Dick Lavine
@dlavine
Elected Board member @TravisCentralAD; Trustee @COAERS; Board member @ProgressTX, @AFSCME_retirees; former @EveryTxn, @EveryTxnUnited; @dlavine.bsky.social
“Who are you kidding? You’re all about small government until you get stuck in a tree.” newyorker.com/cartoon/a20984 #txlege
Opinion | Trump’s Attack on Harvard Should Upset Conservatives, Too. Here's Why. - POLITICO politico.com/news/magazine/… #txlege
"We keep talking about an imperial court that is slowly but certainly constructing an imperial executive, but none of that can happen without the learned helplessness of an American public that was intended to be sovereign." —Dahlia Lithwick, on the Supreme Court
The idea that Jerome Powell is the "project manager" on the Fed renovation is so extraordinarily stupid.
wow -- Trump is giving Powell the Zelenskyy treatment
From our podcast: Houston State Senator Molly Cook spells it out: the Trump-ordered redistricting will wind the clock back on the Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act, and more - it must be stopped. Full talk: bit.ly/3Z0lr7x @MollyforTexas
Why Did the Rich Pull Away from the Rest? Paul Krugman, Understanding Inequality: Part I stonecenter.gc.cuny.edu/why-did-the-ri… #txlege #inequality
How does redistricting or bathroom bills help flood victims, Governor Abbott? Texans deserve leadership that puts PEOPLE over politics.
Trump wants us to be silent - but we wont back down. Help us continue our work by becoming a sustaining donor today! Join the fun, AND the fight: progresstexas.org/join-pt-summer…
A waste of food. A waste of lives. A waste of American resources and power. We must find a way to buy and distribute this food on behalf of the American people…I will pay for it personally. @realdonaldtrump @marcorubio what happened to your Christian faith? "For I was hungry…
Israeli Troops Kill Dozens Near Border Crossing, Gaza Health Officials Say nytimes.com/2025/07/20/wor…
Across-the-board property tax cuts create less fair local tax systems in the long run. State legislators and local governments should prioritize the residents who can least afford their property taxes, not the residents and businesses who can. itep.org/effects-of-pro… #txlege
With two well-known Democrats declaring runs, the race for Attorney General in 2026 is already getting interesting. Podcast: bit.ly/3Z0lr7x lonestarleft.com/p/this-race-co… @LoneStarLeft
On Monday, legislators will be back in the Capitol for Abbott's Special Session. The agenda should be focused on relief for Texans but instead the GOP is preparing to serve up Texans on a silver platter for Trump. My take in the latest @AustinChronicle: austinchronicle.com/news/2025-07-1…
"It just breaks my heart": New York Times' columnist Nicholas Kristof on the U.S. set to destroy 500 tons of USAID emergency food aid for starving people around the world that expires this month.
But you have to wonder about the long-term future of topical comedy on major networks, if the owners are vulnerable to pressure and the shows have diminishing ratings to justify their sharp elbows. nytimes.com/2025/07/18/art…
Who wants to tell him that the import price index measures the pre-tariff price? If foreigners were eating the cost of (roughly) 10% tariffs, pre-tariff import prices would be down 10%. They're not. Therefore Americans are paying basically all of the tariffs.
Import prices just came in WAAAY below expectations: June was up just 0.1% M/M, -0.2% Y/Y, while May saw a huge downward revision from flat to -0.4% M/M; still waiting for tariffs to be passed on by foreign producers...
One of Entergy’s favored pathways for the project would cut across about a mile of the reservoir. And yet Entergy didn’t ever bother to inform the City of Houston—which gets about 70% of the water produced by the reservoir—about its proposed lake routes. texasobserver.org/locals-oppose-…
For three years, the state of Texas has refused to release body cam footage and more records related to the Uvalde massacre. This should have been done back in 2022, but Texas DPS refuses to acknowledge the abject failure of that day. It’s time to release the records. #txlege
Appeals court rules in favor of KSAT 12, other news outlets, for release of school, county records from Uvalde shooting ksat.com/news/local/202…
Texas Republicans are set to stack the deck for Trump, while everyday Texans are suffering under his policies - we're now the #1 state in the country for financial distress. Podcast: bit.ly/3Z0lr7x dallas.culturemap.com/news/innovatio…