TGIF 3/11/22

The TGIF post has always been used to identify individuals or groups of people who've had a pretty good week, or a particularly bad week. 

This week however, I'm highlighting a state that, in my opinion, has had a particularly bad week. Which state gets this singular honor? Texas. 

Now, I've written about Texas several times over the years - after all, they've got Ted Cruz. Here's a sampling: 

• the state's efforts at making sure people don't have to worry about letting their deeply held beliefs get in the way of doing their jobs; 
• Gov. Greg Abbott saying he'll eliminate rape in Texas; and
• the state interjecting itself into medical decisions that should be made by a patient's family, not the government.

So, what's been going on recently that earned them this dubious feature tonight? Plenty.

Last month, Abbott directed the state to investigate parents for child abuse if they allowed their transgender children to receive certain types of medical care. The policy was put on hold; the court ruled it "had been improperly adopted and violated the Texas constitution." The state, of course, appealed. 

Testimony in the hearing brought some ugly details to light, including that  

abuse investigators had been told to prioritize cases involving the parents of transgender children and to investigate them without exception, after the state’s governor’s order. 

Department of Family and Protective (DFPS) staff were told not to put anything about these cases in texts or emails, something they've never been advised about any other investigations. And, it's important to note that the DFPS 

has been the subject of a decade-old federal lawsuit over its foster care system, in which children faced abuse as well as long waits to be adopted or placed in safer homes. Federal monitors have been overseeing the process of carrying out judicial orders since 2019, among them a directive to improve the handling and investigation of reported child abuse.

So yes, by all means, let's focus on trans kids and their loving parents, and not actual cases of child abuse. Makes perfect sense to me (yes, that's sarcasm). As does the state's Department of Health removing LGBTQ suicide prevention resources from its website. 

Instead of listing the phone number, website, and text line for the Trevor Project, as it did at the beginning of February, the website no longer includes any links for LGBTQ youth. Instead, information on the Trevor Project can only be found in a PDF for “Parent and Youth Suicide Prevention” but does not include information about the Trevor Project in the least bit. 

What else? 

We're all familiar with the Texas abortion law, which encourages Texans to turn on each other for bounties if they think a woman has gotten an abortion in violation of the law. Now that I think about it, why didn't they include that part on the trans child abuse directive? 

Anyway, the US Supreme Court (twice) refused to pause the law while the case moved through the Texas courts; the review's finished. 

The decision by the Texas Supreme Court turned on whether medical licensing officials had an enforcement role under the law... writing for the court, Justice Jeffrey Boyd said those state officials have no enforcement authority, “either directly or indirectly.”

So, states now have a free pass on legal responsibility for laws they enact no matter how irresponsible they might be. 

I don't want you to think that Texas only discriminates against women and LGBTQ kids they're equal opportunity discriminators.

A Texas agency discriminated against communities of color when it denied more than $1 billion in federal relief funds sought by Houston and Harris County to help hard-hit areas recover from Hurricane Harvey, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found.

Remarkably, Houston and Harris County didn't receive any money when the state initially handed out funds, even though the whole country saw the photos of the storm damage. You can see them here, if you're interested.

HUD officials said the state agency’s method of doling out the funds “discriminated on the basis of race and national origin” and “substantially and predictably disadvantaged minority residents, with particularly disparate outcomes for Black residents,” according to a Friday letter detailing the result of a HUD probe. The land office is in violation of the Civil Rights Act as well as federal housing law, federal housing officials said.

I have a hard time reconciling these headlines with this cheerful statement on the state's website:

There's something for everyone in Texas!

And I can't imagine any state having a worse week than the one that Texas just had - not even Florida.

TGIF, everyone.

Quick Takes (v33): Carson and Katko

Quick Takes

There was an article in my local paper today, about the possibility that Ben Carson, president Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, might pay a visit to Syracuse to see what's going on here.

According to Mark Weiner's article, Carson met with Congressman John Katko recently and talked about the Syracuse Surge and, according to Katko, he

expressed interest in visiting Syracuse to see how the city plans to transform its economy with public and private investment centered on a series of projects on the south end of downtown. 

