Bay Area Houston

Lee Merritt is a prominent civil rights attorney who represented the family of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. Ahmaud was killed by 3 individuals who decided to take the law into their own hands. They were found guilty of murder and will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Merritt has an excellent record on civil rights….but….

Merritt is running in the Democratic Primary for Texas Attorney General. The AG has, in the past, been the “people’s lawyer” representing the interests of the State of Texas and it’s citizens. Unfortunately Mr. Merritt is not authorized to practice law in the State of Texas and has had a complaint filed by the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee of the Texas Supreme Court, Cause No. 417-00438-2018.

The complaint alleges Lee was practicing law in multiple cases, citing 6 specific cases as well as a number of others. The entire complaint can be read here. The complaints were eventually dropped with Lee signing a Final Consent Judgement listing 12 specific restrictions including not being able to advertise his services, or participating in discovery in Texas cases, and much more. The list is pretty specific. I would think it could be alleviated by Lee taking and passing the Bar. This Judgement was signed in Feb 2018 nearly 4 years ago. According to the complaint:

Although he applied to take the July 2015 Texas Bar Examination, Defendant did not do so and has not since sought admission to the State Bar of Texas.

It seems pretty clear he does not intend to take the Texas Bar Examination. It makes sense that the top lawyer of the State of Texas should be licensed to practice law in the State of Texas. Although Lee has a stellar record in civil rights he just doesn’t merit any further consideration for the office of Texas Attorney General.

Read the complaint and judgement here.

When it comes to the humane treatment of dogs, Greg Abbott is still a dick.

Texas Senate Bill 5 was passed during one of many special sessions called by Governor Abbott concerning “relating to the unlawful restraint of a dog; creating a criminal offense.” This bill makes it illegal to use a chain to restrain a dog but it does NOT make it illegal to restrain a dog with a rope or tether.

In Texas we don’t take kindly to a brown nose, an ass kisser, a boot licker, a suck ass, or an obedient lap dog. Unfortunately our own Governor, Greg Abbott, has stooped to a level of ass kissing never seen before. He is currently beating out Pedro Bush who kissed Trump’s ass only be be crapped on when Trump endorsed his opponent, Ken Paxton.

Moments after the results of the Arizona audit was announced, showing, once again, that Biden won the election and no election fraud was found, Trump instructed Abbott to start a similar audit here in Texas. Like Arizona, this will cost Texans about $6 Million. $6 million that could be put towards law enforcement, or infastructure. Instead like the ass kissing lap dog Abbott is, we will pay $6 million to one of Abbott’s buddies to perform an audit of the election which will show, once again, no election fraud.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Lapdogs we don’t need these days, as Abbott’s embarrassing acquiescence reminds us. As long as one of our major political parties is in thrall to a would-be demagogue, democracy is in danger. Instead of yapping lap dogs, we need the political equivalent of the majestic Great Pyrenees, loyal canines that protect Hill Country sheep and goats from coyotes. Our political Great Pyrenees would stand firm for the rule of law, for an abiding trust in the democratic process, for America itself.

It’s embarrassing living in Texas. Texans never used to adore liars, cheaters, brown nosers and obedient lap dogs.  Until now.

From the Texas Tribue

Instead of “Running everywhere and losing everywhere, the democratic socialists of America have started a targeted primary campaign against Democrats in deep, deep, blue districts. First up is Texas State Representative Gina Hinojosa House District 49 (Austin).

Representative Hinojosa won her district by 60 points (yes, 60, it is that blue) so it is an easy target for the socialist party. Hinojosa is a great representative and is the Vice Chair of the Criminal Jurisprudence; Human Services Committee. Prior to her run for HD49 Hinojosa served as a member of the Austin Independent School District. Her challenger, Herbie Smith, is a student at Texas University. 

Back in 2018 the lead socialist group, Justice Democrats, ran 80 candidates across the United States. They lost 73.

Out of 80 candidates endorsed by JD, only 7 won. 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 that did, lost. All of them. One raised over a $1 Million and lost 70-30 in the primary.

In 2020 they got smarter targeting deep, deep blue areas such as the Travis County District Attorney’s office and just 9 candidates across the country. They did better and they believe they have the key to infiltrating the Democratic Party.

