Eric Dick complains about…..wait for it…..deceptive media content. LOL

July 28, 2021


Eric Dick, who chairs the Harris County Department of Education, is whining about “deceptive media content”. This is laughable. Truly laughable.

Dick has a preliminary hearing scheduled at the end of this month in front of the Texas Ethic Commission for his deceptive media content. As you might remember Dick paid for a mailer to the African American community during the 2019 City Council runoff. This mailer did not have the required “Political ad paid for by…” statement. It also looked like prominent Black elected officials such as former President Barack Obama, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and others were endorsing his run for Houston City Council. 

Not only did they not endorse Dick or any candidates on the mailer, some of the candidates specifically asked NOT be be included in the mailer. It was deceiving, dishonest, and illegal. So for Dick to be whining about a number of articles from the Southeast Texas Record, a publication focusing on the legal community, is just rich. According to Dick:

But what about the second form of deceptive media content: erroneous and biased reporting? This solution could come from ordinary people like you and me. News agencies like Southeast Texas Record and David Yates that publish false, dishonest, and biased stories can be called out. Furthermore, we may assess our involvement in spreading misleading information on social media and take serious steps to prevent it.

That really is rich coming from Dick who will be facing the Ethics Commission next month.





Raising Campaign Cash: Paxton, Bush, Guzman for Attorney General

July 25, 2021

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who is behind the republican butt kissers for Texas Attorney General.

Bush raised $2,264,137 from 1114 donations. 73%, $1,650,000, came from 78 donations of $10,000 or more. 99% came from 299 donations of $1000 or more leaving only 1% of all his donations coming from donations of $500 or less. $300,000 came from 3 different donors, Trevor Rees-Jones, Arnulfo Eduardo Trevino Garza, and HH Tripp Wommack III.

Paxton raised $1,819,468 from 503 donations. 86%, $1,572,000, came from 46 donations of $10,000 or more. 99% came from 125 donations of $1000 or more leaving only 1%, $23,536 of all his donations coming from donations of $1000 or more. $500,000 can from 2 donors, $250,000 from Douglas Scharbauer, and $250,000 from the Republican Attorney General Association. Darwin Reason and Kenny Troult each donated $100,000.

Eva Guzman raised $1,051,723 from 234 donations. 85%, $892,500, came from 24 donors of $10,000 or more. 98%, $1,027,700, came from 75 donors of $1000 or more. Texans for Lawsuit Reform donated $200,000.


Raising Campaign Cash: Republican Party of Texas

February 22, 2021

This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. The Party of Q led by right wing extremist Allen West, received $5,452,396 in donations in 2020. The breakdown is pretty interesting.

Of the $5,452,396 total:

$97,504 (1.7%) came from 798 donors contributing less than $1000, averaging $221 each.

$5,355,891 (98.3%) came from 249 donors contributing more than $1000, averaging $21,509 each.

$4.994,300 (91.5%) came from 119 donors contributing more than $10,000, averaging $41,968 each.

The biggest donors include Chief Justice Nathan Hecht for $750,000, Brett Busby for Supreme Court $800,000, Justice Jane Bland for $400,000 and Richard Weekley for $125,000. Here is a list of the top donors:

Chief Justice Nathan Hecht Campaign 750,000.00
Brett Busby Campaign 400,000.00
Brett Busby Campaign 400,000.00
Justice Jane Bland Campaign 400,000.00
Wright For Texas 250,000.00
Ryan Sitton Campaign 110,000.00
Greehey ,William 100,000.00
Pitcock Jr. ,James D. 100,000.00
Weekley ,Richard 100,000.00
Weisman ,John 100,000.00
Wright for Texas 100,000.00
Texans for Jeff Boyd 90,000.00
Texans for Jeff Boyd 89,165.04
George ,Seay 81,000.00
Bennet Jr. ,Archie 80,000.00
Josh Burgess For Judge 70,000.00
Team Tarrant PAC 68,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 66,000.00
Wall ,Kathaleen 51,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 50,000.00
Vincent Morales Campaign 46,500.00
Morgan ,Jerry 42,500.00
Pete Flores for Senate 35,000.00
Kevin Cole For Mayor 33,375.00
Judge James H. Shoemake Campaign 30,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 30,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 28,250.00
Pete Flores for Senate 27,500.00
Anwar ,Syed 25,000.00
Keep Tarrant Red PAC 25,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 25,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 25,000.00
Pete Flores for Senate 25,000.00
Ryan LLC PAC 25,000.00
Texans for Dan Patrick 25,000.00
Texans for Greg Abbott 25,000.00
Wall ,Kathaleen 25,000.00
Weekley ,Richard 25,000.00
Vincent Morales Campaign 24,750.00
Birdwell ,Tucker 22,300.00
Chazen ,Stephen 20,000.00
Hardeman ,Bryan 20,000.00
Judge Chris Wolfe Campaign 20,000.00
Kinder ,Nancy 20,000.00


The sexist MAGAt of Houston City Council: Greg Travis District G

December 29, 2020

Just like Trump. 

Here are a couple of posts from Houston City Councilman Greg Travis. He speaks for himself. According to Wikipedia he teaches business law at the Houston Community College. Hopefully he will not next semester. The posts make me want to ask “What the fuck is wrong with you?”


Jared Woodfill involved in a strange, dangerous, assault by a former policeman

December 16, 2020

Never liked the guy. Any attorney who has to use a tube of brylcreem isn’t getting my business.

