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Ten Commandments law challengers petition SCOTUS

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox:

More than two dozen Texas families are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their challenge to a state law that requires public schools to post a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The request, filed today, urges the court to protect students’ and parents’ religious freedom by blocking Texas Senate Bill 10, ensuring that families — not politicians — have the right to decide what role religion plays in their lives.

The Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha’i, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families challenging the Texas law attend 22 school districts across the state and are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. Today’s petition seeks review of lower court rulings in two separate but similar cases: Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District.

Under S.B. 10, Texas public schools must permanently display a state-mandated version of the Ten Commandments, drawn from the Protestant King James Bible, in a “conspicuous” place in each classroom, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The families challenging S.B. 10 object to the law because the displays will pressure children to conform to the state’s favored religious beliefs and interfere with parents’ right to guide their children’s religious instruction.

Today’s Supreme Court filing, a joint petition for a writ of certiorari in both cases, follows an April decision by the en banc U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowing the state-selected version of the Ten Commandments to go up in the plaintiffs’ classrooms. By a narrowly decided vote, the 5th Circuit ruled that S.B. 10 does not violate either the Establishment or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment — despite a 1980 Supreme Court case striking down a nearly identical Kentucky law.

“As a rabbi and parent, forcing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments on children in every classroom is particularly upsetting,” said plaintiff Rabbi Joshua Fixler (he/him) of Houston. “I am not only worried about my own kids, but I’m deeply concerned about all the children in my congregation. These displays put children in the position of having to defend themselves and their families’ religious beliefs against a government mandate that makes them feel different and separate from their classmates.”

“Texas politicians shouldn’t have a seat at the table in deciding how our children receive their religious education. That decision belongs to our family,” said plaintiffs Rebekah (she/her) and Ted Lowe (he/him), an Austin-based interfaith couple who are raising their children in the Christian and Jewish traditions. “This law puts one version of religious beliefs above all others in our public schools and sends a message to our children that what we teach them about religion at home is somehow wrong.”

“By requiring displays of religious doctrine in every classroom, the state is interfering with our family’s decisions about how our children engage with religion,” said plaintiff Nichole Manning (she/her), a Dallas-area atheist who is raising her children in a nonreligious tradition that gives them the space and autonomy to develop their own beliefs about religion. “As a parent, I intentionally choose to have my children attend public school because I prefer an educational environment without any religious affiliation. In a diverse public school environment, all students should be treated with equal respect, regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” said Chloe Kempf (she/her), staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion. Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities — not politicians — get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives. Texas students deserve public schools that welcome them for who they are, respect their religious or nonreligious backgrounds, and give them the high-quality education they need to build their futures.”

“Fifty years ago, the ACLU won a Supreme Court victory against a nearly identical Kentucky law — and we aim to do it again,” said Cecillia Wang (she/her), national legal director of the ACLU. “In our country, no legislature can force its preferred scripture on public school students and families.”

“Families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide how, if, and when children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser (she/her), president and CEO of Americans United. “We urge the Supreme Court to make clear that these Ten Commandments mandates violate students’ and families’ religious freedom as promised by the U.S. Constitution. With ever more states attempting to force one version of religion into public school classrooms, our nation must recommit to our foundational promise of church-state separation, the lynchpin of religious liberty.”

“This case concerns decisions about personal belief and religious instruction, and whether under our Constitution they remain with families and faith communities or are commandeered by the state,” said Jon Youngwood (he/him), global co-chair of the Litigation Department at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. “The First Amendment has long protected the freedom of individuals to determine for themselves how they engage with spirituality and religion. Those protections are especially important in the public-school setting.”

“The First Commandment, dictating which god must be worshipped, is the antithesis of our First Amendment,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor (she/her), co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “It is not the government’s role to daily expose young children to a coercive display of one religion’s set of religious edicts in our public schools. Our public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize.”

The Lowe and Fixler families share more about how they will be impacted by these Ten Commandments displays and why they oppose them in newly released, heartfelt videos that can be viewed here; transcripts are available here.

Access the U.S. Supreme Court certiorari filing here: https://www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/2026/08/10C-SCOTUS-Petition.pdf

See here for the previous update on the federal lawsuit, and here for more on the state case, which is separate. My opinion remains the same, that this law is so obviously an effort to favor one form of religion over all others (not to mention the choice to not be religious) that I don’t even know what we’re arguing about. And yet here we are, hoping that enough of the Catholics on SCOTUS are sufficiently annoyed by the non-Catholic version of the Ten Commandments that’s being foisted on five million children that they’ll remember that their predecessors have already knocked this crap down. It’s a coin toss at best. The Associated Press has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged ACLU of Texas, Alamo Heights ISD, Americans United, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Greg Abbott, HISD, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, Louisiana, Mara Nathan, Mike Morath, SCOTUS, ten commandments, Texas, Texas Education Agency, The Lege | 1 Comment

Minnesota sues to extradite alleged ICE felon

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Good, but it shouldn’t have come to this.

The state of Minnesota is asking a federal judge to force Gov. Greg Abbott to authorize the extradition of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting a Minneapolis man earlier this year.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, says the Republican governor has delayed the extradition of the ICE officer, Christian J. Castro, 52, for months — to the point that Castro could soon be eligible for release under Texas law, which sets a 90-day limit on detention of fugitives awaiting extradition.

“There is a substantial risk that Castro will flee and avoid prosecution in Minnesota,” the lawsuit says.

Castro was arrested by Texas Rangers in May after Minnesota prosecutors issued a nationwide warrant and charged him in the January shooting of a Venezuelan national. He is being held in Cameron County and Minnesota officials in June asked Abbott to sign extradition paperwork to send him back there to face prosecution.

Abbott’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit and did not answer questions about whether Abbott intends to approve the extradition.

The lawsuit says Abbott has no choice in the matter under both the U.S. Constitution, which includes a clause on extradition, and Texas law, which considers only “whether the extradition documents are valid on their face and whether the arrestee is the same person named in the request.”

It says Abbott’s delay is “unusual and inconsistent with historical practice.” Minnesota has sought extradition from Texas 11 times in the last five years, according to the lawsuit, and Abbott has signed off on each in an average of fewer than 30 days. That included an extradition request for an individual charged with second degree assault — the same crime with which Castro is charged — that Abbott signed off on 17 days after Minnesota asked.

It also says Abbott has signed off on other extraditions to Minnesota since the state requested he approve of Castro’s.

The lawsuit claims Abbott’s state extradition coordinator told Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s staff in June that she was hoping to have the signed paperwork for Castro’s extradition back the next day. When Walz’s staff followed up, they were redirected to a deputy general counsel who has repeatedly told them he had no updates to provide.

Previously, all Congressional Democrats from Texas sent Abbott a letter demanding that he get off the pot already. This is what lawlessness looks like, when the people in positions of power just simply ignore the law when it suits them. I’m sure you can think of other relevant examples. I think Abbott is likely to fold on this because he’s generally weak and doesn’t like being out on a limb when there’s no clear gain for him, but who knows. Just always keep this kind of thing in mind when people boast about being “tough on crime”. The Trib and Texas Public Radio have more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged Cameron County, Christian Castro, extradition, Greg Abbott, ICE, Keith Ellison, lawsuit, Minnesota, Texas, Texas Rangers, Tim Walz | 1 Comment

More on Galveston’s post-primary redistricting

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron picks up the story.

Two Galveston residents and a constable are asking the Texas Supreme Court to stop the county from using a newly redistricted map in the November general election,

They argued in an emergency petition that that because a different map was used in the primary election, the county’s actions violate equal protection and the election code — and set a bad precedent for the rest of the state.

Lawyers for Precinct 3 Constable Derreck Rose and county residents Wilma Green and Diane Merchant filed the emergency petition for writ of mandamus, which is a type of legal remedy that asks a higher court to order a public official to correct an abuse of discretion. The Justice Department has called this type of petition an “extraordinary remedy, which should only be used in exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance.”

“If this is not stopped, the precedent set will be horribly damaging to democracy,” the petition states. “It will make Texas’s primary elections an empty exercise. The voters’ choices just cast aside on the whim of the government—the 4 very governmental officials on the ballot in the ongoing election. If polling against their general election opponent is looking bad, they can just change the map—up to the very eve of the election—to evade the voters’ judgment.”

[…]

The post-primary redistricting also means a chunk of voters didn’t get to vote, or run as a candidate, in the primary for the new precinct the recent map has left them in, the emergency petition claims. Galveston County has staggered elections, and as a result, residents who voted in the primary but have now been moved to a precinct that isn’t having an election this year will not be able to vote until 2028. The petitioners argue that consequence violates equal protection.

In a response to the petition, lawyers for Galveston County argued the petitioners misinterpreted the state constitution and election code. The county’s lawyers argued mid-cycle redistricting doesn’t violate state election code, and that those filing the emergency petition don’t have a valid reason to ask the state supreme court to intervene because redistricting isn’t illegal.

“Texas Constitution expressly authorizes precinct redivision ‘from time to time,’ which necessarily includes periods between elections unless otherwise limited,” lawyers for the county wrote in their response. “No statute restricts the authority to redistrict commissioner, justice of the peace or constable precinct boundaries to a particular time period.”

The new 2026 maps have effectively switched the precincts of the Precinct three Justice of Peace and the Precinct 4 Justice of Peace. Galveston County’s lawyers stated in their response that the plan is to have the Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace, Republican Kathleen McCumber, who is not up for reelection in November, finish the last two years of her term in Precinct 3. The Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace, Billy Williams, who ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary, will now run in the general election for Precinct 4, Galveston County’s response says.

The county’s lawyers called petitioners’ interpretation of election code inflexible and gave hypothetical examples: For example, if a natural disaster occurred between the primary and general election, and as a result the population changes, the county would have to redraw precinct boundaries ahead of the general election, the county argued.

See here for the background. A version of the “some voters won’t get to vote in that race this year” argument was argued before and rejected by the Supreme Court. This is different, in that the earlier plaintiffs were trying to prevent a map from being used in a primary, but we’ll see if that’s a material difference. The response from the defendants is both confounding – this isn’t mid-decade redistricting, it’s post-primary redistricting, where there’s a good argument that no one voted for these candidates to be the nominees – and insulting – are we really comparing this to, say, a hypothetical situation in which Ebola or an earthquake or space invaders have wiped out half the people of the county? And if that happened would rebalancing the precinct/district populations be a priority? Is this in fact covered somewhere in the law, or in a past court case? Either Joe Nixon was hitting the bong when he wrote this, or they’re so convinced they have this in the bag that they’re not even bothering to justify it. The mind boggles.

And we don’t have an answer yet.

The Texas Supreme Court Friday denied an emergency effort to stop Galveston County from using newly drawn voting districts in the November election, allowing the Republican-led county’s unprecedented post-primary map switch to move forward for now.

The pro-voting plaintiffs filed an emergency motion with the Texas 14th Court of Appeals later that night.

The Supreme Court denied a petition from Galveston County officials and candidates Derreck Rose, Wilma Green and Diane Merchant, who asked the state’s highest court to block the county from implementing new district lines after voters had already selected candidates under a different map in the March primary. The plaintiffs filed their original emergency petition Aug. 4.

The court did not decide whether Galveston County’s maneuver is legal. Instead, it held that the plaintiffs must first take their challenge to a lower court.

“The petition for writ of mandamus is denied without prejudice and without regard to the merits of Relators’ arguments,” the court wrote. “The matter should first be presented to a lower court.”

The phrase “without prejudice” means the plaintiffs are not barred from bringing their claims again after seeking relief from a lower court, which they did in a late Friday night emergency refiling.

And so we wait some more. Let’s hope the 14th Court of Appeals acts quickly, because the clock is ticking.

Posted in Election 2026, Legal matters | Tagged 14th Court of Appeals, Campaign Legal Center, Commissioners Court, Derreck Rose, Diane Merchant, Election 2024, Election 2026, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Galveston, Joe Nixon, Justice Department, lawsuit, Mark Henry, redistricting, SCOTUS, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Stephen Holmes, Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, Voting Rights Act, Wilma Green | Leave a comment

Big Bend border wall construction paused

Posted on August 18, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

For now.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced that his agency is pausing construction work in Big Bend National Park while he conducts an “on-the-ground evaluation,” reversing course after heavy machinery had begun moving dirt.

In a video posted to X on Monday, Scott announced that he was en route to the park and had ordered a construction pause Sunday night.

“I put a pause on all activity in that park, as far as construction goes, until I can get down there and do a personal evaluation, talk to some stakeholders, talk to some local law enforcement in that area,” Scott said. “More to follow this week.”

Scott’s announcement comes amid massive outcry from local residents, businesses and law enforcement officials. Many have derided plans to build border infrastructure in the parklands and called for CBP officials to engage with their concerns.