There was nothing worse than being caught in a never ending Do Loop when programming in Fortran, a language that is about as out of date as the Texas Republican Party.

The Texas GOP was caught in their own Do Loop trying to have a virtual Convention since their in-person COVID Convention was cancelled due to health reasons. The Texas Democratic Party was able to successfully conduct their entire convention virtually. From a delegate perspective a virtual convention sucks. There are no speeches, no networking, no training opportunities, no hospitality parties, no drinking. It’s as boring as watching paint dry in the closet. On the other hand the Republican virtual convention was a complete shit show that was fun to watch.

After attempting to restart their Do Loop they eventually just performed an interrupt and aborted the entire event. The comments were spectacular including one delegate asking “What’s the internet?”. Here are a few samples coming from delegates attempting to participate:

Money Mayes Middleton and Tony Buzbee should be so proud.

Gary Gates put over $1.5 Million of his own money into a special election to win a seat at the table. From a previous post:

Gary Gates is one of those guys who runs for office, over, and over, and over again. He is also very wealthy, wealthy like Texas Representative Money Mayes Middleton, Kathaleen Wall, or Tony Buzbee. 

It hasn’t worked for Gates in the past. In 2005 he began loaning himself money and spending from his own pocket in a race for State Senator District 18. He lost. In 2014 he ran again, this time loaning himself $1.7 Million. He lost. In 2016 be ran for Railroad Commissioner loaning himself about $4.5 Million. He lost. 

So he finally won with money left over. He did what Tony Buzbee couldn’t do. Next up, Kathleen Walls should spend about $6 million in her attempt to win in CD22. 

I heard rumors about Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards considering a run for US Senate so I googled her resume. It is impressive. From her bio on the City of Houston website:

Amanda’s connection to service is evidenced through her early endeavors. Amanda attended Eisenhower High School in Aldine ISD. She earned a B.A. in Political Science from Emory University, where she served as president of the undergraduate student body and was later inducted into the Emory University Hall of Fame. While in Atlanta, Amanda gained valuable community building and public policy experience working in community development corporations as a Community Building and Social Change Fellow and in the Georgia State Legislature. Amanda’s experiences broadened her perspective about how to effect change through urban policy and collaboration. Soon thereafter, Amanda worked for Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in Washington, D.C. before earning her degree from Harvard Law School. 

Texas Congressman William Hurd CD 23 seems to have forgotten that under the Obama administration Iran agreed to stop enrichment of nuclear material. 

According to the joint statement in Switzerland, the P5+1 countries and Iran agreed on a framework for a deal. According to this framework, Iran would redesign, convert, and reduce its nuclear facilities and accept the Additional Protocol (with provisional application) in order to lift all nuclear-related economic sanctions, freeing up tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue and frozen assets.

Trump, with Hurd’s backing, pulled the United States out of the deal without having negotiating a new one. Now Hurd is complaining that Iran is, once again, starting up their nuclear development. Duh! This is a problem Trump created, once again. He has no idea or capability to make any kind of international deal. Instead of having an international agreement we have nothing. And nothing is better than anything Trump can negotiate. Literally.

Hurd can’t hear the laughter of the international community. Or us.

In 2018 Joanna Cattanach ran in Texas House District 108, in the Dallas area. She lost by only 200 votes. She immediately declared she intended to run again. And she should.  

So why in the world would someone roll out of bed and decide to challenge her in the Democratic Primary? That is a question that voters in HD108 should be asking Shawn Terry. According to the Dallas Morning News Terry has entered the race and claims to have a great start to fundraising:

AUSTIN — A new Democratic challenger to Dallas Rep. Morgan Meyer says he’s raised $235,000 in the past five months, setting up a potentially well-funded effort against the three-term GOP incumbent.

On Monday, Shawn Terry, an investment banker from Uptown, announced his campaign for House District 108, which is anchored in the Park Cities and also includes downtown, the Arts District and East Dallas.

Terry would be only the 2nd openly gay legislator if elected. His voting record will be looked at closely as well as his campaign finance reports due July 15. It just bothers the shit out of me that someone would jump into a race when we had a very successful and promising campaign in 2018 with a promising candidate. Why pick this race? Why make the candidate raise and spend money in a primary instead of supporting the Democrat in the general?

Ego and possibly republican backing might be the reason.