Thumbs: Paxton smokes Cornyn in brisket war
We’d expect a think tank dedicated to eliminating property taxes in Texas to do their level best to wriggle out of their own. The right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation has done just that by securing an exemption as a “scientific research organization.” What galls us is that TPPF also secured a subsidized loan from a federal program meant for “improvements in the lives of residents of low-income communities,” according to reporting by Texas Monthly. The TPPF is hardly focused on the interests of the down-and-out, and they’re certainly not cash-strapped, though the think tank’s financial consultants told the magazine they “adhered to the necessary legal, regulatory, and contractual frameworks in place at the time.” Their board has had several billionaires including Tim Dunn, a Midland oil and gas executive who is bankrolling the push for education savings accounts, otherwise known as vouchers, with the aim of diverting public school funding to Christian private schools. TPPF’s political machinations, err … scientific research, take place in an $18 million building appointed with Texasthemed inlaid floors, golden-metal elevator doors, a wood-paneled library and a balcony with views of the nearby state Capitol in Austin. Their former TPPF executives now run the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation, both of which are hard at work incubating the ideas and staffing for a second Trump presidency. Your tax dollars smoothing the way not just for the Lone Star plutocracy but for the nation! New York Mayor Eric Adams continues to excel at playing into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border theater around busing migrants to blue cities. Ahead of Abbott’s visit to the Big Apple for a Republican fundraiser, Adams appealed for more coordination and invited the governor to sleep in a migrant shelter “so he can see what he has created and understand how we are treating people with the dignity and respect that he should have shown.” Certainly, Abbott could benefit from hearing migrants’ stories. He ought to take Adams up on the offer and bring Ken Paxton along so the Texas attorney general can complete some of the community service hours he agreed to in his felony securities fraud deal. But Adams has once again given Abbott reason to remind Americans that he didn’t create this crisis, and instead lay all the blame on President Joe Biden. If he were fair, Abbott would hold Congress accountable for failing to pass a tough bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year. Instead, he told his Manhattan crowd that he’d keep busing migrants to the city “until we get a new president.”
Gotcha, Colin Allred! The Texas Tribune reports that the U.S. representative from Dallas voted for a so-called TikTok ban only to continue posting on the Chinese-owned social media platform afterward. Why is Allred still sharing videos on the popular app if it’s a national security threat? In a statement after his vote, Allred pointed out the bill isn’t exactly a ban. It would merely require TikTok’s parent company to sell TikTok to an American company. We suspect the Democrat would be quicker to quit TikTok if he weren’t in the middle of campaigning to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in November. That, or Allred’s got a fullblown, dopamine-fueled social media addiction #laugh #trending #vote. Speaking of elected officials with social media habits, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican who leads his chamber in tweeting and could potentially be the Senate’s future majority leader, nearly broke the internet by once again posting a photograph of his wife’s holiday brisket, if that’s what you call the glass baking dish of beef shards, trimmed of all visible fat and slathered in a ketchup-hued sauce. “Let the brisket wars begin — again,” he wrote above the image. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton couldn’t wait the pounce. The unscrupulous right-wing Republican who frequently clashes with the more sane, dignified, and notunder-FBI-invesigation Cornyn, wrote: “Senator, this is what you think is real brisket when you have been in the swamp too long.” Paxton included an image of what brisket should look like: a moist fanning of sliced, slow-smoked brisket with perfectly crusted burnt ends and not a drop of sauce in sight. Still, Cornyn’s rekindling of the brisket wars was a gutsy move four years after the firestorm that erupted when he posted a similar picture. Either the man really loves his wife or he has a deeper message. “There are many ways to prepare brisket,” Cornyn wrote, “and I love them all.” You got to give the man credit for turning one of the least appetizing food photos ever shot into a unifying credo during these troubled times. E pluribus unum!
No shelter for Abbott in NYC; Allred can’t quit TikTok
Houston Council Member Edward Pollard’s plan for speed bumps has hit a speed bump. He presented an ordinance last week that would make it easier to get them installed on neighborhood streets. Until recently, with few exceptions, only the mayor could put an ordinance to a vote, but a new charter amendment approved by voters last year allows a coalition of council members to put items on the agenda without the mayor’s approval. Nevertheless, a majority of Pollard’s peers sent his proposal to a committee for further review. We’re in favor of good governance, and slower neighborhood streets, so we hope worthwhile ideas from council members don’t end up in a bureaucratic pileup.
Last year, we published an editorial revealing that Petland Bellaire was ignoring a city ordinance banning puppy mills. Despite the owner eventually being arrested, the store continued to sell puppies and rack up citations, until now. According to the Texas Humane Legislation Network, the store has stopped selling puppies, though locations outside Houston still do. Continued public pressure does make a difference for all the pups out there.