100-person town of Smithville to booming urban centers like Fort Worth, local officials, film commissions and business owners say movie production is a boon to their economy because it creates new jobs, attracts tourists and keeps businesses afloat.

In Smithville, a small town about 40 miles east of Austin, restaurant owners say they continue to reap benefits from the filming of the 1998 romantic drama “Hope Floats” because fans stop by to see the house where much of the Sandra Bullock movie was filmed and then wander into their outpost for a bite to eat.

Film stars have also thrown their weight behind film incentives. In a star-studded advertisement called True to Texas, Matthew McConaughey, Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson, Renee Zellweger and Billy Bob Thornton urge lawmakers to help “turn this state into a new Hollywood.” The actors say they want to tell Texas stories in their home state and need state support to do so.

Even so, economists remain skeptical about the return on investment of film incentives, and some state lawmakers say subsidizing movies is not the best use of taxpayer money.

“Half a billion dollars doesn’t need to be routed towards the entertainment industry,” said first-term state Rep. Daniel Alders, R-Tyler. “There are already Texas-sized incentives out here. Don’t act like you have to have a handout in order to do business in the state of Texas.”

Texas is one of 37 states to offer a film incentive program, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Those programs can take the form of cash grants, as in Texas, or tax credits, which are what some of Texas’ competitors, including Georgia and New Mexico, offer.

Under the 18-year-old program, the state provides rebates to reimburse production companies between 5% and 20% of what they spend in the state, including wages to Texas residents and costs to rent film space or book hotels. At least 60% of the production must be filmed in Texas, per state law. Productions can receive an additional 2.5% rebate if they film in underutilized or economically distressed areas.

Creative professionals say the program has been successful — it has created 182,000 Texas jobs and yielded $2.52 billion in-state spending, according to the Texas Film Commission which is housed under the governor’s office. And for every $1 paid out for a grant, $4.69 is spent in state, Adriana Cruz, executive director of the Texas Economic Development and Tourism division of the governor’s office testified last October.

Patrick, the second most powerful Texas official, has made transforming Texas into a film haven a priority this session, reserving Senate Bill 22 for that purpose. The bill has not been filed as of Thursday afternoon. Patrick’s office did not respond to The Texas Tribune’s questions, and several House members declined to weigh in until a bill was filed.

Industry leaders have proposed a transferable franchise tax credit — smaller film productions making less than $2.47 million in revenue are exempt from the tax — since Texas does not have a state income tax.

They’re also pushing for a more consistent funding stream instead of an amount that is determined at the whims of lawmakers every two years.

[…]

Economists who have studied tax incentive programs across the country have long been skeptical of their value. Research on film incentive programs in New York, Georgia, Michigan and California have found that tax credits have a negligible impact on economic activity, when measuring job growth and tax revenue.

In cases where a film incentive does spur job creation, it isn’t enough to justify the cost of the incentive, said Michael Thom, a tax expert at the University of Southern California.

“The incentives boost the industry’s profit margins, which is why they want them so badly,” Thom said, adding that the Texas Film Commission’s claim that the incentive program delivers a 469% return on investment is “preposterous.”

Some producers would choose to film in Texas even if they did not receive grant dollars, Thom said. And the figure doesn’t account for what the state could be losing by not spending that money on something else, whether public schools or safety.

Alders, the East Texas lawmaker, agrees.

“That calculation is a little disingenuous,” he said. Instead of using general revenue to refill the incentive program’s coffers, Alders suggested the funding come straight from the sales tax revenue the film industry generated.

“If we are getting money back, then that bucket should have been filled one time and should never have to be refilled with taxpayer dollars,” he said.

We’ve heard these arguments before, more than a decade ago, including from the video game industry, which was curiously unrepresented in this story. There are a lot of dimensions to this fight, including some localities that are not thrilled about big studio lots being built in their back yards, and of course a culture war angle involving the content of films seeking incentives. That led to a lawsuit that was eventually resolved in the state’s favor and is now being expressed as concerns over porn being filmed here. Because for sure that’s never happened before.

Anyway, this should be an interesting fight to watch. I don’t know that this is an issue on which Dan Patrick will go to the mats, but if he does it might provide a bit of leverage for Democrats, since it looks to me like this would not be able to pass on Republican votes alone. Gotta be aware of opportunities where they present themselves.

Posted in That's our Lege, TV and movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

WNBA appears set on Cleveland

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

But Houston could be next in line, and soon.

The WNBA is preparing to award Cleveland its 16th franchise, multiple sources have told SBJ, with an approximate bid worth a league record $250M.

The sources put Cleveland’s expansion chances as high as 90% — with an announcement expected no later than March — and said the WNBA has re-thought its original plan of adding just one team and could award one or two more franchises to bring its league total to 18 clubs. The presumed leaders for the second and third teams are Philadelphia, Houston, Nashville, Detroit and Miami, with the league reiterating tonight that nothing is finalized.

“The WNBA has received formal bids from many interested ownership groups in various markets and we are currently in the process of evaluating these proposals,” a WNBA spokesperson said in a statement.

Cleveland is expected to join the league for the 2028 season playing at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. They will be reprised as the Cleveland Rockers, an original WNBA franchise that folded after the 2003 season when former owner Gordon Gund could not sell the team due to tumbling revenue and erratic attendance. But in the two decades since, the league’s exponential growth and popularity has led to rising expansion fees. The Golden State Valkyries, the league’s 13th franchise launching in May, paid $50M to join the WNBA, while Toronto and Portland — the 14th and 15th franchises — paid $115M and $125M, respectively. Now that has doubled.

As recent as two weeks ago, the WNBA applied to trademark the name Rockers, as well as the names of three other former franchises: the Houston Comets, the Detroit Shock, the Miami Sol and the Charlotte Sting — all clues to who could be in the running for the 17th and 18th teams, but not a complete giveaway.

Sources said Houston “is probably the most positioned” for the 17th team largely because the Rockets recently built a 75,000 square-foot practice facility, owner Tilman Fertitta is reportedly worth more than $10B and they have an NBA infrastructure that is appealing to the league.

“The Comets are also an amazing brand, and it’s stunning they even left the league,” said a source, referencing the four-time champion Comets folding in 2008 due to $4M annual losses.

Philadelphia is likely another clear frontrunner, sources said, and indications are that when 76ers owner Josh Harris partnered with Comcast on a new arena in South Philadelphia, the priority was to house a WNBA team along with the Sixers and Flyers.

[…]

As to why the WNBA is willing to take on potentially three teams instead of one right now — with the last two likely arriving in 2029 or 2030 — the sense is that there have been multiple bids approaching $250M.

“How do you walk away from three quarters of a billion dollars?’’ one source said.

See here, here, and here for some background. Tough break for Austin, which put together a pretty good bid, but I don’t think the WNBA is going to stop at 18. They may pause for a bit, but as long as the demand is there, they will keep going. The talent pool is more than adequate.

As for why the Comets folded in 2008, other than that being a bad year for the economy, the team had been mediocre for several years, the sale of the team from the Rockets to second-tier furniture guy Hilton Koch was a disaster, and the league was going through some growing pains, as evidenced by the folding or relocation of several other original franchises. It’s a different time and both the league and the sport are in a better place. Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, KVUE, and the Chron have more.

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Some background on the measles outbreak

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

NBC News did some reporting on the growing measles outbreak in West Texas.

On Friday, the number of confirmed cases rose to 49, up from 24 earlier in the week, the state health department said. The majority of those cases are in Gaines County, which borders New Mexico.

Most cases are in school-age kids, and 13 have been hospitalized. All are unvaccinated against measles, which is one of the most contagious viruses in the world.

The latest measles case count likely represents a fraction of the true number of infections. Health officials — who are scrambling to get a handle on the vaccine-preventable outbreak — suspect 200 to 300 people in West Texas are infected but untested, and therefore not part of the state’s official tally so far.

[…]

The city of Seminole is the seat of Gaines County, Texas, and the epicenter of the current measles outbreak. It’s located in a vast, flat region filled with ranchers and peanut and cotton farmers.

There’s also a large Mennonite population, a religious sect that believes in “total separation from the outside world,” according to the Texas State Historical Association. These Mennonites chose to settle in Gaines County, in part, for its lack of regulation on private schools. This includes vaccine mandates.

As of the 2023-24 school year, Gaines County had one of the state’s highest vaccine exemption rates, at nearly 18%, according to health department data.

“We have a high, high number of unvaccinated,” said Tonya Guffey, the chief nursing officer at Seminole District Hospital. “It’s not that they’re not educated. It’s just what their belief is.”

Guffey noted that many of the unvaccinated people in the area were Mennonite. “We educate, we encourage, we do what we can for the community, but it’s their choice,” she said.

[…]

Measles cases were limited to rural areas surrounding Lubbock, Texas, the largest city in the region, until Friday afternoon, when Lubbock Public Health confirmed its first case.

The “hub” city, as it’s nicknamed, is where all of the big grocery and big box stores are.

People who live in Gaines County regularly head into Lubbock to shop and do other business. That includes a large number of unvaccinated people who may have been exposed to measles.

“Communities who don’t vaccinate are not necessarily isolated to their area. They commute to Lubbock,” said Dr. Ana Montanez, a pediatrician at Texas Tech Physicians in Lubbock. “By doing that, they’re taking the disease with them.”

Several of Montanez’s young patients were exposed recently, she said, one just by sitting in the same clinic waiting room with another child who was later confirmed to have measles. That child had traveled from another county for care.

As of our last update, the number was 48, but in reality it’s a lot higher as this story notes. Not everyone is showing symptoms or gotten formally diagnosed yet. Per the Statesman, the breakdown of where the known cases are now is as follows:

Gaines – 42 cases
Lubbock – 1 case
Lynn – 1 case
Terry – 3 cases
Yoakum – 2 cases

Plus the two from Houston, which again has thankfully remained at two. Per the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 42 of the 49 cases so far are in children. But these numbers are just for Texas. As of the weekend, measles are now in New Mexico.

On Friday, New Mexico officials declared an outbreak in Lea County, just across state lines from Texas’ Gaines County. Two adults tested positive for measles, with three total cases this week. The first case, an unvaccinated teenager in Lea County, had no recent travel history and no known exposure to the Texas cases, raising alarms about measles spreading undetected.

While officials believe there’s a connection to the Texas outbreak, it’s still unconfirmed.

“We are investigating every suspected case, and we encourage sick individuals with symptoms consistent with measles to seek medical care,” Dr. Chad Smelser, deputy state epidemiologist for New Mexico’s health department, said in a statement.

New Mexico officials are notifying people possibly exposed to measles. Areas where people could have been exposed include an elementary school, two grocery stores, a church, a pharmacy and a hospital.

And again, measles is extremely contagious. It lingers in the air and survives for hours on surfaces. Get vaccinated or get sick, those are the choices. The Associated Press has more.

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

Solar For All grants caught in a trap

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

They can’t get out, at least not at this time.

More than $400 million in federal funding for Texas-based organizations to implement clean energy programs remains frozen, jeopardizing efforts to expand access to rooftop solar panels and battery storage systems in disadvantaged communities across the state.

The frozen grants are part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s $7 billion Solar for All program, which was created by the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

President Donald Trump first paused funds from this law and another climate-related law via his “Unleashing American Energy” executive order in late January. After a federal judge reiterated a court order that the Trump administration must release frozen grants this week, the EPA is now saying some grants from the two laws remain inaccessible because the agency is concerned about potential waste, fraud and abuse, without sharing information about any specific Solar for All issues.

Harris County led a statewide coalition — including the cities of Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Waco, as well as Dallas County — in securing nearly $250 million from the Solar for All program last April. The coalition wants to use the money to help more Texas residents afford solar panels and to provide backup power to local community centers, among other goals.

Clean Energy Fund of Texas, a Houston-based “green” bank, was awarded $156 million from the Solar for All program. The nonprofit plans to partner with Texas Southern University to deploy solar and battery technologies at historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving institutions and tribal colleges and universities across the southeastern United States.

[…]

Michelle Roos, director of the Environmental Protection Network, a national nonprofit focused on EPA activities, called the agency’s claims of potential waste, fraud and abuse a “lie.”

