1. Greg Abbott’s pathetic plea for attention. It’s one part wish fulfillment and one part right-wing pornography. It also has a certain “be careful what you wish for” element to it, specifically with the proposal that only a seven-justice super majority can invalidate a “democratically enacted law”. You know what would still be on the books if this were already in place? Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. And while it was a 7-2 vote that struck down the portion of the Affordable Care Act that would have coerced states into expanding Medicaid, the rest of the law would have never been in any jeopardy if seven votes had been needed to kill it. Even I don’t think Greg Abbott is dumb enough to have not realized these things, but it would be nice for someone in the media to have made mention of them. For that matter, it would be very interesting for someone with more time and expertise than I have to review some landmark Supreme Court cases to see which would not make the cut under this, and ask Abbott about them. Or we can just treat this like the joke that it is and ignore it. Either way is okay by me.
2. The new accounting standards that make Houston’s financial situation look worse. I’d advise everyone to scroll down to the part of the story where a couple of accounting experts basically say that it isn’t telling us we didn’t already know. I myself plan to wait till Mayor Turner proposes some concrete actions on the city’s finances before I get all worked up about it.
So what did I do this weekend instead of blog about these things? My weekend involved putting away Christmas decorations, watching football, finally accepting a nudge from Microsoft to upgrade my PC to Windows 10 – I’d done it before on my laptop and it was a disaster, but that was months ago and the PC is a newer machine, so I was less worried about it, and it went through smoothly – and about 97 loads of laundry. How was your weekend?
UPDATE: This analysis by Ian Millhiser in ThinkProgress of what Abbott’s constitutional fantasies would mean in reality is exactly what I’m talking about.