It was not immediately clear how long CBP plans to implement the pause.

[…]

CBP has said it does not plan to build a 30-foot wall or place stadium lighting in the park. In a statement Thursday, the agency said it is working to maintain visitor access and preserve the landscape, but that the construction is necessary for border security.

“These improvements will help our agents detect illegal crossings, respond faster, and assist visitors in danger,” Scott said. “As we strengthen the border across the southwest, we will not leave Big Bend as an opening for cartels to exploit by shifting their routes and tactics.”

Local officials and park advocates have maintained that the 1,000-foot cliffs along the riverbank in the park are “God’s walls” — a natural deterrent for migration — and that any construction would irreparably damage the park’s unique ecology and the local tourism and outdoors industries. CBP’s Big Bend sector is geographically large yet quiet, account for just 1.3% of apprehensions along the southern border in fiscal year 2025.

[…]

Park advocates celebrated the pause but pushed for a more permanent answer.

“This temporary pause proves how much non-partisan public pressure is mounting in West Texas and across America to stop the irreversible destruction unfolding in this crown jewel national park,” said Laiken Jordahl, a national public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s welcome news, but construction at Big Bend is likely to resume at any moment. We’re not resting until these contracts are canceled, these workers are sent packing, the waivers are rescinded and every wall plan for the greater Big Bend region is scrapped for good.”

Various groups have launched legal efforts to force CBP out of the park. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, filed a petition seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent construction in the park until the case can be adjudicated.

Gutierrez said the pause is a “good thing, for sure” but that opponents should continue to press for a full stoppage. He accused CBP of misrepresenting the activity it has already taken in the park as simple surveying.

“That’s not what has happened here,” Gutierrez said. “It has been complete clear-cutting of the countryside, of hills and mountains — Mariscal Mountains and beyond — right along the Santa Elena Canyon, destroying vegetation [and] archaeological sites without any care in the world. We need to stop this.”

See here for some background. This should not have any effect on the legal challenges, and we can’t trust anything these jackwagons say, so this is a pause in the most literal sense. I’m with Laiken Jordahl and Sen. Gutierrez on this. The NYT has more.

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters | Tagged Big Bend, border, border fence, Center for Biological Diversity, Customs and Border Patrol, Donald Trump, Far Flung Outdoor Center, Homeland Security, lawsuit, Lipan-Apache Native American Church, Markwayne Mullin, National Park Service, Roland Gutierrez, Texas, The People of La Junta for Preservation | Leave a comment

The “rural revolt”

Posted on August 18, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll see about this.

Gov. Greg Abbott has spent much of the summer working to quell a roiling backlash to data centers in rural parts of the state where Republicans need to maintain strong support in the upcoming midterms.

He’s called on lawmakers to strip their lucrative tax breaks next session, and ordered regulators to set new restrictions and conduct an audit before permitting any more projects to break ground.

But those efforts aren’t winning over all skeptics. Several rural Republicans say they don’t trust the governor whose biggest donors are increasingly invested in the data center boom and who praised Texas as the “epicenter of AI development” as recently as November.

“Rural Texas is not buying Abbott’s thing,” said Mason McAllister, a resident of a small town in Grayson County in North Texas. “The guys around here are fired up. ‘The king of bait and switch,’ is what they’re saying.”

The 34-year-old North Texan started a group called Save Rural Texas with the mission of organizing grassroots opposition to data centers into a “powerful voting bloc” willing to go against Republican politicians many of its members have long supported. He said about 1,000 people have subscribed to its newsletter so far.

“Come voting time, we’re going to let people know who was helpful and who was not,” McAllister said.

Data centers have become an unexpected flashpoint in an already heated midterm election in which public polling shows most statewide races within single digits.

It’s unclear how widespread the pushback is, but there are signs it could remain an issue for some Republicans. Several GOP chairs in rural counties signed a letter to Abbott last week urging him to call a special session to set new rules for data centers. Anti-data center groups have sprouted up in communities across the state, with some openly urging members to vote against Republicans, or not vote at all.

Democrats are trying to capitalize on the rare potential weak spot. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Austin Democrat running against Abbott, is calling for a moratorium and, at a recent campaign event, appeared with two Republicans who described themselves as single-issue voters focused only on data centers.

“A lot of Republicans have the mindset, ‘You vote red no matter what,’” said McAllister. “I’m trying to get it through to them, ‘Yeah, but you don’t reward bad behavior.’”

McAllister said he has voted for Abbott before, but doesn’t think he will in November. He said he does not trust the governor is actually committed to cracking down on data centers like the one planned near his property, in part because of the donations Abbott has taken from the industry.

Rhett Bennett of Black Mountain, an energy company building data centers across Texas, is one of the governor’s biggest campaign supporters. He gave Abbott $500,000 earlier this year. Black Mountain owns land near McAllister’s property.

Still, McAllister said he isn’t sure if he is ready to support a Democrat. He said he might just not vote at all.

Others say they may vote for the first time in a long time. Nancy White, a Canton resident and activist fighting a battery storage facility there, said she hasn’t voted since the early 2000s when she supported George W. Bush. She said she won’t vote for Abbott, but she also won’t support Hinojosa. She’s considering writing in an independent candidate.

“I used to jokingly say I don’t want to talk about politics,” White said. “Now all I want to talk about is politics.”

[…]

In the upcoming election, Republicans likely cannot afford to lose support in rural parts of the state that have long been their strongest firewall against Democratic gains in the cities and suburbs.

But the data center boom has been especially galvanizing in those rural areas because it touches on deep-seated feelings of being overlooked, said Suzanne Bellsnyder, a former Republican legislative staffer who now runs a rural-focused media platform.

“It’s the schools, the underfunding of our hospitals, it’s our roads that don’t get appropriate funding,” she said. “We’ve always been just a secondary thought at some level. This feels more like an attack into our communities, where we finally realized Texas does care about us, but only for our resources and not our people.”

[…]

Bellsnyder said she has never seen an issue mobilize rural voters like the data center boom has. But she said she still does not have a handle on whether that means those voters will take out their frustrations on the governor.

“I know that rural folks vote Republican and I don’t know if what I’m saying changes that,” she said. “Maybe they just stay home. Maybe they take it out on their local governments. I don’t know what it looks like.

“That’s what this election will be all about.”

It’s a gift article so read the rest. I’m not going to relitigate the data centers issue here, you know what the overall background looks like. The question I’m interested in is to what extent can Greg Abbott lose support in rural areas and still build up enough of a cushion to win, given the population increases and overall blue shift in the biggest counties. I’ve seen some generalized wisdom on Twitter and the like that Republicans need something like 75% of the vote in rural areas to win. That doesn’t address the turnout level, though. I’m playing with some numbers now and will report back in a future post. Basically, in the way that Democrats had issues with their base voters in 2024, Republicans are having them this year with theirs. Abbott is acting the way he is now because he recognizes that, though I’m not sure he’s willing or able to really address it. To be fair, that’s a hard thing to do almost by definition. Maybe, if they suffer some painful losses as Dems did in 2024 they’ll have a real debate about it in their next set of primaries. But first they have to do some losing, and the jury is still out on that one.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged data centers, Election 2024, Election 2026, Gina Hinojosa, Governor, Grayson County, Greg Abbott, Save Rural Texas, Texas, turnout | 1 Comment

The beaver backlash

Posted on August 18, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Gotta respect this.

The mini mart that could have gotten some moral support in its fight against a Texas-sized gas station chain set on world domination. Two weeks after Buc-ee’s filed a lawsuit against a tiny Ohio convenience store, the local town has all but defied Buc-ee’s by naming the beaver as its town mascot.

The appropriately named Beavercreek, Ohio, made the beaver the town’s historic symbol during a Beavercreek City Council meeting on Monday, August 10. In addition, the Beavercreek City Schools mascot, Bucee the Beaver, a figure whose name and appearance draw similarities to Buc-ee’s beaver mascot, celebrated with a photo op.

“The connection dates back more than two centuries. Early European hunters and pioneer settlers named Big Beaver Creek and Little Beaver Creek after the native beaver population that inhabited the area, establishing a connection to the community that dates back to its founding in 1803,” the City of Beavercreek wrote on Facebook. “As the resolution states, ‘For the citizens of Beavercreek, the beaver is not just a corporate marketing device. It is a recognized representation of the city’s identity, history, and values, held in common by generations of residents.'”

The resolution came as Buc-ee’s is in the middle of a lawsuit with Beaver’s Mini Mart, alleging a violation of Buc-ee’s trademark. Huber Heights Mayor Jeff Gore, whose town now houses Ohio’s first Buc-ee’s, shed light on the situation by revealing Beaver’s Mini Mart owner Vik Boparai had filed a trade name for Beaver’s Mini Mart, which Buc-ee’s CEO Arch “Beaver” Aplin III claims is in conflict with his company’s federal trademark.

“Mr. Aplin told me directly that Buc-ee’s had no issues with Beavermart using the Beaver logo in Beavercreek. He understood and said that makes sense,” Gore wrote on Facebook. “What Buc-ee’s did not want was a series of Beavermarts popping up across the state or regionally or eventually nationally that violated their trademark.”

[…]

In a statement sent to WHIO TV 7, Beaver’s Mini Mart said: “We created Beavers Mini Mart to represent our connection to this community and the city we proudly serve-Beavercreek. This lawsuit is unfair, and we believe small businesses should be able to operate without being bullied by large corporations. We are standing up for our rights and will fight this lawsuit all the way.”

As far as the timing around Monday’s resolution and the ongoing lawsuit, Beavercreek City Council told Fox 19 Now, “The resolution is not associated with the federal trademark lawsuit between Buc-ee’s and Beaver’s Mini Mart. That lawsuit is a private legal matter currently before the courts, and the city cannot take a position on pending litigation.”

See here for the background. I’m sure city of Beavercreek’s lawyers told them to make that statement. I’m rooting for them all regardless. This story also noted the recent segment by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. He had some further thoughts as well.

In the latest episode of the HBO late-night show, Oliver said he would be extending the life of an online store created by the comedian, called “Buc-Off,” which features a mascot named Mr. Nutter Butter — a gray-and-white squirrel that bears similarities to Buc-ee’s beaver mascot. Originally scheduled to shut down in September, Oliver said the site would continue selling products featuring the squirrel mascot after Buc-ee’s sued another company.

[…]

Since the filing of the lawsuit, the community of Beavercreek has banded together to take on the Texas chain, with some businesses temporarily changing their logos to include a beaver as well as raising money for the mini mart’s legal fees.

“It’s unbelievable how badly Buc-ee’s is (expletive) this up,” Oliver said during Sunday night’s episode. “Instead of just dropping their (expletive) lawsuits in the wake of our piece, something that would have generated them a tremendous amount of good will, they’ve tripled down by going after yet another small business. And in the process, they managed to mobilize the most passionate and dedicated community of beaver fans on planet earth.”

Don’t mess with beaver fans. And go buy some Buc-Off merch, it’s for a good cause. The Wall Street Journal has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Beaver's Mini-Mart, Beavercreek, Buc-ee's, Hunger Free America, John Oliver, lawsuit, Ohio, Texas, trademark | Leave a comment

How soon, Mike?

Posted on August 17, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Don’t leave us hanging.

The state takeover of Houston ISD should end “relatively soon,” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said Friday, signaling that a transition back to a locally elected board could be near.

State-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles and a board of managers have led the district since June 2023, after Wheatley High School received years of failing ratings, triggered the intervention. Over the last three years, Miles has made sweeping reforms aimed at improving the district’s annual A-F ratings.

Morath previously said he would decide on ending or extending the state takeover in June 2027.

“I would anticipate that that should all be resolved relatively soon and that then we can revert back to local electoral control,” Morath said.

To regain local control, HISD must complete three “exit criteria”: no schools with two consecutive years of D or F ratings; improved board governance; and special education department in full compliance with state and federal law. Since June 2023, the district’s A-F ratings have improved sharply, although four schools were F-rated this year.

Just three HISD schools received back-to-back years D- or F-ratings in 2026 and 2025. Morath said the state agency is more concerned with campuses that receive failing grades for several consecutive years.

“There will be times where we will stumble and we will fall. Our teams, despite their best efforts, will err,” Morath said. “I have every confidence that those four schools will not be multi-year failing schools, because you have a local school system that has fundamentally changed the way that it’s organized to no longer allow that kind of long-term neglect to occur.”

Morath said special education compliance remains a key benchmark for HISD.

See here for more on that previous statement, which indeed suggested that June of 2027 was the earliest point at which Mike Morath might consider paroling HISD from takeover jail. Given that, it doesn’t look like he’s saying anything different, just reiterating the timeline. I’m not going to try to parse these very unspecific words, or read into his tone or body language, which I really couldn’t do anyway since all I have is this story. Maybe he was offering some encouragement, maybe he was just saying that he wasn’t moving the timeline back, I dunno. When he says something that has a date or a number in it, we can talk.