“This is just another attempt to try to shut down and deny people the opportunity to make the country healthier,” Roos said.

The Solar for All funding isn’t disbursed all at once; rather, groups submit reimbursement requests for their program expenses. Harris County is the sole entity receiving the coalition’s $250 million in funds from the federal government, which it passes through to the other groups. $54 million of that is allocated for the county itself.

So far, the county has only received approximately $30,000 of its share of funding, which has been used to hire an employee to oversee Solar for All activities, Menefee said. His office is “leaning heavily” on filing its own lawsuit fighting the Solar for All funding freeze, he said.

“One thing there is not in (the other two lawsuits) is representation from the South,” Menefee said.

See here for some background. I agree with Ms. Roos’ evaluation, but I would have included profanity in mine. This would benefit a lot of people, in the normal course of events by providing lower energy bills, and in times of power outages – you know, those extremely rare times around here when the grid fails us – by providing battery backup power. While there has already been successful litigation against this chaos and destruction, it would seem that County Attorney Menefee will need to do his thing to get what is rightfully ours. Let’s hope we can get it soon.

I need my palate cleansed, so in honor of how I started this post, here’s a little number you might be familiar with:

Hope that helped.

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

HISD joins lawsuit against social media companies

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Houston ISD is set to join a nationwide lawsuit that argues several major social media companies fueled an “unprecedented mental health crisis” among young people — and should pay school districts for the fallout.

HISD’s state-appointed board unanimously voted Thursday to enter into a legal agreement with three Texas firms that will represent the district in a two-year-old case that already involves hundreds of districts across the country. Under the deal, HISD will only have to pay legal fees if it wins or settles the lawsuit.

The districts already involved in the case argue the companies that own Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube created “addictive and dangerous” platforms that have spawned numerous problems for children and schools. Districts say they have had to hire additional staff to attend to students’ mounting social-emotional challenges, repair property that children damaged while participating in viral trends, spend time responding to repeated safety threats made over social media and more.

In response to school districts’ allegations, the four social media giants have largely made the case that they should not be on the hook for how children choose to engage online. Legal observers have said the school districts might face a steep challenge in winning the case.

HISD board member Angela Flowers said she has seen a wave of emotional turmoil wash over the younger generation as the mother of two recent graduates from the district’s Lamar High School. When her kids were in high school, they knew about a dozen classmates, friends and acquaintances who took their own lives, Flowers said.

“The data is that the suicides are up. That is the scary data,” Flowers said. “That’s why (social media) is like tobacco, it’s like alcohol. You cannot feed it to children.”

[…]

Win, lose or settle, Flowers wants to see HISD expand limits on students’ phone and social media use at school. She suggested several strategies that the district could look toward, including having teachers collect phones at the beginning of class or requiring students lock their phones in pocket-sized pouches for the duration of the school day.

“We can’t keep knowing that it’s bad and not doing anything about it,” she said.

I don’t have a strong opinion about this. I’m certainly not going to defend any of the companies being sued but it’s not clear to me how one apportions blame for some of the harms being cited. Feels like a bit of a longshot to see any benefit, but as long as there’s no cost for getting involved I don’t see any reason not to do so. If this eventually translates into some kind of settlement, great.

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Interview with Anthony Rios and Ringo Bosley of the Houston Progressive Caucus

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I reported on the creation of the Houston Progressive Caucus a couple of weeks ago, and as is my habit I had some questions about their mission and strategy beyond what was contained in their press release and on their website. So I reached out to Karthik Soora, the SD15 candidate from last year who was listed as the contact for the Caucus, and asked him if we could have a chat about it. He set me up with Anthony Rios and Ringo Bosley of the Caucus for an interview, and so here we are. I had some questions about where this came from, what kind of issues they will champion, what we should expect to see from them in the short to medium term, and more. Here’s what we talked about:

If you have any questions about them, you should click on their website or connect with them on BlueSky or elsewhere and engage directly.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Starbase City gets its vote

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Company town incoming.

Cameron County’s top elected official on Wednesday signed an order clearing the way for an election that would allow employees of SpaceX’s South Texas launch site to make it the county’s newest city.

The order, signed by County Judge Eddie Treviño, approves a petition filed in December by several SpaceX employees requesting an election to determine whether their Starbase headquarters could become a town under the same name.

The would-be town is roughly 25 miles east of Brownsville along the Gulf of Mexico.

If approved by voters in the town’s proposed area, the base would become a Type C municipality, defined as less than two square miles with 200 to 5,000 residents. Type C municipalities use a commission form of government with a mayor and two commissioners; the petition notes that SpaceX’s security manager, Gunnar Milburn, is the sole candidate for mayor.

The petition required at least 10% of potential residents to sign, and a simple majority is required in the election to create the new city. The petition had just over 70 signatures and an affidavit attached to the judge’s order showed just under 500 people living in the area, including almost 120 children.

Almost all of the signatures on the petitions were by people with addresses the affidavit marked as residences of SpaceX employees.

The affidavit also states that SpaceX owns almost all of the homes; just four homes listed in the affidavit are not owned by SpaceX, which also owns all of the land within the prospective city’s footprint, “with only a few exceptions.”

See here for the background. I’m uncomfortable with anything that gives Ellie any kind of power, but I don’t live there and if this is what the locals want and they think it will make it easier for them to manage their roads and drainage and whatnot, then I don’t see that I have grounds to object. Seems likely this will pass, but I’ll keep an eye on it.

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Buzbee’s client drops lawsuit against Jay-Z

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Well, well.

An Alabama woman who said she was raped by rappers Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs when she was 13 withdrew her civil lawsuit against both men on Friday, according to court filings.

The unidentified woman in December added Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, to a lawsuit she had filed against Combs in Manhattan federal court, alleging that she was attacked by the singers in 2000 after Combs’ limo driver offered her a ride to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party.

The court document submitted by the woman’s attorneys announcing the voluntary dismissal did not include any reasons or explanation for the withdrawal.

Jay-Z, who vehemently denied the claims and tried to get extracted from the lawsuit, called the woman’s decision to withdraw her claim “a victory” and said the “fictional tale” she and her lawyers created was “laughable.”

“The frivolous, fictious and appalling allegations have been dismissed,” he said in a statement posted on social media. “This civil suit was without merit and never going anywhere.”

Combs remains jailed in New York awaiting a criminal trial on federal sex trafficking charges. He also faces a wave of sexual assault lawsuits, many of which were filed by the plaintiff’s lawyer, Tony Buzbee, a Texas attorney who says his firm represents over 150 people, both men and women, who allege sexual abuse and exploitation by Combs.

Lawyers for Combs said dismissal of the lawsuit without a settlement confirmed that other lawsuits he is facing are built on falsehoods.

“For months, we have seen case after case filed by individuals hiding behind anonymity, pushed forward by an attorney more focused on media headlines than legal merit. Just like this claim, the others will fall apart because there is no truth to them,” they said in a statement, adding that Combs “has never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor.”

When asked for a response, Buzbee responded “no comment” in an email Friday night.

Buzbee’s firm, which has set up a 1-800 number for accusers, has filed a wave of lawsuits against the hip-hop mogul. Buzbee’s lawsuits allege that many of the people he represents were abused at parties in New York, California and Florida where individuals were given drinks that were laced with drugs.

Statements from both rappers derisively referred to Buzbee and his firm as the “1-800-lawyer.” Jay-Z accused him of “hiding behind Jane Doe” for financial gain.

“When they quickly realize that the money grab is going fail, they get to walk away with no repercussions,” he wrote. “The system has failed.”

See here, here, here, here, and here for some background. There are still multiple other suits that are as far as I know still active, including all of the ones that Buzbee has filed against Combs, the one he filed against Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation, and the one that Jay-Z filed against Buzbee that alleged extortion. All I’m going to say at this point is that all of this is a big mess and it will take some time to fully untangle. The Chron has more.

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Weekend link dump for February 16

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“Daisy is, of course, not a real grandmother but an AI bot created by computer scientists to combat fraud. Her task is simply to waste the time of the people who are trying to scam her.”

“Stories of Resistance: Lessons from Across the Globe”.

“The scramble to save critical climate data from Trump’s war on DEI”.

“But the most shocking casting rule concerns location. While Bachelor welcomes applicants from both the U.S. and Canada, there’s one Canadian province that’s excluded – Quebec. Any applications from legal residents of Quebec are immediately rejected, even if the applicant is a Canadian citizen. When you consider the marginalization of French Canadians, and The Bachelor’s infamy for lack of diversity, it makes this casting rule even more problematic.”

“Because the Americans are a captive consumer for Canadian crude, one option for Canada in a trade war would be to put export taxes on oil and gas to ratchet the price for U.S. refineries to the point where it’s no longer profitable. In that scenario, the U.S. would be staring down the barrel of fuel shortages or companies forced to operate at a loss, creating enormous economic pressure on President Trump.”

RIP, Dick Jauron, former NFL coach of the Chicago Bears and Buffalo Bills.

RIP, Tom Robbins, iconic novelist best known for “Still Life With Woodpecker” and “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues”.

“There is reporting at other federal agencies indicating that DOGE members have performed unauthorized changes and locked civil servants out of the sensitive systems they gained access to. We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even ‘read only,’ likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.”

“DOGE’s placement at the DOE even raises a truly bizarre-sounding possibility: that a pseudo-department named after a shiba inu could get actual access to nuclear weapons. Fortunately, despite Musk’s ever-expanding power over government systems, it would take far more than barging into the right office to do this. But at a moment where all kinds of governmental norms are in flux, it’s worth looking at what exactly separates someone like Musk from perhaps the greatest destructive force on the planet — and what other kinds of risks his access could pose.”

RIP, Cheyenne, the oldest orangutan at the Houston Zoo.

“A rare ring of light surrounding a galaxy nearly 590 million light-years away from Earth has been discovered by a space telescope that scientists hope will uncover more cosmic phenomena throughout the universe, the European Space Agency announced on Monday.”

Crooks protecting crooks.

“What does this mean for people outraged by Musk’s recent behavior? Take it out on Tesla by boycotting the company. Any further dip in Tesla sales would amplify growing calls for Musk’s ouster as CEO. Whatever time Musk spends doing damage control is time not spent dismantling federal agencies or elevating Europe’s far right. If you were considering buying a Tesla, don’t. If you’re renting a car, choose another brand. And if you own a Tesla, sell it. Yes, that would help: A deluge of used Teslas would lower their resale value, further depressing the new-car sales that the company depends upon.”

“Thomson Reuters has won the first major AI copyright case in the United States.”

“A letter signed by mayors and local leaders across 39 states is calling on Congress to protect all clean energy tax credits made available to state and local governments, which had been responsible for creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investments before President Donald Trump froze the funds.”

“So think what this means. Adams isn’t off the hook. He’s essentially been given 10 months to perform for his freedom. Perform for Donald Trump. Indeed, Bove said explicitly that one of the reasons Adams shouldn’t have been charged is that being on trial takes Adams’ focus away from helping Donald Trump with mass deportations out of New York City. (Again, they’re refreshingly candid about why this is happening.)”

“Hackers have defaced select pages on the DOGE website. Reports indicate the database the page draws from can be easily accessed by outsiders.”

RIP, L. Clifford Davis, longtime Fort Worth attorney and civil rights activist who opened one of the first Black law firms in Tarrant County and was one of the county’s first Black judges.

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Republicans don’t care at all about the NIH cuts

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Or on their constituents or even themselves.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

For years Republicans and Democrats alike have touted the medical breakthroughs at Texas medical research institutions like MD Anderson and Baylor College of Medicine.

But after President Donald Trump announced a policy change at the National Institutes of Health last week that would slash federal funding for those Houston institutions by tens of millions of dollars, Texas Democrats find themselves alone in trying to stave off the cuts, at least publicly.

U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, said she asked all members in the Texas congressional delegation to sign a letter to the Trump administration warning the cuts would “devastate medical research in our state.” The four-term congresswoman said while every Democratic member signed, not a single Republican House member agreed to do so.

“I am disappointed,” Fletcher said in a statement. “These cuts hurt our constituents. And these cuts undermine the very system of scientific research and groundbreaking advancements that we are so proud happen here in Houston.”

