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Grits for Breakfast

@gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social

3.9K followers 2.1K following 6.2K posts

Nom de plume of Scott Henson, Austin, TX. Cancer survivor, househusband, recovering policy wonk (justice systems, civil liberties; innocence). Retirement focus: TX negro-league baseball, female lion tamers. Zines: https://www.gfbpubs.com

www.gfbpubs.com

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 4d

Remember when smallpox broke out in Laredo and the Texas Rangers were sent in to overcome armed resistance by antivaxxers, killing one person, wounding 13, and arresting 21 others? Happened in 1898. Weird to think that, if RFK were telling this story, the Rangers wd be the bad guys.

The Laredo Smallpox Epidemic of 1898-1899: A Historical Overview

Explore the events surrounding the smallpox epidemic in Laredo from October 1898 to March 1899, including the violent confrontations between Mexican Americans and Texas Rangers.

www.tshaonline.org

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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 8h

Florida Highway Patrol said this back over the summer -- people who stare at a cop OR who look away; if you speed up OR slow down; if you look TOO relaxed or TOO anxious.

digby @digby56.bsky.social · 8h

They claim the right to stop anyone and demand their papers based solely on the discretion of masked, cos-playing thugs who've decided you "look scared" or are "gripping the steering wheel tightly."

Miller is telling us, "Brown people today, the rest of you tomorrow." Listen to his words.

Trump Watch @trumpwat.ch · 14h

Border Patrol's Gregory Bovino: "We need reasonable suspicion to make an immigration arrest. Notice I did not say probable cause, nor did I say I need a warrant? Perhaps you look panicked when you see a Border Patrol agent. Perhaps you look scared ..."

So they scare people and then can arrest them.

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 18h

I have, tho I use ESPN mostly, theirs are pretty detailed and user friendly. But most game stories don't have them. In generations past, compiling it was basically what a journo did w/ their time during the game. A game reporter w/o their own scoresheet is suspect IMO. Are they even following it?

Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 20h

It's all still being compiled, we just don't get the data in routine news stories. I don't quite understand why, unless maybe they don't format well on phones, etc..

Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 22h

I miss baseball box scores. It's still possible to hunt 'em down, w/ even more detail online than we used to get in printed newspapers. But I want to see them embedded w/ coverage of every game and it always feels like a glaring absence when they're not there.

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ghostly gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 1d

Man, if you're going to share a screenshot of the story and a screenshot of an X post of someone else sharing the story, just share the fucking link! wacobridge.org/2025/10/06/d...

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 1d

We have reached a level of authoritarianism, let’s use the word FASCISM, where the President, based entirely on lies about violence and disorder, and against the will of the governors of the states, can send hostile state’s National Guard to invade and sit on citizens

Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 1d

Don’t think these Texas National Guard guys are going to be chasing any immigrants around Chicago on foot

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 23h

Trump is deploying these goons for the visuals. He wants imagery to promote on social and traditional media. But I wish all the liberals out there mad at these ICE deployments had been as angry when Obama did even worse. If they'd been fighting all along, they'd have more practice by now.

Who deported more migrants? Obama or Trump? We checked the numbers · Factchequeado.com

We received a question through our Instagram account asking "if it's true what people say" that President Barack Obama deported…

factchequeado.com

Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 23h

This is even better than the ICE fishing w/ donuts. Mockery is the correct response. Yes, they've been empowered to do a lot of damage (though I doubt their competence to reach Obama levels of deportations). But these goons are silly little boys playacting, why not confront cosplay w/ cosplay?

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 1d

George Orwell’s Animal Crossing

Someone in a frog costume facing down a line of police in riot gear

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

It basically became impossible to construct bipartisan coalitions based on the horseshoe theory -- left and right against the middle -- bc rightists started to CHANGE their opinion if a liberal happened to agree w/ them. Made it impossible to build coalitions, even if ideologically they made sense.

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

In TX, those IRL democratic processes stopped functioning in the 2019-2021 period, by the end of which, I began openly using the term "fascism" in public writing to describe the new worldview of Texas governance. For the 20 years prior to that the #cjreform movement here got a fair amount done.

Fascism Unsheathed: Let's be very clear about what just happened at the #txlege

For many years, your correspondent has sought to work in a bipartisan fashion at the Texas Legislature on criminal-justice reform, and I've ...

gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

Before they all died off, it was also all the old WW2 vets still wearing their old division hats into their 90s, but there aren't too many of them around anymore. We provided eldercare to my Canadian-RAF-veteran father-in-law and if ever there was an antifascist, it was that man.

Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

60 Minutes was important bc of the quality of journalism they produced, and Mike Wallace isn't walking through that door. Bc she is a grifter and at most an editorialist, and her "journalism" has been mainly propaganda, it's unlikely she will replicate those feats. That brand is toast.

Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

Portlanders baiting ICE thugs with donuts on a fishing line ("ICE fishing) reminds me of Charlie Geren tying a cookie on a string on the floor of the Texas House and casting it toward John Stickland repeatedly like he was trying to land a chubby, bearded catfish. www.threads.com/@sleepymiss2...

Melissa Coffey (@sleepymiss218) on Threads

Portland is fabulously unserious taunting “cops” with donuts.

www.threads.com

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Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 1d

It's not just that they're going to strike down a law against conversion therapy, it's that they're going to do it on behalf of made-up claims from a straw plaintiff who can't honestly show the law affected her at all

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 1d

One thing about American's widespread distrust and disapproval of the Supreme Court is that mainstream news coverage mostly doesn't dwell on stuff like standing, so people don't even begin to grasp how rigged the Court truly is www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Supreme Court Live Updates: Justices Seem Set to Rule Against Colorado’s Ban on Conversion Therapy

www.nytimes.com

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

Tbf, I haven't watched in years and years. She's taking over an institution that was prestigious in her grandparents' time but is now a shriveled husk compared to its Bill-Paley-era heyday.

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

‘I Got a Lot of People Believing in Me’: Robert Roberson Stares Down Death, Again www.texasobserver.org/robert-rober... - via @texasobserver.org

‘I Got a Lot of People Believing in Me’: Robert Roberson Stares Down Death, Again

Set to be the first U.S. person executed based on the controversial “Shaken Baby Syndrome” diagnosis, Roberson told the Observer last week he hopes his story will mean something.

www.texasobserver.org

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

So the parole agency got sunseted bc Congress didn't reauthorize it before it officially expired, and now must stop arresting parole violators. I wonder which party is in control of Congress and might have been in a position to prevent this situation?
www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

U.S. parole board can’t jail people because it doesn’t legally exist, suit says

Public defenders argue the U.S. Parole Commission should stop operating and release D.C. residents it recently jailed because Congress did not renew the agency’s authority.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Sara Spector @miriam2626.bsky.social · 1d

Greg Abbott used Texas taxpayer money to fly undocumented immigrants to Chicago and now he's using Texas taxpayer money to send our troops there to clean up a phony crisis he created.

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 1d

Well, this is stupid. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is sending out undercover operatives to infiltrate ... checks notes ... "Antifa." smdh www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/release...

Attorney General Ken Paxton Launches Undercover Operations to Infiltrate and Uproot Leftist Terror Cells in Texas After Increased Political Violence

In response to the political assassination of national hero Charlie Kirk and the disturbing rise of leftist violence across the country, Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched undercover investigati...

www.texasattorneygeneral.gov

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 2d

I think of the America Firsters more as agents of a foreign agenda (admittedly a bit like Trump inexplicably pimping for Putin/Russia), but the Second Klan was a populist and authentic, if terrible and grotesque, expression of a political element that's being re-empowered in the current moment.

Dr. Seuss cartoon showing German Nazis and America Firsters as two men joined by one beard, shown on stage under the banner "The Great US Side Show." A carnival barker points to them with a cane and says, "And on this platform, folks, those most amazing people ... the lads with the Siamese Beard! Unrelated by blood, they are joined in a manner that mystifies the mightiest minds in the land.

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 2d

The best historical analogy for the MAGA movement arguably is the Second Klan era, ca 1920s, more than the overtly fascist America Firsters pre-WW2. All the elements are there. AF was an elite-led movement. The erratic, populist fascism of the 2nd-Klan to a closer analogy to now. 1/2

Sharkhand @sharkhand.bsky.social · 2d

time.com/7323442/sout...

House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Set Ablaze

Authorities are investigating a fire at the home of a South Carolina judge who had reportedly received death threats in what could be the latest incident of political violence across the country.

time.com

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 3d

Every DoJ attorney promoting and defending at this stuff should never again eat food that is less than 10% spit

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 2d

In Houston, "the garage is the new porch." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/r...

The Garage Is the New Porch

www.nytimes.com

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Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 4d

Adding insult to injury, the FL kid who pulled down the touchdown throw to make the score 17-7 was named "Dallas."

Grits for Breakfast @gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social · 4d

Electing one's friends then failing to hold them accountable is IMO the source of the overwhelming majority of failures in the political system I've personally witnessed in my adult lifetime -- +/- the last 40 years.