TUE brief 1.25.22

Jan 26, 2022

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Today’s Stories

GREG ABBOTT’s lack of interest in the daily minute of governance continues to produce bad headlines.

The embattled Governor’s latest setback is the re-emergence of homeless camps in Austin, despite a widely touted state law passed in 2021.

Whether the Governor wants to admit it, Texas has total jurisdiction over the I-35 right of way. Yet, with Abbott in charge, the state of Texas refuses to enforce its laws.

For two years, following the city of Austin’s original 2019 decision to decriminalize homeless camping, the state of Texas claimed they needed the legislature to pass a law before they could do anything about the tent cities. While that line was always BS, it was taken as gospel.

Austin dwellers did it Abbott’s way, waited two years for legislation to pass and go into effect. That law has been in on the books and enforceable for close to five months, yet Texas refuses to enforce it.

The results speak for themselves.

As so-called “squeegee guys” accost motorists in Texas’ capitol city, it’s impossible to overlook comparisons to New York City in the early 1990s. The difference, of course, New York wasn’t governed by Republicans. (AC)

DAN PATRICK, along with 14 senators, filed an amicus brief asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to rehear the case that gutted the Attorney General’s ability to enforce election law.

This is probably the last chance to resolve this before the primary, assuming the GOP wants this resolved before the primary, one that may not apply. (AC)

Texas’ newly drawn POLITICAL MAPS will be on trial today in El Paso.

This is the first of many legal battles and deals with just one district, but damage to Democrats has been limited this cycle in Texas and around the country no matter the outcome.

Some locales where the GOP has trifecta control the redistricting process as dominated like Democrats would if they were in power. Tennessee Republicans took this approach.

Which brings us to your daily reminder that Texas Republicans did not do redistricting correctly to maximize their voters' governing mandate. They’ve been ignoring this for going on two decades.

The GOP in Texas has stymied a conservative swing in the state. This includes throwing the redistricting process. The coiled spring of rightward energy won’t be forestalled indefinitely. Said another way, the establishment is delaying the inevitable.

TED CRUZ is being bi-partisan!

The likely winners: Joe Biden’s appointees to the Federal Trade Commission after the Senator voted to advance a so-called “anti-trust” bill authored by the Judiciary committee’s Democrat majority.

The bill in question would empower the Federal Trade Commission (i.e., the Biden administration/Deep State) to micromanage how platforms like Apple and Google run their app stores.

In the name of preventing “discrimination” against competitors, however, the Biden administration may define it. The bill won’t stop Google’s politically biased search results but will make Google Maps much buggier on Android phones.

The big tech companies do many lamentable things, but on what planet does it make sense to empower the Biden administration in response? As long as Biden’s cronies are doing the hiring, it doesn’t take a genius to see how this bill ultimately empowers the woke crowd.

These issues are complicated, and right-wingers of good conscience can disagree, but giving the Biden administration an excuse to hire lawyers violates the political Hippocratic oath.

If Cruz doesn’t realize this, he should. (AC)

AMNESTY continues to take L’s.

The latest comes as several Texas Senate candidates, closely aligned with Dan Patrick, declined to be endorsed by the Libre Initiative. While the group has done good work on other issues, the position on their issues page speaks for itself.

The post-2012 GOP “autopsy” might have been the worst political advice of all time.