I feel compelled to add that all this just adds to my bewilderment about the special ed situation. If the TEA remains unsatisfied with the changes Mike Miles implemented, or with his seeming refusal to meet their demands for communication with affected parents, what if anything does that do to the timeline? I’m trying to imagine a scenario where the TEA says we’re good on the academic benchmarks but still out of compliance on special ed thanks to Miles’s shenanigans, and so they’re keeping us under takeover to fix that but installing a new Superintendent because they’ve lost faith in Miles’ ability to deliver on it, but it made me blue-screen. I feel like we’ve wandered into “making this up as we go along” territory. I have no idea how this will play out or how it might affect takeover status. Again, until Mike Morath says something with specifics in it, we’re all just reading tea leaves.

Posted in School days | Tagged HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Mike Miles, schools, special education, STAAR, standardized testing, Texas Education Agency | Leave a comment

The empty audit

Posted on August 17, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

From an empty suit.

Tech companies are lining up to voice support for Gov. Greg Abbott’s audit of data centers seeking to connect to the power grid, although little is known about what the audit will entail or what it means for the data center construction boom.

Since the Aug. 3 announcement, at least 43 companies — including juggernauts like Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services — have issued public statements expressing support for Abbott’s audit, despite the governor ordering regulators to not approve any new grid connections until the audit is completed. The governor has similarly touted their endorsement of his plan.

“We share your commitment to ensuring data centers are true partners in every Texas community where we operate — protecting residential ratepayers, strengthening grid reliability and promoting responsible water stewardship,” read a letter to the governor sent Tuesday by the Data Center Coalition, a trade association representing many of the largest tech companies in the world.

Abbott directed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which regulates the state’s power grid, to conduct the audit, but it’s unknown how long the audit will take, how long the moratorium on grid connections will last, how many data centers will be audited and how the information gathered in the audit will be used by regulators and legislators.

Without these questions answered, it’s unclear how much of this audit will address the public’s concerns about data centers, particularly their impact on energy access, water use and the environment.

Citing polling data that shows growing discontent among rural Texans toward the buildout of data centers and competitive General Election contests for governor and U.S. Senate, Texas Politics Project Director Jim Henson said the moves by Abbott and the companies raise questions about how impactful the audit and freeze of approvals will actually be.

“It’s all very performative, it’s performative on everybody’s part,” Henson said.

Abbott’s office has largely directed questions about the audit to his public statements on the topic since Aug. 3. The PUCT and ERCOT have also remained largely silent on the matter, and the PUCT scheduled an emergency meeting for Friday morning to discuss the issue.

ERCOT did say in a Monday filing it expects the audit will last “several months” and is expected to begin shortly after Aug. 20.

He doesn’t want to talk about data centers now that he’s discovered how much people hate them, and he really wants to punt the issue until after November, at which point he hopes to go back to taking their money and letting them do what they want. The very idea that Abbott had to put out a poll – one that barely shows him winning! – to reassure everyone (and himself) that he’s got this under control, that’s not where he wants to be. It is where he deserves to be. I’ll repeat what Gina Hinojosa said: “When the companies being regulated are cheering for the rules, you know the rules were written for them, not for Texans”. Stay scared, Greg.

Posted in Show Business for Ugly People | Tagged Amazon, artificial intelligence, data centers, Donald Trump, Election 2026, fundraising, Gina Hinojosa, Google, Governor, Greg Abbott, Meta, Microsoft, Open AI, polls, Senate, Texas | Leave a comment

Victims of Watson Grinding explosion win in court

Posted on August 17, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Good for them.

A Harris County jury ordered global corporation 3M to pay $61.5 million to two dozen homeowners devastated by a 2020 industrial explosion at Watson Grinding in northwest Houston.

“This verdict finally gives these families the true accountability and justice they deserve,” said Robert Kwok, lead plaintiffs attorney in the yearslong effort to get restitution for the blast that killed three people and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses.

Juries have heard four bellwether cases against 3M focused on different victims of the explosion. The company prevailed in one previous decision in May, when jurors unanimously cleared it of wrongdoing, but lost two others. Before Monday’s verdict, it owed victims more than $156 million.

“We disagree with the verdict in this case and believe that it is unsupported by the evidence and the law,” a 3M spokesperson said, adding that the company plans to appeal.

Upwards of 2,000 additional plaintiffs have yet to go to trial in the multi-district litigation. A notice on the website of law firm Kwok Daniel said attorneys were already preparing for October, when the next 50 community members will take the international company to court.

Many victims are still reeling from the aftermath of the explosion at Watson Grinding & Manufacturing, a family-owned machine shop, after an overnight leak of flammable propylene gas went undetected. A U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigation later said the blast “could have been prevented,” pointing in part to the facility’s inoperative gas-detection alarm and shutoff system, which 3M was contracted to inspect and maintain.

The federal agency did not name 3M, instead focusing on the culpability of Watson Grinding’s owners, but attorneys argued that the detection system failures were due in part to the corporation’s negligence. While the now-bankrupt Watson Grinding and Watson Valve Services Inc. previously settled with victims over their responsibility for the blast, 3M did not settle.

“3M’s failure included actual knowledge that the Watson gas detection system was defective for years leading up to this explosion,” Kwok said in a Monday news release.

Remember that explosion, in January 2020? As I said in that post, I was awake when it happened, and I heard it clearly in my house, with all the doors and windows closed, more than ten miles away. That’s a really big goddamn bang, and as noted it followed several other massive disasters in the county. Harris County filed a lawsuit against Watson Grinding shortly after, alleging multiple violations and seeking to shut them down until everything was cleaned up. I don’t know what came of that action, but here’s a story about the previous judgment won by plaintiffs against that company and 3M that has some updates.

The explosion occurred on Jan. 24, 2020, in a residential area in West Houston near 4500 Gessner Rd. at the Watson Grinding and Manufacturing facility. Three people died, and at least 18 others were sent to nearby emergency rooms. Nearly 200 homes were reported as having some sort of damage as a result of the blast.

In June 2023, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found that the explosion was a result of a “degraded and poorly crimped rubber welding hose,” which caused propylene, a flammable gas, to leak throughout the building overnight.

This is the second time this year that a Harris County jury has awarded victims of the explosion millions of dollars. In June, five victims were awarded nearly $38 million as a result of the damage they and/or their property sustained from the explosion.

Neither 3M nor Watson Grinding immediately responded to request for comment regarding the most recent verdict.

Several other lawsuits filed in response to the explosion are pending.

See here for more on that federal investigation. I’d like to think we’re in better shape now in terms of chemical plants suddenly going kerplooey, but if we are it’s not because the federal or state government are more vigilant about them. For now, at least, all of that is on us in Houston and Harris County.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged 3M, Clean Air Act, Environmental Protection Agency, Harris County, Harris County Attorney, HFD, lawsuit, pollution, TCEQ, US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Watson Grinding & Manufacturing | 3 Comments

Weekend link dump for August 16

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

“How Universities Won Their Battle with Trump”.

“Generative “AI”: The Guitar Hero of Creativity”.

“Pizza Hut’s Book It! program for kids is officially back this summer.”

“LinkedIn is taking aim at the “AI slop” — low-quality, artificially generated content — filling its feed. On Thursday, the company announced that it’s adding a new feature to let users click a “seems like AI slop” button when someone’s post appears to have been written with AI.”

RIP, Don Nelson, basketball Hall of Famer who won five NBA titles as a player and was the second-winningest coach in NBA history.

RIP, Georgia Provost, photographer, educator, longtime community activist, known as the Mayor of the Third Ward.

John Waters continues to live his best life.

RIP, Ben Jones, actor who played Cooter on The Dukes of Hazzard and two-term member of Congress from Georgia.

“Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world. We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

“It’s the strangest thing: I’ve spent 15 or so years working in public-sector economic development; I’ve never seen people cheering for job destruction, particularly elected officials.”

“In 2000, Paulina Borsook published a book foretelling the anti-government sentiments of the tech world. Now that it’s too late, people are ready to listen.”

“An anti-sex-trafficking nonprofit in Utah whose founder resigned after multiple women accused him of trafficking and sexual abuse has won a federal contract to provide legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children in government custody.”

“This lawsuit is about antitrust law. It is a straight up antitrust enforcement case. One that is very cut and dry. One that seeks to prevent the long-term structural impact from the loss of competition. An impact that can’t be remedied with a few one-off, piecemeal promises.”

RIP, Jon Cypher, actor known for Hill Street Blues, Major Dad, and the first live TV production of Cinderella.

“To probably no one’s surprise, Roku, the maker of cheap set-top boxes that can beam advertisements to users even before they’ve decided what app to launch, has opened an entire channel of genAI monstrosities called Fairground AI.”

“Years ago, a great many short-lived TV shows and unsold pilots came from a simple thought: What if we combined the formats of a situation comedy and a variety show?”

“Mark Zuckerberg’s mega-yacht didn’t respond to call for help from small boat in Alaska”.

“Dobby’s Grave Not At Risk From The Greenlink Interconnector Project, Also Not Real”.

“Narratives about a “censorship-industrial complex” spread in right-wing circles for years; then they took hold of Washington. What—and who—is behind them?”

“The nerdiest fever dream of all time is finally coming true. Next year, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Wars, characters from a galaxy far, far away will travel to Earth-616 to team up with the likes of Captain America, Wolverine, and Spider-Man. Yes, Star Wars and Marvel are finally, officially, crossing over. As a comic book.”

“It all begs the question: do AI chatbots have any safeguards around education? Turns out, not really.”

“Marmots – chubby, ground-dwelling squirrels – are the latest stars on the adult platform OnlyFans.”

“A huge amount of political skill is a candidate’s ability to open these channels with people who are quite different from them, establish what we’d now call parasocial channels of mutual understanding. If you’re going to stumble on something like Thanksgiving abolition … well, that’s just too silly a thing to stumble on when so much is at stake.”

“So it’s no surprise that Vance managed to fumble this one too. He demanded that Ukraine stop attacking tankers carrying Russian oil while leaving a gaping loophole: Ukraine could simply destroy the port infrastructure those same tankers need to load and depart.”

“This is a poorly done, sloppily executed, half-assed conspiracy theory about alien abductions breeding human/alien hybrid offspring. It’s the kind of thing that would make the Lone Gunmen roll their eyes and suspect that Charisma was working with the CIA and the Smoking Man to promote this nonsense in order to discredit their legitimate investigations.”

“Spotify will now label AI creators posing as human artists”.

“Your McDonald’s File is Probably Bigger Than Your FBI File”.

“So It Is Possible to Say ‘No’ to HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Series”.

“Well, folks: It’s finally time to build a quarantine on the Moon for aliens.”

“Trump administration declares brass instruments a national security threat”.

“This probably won’t get the attention or, frankly, outrage that it deserves because it’s kind of technical. But it’s stunning and a ‘Caligula making his horse a senator’ kind of craziness“.

RIP, Tommy John, longtime MLB pitcher who was the first recipient of the pioneering surgical technique that now bears his name. Pinstripe Alley and Friday’s episode of Effectively Wild also pay tribute.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | 1 Comment

Fifth Circuit tosses the rest of the mail ballot ID requirements lawsuit

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

You can always count on them (to be awful and lawless).

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday restored several pieces of a 2021 Texas election law that overhauled mail-in and assisted voting, overturning a lower court’s block on those provisions.

Five years ago, Texas passed Senate Bill 1, a wide-reaching election law that changed the way local officials administer elections and how some Texans vote, particularly aimed at initiatives Harris County implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The law was denounced by voter advocacy groups, civil rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers, who broke quorum in an attempt to stifle the bill.

After several lawsuits over accessibility concerns created by the new law were consolidated into a single suit, a district judge in March 2025 struck down nine of its provisions. Those blocked provisions included requiring Texans to provide an identification number or social security number on mail in ballot applications and have them match the state’s records. The judge also blocked provisions that create processes for curing defective ballots and require voters and those who assist them in filling out their ballot to sign an oath swearing they did not coerce the voter and disclose how they’re related.

The plaintiffs who sued argued the provisions were overly cumbersome and restrictive for voters with disabilities, and the district judge agreed, ruling they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Texas allows voters who are over the age of 65 and those with certain disabilities, among others, to vote by mail.

Wednesday’s 11-page ruling from the Fifth Circuit reverses the district judge’s ruling in its entirety, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing on most of their complaints. The written opinion strongly rebuked the lower courts’ decisions in the suit, noting that appellate judges have “reversed the district court on everything” through the suit’s five years of litigation.

“The bulk of the plaintiffs’ claims fail for lack of standing. One fails on the merits. But none justifies interference with the State Legislature’s efforts to prevent voter fraud and to protect election integrity,” Judge Andrew Oldham wrote in the opinion.

