Alas, the previous moderators became inactive, so I have gained control over the community.

My moderation philosophy is simple: While I might express personal opinions in threads, I will moderate based on the Lemmy TOS, meaning that bigotry and personal attacks will not be tolerated, but otherwise discussion should be pretty darned free. (It can be hard to articulate every last thing that can be disruptive, so you may occasionally find someone acting badly that's not articulated in the rules, but I'll take care of that anyway).

If you see something that breaks the Lemmy TOS, please do report it. Please do not report things like "I don't like this post", though¹.

I view myself as a facilitator, not a dictator. Hopefully you will rarely know I'm here. If you have any issues or want to have any meta discussions, I try to "rule" by consent and consensus, so I'm always open to seeing a meta thread to discuss how to make things better.

Please submit Texas-related things to the community! It'd be nice to have a great community for a great state.

And if the above is just too much to read, I'll just say it here: Don't Mess With c/Texas. ;-)

Historically, saying something like that means people report this post with "I don't like this post" to be clever. If you need to get it out of your system, go ahead and report this post, but at least come up with a clever reason, wouldya? :)

Texas has suspended construction permits of 17 data center projects. This comes after 404 Media's Matthew Gault reported that a group of Texans discovered the state had continued to issue construction permits related to data centers despite Governor Greg Abbott calling for a pause.

This is a continuation of 404 Media’s story from Monday.

'It Ain't Right:' Texas Said It Would Halt Data Center Permits. The State is Pushing Ahead Anyway

A group of Texans believe they’ve discovered evidence that the state’s environmental regulatory agency has continued to issue permits to data centers despite Governor Greg Abbott’s call for it to stop.

One person is dead after police say the person jumped following a standoff that lasted for hours and closed all lanes of the Interstate 20 and I-45 interchange, snarling traffic on a key transportation route in southern Dallas County. The lanes appeared to have reopened as of 6:15 p.m. Thursday, according to Texas Department of Transportation cameras.

The latest forecast from the Dallas Fed projects the state will add jobs at a rate of less than 1% this year, well below Texas' historical average.

Texas lost nearly 19,000 jobs in September, according to figures published this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, representing the state’s largest monthly net jobs decrease since June 2025. The rough month also helped push the Reserve Bank’s 2026 Texas employment growth forecast downward to less than 1% — a significant drop from recent months and far below the state’s historical average.

September’s weak job numbers come as the country faces numerous economic headwinds, including high energy costs, interest rates that continue to weigh on homebuilding and an immigration crackdown restricting hiring in some key industries.

“Texas employment declined in September, slowing year-to-date job growth to 0.8%, well below the state’s long-running average of 2%,” Luis Torres, a Dallas Fed senior business economist, said in a statement. “The moderation in job growth is consistent with current labor supply constraints that partly result from sharply lower immigration.”

A flyer addressed to Texas students is showing up in mailboxes across the state. It claims to come from an organization called the Texas Transgender Student Union. But who is behind it remains a mystery.

The mailer, which presents itself as a resource guide for LGBTQ+ students, began appearing as early voting got underway for the Nov. 3, 2026, midterm election. The pamphlet includes information on topics ranging from gender identity to what students can do if their parents do not support them.

Images of the flyer have spread widely on social media. Some users have expressed outrage over its contents, while others have questioned who created it and why it is being mailed to students.

Much of the information in the mailer appears to come from the Transgender Education Network of Texas, known as TENT.

However, TENT says it had nothing to do with the mailing.

Texas is a deathcult desperately trying to convince everyone it is just another shithole.

USA Today owns seven daily newspapers in the state, but its latest list of the nation’s best taco places completely omits Texas restaurants. Why tear out the heart of taco country?

This year has seen a myriad of taco lists, including our own roundup of the top 25 new or improved taquerias in Texas, but the latest, from USA Today, is perhaps the most flabbergasting. Texas-based Mexican restaurants, taquerias, and trucks are absent. Allow me to repeat that: Texas has zero representation on the list. I couldn’t let this stand without commentary.