Texas Republicans have largely stayed quiet on the cuts, despite protest from medical institutions across Texas, which collectively received $1.9 billion in NIH funding last year.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, who was treated for Hodgkin lymphoma at MD Anderson, questioned the amount of funding U.S. medical research institutions were getting, while acknowledging the medical breakthroughs it had enabled.

“People travel from all across the world to our innovative cancer centers to receive top not treatment. MD Anderson is one of them, and they saved my life,” he said in a statement. “However, we are $36 trillion in debt and barreling toward a debt crisis. There is no reason the federal government should be paying 70% of a university’s administrative costs for research.”

Other Republican members did not respond to requests for comment Friday. This week many cheered on the administration’s wider spending cuts, carried out by Texas billionaire Elon Musk and staffers at his Department of Government Efficiency

“Elon is blowing the lid off DC’s deep corruption, and the left is LOSING IT!,” Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, wrote on X this week. “The real constitutional crisis? Decades of fraud, waste, and abuse—YOUR money stolen to keep the swamp alive.”

[…]

Roy speaks frequently of the life saying treatment he received there. And U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, wrote an op-ed in 2020 in which he praised MD Anderson for the care they gave his mother, who died from breast cancer at age 35, including enrolling her in an early clinical trial for the chemotherapy drug Taxotere.

“My mom knew that this clinical trial would mean a small extension on her life at best,” Crenshaw wrote. “She knew that Taxotere would not ultimately save her life, but that her trial would provide doctors like Peter Ravdin — who led the clinical trial — the scientific research they needed to improve the drug and save the lives of others.”

See here for the background. If you or someone you know is being affected, even as the initial order was halted in court, you should know who is on your side and who would be happy to throw you in the trash. Elections have consequences indeed. Josh Marshall has more.

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On paying for school security

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Lege passed a big unfunded mandate in 2023 for schools to hire more security guards. They’re under some pressure to pay up for it this session, though there’s plenty of reason to think they’ll still cheap out.

Since Texas passed a law in 2023 requiring public school districts to have an armed officer at each campus, districts have repeatedly asked the state for more money to fulfill the requirement.

In this year’s legislative session, lawmakers have pledged to increase school safety funding. The 2023 law, House Bill 3, increased that annual safety allotment to $10 per student and $15,000 per school in a district.

The question legislators face this session: will they come close to increasing that allotment to the $100 per student that districts say is necessary to finally fill the funding gap?

HB 3 passed in response to the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead. But since its passage, more than half of Texas school districts do not meet the one armed officer per school requirement, according to a January Senate Education Committee report.

Many school district officials call HB 3 an unfunded mandate, saying the increases to the existing school safety allotment it created pay only a small part of the cost of adding full-time personnel to all schools.

A possible increase is part of the conversation this session. In his State of the State address this month, Gov. Greg Abbott asked the Legislature to invest an additional $500 million for school safety. Both the House and Senate’s proposed budgets for 2026 and 2027 would increase school safety funding by $400 million over the next two years.

Still, school leaders say the amount proposed may not be enough. On top of that, a law enforcement shortage nationwide and in Texas makes it more difficult to staff armed officers at all schools.

[…]

Signed into law in June 2023, HB 3 increased how much districts receive for school safety each year to $10.00 per student from $9.72 per student, with an additional $15,000 for each campus in a school district. HB 3 also provided the Texas Education Agency a one-time figure of $1.1 billion to distribute to school districts for safety upgrades.

Under HB 3, an average-sized Texas elementary school — which has about 600 students — would receive about $21,000 per year from the school safety allotment. That figure comes well short of the at least $60,000 to $70,000 school officials say is necessary to pay an armed guard each year.

New funding for the armed guard requirement was in addition to several other new measures, like one mandating that certain school personnel must undergo a “mental health first-aid training program.” The law also gave the state more power to require active-shooter plans.

Though it received bipartisan support, HB 3 was not universally praised. Before and after the bill was signed into law, school district officials said the state wasn’t providing enough money for the new mandates.

During debate in early 2023, some lawmakers said that requiring an armed guard at each school could endanger students instead of making them more safe. A 2021 study by researchers at The Violence Project suggested that adding armed guards in schools doesn’t reduce gun-related injuries.

Efforts that session to tighten Texas’ gun laws were also a non-starter, with Uvalde parents left disappointed after a bill died that would have raised the minimum age for Texans purchasing semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.

With no school safety funding increases since HB 3 passed, many school districts have taken “good cause exceptions” from the armed guard requirement. Districts can take an exception if, for example, they have school marshals that act as security guards or safety-trained employees who carry handguns on school grounds.

See here for the background. The safe bet is always to take the under. The Lege and Greg Abbott always have higher priorities than public schools – remember how Abbott vetoed the bill to increase school funding because his precious voucher bill didn’t pass? – and even a nominal increase may well come with extra strings attached. I do think some funding increase will pass – Republicans don’t like spending money on schools, but they do like spending money on cops – and there are bipartisan bills to make it happen. It’s more a question of how much and what the catch is than will it or won’t it. But if the latest version of Abbott’s wet kiss to religious schools and the wealthy parents who send their kids to them somehow stumbles, then all bets are off.

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Ismaeli Center update

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

An almost-20-year saga is drawing to a close. I’m excited to see what the end result is.

What once was there

Work has resumed on the massive Ismaili Center near Buffalo Bayou after the death of the Aga Khan IV, the leader of the world’s millions of Shia Ismaili Muslims known for his civic service in Houston.

Considered one of the globe’s wealthiest religious leaders, the Aga Khan IV—born Prince Karim Al-Hussaini—died last week at his home in Lisbon. He was 88. The next day, his son, Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini, was named to succeed him as the Aga Khan V, the 50th hereditary Imam of a lineage that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammed.

While mourning the death of their imam and celebrating their new leader, Houston representatives from the Ismaili Council for the U.S.A said that they expect to stick to schedule; they still plan to finish the Ismaili Center this year, and new construction will include prayer spaces and host art exhibitions, concerts and interfaith lectures.

Several years ago, the Aga Khan IV led the metro’s Ismaili Muslim community to begin construction on the five-story marbled center towering 72 feet over its 11 acres of land near Buffalo Bayou. Now, the Aga Khan V is expected to follow through with the plans to construct the first Ismaili Center in the U.S. The center would be the seventh of its kind in the world.

“We don’t anticipate any delay in the opening of the center due to the passing of His Highness Prince Karim and the accession of Prince Rahim,” said Omar Samji, a spokesperson for the Ismaili Council, during an interview last week. “This is the project that is nearly completed, and it’s on schedule to be complete by the end of 2025.”

[…]

The Ismaili Center is a “gift” to Houston, the home of “tens of thousands” of Ismaili Muslims, said Farah Lalani, another Ismaili Council spokesperson. The Houston Chronicle has estimated that the metro has about 40,000 Ismaili Muslims who live in a region boasting one of the largest Muslim populations in Texas and in the U.S. (The Houston metro has roughly 500,000 Muslims, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations.)

The concept for the Ismaili Center dates back to 2006 when the Aga Khan Foundation paid a non-disclosed amount to buy land along Allen Parkway, replacing the historic Robinson Warehouse. The foundation is part of the Aga Khan Development Network.

Former Houston Mayor Bill White recognized the foundation for partnering on the “Tolerance” project in 2011. Donors (including members of the Ismaili community) funded seven stainless-steel, 10-foot-tall human statues to the art installation as a symbol of harmony along Allen Parkway, just across the road from the future Ismaili Center. The center, White said at the time, “will be an architectural statement and a place of peace, harmony, and welcome.”

In 2021, Ismaili Council President Al-Karim Alidina revealed plans for the center as construction began. U.K.-based firm Farshid Moussavi Architecture designed the structure, and Thomas Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, known for his work on Memorial Park in Houston, crafted its gardens. In 2023, former Mayor Sylvester Turner joined Prince Amyn Aga Khan, the younger brother of the late Aga Khan IV, at an on-site ceremony to recognize the progress of the construction. The mayor expressed support for the center and offered the key to the city to the Aga Khan IV through his brother as a symbol of support.

See here for my previous update, and click the article for a picture of what it looks like now. While the architect for this project was hired in early 2019, construction didn’t start until almost three years later. Indeed, as this story notes, the Aga Khan Foundation has owned the site since 2006, where the old Robinson Warehouse once stood. I took pictures of its demise over the next couple of months, and then it stood empty for so long that people complained about it, having forgotten that there was a purpose planned for it. It just took forever for it to happen. And now they’re saying it will be done by the end of this year. I’m a little dizzy at the thought, but I cannot wait to see it in its newfound glory.

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Dr. Carpenter ordered to stop sending abortion pills to Texas

Posted on February 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

And we’re off.

A Collin County judge has ordered a New York doctor to stop prescribing abortion-inducing medication to Texas residents and ordered her to pay a $100,000 fine.

Thursday’s ruling is the opening salvo in what’s expected to be a lengthy legal battle likely to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, as Texas’ near-total abortion ban runs up against New York’s law protecting abortion providers from out-of-state legal action.

Dr. Margaret Carpenter is an abortion provider and co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, a group that helps doctors navigate legal and regulatory barriers to provide abortion medication through the mail. These so-called “shield providers,” located in states where abortion is still legal, are working under a set of yet-untested laws designed to stymie abortion bans in states like Texas.

In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Carpenter, accusing her of prescribing abortion medication to a Collin County woman in violation of Texas’ abortion laws. Neither Carpenter nor her lawyers responded to the suit. As expected, Carpenter did not attend the Wednesday hearing before Collin County District Judge Bryan Gantt, according to The New York Times.

On Thursday, Gantt ruled that Carpenter had violated Texas law by practicing without a license and facilitating an abortion, and “that an unborn child died as a result of these violations.” Gantt issued a permanent injunction against Carpenter prescribing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents. Violating an injunction can come with additional penalties, including jail time.

Carpenter was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and about $13,000 in attorneys’ fees. Paxton’s office is expected to ask New York state to enforce the judgement, which is typically standard practice between states. But New York is expected to try to block any of Texas’ efforts to hold Carpenter to its legal standards, a clash that will likely require the federal courts to intervene.

See here and here for the background. Of course Dr. Carpenter was not going to come to Texas to defend herself – among other things, she’d have been dragooned to Louisiana. We’re following a script right now, and it’s New York’s line. Once they tell Ken Paxton to pound sand, we’ll be off to the federal courts, and from there it gets less predictable. The Current and The 19th have more.

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Yeah, still more measles

Posted on February 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The number keeps going up.

As a West Texas measles outbreak continues to worsen, experts are concerned an increase in nonmedical vaccine exemptions among schoolchildren could make such outbreaks more common.

Twenty-four cases of the highly contagious respiratory illness have been confirmed in Gaines County, all of them in individuals who have not received the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Twenty-two cases are children under age 18, and six are children under age 5, Texas Department of State Health Services said Tuesday.

The recent outbreak represents the highest number of measles cases in Texas since 2019, when the state reported 23 cases across a dozen counties. But experts worry outbreaks could become more common in Texas due to a rise in “conscientious exemptions,” or parents and guardians who refuse to get their children vaccinated for religious, moral or philosophical reasons. Nonmedical vaccine exemptions have soared over the past decade, and Gaines County has one of the highest opt-out rates in Texas.

“Medical experts have been telling me for a year that it was going to happen,” said Terri Burke, the executive director of the Houston-based nonprofit The Immunization Partnership. “It was just a matter of time.”

The first two measles cases in West Texas came about two weeks after the virus was found in a pair of Houston residents. Officials said the West Texas outbreak does not appear to be connected to the Houston cases, and no other cases had been reported in Houston as of Wednesday.

Declining vaccination rates are concerning because measles can cause severe illness, said Dr. Catherine Troisi, an epidemiologist at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. One in five unvaccinated Americans will need to be hospitalized, and one in 1,000 will develop brain swelling that could cause deafness or an intellectual disability, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Gaines County, nine children have needed to be hospitalized for treatment, the DSHS said.

“This can be very serious,” Troisi said. “It is not a benign disease.”

[…]

Public health officials have set up measles screening sites in the area, [Katherine Wells, the director of Lubbock Public Health] said. Officials are also providing guidance to public schools, private schools and day cares.