See here and here for some background. This appears to be the endpoint of a lawsuit that has a long history, mostly of getting abused by the Fifth Circuit. Democracy Docket adds some details.

The ruling affects several restrictions on mail-in voting and voter assistance. Among them are rules requiring some voters to provide an identification number that matches state records, requirements for people who help voters cast ballots and limits on paid voter assistance and canvassing.

The opinion opened with an unusual and extraordinary attack on mail-in voting, portraying the practice itself as a threat to democracy.

“It has long been established that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud,” Judge Andrew Oldham wrote. “That is why voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.”

The sweeping claim goes well beyond what the evidence shows. Fraud involving mail-in ballots is exceedingly rare, and research has not found evidence that mail-in voting produces widespread voter fraud as anti-voting activists have suggested over the years.

Election officials also use safeguards including ballot tracking and other security measures to detect improper ballots.

Oldham cited a 2014 federal district court opinion stating that mail-in ballots are “not secure,” a decision the Fifth Circuit later affirmed in relevant part. But his broader assertion that mail-in voting itself jeopardizes democracy was the court’s characterization, not a finding that widespread mail-ballot fraud had occurred.

A federal district court blocked nine provisions of SB 1 in March 2025 after finding that they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, two federal laws that protect people with disabilities from discrimination.

Wednesday’s ruling wipes away that decision.

But in most of the case, the appeals court did not decide whether the challenged provisions actually violate those disability laws. Instead, it ruled that the groups challenging the law had not shown the kind of direct, ongoing harm needed to bring those claims in federal court.

For the mail-in ballot identification rules, the court said the plaintiffs had not shown that a specific voter was likely to be harmed again in a future election. The opinion pointed to voters who had previously struggled with the new requirements but had since learned how to comply with them.

The court also noted that the share of mail-in ballot applications or ballots rejected because of missing or mismatched identification numbers had dropped from 11% or 12% to 2.7% within eight months.

The appeals court used similar reasoning to reject challenges to SB 1’s voter assistance rules, saying earlier Fifth Circuit decisions had already undercut the plaintiffs’ claims.

All those poor suckers – including a significant number of Republicans – who had their votes tossed in 2022 before election officials and anyone affiliated with campaigns got the hang of things are just out of luck. I cannot say this often enough: The Fifth Circuit, whose sole guiding principle is that Republicans can do whatever they want and Democrats can get stuffed, must be as high a priority for any court reform effort we might undertake in 2029 as SCOTUS is, or we’re just kidding around. This court is wicked and corrupt and it must be rebuilt. No excuses. Mother Jones has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged absentee ballots, ACLU, Brennan Center, Disability Rights Texas, Election 2022, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Greg Abbott, Harris County, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, League of Women Voters, LUPE Votes, OCA Houston, REV UP Texas, SCOTUS, Secretary of State, Texas, The Lege, voter ID, voter suppression, Voting Rights Act | 1 Comment

We’re gonna get election-audited again

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Feh.

Harris County has again been selected for a state-mandated elections audit following a random draw conducted by the Texas Secretary of State Tuesday.

The audit is the county’s second in four years stemming from a 2021 bill the Legislature passed during the peak of election denialism following President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat, one of several ways Republican lawmakers have scrutinized Harris County’s elections in recent years.

That scrutiny continues to bubble after the previous audit found widespread issues, including ballot paper shortages and other deficiencies.

State officials will review the county’s elections operations over a two-year period from 2025 through 2026.

It will be the first such review of elections overseen by County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, who took over the duty after state lawmakers abolished the county’s elections administrator position in 2023. Hudspeth said in 2024 her office “will continue to ensure that the concerns that plagued the now-defunct Elections Administrator’s Office are not revisited.”

Scrapping the elections administrator returned voter registrar duties to the tax-assessor collector and election operations to the county clerk. Hudspeth did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Tax Assessor-Collector Annette Ramirez welcomed the audit in a Wednesday afternoon statement.

“This is not our first rodeo. We take our voter registration processes seriously and are very familiar with the audit process,” Ramirez said. “Being selected again is another opportunity for us to provide transparency into our process as we continue to fulfill our statutory duties.”

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said part of the audit will focus on a previous complaint he filed after discovering more than 100 voters registered at P.O. boxes at UPS stores and postal offices around the county.

Despite these concerns, Bettencourt, who previously served as Harris County tax assessor-collector, said the county’s election operations have improved since 2022.

“There’s no question. There’s been significant improvement,” Bettencourt said, referring to elections managed by Hudspeth.

The 2021 elections audit bill mandated four counties — two with populations over 300,000 and two below — be randomly selected every two years for a comprehensive review of their elections operations.

Whatever. There are currently only sixteen counties with 300K or more people, and since the two that were the unlucky victims the last time were not in the hopper to be selected, Harris County’s odds were one in seven. The odds that we’d be selected both times we were “eligible” for it is 1/56, less than two percent, given that all 16 big counties would have been available for the first one in 2022. Those are low odds, but these things do happen, so while I understand everyone who rolled their eyes at this, it’s just bad luck. If it happens again in 2030, then I will demand that we conduct a full forensic analysis on the whole cursed setup. In the meantime, someone please buy Teneshia Hudspeth and her whole office all the snacks they want.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged Election 2022, Election 2026, elections administrator, fraudit, Hall County, Harris County, Harris County Clerk, Harris County Tax Assessor, Paul Bettencourt, Secretary of State, Tarrant County, Texas, The Lege, Webb County | 2 Comments

Data center secrecy

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

This is also a problem.

Last year, Mason McCallister saw survey markers on a property near his home in a rural community about an hour north of Dallas. He suspected it might be for a new data center he’d heard about from a neighbor.

But information hasn’t come easy. He found no project announcements and saw nothing on county agendas. Several local officials told him they knew nothing of the project.

The 34-year-old realtor searched property records. He knocked on neighbors’ doors to ask what they knew. His wife, also a realtor, asked the surveyors who was buying the land, and his grandma chased a neighbor down at church to ask if he sold his property.

Eventually, McCallister mapped companies contracting with landowners all around him including Black Mountain, an energy and digital infrastructure group based in Fort Worth. He dug up a permit for a power plant from a company with the same address as Black Mountain, indicating the data center could build its own power source.

Then in March, after months of searching for answers, McCallister drove 100 miles to a town hall in the Fort Worth area where he learned Black Mountain’s CEO, Rhett Bennett, would be speaking about a different project.

After the presentation, McCallister confronted the CEO and got his confirmation: Yes, Black Mountain was exploring a data center near his home.

“Deep down I was always hoping that I was wrong,” said McCallister, after getting his answer.

As data center proposals are popping up across Texas, local residents have grown increasingly frustrated by how difficult it can be to get information about the projects that they say threaten to disrupt their communities. Armies of concerned neighbors, such as McCallister, have become their own private detectives in search of signs or confirmation about data center plans in lieu of public disclosures, pestering local officials at meetings or in the grocery store and sharing their findings across Facebook groups with thousands of members.

“Knowledge is power, right?” said McCallister, whose family has owned the property in Bells for roughly 150 years. “Everyone’s being so quiet about it, and everyone’s being so secret about it. If it was so good for the community, they would be screaming it from the rooftops.”

It’s a long story, so read the rest. It’s normal for a lot of businesses to conduct negotiations with local entities in secret, for a lot of reasons, but also for a lot of reasons people really hate it when they find out that a fully locked-in data center is going to be built in their vicinity and it’s too late to do a damn thing about it. Big companies like Meta will hide behind shell companies to throw off suspicion when they appear on local government agendas. Even Greg Abbott’s much ballyhooed proposal to make data center disclose information about water and electricity usage before they can get regulatory approval doesn’t specify (and Abbott won’t say) if those disclosures will be made to the public or just to state agencies. I don’t know what the “best” answer is, but I find it hard to argue against the assertion that the public ought to know more and have more control over these things that so directly affect their lives.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Data Center Coalition, data centers, Election 2026, electricity, ERCOT, Gina Hinojosa, Governor, Grayson County, Greg Abbott, local control, Public Utility Commission, sales taxes, Texans United Against Data Centers, Texas, The Lege, water | Leave a comment

Emerson College poll: Paxton 47, Talarico 46

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Paxton’s best result in awhile.

Rep. James Talarico

A new Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey of Texas likely voters finds the U.S. Senate race in a dead heat: 47% support Republican Ken Paxton, while 46% support Democrat James Talarico. Five percent are undecided, and 2% support someone else.

“The race for U.S. Senate in Texas is sharply divided by age: voters under 50 favor Talarico by 15 points, 53% to 38%, while those over 50 break for Paxton by 11 points, 53% to 42%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.

In the race for Governor, 49% support Republican Greg Abbott, while 45% support Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Four percent are undecided.

Governor Abbott holds a 46% job approval rating, while 49% disapprove of the Governor. President Donald Trump holds a 47% job approval rating, while 48% disapprove of the President.

“Majorities of Texas Hispanic voters are dissatisfied with their federal and state executives: 58% of Hispanic voters disapprove of President Trump and 57% of Governor Abbott,” Kimball noted. “This demographic also breaks for the Democrat on the ballot, by 19 for Talarico and 17 for Hinojosa.”

Similar to his job approval, Governor Abbott’s favorable rating is at 48%, while 46% have an unfavorable view of the Governor. Talarico has a 44% favorable rating, and 41% unfavorable. Opinion on Paxton is split: 43% favorable and 44% unfavorable. Hinojosa has a 40% favorable rating and 27% unfavorable, while 33% of Texas voters are neutral or have not heard of her.

Forty-three percent think Texas is on the right track, while 48% think the state is headed in the wrong direction.

As noted before, this breaks a streak of six straight polls in which Talarico was leading. Trailing by one is hardly catastrophic in that context. Nice to see Gina Hinojosa still that close to Abbott despite that. The poll’s toplines and crosstabs are here, the main thing I’ll note is that this is a better approval rating for Donald Trump than we’ve seen recently. It’s a data point, we add it to the pile.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged Donald Trump, Election 2026, Gina Hinojosa, Governor, Greg Abbott, James Talarico, Ken Paxton, polls, Senate, Texas | Leave a comment

There’s a lot of Flock cameras in the Houston region

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

There’s a growing backlash as well, but so far the pace of installing the cameras is way ahead of removing them.

The Houston region has quietly become a hotspot for a powerful technology that links thousands of license-plate reading cameras installed by cities, homeowners associations, school districts and businesses into a nationwide surveillance network.

Police say the technology is a cost effective way to solve crimes, but residents are questioning whether the alleged benefits to public safety outweigh the risk to privacy as officers in Pasadena, Baytown and Fort Bend County are investigated for abusing the technology and news reports highlight dozens of cases nationwide of police using the tool for stalking.

Growing numbers of residents across the political spectrum are crowding public meetings to call for limits or outright bans on the cameras from leading vendor Flock Technology and its competitors. Watchdog websites have sprung up to monitor how many cameras are spreading across the Houston region and the country. And some activists have turned vigilante, vandalizing at least eight cameras in recent weeks across Houston.

In response to the public outcry, some cities in the Houston area and across Texas have reevaluated their use of the cameras.

[…]

Officials with the Houston Police Department did not respond to a request for comment, but local law enforcement officials have spoken of the technology’s benefits since at least 2021. It’s also been cited in court records in the shooting death of rapper BTB Savage, with investigators describing how they tracked a suspect’s vehicle in the moments after the shooting and then followed it across the city.

[…]

The Magnolia Police Department recently canceled its contract with Flock.

“This was due to community concerns, as well as my own concerns, about the program,” Chief Kyle Montgomery said.

And League City Mayor Nick Long has proposed creating a citizens advisory committee to review the police department’s use of Flock cameras.

“I completely understand why some people are wary of them,” Long said. “Nobody wants to live in a surveillance state. But on the other side, I do find them valuable and inexpensive.”

Each camera costs League City about $2,000 annually and there are about 30 in town, which is cheaper than hiring an officer, Long said.

“We need to strike a balance,” he said. “If we don’t, it will get regulated out of existence, just like red light cameras.”

See here for recent reporting on Flock elsewhere in the state. This story notes resistance to Flock in Conroe, and cited a 2024 estimate of about 3,800 cameras in the Houston region. Minus a few that have been taken down outside of approved channels, of course. As for organized opposition to Flock cameras, we haven’t seen as much of that inside Houston yet. I do think we’ll get there, though. In the meantime, having had a look around the state, I wanted to note what the local landscape looks like at this time. It’s sure to be different in the future.

Posted in Crime and Punishment, Technology, science, and math | Tagged artificial intelligence, Baytown, cameras, Conroe, Flock, Fort Bend County, Houston, HPD, League City, Magnolia, Pasadena, Texas | Leave a comment

Lawsuit filed to stop Big Bend wall construction

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Sure hope it’s not too late.

