Brandy Bottone, 34 weeks pregnant, was driving down Central Expressway in Dallas when she was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy at an HOV checkpoint to check whether there were at least two occupants per vehicle as mandated. “There are two of us,” said Ms. Bottone, pointing at her swollen midsection. Despite Texas’ hearty embrace of the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, she got a $215 ticket.
More:
“Pregnant woman says her fetus should count as a passenger in HOV lanes. She got a ticket,” Dave Lieber, Dallas Morning News
“Pregnant woman given HOV ticket argues fetus is passenger, post-Roe,” Timothy Bella, Washington Post
Note: We do not consider 2 people in a vehicle “high occupancy,” and refer to HOV 2+ as “Buddy Lanes.”
Last weekend a proud 9th Grader constructed an electronic clock at home, and he brought it to school on Monday. Naturally, he was handcuffed and arrested. That’s natural in Irving Texas, anyway — if the student’s name is something like Ahmed Mohamed.
14-year-old Ahmed showed his clock to a teacher who decided it was a bomb and called the principal, who called the police; they put Ahmed in handcuffs, took him in and fingerprinted him. Now they’re saying they arrested Ahmed for staging a bomb hoax; clearly they should have arrested his teacher and principal for that. All charges against Ahmed have been dropped; we can expect civil suits against Irving’s government and school district.
The city of Irving, part of the DFW Metroplex, brags about the large high-tech firms located within its limits. There may be more welcoming places for those multinational companies and their culturally- diverse workforces, towns where those employees and their families would not be regarded with hate and suspicion.
Earlier this week, right-wing radio ranter Glenn Beck got an email from Tea Party loon and Congress Creature Louie Gohmert (R, TX-1):
‘Last week, I announced to the world if the House and Senate will treat Iran — the Iran treaty as a treaty, I will not run for my congressional seat again.”
Media outlets took this to mean that Mr. Gohmert would skedaddle back to the Piney Woods of East Texas and not run for a 6th term if the Senate didn’t rustle up enough votes to overturn a veto of the Iran nuclear agreement. And when Senate Democrats kept this from transpiring, sane people everywhere started rejoicing.
But hold the weddin,’ Bubba. Rep. Gohmert walked the whole thing back on Wednesday, saying his deal was that if Congress adopted his proposal to treat the multinational agreement as a treaty, that’swhenhe’d resign.
So don’t worry, DC will have no shortage of lunatic conspiracy theories anytime soon. You can bet that the savvy folks of East Texas are gonna reelect ol’ Louie. They figure to keep Texas safe by making sure Louie Gohmert stays in far away Washington.
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Texas is prone to gully-washers and toad-stranglers, thunderstorms that turn washes and arroyos into rivers, and rivers into inland seas. Every couple of decades there’s a big one.
Larry Davis co-wrote and recorded the song “Texas Flood” in 1958, with Fenton Robinson on guitar. Texans Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan jammed on the tune in the CHCH-TV studio in Hamilton, Ontario on December 6, 1983 for the television series In Session.
The floods in Texas have claimed lives, destroyed homes and property, washed out bridges and roads. On the other hand, observes Dennis Mersereau, at least that crippling drought is history. 20 inches of rain fell on Texas in the past month, a volume of water that’s enough to turn Rhode Island into a lake.
Texas is prone to gully-washers and toad-stranglers, thunderstorms that turn washes and arroyos into rivers, and rivers into inland seas. Every couple of decades there’s a big one, but in the past 20 years Texas gained about 10 million new residents, and many bought houses. The big problem with the resulting housing boom: New housing built in flood-prone areas.
More:
“In Texas, the Race to Build in Harm’s Way Outpaces Flood-Risk Studies and Warming Impacts,” Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times
“Texas Is Paying the Price for Its Lack of Flood Infrastructure,” Kriston Kapps, CityLab
Related:
“Texas, Oklahoma Floodwaters Contain Sewage, Other Pollutants,” Jane J. Lee, National Geographic News
Texas State Representative Matt Krause (R-District 93, Tarrant County) wants legal representation for fetuses, and has introduced a bill to that effect in the Texas House of Representatives. Rep. Krause was one of the first graduates of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law, and ran the Texas branch of Liberty Counsel, a “legal ministry” which, by a remarkable coincidence, is headed by a professor from the Liberty University School of Law.
More:
“New Texas Plan Would Assign Lawyers To Fetuses,” Tara Culp-Ressler, Think Progress
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