Thumbs up, down: Real fear revealed
Patrick warns of ‘invasion’ of future Dems; something’s in the water; a jaws-dropping video.
gotta give Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick some credit. While other Republicans in this state slink around pushing anti-immigrant policies under the purported guise of border security, Patrick isn’t afraid to give the lowdown on the GOP’s real disdain for migrants. And it is indeed low down. Patrick, commenting on Fox News about the “invasion” at the Southern border, seemed to suggest that Haitian asylumseekers aren’t really fleeing disaster and unrest and Cubans aren’t really fleeing communism. They’ve really been sent here, Patrick argued, by President Joe Biden as part of an intricate, yearslong plot to import foreigners so they’ll vote Democratic. “The revolution has begun, a silent revolution by the Democratic Party and Joe Biden to take over this country,” Patrick declared. “In 18 years, if every one of them has two or three children, you’re talking about millions and millions and millions of new voters.” Patrick reasoned that migrants will be grateful to a Democratic administration for “bringing them here.” “Who do you think they’re going to vote for?” he said. “This is trying to take over our country without firing a shot.” It’s a clever scheme. But leave it to a liberal to fail to execute a government program. While the Biden administration will process some of the Haitians coming by land, it’s still turning away the many who arrive by boat, seemingly forfeiting all those precious votes. Now that Patrick is on to Biden, his party has a chance to thwart the plan by showing some compassion and at least due process to these huddled masses yearning to breathe free. With the hospitality Patrick and his party have shown, we have no idea why they wouldn’t vote Republican.
While some are clambering to get into Texas, others are rearing to leave. And the employees of one California-based public relations firm will get paid to give Texas the boot. The tech PR firm Bospar is offering $10,000 to Texas-based employees wanting to relocate to a state where their full constitutional freedoms are respected, including the right to control their own reproductive health. A new law that essentially bans abortions in the Lone Star State is prompting many to talk openly about leaving, to which many anti-abortion rights Republicans will gladly say “good riddance.” While some of us native Texans will stay and fight for the state we love, we respect the decisions of our neighbors who have decided to live free or fly.
But really, what’s wrong with Texas today? How did it get so crazy? Maybe there’s something in the water. Indeed, there is. Apparently, Austin-area funeral homes — and perhaps others across the state — have been pouring embalming fluid and human blood from corpses down the drain without letting local water officials know. The Austin American-Statesman reported that water officials said the fluids could interfere with the treatment of wastewater entering the Colorado River and that no funeral homes had sought permits for such disposal. The good news, if you’re inclined to want some from this foul situation: an official with the Texas Funeral Service Commission said the substances aren’t dangerous because they’re diluted. The bad news? The officials said over 1,600 funeral homes across Texas dispose of blood and other fluids the same way: down the drain.
On the subject of bad blood, U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Lizzie Fletcher made news this week for an apparent upheaval in their heretofore civil relationship in Washington. Crenshaw, a Republican bomb-thrower, and Fletcher, a moderate Democratic peacemakior er, had it out in a committee discussion on the gargantuan “Build Back Better” bill. Republicans offered an amendment that could have deprived entire cities, and even the entire state of Texas, of emergency 911 funding if even one city considered reducing police funding. The amendment was just intended to point out the hypocrisy of Democrats who talk about “de-funding the police” but don’t consider the implications, Crenshaw argued, breaching decorum by calling out some progressive Democrats by name. Fletcher wasn’t having it. The congresswoman who represents Houston, which actually increased police funding, decried the “gotcha amendment” which she deemed “not serious governance.” That’s polite Lizziespeak for “Oh no you didn’t!”
Our thoughts exactly on a far more sordid drama in the Twittersphere this week. Even by the dystopian sartorial standards of the Met Gala, this year’s red carpet soiree was larger than life. But apparently not as large as Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles. The Queens rapper took to Twitter this week to explain that she skipped the gala because the event required a COVID vaccine and she needed to do more research before getting the jab. All right. And what expert vaccine authority was she consulting for her research? Apparently, a friend of her cousin in Trinidad who got the vaccine and, as the story goes, not only became impotent but “his testicles became swollen,” causing his fiancée to call the wedding off. Great balls of fire, that’s harsh. Minaj’s TMI tweet so inflamed social media that the Trinidad health minister felt compelled to debunk the story during a press conference. And if Minaj’s behavYou wasn’t ballsy enough, she then claimed that she’d been invited by the White House to discuss this claim. But that story, too, was
debunked when the Biden administration clarified: It just offered to make a doctor available to talk to her about vaccines. No word on whether they offered health advice on the testicles.
It’s hard to know what to believe anymore. That might explain why some people were willing to believe this week that a jaws-dropping video on social media actually depicted a live shark being tossed to and fro on a Port O’Connor roadside as Hurricane Nicholas reenacted his favorite scene from “Sharknado.” Turned out, it was really a 15-foot fiberglass replica named Bruce that belonged to a local restaurant. But how about a real-life unicorn sighting to heal your disappoint? In 2018, after Amazon’s Bachelorette-style search for is national headquarters didn’t even bother to take Houston on a second date, city leaders cried cheap-mascara tears over the need to nurture high-tech innovation hubs. Sure, Houston has a large number of Fortune 500 companies, but we don’t have “unicorns” — business jargon for startup companies valued at over $1 billion. In 2020, Houston got its first unicorn when HighRadius, an accounting software company led by Sashi Narahari, had its calls returned by big funders. This month another unicorn was spotted nibbling at the grass along Buffalo Bayou. Solugen, founded by Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt, is using enzymes to turn sugars into chemicals normally made from fossil fuels — just the kind of fairytale marriage we need from our petrochemical and medical communities.