#fuck the Texas legislature

[stargazer56]

The Texas Supreme Court and the AG can fuck all the way off with their shitty abortion denying ruling.

[sonicunleash]

It's so funny i leave for like an hour and let one post saying nothing more than "slurs are called slurs because they are words that are used by our oppressors derogatorily and harmfully and you should be considerate when using them around our lgbt siblings" have reblogs on and im getting anon asks calling me a terf and saying im siding with our oppressors. lol we are not making it

[beesbutreal]

i love trying not to cry in front of my coworkers when i see headlines about trans genocide

[agoralgia]

My late New Year’s resolution is to become as libfem as possible because I hate evangelicals and right-wingers more than almost anything else.

[jackmedwn]

Bo French on X: "🚨China is Buying Texas Oil (and our politicians)🚨 Chinese Communist-backed companies, with lobbyists in our Texas Capitol, are drilling under our feet in Tarrant County. They're not just after our land; they're buying influence in our state legislature. If you’ve been" / X

There is no way the Biden State Dept., Dept of Energy, and DOJ didn't know this. These treasonous fucks sold out America.

[dosesofcommonsense]

The Texas property tax system is a racket! They’ve had ALL year to determine taxes and wait for the last 2.5 months to tell you what they are. Your Escrow’s been collecting based on last year’s value. This year’s numbers are always different, normally higher.

Tax Assessor offices can raise primary residence taxes by as much as 10%. Tell me an office that’s not raising taxes and revenue. “OMG. Who would have thought? Your taxes went up just high/low enough to not be contested. So weird.” Fuck off!

The same offices can raise investment property taxes by as much as 20%!

The Texas Legislature has much to fix. If we’re keeping property taxes the same, why are they going up? Why are we spending more? Why aren’t we doing more with what we have? Why aren’t we paying teachers more? Why do we still have property taxes? We generate plenty of tax through the state tax rate.

On the surface, Dade Phelan (Speaker of Texas House) is running a people’s government more akin to Globalism than real Conservatism that’s by the people and for the people (not his friends, lobbyists, and everyone who’s not a Texan). Tell me how higher taxes and less transparency (#openthebooks, seriously where does the money go?) equal more freedom and prosperity.

Texas is still a conservative state, but we need a leader who’s not a Globalist and traitor.

[ghostowlattic]

Da' Fuck with this state.

Texas IQ Massacre

[graphicnovelist]

The movie going audience has suddenly been reminded that the Beastie Boys exist and I’m here for it

Gwen and the crew heading out to save Miles

[fluffypotatey]

i don't know if y'all know just how terrific (said with barely restrained anger) the state of Texas, USA ads campaigns have become :)

like.

i don't think y'all understand how fucking horrible Ted Cruz is and the rest of the state's legislature is. how horribly transphobic and misogynistic they are. how terrifying it will be if this asshole stays in office

i don't think y'all know how important this election is for the state of Texas, USA

so please :) if you live here. check if you're registered :)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

George Chidi at The Guardian:

Atlanta is, from time to time, the center of the political universe. It is also home to all things evil and villainous, a festering cesspool of lurid crime, a “shooting gallery” in the words of Donald Trump, spoken in the vile confines of a brand new college basketball arena amid the unspeakable horrors of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood with a microbrewery. Conservatives stoking fear of big cities would be a joke, if not for the damage it does. In May, the FBI arrested Mark Adams Prieto, a 58-year-old gun show dealer from Prescott, Arizona, on firearms trafficking charges. Prieto had been on the way to Atlanta at the time, according to court documents, because he planned to kill as many Black people as he could at a Bad Bunny concert while planting Confederate flags and shouting white power slogans, to provoke a race war ahead of the 2024 election.

“The reason I say Atlanta,” Prieto allegedly told an informant working with the FBI, “Why, why is Georgia such a fucked-up state now? When I was a kid that was one of the most conservative states in the country. Why is it not now? Because as the crime got worse in LA, St Louis and all these other cities, all the n****** moved out of those [places] and moved to Atlanta.” Prieto is a product of decades of Republican fearmongering, not just about Atlanta, but about big cities across the country. This is the message that Tucker Carlson and other conservative pundits have been pushing for years about San Francisco, New York and Detroit – it’s exactly the same way conservatives amped up their rhetorical combat on Chicago in the wake of Barack Obama’s ascension to the White House 16 years ago. It’s not because of crime. Cities in every country have long had more crime than their suburban counterparts, simply because it’s easier to commit a crime in a city, and it has largely trended downward. It’s because Democrats – often Black Democrats – control most big city governments, and they help national politicians win. Joe Biden won 85% of San Francisco’s votes in 2020. He also won 83% of Chicago, 77% of Los Angeles and 76% of New York City.

