Three-Point Shots, Vol. 1, No. 7: Lege Session Week 11

Kirk Watson gets too far out over his skis, Nashville police embarrass the Texas law enforcement community, and Donald Trump is (finally) indicted.

Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, an occasional series briefly surveying three interrelated stories of passing importance. Three-Point Shots is a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button at the bottom, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself newsletter, and 3) share it with others in the link below. As always, comments welcome and encouraged.

Friday, March 31, 2023

         What a week! It’s hard to pick my shots, what with drag queens striking back and suspicious names (“Anita Dickenmee,” “Holden Middick”) offering to testify to House committees. But, off we go …

1.    In Austin, the State Police Create a … Police State

         Kirk Watson brought a distinguished resume to his campaign for Mayor last year, including a previous stint as mayor that many viewed as successful, even transformative. But he’s stepped in it this time.

         On Monday, he announced that he’d worked out a deal with professional Austin-haters Gov. Greg Abbott and Lite Guv Dan Patrick to have Department of Public Safety troopers “assist” the Austin Police Department in fighting “violent crime and traffic issues.”

(Austin Mayor Kirk Watson announces his agreement with the Texas DPS for it to provide “assistance” with patrolling the streets of Austin. Photo: Jay Janner for the Austin American Statesman)

         Here’s what Watson didn’t do, though:

·      Consult with his fellow city councilmembers about the initiative (despite his title, he is one vote of 11 on the council). They found out about if 15 minutes before the announcement – from the acting city manager.

·      Inform, much less consult with, the 100,000 or so Austinites who like to be included in any decision-making;

·      Set any parameters for the DPS presence: How many officers? Who do they answer to? What are their rules of engagement? After a similar police shortage led to DPS “assistance” in Dallas in 2019, local communities were soon complaining about racial profiling; and most important,

·      Set a deadline for this “assistance” to end. In my opinion, he should have announced that the DPS “assistance” would last three months, or until the beginning of the fiscal year in September, or until New Year’s Day. “Assistance” efforts with no clear objectives and no timelines often don’t end well. Just ask Joe Biden.

         One final thought: A doofus from Frisco (is that an oxymoron?) named Jared Patterson has filed a bill to establish a “District of Austin” under which the Legislature would take over the governance of the City of Austin. Patterson has also gained notoriety for his attempt to ban “Lonesome Dove” from school libraries and, worse but not surprisingly, admitting he’s never read it. (Get a rope!)

         But I digress. My point is that Watson may think he’s cut a deal with Abbott, Patrick and DPS head Steve McCraw about making the streets of Austin safer, but once the Legislature gets its nose under that particular tent, there’s no telling what can happen.

2.    Nashville: Why Couldn’t Uvalde Be Like Their Response?

         Tragically, and to no one’s surprise, we’ve had another school massacre, this time of three students and three faculty at a private Christian academy in Nashville. Amidst the usual thoughts and prayers from GOP lawmakers were the also-usual calls to do nothing in its wake, especially about AR-15s, the weapon of choice for mass shooters and a staggeringly lethal weapon.

         The whole incident was particularly painful for the mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles of the massacred Uvalde children. By all accounts, the Nashville police responded with extraordinary bravery and professionalism, ending the massacre in 14 minutes. By contrast, over 300 law enforcement officers in Uvalde waited 77 minutes to finally kill the lone gunman who by then had killed 19 students and two teachers.

3.    Donald Trump Is Indicted. Finally.

         Well, Donald Trump has been indicted by a New York grand jury. The general spin of the “responsible” media is that his indictment is for “paying hush money to a porn star,” but keep your eye on the ball. As The Bulwark’s sage Amanda Carpenter has pointed out,  

Trump risks indictment because, allegedly at his behest, an illegal scheme was undertaken to deceive the public at a critical moment before the 2016 election. That was the purpose of the “hush money” payments—not to enrich the women or settle a personal matter, but, in the words of the man who went to prison for arranging the deals, “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.” (Emphasis mine)

         Viewed this way, the pending investigations of Trump – in New York, in Atlanta, his actions on January 6 – are about the same thing: his longstanding (“Russia, are you listening?” “Zelensky, I need some dirt on Hunter Biden”) efforts to illegally undermine and corrupt our elections.

         Keep this in mind as MAGA World and the Trump-friendly media try to downplay the significance of the indictment: “Who among us hasn’t paid off a porn star to buy her silence a month before an election?”

         In that regard, note that so many of the MAGA attacks are not proclaiming his innocence; they’re just tearing at the whole notion that a person (even a former president) should be held accountable under the law. And that, my friends, is the beginning of the end of our democracy.

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         Weekend reading … Tomorrow is April Fools’ Day, and so Reader’s Digest, always a reliable source of cutting-edge comedy, has 56 Funny April Fools’ Pranks to pull in 2023.

         … Since spring has sprung, why not read this classic Texas Monthly story about Texas icon Farrah Fawcett, still mesmerizing at 50?

         … Baseball season has begun, and here is an inspiring story about a baseball team that’s going above and beyond for one of its players.

         … A poem for spring by “The Puddle-Wonderful Poet of Spring,” e. e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis