Tag Archives: Texas News

ISIS Crisis in Texas, Cont. – Sort of

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Virginia Congressman and Tea Party Wannabe Rep. David Brat is claiming that ISIS has set up shop in Texas and that the worst is yet to come.  According to the Houston Chronicle, Brat has been speculating about goings on in the Lone Star State.

U.S. Rep. David Brat (R-Virginia) told conservative talk radio host Rusty Humphries that a Middle Eastern militia had already raised its black flag in the Lone Star State.

“In our country it looks like we have an ISIS center in Texas now, that’s been reported last week,” he said. “You can’t make up what a terrible problem this is.”

OMG, get your guns and run for the hills.  Life as we know it is over.  But make sure our law enforcement officials know what is going on before we get the hell out of Dallas.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said, “There is absolutely nothing to substantiate such a claim.”

Well apparently you can make it up.

Texas Tea Partisans Would Rather Lose Billions than Cave on Obamacare

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Texas health care providers are urging Texas lawmakers to expand Medicaid in order to receive billions to help the working poor obtain health coverage.  Texas still has the largest percentage of residents without primary health care coverage in the nation.  Is the Texas Tea Party likely to do anything about that?  Probably not, reports the Austin American-Statesman.

With billions of dollars in hospital aid at stake, health care officials are anxious for state leaders to resolve the federal government’s concerns about extending a program that helps cover the staggering cost of caring for uninsured and needy Texans.

The federal government wants Texas and other states to expand Medicaid to cover more residents — rather than relying on federal matching money to pay hospitals back for taking care of uninsured patients. Texas officials have refused, and now many are worried the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, might end the hospital payments when the current program expires Sept. 30, 2016.

Who Isn’t Running for Mayor of Houston?

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It might be easier to list those who aren’t interested in running the nation’s fourth largest city. The already crowded field for the Houston Mayoral election in November just got a bit more crowded when Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia announced his resignation and candidacy yesterday.  Garcia has high name recognition and an appeal to the burgeoning (yet lightly voting) Hispanic community.  He also carries the baggage of recent exposure of negligent operation of the Harris County Jail.

The field now includes:

Adrian Garcia – former Harris County Sheriff

Chris Bell – former U.S. Rep., Houston City Councilmember and Democratic candidate for Governor

Ben Hall  – former Houston City Attorney

Sylvester Turner – current State Rep. and former mayoral candidate

Stephen Costello – current Houston City Councilmember

Bill King – former Mayor of Kemah

Joe Ferreira  – retired United Airlines executive

The list of other potential candidates is still too long to post here.

The Passing of a Texas Legend – Jim Wright

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Former Speaker of the House and longtime Texas Congressman Jim Wright has died.  Red leaves it to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to tell the incredible tale of Wright’s rise to power and fall from grace.

In 1939, one of Jim Wright’s classmates penned a prescient note in the high school yearbook, predicting that, in 1955, “Congressman Wright” would deliver “the most erudite speech heard in the Congressional Hall.”

Sixteen years later, in 1955, Mr. Wright arrived in Washington as the newly elected U.S. representative from the 12th District of Texas. It was the beginning of a 34-year congressional career that fulfilled a boyhood dream and ended with his becoming the 48th speaker of the U.S. House of

At the height of his power, he fortified his hometown with millions of dollars in government pork, from defense jobs to water projects. President John F. Kennedy once called Fort Worth “the best-represented city” in America.

 

“Speaker Jim Wright’s footprint in Fort Worth and North Texas is large,” said U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Republican who now represents the 12th District. “He was instrumental in projects that helped build this state and particularly North Texas to the prominent place it holds today.”

Former President George H.W. Bush saluted Wright’s career. “We didn’t often agree on the issues during our time in Washington, but we did share both a deep and abiding love for this country as well as a commitment to service,” he said.

Make Marijuana Legal?

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The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee has passed HB 2165 which would completely decriminalize marijuana. Three Democrats and two Republicans voted to support the bill and it passed 5-2. The bill is championed by Rep. David Simpson (TP- Longview) who has argued that marijuana comes from God and therefore shouldn’t be banned by government.  Simpson, a Tea Party mainstay champions what he calls the “Christian case” for legalization.

Simpson’s bill is now eligible for consideration on the House floor before the legislative session ends June 1, but many view that as a remote possibility. Advocates for reform of marijuana laws viewed the committee vote as “unprecedented progress” for Texas marijuana rights. The bill would have strong popular support. According to a Texas Research Institute Public Policy Polling in September of 2013 almost 60% of Texas voters support legalizing and regulating marijuana similar to alcohol. That number has surely risen in the last two years as four states (Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon) have completely decriminalized cannabis.

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.

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.