Bay Area Houston

No Place but Texas. Again.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s wife ran for the Texas Senate in 2018 winning her race with the help of her husband’s donors. From Loaning Campaign Cash: Angela Paxton.

Angela Paxton is the wife of our current Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who is mired in a felony trial due to security fraud. Paxton (Ken) has loaned $2.6 Million to his wife’s campaign for Senator District 8 and has guaranteed the loan with his campaign account. $2 Million has a 3.6% interest rate while the $500,000 loan has an 8.5% rate. The latest loan from Paxton’s (Ken’s) campaign is for $100,000 with a rate of 8% but does not have a guarantor.

Now that she has taken her place in the Senate Angela has filed a bill that would protect her husband and others for violating the trust of those who ask for your money to invest. And why shouldn’t she? She owes her donors $2.6 Million many of them probably looking for protection so they will not be indicted like her husband was for shady investment deals. From the Texas Tribune:

Sen. Angela Paxton files bill that would allow her husband, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, to issue exemptions from securities regulations 

Billed as a consumer-protection effort, the proposal would allow approved individuals to serve as investment advisers without registering with the state board — a felony under Texas law that Ken Paxton was charged with in 2015.

David Mayes Middleton won his election in 2018 for Texas House District 23 in the Galveston area. He raised $3.2 Million, with $2.4 Million coming from his own pocket. He won 56-43. His opponent raised $4000.

According to his last ethics report Middleton raised $137,000 including $125,000 of his own money, plus another $500,000 loan. He has a Cash On Hand balance of about $481,000. His loan to his own campaign was made after the election in November.

He has spent $2.3 Million on a race that should have cost about $500,000 if it was competitive. It wasn’t. The Democrat on the ballot raised just $4000 and had no serious campaign. The $2.3 Million included $782,000 on salaries, $671,000 on consulting services,  and $698,141 on advertising.

His expenses for salaries included over 20 individuals with salaries ranging from $137,000 to $18,000. The $782,000 in salaries included the following:

Berry Communications $137,000
Willi Luthy $62,000
Michael Jenkins $56,000
Ryan Caruso $52,000
Eric Romero $50,000
Kyle Diamond $48,000
Josh Lyrock $43,000
John Maurer $40,000
Kara Rose $35,000
Trevor Harris $27,000
Tylene Wilcox $23,000
January Arnold $18,000

It makes little cents to have so many individuals on the payroll for a campaign like this. Add this to the huge amounts of advertising and consulting services and it looks like a money laundering operation. Why would anyone pay over $3 Million for a race that required a little more than putting your name on the ballot? It just doesn’t make any cents. Gov Greg Abbott endorsed Middleton as well as Kathleen Wall who invested $6 Million of her own money to lose in the primary.

From The Wall Street Journal

It’s sad that in this time and age Republicans have to tell their colleagues how to win elections as Congressman Will Hurd did in the Wall Street Journal:

“This is how you win suburban women: Actually talk to them. Talk to their kids. Do things to make sure their kids are ready for the future. Don’t be a racist, and don’t be a misogynist.”

To recap: Don’t be a racist because racism is bad. Real bad. And don’t be a misogynist pig because that is bad too. Here are a few other things Hurd should tell his party members on how to win elections:

Don’t send dick pics to your mistress. Ask former Congressman Joe Barton or soon to be former Senator Charles Schwertner of Texas. Both were caught sending dick pics. Barton sent it to his mistress. He was forced to resign. 

Don’t send dick pics to college students. According to Schwertner someone other than himself sent a dick pic to a college student. Schwertner claims it wasn’t his dick. He has since asked Lt Gov Patrick not to assign him to the chairman of his committee. Sounds like he knows something.

Don’t call women the C word. It should go without saying that an elected official should never use the C word especially towards women but when you have to tell grown men to not send dick pics you probably have to tell grown me to act like grown men,

Don’t steal your donors money. Congressman Duncan Hunter was caught and charged with multiple felonies of stealing his donors money. He has since blamed it on his wife. He was re-elected.

Don’t deal in inside trading. Congressman Chris Collins of New York was charged with multiple felonies of insider trading. Sitting on the board of a biotech company based in Australia Collins shared inside information to select individuals before the stock crashed. He was  also re-elected.

Also, get rid of that (R) behind your name. Its as popular as herpes at a hot tub party.

It really isn’t hard to apologize after calling an elected official a MFer like The Honorable Rashida Tlaib did when referring to the President of the United States. We all, at one point in our life, have had to make sincere apologies for some of our classless actions. We are taught as young children that apologies are expected and demanded when warranted. How many times have our parents said to us “Tell him your sorry”?. Apologizing is something we must do at times and Congresswoman Tlaib should do it at this time. Here is an example of a perfectly good apology:

“Last week I made a very unfortunate comment referring to the President of the United States that I deeply regret. I want to apologize to Speaker Pelosi for causing this distraction to passing our progressive agenda and to my constituents and the members of the Democratic Party for this vulgar language.”

