Would it hurt to put on a pair of fucking pants? FFS!
I’m at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. I’ve just listened to Congressman Adam Kinzinger raising the alarm (again) about what is happening to our country, the possibility of becoming a facist nation, Donald Trump winning again, the collapse of democracy, and possible violence in the upcoming elections. Many in audience will be working their asses off in the upcoming elections to stop this.
And yet you have to pick this time to pick a fucking fight about your right to look like a fucking douche on the floor of the United States Senate floor. What in the living fuck is wrong with you? With our democracy hanging on a thread you want to pick a fight about your right to look like a bum? Seriously?
Here is a tip. Besides the extreme far left of the Democratic Party most Americans do not agree with you. Put on some goddamn nice clothes, shut the fuck up, and do your goddamn job.
I have a favorite but there is good competition in the race.
The City of Houston has 11 City Council Members representing specific areas of the city. There are 5 At Large Council Members and if I can find out what their specific jobs are I will update this post. Unlike the other Council Members they represent the city as a whole, but what their specific duties are I can’t tell you. I’ll look into it.
There are 6 candidates running for At-Large 1 position. Of the 6 Kendal Baker and Eriq C. Green are not running serious campaigns.
Julian Ramirez. Is a former prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office. He is supported by a number of very right wing, Trump loving, “conservatives”. I use that term lightly. Nothing is conservative about Trump or those who support him. Nevertheless he has qualifications for the office. Would he bring that divisive conservatism into City Council? This is a non partisan race but we do not need someone that will bring their partisan politics into city council.
Melanie Miles. Melanie has raised a significant amount of money, although she has donated $50,000 from her own pocket. She has a good resume for the job as a small business owner and an attorney.
Leah Wolfthal. Another great candidate for the office. Young and experienced in the non profit arena as Executive Director of the Center for Urban Transformation in Houston.
Conchita Reyes. Another young candidate with excellent experience for the job. Here is a snippet from her website: “Conchita paid her own way through college by working for the Houston City Controller and now Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia. As a result, she was given the distinct honor of 100 team members of the Advance of the White House under the Clinton – Gore administration. Prior to building her own firm, Conchita was a fiscal administrator for the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Mir Fox & Rodriguez P.C. CPA Firm.
Personally I favor Reyes, but she has good competition.
When you need someone to address a legal issue, hire an attorney. When you need someone to run a $6 Billion city budget, hire an accountant. –Book of Common Sense Vol II.
The Houston City Controller: “serves as the City’s chief financial officer, certifies the availability of funds prior to City Council approval of City commitments, processes and monitors disbursements exceeding one billion dollars annually, invests the City’s funds, conducts internal audits of the City’s departments and federal grant programs, operates and maintains its financial management system, conducts the sale of public improvement and revenue bonds and produces an Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR).”
Unlike the Harris County District Attorney’s Office the Controller’s office is not in the news. The staff isn’t revolting. No one is calling for a make over. No one is calling for a change in leadership or direction. City Council Members and candidates say the budget is in good shape, but there are challenges coming in 2026 when the last of the COVID money runs out. Overall the office is in great shape.
There are 4 candidates running to replace Controller Chris Brown who is term limited. Three of them are accountants. One is an attorney.
Let’s weed out a couple. Chris Hollins. Chris is a personal injury attorney. He has little experience for the job of Controller especially when compared to the other candidates. He initially decided to run for Mayor, another office he had little experience for, especially compared to his major challenger, Senator John Whitmire. He eventually quit once Sheila Jackson Lee entered the race. Chris is counting on his status as an up and coming, young, progressive to get elected as Controller, yet the bottom line is that there are much better candidates with applicable educational and job experience. Of the four candidates he is the least qualified for the job. Chris should be using his talents for an office with “attorney” behind the office title, such as City Attorney, District Attorney, or maybe County Attorney when Christian Menefee runs for Attorney General.
Orlando Sanchez. Orlando has served for 6 years as a City Council Member and assigned to the Budget Committee. He was elected to the office of County Treasurer and served for 3 terms. He has the experience but is lacking in fundraising and interest. Orlando seems to be interested in pushing extreme right wing agendas in an office that is non-partisan. I personally discount his run because of that. We do not need this type of leadership especially when we have two excellent candidates, Nobles and Martin running.
The Contenders: Shannon Nobles. Shannon is my favorite. She graduated from the University of Houston with advance degrees in accounting and finance. She has worked for the Controller’s office for 20 years. She started by being assigned to work with specific Council Members concerning the budget. Under Ron Green she was appointed to Deputy Director for 8 years and under Chris Brown she was appointed to Deputy Controller for 8 years. Shannon can easily do the job because she has been doing the job. No one in the race has direct applicable experience in the job as Shannon has. This is what she does. This is what she studied for in college. This is what she has excelled at for her entire career. She is the most qualified candidate running for the office.