Each recommended taco restaurant is in a city with a USA Today–owned paper, but Texas has seven such newspapers—the Abilene Reporter-News, the Amarillo Globe-News, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the El Paso Times, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the San Angelo Standard-Times, and the Wichita Falls Times Record News—with no corresponding taquerias on the list. There is no excuse for leaving out taco spots like El Paso’s El Cometa, Taquería Elemi, and Taconeta. The absence of Jiménez y Friends Barbecue y Taqueria, in Lubbock, is a mistake. And Corpus Christi’s Southside Barbacoa deserves consideration, for not only its barbacoa but also its carne guisada.

“The Caldwell Technology Park [...] the Stargate facility, and a bunch of other very large hyperscale facilities have gotten regulatory approvals [...] so it's not like a real pause."

Before running for U.S. representative, Bobby Pulido had already toured the communities in his Texas border district. He spent 31 years as a tejano and regional Mexican singer, performing solo and with his father, the legendary musician Roberto Pulido. In South Texas everyone knows the performer: they grew up with his hit Desvelado, they danced and fell in love to Se murió de amor. But for the past year Pulido has shown a new side—one some support without hesitation and others are still weighing as an option on the midterm ballot: that of politician.

Pulido, who studied political science for a few years at a university in San Antonio, also tends to distance himself from political parties. Although he is the Democratic candidate for the competitive 15th district, which stretches from rural counties east of San Antonio down to the Rio Grande Valley, he says he is not running to turn a traditionally Republican red state blue: “I’m not talking about colors, but about things that matter to people.” He says that as a candidate he has visited communities in northern counties of the district where people told him they had not seen a Democrat in 10 years.

The authority to issue executive orders traditionally belongs to the chief executive, like the governor or a county judge.

Three weeks ago, Texas Comptroller Don Huffines signed what he called an executive order aimed at eliminating a “hidden tax” on fees charged by virtual marketplaces to sellers.

“There will be a lot more coming,” Huffines said as he held up a jumbo printed version of the order in front of tax industry members, associations and consultants. “This puts tens of millions of dollars annually back in the pocket of Texas families and small businesses.”

Huffines made good on his promise in the weeks that followed, as he issued three more executive orders. The orders target a tax for medical records, funding for Flock surveillance cameras and ensuring no state dollars support diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Except they might be executive orders in name only. The orders themselves direct comptroller’s office staff to start the formal process of changing agency rules, something the comptroller can largely do on his own already.

It is not clear why Huffines is calling the directives executive orders, a unilateral authority that typically rests in the hands of the chief executive at each level of government, whether it is a county judge, Gov. Greg Abbott or President Donald Trump. Huffines’ office did not respond to a list of questions or an interview request.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53353228

“We have anticipated shenanigans in this election because we always experience shenanigans in elections in Texas,” Hinojosa said. “But change is coming. They cannot stop it. We need everybody to be vigilant and be extra proactive in getting their vote in on time.”

On Monday, Hinojosa also announced a new lawsuit as part of an effort to view documents related to communications between Gov. Abbott, the Governor’s Office, Elon Musk and Musk’s companies. The Governor’s Office objected to releasing the records, arguing they were private and not of legitimate public interest because they were too “intimate and embarrassing” to make public.

“Nobody here is accusing Greg Abbott of having a torrid love affair with Elon Musk. I don't think that's what this is about,” Hinojosa said. “What this is about is we have the world's only trillionaire getting massive tax breaks from this governor after giving him over $500,000 in campaign contributions.”

The documents in question were part of a public records request filed by The Texas Newsroom last year. The governor’s office objected to releasing the communications on the grounds of “the state’s competitive business interests, attorney-client privilege, and deliberative-process privilege,” according to Hinojosa’s lawsuit.

10/19/2026

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53327958

The early voting for the Midterms is now available in many places. You can early vote at a polling place: https://www.eac.gov/voters/register-and-vote-in-your-state

Or you can use mail-in voting: https://www.eac.gov/voters/national-mail-voter-registration-form

It's highly recommended to avoid election day voting in person, and vote early.