Howdy gang, it’s Brian Gaar with The Barbed Wire. And welcome back to Texas, where the courts have become a judicial choose-your-own-adventure, Greg Abbott is having second thoughts about the surveillance-camera empire his state helped build, Tarrant County is cutting polling places, and Texas is rewriting history class to make sure children know that Islam is apparently very scary.
Oh, and George W. Bush has apparently decided the best way to deal with Donald Trump is to paint a giant ugly picture of him.
Grab your breakfast taco, lower your expectations, and let’s get into it.
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🍗👩‍⚖️ Texas: Come for the BBQ, Stay for the Judge Shopping
The Trump administration wanted hospitals to turn over records involving transgender care for children, and after judges in several states rejected or limited those demands, the Justice Department took its case to a Fort Worth federal courthouse.
There, Judge Reed O’Connor approved a subpoena against a Rhode Island hospital (even though Texas had no hospitals providing the care in question) and ordered it to turn over personal information including the names and Social Security numbers of minors who received treatment.
The case has renewed scrutiny of the Northern District of Texas, where cases can be assigned in ways that allow litigants to target courthouses with a predictable lineup of overwhelmingly Republican-appointed judges.
Because nothing says “justice is blind” quite like knowing which courthouse to walk into.
Abbott Discovers That Maybe Flock Cameras Are a Little Much
Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies to stop funding Flock cameras, just as the Texas Tribune was preparing to publish an investigation detailing how a state agency had spent at least $30 million expanding the surveillance network.
Texas agencies have helped install at least 3,200 Flock cameras since 2023, with another 1,200 being installed by DPS through a $15.9 million contract, some of the money coming from a $1 fee added to Texans’ auto insurance policies to fight catalytic converter theft.
After multiple Texas law enforcement agencies faced allegations of Flock misuse, Abbott declared that the cameras would have to be “used responsibly if they’re used at all.”
Weird that this turnabout came just as a big investigation was about to be published!
📖 Texas Rewrites History, and Islam Doesn’t Come Off Great
The State Board of Education preliminarily approved social studies standards that would teach students that “radical Islam” motivated the 9/11 attacks and describe early Islam through references to violence, slavery and female captives.
Muslim Texans, students and even some of the board’s appointed experts argued the material is historically misleading, while Republicans rejected calls to restore lessons about Muslim contributions to fields such as algebra and astronomy.
The new standards also put greater emphasis on Christianity and biblical principles, with final decisions expected Friday and the changes scheduled to begin rolling out in 2030-31.
(We assume that “love thy neighbor” won’t be a part of the new curriculum. After all, it’s an election year.)
🗳️ Tarrant County Cuts 92 Polling Places
And speaking of elections, Tarrant County commissioners voted to approve 224 Election Day polling sites and 47 early-voting locations for November.
That is way down from 316 Election Day sites and 50 early-voting locations in 2022.
More than 100 people testified against the cuts during an eight-hour meeting, with Democrats accusing Republicans of making voting harder and Republicans arguing the new plan still gives voters plenty of opportunities to cast ballots.
The meeting ended with three attendees removed, but no arrests. Which is an improvement over last month, when one speaker was carried out by his ankles and wrists.
So yeah, once again, Republicans are trying to pick their voters, rather than letting voters pick their politicians.
👨‍🎨 George W. Bush Has Discovered the Passive-Aggressive Power of Oil Paint
George W. Bush has spent years refusing to publicly criticize Donald Trump, despite Trump’s destruction of the Republican establishment Bush’s family helped build, and even when Trump attacked democratic institutions and Bush’s own signature accomplishments.
Bush says former presidents shouldn’t criticize their successors, but, in a delicious sendup, The New Yorker argues his silence also reflects his temperament, concern for his family and an intense interest in protecting his historical legacy.
And now, according to someone who saw it, Bush may have found the perfect compromise: a “big, ugly” portrait of Trump that he can hang somewhere and let the oil paint do the talking.
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