A tribal nonprofit and an outdoor recreation company on Friday asked a federal judge to block border wall-related construction in Big Bend National Park, arguing that the project is contrary to U.S. law and threatens constitutionally protected religious freedoms.

Continued construction of the wall and related projects — including roads, drainage structures, erosion controls, safety features, lighting, cameras and sensors — will cause irreplaceable damage to archaeological sites within the park, including areas associated with indigenous peoples, the lawsuit said.

“Once an archaeological site is excavated by heavy machinery, once the physical context of artifacts is destroyed, or once a sacred or culturally significant landscape is permanently altered, the injury is irreparable,” said the lawsuit, filed in San Antonio federal court.

The People of La Junta for Preservation, a nonprofit associated with the Lipan Apache community, sued the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to halt work begun under a June 9 order from Secretary Markwayne Mullin that waived federal and state requirements to allow construction along 62 miles of the border with Mexico. The action, however, did not waive a law that made the secretary of the interior and the National Park Service responsible to protect and develop the park, the lawsuit said.

Christina Hernandez, founder and director of the organization, said construction threatens areas of cultural and religious significance in a region where Lipan Apache lived, hunted and worshiped for generations.

“We are fighting the wall in court because our ancestors did not survive on this land for thousands of years for us to stand by and wait for someone else to come save it —we are here, we are responsible for it, and we will fight for it ourselves,” Hernandez said in a statement.

Other plaintiffs include Far Flung Outdoor Center, a Terlingua business that provides guided river trips and related recreational services in the Big Bend area, and two Texans who practice religious and historical observances in the park.

The Trump administration has moved forward with plans to build vehicle barriers and a patrol road inside the national park as part of its border wall amid bipartisan outcry, including waiving environmental laws earlier this year to expedite construction.

The outcry against building structures in the region, especially in the state and national parks, has increased as visible signs of construction like bulldozers have begun to appear. On Thursday, a bipartisan coalition of 46 state House representatives sent a letter urging Gov. Greg Abbott to call for construction in the region to immediately cease.

[…]

Federal officials had until recently been unclear about the extent of construction and whether it would cut through the two parks or wildlife area. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, who initially denied construction would occur in the region, defended the current work in a statement on Wednesday and said CBP would work to preserve local access to the region.

“We are NOT building a 30-foot wall or stadium lighting through Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, or the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area,” Scott said. “What people are seeing right now is survey and design work — NOT construction of a wall through the park.”

A statement posted on social media Thursday evening prior to the lawsuit’s filing from DHS echoed Scott’s statement and described reports about construction in Big Bend as “fear mongering.”

In response to that, I will show you this:

BREAKING: DHS IS BULLDOZING THE MOUTH OF SANTA ELENA CANYON.

DHS waived every single environmental law, now they’re butchering the most iconic part of Texas’ crown jewel national park. All happening the day after a massive protest right here and on the morning CNN left. This is an indefensible attack on Texas’ natural heritage.

Footage by Natalie Newman. Available for media use w/ credit.

— Laiken Jordahl (@LaikenJordahl) 2:06 PM – 13 August 2026

Sure are surveying the hell out of it.

As with the recent Ten Commandments lawsuit, this litigation is using religious freedom laws and arguments in its case. I strongly suggest that the Fifth Circuit and SCOTUS, certainly as currently constituted, will rule along the lines of “that’s not the religion we care about”, just with fancier words. As with many things, I will be delighted to be proven wrong. The Chron and the Observer have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Big Bend, border, border fence, Donald Trump, Far Flung Outdoor Center, Homeland Security, lawsuit, Lipan-Apache Native American Church, Markwayne Mullin, National Park Service, Texas, The People of La Junta for Preservation | 1 Comment

Austin ISD will probably be taken over

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

That sucks.

Burnet and Webb middle schools received a fifth consecutive failing accountability rating from the Texas Education Agency, the Austin school district announced Thursday, triggering a state law that directs Education Commissioner Mike Morath to either close the schools or appoint a board of managers to replace the elected school board.

Meanwhile, Dobie Middle School broke its streak of four consecutive failing ratings by earning a D, pausing the school’s accountability clock and avoiding the immediate threat of triggering the state intervention law for the campus.

Overall, the Austin school district received a B grade, an improvement from last year’s rating, district leaders announced Thursday. The ratings are preliminary until districts have a chance to appeal, the education agency reviews those appeals and finalizes campus grades in December.

Thursday’s announcement, which comes a day before TEA publicly releases accountability ratings statewide, moves Austin ISD one step closer to potential state intervention after months of district efforts to avoid it. The district has until Sept. 8 to appeal the data that led to the ratings. District leaders will review data across schools to determine which ratings, if any, they would appeal, Superintendent Matias Segura said in an interview. Segura said he has not been in communication with TEA about whether the agency has plans to take over the district.

The A-F accountability system measures student achievement, academic growth and college readiness and how well the school prepared students for life after high school. Under Texas law, five consecutive failing ratings mandates the education commissioner close the campus or take over the district by replacing the elected school board with a board of managers.

“I understand there is an anxiousness and concern in the community,” Segura said. “We are going to be here tomorrow, the teachers are going to show up, we are going to do the work to ensure their student gets what they need, regardless of what that looks like for that specific family, for that specific school. AISD will continue to be here; we have been here for 145 years.”

See here for the background, and be sure to read the rest of the story, which has a lot more information. I would not put any stock into the appeals process – it’s the TEA that hears the appeal of the ratings, after all – but as the story notes later, there is another possible outcome.

TEA has taken different approaches in previous interventions.

In Houston ISD, state education leaders took over the school district, replacing the elected school board with a board of managers and superintendent. The district saw higher standardized test scores but also enrollment losses of more than 13,000 students.

Earlier this year, the agency intervened in Wichita Falls ISD by approving the transfer of students from a chronically failing middle school to another campus, which was to be operated by Third Future Schools, appointing a conservator and closing the school that triggered the state intervention. The founder of Third Future Schools is the state-appointed superintendent of Houston ISD.

Segura said as the district progresses through the fall semester, he will work with the school board to determine what is best for the schools, including exploring a path similar to that taken by Wichita Falls. “Nothing is off the table, but, again, we are not there yet,” Segura said.

See here for more on the WFISD story. I don’t know why the TEA went a different way with this one district – as far as I know, they’re the only ones so far who could have been taken over but weren’t. I would not bet on Austin ISD getting the same outcome, but we’ll know for sure later this year. I wish Austin ISD the best of luck. The Trib, which names several other imminent takeover possibilities, and the Waco Bridge, which discusses Waco ISD’s “get out of takeover for now” card, have more.

Posted in School days | Tagged Austin, Austin ISD, Matias Segura, Mike Miles, Mike Morath, schools, Texas, Texas Council for International Studies, Texas Education Agency, The Lege, Third Future Schools, Waco ISD, Wichita Falls ISD | Leave a comment

The surrogate situation

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Good Lord.

The baby boy at the center of an out-of-state surrogacy battle that is pitting the Texas attorney general against the California biological parents was born in Dallas on Wednesday, lawyers for the birth parents and the surrogate confirmed.

The child, who has a congenital heart issue, was born via a surrogate, McKenna West, of Alaska, who had traveled to Texas after she said the child’s biological parents had tried to force her to terminate the pregnancy, something the child’s biological parents deny.

“Our clients’ child was born earlier this morning and he is now receiving medical care provided by a team of pediatric experts,” Lee Budner said in a statement to The Texas Tribune, speaking for his clients Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, the biological parents of the baby. “McKenna West’s baseless attempts to intervene in the child’s medical care have been soundly rejected by the courts.”

Gilkar and Ahmed are at the hospital with the baby, who they say is not named Gabriel, despite Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and West calling the baby by that name.

The couple’s attorney said the baby is receiving medical care and accused West and Paxton of turning a family tragedy into “political theater.”

“Our clients’ only focus at this time is ensuring that their baby receives the medical care that he vitally needs and that they, as his parents, are able to spend every precious moment they can with him,” Budner said.

The baby West was carrying was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome — where the left side of the heart is underdeveloped — at 20 weeks of pregnancy. West asked a Dallas court to recognize her parental right as the birth mother to intervene in medical treatment for the baby.

On Tuesday, Paxton announced he was intervening on behalf of West, alleging Gilkar and Ahmed refused to consent to life-saving surgery for the heart issue — Budner did not address this in his statement — and were trying to bring the child back to California before he was born.

On Tuesday, a Dallas judge ordered that the child be given life-saving treatment upon birth and that the child must remain in Texas.

In a separate order, the judge also granted the birth parents’ request that prevents West from making any medical decision for the child and representing herself as the child’s mother, reinforcing the couple’s rights as the parents.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Aug. 25.

[…]

According to court documents their attorneys filed in Alaska, parents consulted with specialists in Los Angeles and Dallas and had determined that their chosen course of action was to have West deliver in California and the baby who they call Rumi would then begin lifelong treatment there.

“West is harming Rumi by relocating to Texas, requiring him to be born in Texas, away from his parents and the specialized cardiac team in Los Angeles that will provide his lifelong care,” the court filing states. “Her actions are forcing Rumi to begin treatment (including critical heart surgery) in one state and be transferred to another.”

A California trial court has already established that the couple are the rightful parents of the child West was carrying as a surrogate. An appellate court rejected West’s request to stop the trial court judgment from taking effect.

West is seeking legal protection in Texas because the state’s family law recognizes anyone who gives birth in Texas as the legal mother of that child.

Despite the California rulings and the Dallas judge’s Tuesday ruling, Wilson still argues that West “is lawfully the parent because she gave birth to this child that she carries in Texas, then she should control custody as well.”

Here’s the original story, which ran on Tuesday before the child was born and before any court rulings came down. Let me see if I can sum up the key points here:

1. The state of Texas is for parents’ rights, except when it disagrees with the parents’ decisions.

2. The state of Texas is against “birth tourism”, except when it’s not.

Have I missed anything? We live in truly stupid times. I’ll keep an eye on this.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Alaska, birth tourism, California, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, McKenna West, Nausheen Gilkar, Omar Ahmed, surrogacy, Texas | Leave a comment

New SOS will also oppose the closed primaries lawsuit

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Appropriate.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Robert Howden, the new Texas secretary of state, said in a legal filing Monday that he would continue to defend the state’s open primary system, putting him at odds with the Texas GOP in the lawsuit filed by the party last year.

“The only thing that has changed in this case is the name of the defendant,” lawyers for the state agency wrote, emphasizing that the secretary would “gladly implement statutory changes” if passed by the Legislature.

Republicans in Texas, worried about the moderating influence of Democrats and independents crossing over to GOP races, want to require voters to register with a party before they’re allowed to participate in primaries.

Last year, the Texas GOP sued to strike down the current open primary system, under which eligible Texans register to vote without declaring a party affiliation. Attorney General Ken Paxton sided with the party, leaving then-Secretary of State Jane Nelson to find her own legal representation for the agency. Nelson, a Republican and former state senator, said in legal filings at the time that this was a decision best left to the Legislature.

In the months since, this idea spawned by the conservative grassroots has garnered widespread support from state leaders. At the Texas Republican Convention in June, Gov. Greg Abbott addressed the issue to a cheering crowd, saying he wants to “make clear that in the future, only Republicans vote in Republican primaries.” He later told Texas Scorecard that this was an issue for lawmakers, who “can and should be more responsive to Republicans than a judge may be.”

[…]

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Amarillo, has been a major financial weight on the party. After the convention, the new chair, D’rinda Randall, reported that the party’s largest unpaid debt was to cover the legal fees associated with this lawsuit.

See here and here for background on the lawsuit. I’m glad to see that our new Secretary of State didn’t come in with a made-up mandate to change that office’s position on this lawsuit. Whatever one thinks of the merits of this suit, that was the correct response. Suing to get their way when they had the power to make the change they wanted legislatively is a typical modern Republican response to things, and pardon me while I let out a guffaw at its deleterious effects on the state GOP’s coffers. Enjoy those lawyer’s fees, y’all.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Abraham George, Dade Phelan, Gary VanDeaver, Jane Nelson, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, primaries, Republican Party, Robert Howden, Secretary of State, Texas, voter registration | Leave a comment

Close enough, am I right?

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Compliance is all a matter of attitude, according to Mike Miles.

Houston ISD’s state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles said the district has nearly complied with a state order requiring it to meet with families of students with disabilities, clearing the way to reassign about 1,600 students to new campuses.

But some advocates questioned the way the district contacted families — calling hundreds by phone instead of meeting in person — and whether families had a full discussion about major changes to their children’s individualized education programs, or IEPs.

The calls may allow the district to move forward with its plan to consolidate special education services, announced just months before the 2026-27 school year. The plan drew strong community pushback, with many families and advocates saying it would disrupt students’ stability and relationships at school. After some parents filed complaints with the state, the Texas Education Agency directed HISD to review students’ IEPs and meet with families before reassigning them.

