It’s Pretty Bad when Rick Perry is the Sanest Guy in the Room

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Rick Perry is suggesting that we maybe should actually trust our military to run training exercises in Texas and that Gov. Greg Abbott has gone too far in pandering to the Tea Party Wingnuts. The Dallas Morning News has more.

Former Gov. Rick Perry suggested Tuesday that successor Greg Abbott went too far last week in raising questions about U.S. military exercises in Texas.

“It’s OK to question your government. I do it on a regular basis. But the military is something else,” said Perry, an Air Force veteran, as he prepared to speak to the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. “Our military is quite trustworthy. The civilian leadership, you can always question that, but not the men and women in uniform.”

Red doesn’t miss Rick yet, but he is sure headed in that direction.

Today in Texas History – May 6

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From the Annals of the Civil War –  Color Sergeant Leopold Karpeles won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at the battle of the Wilderness on this date in 1864. Karpeles was a Jewish native of Prague who emigrated to Texas in 1849.  He worked as a merchant in Galveston.  However, his opposition to slavery and secession led him to leave Texas for Massachusetts in 1861 where he enlisted in the Forty-sixth Massachusetts Infantry.  He mustered out in 1863 and in 1864 joined the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Infantry.  His incredible bravery at the Wilderness was rewarded with the highest military honor. At several crucial stages of the battle, Karpeles exposed himself to enemy fire by climbing up on stumps and rallying the regiment around its colors to repel an enemy advance. Of the 548 men his regiment, 262 were lost in the battle – casualty figures that are hard to fathom in this day and era.  He was later badly wounded in the Battle of North Anna, and spent the next year recovering in military hospitals.  He was discharged in May 1865 after the war ended.  In 1870 he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Wilderness.

Wow, Ted Was Right! They Really are Out to Get You – If You Don’t Tow the Tea Party Line

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The Houston Chronicle reports that the Austin-based nonprofit the American Phoenix Foundation  has been secretly filming Texas Republicans to later expose them as not conservative enough.  John Beria, spokesman for the foundation, said that the group has had 16 staffers working on the project who have filmed more than 800 hours of covert footage of GOP lawmakers.

The undercover video campaign represents a new front by conservative groups to target incumbent Republicans and tilt the Texas Legislature further to the right. Several House Republican lawmakers already have expressed concerns with some of the group’s tactics, saying they aggressively were approached last week – inside and outside the Capitol – by men who used hidden cameras to secretly videotape a series of encounters that has raised alarms for Capitol security.

Lawmakers said cameras were disguised as lapel pins or hidden in a briefcase, and some characterized the incidents as harassment because the men repeatedly pursued legislators through the hallways of the Capitol and off Capitol grounds. One lawmaker was approached while eating dinner with his wife at a Tex-Mex restaurant in downtown Austin.

“It’s like they were almost stalking us,” said Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, who navigated a detour through the Capitol with another female lawmaker last Friday to avoid the group.

Beria confirmed the “visionary” behind the program to collect secret footage of state lawmakers is Joseph Basel, the CEO of C3 Strategies, an Austin-based consulting firm that worked on the campaigns of state Sens. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, and Konni Burton, R-Fort Worth. Basel said none of the taping was done through C3, and that his consulting clients were not involved in any way.

In 2010, a federal judge sentenced Basel and fellow activist James O’Keefe to probation and community service after they pleaded guilty to entering the New Orleans offices of then-U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu under false pretenses.

O’Keefe was the mastermind behind the 2009 secret taping at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. During the exchange, ACORN staffers appeared to offer O’Keefe and Hannah Basel – masquerading as a pimp and prostitute – advice on tax evasion.

Both Basels helped found the American Phoenix Foundation.

“It’s a sleazy campaign tactic,” state Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican who was approached three times last week, said of the secret videotaping. “There’s some real scumbags in this business.”

Harless, the lawmaker from Spring, said she initially was approached last week by a man in an elevator after leaving a committee hearing. As the elevator doors opened, she said he peppered her with a series of questions and then zoomed away.

Harless said a Department of Public Safety trooper who observed the exchange told Harless that a badge shaped like the state of Texas on the man’s lapel actually was a camera.

Red is more than happy to watch the Right-Wing eat its own, but he draws the line at using a Texas shaped lapel pin to house a hidden camera.

The Latest Episode of Walker, Texas Moron

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Chuck Norris of Walker, Texas Ranger fame, has weighed in on the Jade Helm 15 “controversy.”  Chuck speaks, Red translates:

Concerned Texans and Americans (Tea Party Wingnuts) are in no way calling into question our brave and courageous men and women in uniform (except to claim that they are coming to round us up and take our guns away). They are merely following orders (of the Muslim Kenyan Terrorist Sympathizer). What’s under question are those who are pulling the strings at the top of Jade Helm 15 back in Washington (that Muslim Kenyan Terrorist Sympathizer again). The U.S. government says, “It’s just a training exercise.” But I’m not sure the term “just” has any reference to reality when the government uses it. (Even Red “just” can’t figure out what the Texas Moron is “just” trying to say here).

“Well, I’m not trusting what we’re being told,” said Mike Hightower, an affable antique store owner and real-estate agent (and possible part-time conspiracy theorist) in the very small town of Smithville, Texas, (does it still bill itself as the “Heart of the Megapolis?”) where some Jade Helm 15 (Red preferred the noir classic Jade Helm 2) exercises will take place. He added, “I think there’s something a little more involved than what they’re telling us.” (okay, confirmed conspiracy theorist).

