JUST MAKING CHILI posted:

There’s a reason he got the D in his meats class

PostNouveau posted:

Ah yes, I remember the days in Austin where everyone knew someone who knew someone who was loving Rick Perry on the DL.

JUST MAKING CHILI posted:

There’s a reason he got the D in his meats class

Panty Saluter posted:

Rick Perry: easiest piece of rear end on 6th St?

i say swears online posted:

rip Charlie's, the only good gay bar

Badger of Basra posted:

trying to imagine what an eyewitness account of the city of seattle sending a homeless person to austin would even be

i say swears online posted:

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

it was more, uh, real

one time i was walking in with a friend and the door guy went "hey, did y'all hear that ellen degeneres died?"

us: "WHAT"

him: "yeah, she drowned going down in ricki lake!"

i say swears online posted:

lmao. first and only time i've seen a fistfight between women, and probably the last place in austin to have dollar pints

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

five minutes later the woman realized a piece of jewelry, a broach, that she had attached to her dress was missing

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/OP_YellowFlash_/status/1186133783881420801

Logic Probed posted:

I just remembered that the Houston mayor election is happening now. Any good references that I could glance through to get an idea of who to vote for?

i say swears online posted:

This was easy to find when I lived in austin, but is there a breakdown or even a sample ballot of the pf city council races?

edit found a sample ballot, now to google some names to find the libertarians

saintonan posted:

I'm voting against all the amendments. Most are bad, and even the ones that are good should be laws, not constitutional amendments. The idea of putting mundane stuff up for a vote to make it a superlaw is dumb.

i say swears online posted:

someone running for city council is 81 years old and calls pflugerville "apartmentville"


haha what

quote:

“The constitutional amendment providing for the issuance
of additional general obligation bonds by the Texas Water
Development Board in an amount not to exceed $200 million to provide financial assistance for the development of
certain projects in economically distressed areas.”

Sab0921 posted:

These are the candidates. I'm voting for Turner - reluctantly - there just are no other choices

Sylvester Turner - He is the incumbent and has been Mayor since 2015. He's generally a pretty bad Mayor, he's petty, thin-skinned, and is a creature of the existing status quo of Houston politics which is funded largely by real estate developers and engineering and contracting firms that do business with the city. Prior to being Mayor, he was a state legislator for 28 years, so more than anything, he is a reflection of the nature of our horrid legislature and the types of insider dealings that come out of that. That being said, he's a Democrat, reflects Democratic priorities and has taken some good steps - the White and Parker administrations were big on economic development agreements (the city basically gives money to a developer through property tax abatement in order to get a project done), Turner has stopped that and basically said that if you want an agreement like that, you have to build in truly poor and underserved communities and be mindful of gentrification (no one has taken him up on the offer). He is in a remarkably stupid fight with the firefighters where they got a measure on the ballot in 2018 to require the city to give them a raise, with no funding mechanism in place to pay for the raises (Houston is under a revenue cap, so they can't just raise taxes to pay for the raises). The ballot initiative was eventually thrown out on a lawsuit filed by the police officer's union, so Turner withdrew the raises. I don't particularly like Turner, I don't think he has been good for the City and I long for the days of Annise Parker - but the other options are GOP standard - one Trump guy, and one "fiscal conservative".

Tony Buzbee - Extremely wealthy trial lawyer - one of Judge Kent's former clerks who made it big when a corrupt federal judge informed litigants that they better settle big with his favored sons or face dire consequences in the court room (note that Judge Kent was nearly impeached after being arrested and sentenced to prison for Sexual Assault, but resigned before the Senate could remove him). Rich dude who saw what Donald Trump did and decided that he could do that too. Big time Trump supporter, and was one of the state's largest donors to the Trump campaign and Trump inaugural committee. He's just a bored annoying rich guy spending $10MM of his own money to try and buy the Mayoral seat by appealing to conservative Trump supporters who don't live in the city limits.

Bill King - basically just a Republican Sylvester Turner, ran in 2015 and lost a close rate. Because he's an old white guy, conventional wisdom is that he's just a no nonsense budget and fiscal hawk ready to tighten our belts and blah blah blah. In reality, he was the managing partner of Linebarger, a collections law firm that survived on massive donations to city officials in exchange for collections contracts. He made his millions hounding poor people for overdue parking tickets - due to his whiteness, this has translated to the general public as "successful small business owner". His line with Turner is to say that he wants to end pay for play politics, which sounds good, except when you realize that he's only saying that because the usual suspects won't give money to someone challenging an incumbent - he took their money without question in his 2015 race (and funnily enough, there were no concerns about pay for play politics there). Also, he spent his entire life and amassed his fortune on pay for play politics - having him as the anti-corruption candidate is like asking a fox how to design a safe hen house. I really despise him as a candidate because it's pure racial resentment, he looks the part and the black man must be corrupt - so vote for this old white man who will make you feel safe again. There are no significant policy differences between him and Turner other than Bill King fundamentally opposes transit infrastructure, he thinks it's wasteful when we're all just going to have autonomous cars anyway. He's your boomer shithead dad and sucks the worst.

ut755ln posted:

What are your thoughts on the timing of the elections? It has always bothered me that they don't line up with the Fed and State wide races.

saintonan posted:

The point behind making these constitutional amendments is that it would take another constitutional amendment to reverse or eliminate it. This is just stupid as gently caress. For example, Proposition 2 reads:


This is a simple appropriation that should be done through the legislature. It doesn't need to be in the Texas Constitution. Most of the poo poo on the ballot is stuff that should go through the lege, not through idiot low-information voters, especially in an off-election year.

i say swears online posted:

yeah, everyone itt knows that, but i don't think anyone came to the conclusion that voting no is the correct course of action. that's still picking a side; if you're truly opposed to the (bad) constitutional revision process, why not just abstain

ut755ln posted:

What are your thoughts on the timing of the elections? It has always bothered me that they don't line up with the Fed and State wide races.

Keeshhound posted:

Because their position is that those proposals should not be constitutional amendments.

Like, regardless of someone's position on the issues, a key part of putting amendments on the ballot is asking "should this be a part of the state constitution?" and "no" is a perfectly valid answer to that question.

Keeshhound posted:

Because their position is that those proposals should not be constitutional amendments.

Like, regardless of someone's position on the issues, a key part of putting amendments on the ballot is asking "should this be a part of the state constitution?" and "no" is a perfectly valid answer to that question.

Hawkline posted:

But i don't think it is a valid question, because there is constitutional language that prevents these items from working as non-amendment laws because they violate a section about Texas state debt. By not doing it this way (via constitutional amendments), the law would basically be DOA because the most rudimentary challenge to its constitutionality would strike it down.

Hawkline posted:

But i don't think it is a valid question, because there is constitutional language that prevents these items from working as non-amendment laws because they violate a section about Texas state debt. By not doing it this way (via constitutional amendments), the law would basically be DOA because the most rudimentary challenge to its constitutionality would strike it down.

Sab0921 posted:

Please vote for Prop 2 and 8. Prop 2 is $200MM of bond authorization for the TWDB - a vote is required before bonds are issued and authorized and, imo, the TWDB is the most important agency in the state right now and are charged with building the infrastructure necessary for the future of the state including flood resiliency and drinking water.

Prop 8 allows for the creation of a Flood Infrastructure Fund, which will be a revolving fund that allows for the construction of extremely necessary flood infrastructure. Approving it will allow the state to have the local matching dollars needed for federal money and can seriously accelerate the process for these projects.

Please vote in favor of Prop 2 and Prop 8.