“I hope this increases awareness around vaccines and shows why it’s so important,” she said.

The South Plains Public Health District, which serves Gaines County, set up a clinic to offer the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine amid the outbreak. More than 70 people have visited the clinic since last Thursday, SPPHD executive director Zach Holbrooks said in an email.

See here, here, and here for the background. And oh, wait, did I say 24 cases? That was as of, like, Tuesday. We’re now up to 48 cases as of Friday.

An outbreak of measles has spread to 48 cases across four counties in the South Plains region of northwestern Texas, doubling in scope from earlier this week, health officials said.

Most of the cases are in school-aged children, including 13 cases in children younger than 5 years old and another 29 in children between 5 and 17, the Texas Department of State Health Services said Friday. Thirteen people have been hospitalized to be treated for the highly contagious respiratory illness.

All 48 cases involve individuals who have either not received the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella, or whose vaccination status is unknown, the DSHS said.

Gaines County remains the epicenter of the outbreak, with 42 cases of measles reported there Friday. But there are now three cases in Terry County and two in Yoakum County, which border Gaines County to the north, and one case in nearby Lynn County, the DSHS said.

Houston also reported two measles cases last month, but officials have said they do not appear to be linked to the South Plains outbreak.

Officials working to contain the South Plains outbreak said earlier this week that cases may continue to rise before they subside. The DSHS offered a similar assessment on Friday.

“Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in Gaines County and the surrounding communities,” the public health agency said in a statement.

At least there haven’t been any more cases in Houston. I have no idea how high this number is going to go, but those first two cases were reported on January 29, so we went from two to 48 in just over two weeks. That sure seems like a lot. I don’t know how many of those 70 people at the South Plains Public Health District got themselves the MMR vaccine, but every little bit helps. This is going to burn until it runs out of fuel, and making yourself not be fuel is the best defense you have. Daily Kos has more.

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Texas A&M’s nukes

Posted on February 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

The Texas A&M University System has selected four companies to explore developing advanced nuclear reactors on its Rellis research campus in Bryan, university officials announced Tuesday morning.

Each of the four companies — Kairos Power, Natura Resources, Aalo Atomics and Terrestrial Energy — could potentially build at least one commercial reactor on the Rellis Campus, company executives said.

The announcement comes after Texas A&M sought an early site permit from federal regulators in November to offer land to nuclear companies. If approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Texas A&M would be the only higher education institution in the country with a commercial nuclear reactor site license.

Ultimately, the goal is to create an “energy proving ground” at the Rellis Campus that can serve as a test bed for cutting-edge energy technologies, Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp said in an interview. A&M would offer companies its nuclear engineering expertise, as well as a site to demonstrate commercial viability of their technology to kickstart further development, he said.

Texas A&M’s leaders want to host what are known as small modular reactors, which are supposed to be smaller, easier to build and safer than traditional nuclear plants. Thus far, only three SMRs are operational in the world, none in the United States. One U.S. attempt sputtered to an end in 2023 after cost estimates tripled to $9.3 billion.

“We hope that at the end of it, we can show the rest of the country that SMRs are a viable, safe, reliable option to make sure we don’t run out of power in this country,” Sharp said.

He cited projections of surging demand for electricity nationwide largely to accommodate power-hungry data centers, particularly those hosting artificial intelligence computing systems.

The demand is there, we know that much. I’ll take this over bringing coal plants back online, for sure. Maybe this doesn’t work out the way they’d like, but it’s worth the effort. If legislative Republicans could find a way to be a little less stupid about wind and solar energy right now, we’d be much better positioned going forward.

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Here’s that Whitmire government efficiency report

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I’m whelmed.

Mayor John Whitmire

A sweeping study of Houston’s 22 departments, their finances and operations revealed potential misuse of city credit cards and a pressing need to streamline city government to make it more efficient, according to an executive summary obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

The review, conducted by the accounting firm Ernst & Young, pinpointed long-standing problems with the city’s outdated organizational structure and contracting procedures.

About 42% of city managers only have one to three people who report to them, the analysis shows, and the city has challenges with pay equity and competitive compensation. The firm’s report also notes that career pathways gaps created opportunities for “fake promotions” of employees into management roles that didn’t oversee anyone.

Authorized city employees can obtain purchasing cards, or “p-cards,” that essentially act the same way as a corporate credit card so they can make purchases for city business. The review found that p-card payments were split to allow for larger purchases that would have typically been over spending limits, and that some items were purchased from unauthorized vendors.

“This assessment confirms what many of us already knew: We have work to do to build a government that truly earns the trust of its residents,” Mayor John Whitmire wrote in a memo to city council members Tuesday.

He continued: “I believe that by acting on these findings, we can create a city government that is more transparent, efficient and focused on delivering results. We can show Houstonians that their government works for them and that every decision we make is rooted in accountability and service.”

City officials have been waiting for the results of the financial overview since it was commissioned in May 2024. The mayor’s office sent a summary of the results to council members Tuesday, and said it was a “critical first step” in restoring public trust in city government.

The study showed a need for improvements in four main categories over the course of six weeks: performance and accountability, operations and efficiency, spending and procurement, and financial controls and risks.

The report is here – it’s quite long and gets very much into the weeds of how departments can and should operate, so unless this really floats your boat I’d just stick to the Mayor’s letter and executive summary. At a high level, I’m fine with the recommendations, and I’m sure there are plenty of things the city could do better. I say go for it, within reason and the collective bargaining agreement with the municipal union.

But the thing that stood out to me, especially after months of talk about how this audit will help save the city’s bacon on the budget, I didn’t see a single dollar amount listed for the savings that we could get if this plan were fully implemented. Not even some aspirational pie-in-the-sky number that no one will believe. So I have to ask, is that all there is? As I’ve said, I’m sure there’s some savings to be had, just not “make a big dent in the current deficit”-level savings. What does Mayor Whitmire think this will do for the city’s budget? Because he’s going to have to put a budget out real soon now, and that’s when it all gets real.

UPDATE: The Houston Landing story has some theoretical numbers.

Mayor John Whitmire on Wednesday lauded the results of a long-awaited efficiency study that found potential mismanagement of funds among city departments and a lack of accountability measures, but how much money the city could save remained unknown.

The mayor’s team presented the findings of the Ernst and Young study at City Council and identified duplicative contracts, a lack of accountability in department spending and redundancy in departments as opportunities for change.

Specific savings, however, largely will stay unidentified until Whitmire unveils his budget proposal in the spring.

In the meantime, Whitmire said the administration plans to offer the firm another contract to help find solutions.

Whitmire’s executive team said the bulk of savings is estimated to be between 5 and 15 percent of Houston’s $2.2 billion facilities and construction budget. That represents an estimated savings of $113 million to $341 million.

Whitmire repeatedly has pointed to the report as his reason to reject calls for a property tax rate increase or the implementation of new fees. He said Wednesday he would see through the auditing process before asking taxpayers to contribute more money to close Houston’s growing $330 million deficit – which could be further impacted by ongoing negotiations with the Houston Police Officers Union.

“It is so revealing why Houstonians are frustrated and why I will not go to them and ask for additional resources, until, in my judgment, regain their confidence that we’re using their money wisely,” the mayor said.

The efficiency study examined 22 city departments, including police and fire, and focused on performance, organization, spending and forensic accounting. Ernst and Young is completing a similar audit of Houston’s tax increment reinvestment zones.

Well those are definitely numbers. I’m not sure where they came from – as noted, there are no numbers cited in either the mayor’s letter at the beginning or the executive summary – and I’m not sure why the facilities and construction budget is being used as the benchmark, as that doesn’t seem to be tied to the things that are identified as areas of improvement. The way these things tend to go, expect the lower end to be much more likely than the upper end to be realistic, and while that’s a substantial number it’s still a ways off from being sufficient to close the deficit on its own. The budget will tell the story of how this might be achieved and how painful it will be. Emily Hynds has notes from the Council meeting where this was discussed if you want more.

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Appeals Court hears Catholic Charities case

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Hoping for a good outcome.

Still a crook any way you look

A Texas appeals court panel on Wednesday appeared skeptical of the procedure used by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office as it sought to question under oath the leader of one of the state’s largest migrant aid organizations.

The issue landed in the appeal court after a trial court’s ruling last summer that state investigators could not depose the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley before filing a lawsuit against the group. Paxton’s office said it was investigating whether the charity had violated state laws against human trafficking and harboring undocumented immigrants; it has not filed a lawsuit against Catholic Charities.

In a University of Texas at Austin School of Law courtroom Wednesday morning, three justices of the 15th Court of Appeals — all Republicans appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott — questioned why the state had used what’s called a Rule 202 petition when it had other avenues to try to seek the testimony of Catholic Charities’ leader during its investigation.

One justice also questioned the purpose of trying to compel the nun in charge of the charity to testify since she could invoke her 5th Amendment right to not incriminate herself; another noted that other courts have ruled that the tool was not intended for routine use.

Most states allow lawyers to depose someone before a lawsuit is filed, typically in situations where a person may die before the lawsuit can be filed. In Texas, lawyers can also question someone under oath for an investigation before a lawsuit is filed, but they need a judge’s approval to do so — and in this case the lower court denied that request from Paxton’s office.

Should courts allow the use of the rule, Paxton’s office could wield it to compel testimony under oath from people it is investigating before formally accusing them of wrongdoing in a court.

Justice Scott K. Field said other laws give the AG’s office the ability to depose someone without filing a lawsuit, “then why do you need Rule 202?” The other mechanisms include letters that the attorney general’s office can send to demand information or testimony, as well a state statute called “request to examine,” which Paxton’s office relied on in similar investigations until a federal judge in October found it unconstitutional. That finding was appealed to the federal 5th Circuit.

[…]

Chief Justice Scott A. Brister asked Stone whether the attorney general’s office believes it can force people to answer questions under oath any time it believes someone is violating the law, without having to file a lawsuit.

Stone responded that because the question had not been raised to the court previously, it’s not a tool the attorney general’s office has used routinely in investigations.

“Not yet,” Brister said, looking directly at Stone.

William Powell, lawyer for the Rio Grande Valley charity, told justices that the state had not presented any evidence to substantiate its investigation or show any wrongdoing by Catholic Charities.

The charity handed state investigators a sworn statement from its director, Sister Norma Pimentel, stating that the charity only helps migrants who have been processed and released legally into the country with paperwork by federal immigration officials, Powell said.

“The only thing really that the attorney general can say is, ‘I didn’t have to present any evidence because I automatically win because I’m the attorney general,’” Powell said. “I don’t understand how they could think that a deposition of Sister Norma is going to produce anything different than what she already swore under oath.”

“Maybe they have some Perry Masons that cross examine,” said Brister, referring to the mid-20th century TV series about a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles who works to exonerate wrongfully charged clients — often getting the real killer to confess on the witness stand.

See here for the background. This is the first appeal of the four cases that this new court will hear. I have to assume that if Paxton strikes out here, he may realize he has no path forward. He’ll still go to the Supreme Court, but this court is basically its clone. I’m hopeful based on what is reported here, but it’s not over till it’s over. Here’s hoping.

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Dispatches from Dallas, February 14 edition

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

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

It’s been a while since we’ve had news from Dallas-Fort Worth because your humble correspondent has had her first run-in with Covid. It’s been a doozy. Next week we should be back to our regular coverage, but this week I’m concentrating on one of the weirdest ongoing stories happening here in the Metroplex: the upcoming breakup of Keller ISD.

Keller ISD covers the eastern part of Fort Worth and the suburb of Keller. The district is highly regarded but, like every other district in Texas, facing demographic and financial challenges exacerbated by the choices of our state government. I missed the beginning of this story because I don’t hang around on Facebook enough, and certainly not in the parts where stakeholders in Keller ISD spend time, but the story is that certain members of Keller’s seven-member board decided they wanted to split the poorer western side of the district from the eastern, suburban side of the district, with the dividing line being Old Denton Road. This was all happening in November and December, when we were all busy with other things.