As a result, conservative state governments are cauterizing upstart municipalities, burning any pretense of respect for small-D democracy at the local level in the process. They fear those blue dots will bleed enough Black political power into red states to turn them purple and cost them the White House, not just in 2024, but permanently. Race is at the center of the fear. “Any mayor, county judge that was dumb-ass enough to come meet with me, I told them with great clarity, my goal is for this to be the worst session in the history of the legislature for cities and counties.” That’s former Texas House speaker Dennis Bonnen, in a conversation recorded with another legislator leaked to the Texas Tribune in 2019. In response to Austin legislation requiring water breaks for construction workers in the punishing Texas heat, the Republican-controlled legislature in 2023 passed what progressives call the “Death Star” bill. The law in effect ends the practice of home rule in Texas governments – a legal principle enshrined in the Texas constitution and that of many states – giving cities broad autonomy to create local laws, as long as those laws do not conflict with state or federal law.

House Bill 2127 takes that power away from cities in a swath of policy areas, from managing climate change to labor law. The law is in legal limbo today. But the damage is already being done to municipal leaders, who are frozen in place waiting for the case to be resolved. This story is playing out across the country, with red state governments seeing big blue cities as launching places for progressive ideas. In the wake of the deadly police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, the city government created a police review board. Tennessee’s conservative legislature promptly passed a law banning such boards. Nashville’s response to the Covenant school shooting led to protesters in and outside the state capitol. The legislature responded with an attempt to cut Nashville’s elected metro council in half and threatened takeovers of the city’s sports and airport authority boards. Florida has blocked its cities from passing LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination ordinances, from regulating pit bulls, from making socially conscious investments, and from passing local zoning laws around “missing middle” housing and building construction. Florida’s famous “don’t say gay” bill mandates local school boards to provide politically vetted instructional materials.

[...]

Why would Trump trash a city like Milwaukee – or Atlanta, for that matter – in a swing state in an election year? Because those cities cost him those states in 2020. On the podium on a fateful 6 January 2021, speaking to a group of supporters who would eventually become a riot storming the Capitol, Trump intoned a litany of grievances with no regard for evidence and repeating debunked claims from these cities. Trump said Fulton county in Georgia was “corrupt” and had stuffed machines with fake votes. Detroit had “139%” turnout – a lie – after canvassers were “re-scanning batches of ballots over and over again” – another lie. The grievance lives on. When Trump was speaking in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood in August, he described Atlanta as “like a killing field”, referencing a recent high-profile murder downtown. When Congressman John Lewis refused to attend Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Trump suggested by tweet that the city was “crime infested” and that Lewis “should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart”.

Trump refused to observe Lewis’s death with dignity as a revered civil rights icon. He instead attacked Lewis’s legacy, telling a reporter he “couldn’t say one way or another” whether Lewis was worthy of praise, complaining again about being snubbed at the inauguration and musing about how the Civil Rights Act had “worked out” for Black voters. Atlantans have not forgotten these insults. Fulton and DeKalb counties – Atlanta’s core – delivered a net gain of about 140,000 votes for Biden in 2020. Overall turnout in Georgia increased by about 20% four years ago; in these counties, Democratic turnout increased by about 32%. Lewis’s name was on their lips as they stood in line to vote. The Trump campaign had been trying to coax Black voters into their camp, with events like the launch of his Black voter coalition group at a historically Black church in Detroit in June. Even then, in an audience packed with almost exclusively white supporters, he once again railed against cities and crime. “Look, the crime is most rampant right here and in African American communities,” Trump said at 180 Church in Detroit. “More people see me and they say, ‘Sir, we want protection. We want police to protect us. We don’t want to get robbed and mugged and beat up or killed.’” Between the rise of Kamala Harris after Biden’s withdrawal and the pratfall of comments about “Black jobs”, in front of a group of Black journalists, Trump has begun abandoning the pretense of cross-racial outreach in favor of railing against “sanctuary cities”. Over the last few weeks, he has made a tour of sundown towns – communities that would terrorize Black people caught within the city limits after sundown – on the campaign trail.

