News Roundup – Fort Worth Weekly

Dipshits in Austin Create Law that Accidentally Gives Life to Illegal Voting Appeal

There’s a great purpose you will have seen the DA’s workplace lately tweet about Crystal Mason, the Fort Worth lady who spent practically a 12 months within the clink for illegally voting in 2016’s presidential election. Her legal professionals try to spring her through a brand new Texas election regulation that simply went into impact. Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson believes Mason stays responsible. It’s there. In the tweet.

Mason’s ACLU legal professionals have filed a quick with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals searching for her conviction to be overturned. The odds of the plan working are nil — DA’s workplaces don’t like being instructed they’ve made a mistake, and as a non-rich Black lady, Mason completely embodies the voter-fraud boogeyman that conservatives like Wilson and just about each different pol within the state likes to assert is bedeviling the election course of: poor, brown, Antifa-joining, Satan-worshipping commies voting twice, harvesting ballots, voting on behalf of the lifeless, all of that. In actuality, voter fraud is statistically nonexistent, and of the few precise frauds who’ve been caught, a majority of them are white Trump supporters, a small however loud, obnoxious, and sometimes violent Republican-party offshoot not recognized for its smarts. Remember all these Trump boats that sunk in that dumb lake some time again? Ah, that was good.

That narrative, although. Conservatives bought to maintain pushing it to maintain forcing state legislators to proceed enacting “voter safety” measures, which truly quantity to vicious voter suppression techniques. Can’t beat your opponent with higher, extra well-liked concepts? Make certain your opponent’s supporters’ votes don’t rely. That’s the Republican means.

The 46-12 months-previous Mason was sentenced to 5 years in jail for casting a poll illegally. Since she was on supervised launch from a federal tax fraud conviction, she was not allowed to vote in any respect. Allegedly unaware of her standing and since she was instructed her title was not on the voter rolls, she forged a provisional poll. It was by no means counted. She was convicted in March 2018. Her sentencing drew all types of righteous outrage. There’s no telling what number of white criminals have gotten off with a lot lesser sentences for much worse, violent crimes. Or Kyle Rittenhouse. What explains that bullshit? His mother (!) drove him throughout state strains with a firearm into the center of a riot to manage first assist to injured … Boost Mobiles and Taco Bells? A Black youngster in the identical circumstances wouldn’t have lived to see the subsequent morning. There’s your American experiment at work.

The new regulation Mason and her crew wish to is Senate Bill 1. They imagine it “clarifies” that submitting a provisional poll is inadequate proof to show a voter knew she was ineligible to vote. Team Mason imagine the regulation is retroactive and {that a} reversal of her conviction is so as.

The new Texas election regulation, one among Mason’s attorneys instructed the Star-T, signifies that “an individual might not be convicted solely upon the truth that the particular person signed a provisional poll affidavit … except corroborated by different proof that the particular person knowingly dedicated the offense.”

Mason and her attorneys have additionally introduced up a bipartisan House decision through which “no Texan ought to be prosecuted for the offense of unlawful voting if the particular person voted or tried to vote based mostly on a mistaken, trustworthy perception that the particular person was in reality eligible to vote,” the lawyer instructed the Star-T.

The DA’s workplace has different ideas. In their tweet, they are saying Mason acquired verbal and written notification that she couldn’t vote.

“Even beneath the brand new regulation, she is responsible,” the DA says. “She wasn’t convicted merely for casting a provisional poll; she was convicted for casting a provisional poll when she knew she was ineligible to vote. Knowledge of ineligibility is essential.”

What I’d wish to know is the best way by which Mason was instructed she was ineligible. If there was a dialog together with her, who was on the opposite finish. Let’s hear their story. If it was a letter, then please. Most of my mail results in the shredder unread. If you might want to inform me one thing essential, John Law, higher not put it in a PAPER LETTER that goes within the MAILBOX. Unless it comes with a $250 test (thanks, Grandpa Joe!), I’m so not .

 

R’s Push Book Ban Because They Have No Original Ideas

We’re not speaking Updike, Pynchon, or Morrison right here, however we’re coping with literature that appeals to excessive schoolers. Not Penthouse Forum however one thing oddly type of shut.

In the wilds of Keller lately, a bunch of Karens pressured overwhelmed-canine officers to take away a e book from a highschool library for holding an outline of a hummer, amongst different acts of sexual intimacy. Gender Queer: A Memoir additionally options some express illustrations. Is the paintings any good? Because that’s all that basically issues.

Anyway, the factor is that whereas the Keller Karens are going round banning books, they could as nicely go forward and confiscate their children’ cellphones and laptops, too, as a result of little Jaxson Luger Bright and Brooklynne Anne Cassidy are seeing far more sexualized stuff on TikTookay and IG than they might come throughout in any college library.