Somehow, this has become an actual plan that appears to be happening. Keller’s web site refers to this project as “reshaping” and has a proposed map for the split. Some of the trustees were blindsided by the reveal of the proposed split back in January. The superintendent, who had only joined the district in December 2023, offered her resignation and the board named an interim superintendent in their January 30 meeting.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of opposition. At the meeting on the 30th, 200 speakers signed up and the majority were against the split. The Star-Telegram has editorialized against the split. Republican State Rep. Nate Schatzline, the pastor of Mercy Culture, is open to the plan but is concerned it will drive down property values if the new school district isn’t as high-performing as Keller ISD; he would represent much of the new district. Democratic Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, whom regular readers will know as a foil of Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, is also against the split.

So what is going on here? One piece of it is almost certainly the public interest lawsuit against Keller’s at-large trustee election system. I’ve written about these before but the gist of it is that Brewer Storefront, the public advocacy arm of a big law firm, has been threatening to sue districts around the state for at-large trustee elections. In the case of Keller ISD, they have May elections and that’s also a factor. These two rules make it harder for voters of color to have their say, which is illegal under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (to the extent that still applies under the current administration). Brewer is now pushing to stop the split as well.

But the other rumor I’ve heard and can’t confirm is that the trustees behind the original split discussions–whom I can only guess at by seeing who’s against it, because it’s not them–are your bog-standard reactionary school board haters and the split is happening for obvious reasons. I find this theory somewhat compelling because it fits with everything else happening in Texas, in North Texas school boards, and because the start of these discussions in November and December aligns with a time when it became clear the Justice Department wouldn’t do anything about resegregation of school districts. This quote from an opponent of the split makes that clear:

The saddest thing of all was when a student said to my son I hope they split the district so that I can go to school with all white kids

Some further reading on this story:

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Mike Miles gets graded

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“Needs improvement”.

State-appointed Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles lost several points in his annual performance evaluation from the board for failing to effectively communicate with community members and for not prioritizing a positive culture, according to recently released district records.

Miles earned 66.7 of the 100 possible points on his evaluation, meaning he received a bonus of $126,730, or 66.7% of the maximum possible bonus of $190,000, according to the evaluation the Board of Managers approved in an 8-1 vote in October meeting.

HISD initially said in October that the results of the evaluation were confidential, but it released the full scores to the Chronicle in response to an open records request.

According to an amendment to Miles’ contract, 60% of his evaluation is based on whether he met four specific student outcome goals and honored the constraints that the board set in November 2023, while the remaining 40% is based on how he scored on an executive leadership and vision rubric.

He earned 35 of 60 available points in the student outcomes section and 31.7 out of 40 points on the executive leadership and vision rubric.

Miles earned a perfect score from board members for demonstrating vision, as well as high marks for making effective decisions and maintaining an effective budget. The board also determined that he had effectively maximized human capital and worked well “as part of a high-performing team.”

However, he lost points for falling short on the district’s goal for third-grade student performance on the reading STAAR during the 2023-24 academic year. Board members also determined he had not been effective at constructing a positive communications strategy or prioritizing a positive culture and people wellness, according to the scores.

[…]

The executive leadership and vision rubric evaluates Miles based on how he has demonstrated vision, made effective decisions, maximized human capital, worked well as part of a high-functioning team, constructed a positive communications strategy, created and maintained an effective budget, and prioritized positive culture and wellness.

Each of the eight metrics is assigned a ranking ranging from “ineffective” to “highly effective” based on a score ranging from zero to five, except for the “demonstrates vision” category, which is assigned a score ranging from zero to 10. The scores are determined for each metric based on how Miles met a series of criteria.

Miles earned a 2.5 out of five for his communication strategy. To earn a higher score, he would need to strengthen outreach to parents, school partners and community members; communicate transparently to strengthen trust and engagement; and internalize the importance of clear communication strategies to support teachers and school leaders.

Miles also earned 2.5 out of five possible points on the “positive culture and wellness” section of the rubric. The maximum score requires Miles to create multiple feedback opportunities for community members, dedicate more resources to a positive culture and expand collaboration with community members.

Isn’t a 67, like, a D? Surely he could set a better example than that. And how he managed to avoid getting zeroes on the “communication” and “positive culture” rubrics – I’d demand a recount. There’s more if you want to read it. I’m just rolling my eyes.

UPDATE: The Chron editorial board is also unimpressed.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

RRC finds no fault in that Energy Transfer Pipeline explosion

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

What’s a giant fireball among friends, am I right?

An investigation by Texas regulators into the massive pipeline explosion in Deer Park last fall has found no safety violations by the pipeline’s operator Energy Transfer Company – a determination drawing outrage from people who had to flee their homes during the inferno.

“I’m stunned,” said Brandi Gardner, who said her sense of safety has been shattered by the terror of the pipeline exploding just beyond her family’s backyard. “That valve should have been protected all along with barriers… especially knowing that it was so close to a residential area.”

The investigation report from the Texas Railroad Commission provides little information explaining how the state pipeline safety agency reached its “no violations” conclusion, beyond saying that inspectors met with company officials and reviewed various records. The Railroad Commission did not grant interviews or answer Houston Landing’s questions on Monday.

Energy Transfer’s above-ground pipeline valve carrying natural gas liquids exploded on Sept. 16 and burned for nearly four days after an SUV crashed into it, killing the driver, burning and melting nearby homes, cars and power lines, and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes and businesses in Deer Park and La Porte.

Although the pipeline valve was located in a heavily populated area, next to busy Spencer Highway and adjacent to a high-traffic Walmart Supercenter parking lot, it was surrounded with only a chain link fence, archived Google Street View images show.

It is unclear from the Railroad Commission’s vaguely written report how inspectors deemed chain link fencing to have been adequate protection against vehicle strikes. About 25,000 vehicles a day travel that stretch of Spencer Highway.

Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a national safety advocacy group, said the lack of any violations being cited in the Deer Park explosion illustrates a critical problem with the nation’s pipeline safety laws.

Pipeline safety rules say each valve must be “protected from damage or tampering,” Caram said, but they give operators the latitude to determine how to best achieve the result.

“The code is frustratingly vague about the types of protection operators need to have around valves,” Caram said. “I would have thought that the level of loss and destruction we witnessed was enough proof that Energy Transfer’s efforts fell short of requirements.”

[…]

The Railroad Commission’s report, which appears to have been quietly uploaded into the agency’s online regulatory database on Friday, has just three sentences of findings and contributing factors for the explosion.

The regulatory report cites Energy Transfer’s investigation as determining that the root cause of the pipeline rupture and fire was due to the vehicle crash. The report then notes: “To minimize the possibility of recurrence, [Energy Transfer] added additional concrete barricades (jersey barriers) around the valve site and other similar locations. After records review, no rules violations were cited.”

Energy Transfer, in a brief emailed statement to the Landing, said the company was in compliance with all rules and regulations at the time of the SUV crash and that “there are no required actions to be done before an event that is unforeseeable (an intentional act by a third party).”

See here, here, and here for some background. I don’t know what I expected, but I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s the Railroad Commission, this is how they roll. There is something we can do about it, though.

Vincent Gardner, who is Brandi Gardner’s husband, expressed frustration that it seems there is no local, state or federal agency that is trying to help their neighborhood recover or taking action to protect against future pipeline explosions caused by vehicle crashes.

“This is all being swept under the rug. They want this to go away as fast as possible. It’s obvious. They want business to go on as usual,” Vincent Gardner said.

Your State Rep is Briscoe Cain, and we elect one member of the RRC every two years. If as you say that is what they want and it’s not what you want, well, you will have the chance to take direct action about it next year. The Chron has more.

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Is this the end of the penny?

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It could be.

President Donald Trump says he has directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the rising cost of producing the one-cent coin.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump wrote in a post Sunday night on his Truth Social site. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies.”

The move by Trump is the latest in what has been a rapid-fire effort by his new administration to enact sweeping change through executive order and proclamation on issues ranging from immigration, to gender and diversity, to the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump had not discussed his desire to eliminate the penny during his campaign. But Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency raised the prospect in a post on X last month highlighting the penny’s cost.

The U.S. Mint reported losing $85.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year that ended in September on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced. Every penny cost nearly $0.037 — up from $0.031 the year before.

The mint also loses money on the nickel, with each of the $0.05 coins costing nearly $0.14 to make.

It is unclear whether Trump has the power to unilaterally eliminate the lowly one-cent coin. Currency specifications — including the size and metal content of coins — are dictated by Congress.

But Robert K. Triest, an economics professor at Northeastern University, has argued that there might be wiggle room.

“The process of discontinuing the penny in the U.S. is a little unclear. It would likely require an act of Congress, but the Secretary of the Treasury might be able to simply stop the minting of new pennies,” he said last month.

I have defended the existence of the penny in the past, more because I like coins than for any coherent practical or ideological reason. Especially post-pandemic, coin usage is way down, and so the removal of the penny from daily life would be felt far less than it once would have been. In terms of the reckless lawbreaking and unconscionable damage that Trump and Musk are doing to the country, this is way, way down on the list of concerns. In terms of cutting costs and saving money, this is barely even a rounding error, one that only sounds substantive to someone who doesn’t understand the difference between “million”, “billion”, and “trillion”. If and when we do kill off the penny (and maybe the nickel and who knows what other coins), I’d like to see us do it with a bit more ceremony – there’s a lot of interesting history here, we should give it its due. But I’m not going to expend any energy on that now.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of February 10

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance remembers when widespread lawbreaking was considered a bad thing as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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The NIH cuts’ effect on Texas

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Just wondering if any of our state leaders have a reaction to this attack on our state’s economy.

Texas universities could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that support biomedical research if a Trump administration policy withstands legal battles. Some fear a new National Institutes of Health funding formula will endanger thousands of jobs and potentially jeopardize breakthroughs in everything from infectious diseases to chronic conditions.

The NIH said it planned to slash the rate at which federal grants can be spent on overhead for research, which includes costs like facility construction and maintenance. The federal agency wants to set the rate at 15%. Some Texas universities, hospitals and companies had negotiated a rate of more than 50% with NIH before Trump was sworn in for a new term last month. They expected to receive $444 million in support for the indirect costs of their research, records show.

NIH portrayed the new cap, announced Friday, as a way to be a good steward of taxpayer money. But the move has already drawn a lawsuit from 22 states. A federal judge on Monday blocked the rule from going into effect in those 22 states. Texas did not join the suit.

“This agency action will result in layoffs, suspension of clinical trials, disruption of ongoing research programs and laboratory programs,” the attorneys general wrote in court documents.

Some NIH grant recipients in Texas that stand to lose the most if this policy is implemented include a brain study at UNT Health Science Center ($3.4 million annually), support for MD Anderson Cancer Center ($3.3 million annually) and the Southwest National Primate Research Center ($2.7 million annually).

[…]

The Baylor College of Medicine is among the top NIH-funded institutions in Texas in 2023. Officials at others, including Texas A&M University and University of Houston systems, said they are still assessing the impact of the policy change.

“We do not yet know the specific financial and operational impacts to UH, however, we anticipate the losses to exceed $10 million,” UH spokesperson Shawn Lindsey said. “Our commitment to advancing scientific discovery and innovation remains steadfast. We will be developing strategies to mitigate the effects and will provide updates to our campus community as we navigate these unprecedented changes.”

On Monday, Daniel Jaffe, UT-Austin’s vice president for research, assured faculty the university will cover all the facilities and administrative costs associated with their ongoing research despite the NIH’s announcement.

“You may continue to make expenditures on NIH grants as before,” he wrote in an email, which also encouraged faculty to submit grant proposals.

UT-Austin has 230 active NIH grants and expected to receive $24 million in indirect cost support from NIH, records show. Under this change, that amount could be cut in half.

The dollar amounts aren’t that great, but the value the research has generated is tremendous. The good news is that the original restraining order, which had only applied to those 22 plaintiff states, has been expanded nationwide, so we get to freeload a little here. As folks like Josh Marshall have pointed out, these cuts do affect red states, as well as a lot of businesses, so the pushback was to be expected. One can only marvel at our state’s ability to shrug it off regardless.

