Author Archives: Red from Texas

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About Red from Texas

I'm proud to be Red. I have lived most of my life in Texas and I love this place. Here are a few things you should know about me. 1. I am happily married and intend to stay so. 2. I live in a house that is older than you, unless you are really old. 3. I own 2 rifles and a shotgun. I think handguns are just trouble. 4. I have never killed a man, but have taken out some deer and hogs. 5. I was a good student, but never close to being valedictorian. 6. In no particular order I like the Houston Texans, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Astros, FC Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur, Texas Longhorns and Houston Dynamo. 7. I hate Dallas but always have a good time when I go there. 8. I was a Dallas Cowboys fan for 26 years but declared that I was no longer a fan during the 1987 strike. 9. I don't own any pets. I like cats, and a good dog and I have met at least 3 of them in my lifetime. 10. I think the best part of Texas is west of I-35. 11. I own two pairs of cowboy boots, but don't wear them very often. 12. I don't have a pronounced Texas accent, but can affect one when needed. 13. My last meal would be fried shrimp with tartar sauce, a baked potato with all the fixins', a dinner salad with 1000 Island dressing, yeast rolls and chocolate fudge pie for dessert. 14. I'm an old Dad, but my children are none of your business. 15. I have two degrees from UT-Austin and somehow managed to fall in love with and marry an Aggie. 16. Most of my family are right-wing nut jobs but I love them anyway. 17. When I get to play golf on a regular basis, I shoot in the low 80's. 18. I don't get to play golf on a regular basis. 19. I think Fort Worth is the best town in Texas by a long shot. 20. I have a mean herb garden. Regards, Red P.S. Remember it's not a color, it's a state of mind.

Abbott’s Phony List of Illegal Voters Falls Apart

Greg Abbott’s most recent choice for Texas Secretary of State, David Whitley, put out a list of 95,000 Texas voters which it claimed were not U.S. citizens.  Upon even slight investigation, the phony list – obviously intended to pump up Abbott’s Tea Party bona fides – began to quickly fall apart.  In announcing the list, Whitley and indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed that the list was put out as part of a fight against fraudulent voting.  Individual 1 a/k/a Trumph – the Insult Comic President and other denizens of the far right have insisted that illegal voting and voter fraud are serious problems despite the lack of any real evidence of in-person voter fraud and the Texas GOP is obviously eager to back him up.

It turns out that many names on the list were of people who registered when getting a Texas Driver’s License – a process that requires applicants to establish their citizenship –  or registered at a naturalization ceremony – which should need no explanation, that is  to anyone other than Our Poor Idiot Governor.  When that was revealed, the list quickly started falling apart.  In Harris County, almost 60% of the names on a 30,000 voter list were almost immediately removed.  Odds are that the vast majority of the remaining names will turn up nothing as well.

To their credit, most of the local county tax-assessor collectors (still in charge of registering voters as a legacy of the Jim Crow era poll taxes) have tread very carefully and seem intent on protecting the rights of Texas voters – unlike OPIG and his flunkies.

So OPIG has spent a lot of taxpayer money and effort in a process which might reveal that a handful of Texas voters were not actually authorized to vote.   If the Texas GOP clearly stands for one thing – it stands for voter suppression.

Today in Texas History – January 29

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From the Annals of Bad Decisions –  In 1861, the Texas State Secession Convention  voted overwhelmingly to secede from the United States following the lead of several other southern states.  Rather than concede that Republican Abraham Lincoln had been duly elected, the Southern states chose to secede precipitating what would be the worst tragedy in U.S. history.  As Red has noted many times, the Texas Ordinance of Secession is one of the most vile, racists screeds that an organized governmental body has ever produced.  The Ordinance of Secession was subject to a popular referendum to which was held on February 23, 1861. The vote was 46,153 in favor of secession and 14,747 against.

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“When the senator from Texas shut this government down in 2013, my state was flooded. It was under water. People were killed. People’s houses were destroyed. Their small businesses were ruined forever. And because of the senator from Texas, this government was shut down, for politics that he surfed to a second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.”

Sen. Michael Bennett (D. Colo) lambasting Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Tex.) for complaining about the Democrats refusing to allow a bill to advance to pay Coast Guard salaries during the government shutdown.  Democrats were insisting on reopening all governmental functions.  Cruz, famously, initiated an ill-advised governmental shutdown with a filibuster that thrust him into the national spotlight in advance of the 2016 Republican primaries.

The Beginning of the End for the Self-Proclaimed Queen Sheila Jackson Lee?

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The Texas Tribune reports that Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) has stepped down from two influential posts in the wake of a brewing scandal.  Rep. Jackson Lee who was reported by the Houston Press to have previously claimed, “I’m a queen. I deserve to be treated like a queen” is in trouble for firing a staffer who reported a rape by a supervisor at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation where SJL had served as board chairwoman.  SJL is also “temporarily” stepping down from her position on the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on crime, terrorism, homeland security and investigations.