Why are Republicans stoking fears of big cities, especially big cities in red states? It’s because those cities are Black-majority and are heavily Democratic.

[maxbegone]

wip wednesday aka i can't believe i'm actually writing again

working on a thing affectionately titled "rwrb fic or something." i hope you enjoy.

They’re on the road by one, and a little over an hour later, Alex is walking through Austin with Henry at his side. Henry’s in Alex’s Stetson, which, Alex says, is the hottest he’s ever seen him. He notes that he has to get him his own one of these days. At this point, it’s a necessity.

They make a beeline for Franklin Barbecue with one of each of their respective security teams in line with them, and Alex is nearly vibrating out of his skin as he talks about the first time he came here with his family when his mom was in the state legislature and held a fundraising event. He and June both fell asleep in the car on the way home, exhausted from the excitement and the brisket and the pulled pork. They each had to be carried inside.

“I swear I smell this place in my dreams.”

It takes a while, but it’s worth it, just like Alex expected it to be. His fingers are covered in grease and sauce, and there’s a solid mountain of thin paper napkins on the table along with several wipe packs torn open, but none of it stops him from using the heels of his hands to grab Henry’s face and kiss his own sauce-covered lips.

“No, this is the hottest I’ve ever seen you,” he announces into the little space between them.

Henry, whose hands are similar to Alex’s but suspended in mid-air, laughs. “I feel like I need a shower.”

“That can be arranged.” And, because he’s a menace to society, Alex doesn’t break eye contact as he sticks his thumb in his mouth and sucks off the excess sauce.

Henry drops his head, shaking it back and forth. “Oh, that’s not fair.”

“You can be a little messy, Your Majesty, no one gives a shit.”

“You’re a horrible influence on me.”

“You say horrible, I hear wonderful.” Alex goes to do it again, but is stopped this time by the way Henry is batting his hand away and kissing him.

Then he’s saying, “Show me messy,” in a low, sultry voice and Alex immediately makes them wrap up and get out of there.

They end up in a random bar, one that’s starting to get busy now that it’s early evening, and he drags Henry straight to the bathroom which, miraculously, turns out to be a single-person accommodation. Even if it wasn’t, Alex knows Cash is stationed a few feet away outside.

If Henry wants to see messy, then Alex will gladly show him messy. He drops to his knees with a wink, undoing his belt and turning his baseball hat around so the brim isn’t in the way. Thus marks the first Texas dive bar-based blowjob Henry’s received, cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of red and chest heaving.

“Fuck,” Alex hears above him. “I—fuck.”

“Such a way with words, sweetheart.” He stands, giving Henry a proper kiss.

“Why was that so…so mind blowing?” Henry asks. He’s still moderately panting.

Alex leans back against the sink, arms out. “It’s Texas, baby!”

Apparently that’s enough of an answer for Henry, who weakly pushes off the wall that’s covered in stickers and silver Sharpie profanity, slamming into him. He wouldn’t be surprised if his lips were a little bruised later on tonight, but he doesn’t care. Not when Henry’s on him like this.

They go at it until there’s a knock on the door and Cash’s voice carries through, saying, “You got a line forming,” forcing them to make themselves look presentable.

Alex laughs. “Shit.”

“How about you buy me a beer and show me how to line dance?” Henry suggests as they exit, his fingers hooked into one of Alex’s belt loops to keep him close. They’re met with a mostly unfazed short line of bar-goers and Cash.

“I swear if I wasn’t so fucking love with you already,” Alex trails off, guiding Henry toward an already-forming crowd.

It’s ridiculous and lovely in every single way; Henry misses the mark several times, bumps into Alex nearly every other step, barely catching himself in the process. By the time he does get the hang of it, there’s an older woman in a frilly dress and brick red lipstick grabbing Henry by the hand and spinning him around. There’s a permanent smile plastered to his face, and as Alex takes a quick breather and watches as the woman pats Henry’s left leg as a way of telling him to move it back and follow her lead, he finds himself putting this whole day on the list of his favorites when it comes to that man.