The plan includes a new STEAM  high school that will be open not just to city students but to kids from all of the school districts in Onondaga County. The school would be dedicated to the more common STEM curriculum - science, technology, engineering and math - and also add focus on the arts, too.

Katko suggested that HUD could play a "leading role" in the Syracuse Surge, which ties in to rebuilding the Pioneer Homes project and redeveloping the whole southeast end of downtown, including whatever happens with the I-81 viaduct project, and said that HUD money could "help jump-start" development efforts.

And, Katko said they also talked about the ongoing issue with lead poisoning here; new funding was approved in December to get our lead paint abatement program back up and running, after funding was cut off due to disagreements between the City and HUD back in 2012.

Whether or not you're a Carson or Katko fan, we'd be nuts to not want a Cabinet member with good intentions coming here; after all, NY historically gets a lot less from the federal government than we pay in. And if there's a chance that HUD will come through with some money and other assistance to help us rebuild the south east side of downtown, and continue their commitment to helping us get rid of the lead that's still causing issues for kids in Syracuse,  I'm all for it.

TGIF 3/23/18

Around these parts, we're especially glad it's Friday, as our hometown cardiac kids, the Syracuse University Orange, are playing tonight in the NCAA's Sweet Sixteen!

Last team to get into the tournament, three upsets in a row, close games against high-scoring teams which all either had really, really bad nights or had a really, really hard time with our deadly Boeheim zone defense, which is, according to fans and experts alike, nothing at all like a standard 2-3 zone.

But that's just the first reason we're in TGIF mode.

I was laughing today, trying to follow the president's tweets about how happy he was with the spending bill, that he'd sign it, that he was unhappy and wouldn't sign it, and how happy he was to have a signing ceremony, and in the end, how he signed it anyway. Not that there was ever a chance that he'd really veto the measure -- that would not make for a happy Friday, would it? I mean, Trump taking credit for shutting down the government? Not on your life!

I'll have an OrangeVerse post for you with his full remarks tomorrow, but here's just one piece of it.

But I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It's only hours old. Some people don't even know what's in it - $1.3 trillion - it's the second largest ever. President Obama signed one that was actually larger, which I'm sure he wasn't too happy with either. 

Probably made President Obama's day with that comment, don't you think? And Nancy Pelosi's day, too? Talk about TGIF!

Tomorrow's #MarchforOurLives is another reason to be in a TGIF mood. I know, I know -- they're too young, they don't know what they're talking about, they don't have any experience, and my favorite, they should be nice to people instead of marching and protesting and all that. But the truth is, in order: they're not, they do, they have the worst possible kind, and they are. Lots of people disagree with their message, but their participation, and their effort and their working to make a difference should be recognized and celebrated.

Finally, tonight, I'll close with this delightful comment from Dr. Ben Carson, the fish-out-of-water HUD Secretary who has been all over the map on the $31,000 dining set that was ordered by "career staffers in charge of the building" - except that it wasn't. Seems Mrs. Dr. Carson was very much involved, and Mrs. Dr. Carlson was very much thrown under the bus by her husband. In testimony before a Congressional committee investigating the debacle, which came to light when a complaint was filed by a staffer unhappy about the way-over-the-limit spending.

I left it with my wife. The next thing that I, quite frankly, heard about it was that this $31,000 table had been bought.

The Secretary cancelled the order after it was brought to his attention (by the media, not by anyone at HUD) and presumably is now trying to make amends with his wife. You can watch his statement here.

TGIF, everyone and Let's Go, Orange!

Wondering on Wednesday (v102)

It's Wednesday, again? OK, here comes the wondering.

As thing slowly, oh so very slowly start returning to some semblance of pre-Harvey normal in Texas, the costs to rebuild are simply staggering: $150 to $180 billion, Governor Gregg Abbott has estimated - and that dwarfs the $110B Hurricane Katrina cost. Where does one get $180B in a time of need? That's a great question on which to do some wondering. 

I mean, today a deal was reached in Washington to quickly pass FEMA some $8B - literally chicken feed -- and we had to raise the debt ceiling to do get that done. The agency is spending millions of dollars an hour on Harvey relief; Irma is heading towards Florida, and wild fires are burning in nine states out west. Look at this in the framework of the Trump budget, which has suggested significant cuts to FEMA, as well as to other agencies involved in disasters in some way, shape or form, and we've got a real disaster on our hands if Congress can't figure something out. Are you feeling confident, I wonder?