The 13-term congresswoman will no longer serve as the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s board chairwoman and will temporarily step aside from her position as chair on the Judiciary Committee’s crime, terrorism, homeland security and investigations subcommittee[.]

At issue is her spring 2018 termination of a staffer known in court filings as “Jane Doe,” who alleged that a supervising CBCF staffer raped her in 2015 when she was an intern for the foundation. Doe later went to work for Jackson Lee and claims that she informed the congresswoman’s chief of staff that she planned to pursue legal action against the CBCF staffer and was fired several weeks later.

Many on both side of the political spectrum in the Houston community would be glad to see Jackson Lee out of office.  The report of retaliation by SJL against a rape victim has made some start questioning her continued viability within the House Democratic power structure.

Today in Texas History – January 25

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From the Annals of Heraldry –  In 1839, the Republic of Texas Congress adopted the Texas national seal consisting of a five point white star on a sky blue background ringed by olive and live oak branches. The Republic’s seal has been modernized but has  remained essentially the same to date.  When Texas became a state in 1845, the words encircling the main elements were changed from  Republic of Texas to State of Texas.

Today in Texas History – January 24

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JOHNSON, BRITTON | The Handbook of Texas Online| Texas ...

From the Annals of the Llano Estacado – In 1871, former slave Britton Johnson was killed by a band of Kiowa who attacked his wagon train. Johnson had been a slave of Moses Johnson, but was treated more like the foreman of his ranch and allowed freedom of movement and to raise his own livestock.  In October of 1864, Indians killed his son and kidnapped his wife and other children in the Elm Creek Raid.  Johnson pursued his relatives and became somewhat legendary for his exploits across the Llano Estacado that eventually resulted in the ransom of his relatives. After the Civil War, Johnson worked as a teamster hauling goods between Weatherford and Fort Griffin.   On the fateful trip he and two other black teamsters were ambushed by a band of about 25 Kiowa four miles east of Salt Creek in Young County.  A group of teamsters from a larger train of wagons discovered the bodies and reported that it appeared that Johnson died last in a desperate defense behind the body of his horse.  Other teamsters who found the mutilated bodies of Johnson and his men counted 173 rifle and pistol shells in the area where Johnson made his stand. He was buried with his men in a common grave beside the wagon road.

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“. . . Nancy Pelosi or as I call her Nancy . . .”

Individual 1 a/k/a Trumph the Insult Comic President™ responding to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to let him deliver the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol.

You just know Individual 1 wants to hang an insulting nickname on NP, but he just can’t bring himself to do it because he knows it will result in the biggest bitch-slap of his life.

Today in Texas History – January 23

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From the Annals of the True Heroes of the Civil War -In 1863, former Texas State Sen. Martin Hart was executed in Fort Smith, Arkansas for his supposed treason against the Confederate States of America.  Hart was an attorney from Hunt County who had served in the Texian Army during the Revolution at age 15.  He later served in the Texas Legislature as a representative and senator.  He was opposed to secession.  After the Texas Legislature passed the vile screed known as the “Ordinance of Secession”, he resigned from the Legislature and organized the Greenville Guards, pledging the company’s services “in defense of Texas whenever she is invaded or threatened with invasion.”   In the summer of 1862 he received a Confederate commission with permission to raise a company and conduct operations in northwest Arkansas.   However, he used his commission to travel through Confederate lines leading his followers to Missouri where they joined Union forces.  He returned to Arkansas where he led a series of rear-guard actions against Confederate forces, and is alleged to have murdered at least two prominent secessionists. He and others were captured on January 18, 1863, by Confederate forces, hung five days later and buried in an unmarked graves under the hanging tree.  After Fort Smith was recaptured by Union forces, his remains were moved to the National Cemetery there.  Contributions from Union soldiers paid for his headstone.

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“I have a recommendation for Ms. Sylvester and her lips and my backend.”

State Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo).

The relatively moderate Seliger was responding to comments made by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s senior advisor Sherry Sylvester.  Seliger, who had been the longtime chair of the Senate Committee on Higher Education, was upset after Patrick  removed him from that committee and the Senate Finance Committee instead installing him as Chair of the Agriculture Committee.  Sylvester remarked that if Seliger “believes serving as Chair of the Agriculture Committee . . . is beneath him, he should let us know and the lieutenant governor will appoint someone else.”  Seliger’s remarks got him removed from that position and barred from a Republican caucus.  Patrick may not be very smart, but he sure plays hardball.  This is a warning to all Texas Republicans who are not willing to tow the ultra right-wing Tea Party line of Patrick and his ilk.

Today in Texas History – January 22

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From the Annals of the Speculators –  In 1883, the “Fifty Cent Act” was removed from Texas law.  The FCA had been in effect for just over four years and provided for selling off Texas public land at the bargain basement price of fifty cents an acre.  Half of the sales proceeds were to be used to pay down the public debt and the other half to establish a permanent school fund. The FCA applied to lands in over fifty Texas counties resulting in the sale of 3,201,283 acres for $1,600,641.55. The FCA Act was repealed due to abuse and fraudulent land speculation.