The thing is, Texas looks good on Henry; he’s already sunkissed from just two days at the lake, but it’s not only that. He’s more carefree here, more himself. Alex knows not everyone is going to recognize Henry, even if Alex’s own mother is the President and just last year he, a native Texan, was involved in an international scandal with that very Prince of England. But either that doesn’t matter or at the moment, the universe doesn’t care, because Henry is laughing and likely talking freely with more strangers now than he ever has in his life.

Henry can be shy and reserved, a natural introvert from years of Royal protocol, while Alex has a caffeine addiction and is always running a mile a minute. If given the opportunity, they’ll both have their noses in some sort of book or, if prompted, can wax poetic about their greatest passions. They’re two very different external personalities, but so similar deep down. They meld so well. If Henry’s the glue that keeps Alex from truly falling apart on his worst days, he only hopes he can be the same.

Alex is pulled out of his thoughts by Henry himself walking over with outstretched hands, a little breathless.

“Rhoda has demanded I make you join us,” he says cheerily, lacing their fingers together.

“Is she your new dance teacher?” Alex teases, watching as Henry rolls his eyes.

“Yes, she’s much better than you. Now, come on, before the song ends.”

[attorney-anon]

What the Actual Fuck.

(TW: Cussing, homophobia)

So, I am appellate counsel for a case in Bumfuck Nowhere, Texas, and I am spitting mad right now.

The cast:

A: My client. A party to both GD and HBPC.

Awesome: A's trial counsel in GD

Amazing: A's trial counsel in HBPC.

Me: Appellate counsel for A in HBPC.

B: A's good-for-nothing spouse. A party to both GD and HBPC.

Bitch: A's trial counsel in GD and HBPC.

C: the petitioner in HBPC. Not a party to GD.

Cunt: C's trial counsel in GD and HBPC.

Kiddo: A and B's child, who has lived with A and B since birth.

Judge Bigot: The judge for both GD and HBPC.

The case:

Gay Divorce (Cause No. GD). A divorce between A and B.

Homophobic Bullshit Parentage Case (Cause No. HBPC). A parentage action by C, instigated at the insistence of B, with the intent of kicking A out of Kiddo's life.

C's argument is that A and B cannot both be the legal parents of Kiddo (age 12), because A and B are the same sex, and that because C and B are the biological parents of Kiddo, A should have no rights to Kiddo post-divorce. (This is a surprisingly common strategy in same-sex divorces with children in this state, because people are awful).

So a few months ago, Amazing filed (at my direction) a Plea to the Jurisdiction in HBPC alleging that C waited too long to assert parentage of Kiddo (because C did, in fact, wait too long to assert parentage of Kiddo), and therefore C lacks standing to bring the claim. The court therefore lacks jurisdiction to grant C's relief. We have not been able to schedule a hearing on this motion because C's counsel never responds to scheduling emails.

This morning, a temporary orders hearing was held on GD due to some amicus attorney shenanigans. A and B are present with Awesome and Bitch. Inexplicably, C and Cunt also show up to this hearing (🚩). Awesome requests to go on the record. Judge Bigot declines (🚩). At one point during the hearing, Awesome steps out in the hallway to confer with Bitch. A and B remain in the courtroom, as do C and Cunt (🚩). While Awesome and Bitch are in the hallway, Judge Bigot grants C's relief in HBPC (🚩🚩🚩). When Awesome returns to the courtroom and is informed of this fact by a now-panicking A, Awesome attempts to object, and is told to sit down and shut up (🚩) because the legislature, in limiting the time within which C could bring HBPC, clearly didn't mean to deprive children of their God-given right (🚩), to be raised by their traditional, (🚩) normal (🚩) families with one mom and one dad (🚩).

Awesome calls Amazing. Amazing calls me. Amazing is now working on a Motion to Reconsider/Motion for New Trial due to lack of notice, since HBPC was NOT FUCKING SET FOR TODAY (🚩), and because Judge Bigot didn't rule on the PTJ before granting C's relief (🚩). We also suspect ex parte communication, since Cunt and C somehow knew to show up to this hearing where C's input was neither wanted nor needed since C isn't a fucking party to this case (🚩). I am working on getting the notice of appeal and request for findings of fact and conclusions of law out, so that Judge Bigot has to put his reasoning on paper in black and white.