Miles called HISD’s phone outreach and and holding more than 70 meetings “a huge success.”

“We picked up the phone,” Miles said. “We worked with Texas Education Agency to make sure we were doing way more than we had to. In other words: trying to not only comply with the letter of the law, but also try to help parents even more to be okay with where their student was going to be served.”

[…]

Jane Friou, a co-founder of the Houston Special Education Parent Association, said she was shocked and skeptical to hear that the district called around 1,600 parents. She questioned what the amendments said, whether they were documented in the district’s special education software, and what HISD asked parents over the phone.

“I do not believe that moving a child from one campus to another campus is a minor change, and many things can change in moving a child from one campus to another that have to be discussed in an IEP meeting,” Friou said.

See here for the previous update. Hey, they nearly complied. I’m sure any lawyer will tell you, that’s good enough. Lord knows, if anyone is adept at making obstreperous data look good, it’s Mike Miles. They tried, they really did. Good job, good effort. You’ll get ’em next time, slugger, I know you will! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bury my head in my hands for awhile.

Posted in School days | Tagged HISD, Houston, Houston Special Education Parent Association, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Mike Miles, schools, special education, Texas Education Agency, US Department of Education | Leave a comment

Vibe check

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Hello, George.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating took a nosedive this week, with multiple high-quality polls showing Trump in the low 30% range—the floor of support for presidents in the highly politically polarized climate in which we live.The Associated Press on Thursday released a poll showing Trump at 33%, while on Wednesday both CNN and Quinnipiac released surveys showing Trump at 34% and 32%, respectively.

Those numbers mark all-time lows those pollsters recorded in either Trump term. And they are so low that it means even Republican voters are turning against Trump—something that never happened in his first term and which saved the GOP from seeing even worse midterm losses in 2018 than they experienced.

Indeed, the most recent spate of polling puts Trump in former President George W. Bush territory from his second term, when opposition to the Iraq War was growing and the financial crisis was starting to take hold.

“George W. Bush left office with a 32% approval rating. That was enough to cost Republicans two Prez elections, but more importantly left the party so weak that Trump was able to hijack it and turn it into something completely different. I want to see Trump at 32%. The Bush line,” Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has made it her mission to defeat Trump and Trumpism, wrote in March, when Trump’s approval began to really decline.

After this latest spate of polling came out, Longwell declared that Trump had reached that destination.

“That, my friends, is the Bush Line,” Longwell wrote in a post on X after the Quinnipiac survey dropped.

Those of us who are old enough to remember the Dubya days will know that there are still deeper troughs to wallow in, but this is a good start. I always had something between faith and hope that Trump would at least get down below 35%. He’s not quite there in the polling averages, but there’s still time. I’m more interested in Trump’s approval rating in Texas, and while there’s a range of outcomes, they’re all well into negative territory. That’s nothing but good news from our perspective.

There’s also more than one way to measure this.

Over the last decade, thanks to The Downballot’s pioneering work, special elections have emerged as a critical tool for assessing which way the electoral winds are blowing.

And just like the weather, special elections vary a great deal while still having an underlying pattern. Just as with climate change, a single major storm means little, but a sustained shift can tell you something powerful.

We are looking for both shifts and their underlying causes. Occasionally, both are detectable by keen observers, as we saw in 2022. But more often, they can be much more difficult, if not impossible, to discern—at least, by the naked eye.

With a little help from some statistical tools, however, we can uncover the patterns that animate special elections. It turns out, these elections are much more than just an ongoing referendum on who’s in power. Rather, they reflect how voters respond to events more broadly.

Most important of all, with our statistical toolkit, we can determine when new events have begun impacting the electorate. Identifying these moments may allow us to figure out what’s driving voters—and when the competitive landscape has changed.

Thanks to The Downballot’s rich data tracking special elections over the last decade, we can identify seven distinct moments that marked pivot points in the political landscape. Armed with this information, we can now be on the lookout for similar inflections that are lurking just over the horizon.

What follows is a nerdy look at how special election results can both give you a more nuanced picture of how the electorate is performing, and also a very early warning siren for shifts in the public mood. Over the course of the two Trump terms, the top quartile performance for Democratic candidates in special elections is at least a 20-point shift in the blue direction. Taylor Rehmet’s win in SD09 is roughly there. The median overperformance is plus ten points. There’s a broad range here, with Ron Angeletti’s slight underperformance in SD04 falling into the bottom quartile. But significant shifts, the kind where you’d say to yourself “whoa, I never thought that could happen in that race”, are more common than you might think.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged Donald Trump, Election 2026, George Bush, polls, Ron Angeletti, SD04, SD09, special election, Taylor Rehmet, Texas | Leave a comment

More on the Ten Commandments parents’ rights lawsuit

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Courier Texas talks to one of the plaintiffs.

Emily Roth never planned on teaching her six-year-old about the Ten Commandments.

“It’s a belief system that we don’t follow as a religious doctrine,” Roth told Courier Texas.

But that plan changed when posters of the Ten Commandments went up in her daughter’s kindergarten classroom last October.

The new classroom decor was a result of Senate Bill 10, which went into effect at the beginning of last school year and requires the Ten Commandments be visibly displayed in public school classrooms.

“I find it incredibly unacceptable,” she said.

That’s why Roth, who has two children in Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston, is challenging the new law in court.

[…]

Roth said she pursued legal action after going through the district’s grievance process, which involved three hearings—a level one hearing where her request was denied, a level two hearing where her request was denied, and a level three hearing with the full Spring Branch ISD school board, which unanimously denied her request to have the posters removed or adopt an inclusion policy of other religions.

“I find it truly hard to believe that anybody can really defend the Ten Commandments being on the wall in public schools, so when I was denied by the board, I knew that the job wasn’t done,” she said.

Throughout the grievance process, Roth said she was connected to several mothers and families who feel the same way she does.

“We got together and had the idea to cite the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is a different approach to the lawsuits we’ve seen done already,” she added.

[…]

The lawsuit comes less than two months after the State Board of Education approved a required reading list that made Texas the first state in the nation to make the Bible mandated reading in public schools. The board also approved a social studies curriculum overhaul that references religious figures, such as Moses, in history courses.

It’s an ongoing trend of Texas lawmakers and leaders infusing more religion into public schools.

Last legislative session, Republican lawmakers passed a new law that allows public schools to adopt a voluntary designated prayer and religious reading time during the school day. In November 2024, the State Board of Education adopted Bluebonnet Learning, which are Bible-infused instructional materials for use in public schools.

“It’s not just a poster,” Roth said. “Not when you add the social studies TEKS changes, and the Bluebonnet materials, and the required Bible reading in there. Individually, these things may seem really small, but that’s what makes them really hard to fight. It’s death by a thousand cuts.”

See here for the background. I drafted this before the motion for emergency relief was denied, but it’s not relevant to that. I’d have been frustrated by that grievance process too, but at least it helped her find some community. I don’t know if any other the other religion-forcing by the state will be relevant in this case, but it can’t hurt. And while the ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit was halted by the Fifth Circuit, it was a one vote majority on the wingnuttiest court in the country after some strong and clearly correct rulings at the district level. One must always be hesitant to put too much faith in the court system in politically charged litigation like this, but the weight of the evidence is so heavily on their side it’s hard not to wonder how this could go any other way. No hearing has been set yet, so we’ll have to wait for awhile to see.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Audrey Nath, Cy-Fair ISD, Emily Roth, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Greg Abbott, Harris County, HISD, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, Mike Morath, Sanjam Kaur Sohal, Spring Branch, Supreme Court, ten commandments, Texas, Texas Education Agency, The Lege | Leave a comment

League City to vote on Flock cameras

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

It’s a non-binding vote, but it will be interesting regardless.

League City voters in November will weigh in on whether the city should use Flock cameras or other automated license plate readers, although city officials said the referendum will be non-binding.

The League City City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to put the measure on the Nov. 3 ballot, days before the city of Conroe will consider a similar ballot measure regarding the use of the cameras.

During League City’s meeting, a dozen public speakers urged the council to put the issue to a public vote. The Chronicle has reached out to Flock Safety, the company whose license plate readers are used in League City, for comment.

Council Member Courtney Chadwell said he was “generally against governing by referendum.”

“We can’t always reduce an issue to a simple yes or no at the ballot box,” he said. However, Chadwell said he supported putting the issue on the ballot as a “straw poll” to gauge public opinion.

Council Member Chad Tressler, who initially said he would vote against placing the issue on the ballot, agreed that the issue of whether to use license plate readers was not the correct use of a referendum.

“It’s risky and throwing the baby out with the bath water,” Tressler said. He later voted for the measure after asking how many votes it needed to pass.

[…]

The League City Police Department initially installed nine Flock Safety cameras at designated locations throughout the city in late 2022, with council approval. After a lengthy process to obtain state authorization, the department installed the 33 more Flock cameras at major intersections in 2023.

See here and here for some recent discussion. As Houston Public Media makes clear, this is basically a straw poll, which League City’s council can then choose to act on or not. I would advise League City voters to be aware of bait and switch possibilities, so don’t stop paying attention if this goes the way the abolitionists would like. I’ll have these referenda on my watch list for November. Bay Area Houston has more.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged cameras, City Council, Conroe, Election 2026, Flock, League City, Texas | 2 Comments

Texas blog roundup for the week of August 10

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance has not traded any of its members to the Dodgers as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff is following the polls in the Senate and other races.

SocraticGadfly, with last Thursday being Aug. 6, did a roundup of old thoughts, with some new additions, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project visited the site of the ICE murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

===========================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Steve Vladeck strongly questions the notion that this SCOTUS is somehow “independent” from Donald Trump.

Mustafa Tameez observes that AI has developed intelligence faster than it has earned legitimacy.

The Houston Press urges the passage of a real immigration reform law to reduce the chances of more ICE killings.

Lone Star Left reported on the chaos in Tarrant County after that Commissioners Court tried to drastically cut voting locations.

Texas Public Opinion Research reports on what the people want with a variety of policy ideas.

Pete von der Haar has deep thoughts about classic rock.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged blog roundup, TPA | Leave a comment

Even Greg Abbott’s pollster thinks the Governor’s race is close

Posted on August 12, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Via Michael Adams-Hurta on Twitter, the most wild poll result so far this cycle may be this one.

DATE: Tuesday, August 4, 2026
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Mitchell Brown, Partner & Pollster, Cygnal
RE: Survey of n800 Likely General Election Voters in Texas

Executive Summary

Data centers are a highly volatile issue in Texas, and the politics are evolving. Voters want guardrails, not a ban, and Abbott’s “guardrail” plan is the strongest consensus in this survey. Texans support requiring data centers to pay their own costs, protect water, limit impacts on community character, while delivering tangible benefits such as jobs, local revenue, and infrastructure improvement. Whoever owns enforceable protections owns this issue.

The Landscape: Volatile and Moveable

• Despite negative headlines, just 8% of voters call data centers a top voting issue, and attitudes shift dramatically as voters are presented with information on the issue.
• This volatility creates opportunity, but neither party owns the issue. Abbott leads on data center trust just 45%-41%, behind his own 49%-46% ballot. The ground is unclaimed.

Emphasis mine. That’s Republican polling firm Cygnal reporting the results of an internal survey that shows Greg Abbott, who beat Beto O’Rourke by eleven points in 2022, is leading Gina Hinojosa by just three points. And they made that public! Which normally only happens when a campaign thinks it’s a good result. This is why internal polls are treated with skepticism by poll aggregators – you’re getting cherry-picked results, unlike with public pollsters.

Here, this result has been released to bolster Abbott’s ongoing defense of his evolving position on data centers. And maybe that will work, and maybe they’ll post a followup survey result in the coming weeks showing a wider Abbott lead and more favorable numbers for him on this issue. He’s certainly got the money to push such a narrative.

But even that comes with some baggage.

Now at odds with Trump, Abbott gets big tech support on his guidelines from the industry giants building data centers in Texas.

Google, Open AI, Meta and others weighed with support for Abbott’s temporary guardrails; Democratic nominee for governor Gina Hinojosa said “When the companies being regulated are cheering for the rules, you know the rules were written for them, not for Texans”.

After President Donald Trump said Gov. Greg Abbott is making a “mistake” to tap the breaks on construction of data centers in Texas, the biggest names in tech came out very strongly in the last 24 hours to say they support the governor’s moves.

But insurgent Democrats – most of whom have joined with some Republicans like GOP Ag Commissioner Sid Miller in pushing for an immediate moratorium and special legislative session – said the whole thing is a ruse to help Abbott deal with an issue with the potential to upend the November election.

Gotta say, that’s a pretty good quote from Gina Hinojosa. Again, Abbott has the money to push his side of the story. And really, all he has to do is win over some reluctant rural voters. It’s not the tallest of orders by any means. It’s the fact that he’s compelled to do so that is so noteworthy.

