The State of Texas: June 14, 2016

Quote of the Day

“Baalllll fiiivvveee, baalllll fiiivvveee, baalllll fiiivvveee…”

—Texas A&M baseball fans to opposing pitchers, according to MLB.com. Video of the chant, which fans start after a four-pitch walk and continue counting until the pitcher throws a strike, went viral following Saturday’s Super Regional game against TCU. We’ll have to wait until next year to hear more of the chant, however, because TCU eliminated the Aggies in a best-of-three series to advance to the College World Series.

Daily Roundup

Art Movement
Apparently not all of the decision makers at Baylor University want disgraced football coach Art Briles to be fired. According to USA Today, Briles still has the support of “a faction of voices within the school’s Board of Regents” who are pushing to bring him back. High school sports recruiting news service Scout.com even reported that some powerful donors threatened to pull their money from the university if he wasn’t reinstated. Briles was suspended “with intent to terminate” late last month after an independent report by law firm Pepper Hamilton found Baylor completely failed to respond to allegations of sexual assault, particularly against football players. There are conflicting reports regarding whether any action or vote is planned to decide whether to bring Briles back on board after his year suspension is over. But Bob Simpson, a co-owner of the Texas Rangers and a major Baylor donor, told the Dallas Morning News that he’d “like to see” Briles’s return. Two former Baylor board of regents chairs told the Waco Tribune-Herald that Briles “certainly deserves to be reinstated,” one noting, “It’d be a dream for me personally if Coach Briles could still be Coach Briles.” While the full Pepper Hamilton report has not been released to the public, a summary of its findings showed that football coaches and staff attempted to derail proper investigation processes and did not discipline players accused of sexual assault. It’s extremely unlikely Briles will be back, but just the idea alone that there are high-level Baylor folks who want to see his face on campus again shows how deep-seated Baylor’s incompetence is when it comes to understanding and handling sexual assault.

Waiting for Trump
Details of Donald Trump’s Texas trip are emerging, as are efforts to protest the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s visit. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Trump, who will be in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio on Thursday and Friday, will be met with extreme resistance from state Democratic groups, including Hispanic activist organization Accion America. According to the Statesman, Accion America is planning protests “numbering in the thousands” outside venues where Trump appears on Thursday. Trump will reportedly hold rallies in Dallas and Houston, but the Lone Star State swing is primarily a fundraising trip. It’s unclear whether Texans will pull out their wallets for Trump, though. State Republican leaders are “lukewarm,” at best, when it comes to supporting Trump, according to the Statesman. That includes George P., son of Jeb. The Bush family heir told the Statesman that he has no plans to endorse or even vote for Trump “because of concerns about his rhetoric and his inability to create a campaign that brings people together.” This is particularly significant because Bush is the Texas GOP’s “victory chairman,” the man charged with raising money for and essentially managing the state party’s campaign to drum up votes ahead of the general election.

Big Trouble in Little Houses
The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating and bizarre portrait of the small West Texas town of Spur, which apparently “declared itself the tiny house capital of America” two years ago and has been consumed by a miniature crisis ever since. “A lot of these towns out here are dying. These folks coming in are educated, professional and seem like they really have something to bring to the community. They are like a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy situation,” a longtime Spur resident told the Journal. “What we don’t want are anarchists or nudists.” Apparently, some tiny-house dwellers came to Spur “with the belief that anything goes,” as one petite-property owner explained. Writes the Journal: “Talk soon began to surface about plans to build yurts, straw dwellings and even underground dugouts resembling something out of ‘Lord of the Rings.’ That was too much for the tradition-minded folks of Spur.” In March, Spur’s city council passed an ordinance implementing new restrictions on tiny houses, including requiring designs to be submitted for approval. That seems to have broken the normal-sized hearts of some of the tiny homeowners, who now feel betrayed. A small group of them even broke away from Spur and bought a fifteen-acre plot of land nearby where they can live amid their custom-made close quarters without building restrictions.