Jared Woodfill was the Chair of the Harris County Republican Party for over a decade. In 2019 his law office was raided. Now he finds himself on one end of a strange conspiracy theory assault. From the Houston Chronicle:

Instead, according to an indictment announced Tuesday by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, the incident was a brazen attempt by a former Houston police captain to secure evidence to support a far-fetched claim that prominent local Democrats had orchestrated a scheme to harvest more than 700,000 ballots leading up to the Nov. 3 election. The ex-lawman, Mark A. Aguirre, 63, faces a felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon stemming from the Oct. 19 confrontation.

So, how does Jared fit in this debacle? Turns out Jared is the president of Liberty Center for god and country. The Liberty Center paid Aguirre over $200,000 for his investigative skills. Over the years Jared has joined with religious nut job Steven Hotze and has been circling the drain with him. Liberty Center is not listed at the Texas Ethics Commission or the city or county websites. They had a GoFuckMe site that has since been removed.

Hopefully the Harris County DAs office is going to comb this shit out.


Raising Campaign Cash: Lacey Hull. It's a sorid affair

December 15, 2020

Lacey Hull won a close raise in Texas House District 138. According to Living Blue in Texas her husband filed for divorce the same day she won alleging Respondent has committed adultery.” According to her campaign finance reports Hull is carrying on other affairs with special interest groups.

Prior to her 30 day out report, Hull had only raised $122,000, a very poor fundraising total for a competitive race. Within a month she had raised over $1.6 Million, most from in-kind donations. $1,027,448 came from special interest groups. These affairs includes Texas for Lawsuit Reform for $645,000, Republican State Leadership for $292,000, Association Republicans of Texas for $191,000. Greg Abbott threw in $17,000 ask $25,000 came from Republican Texas Leadership. Various PACs including home schoolers contributed over $37,000.

Hull won in a very tight race so she really needed the $1.6 Million to pull this off. If her husband had filed for divorce, alleging an affair, prior to the election she would have easily won. Republicans in Texas count adultery as a plus in their world. 

Watch for a primary candidate in 2022.


Texas Republican Party Executive Committee in support of overturning the election

December 14, 2020

Much like the Democratic Party the Texas Republican Party has an executive committee, the State Republican Executive Committee or SREC. Every senate district has two representatives, one man and one woman. Senate District 11 (our area in Clear Lake) is represented by Tania Robertson and H Scott Apley. Both voted for a resolution supporting the overturning of the election where Trump lost by over 7 million votes. Remember when the State Democratic Executive Committee voted on a resolution condemning the 2016 election where trump won with the aid of Russia? Yeah. Neither do I.

This is going to be a very long 4 years for these guys. They might want to take this opportunity to actually read the Constitution and election laws.


70 Republican Congressman turn on Trump

December 14, 2020

 

Trump lovers are not happy!

70 Republican Congressmen refused to sign on to a longshot lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to invalidate election decisions in several key states in hopes of overturning Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump. That suit was quickly rejected leaving Trump as a loser. Again.

70 Republicans refused to support Trump. They refused to sign on to an attempt to appoint a dictator. They refused to go against the Constitution while 126 of their colleagues did including 13 from Texas. 

The 70 Republicans will most probably have a primary candidate in 2022 and will feel the rage of the MAGAts of Trump.


Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton bribing Trump for a preemptive pardon

December 9, 2020

No one said the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, was a smart criminal.

It’s written all over his face. He is looking for a preemptive pardon from Trump for his many violations of federal law, one currently in court, and another possible charge or charges involved with bribery and retaliation against the whistleblowers who turned him in. In return Paxton has filed a frivolous suit to stop millions of “illegal” votes from being counted. From The Texas Tribune:

In the suit, he claims that pandemic-era changes to election procedures in those states violated federal law and asks the U.S. Supreme Court to block the states from voting in the Electoral College.

Trump isn’t new to getting something in return for a pardon. Recently it was reported the Department of Justice was investigating a presidential pardon scheme. This isn’t rocket science folks. Paxton knows if he can suck up to trump he could get a preemptive pardon. 

Paxton has just a about 45 days left to get his bribe to trump in order to get his freedom. Watch for it.


A SNAFU in the Office of the Elections Administrator process?

November 28, 2020

A few months ago the Harris County Commissioners Court rushed through a process creating the Office of the Elections Administrator. Many activists, including myself, were not very happy about being called to provide input, taking their time to do so, just so they could immediately make the decision. From a previous post:

The Commissioners listened to our input then voted to approve the item regardless. Their minds were made up leaving us with many unanswered questions. Why were we left in the dark on this extremely important issue? Why was this being discussed in the middle of a historic election? Why was this being discussed during a raging pandemic killing Houstonians? Why didn’t the Commission reach out for comments from the public? Why were they not being transparent about the issue?

Since then an Elections Administrator, Isabel Longoria, has been appointed by the Commission. This selection has been praised by many in the community but Tuesday’s meeting might upend this. According to an update to the upcoming agenda for Tuesday’s meeting:

Request by the County Attorney for Executive Session to consult with the County Attorney concerning claims that the Office of the Elections Administrator was improperly established and for possible action upon return to Open Session including ratification of prior acts of Commissioners Court; creation of the Office of the Elections Administrator and/or authorization for litigation concerning such claims.

Most probably the Harris County Republican Party has their panties in a wad and has challenged the process that was rushed through. The item will be discussed during executive session.

Hopefully this rush to appoint was legal and we can move on to the next election cycle.