Oh, and did you notice what was missing from that Cygnal memo? A topline result in the Senate race. You know they asked that question, because if nothing else it’s a reality check on the race they’re really interested in. If they got a weird result there, it would call the rest of their data into question. The result they did publish is in line with other recent polling, and so it strongly suggests that Cygnal also found James Talarico to be leading Ken Paxton, by some unknown amount. I mean, surely if they had Paxton up, even by just a point or two, they’d have said so.

And speaking of Paxton.

The data center industry has donated thousands to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign as Hood County waits for a ruling from his office on a proposed moratorium.

Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and Texas Attorney General, received at least $448,000 as of June from executives and political committees of data center companies according to reporting from the Washington-based digital news outlet NOTUS, which covers government and politics.

That narrative sure is complicated, isn’t it?

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged artificial intelligence, Beto O'Rourke, data centers, Donald Trump, Election 2022, Election 2026, fundraising, Gina Hinojosa, Google, Governor, Greg Abbott, James Talarico, Ken Paxton, Meta, Open AI, polls, Senate, Texas | Leave a comment

ICE arrests witness in active HPD shooting investigation

Posted on August 12, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Making us all less safe, every damn day.

A man called Houston police to report someone firing a gun outside a Home Depot on Sunday but was arrested by federal immigration agents before officers could complete their investigation, according to a police report.

The incident comes as the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have spurred weeks of protests across Houston following the fatal ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Magnolia Park last month and amid ongoing debate over how the Houston Police Department should interact with the federal agency.

It was unclear what led to the caller’s arrest, but the police report states: “HPD did not assist ICE.”

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said the case is an example of what he’s been warning about for months – ICE tactics are damaging public safety.

[…]

[Arrestee David Elias] Mendez was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, court records show. He has a lengthy criminal history in Harris County, including one charge filed just two days prior to Sunday’s incident, for terroristic threat with fear of significant bodily injury. As of Tuesday, he did not have a listed defense attorney.

Council Member Tiffany Thomas, whose District F includes the area where Sunday’s incident happened, said ICE’s actions are undercutting local law enforcement’s relationship with the community.

“We did a good job of getting immigrants to call law enforcement when they saw something,” she said. “But now, when you’re calling, they’re rounding you up.”

I don’t know what there is to say. Maybe they’ll release him. Maybe Mayor Whitmire will condemn this action and force their hand. Maybe they’ll just keep doing what they’re doing because they don’t care about anything else. But this is what’s happening now.

Posted in Crime and Punishment, La Migra | Tagged Houston, HPD, ICE, John Whitmire, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Sean Teare, Tiffany Thomas | Leave a comment

Ken Paxton’s cell tower

Posted on August 12, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

From the “how did he get so rich on a government salary?” files.

Still a crook any way you look

Over the course of Ken Paxton’s decade-long rise to prominence, through scandal and turmoil, questions about his finances have followed him. Opponents scrutinized his real estate holdings and suggested that he has used his public office to enrich himself personally — allegations that have never been proven.

With Mr. Paxton locked in a close, contentious race for U.S. Senate in Texas, his Democratic opponent has questioned how Mr. Paxton, the state attorney general, has amassed a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio on a public servant’s salary.

Now, Mr. Paxton’s federal financial disclosure forms and additional records obtained by The New York Times shed light on one unusual source of his income: a cellular tower company from which Mr. Paxton made between $100,000 and $1 million about every 18 months.

The company controls at least one tower in a city north of Dallas that was erected around 20 years ago on the property of a hospital where Mr. Paxton was a board member.

Mr. Paxton co-founded the company, Premier Vertical Properties, in 2005; he reported serving on the board of the hospital, Centennial Medical Center, from 2003 to 2013. Records show that Premier signed a deal to lease space on the tower to T-Mobile in 2006; the hospital’s parent company at the time, Tenet Hospitals, was mentioned in the lease agreements.

The terms of any agreement that may have been struck between Mr. Paxton’s company and the hospital are not clear. Tenet did not respond to questions, and the hospital’s current administration said it could not provide information about a deal made before its tenure.

Industry experts said a hospital’s board would need to review and approve a decision to lease land to a cell tower company such as Premier. It is not clear whether Mr. Paxton, as a board member, voted on any contract between the hospital and his company, or whether he had participated in any such discussions.

[…]

Industry experts expressed surprise that a cell tower in a prime spot — near a highway and a hospital in a busy area — would be snapped up by a cell tower company like Mr. Paxton’s, which had been created only the year before, and not by a larger, more established firm.

“It’s basically like the guy that steps to bat and hits a home run off one swing,” said Hugh Odom, who runs a cell tower consulting firm that exclusively represents landowners.

Emphasis mine. I put that there to make it clear that the issue being raised in this story is not that Paxton made a smart and/or lucky investment, but that as a board member for a hospital that gave a contract to his company that turned into a lucrative deal he was in a position to stack the deck in his favor. His financial disclosure forms aren’t very clear about how much all this is actually worth, but that’s a side issue. It’s a gift link, so read the rest and decide for yourself, is this another example of Paxton self-dealing, or is it just an annoying example of a good thing happening to a bad person.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged Attorney General, Election 2026, ethics, James Talarico, Ken Paxton, Premier Vertical Properties, Senate, Tenet Hospitals, Texas | Leave a comment

No emergency relief from the hemp ban

Posted on August 11, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

But that’s not the end of the story.

A federal judge denied an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order sought by hemp businesses and consumers, allowing the Texas ban on THC products to continue until the case is resolved.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown of Galveston declined to lift the ban Sunday, saying the two hemp retailers and a distributor who filed the lawsuit hadn’t sufficiently demonstrated irreparable harm from the ban on interstate commerce. The request for preliminary injunction, which allows for fuller briefing and an evidentiary hearing, remains pending before the court.

“A temporary restraining order is emergency relief, held to one of the toughest standards in federal law,” Andrea Steel, lead counsel for the hemp industry in this case, said in a news release. “Being denied one at this stage does not decide our case. We expected a hard fight, and we remain confident in the law.”

Steel said the state told the judge that the businesses face no concrete, imminent threat of enforcement, which she believes raises the question of why the ban was implemented if law enforcement doesn’t plan to uphold the new restrictions.

[…]

Steel said Texas sits at the crossroads of several major national freight routes, and she believes they can prove the reinstated definitions are hurting not only Texas hemp but also hemp shipments that pass through to other states.

“Conflicting public descriptions of which hemp products may lawfully pass through Texas and which could expose someone to felony liability underscore the real-world uncertainty facing businesses and consumers,” Steel said.

Cannabis experts say if the ban is not removed, more than half of the THC products in stores might be removed from shelves.

“It’s a pretty big blow, and it’s recriminalizing a lot of cannabis products that have been completely legal and allowable in the state for many years, so we’re taking steps backwards toward prohibition,” Sarah Todd, media representative at Texas Cannabis Policy Center, previously told the Tribune.

See here for the background. We don’t know yet when the next hearing will be, for the temporary injunction, but one hopes it will be soon. I will of course keep an eye on it.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged cannabis, Charles Perry, Dan Patrick, Election 2026, Galveston, Greg Abbott, hemp, lawsuit, Supreme Court, TABC, Texas, Texas Cannabis Policy Center, Texas Department of State Health Services, THC, The Lege | 2 Comments

Hope you had a happy first day of school

Posted on August 11, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

And good luck. You’re going to need it.

More than 160,000 Houston ISD students will return to school Monday for the district’s fourth year under a state takeover. Many will attend schools that are significantly different from those they left in June.

This year, the state’s largest school district closed or co-located 14 campuses, reassigned 5,000 students in special education and expanded its controversial reform model to nine new campuses. Nine other schools will debut a new AI-focused instructional model this school year, dubbed “Future 2,” while outside managers will oversee four top-performing high schools.

[…]

Some families of students with disabilities are bracing for an uncertain first week after the district reassigned around 5,000 students to new campuses this school year.

The new program, called the Student Success Program, has prompted parent complaints and state and federal investigations. The Texas Education Agency has ordered HISD to meet individually with affected families before the school year begins.

Several families told the Chronicle they’d received conflicting information about which school they’d attend, while others said they still didn’t know their student’s new teacher or transportation route.

The district has said the overhaul will provide smaller class sizes, more resources and better staffing.

In a welcome event for teachers, state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles said last week that the overhaul would ensure no more than two grade levels are in special education classrooms.< "How do you teach like that? I mean, teachers complain when they have two preps in just one grade level," Miles said. "That's hard enough." Nearly 3,000 students are assigned to 13 new schools this year, after the state-appointed board of managers approved closing or co-locating 12 campuses last February.

HISD also closed Las Americas, a campus serving students new to the U.S., and the Harper Disciplinary Alternative Education Program during the 2025-26 school year.

Five of the 13 receiving schools are part of Miles’ New Education System, which is expanding with nine new schools. That will bring the reform program to around half of HISD campuses.

See here and here for other stories referenced in this one. Will the TEA follow through on its threats to HISD over its new special ed policies? How much will enrollment decline? When will the first dumb AI thing get reported from a “Future 2” school? Tune in to see if we get any answers to these and other questions on “HISD Takeover Year 4: Oh My God We Still Have Three Years Of This Shit To Go”.

Posted in School days | Tagged artificial intelligence, Future 2, HISD, Houston, Houston Special Education Parent Association, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Mike Miles, New Education System, schools, special education, Texas Education Agency, US Department of Education | Leave a comment

A focus on Flock

Posted on August 11, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Good overview.

A network of little black cameras on tall metal posts has sprouted up across Texas, in big cities and along remote country roads.

The cameras, produced by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, use artificial intelligence to scan every vehicle that passes by, uploading the plate number, model, color and even bumper stickers to the country’s largest vehicle surveillance database. Law enforcement agencies that contract with the company — here and across the U.S. — can search the accumulated database with a few keystrokes and without a warrant.

A backlash is growing. U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a McKinney Republican, last month proposed legislation to require federal agencies to obtain warrants before accessing Flock camera data. Meanwhile, some Texans are done debating the cameras and are dismantling them instead.

It’s unclear exactly how many cameras dot the state, in large part because one of the biggest users of the cameras is the Texas Department of Public Safety, which declines to disclose how many devices it has positioned across the state.

What is known: The state troopers have partnerships with more than 200 local law enforcement agencies across the state that allow seamless data sharing between DPS and its partner agencies.

Nationally, Flock Safety estimates some 5,000 law enforcement agencies and 6,000 communities use its surveillance products.

Advocacy groups that track camera positions across Texas estimate there are more than 10,000 cameras in the state, including several thousand concentrated in the Houston area. At least 41 cameras have been installed around Waco-area cities and state roadways since 2024, according to public records and law enforcement officials.

Many police departments consider Flock an invaluable crime-fighting tool. Opponents — including privacy, civil liberty and immigrant rights advocates — argue the system’s capacity for abuse is well established. Texas cities such as Austin and Bandera, a town of about 900 people 50 miles northwest of San Antonio, have terminated their contracts over such concerns. They are among 47 cities nationwide to do so, according to DeFlock, an anti-surveillance group monitoring the company.

[…]

The backlash against Flock can’t be attributed to any one concern or trend, but rather a drumbeat of incidents accumulating over several years.

In Baytown, southeast of Houston, the city’s police chief last week announced a criminal investigation into an officer who was accused of misusing the city’s Flock cameras. The officer resigned Thursday, Police Chief John Stringer said, and the department did not specify what the allegations of misuse were.

Cases of Flock misidentifying suspect vehicles, however rare, have resonated well beyond the towns and cities where it happened, fueling fears of opaque technology driving arbitrary arrests.

A Colorado woman was falsely accused of package theft last year after an officer said a Flock camera found her at the scene of the crime. Her story found its way to national news outlets, as did a Denver man who was pulled over repeatedly because of his car’s mistaken addition to a Flock hotlist.

More than one incident has seen innocent motorists surrounded by officers with guns drawn.

Cases of erroneous Flock hits — where the system flags the wrong car — are happening with greater frequency as Flock’s network expands, according to the Institute for Justice, a leading public interest law firm. The institute identified 27 cases in nine states, but none in Texas as of late July.

Flock cameras have also been used to aid immigration enforcement in Texas and elsewhere, even in cases where the Flock customer explicitly restricted sharing with federal immigration agencies. Flock says it does not partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

However, immigration agents were able to gain back-door access to a Houston school district’s Flock data through out-of-state police departments the district shared data with, according to a February investigation by The 74. Meanwhile, an investigation by 404 Media last year found several local and state law enforcement agencies in Texas conducting searches on behalf of federal immigration agents.

Those incidents underscore how the ease of sharing data — what makes Flock so effective for solving certain crimes, such as auto theft — makes data difficult to safeguard.