If Washington (you know who) wants to cool the embers of controversy (that we made up out of whole cloth), then it should quit stoking the fire (doing its job protecting our country), as with the posting of a map of Jade Helm 15 “just” exercises that label some areas of the country, including Texas, as “hostile,” according to KHOU 11 News in Houston and verified by the Washington Post (OMG are you really that f%#king stupid?).

I have an idea (now let’s be careful here): If the government insists on running expanded military ops (they’re really coming to take our women and children and most importantly guns) across seven Southwest states, why doesn’t it move all that “military training” south and protect our borders (keep them pesky brown skins out) at the same time?! (Red has never seen a question mark and an exclamation point used simultaneously, so this must really be important – or not!?. So there.)

Whatever Jade Helm 15 actually is (women, children, guns, etc again), I think it is more than coincidental that the FBI director just confessed in February that the presence of ISIS can be felt in all 50 states of the U.S. and that the Pentagon (Remember, I support our support our brave men and women in the military unless they happen to be in command) is suddenly running its biggest military training exercise (oops! I slipped up here and actually correctly identified Jade Helm 15 as a military training exercise – please forgive me) with every branch of the military across seven Southwestern states (rather than, for example, Kenya). Whether deterrence, display of power or something more covert or devious (okay, I’m back on track – women, children, guns, etc.), let’s not come with any patronizing nonsense of impotence and simplicity (okay, he lost Red again) when its origin is in Washington (you know, perhaps we could overlook that Muslim Kenyan Terror Sympathizer thing – if he weren’t also a gall-danged Democrat!).

I’m glad Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is asking the tough questions of the Pentagon about Jade Helm 15, (Like – why are you coming to round us up and take away our women, children and guns?) particularly because its “exercises” (it must be a lie if I put it in quotes) come too near to my ranch’s backdoor as well (Ah, now we’re getting somewhere), at least according to the map. It’s pretty sad and bad (and plaid and mad and rad) when major military ops (getting army jargon talk on us) are ordered in a large, fiery (really, we’re actually on fire most of the time in the  Lone Star state) state like Texas and not even the governor or its senators know the specifics (other than the complete briefing they got from the Military who of course cannot be trusted).

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Really big fish in a tiny barrel. You can thank Red later.

ISIS Crisis in Texas?

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CNN reports that ISIS has claimed responsibility for the incompetent goons who attacked a group holding a Mohammed Art Contest apparently designed to provoke just such an attack.

In a broadcast on its official radio channel Tuesday, the group said two Al Khilafa soldiers opened fire outside the event in Garland, a Dallas suburb. Al Khilafa is how ISIS refers to its soldiers.  CNN cannot confirm the claim, and ISIS offered no evidence that the gunmen were affiliates with the terror organization.  The gunmen . . . wounded a security guard before police shot and killed them.

“We say to the defenders of the cross, the U.S., that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse. The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of God. The future is just around the corner.”

Red has always contended that if terrorists wanted to bring the nation to its knees for a few weeks, all they need is about 1000 kooks armed with hunting rifles willing to die.  Remember what two guys with a rifle and a van did to the DC area over a decade ago.  If this is indicative of the caliber of kooks that are available, then fortunately for us, ISIS will have trouble finding anyone with half a brain.

So Much for Local Control

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The Texas Tea Party likes to shout local control and government overreach from the rooftops when it fears the federal government stepping on Texans’ toes.  But when it comes to serving the interests of big oil, the Tea Partisans cannot fall over themselves fast enough to do its bidding.  This time it comes in the form of a bill passed by the Senate and House which will prevent Texas municipalities from banning fracking within their city limits.  But the bill, which emerged as a response to a hydraulic fracking ban passed by Denton voters in November, goes well beyond just fracking and leaves municipalities powerless to regulate any oil and gas practices that do not involve surface operations.

The bill emerged as legislative backlash to a hydraulic fracturing ban passed by Denton voters in November.  The legislation also prevents cities from passing ordinances addressing underground activity, including disposal wells, which have been linked to earthquakes, and pre-empt any ordinance deemed not “commercially reasonable.”

Now Red appreciates the need for uniform rules on drilling practices, but the hypocrisy of the Tea Partisans is just plain shocking.  They insist that the federal government cannot dictate to Texas – but then have Texas turn around and dictate to local government.

Today in Texas History

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From the Annals of the Hail from Hell –  In 1995, a surprise and deadly hail storm struck Fort Worth  and Dallas.  The super-cell thunderstorm was characterized as the worst recorded hail storm to hit the U.S. in the 20th Century.  The storm hit on a warm Friday afternoon that had attracted many thousands to various outdoor venues and in particular the Fort Worth Mayfest.   The sudden storm caught many in the open when tennis-ball-sized hail began to fall.  Victims suffered broken bones, deep lacerations and bruises from the hail stones. The hail also caused considerable property damage in western Fort Worth.  It even disrupted air traffic throughout the country because of delays at DFW.  Seventeen people died in the storm – but none from hail.  Rather, flash flooding caused the fatalities with most of the victims being drowned after attempting to cross flooded areas in their cars.  Two people were killed when a water filled roof collapsed.  At the time, it was considered to be the costliest hail storm in U.S. history.