Friday, June 4, 2021

June already

Well with Memorial Day, I forgot to early vote for the June runoffs. Luckily I can still vote on election day tomorrow. I was happy to hear about the Texas Democrats walking out on the Republican voting restrictions bill. They haven't done something like that for years. Abbott wants to call a special session (even though he didn't do it for the pandemic or the winter storm emergency) to pass the bill, and he made threats to cut their pay. But TX state legislators don't get paid a lot anyway, and it's only every other year when they're in session. I remember Chris Turner explaining to me once that you have to either have a different real job to sustain you, or you live off your spouse's salary instead. I was also pleased to hear about the high school valedictorian who gave her speech about abortion rights. That makes for two good things in Texas this week.

I'm glad that the New Mexico special election went well. What a huge win. Even though Oklahoma cancelled their Tulsa Massacre event, Biden gave a speech, and plenty of other media outlets marked the solemn anniversary. I noticed that PBS has a documentary about it on their streaming service, so I'll have to catch it this weekend now that I'm off work. It's so hard to keep track of what's streaming where.

Israel has formed a new coalition government to oust Netanyahu as Prime Minister. He's apparently threatening to resist, so we'll have to see if they can really get rid of him next week. It's just incredible that he continues to cling to power despite his corruption scandal and his general unpopularity. I am a little afraid that the new government will be more right-wing and pro-settler, but they might temper some decisions to try to keep the coalition together.

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