See here for more on the Bandera story. This article originated in the Waco Bridge, and then the Trib gave it a broader perspective. I’m just glad to see some numbers, as staggering as they are. There continues to be resistance to Flock, both in the form of city governments rescinding contracts and more action-oriented residents taking more direct steps. I don’t condone the latter, but it’s not hard to understand where the motivation comes from. Another useful bit of information from this story is the existence of Have I Been Flocked, which I suggest you check out. I have no doubt that Flock is an effective law enforcement tool. It’s the lack of enforceable controls, the tendency to operate in the back rooms, and of course the intersection with ICE that makes it all so unpalatable. One could endeavor to at least make it all less bothersome, if one wanted to. I’m not holding my breath for Flock and its acolytes to try.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged artificial intelligence, Austin, Bandera County, cameras, DeFlock, DPS, Flock, Houston, HPD, ICE, Keith Self, license plates, Texas, Waco | Leave a comment

Initial request to block Ten Commandments law denied

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Bummer.

A judge on Friday denied a request from three Houston mothers to temporarily stop Texas public school classrooms from displaying the Ten Commandments, in the first lawsuit to argue that it violates the state’s religious freedom law and a voter-approved parental rights amendment.

The mothers’ lawsuit is the latest challenge to Senate Bill 10 — this time under Texas law. Other attempts to prohibit the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools under federal law — primarily the First Amendment’s guarantee of separation of church and state — have been unsuccessful so far.

The suit demands that the displays be taken down and that the court act before mid-August, when the school year begins. While their request for a temporary restraining order that would have removed the displays was struck down Friday by a Harris County judge, an additional hearing for a temporary injunction in the case is scheduled for Aug. 17.

See here for the background. Right now, that’s all I know. I didn’t see any other stories, so I don’t know what courtroom it’s in or what the arguments were. We’ll get more information next week and another shot at getting this stopped.

Meanwhile, this story about the filing of this lawsuit provided an update on a previous lawsuit.

When children in Texas return to school next week, some classrooms still won’t be displaying the Ten Commandments, however. The Arlington Independent School District said in a statement provided to CBS News that it is waiting for the federal court system to resolve a separate federal lawsuit that was filed against the law back in September by a group of 15 families.

Attorneys for those families told CBS News they plan to petition the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.

“District leadership maintains that federal courts must ultimately resolve the conflict between state law and federal precedent surrounding S.B. 10,” the Arlington ISD said in a statement. “While Arlington ISD has received donated copies of the Ten Commandments, schools remain legally prohibited from displaying them while the litigation remains pending in any form.”

See here and here for more on this lawsuit. The Fifth Circuit put the kibosh on the ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in a different federal lawsuit over the Ten Commandments law. There were other lawsuits filed, I don’t know what the status of the others are, but now we know that at least one set of plaintiffs is aiming for SCOTUS. That’s where this was always going. You know I have no faith in that corrupt viper pit, but it’s all we have for now.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Arlington ISD, Audrey Nath, Cy-Fair ISD, Emily Roth, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Greg Abbott, Harris County, HISD, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, Mike Morath, Sanjam Kaur Sohal, SCOTUS, Spring Branch, Supreme Court, ten commandments, Texas, Texas Education Agency, The Lege | 3 Comments

Harris County allocates funds to investigate ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

Good. Super annoying that we have to do this, but given that we do it’s good that we’re doing it.

Harris County commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to dedicate $2.5 million over the next three years to support a local investigation into the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by federal immigration officers in Magnolia Park last month.

The rare decision to allocate funds to a single investigation is arguably the most concrete step local officials have taken in response to the July 7 shooting, which sparked weeks of protests, demands for independent probes of the incident and criticism of federal authorities’ lack of cooperation with local investigators, who warned that any criminal case could become a lengthy legal battle.

Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who first floated the idea in the weeks after the killing, said the money will fund labor, overtime, a private attorney and software upgrades to aid District Attorney Sean Teare’s work. Teare said the money will be used solely to support the investigation, and will be returned should investigators decide they are unable to move forward with the case.

It’s unusual for the county to set aside funding exclusively for a single investigation, but Teare said federal officials had forced the county to take an unprecedented step.

“This is a unique case,” Teare said. “This is one that, if we believe the charges are appropriate and file charges, we fully anticipate having to fight against the federal government.”

Teare previously said the investigation was “moving rapidly,” despite the lack of cooperation from federal authorities.

“Ideally it won’t be three years, but this is different than if we are investigating and prosecuting a state law enforcement officer,” he said.

Teare said an investigation into a federal officer could include disputes about jurisdiction and a request by President Donald Trump’s administration to transfer the case to federal court, which could prolong the case.

Teare declined to provide specifics about the investigation.

“The most important thing for me is the integrity of this investigation and, if appropriate, a future prosecution,” he said.

See here for previous blogging. The Trib adds some details.

“We don’t know when this litigation or investigation is going to end,” District Attorney Sean Teare said. “We are not going into this with preconceived notions of whether or not a charge is going to be filed. But this community and this country deserve a full, transparent investigation wherever the evidence takes us.”

Teare was joined at a Thursday press conference by County Judge Lina Hidalgo and County Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Lesley Briones. The commissioners’ court unanimously approved the funds later in the day.

The money will go into a designated fund for the investigation and will be used to address needs such as hiring an additional prosecutor and investigator, paying for overtime and technology upgrades.

Teare said the case is moving quickly, thanks in part to evidence and tips from Houstonians. Still, some key questions can’t be answered unless federal agencies share their evidence, Teare said, adding that he’s willing to file a lawsuit if necessary to compel them to do so.

“We will follow every avenue necessary to get a complete picture of what happened. If that’s going into federal court in Washington, D.C and suing people, then that is what we are going to do,” Teare said.

[…]

Other than patchy videos from local businesses along the streets where Salgado Araujo died, there’s no footage from the ICE agents’ point of view because they were not wearing body cameras.

“I think it’s very difficult for a lot of people to have the confidence in our federal justice department that they once had,” Ellis said.

A city METRO bus with a video camera onboard passed the scene around the time of the shooting. Teare said the office is aware of the video, but his office isn’t releasing any information about what it shows because he doesn’t want to taint a potential jury pool.

I hate everything about the fact that we’re in this position. There’s nothing about this that doesn’t suck. But here we are, and this is the best we can do, and do it we must. I have faith in the people working to bring some measure of justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. I hope they can overcome all the obstacles in their way. Houston Public Media has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged body cameras, Commissioners Court, District Attorney, Donald Trump, DPS, Harris County, Houston, ICE, immigration, Lesley Briones, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Rodney Ellis, Sean Teare, Texas | 1 Comment

Buc-ee’s keeps on Buc-ee-ing

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

They can’t help themselves.

Days after comedian John Oliver unveiled rodent-themed merchandise daring Buc-ee’s to sue him, the Texas company sued a corner store in Beavercreek, Ohio, over its beaver logo.

In a federal lawsuit filed July 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Buc-ee’s accuses Beaver’s Mini Mart, located in Beavercreek, Ohio, of “unjustly” profiting from the Texas-based chain’s reputation by using a logo of a smiling cartoon beaver. The lawsuit also cites the store’s “predominant” use of red lettering as evidence of trademark infringement.

Buc-ee’s did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Beaver’s Mini Mart declined to comment.

The lawsuit extends Buc-ee’s long-running campaign to protect its beaver mascot and other branding from alleged imitators. But its target this time is a small store in Beavercreek, about 16 miles from the chain’s first Ohio location, and the suit was filed two days after Oliver mocked Buc-ee’s history of pursuing trademark cases.

Buc-ee’s says its beaver logo has become an “iconic” and “distinctive” brand over decades, signaling to roadtrippers a place to use the restroom or buy brisket. The company says it has acquired “valuable common law rights” and has “priority” in the logo’s use.

Buc-ee’s is demanding that the Ohio corner store permanently stop using a beaver logo, destroy all products that display one and provide an “accounting” of exactly how much Beaver’s Mini Mart has allegedly profited from using the logo.

Beavercreek residents told the Dayton Daily News they considered Buc-ee’s lawsuit “stupid” and “crazy,” because beavers have long been associated with the city.

“What are they gonna do? Shut down all of Beavercreek?” one local told the Dayton Daily News.

See here for more on the John Oliver segment. My legally binding ruling on this is in favor of Beaver’s Mini Mart, on the important legal grounds of “they were there first”. Buc-ee’s had no interest in them until they moved into Ohio, at which point they decided that this state wasn’t big enough for the two of them, and called in the lawyers. I could see the merit in this if Beaver’s had opened up shop in Texas. Here, this just seems like Buc-ee’s trying to bigfoot them. To which I say, please stop. This is embarrassing. And also, you have until September 8 to order something from Buc-Off.com, for the benefit of Hunger Free America. The Dayton News has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Beaver's Mini-Mart, Buc-ee's, Hunger Free America, John Oliver, lawsuit, Ohio, Texas, trademark | 5 Comments

Weekend link dump for August 9

Posted on August 9, 2026 by Charles Kuffner

“The Doctor Shortage Is Here—and Getting Worse”.

“If there is a question to ask, then, it is this: Why does Musk get a pass? Why do politicians, journalists and commentators treat his far-right racist radicalism as a sideshow rather than the core of his political, ideological and industrial project, seen in everything from his deep support for Donald Trump in the United States and Restore Britain in Britain to his decision to construct a massive pollution-generating data center in predominantly Black Memphis?”

“Cyclospora Boosts Fears That Worse Foodborne Outbreaks Are Ahead”.

The Daily Show is now thirty years old, and it has a weird and wacky origin story that you might enjoy.

“Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick”.

“I am convinced that many of the worst, most hostile forms of evangelism/proselytizing are deliberately intended to repel more than to invite. This is their only function, so it seems reasonable to assume that their only function and only consistent outcome must be deliberate and intentional.” See here and here for some context, and thank whatever or whoever you want that you haven’t encountered such a threat yet.

RIP, Kay Granger, former member of Congress and the first female Mayor of Fort Worth.

“Traditionalist conservatives, those who push a nuclear-family model with a male head of household and a female carer for home and the children, make women a clear pledge: Acquiesce to your husband’s authority and you will be protected and provided for; your children will be as well. The Miller-Moreno saga is a textbook example of how this promise of patriarchal protection is a myth. Both of the patriarchs of Emily Moreno’s life have failed to protect her. One is an alleged abuser, and the other seemed to put his party’s political prospects ahead of his own daughter’s well-being.”

“In other words, Moreno was silent in part because he feared what Miller would do to his daughter and granddaughter, and Miller is now using that silence as evidence that the threat did not exist. Even by the standards of the GOP, this is a chilling public example of harassment and bullying.”

“Another Reason Not to Use “AI” For Your Writing”.

“Dozens of AI-generated videos have used the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host’s face, voice and familiar monologue setup to deliver commentary on current political stories. The clips have been posted across at least half a dozen YouTube channels, packaged with thumbnails designed to match those used by Kimmel’s actual show, whose monologue videos regularly draw millions of views.”

“Netflix’s binge model isn’t broken; it works exactly as intended.”

“The world’s largest goat tower was built by accident”.

RIP, Vicki Wickham, talent booker for the British TV show Ready, Steady, Go! who gave early exposure to the likes of The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and many more.

“What is remarkable is that federal corporate ownership is becoming routine under a Republican administration, while a Republican-controlled Congress is not just letting it happen but may even enshrine the practice in statute.”

On Equity versus non-Equity stage productions.

“This was just another example of Trump’s Justice Department trying to please him and back up his fantasies through the misuse of the criminal justice system.”

“Electronic Arts Officially Belongs To Saudi Arabia, Private Equity, And Jared Kushner Now”.

“I’m not going to stop sitting outside of my home on my bench, and I’m not going to stop bringing awareness to the fact that armed National Guardsmen in any city in the U.S. is uncalled for.”

“Apple got an estimated $2.2 billion tariff refund last quarter. Amazon got $600 million. Nike got $300 million. But American consumers who paid higher prices as President Donald Trump’s tariffs filtered through the economy are getting almost nothing back.”

“Three states this year became the first ones to enact laws restricting companies from using personal data such as browsing history or shopping habits to set individualized prices on goods and services, a practice known as surveillance pricing.”

RIP, Shorty, possibly the world’s oldest llama.

RIP, David “Z” Rivkin, two-time Grammy-winning producer.

Wishing longtime Astros usher Suzann Richardson all the best in her retirement.

RIP, Margo Howard, writer, original “Dear Prudence” for Slate, daughter of Eppie Lederer, the original Ann Landers.

“And then it struck me that I was sitting there earnestly asking myself one of the most pernicious, corrosive, damnable questions one can ever wind up asking oneself: Who does and does not count as “our” people?”

“DoorDash is building its own drone delivery business.”

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | 3 Comments

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