And speaking of Congress, I wonder how long House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader will be licking their wounds, after president Trump agreed with #ChuckandNancy on that FEMA bankroll and a three month bump for the debt ceiling, instead of the 18 month deal the Rs were looking for, or even the six months they would have settled on.

Here's Jim Newell, writing on Slate.com about the 'deal' Trump made (which included zero negotiation by the dealmaker in chief):

It is, to the letter, the request the Democrats had made and that Ryan and the leadership team had decried as an affront to God immediately after. Trump's move forces congressional Republicans to have to make multiple, painful debt ceiling votes ahead of the midterms and it preserves the Democrats' leverage in the December spending negotiations.

Was it because Trump can't stand a meeting that lasts more than a New York minute? Is it that he finally figured out he's going to need Dems to get anything accomplished, because the Republican leaders have shown they have no control over their own ranks? We may never know, but Trump thinks he made a deal and that's all that matters, I guess.

HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who has come to terms with the arm-twisting that got him to take a government job after he told us all he didn't want one, was also talking about Harvey, in his usual childlike manner.. In an interview with Rachel Martin on NPR's Morning Edition, Carson told us HUD had people on the ground in Texas, breaking through red tape and trying to help the tens of thousands of families who need help, and figuring out what properties are OK and which need rehab.

Martin asked about the red tape comment and wondered what was different this time compared to Katrina and Sandy and Rita. She asked him for specifics.

Specifically, we sent many agents out into the field with the specific charge of determining how things can be done as opposed to why they can't be done. If you're familiar with bureaucracies, you know that as soon as you come up with a good idea and you're ready to do something, someone says oh, you can't do that because of this. And, you know, I hate that. 

Wonder with me, if you will, what look Rachel Martin had on her face when she heard that answer?
I'm sure she has a fantastic poker face; anyone who does interviews must have one, unless they're a late show host, in which case all bets are off. But that's why they have follow up questions, right?

And so you believe that by putting your agents in the field to just come up with solutions - and then you can just green light them? I mean, there are some real obstacles. there are real reasons that...

Obviously (said Carson), you look at those things. But anybody who's familiar with government bureaucracy knows exactly what I'm talking about.  

Um, OK. Sure, the government moves as fast as molasses in winter, and we all know there are lots of barriers to getting good things done, but those barriers also serve to keep awful things from being done, too.  Especially in the midst of a disaster, where fraud is rampant and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a scam is only a flooded basement or fake charity away.

So where does all of this leave us, this Wednesday?

Let's recap: part of Texas and Louisiana are still under water, and another massive hurricane is threatening Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Parts of the northwest, usually rainy, are bone dry and on fire. Republicans control all three branches of the government and have literally no control over anything.

And the president? Is it any wonder he's left Washington, after the great day he had? Nah. He's off selling his tax plan, his own full basement, if you will, to the folks in North Dakota.

Sidebar: Trump in Transition (v5)

In my most recent Trump in Transition post, I noted that the wait was still on for an announcement on whether Dr Ben Carson had actually been named the Cabinet Apprentice finalist for HUD.

As of last night, when I wrote the post, we were still biding our time, waiting for an announcement, and remembering the refreshing burst of honesty from Carson's team. You remember, right?

Dr. Carson doesn't feel that's the best way for him to serve the president-elect. Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that would cripple the presidency.

Carson also noted earlier in November

I've said that if it came to a point where he absolutely needs me, I'd reconsider. But I don't think that's the situation with these positions. My view is that if some people and the media are going to hate him, then he's going to need allies on the outside to be there to be there to move the country forward. I don't care about a position.  

Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water, quite frankly. 

All that said, and the visuals notwithstanding, here are a couple of excerpts from the announcement.

I am thrilled to nominate Dr. Ben Carson as our next Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities...Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a Presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up.

And from Carson's statement:

I am honored to accept the opportunity to serve our country in the Trump administration. I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need. 

All that fish out of water stuff?  Yeah, that must have been just water over the dam, or under the bridge, or drained from the swamp.