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When George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he was committed to working for reforms to prevent police brutality. However, Texas’ landmark George Floyd Act never got a vote in the state legislature, and at press time, only police reform measures were expected to pass before the session’s end. “The Texas Legislature is saying Black lives don’t matter,” said Durrel Douglas, executive director of Houston Justice.
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Democrats in the Texas House celebrated by waving pride flags as a bill that would have prevented transgender students in Texas schools from joining sports teams based on their gender identity instead of their sex assigned at birth missed the House deadline for voting on measures sent over from the Senate. House Dems succeeded in running down the clock on the transphobic legislation.
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With the U.S. Supreme Court set to issue a ruling on a major abortion rights case for the first time with its new conservative majority, the Texas legislature has passed a bill that would outlaw abortion in the state should the high court overturn Roe v. Wade. The law would take effect just 30 days after any court ruling or constitutional amendment that gave states the ability to ban abortion. At press time, the bill was headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. A new San Antonio capital-improvement project promises aesthetic and infrastructure upgrades for the city’s historic West Side, including new public art, gathering spaces, widened sidewalks and bike lanes. The project kicked off last week with the painting of the Guadalupe Street Bridge’s underpass columns. It’s expected to be finished by 2023. — Abe Asher
YOU SAID IT!
“He called our military ‘woke’ and ‘emasculated,’ which I pointed out — fairly, I thought — is funny coming from a guy who let Donald Trump use his testicles on the driving range.” — Jimmy Kimmel, on his ongoing feud with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas
ASSCLOWN ALERT
Backing Senate Bill 29 Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark. At the tail end of the recently completed legislative session, Democrats in the Texas House successfully ran down the clock on Senate Bill 29, a toxic proposal that would bar transgender student athletes from playing on sports teams corresponding to the gender with which they identify. Like the discriminatory and punitive so-called “bathroom bill” conservatives pushed during the 2017 session, it was a solution desperately in search of a problem. Trans athletes and their families testified about the harm SB 29 would cause. Advocacy groups warned about the psychological damage the debate was having on these already vulnerable youths. What’s more, the University Interscholastic League indicated that there were no documented instances in which transgender student-athletes competing in the sports it oversees had an unfair advantage. As such, the party-line votes of these Republican Texas Senators supporting the bill are an embarassment: Paul D. Bettencourt, Brian Birdwell, Dawn Buckingham, Donna Campbell, Charles Brandon Creighton, Bob Hall, Kelly Hancock, Joan Huffman, Bryan Hughes, Lois
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That Rocks/That Sucks
Facebook / Dr. Donna Campbell
Kolkhorst, Jane Nelson, Robert Nichols, Angela Paxton, Charles Perry, Charles J. Schwertner, Kel Seliger, Drew Springer and Larry Taylor. To them we say, your discriminatory and mean-spirited vote may be red meat for your base, but it doesn’t make you any less of a fucking assclown. — Sanford Nowlin
Last week, Cowboys Dancehall managed to avoid a citation for overcrowding during a Saturday concert in which the venue hosted a crowd that authorities said was 800 people over capacity. The San Antonio Fire Department said that it declined to penalize the club because it quickly addressed the issue. Earlier this year, Cowboys was twice cited for violating COVID-19 capacity limits. San Antonio-based corporations Whataburger and USAA have remained silent as the Texas Legislature works to curtail voting rights in the state, according to the coalition Texas Right to Vote, which issued a list calling out businesses for their inaction on the matter. A few Lone Star State corporations, including Dell Technologies and American Airlines, have condemned the legislation, which is expected to slash polling locations in predominantly non-white areas of major cities. After some 110 pounds of cocaine were found washed ashore on the South Texas Coast earlier this month, the Matagorda County Sheriff’s Office is asking beachgoers to refrain from handling any suspicious packages they find in the water or dunes. The sheriff’s office has processed and photographed the cocaine and says it will dispose of it through proper channels. — Abe Asher
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