That’s not the only game in town, of course, so here’s a brief roundup of headlines on how The Trump/Musk regime has been bad for Texas so far:

Rice University among Texas schools facing uncertainty on research funding amid federal DEI ban

Baylor, MD Anderson among Houston research institutions that could lose millions under NIH grant policy

30,000 tons of food stuck in Houston port after Trump halts foreign aid

UTEP tells its researchers to maintain focus despite NIH plans to cut funding

Fort Worth was selected for $1M federal environmental grant. City may never see the money

Trump’s aluminum tariffs pose new threat to San Antonio’s beleaguered craft brewers

I’m sure there’s more, but you get the idea.

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Beryl was stronger than we thought

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Some lessons for the future here.

A new report from the National Hurricane Center found that Hurricane Beryl roared into the upper Texas Gulf Coast with maximum winds of 92 miles per hour, just 3 miles per hour shy of being designated a Category 2.

Following the end of the Atlantic hurricane season on Nov. 30, the National Hurricane Center completed a thorough investigation of each tropical cyclone to account for any new data that may have been discovered. Among the data analyzed in the six months following Beryl was an aircraft-measured wind gust of 103 miles per hour roughly 8,000 feet above ground level and a peak wind gust of 97 miles per hour measured by a private Texas Tech University weather station.

Beryl was in an environment ripe for rapid intensification as it was on its final approach to the upper Texas Gulf Coast. Tim Cady, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who covers Greater Houston and Galveston, says Southeast Texas would have likely been hit by an even stronger Beryl had its strengthening begun sooner.

“Beryl encountered a period of favorable conditions as it was approaching the upper Texas Gulf Coast,” Cady said.

Above normal sea surface temperatures and low levels of atmospheric wind shear, which is the change of wind speed throughout the atmosphere, contributed to Beryl strengthening again into a hurricane in the hours before landfall.

The marshy topography where Beryl made landfall may explain why Beryl took so long to wind down, and may have even contributed to some degree of intensification immediately following landfall. “We’ve seen in past storms that there can be a bit of intensification post-landfall if conditions remain favorable,” Cady says, referring to this phenomenon as the “brown ocean effect.”

There are several regions in the world where tropical cyclones have been shown to maintain or increase strength after landfall. The hypothesis is abundant moisture in the soil, whether caused by marshy terrain or days of heavy rain, help to “feed” a tropical cyclone as it passes over the saturated ground.

Beryl’s faster push inland simply meant it took longer to weaken since it was still in the process of strengthening as it came ashore. Had Beryl started to intensify earlier than it did, the results could have been an even more intense hurricane landfall.

That NOAA report is, at least as of Monday and despite the Muskian crime wave, here. This story is from two weeks ago and I had it on my to do list but got distracted, then I saw again and here we are. Space City Weather adds on.

While Hurricane Beryl was presumed to have a landfall intensity of 80 mph when it came ashore in Texas, the postseason review determined that this was too low. Beryl got an upgrade to a strong category 1 storm, with 90 mph maximum sustained winds at landfall. This is interesting, and it makes the comparisons to Ike somewhat more relevant in a data sense.

Ike came ashore as a weakening category 2 storm with 110 mph maximum sustained winds. Beryl came ashore as a strengthening category 1 storm, having rapidly intensified from a 60 mph tropical storm to a 90 mph hurricane in about 14 hours. While that’s still 20 mph of difference in maximum sustained wind, the fact that the two storms were trending in opposite directions, and all else the same, the weaker side of Ike wasn’t that much stronger than the “dirty” side of Beryl, which Houston experienced. This makes the similarities between the storms in terms of widespread tree damage and power outages more comprehensible in retrospect.

Also worth noting, Beryl peaked in the Caribbean as a category 5 storm with ~165 mph maximum sustained winds, confirming the intensity reported in the advisories. The report stated that “the maximum intensity of Beryl is somewhat uncertain due to temporal gaps in the aircraft data near the time of peak intensity, and issues with (microwave) surface wind estimates that prevented their use in this evaluation.” In other words, some of the data was unusable, and the timing of the reconnaissance flight into Beryl may have differed from the exact time of peak intensity. Whatever the case, 165 mph is dang strong.

[…]

We’ve said this countless times in the wake of Beryl and since: It was a warning to this region. Beryl had 14 hours of favorable conditions over water to strengthen and went from a tropical storm to nearly a category 2 hurricane. What if it had 24 hours, and started from a 70 mph tropical storm? 36 hours? We’ve seen this play out in Florida, Louisiana, and the Coastal Bend several times since 2017 with storms in the Gulf of Mexico. Harvey, Michael, Ida, Ian, Idalia, Helene, Milton to name some others. It really is a matter of when, not if. We need to continue to focus on ensuring we’re prepared every year with our hurricane kits, getting more people to adopt that practice, and continuing to invest in resiliency and infrastructure improvements, which is to say: Build the damn Ike Dike.

Hard to argue with that, but also hard to be optimistic about what the current federal government might do. The state has started to take some action, which is nice but also mitigated by its intense efforts to enable further climate change. Read the rest, read the report, and know what we’re up against.

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Lyft gets into the robotaxi business

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of course they are.

Ride-hail giant Lyft plans to bring fully autonomous robotaxis, powered by Mobileye, to its app “as soon as 2026” in Dallas, with more markets to follow, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.

The news comes a day before Lyft reports its fourth-quarter financial results, coinciding with Waymo’s preparations to launch a commercial robotaxi service with Uber in Austin and, later, Atlanta. Tesla has also shared plans to start an autonomous ride-hail operation in Austin in June.

Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate with experience managing fleets, will own and finance the Mobileye-equipped vehicles that will show up on Lyft’s ride-hailing app. While Lyft has not yet disclosed which carmaker it is partnering with for the launch, Mobileye’s advanced driver assistance technology is already integrated into vehicles from Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, and more.

Lyft also didn’t share how many vehicles it would launch in Dallas to start, but Jeremy Bird, Lyft’s executive vice president of driver experience, told TechCrunch that the plan is to scale to thousands of vehicles across multiple cities after the Texas debut.

The Marubeni partnership is a non sequitur for Lyft: the Japanese company owns subsidiaries across almost every industry, from food and real estate to agriculture and energy, but doesn’t have a large presence in ride-hail or autonomous vehicles.

That said, over the past few years, Marubeni has begun to dabble. In 2021, the company partnered with Mobileye and transit planning app Moovit to launch an on-demand mobility service in Japan. TechCrunch has reached out to learn if that collaboration is still active.

Mobileye served as the intermediary between Lyft and Marubeni, said Bird. For Lyft’s asset-light business model, finding a partner to commit to owning the fleet is crucial.

“Mobileye’s got the technology and the relationship with the OEMs, and we have the platform, so it’s the ownership of the fleet that’s the big missing piece,” Bird told TechCrunch. “And when you have somebody that has experience in [fleet management] and the resources and the willingness to be a first-mover, that changes the game for us.”

Marubeni will leverage Lyft’s Flexdrive service to help manage its fleet and keep asset utilization high. Flexdrive connects drivers who don’t own vehicles with car renters. Bird said Lyft’s experience managing fleets – which includes charging, cleaning, and maintaining the vehicles, as well as real estate for operations – will go a long way towards supporting future autonomous rides.

See here and here for the most recent posts on the topic of the robotaxi invasion. Tesla and Uber/Waymo have focused on Austin, while Lyft is taking its first steps in Dallas. Outside of the short-lived Cruise experience, Houston has been on the outside looking in. On the one hand I certainly don’t mind that other cities get to be the guinea pigs, and on the other hand I wonder why that is.

This also provides another answer to my question about how existing rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft would change their business models in the transition from an all human-driven fleet to one that is at least partially autonomous. Someone else will indeed own the cars, while Uber and Lyft retreat to being primarily technology companies. We’ll see how they try to differentiate themselves. And, you know, just how much demand there is for this kind of thing. Reuters, The Verge, and Spectrum News have more.

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One of the judges Ken Paxton helped elect wants to reform judicial campaign finances

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

And I support him! Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are.

Justice David Schenck

David Schenk, the new presiding judge on Texas’ Court of Criminal Appeals, is on a mission to make sweeping changes to the rules governing judicial elections in the Lone Star State.

Right now, Schenck points out, anyone can donate to a judge’s political campaign in Texas, even if they are in the middle of a case the same judge will decide. There are few restrictions on how much they can give. And nothing in the law or ethics rules stops judicial candidates, including sitting judges, from asking those people for contributions directly.

“We need to do something about this,” Schenck, a Republican, said in an interview shortly before he took the bench in January.

“The adults need to enter the room here.”

Now that he has a leadership position on one of Texas’ two statewide courts, Schenck intends to make that happen — even though he and two of his newly elected colleagues just won their seats on the bench with unprecedented support from deep-pocketed special interests.

Ultraconservative billionaires including West Texas oilman Dan Wilks, Dallas telecom company founder Kenny Troutt and Houston software magnate Mike Rydin were all top contributors to a political action committee (PAC) supporting Schenck and the two other successful CCA candidates. The PAC raised $350,000, far more than any CCA hopeful has collected in the last decade, campaign finance records show.

The fundraising blitz was set up by allies of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who vowed revenge against the CCA’s incumbent judges after they ruled that he could not unilaterally prosecute election fraud cases.

“Because the general populace has absolutely no clue how the judiciary works, it’s easier to influence elections,” said Zachary Maxwell, who used to work for a conservative media outlet funded by Wilks and is now an independent consultant who advocates for judicial ethics reform. “We could have anybody come in here, throw in a bunch of money, say the right thing, and get anyone they want elected.”

Schenck said he never asked for help from Paxton or the PAC that supported him, and that he did not coordinate with them during his campaign. He also did not run at Paxton’s behest, and said he has been careful not to comment on how he would have ruled in the election fraud case that galvanized Paxton and his allies.

Still, Schenck said that if any of the reforms he’s calling for make it harder for himself or his fellow judges to raise campaign dollars in the future, it’s worth the risk.

“It makes you feel better about the office when you’re in it,” Schenck said.

[…]

Schenck thinks there are easier, more practical reforms than getting rid of judicial elections. He wants to go after loopholes in Texas campaign finance rules that allow multiple attorneys at the same law firm to “bundle” their donations to a statewide judicial candidate, which means they can contribute as much as $30,000 to a campaign rather than the $5,000 cap for individual donations.

He also wants more disclosure requirements for donors — especially those who can avoid contribution caps by giving to a political action committee (PAC) that “indirectly” supports a candidate, rather than donating to someone’s campaign.

Right now, if someone with a pending case donates to a judge on that same court, no one finds out until campaign finance reports are published months later. Schenck says such donors should have to file a special disclosure form right away so the opposing side in the court case knows about it — whether the contribution went to a campaign or to a PAC that is influencing the race.

And if the donation is large enough, a judge should have to bow out of the case. (Right now, six states have decided on the amount that should trigger a judge’s recusal, but Texas is not among them.)

“Anyone who gives to a PAC, I’d like to know that you gave to a PAC, and if it’s beyond some limit, I’d like to not be your judge, especially while the case is pending in front of me,” Schenck said.

See here, here, and here for the background. I’m fine with all of these proposals. The only thing I’d add is that there needs to be some real enforcement mechanism built into them, and not just “the Texas Ethics Commission can levy a little bitty fine”, or else they’re just window dressing. Make it so that violations can lead to a judge’s removal and/or real discipline from the State bar, up to and including suspension or even disbarment for repeated offenses, and then we’re talking. If there’s one thing we absolutely should have learned over the last eight or so years it’s that laws that can’t be or don’t get adequately enforced are not only useless, they end up encouraging more bad behavior. No consequences, no accountability. Let’s use what we’ve learned.

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Paxton appeals SCOPE Act rulings

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

As expected.

An Austin-based federal judge ruled Friday that some aspects of a Texas law limiting minors’ access to digital platforms likely violate the First Amendment, a decision Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately appealed.

Northern District of Texas Judge Robert Pitman in part granted a preliminary injunction against aspects of House Bill 18, or the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (SCOPE Act), that would have unconstitutionally restricted protected speech. The law requires social media platforms and other websites to protect minors from “physical, emotional, and developmental harm,” but Pitman ruled the law is not specific enough about what could be considered harmful.