If solely it have been about that. It just isn’t. This is concerning the Texas authorities making an attempt to play morality police and the evangelical horde falling in lockstep behind Greg Abbott and his cancerous cabal of vapid vampires. The governor doesn’t care that younger individuals with gender identification points are liable to self-hurt or that they’re possible trapped in uncaring, unforgiving households. Instead of making an attempt to make these youngsters really feel secure by providing them different, empathetic viewpoints like Gender Queer, Greggy seems to be involved that non-straight tales would possibly give straight, god-fearing Christian children some humorous concepts, which is ludicrous as a result of in the event you’re straight, you’re straight — no quantity of Satan dong (or lack thereof) or Satan boobage (or lack thereof) is gonna change that.

Abbott doesn’t care. He doesn’t perceive, for one, and for one more, it’s his job to wage absurd tradition wars to offer Republican politicians one thing to speak about to distract voters from his occasion’s actual No. 1 precedence: slashing taxes on the extremely-rich. Were Trailer Park Jed and his kinfolk to understand they’ve extra in frequent with the homosexual Black dude on the native dive bar than anybody within the state capital, Republican politicians would by no means win one other election once more. If solely Trailer Park Jed and his fam weren’t racist pukes. All Republican politicians must do now’s say they hate brown individuals with out truly popping out and saying, “We hate brown individuals” to get elected and reelected advert infinitum. We are solely a few months away from Republican workplace-seekers showing at rallies and city halls in white hoods. This is how far we’ve fallen. And the underside is … man, it’s means over our heads.

Conservative pols began whining about books in October, as soon as they realized that nobody — not even they — knew what Critical Race Theory (CRT) was or the way it utilized, or didn’t, to early schooling. Last month is when Abbott began hemming and hawing about “the provision of pornography” in Texas colleges. He even went so far as to inform the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to refer pornography “for prosecution to the fullest extent of the regulation.” Such a great, accountable use of the courts. Glad our taxpayer {dollars} are being employed so correctly.

As Texas’ new anti-abortion regulation is nothing however a shameless assault on minority ladies, so is that this half-assed e book ban a thinly veiled try to punish younger individuals with gender identification points. That wily Abbott, he is aware of you may’t speak gender with out speaking intercourse, and that’s what explains all this anti-e book nonsense, which is actually simply anti-LGBTQ+ evilness by evil fuckers like Greg Abbott who wouldn’t know a beatitude if it pierced him within the facet like a spear.

Fort Worth additionally has the excellence of being residence to some callow nerd named Matt Krause, who created an inventory of 850 allegedly problematic books to be banned from Texas colleges. Most of the listed titles cope with — what else — gender and racism. Along with considering that studying about gays will make one homosexual, Krause, like most ReTrumplicans, believes educating youngsters about slavery will make little child snowflake white children really feel saddy-waddy 🙁 Fuck you! Feel unhappy! And make it your life’s work by no means to let slavery and Jim Crow occur once more!

The Texas Tribune says, “While most college districts have ignored Krause’s inquiry” — hahaha! — “North East Independent School District in San Antonio is reviewing greater than 400 books flagged by the Republican lawmaker, and Katy Independent School District close to Houston has launched a broad assessment of its books and requested dad and mom to report any vulgar materials.”

It’s pathetic the lengths bootlickers will go to twist themselves into pretzels to lick the boots of the ass-clowns beneath them to attain political factors. Maybe Trump will converse at your dumb college district, Katy. Maybe he’ll do a Cameo that you would be able to screenshare throughout an meeting of future Hitler Youth. That could be extra #tyte than @khancherz hopped up on a grown-man can of Monster.

Fort Worth, Press Come Up with New Ways to Downplay Surging Economy

I really like Visit Fort Worth, however come on. The solely purpose lodge revenues are topping pre-pandemic ranges is that greater than half the inhabitants is vaccinated now as a result of we’ve got a president who places science over conspiracy theories. Didn’t Trump say COVID was going to vanish “like a miracle” sooner or later an extended-ass time in the past? It didn’t, and since his mouthpieces at Faux News saved harping on the purported risks of the vaccine simply to harm Grandpa Joe’s restoration efforts, we now have two variants to cope with. And a lot of corpses. Never thoughts that everybody at Faux News, together with Tucker Carlson, is vaccinated. As at all times, younger readers, watch what the evildoers do, not what they are saying.