She doesn’t owe an apology to Trump for calling him what he is but she does owe it to the Speaker, the Party, and to those who gave her the title “The Honorable”. Calling an elected official a MFer or calling anyone an MFer is conduct unbecoming of someone with “The Honorable” in front of their title. It is disrespectful. It is vulgar. It is low class. It is a sure fire way to be minimized.

The President is a low class, vulgar, racist, politically ignorant, rotten asshole of a human being who calls people school yard names, and has used horrible language in the past but that does not give us the right to condone one of our own when they do the same. We are not the republican party. We are not Trump. We are suppose to be better.

Running for office and serving is not a game. The Honorable elected officials, at times, must send our kids to war. They pass legislation that means life or death for many. This isn’t a high school name calling session. This is very serious work that requires The Honorable to be honorable. If we condone Tlaib’s dishonorable act of calling elected officials vulgar names then we have lost our right to condemn Louie Gohmert when he calls Speaker Pelosi a stupid b****.

We are better than this.

The University of Texas has completed a review of the facts concerning Texas Senator Charles Schwertner sending sexually explicit texts to a student including a dick pic. From the Dallas Morning News:

AUSTIN — The University of Texas completed its investigation on Tuesday into whether State Sen. Charles Schwertner sent sexually explicit messages — including photos of his genitals — to a student, issuing a report that neither fully incriminates nor clears the Georgetown Republican of wrongdoing.

According to Schwertner he shared a device with an anonymous individual and provided this person with the password to his Hushed account that allows for encrypted texts. That individual, not Schwertner, sent the messages. If a dick pic was sent this would be a fairly easy investigation. Line up Schwertner and his anonymous buddy and have them drop their linens.

Unfortunately Schwertner has been uncooperative, will not disclose the individual, and will probably refuse to drop his linens. His wife has declined cooperation also.

The university reported it could not prove Schwertner sent the offensive messages, and a forensic investigation found that they did not come from his phone. However, the messages did come from Schwertner’s Hushed account, a privacy app that allows people to send messages from separate phone numbers, and his LinkedIn account.
The UT investigation also described Schwertner as uncooperative and unwilling to be interviewed or answer questions about whether he had other electronic devices where the messages could have originated.

According to the Federal Election Commission the Brand New Congress PAC spent $773,837 in 2017-2018. As I have said before concerning the record of BNC:

Out of 31 candidates recruited, only 1 won in a deep blue district. Here are the results of Sander’s Brand New Congress campaign:

31 candidates in the Brand New Congress

• 20 lost in the primaries

• 11 advanced to the general election

• 8 were Democrats

• 2 were Socialists

• 1 was an Independent

• 10 lost in the general

• 1 won in the general (Ocasio -Socialist)

 The majority of the spending was for “Strategic Consulting” to the Brand New Congress LLC for $466,000. $105,000 for “Wages and Salaries”, About $60,000 for an unknown category, and $70,000 for “Payroll fees”, leaving about $50,000 for all other expenditures.

Not much else to say about this. It looks like a jobs program for Sander’s followers. According to Wikipedia:

Brand New Congress is a volunteer-led American political organization that intends to run hundreds of campaigns for United States Congress with candidates of the organization’s choosing[7] by the 2018 midterm elections, regardless of party affiliation.[8] The organization plans to make staffing and fundraising decisions for all its candidates at once.[9]

Justice Democrats is a Bernie Sanders organization for far left candidates including Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio. As I said before:

Justice Democrats didn’t perform very well. According to Justice Democrats they elected 7 of their endorsed candidates to Congress. 2 were incumbents in deep blue districts. 1 was unopposed.  4 were all in very blue districts wiping out their general election opponents. It’s not like they were endorsing in tough competitive states like Texas, although those they did lost. All of them. One raised over a $1 Million and lost 70-30 in the primary.

Looking at their spending for the last two years, Justice Democrats spent about $2,250,000. $633,000 on wages ranging from $71,000 to $32,000 for ab out 13 employees. $217,000 on Payroll taxes, $270,000 on fundraising, and $88,000 on Credit Card fees.

They also spent $605,000 on “Strategic Consulting” paid to the Brand New Congress, another Bernie Sanders organization. This leaves about $526,000 for overhead expenses, rent, legal fees, etc but nothing was spent for donations to individuals candidates. I’m not quite sure what Justice Democrats accomplished besides raising and spending money but not on individual candidates.

Maybe looking at Brand New Congress spending will give more insight.