Up, down
Abbot’s change of tone noticed.
If you ever doubted the power of an election, you should have listened to Gov. Greg Abbott’s State of the State address this week. Gone were the potty politics and wingnut call for a constitutional convention that were the hallmarks of his 2017 speech. Instead, he kept the focus on important issues like school finance reform, property taxes and mental health. It’s almost as if he realized that the general election matters more than the Republican primary.
Despite the governor’s cheery tone, not all is well in the Lone Star State. Two cities were ranked among the 50 worst places to live in the United States, according to Financial news website 24/7 Wall St. The Corpus Christi suburb Robstown and Waco suburb Bellmead both earned spots on the list due to crime, poverty, weak job markets and limited attractions. But the list can’t be that accurate — Robstown is the birthplace of Texas hold ’em poker. That’s a cultural achievement worthy of any top 10 list.
Don’t be surprised if the fancy River Oaks neighborhood lands on this list of municipal deplorables because apparently a master criminal is running wild along its tree-lined boulevards. Mayoral candidate Tony Buzbee’s home was robbed this week, and the thief got away with a treasure trove of art worthy of Carmen Sandiego herself — including a Pablo Picasso painting worth more than $2 million. The millionaire lawyer said he tried to shoot at the robber but his .22 misfired. Maybe it’s a sign that art of renown belongs in a museum. While Buzbee fiddles with his faulty trigger, Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen is handing out free gun locks. That’s the sort of prosafety agenda we like to see from law enforcement. Rosen might have some backup to his plan. State Rep. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, is proposing two bills to exempt firearm safety equipment from sales taxes and create stricter criminal penalties for making a firearm accessible to a child. Gun safety laws in the Lege? Maybe things really are changing in Texas.
Is former Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez trying to do his best Dr. Evil impression? He’s asking for One Million Dollars — mwahaha — in a lawsuit against a man who poured water on him during a news conference in December. We thought Republicans were against frivolous lawsuits.
In case anything went wrong at Trump’s State of the Union address — nuclear attack, bio-threat, catastrophic Capitol collapse — Secretary of Energy Rick Perry held the sacred burden of serving as designated survivor. You can almost hear him say it over the vision of a mushroom cloud in the background: Adios mofos.