In a Star-T story the opposite day, the top of Visit Fort Worth, our metropolis’s conference and tourism bureau, credited native resorts’ fats/phat revenues solely to the CARES Act, one thing handed by Congress within the first 12 months of the pandemic and signed by the orange buffoon. Please. While I’m not saying these federal monies didn’t assist, the rationale individuals are packing F-Dub resorts now’s that we’re all safer — thanks to at least one man, President Joe Biden. Dump bungled the complete early pandemic response and ought to be held accountable for all of the mindless demise we needed to endure on his watch. It wasn’t till Biden took workplace and tackled the problem with authority that we have been ready to return to eating places, return to reside music, and return to touring and staying in a single day at resorts. If not for Joe Biden, that “complimentary buffet” would nonetheless be prewrapped bear claws and tiny bottles of water, y’know, the one ones Donald Trump can drink with solely one among his tiny palms.

Since Biden took workplace, as of this writing, practically 6 million new jobs have been created, a file; practically 588,000 jobs monthly on common have been added; unemployment is all the way down to 4.2%, a file thus far; and lodge and restaurant employee wages are up 13%. In Biden’s first 10 months, 3 times as many roles have been created than beneath the final three GOP presidents mixed.

Let’s speak about inflation, as a result of I do know the Trumpies are going to throw that at me. It’s what occurs when demand is up and provide is down, and why is demand up? Because we’re working and have some money to throw round, and why is provide down? Because employees are transferring on from factories and warehouses into different, typically distant, typically a lot much less soul- and physique-crushing gigs. Don’t imagine the rip-off that the suitable and CNN and Faux News and The New York Times try to push on you. Let’s interview a Trumpy center supervisor who can’t imagine groceries price extra. Now she’s spending twice as a lot a month! Shame, Joe Biden. Shame. As Dan Price places it, “If corporations have been actually ‘pressured to boost costs’ due to inflation, they might have been ‘pressured to decrease costs’ after they bought $1.9 trillion in tax cuts. But they didn’t — they raised costs then, too.”

 

Power Grid About “Half-Ready,” Says Tribune

So, are you “half-prepared” to attempt to sleep with 100 blankets on once more? Or “half-prepared” to sit down in your automobile for a pair hours simply to remain heat? The excellent news, says the Texas Tribune, is that we’re not anticipated to expertise one other winter storm just like the one which zapped our ridiculous energy grid final 12 months. The unhealthy information is that Gov. Greg Abbott’s billionaire buddies at ERCOT are relying on balmy temps this time round as a result of what? You count on them to care about anybody aside from themselves and embryos? More than 100 Texans died final February. In response, Abbott established a number of protocols that every one of our power suppliers have crossed their hearts and hoped to die promised to comply with. Like with the gun pandemic, we’re getting ideas and prayers concerning the grid. But don’t you are worried. Abbott and his buddies gained’t spend a minute with out gentle or warmth, reward be. Or working water. My household needed to boil it out again on our propane grill to maintain from dying of thirst. I’m greater than “half-prepared” to forged my poll for Beto.

 

… But Will it Be Counted?

It’s past irritating. On the every day event I scroll by way of Twitter, nearly every little thing I see revolves round one factor: voting rights. How to enact them, tips on how to defend them, and tips on how to have them tattooed on each American citizen’s brow. And then there’s some tweet from Joe Biden about some ethnic vacation or COVID pictures. I. Don’t. Freaking. Care. If we don’t have voting rights, we’re not going to have any ethnic holidays to rejoice or COVID pictures to get. We’re going to be residing in chilly, darkish jail cells for daring to jerk off or for utilizing “tRump” in a textual content. Vice president will probably be that Hercules man, and Speaker of the House will probably be Walker, Texas Ranger. Or is he lifeless? Did Chuck Norris die? Anyway, his son or whomever, greatest buddy, somebody equally repulsive and idiotic.

Humorous? No (sorry), nevertheless it’s sufficient to underline the truth that although Grandpa Joe might win the 2024 well-liked vote and the electoral school vote by one other landslide, Trump bootlickers like Greg Abbott could have already rigged the system to elect the candidate they like relatively than the one most of us voted for. And that candidate goes to be the orange stain. This is horrifying stuff, children.

And now Congress is having fun with Christmas break, la-de-da, as if all is nicely on the earth and the reptiles on the opposite facet of the aisle aren’t plotting the demise of democracy itself — everybody who isn’t a strolling corpse is aware of the subsequent coup try gained’t have the touristy, smash-and-seize joie de vivre of Jan. 6 however that it is going to be a viper of hardened metal that may pierce our souls in the course of the night time. But, please, Chuck and Nancy, and Grandpa Joe, get pleasure from your fucking vacation. Build Back Better? Meh, it might probably wait. Women’s reproductive rights? Later. Mark Meadows and the remainder of the Jan. 6 traitors? Next 12 months. As I’ve mentioned, get pleasure from your downtime, you physique luggage with legs. These holidays might very nicely be our final as a free individuals. The reality that you simply’ll be lifeless quickly ought to be no consolation. Don’t you might have children? And grandkids?! Don’t you might have nightmares of seeing them chained to Junior’s basement and used as lion bait? Because that’s the long run they’re taking a look at now with you along with your thumbs up your asses.

