The QueQue: Perry appointment push for nuke waste, River Walk to get Hippie Hollow treatment, Texas, meet Anonymous

The effort targeting the “prison-industrial-complex” has since sparked an FBI investigation, according to James McLaughlin, executive director of the police chief’s association. Close to home, Anonymous hacked the accounts of Olmos Park Police Chief Fred Solis, charging him with passing along “anti-immigrant” jokes and emails (apparently, it was simply a photo of a Chihuahua dressed in scuba gear, with a caption reading “Mexican Navy Seals”).

Emails from former Helotes Police Chief Morton Ault, who was fired last year amid allegations of fraud, seem to be from his personal account, containing exchanges with women he met online, possibly on AdultFriendFinder — some of the back-and-forths are so graphic, they even make QueQue blush.

Perhaps most troubling — apart from the fact that dozens of Texas law-enforcement agencies can be so readily hacked, leaking sensitive and possibly damaging information on ongoing investigations — are the numerous racist chain messages and anti-Muslim jokes. *facepalm*

TCEQ and Express fails

The Obama administration’s decision to back off an already long delayed tightening of the nation’s ozone standards earned thumbs up from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, where commissioners are already busy trying to figure out how to sue their way out of separate regulations issued in July that clamp down on ozone-creating chemicals from power plants (which CPS Energy expects to cost the utility $100 million to comply with). In a press release the agency lauded the White House, saying there’s “no compelling scientific reason to revise that standard.” With language befitting of a free-market think tank, the TCEQ wrote, “We’re glad the Obama administration finally agrees with this position and has put a halt to this job-killing proposal.” With the White House getting beat down by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their ilk, it would seem appropriate to cover as news any Texas mayor stepping out to shame the anti-science and pro-dirty fuels mob — especially when he’s our own. Strange that your daily paper would attend a proclamation by Mayor Castro declaring September as Climate Change Awareness Month in our hostile political environment and not write about it. At least the Texas Daily Climate saw the news peg, writing: “Castro’s proclamation and endorsement of the climate change awareness activities, however, provided another telling illustration of widening divisions over climate and energy issues — not just between many Democrats and many Republicans, but also, to a notable extent in Texas, between municipal officials who don’t dispute the mainstream consensus in climate science and top state officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, who do.” Sounds like a fascinating read. •