City Council Member Dave Martin. CM Martin is tough competition for Shannon. Martin also has an educational background in accounting and finance. He has worked for major accounting firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, and Ernst & Young, LLP prior to joining City Council. He has been elected to the Humble ISD assigned to lead their finance committee. He worked with the Harris County Houston Sports Authority (HCHSA) where he was also Chairman of the Board Finance Committee. When elected to City Council he was appointed by Mayor Turner to lead the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee. As with Shannon, Martin lives and breaths accounting and could easily lead this office.
For Houston City Controller, vote for an accountant.
A Million Miles Away tells the story of Jose Hernandez, a migrant turned Astronaut. Hernandez is played by Michael Pena. It’s an amazing story of Hernandez coming to America as a child with his family to work the fields in California and eventually being picked by NASA to fly as a mission specialist on the Shuttle.
At times it’s a bit corny and there are scenes at Johnson Space Center that are not at Johnson Space Center but most people will never know that. Hernandez has a cameo appearance in the movie. It’s a great movie to kick off Hispanic Month.
BTW. Hernandez wife, Adela, opened a restaurant across the street from JSC Credit Union outside the north gate of JSC. My club would have weekly lunches there. We loved Adela!
If you have Amazon Prime, take some time to watch it.
They aren’t laughing with you. They are laughing at you. This is who they are. The Republican Senators couldn’t find an ounce of intelligence, or morals, or a pair of balls to do the right thing, the obvious thing. Instead they let the biggest crook in the history of the Texas Attorney Generals office off the hook. They couldn’t hold him to the highest standard the office demands. They couldn’t hold him to the highest standard the Bible demands. They couldn’t hold him accountable because they were afraid of being kicked in the balls by those who control them, their donors.
They have been officially neutered. Paxton will return to office to fire some more people and continue screwing his mistress. Tony Buzbee will run for Houston City Council. Lt Governor Dan Patrick will take the $3 Million he received from a Paxton PAC, Defend Texas Liberty, and start an investigation of those in the house who brought the charges to the Senate.
As I said in the past, they were never going to have the balls, the moral fortitude to do the right thing. Today the Republican Party leaders are just a bunch of low life, lying, cheating, stealing, adulterer sympathizer, excuse making, rotten bunch of fucking bastards. They will let Paxton off.
What an incredibly fucked up, spineless, immoral, stupid, ignorant, lawless, party of pussies.
Spare me the “praise Jesus” crap Senator. You not only turned your back to corruption, you turned your back on christian values. You are nothing but a coward. Just a big fucking coward.
Middleton voted against every single article of impeachment even though the evidence was clear, crystal fucking clear on many of them, not all, but many especially illegally hiring a “special prosecutor”. I watched the entire trial and out of all the articles this one was clear. It was no contest and every Senator should have voted to remove him from office but only 2 did.
Money Mayes Middleton doesn’t have a single christian bone in his fucked up body. He is a CHINO, Christian in Name Only. A hypocrite. A republican. This is who they are. Maybe Middleton is also having an affair. I wouldn’t be surprised.
The staff at the Texas Attorney’s Office are planning a welcome back party for Attorney General Ken Paxton after he was acquitted of 16 impeachment charges. According to his personal scheduler, who asked not to be identified, “I am so thrilled he is coming back. We will have a big cake for every staff member to enjoy.”
“I urge everyone in the office to sign the card with your name and phone number to show General Paxton that you actually showed up. Otherwise he might retaliate and fire your ass.”
After watching the majority of the Paxton impeachment I believe the defense is going to focus on the lack of evidence concerning the bribery charge. If the Senators acquit Paxton they will walk out and tell the media that they couldn’t prove their case concerning bribery and they will focus on that and that only. But just in case here are some other talking points for the Senate GOP (Group Of Pussies):
I have to agree. They have nothing. Almost. The Texas Tribune had a very short recap here. (even they were bored)
The most drama moment in the trial was Tony Buzbee saying the defense rests. The rest was boring and I’m not even sure what the defense was trying to do beside bore the shit out of the jurors.
The prosecution needs to prove only 1 of 20 articles of impeachment for Paxton to be removed from office. From what I watched, and I watched much of the trial, the issue of hiring of Brandon Cammack to conduct that bogus investigation is the one that is easy to understand and was pretty clear. He should go down for that alone. Luckily he has a bunch of Senators who are afraid of their shadow and will let him off.
The defense rested their defense of Paxton with time to spare to call more witnesses. I was wondering who they were going to find to actually come to the defense of Paxton. They found a couple that did their best to bore the crap out of the jury. They did their job.
Posted by johncoby 
Bay Area Houston 