The mainstream media machine can’t be trusted both. The Times. I used to need to write for the Gray Lady, however now I wouldn’t need my distinguished popularity as a nicely-that means however offended hack sullied by being related to that birdcage liner. And they’re not the one one. Every mainstream media outlet you may consider has taken on the anti-Biden narrative simply to stay related, as a result of don’t ya know the TikTokers and the Instgrammers and the Facetubers are consuming into all our oh-so-respectable fourth estating. Now the Times et al. have been lowered to peddling pearl-clutching each-sides schlock to have the ability to promote $50 toesocks and $5,000 gravity blankets. The destiny of democracy means nothing to the press — the Times, the Post, CNN, and each different Amazon spinoff masquerading as some type of beacon of fact — till it does, at which level it is going to be too late. What any affordable particular person would suppose is essential and ought to be coated just isn’t. Example: Some Trump bootlicker made a PowerLevel of the bloody coup try days earlier than Jan. 6 — if solely he had produced it on a personal e-mail server and have been a girl working for president, possibly you’d have examine it within the Times. Like, every single day. For months. Alas …

We do what we are able to right here with our political protection. I write scorching shit, and over the previous couple of weeks, we’ve investigated shady dealings on the DA’s workplace and an online of monied proper-wingers shifting college coverage in Southlake onerous to the suitable. Our investigative employees is tiny (two, generally three individuals). We’re making an attempt, although it’s not sufficient. It’s by no means sufficient.

“The small-d democrats of American journalism must do higher,” the Philly Inquirer lately wrote. “We must … sound the alarm in ways in which the typical rank-and-file reader will each perceive and care about. That means realizing that whereas those that’ve descended into the madness of QAnon or horse-dewormer COVID-19 cures gained’t be reached by any article in a mainstream publication, there are nonetheless loads of good-hearted however discouraged voters who have to be roused.”

Ah, the impartial voter, that nicely-that means however soulless malingerer. We all know he’s who’s maintaining Chuck and Nancy away from D.C. for the vacations. Don’t need to upset that bro by truly governing or by truly holding traitors accountable for his or her seditious actions that have been broadcast to the world on TV.

The Atlantic is the one MSM entity that will get it. In a complete latest concern dedicated to the demise of democracy, the editor writes, “The leaders of the Republican occasion — the soul-blighted Donald Trump and the satraps and lackeys who abet his nefarious conduct — are trying to destroy the foundations of American democracy. This should be acknowledged clearly, and repeatedly.”

It’s a “democratic emergency” that’s “already right here,” one regulation professor tells them. “We face a severe danger that American democracy as we all know it would come to an finish in 2024, however pressing motion just isn’t taking place.”

Of course it isn’t. Who’s gonna feed the doggos in Delaware? Who’s going to gentle the menorah in New York? Who’s gonna tipple the malbec in San Fran?

“For greater than a 12 months now,” The Atlantic writes, “with tacit and express assist from their occasion’s nationwide leaders, state Republican operatives have been constructing an equipment of election theft. Elected officers in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and different states have studied Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election. They have famous the factors of failure and have taken concrete steps to keep away from failure subsequent time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to grab partisan management of selections about which ballots to rely and which to discard, which ends to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping energy from election officers who refused to associate with the plot final November, aiming to switch them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are superb-tuning a authorized argument that purports to permit state legislators to override the selection of the voters.”

Thanks to Tucker Carlson and different proper-wing propagandists, Trump has corrupted virtually half of the populace into believing U.S. elections are fraught with corruption and {that a} charlatan is presently occupying the White House. What we rational individuals say or do doesn’t matter. The orange stain’s true believers are adamant of their model of actuality, which is patently false. Belief calls for blindness. They gained’t cease till demise comes to at least one or all. Embryos, tax cuts, and white supremacy simply imply that a lot to them. And Christmas bushes. To watch Fox News for one second, you’d suppose their studio had been firebombed the best way the hosts have been happening and on about their silly plastic tree that was torched by some homeless man. Always the victims, these individuals. Always the victims.

Bottom line is, nobody is coming to avoid wasting us. We can’t rely on Joe Biden. We can’t rely on Congress. We are the cavalry. We are the one factor between a church-state and democracy. Get your block-walkin’ sneakers on, kinfolk. Next 12 months is now.