“The final issue for HB 18 is that the law fails to define key categories of prohibited topics, including ‘grooming,’ ‘harassment,’ and ‘substance abuse,'” Pitman wrote in his ruling. “At what point, for example, does alcohol use become ‘substance abuse?’ When does an extreme diet cross the line into an ‘eating disorder?’ What defines ‘grooming’ and ‘harassment?’ Under these indefinite meanings, it is easy to see how an attorney general could arbitrarily discriminate in his enforcement of the law.”

[…]

In August, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued Paxton on behalf of multiple plaintiffs, including a 16-year-old high school student who said the law unfairly blocks important content, like research on marijuana legalization for a school project.

See here and here for the background. As noted before, there was another lawsuit filed by different plaintiffs that also resulted in a block on other provisions of the SCOPE Act. I found a copy of the ruling from this lawsuit in this KXAN story, and that tells me that these two actions were not combined, so I presume this appeal is limited to this case. I can’t tell from some googling around if that ruling has also been appealed. It would be nice if the stories about these cases would be clearer on that, but maybe I’m too narrow an audience for that. Anyway, this is where we are now.

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Fighting back with Amy Hagstrom Miller

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Great article.

Amy Hagstrom Miller

In the frenetic days following the November election, longtime abortion provider Amy Hagstrom Miller spent a lot of time in meetings—some in person, some on Zoom—rallying her troops. As one of the most prominent, and tenacious, independent abortion providers in the country, with six Whole Woman’s Health clinics in four states, it was a safe bet that she and her staff of 125 would find themselves in the crosshairs of a Donald Trump presidency and the anti-abortion extremists his second term will empower.

Hagstrom Miller could feel the alarm and dread that washed over some of her employees as they contemplated an America in which the 1873 Comstock Act might be enforced to institute a national abortion ban, the abortion pill would come under myriad other relentless attacks, federal appointees would use their bureaucratic powers to target providers in states where abortion remains legal, and patients would face new risks to their physical safety and constitutional rights.

But she also felt her employees’ determination, and even excitement, to double down on the part of their work that they like to call “kicking against the pricks.” Hagstrom Miller’s consistent message was sober without being defeatist. Prepare—but don’t panic. And above all, do not comply in advance.

“One of the first signs of authoritarianism is that people start to comply with things before they are actually enforced,” Hagstrom Miller told me repeatedly during a series of interviews since before the election. “We can prepare for different scenarios but we are not going to stop doing what we do. Abortion was needed well before Trump was alive and will be needed well after he leaves office.”

As the new Trump administration takes power, Hagstrom Miller is uniquely positioned to guide abortion supporters through this terrifying crossroads for reproductive and gender rights. She spent 20 plus years in Texas battling the right-wing lawmakers and legal strategists working to pass some of the most draconian abortion laws in the country. The end of Roe v. Wade finally forced her to leave the state, but she did not go away. She has continued to be a thorn in the anti-abortion movement’s side, expanding the reach of her other clinics while counseling providers in blue states that are facing existential threats to abortion rights for the first time. Rather than succumbing to fear, Hagstrom Miller has been staying vigilant, being proactive—and reminding those in her orbit to do the same.

Her clinics in Minnesota, Maryland, and—most recently—Virginia and New Mexico have been stockpiling as much of the abortion drug mifepristone as they can in case shipping is disrupted by the administration’s policies. They’ve been over-ordering medical supplies, from gloves to exam-table paper, in light of anti-abortion groups’ well-telegraphed plans to resurrect the Comstock Act to ban the shipping of all abortion-related supplies and equipment. Far from preparing to curtail their work, her clinics have been expanding services: raising the gestational limit for medication abortion from 11 weeks to 12 weeks for telemedicine appointments; mailing pills to a larger number of states, including New York, Colorado, and California; and exploring how to accept Medicaid patients from states that allow the program to reimburse telehealth abortion care. “People tell me, well Trump is going to ban pills by mail, and I’m just like, well people have threatened to do that stuff for my entire career, actually. It’s not going to stop us from doing what we can to help our patients now,” she says.

Their preparations aren’t just logistical, but also psychological, aimed at helping her team and their allies stay resilient amid all the attacks.

“They’ve talked about Comstock, they’ve talked about a national abortion ban,” says Hagstrom Miller. “But at the same time, we can’t just bow down and normalize it all. We can’t let extremists who want to revive a law from the 1800s have that kind of power over us. We need to proceed in a way that treats these threats as remarkably radical—not just as inevitable.”

Coming from someone else, that advice might feel like Pollyannaish platitudes out of sync with this political moment. From Hagstrom Miller, who has weathered countless storms as an abortion provider in the South, it’s a bracing reminder that the future is far from hopeless—if we can draw from the lessons of the past.

“I learned a lot while practicing in Texas and I’ll leverage that experience to push back on the second Trump presidency, whether it be exploiting loopholes, filing lawsuits, or finding other creative ways of resistance,” she says. “We know how to protect ourselves while also being cautious.”

“It’s not necessarily wisdom we wanted,” Hagstrom Miller adds. “But we have it and we’re sure as hell going to use it.”

There’s a lot more, about strategy and coping and how the national abortion movement has not done a great job for providers like Hagstrom Miller, so go read the rest. She’s a damn hero, and I hope she gets to see a day where she doesn’t have to act like one all the time.

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January 2025 campaign finance reports – Senate and Congress

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

Harris County offices
City of Houston

And the cycle starts anew. There will be new names coming and current ones departing in the coming months, but to close the circle here’s where things stood after Election Day. The October 2024 reports for both are here, the July 2024 reports are here, and the April 2024 reports are here. The January 2024 reports for Senate are here, the October 2023 reports are here, the July 2023 reports here, and the April 2023 reports are here. The January 2024 reports for Congress are here, and the October 2023 reports are here. The earlier reports had both Senate and Congress, as the fields were small enough then to do them together.

Colin Allred – Senate

Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
John Love – CD06
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Al Green – CD09
Michelle Vallejo – CD15
Veronica Escobar – CD16
Sheila Jackson Lee – CD18
Sylvester Turner – CD18
Erica Lee Carter – CD18
Joaquin Castro – CD20
Kristin Hook – CD21
Sam Eppler – CD24
Sylvia Garcia – CD29
Jasmine Crockett – CD30
Julie Johnson – CD32
Marc Veasey – CD33
Greg Casar – CD35
Lloyd Doggett – CD37
Melissa McDonough – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Allred       68,751,658 65,430,438        0  3,321,220

03    Srivastava      430,070    428,977  620,733      4,686
06    Love            135,300    123,995        0     11,958
07    Fletcher      2,440,397  2,445,442        0  1,316,661
09    Green           392,514    439,824        0    219,084
15    Vallejo       2,388,898  2,382,802  100,000     17,813
16    Escobar       1,343,214  1,474,082        0    115,844
18    Jackson Lee     553,256    909,923    4,896     12,656
18    Turner          652,566    444,504        0    208,062
18    Lee Carter       70,270     51,642    3,125     18,627
20    Castro          689,806    713,892        0    138,657
21    Hook            514,005    509,648        0      4,357
24    Eppler        1,161,955  1,161,871        0         84
29    Garcia          938,007    950,725        0    371,753
30    Crockett      3,114,949  1,656,565        0  1,611,233
32    Johnson       2,071,913  1,841,010   10,000    230,903
33    Veasey        1,878,488  1,679,753        0  1,009,480
35    Casar         1,116,006    908,128   10,000    370,838
37    Doggett       1,501,841    625,765        0  6,188,367
38    McDonough       193,004    172,084  113,239     22,699

I finally figured out that the reason I wasn’t seeing the finance reports I was expecting for incumbents is because the FEC system had switched to defaulting to the 2026 cycle, which of course explains why there was no data yet. Once I realized I needed to change it back to 2024 – which was only the case for the incumbents, not for the challengers, which added to my confusion – I was able to find the reports I’d been missing.

Colin Allred raised a ton of money, but Ted Cruz took in $106 million, so. John Cornyn is up this time, and someone needs to run for Governor. It would not shock me if Allred looks at his performance compared to other Dems and thinks “in a friendlier year, I’d have a decent shot at it”. Whether he does or not, I have no idea – finding a nice quiet, cushy job somewhere surely has appeal at this point. But it would not be crazy to think in those terms, and at this point it’s hard to imagine who’d give him a serious primary challenge if he did. And whoever does run for Senate may find themselves running against Ken Paxton and not John Cornyn, as there are plenty of rumors right now that our crooked AG is itching to jump into that contest.

Two things to take away from the final 2023-24 totals are that Democratic challengers have a higher floor for fundraising capability than they had a decade ago, when anyone outside of CD23 struggled to even get to $100K for the cycle, and that CD15 is the new CD23, which was never on the radar last year. We can debate whether Michelle Vallejo would have done better last year if she’d remained in the more progressive lane, as she had done in 2022, or if tacking right kept her competitive even if it didn’t help in the end. In a sense it doesn’t matter because she won’t be back on the ballots – South Texas Dems are already recruiting new blood. If what happened in 2024 is an ongoing trend and not an aberration, it won’t matter much anyway. I remain hopeful for CD24, especially if 2026 is a better environment for Dems.

New kids Jasmine Crockett, who is definitely making a national name for herself, and Julie Johnson both showed some fundraising prowess this cycle. I’ll say again, we need more of a commitment from our incumbent elected officials to spread the wealth they collect for the benefit of the whole team. I feel confident that Crockett and Johnson – and Greg Casar and Veronica Escobar and Joaquin Castro and Marc Veasey and Lizzie Fletcher and Sylvia Garcia – will answer the call. The one who may need a push is Lloyd Doggett, who has needed to defend himself in some high-profile primaries in the past as Republicans have drawn him out of multiple districts but who is as safe as one can hope to be these days. You’ve got six million bucks in the bank, Lloyd. Use some of that to get some like-minded souls elected and make your life easier.

While things have gotten better in the last couple of weeks, it took longer than it should have for Congressional (and Senate) Dems to find their footing and fight back against Trump in a way that has been able to break through. We’re going to need a lot more of that, and it won’t surprise me if 2026 is a year with a higher percentage of serious primary challenges, coming largely from people who have been frustrated with past messaging and campaigns. Too soon to say, but something I’ll be watching.

I’ve decided I’ll take a look at the reports for local legislators next, and then finish up with HISD and HCC. Let me know what you think.

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More on the legal attacks against Dr. Carpenter of New York

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Slate legal expert Mary Ziegler weighs in on Louisiana’s attempt to prosecute New York doctor Margaret Carpenter for sending abortion pills to a woman in that state. Dr. Carpenter has also been sued by Ken Paxton for the same thing in Texas.

This particular case will almost certainly turn on whether Louisiana can force Carpenter to enter the state in the first place. It’s not unusual for defendants to fight extradition, as Luigi Mangione initially did before agreeing to be extradited to New York to face charges related to the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But for the most part, states grant one another’s extradition requests. That’s where the shield law comes in: It provides that New York’s governor can’t comply with extradition requests unless federal law otherwise requires it.

So does federal law require it? The Constitution’s extradition clause does create certain obligations for states, but only for defendants who “flee from Justice.” A fugitive, by this definition, is usually understood to be someone who commits a crime in one state, then leaves to seek sanctuary in another. Had Carpenter operated a mobile abortion clinic and performed procedures in Louisiana before returning to New York, this case would be very different.

But Carpenter never left the state of New York. And that matters under existing federal law. That’s what the Supreme Court concluded in an 1885 case involving a Utah defendant who was alleged to have hoodwinked a Pennsylvania family into paying him for land, a house, and a business that weren’t his to sell. The court held that extradition was obligatory only when a defendant “was within the demanding state at the time he is alleged to have committed the crime charged, and subsequently withdrew.”

That was the same conclusion the court arrived at in 1903, when New York sought to extradite a Tennessee man who wasn’t in New York at the time an alleged financial crime was committed (and when his actions didn’t appear to be a crime under Tennessee law).

Carpenter wasn’t in Louisiana when the abortion alleged in this case took place. So even if Louisiana had jurisdiction over her because she mailed pills into the state, and even if her conduct violated the state’s law, New York may well be able to refuse to extradite her. And if Carpenter doesn’t show up to court, Louisiana can’t constitutionally proceed because defendants have a right to be physically present in the courtroom at the start of a felony case.

