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HRegulators from the Public Utility Commission said the state’s beleaguered grid operator ERCOT will have three business days, instead of 60, to release information about power plant outages through September. Even so, ERCOT isn’t expected to include information about the root causes of failures in its reports. “There’s usually never anything published that’s like, ‘This is what broke and why,’ unless it’s in an investigation and there’s a se lement,” ERCOT expert Caitlin Smith told the Texas Tribune.
HFormer State Sen. Wendy Davis and others traveling on a Joe Biden campaign bus that was followed and surrounded by supporters of former President Donald Trump last October are suing members of that so-called “Trump Train.” They’re also suing San Marcos law enforcement for failing to respond. The plaintiff s argue that the action constituted an illegal act of political intimidation.
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HSan Antonio has been targeted with more scam phone calls related to COVID-19 stimulus checks than any other U.S. city. A study by tech fi rm Hiya showed the number of stimulus scam calls has doubled in each of the past two months, with San Antonio’s 210 area code most frequently targeted, followed by Dallas’ 214 and Fort Worth’s 817.
The Bexar County Sheriff ’s Offi ce last week fi red a lieutenant who posted photographs of herself at the January 6 coup a empt at the U.S. Capitol building. The images of Lt. Roxanne Mathai in Washington, D.C. fi rst surfaced months ago, at which point Sheriff Javier Salazar promised to terminate her employment. Mathai posted that the day of the coup was “the best day of my life” aside from the birth of her children. — Abe Asher
YouTube Screen Shot / Flashpoint
ASSCLOWN ALERT
The John the Baptist of conspiracy mongering
Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
You can almost always count on assclowns breaking news at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. And right-wing evangelist Hank Kunneman and My Pillow guy Mike Lindell certainly didn’t let us down at the NRB’s annual gathering this month in Dallas.
During a live taping of the show Flashpoint, the conspiracy-peddling pair egged each other on as they tried to good naturedly one-up each other in their favorite pastime: pretending Donald Trump won the 2020 election, Right Wing Watch reports.
Kunneman — a self-declared prophet who incorrectly called the 2020 election and just can’t seem to let it go — fell all over himself to praise Lindell for his continued peddling of Trumpwon conspiracy theories, according to the news site. At one point, Kunneman even likened the pillow salesman to John the Baptist.
“There’s a scripture that says, ‘There was a man sent from Heaven, and his name was John,’” the evangelist said. “There’s a man sent from Heaven named Mike Lindell that God is using to wake up America with a diff erent kind of awakening, and it’s called a great awakening to the truth.”
We’re not sure that any higher authority — biblical or not — would use the word “truth” to describe the pipedreams and prevarications Lindell has spent months spreading. But, hey, it’s living. Or something. — Sanford Nowlin
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YOU SAID IT!
“I do know for a fact that lawsuits are being planned and that teams are being staff ed right now. The state of Texas is going to be spending a lot of money defending itself in court.” — Henry Flores,
St. Mary’s University professor emeritus who’s testifi ed in dozens of voting-rights cases, on the likelihood Texas will pass a sweeping voter restriction bill. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is demanding that the Archdiocese of San Antonio add 12 clergy to a list of priests accused of sexual abuse. The clergy are all Marianists who SNAP leaders say worked in San Antonio at some point during their careers. Only six of the twelve are still living. SNAP is also asking the Archdiocese and St. Mary’s University President Thomas Mengler to actively search for victims of the accused abusers.
Gov. Greg Abbo called a special session of the Texas Legislature for July 8, at which point Republicans are again expected to try to push through a sweeping, anti-democratic voting bill that Democrats stymied by walking out at the end of the regular session. Democrats are vehement in their ongoing opposition to the bill. A federal court has found a San Antonio resident guilty of an April 2020 social media hoax in which he posted on Facebook that he’d paid a person with COVID-19 to lick groceries at local supermarkets. Christopher Charles Perez, arrested by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Taskforce last year, has now been convicted of two counts of spreading hoaxes and false information. He faces up to fi ve years in prison on each. — Abe
Asher
Find more news coverage every day at sacurrent.com
Flickr / Creative Commons
Court Costs
Texas likely faces multiple lawsuits if the Legislature passes new voter restrictions during special session
BY SANFORD NOWLIN
Multiple voting-rights groups are preparing lawsuits in anticipation that Texas lawmakers will revive a widely decried voter-restriction bill that died during the last legislative session, a top voting-rights expert said.
“I do know for a fact that lawsuits are being planned and that teams are being staff ed right now,” said Henry Flores, a St. Mary University’s political science professor emeritus who’s served as an expert witness in dozens of voting-rights cases. “The state of Texas is going to be spending a lot of money defending itself in court.”
Gov. Greg Abbo last week set a special session of the Texas Legislature that will begin July 8. Although the Republican governor didn’t mention Senate Bill 7 during his announcement, he’s previously said he wants the contentious voting bill passed during the special session.
Earlier this month, Abbo vetoed salaries for state lawmakers as a punishment after Democrats walked out before a fi nal vote could be made on the sweeping voter bill late in the session. The measure was one of Abbo ’s legislative priorities.
Flores, who’s participated in roughly 50 voting rights cases including several tried before the U.S. Supreme Court, said he expects a fl urry of suits nationwide as Republican-led legislatures work to pass bills limiting poll access.
Backers of the bills, including Texas Republicans, argue the legislation is meant to curb voter fraud. However, voting-rights groups argue they measures are meant to suppress the votes of minorities, young people and others likely to vote for Democratic candidates.
Flores declined to name the organizations preparing lawsuits in Texas, saying it was premature to release those details.
However, he said a suit fi led this week by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and Voto Latino over a separate voting bill passed by the Texas Lege this session is a likely harbinger of what’s to come.
That GOP-backed measure adds restrictions to the type of addresses that can be used when voters register and requires proof of residence for someone who uses a P.O. Box.
“That suit might be the shot across the bow as far as the legal challenges go,” Flores said.
Legal experts have also warned that Texas is likely to face pricy court battles over a spate of culture war-focused bills passed during the last session by the Republican-dominated Legislature. Those include a near complete ban on abortion and rules dictating how public school teachers can discuss race.
Wikimedia Commons / Cannabis Pictures
Texas bill to study psychedelics as treatment for PTSD in veterans becomes law
Anew Texas law clears the way for the state to study the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, found in “magic mushrooms,” to aid military veterans with PTSD.
The measure became law earlier this month without the signature of Gov. Greg Abbo , according to a report from the online news source Marijuana Moment. Days earlier, the Republican governor signed a separate bill off ering a limited expansion of the state’s medical marijuana program.
Under the new psychedelics law, Texas will study potential benefi ts and risks of psilocybin, ketamine and MDMA, more commonly known as ecstasy, in veterans grappling with PTSD. The Baylor College of Medicine and a military-focused medical center will partner on the study, Marijuana Moment reports.
“Psychedelic medicine has the potential to completely change society’s approach to mental health treatment, and research is the fi rst step to realizing that transformation,” bill sponsor State Rep. Alex Dominguez, D-Brownsville, said in a press statement. “It’s said that ‘as goes Texas, so goes the nation.’ While states across the country consider how best to address the mental health crisis facing our nation, I hope they once again look to Texas for leadership.”
The measure was supported by veterans’ groups including mental-health advocacy organization VETS, which said its own statement that the law has the potential to “save the lives of countless veterans.”
Twenty or more veterans die daily by suicide, according to VETS. —