And we'll still probably lose the appeal, because this is Texas.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I usually balk at those annoying liberals who blame normal people for red state regression, "this is what you get for voting Republican, this is your fault, I hope you got what you wanted," because 9 times out of 10 it's the politicians who are the problem. They are no longer beholden to a majority (not sure they ever really were), and completely divorced from reality, but sometimes I do have to wonder why normal people love them so much. It's one thing to defend voters in Wisconsin or Texas where things are close to 50-50 and the state legislatures have gerrymandered themselves into a permanent majority regardless of the popular vote, but then you have ethnostates like Idaho and Wyoming that are like >80% Republican and >90% white, and I have to come to terms with the fact that a lot of my countrymen really do want everyone who isn't them to live in squalor. Idaho; no abortions, no traveling out of state for abortions, a lot of hospitals no longer delivering babies because they're afraid of getting sued by the government for imaginary abortions, it's an unlivable hellscape for women, and yet a supermajoroty support the fucking Handmaid's Tale. How can anyone be single issue in today's climate? How can anyone ignore the glaring breaches of freedom just because their representative hates the same people they do? Florida's no better, we're arguably worse, what with the fucking demon we have as a governor, I just don't understand why anyone wants to live like this? How can a party that has controlled the government unopposed for decades shift blame onto the side that has been out of power the whole time? Why is there so much wanton cruelty? Are we really a society of sociopaths who just want to do harm for harm's sake? It's like the people who voted for the Leopards Eating Faces Party have stopped complaining that the leopards are eating their faces and are instead embracing it like it is their civic duty.

"I regret that I have but one face to give for my leopard!"

[metfell]

because its like. if i go into education specifically high school education i'm going to have to be the teacher that has to try and force people to care about art and there's just a sizeable amount of people in public high schools who Do Not Fucking Care about art. and its like okay well How do you get people to care about something.

i care about it because of really fucking poetic and autistic things like "its what makes us human" "everything around us is art" "anyone can do art and saying you cant even draw a stick figure is self deprecation and you're bullying yourself into never trying" but after going to so many schools because of moving around i can confirm if you tell people that stuff- and they do not want to learn about art or care about it- they will just think you're stupid and refuse to listen to you.

also i'm absolutely going to be that teacher that gets really really annoyed when people talk in class it drives me. fucking crazy. because i start focusing on what they're saying and i completely lose track of whatever i was going to say.

and THEN there's the whole bit of wanting to go into education but also wanting to be openly and visibly nonbinary and it's like oh i may want to consider moving states so i don't have to deal with texas legislature.

SORRY I'M JUST THINKING. AND ALSO PROCRASTINATING MY ESSAYS.

[socialistexan]

I know saying "Republicans and Democrats are exactly the same, there is no difference" is the easy, catchy thing to say. But it's short, quipy, and wrong.

Just look at trans rights. Republicans in my state *right now* are trying reverse sex marker changes (because we don't have gender markers on our state documents) that have been in place for years or even decades. Our legislature will be in session in January, and a full on ban on adults using hrt is already in the works. If that ban fails in the legislature, our state executive

Democrats aren't these hyper-progressive leftist, there is no truly left wing party in America (including the Greens because they're just a giant grift now).

But one party would allow me to have basic human rights, rights that I think queers in blue cities in blue states take for fucking granted.

I might have to flee the one state in I have lived my entire 34 years of life in. The one where nearly all of my family lives in. The one I grew up in and love. Where my holocaust surviving great-grandmother found a home in for her final 70 years of life.

And I would be moving to a state controlled by Democrats. Where my rights are, bare minimum, protected. Do they do more than just enough? No! Is there work to be done even in those states? Yes! Do nasty bigots exist everywhere? Of course! But the legal repression in addition to suppression of protest in this state has made it damn near impossible for me to live my life here.

That's the difference. You need the bare minimum to build towards something better. You don't let shit slide into what Texas has become. In my lifetime we went from having a liberal Democratic governor and a 50/50 legislature to a near conservative theocracy where any form of organizing (not even protesting, I'm talking about registering people to vote or organizing mutual aid) is met with police raids, state lawsuits, arrests, and violence.

[merrikstryfe]

looooool the TX GOP legislature is impeaching Ken Paxton on twenty (20) counts of "bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust" hell yeah get fucked asswipe

@anxiousyetepic this should brighten your day