It’s not inevitable, though, that things will be this simple for New York or Carpenter. The current Supreme Court majority hasn’t been exactly shy about undoing long-standing precedent, especially when a culture-war issue is central to a case. And even if Carpenter prevails, the arrest warrant will loom over her anytime she leaves the state—not only in Louisiana, but in any other jurisdiction. Though a significant number of states have passed shield laws, they generally don’t create reciprocal obligations toward shield defendants from other states; in other words, New York or California might protect its own residents from extraterritorial lawsuits and prosecutions, but those protections don’t necessarily extend to out-of-state residents, and they certainly don’t help their own residents once they leave the state.

Whatever happens in this case won’t make the outcome of other cross-border cases any clearer. What will happen when individual men sue doctors for sending their partners abortion pills—as anti-abortion leaders have promised we’ll see in the coming months? Or if prosecutors target abortion funds or donors to them, or websites or internet service providers, or any number of others deemed to facilitate abortions?

See here for the background. I had noted the possibly lifelong travel constraints that this puts on Dr. Carpenter, but I hadn’t realized that it might extend to all travel, even to neighboring abortion-friendly states. That’s a hell of a lot to ask of someone who would resist this kind of fascistic regime.

Jessica Valenti provides a bit of good news on this front.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that will protect providers who ship abortion medication to anti-choice states.

I flagged this legislation a few weeks ago: The law allows providers to keep their name off of abortion medication prescription labels, shielding them from zealous out-of-state prosecutors.

The signing comes just days after Louisiana indicted a New York doctor who shipped abortion medication to a teen in the state. Dr. Maggie Carpenter, who has also been targeted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, was identified by prosecutors because of her name on the prescription label. “After today, that will no longer happen,” Gov. Hochul said at a press conference.

“Going forward when another doctor prescribes another FDA-approved drug like mifepristone to terminate a pregnancy—they’re simply going to have the name of the health care company on the label, rather than the name of the provider.”

Gov. Hochul also made clear that she would never “under any circumstances” turn Carpenter over to Louisiana. “There’s no way in hell,” she said.

In addition to protecting abortion providers from out-of-state prosecutions, the new law will protect doctors from harassment and violence—which has been on the rise since Roe was overturned, and stoked by the Trump administration.

Abortion rights activists are hoping that other pro-choice states will pass similar legislation to protect providers. A few of the folks I spoke to mentioned hopes for California, in particular. (Looking at you, Gov. Newsom!)

Would have been nice to have had that in place beforehand, but at least it’s there now. And someday, we can look forward to not needing any of these laws. But for now, this is where we are.

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Uber teams up with Waymo in Austin

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Okay.

Uber customers in Austin may notice a new offer when they open the app and hail a ride: an invitation to signal their interest in a Waymo robotaxi.

For now, this doesn’t translate into a Waymo picking them up. But it will soon.

The “interest list,” which launched Wednesday, is part of a partnership between Uber and Waymo to operate a robotaxi service in Austin and Atlanta in early 2025. The service is expected to begin soon in Austin, although neither company would share an official start date. A new co-branded robotaxi was also revealed Wednesday.

The “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service is the latest example of Uber’s push back into autonomous vehicles. Uber divested of its own autonomous vehicle subsidiary, known as Uber ATG, through a complex deal with Aurora in December 2020. Prior to that, ironically, Uber and Waymo were archrivals, going head-to-head in lawsuits alleging Uber stole trade secrets belonging to Waymo (which at the time was part of Google/Alphabet, which today remains a majority shareholder) — Uber eventually settled the suits.

Uber has spent the past couple of years shoring up its position in the emerging robotaxi market. The company has partnered with 14 autonomous vehicle companies that cover ride-hailing, delivery, and trucking — a handful of which are operating commercially. In December, Uber launched robotaxi rides with WeRide in Abu Dhabi and Waymo’s autonomous vehicles have been available on the Uber app in Phoenix since October 2023.

But in Austin and Atlanta, the arrangement with Waymo will be more exclusive.

Under the partnership, only Uber users will be able to hail Waymo’s fleet of autonomous Jaguar I-PACE vehicles. (Waymo has operated its fleet in Phoenix and is now in the process of handing that job over to Moove.) Uber will handle the charging, maintenance, and cleaning of the autonomous vehicles, as well as managing access to the robotaxis via the app. Waymo will still monitor the tech and the autonomous operations, including rider assistance.

When last we checked on Waymo, Uber was not in the picture. I guess they’re just licensing their app, which was surely easier and didn’t require nearly as much of a capital investment as developing their own driverless car would have. Initially, the service will be available in about a 37 square mile section of Austin, including downtown, and will cost the same as an Uber with a driver; Uber says it still plans to employ drivers, though who knows how long-term that is. I’ll be interested to see how much demand there is for this. I can’t say I’m anywhere near ready to trust such a thing, more for the fear that something will glitch and I’ll be stuck in the damn car for who knows how long before some tech support person notices the anomaly, but I’m sure others are. Which would you choose? CNBC and the Statesman have more.

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Weekend link dump for February 9

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all who celebrate!

“Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, a Democrat, just became the 13th voting member of Congress to give birth in office. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a Republican, was the 12th when she welcomed her first child last year. And under current House rules, neither was able to vote while on leave from recovering from giving birth.”

“Mass deportations would completely upend the ongoing recovery in Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina from last year’s hurricanes. It would stall the rebuilding of LA after fires … and at this point, anyone anywhere is at risk of having their home impacted by a climate disaster. So everyone need these skilled workers.”

“The public needs to be reminded of what DEI actually is, rather than allowing Republicans to continue to use it as a dog whistle for unchecked racism and bias. DEI has brought about wage transparency, reporting systems for workplace assault, guaranteed parental leave, and many more benefits to workers. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have also created better products, expanded addressable markets, and yielded higher market returns. Standing against any of these outcomes would position the right wing as an enemy of capitalism and of everyday workers—both of which Trumpism claims to champion.”

“Netflix has created a pyramid scheme of attention, with no end in sight. And yet if the streamer admitted how little impact its movies make, it would undermine its long-running pitch to audiences, Hollywood talent, and their business representatives that the company is a grand star-making enterprise that produces great cinema with commercial appeal.”

“Trump doesn’t want anything. He just want the tariffs. He’s convinced they can raise vast sums of money that will let him enact tax cuts later this year, and he likes that. That’s it. There’s no theory of the case. There’s no underlying rationale. There’s no 4-D chess. He just wants the money, and he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that he’s raising it from Americans, not foreigners.”

“While human diets have long included relatively small quantities of microbes—think of the live bacteria in yogurt, or the oven-killed yeast in bread—researchers at universities and dozens of startups across the globe are now investigating whether some microbes could serve as a caloric substitute for a wide range of foods and ingredients, including eggs, milk, meat, and flour.”

“Somewhere between 60 and 80% of high school students reported having gambled in the last year, the National Council on Problem Gambling reported in 2023. A study commissioned by the NCAA found that 58% of 18-to-22-year-olds had bet on sports – although it should be said that in most states this is illegal before the age of 21. On college campuses, that number was 67%, and the betting happened at a higher frequency. While most people can limit gambling to a bit of occasional fun, medical journal the Lancet published a paper in November finding that 16.3% of adolescents worldwide who bet on sports developed a gambling addiction. (The Sports Betting Alliance, an industry group, pointed to studies conducted in Massachusetts, Indiana and Connecticut that found the rate of problem gamblers across the population to be roughly between 1 and 2%.)”

“The quiet scourge of the foul ball”.

RIP, Fay Vincent, former MLB Commissioner.

“In some ways, President Donald Trump’s DEI purge has been so indiscriminate you could be forgiven for thinking the entire federal government is being put through a mindless find-and-replace function. At the IRS, the Wall Street Journal reported, the employee handbook lost its sections about the “inequity” of holding taxpayer money and the “inclusion” of a taxpayer ID on a form. That isn’t the DEI you’re looking for.”

RIP, Alvin Franklin, guard on the UH Phi Slamma Jamma basketball teams that played in the 1983 and 1984 NCAA championship games.

RIP, Gary Phillips, first University of Houston men’s basketball player to earn first-team All-America honors who won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics.

RIP, Allyce Ozarski, Emmy-nominated TV producer.

RIP, Tim Campbell, former star lineman for the UT Longhorns, younger brother of NFL Hall of Famer Earl Campbell.

Roy Wood Jr is a mensch.

I’m ambivalent about the idea of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, but I’ll give it a chance. It certainly has the potential to be awesome.

“What we saved from the federal government’s data purge”.

RIP, John Shumate, former NBA player and NCAA men’s coach who was on the 1974 Notre Dame team that ended UCLA’s 88-game winning streak. He scored 21 points and had 11 rebounds in that game.

“Here’s the thing: An agency that is defined by loyalty to a person, rather than principles can neither be guided nor reined in by rules. It is built around, and driven by, contempt for them.”

“The song, however–I know the song, even if I did not know its title until I began to write this post. (“Beautiful Things”) I suppose until this week I assumed it didn’t even have a title–that it was a prototype, engineered in a remote Walgreens lab dedicated to building the perfect drugstore song. Boone seems like a nice guy and is a committed and dynamic performer; I wish him personal happiness. However I would be happy to never hear this song again in my life, or anything that sounds like it.”

“If the president wanted to cause airline disasters, it’s hard to imagine what he would have done differently.”

RIP, Irv Gotti, DJ, music and TV producer, co-founder of Murder Inc. Records.

Lock him up.

“Whoopi Goldberg has alerted fans of a fake weight loss ad using her likeness on Instagram. Goldberg said the ad used artificial intelligence to sell a drug she does not use.”

“But experts caution that many of DeepSeek’s design choices — such as using hard-coded encryption keys, and sending unencrypted user and device data to Chinese companies — introduce a number of glaring security and privacy risks.”

RIP, Virginia McCaskey, longtime owner and matriarch of the Chicago Bears, daughter of team founder George Halas.

“Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber“.

“Say hello to the Superb Owl.”

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More blocks on the SCOPE Act

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Some late Friday news.

A federal district court on Friday has issued more temporary blocks on provisions of a Texas law designed to restrict what kinds of materials and advertisements minors can see on social media and age verification requirements.

Judge Robert Pitman enjoined several provisions of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, also known as the SCOPE Act, calling the blocked sections “unconstitutionally vague.” While not blocking the law in its entirety, the injunction is not the first against the SCOPE Act and goes further than previous rulings to block what the law can restrict minors from seeing on social media.

The lawsuit was filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a first amendment activist group representing four plaintiffs, and Davis Wright Tremaine, a private media law firm. The groups have called the act overly broad and tailored to serve state interest, while state officials feel more oversight is needed to curtail the sometimes harmful effects of social media use on children.

The background: Passed in the 2023 Legislature as House Bill 18, supporters of the SCOPE Act hoped the law would give parents more control over what their children are exposed to online and how minors’ sensitive information is handled by social media companies. But a day before the law was set to go into effect, Pitman granted a temporary block of two sections of the law that regulated certain harmful content platforms could show to minors in a separate suit.

The new injunction goes further, blocking the same two sections as well as three additional provisions: two that would restrict certain ads from being displayed or directed specifically toward minors, and one requiring age verification. Both injunctions are temporary and only apply until final judgments are issued for each case.

“The Court enjoined every substantive provision of the SCOPE Act we challenged, granting even broader relief than its first preliminary injunction,” Davis Wright Tremaine partner Adam Sieff said in a statement.

Since the law’s passing, Texas also has attempted to curtail content it deems as inappropriate and in violation of the act, and in October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued social media companies over alleged violations of the law. A section of the law cited in Paxton’s suit is one of the five temporarily blocked by the injunction Friday.

See here for some background. As noted, there was another lawsuit filed against the SCOPE Act before this one. It’s pretty common for multiple suits like these to get consolidated, but I can’t tell if that’s the case here. There’s other legal action out there involving Texas, the Internet, and various forms of censorship, including a different social media bill aimed at preventing those companies from moderating content that is currently blocked but increasingly meaningless, and of course the Pornhub situation, which could basically rewrite the First Amendment as we know it. Here’s FIRE’s press release if you want to know more about this one.

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