Personally, I kind of hope Rep. Collins turns out to be innocent, and it was a dingo who gave the stock tips.
Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#51 in a series)
Wednesday, August 8th, 2018Obit watch: August 7, 2018.
Tuesday, August 7th, 2018Joël Robuchon, noted French chef.
Lawrence and I often joke about French cooking: “High prices. Small portions.” And I’ve never eaten at a Robuchon restaurant. But he sounds like someone who had the right ideas.
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Paul Laxalt, former Senator.
Tom Heckert, former general manager of the Cleveland Browns. (Hattip: Lawrence.)
Amy Meselson. She was 46 years old, and had a reputation for defending immigrants to the United States. Her obit opens with a great story about her zealous advocacy for Amadou Ly, a Senegalese immigrant who was part of a winning robotics team at his high school.
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Ms. Meselson earned her middle name by surviving a life-threatening respiratory disease. Besides dealing with depression, she had recently been given a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and extreme anxiety — all aggravated when she traveled to Greece two years ago to volunteer at a camp for Syrian refugees, Sarah Meselson said at a memorial service.
At the service, she said she wanted to recount her daughter’s maladies for two reasons.
“One,” she said, “is to emphasize what everyone already knows — that it is not always possible to comprehend the level of suffering that others may be experiencing, especially when they appear to be successful and to excel to the extent that Amy did.
“The other,” she added, “is to applaud my daughter for all that she accomplished despite her mental illness.”
In that vein, this is hard as hell to read, but worth it. (Hattip: Popehat on the Twitter.)
Public service announcement.
Friday, July 27th, 2018If you need to do something with a car title, like a title transfer, please be aware of the following facts:
Universal Auto Title Service on Justin Lane in Austin is “permanently closed”. Their former location has a sign in the window directing you to the county tax assessor’s office on Airport Boulevard, which is open from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM.
While it is true that the Airport Boulevard office is open from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM, they will not do any transactions involving vehicle titles after 4 PM.
If you are thinking about going to one of the many tax assessor’s satellite offices, such as the one in Oak Hill, those are all “temporarily closed” (except, I believe, the one in Pflugerville). (I did a sorry job of covering this, for which I apologize: there was a flap, with several arrests, because some employees of the various satellite offices were apparently diverting money into their own pockets.)
There is apparently a title and registration service still open in Oak Hill. I’ll report later on.
Dumb de dumb dumb.
Thursday, July 19th, 2018Dumb de dumb dumb…
The stories I am about to link to are true. I haven’t changed any names, because none of these people are innocent.
Dumb: threatening a judge.
Dumber: threatening two judges.
Dumbest: threatening two judges, one of whom was already shot and wounded by another idiot three years ago.
“I have every right to hang your (expletive),” Holgate said in a message according to the affidavit. “You have every goddamn right to be afraid of me. I am the law and you shouldn’t have crossed me.”
In another message, Holgate threatened to kill one of the judges, according to the document.
“I have the right to (expletive) kill you. You understand that?” He said. “…But we will see if we can resolve it. I don’t think we can, I think we are just going to hang your (expletive).”
And by the way…
Meanwhile, over in Williamson County, the relatively new sheriff and prolific tweeter Robert Chody is in a micturition contest with one of the county commissioners, Dan Gattis.
Sheriff Chody has opinions about how county government is run, especially when it comes to sewage leaks, and does not hesitate to share them. This, in turn, seems to upset Judge Gattis:
This little spat wouldn’t be noteworthy to me, except for what happened next:
Yes, you read that correctly: the WillCo DA filed criminal charges against a county commissioner (who, by the way, is not running for re-election this year) because he shot his mouth off.
Personally, I think they’re all idiots: the sheriff’s office and the DA for filing charges over a political disagreement, and Judge Gattis for making empty threats. (“I’m going zero his budget out”. Yeah, Judge, you’re going to zero out the sheriff’s department budget. Call me when the pigs start flying.)
Obit watch: July 18, 2018.
Wednesday, July 18th, 2018John A. Stormer, author of None Dare Call It Treason.
Mr. Stormer’s book, published by his own Liberty Bell Press, tapped into a vein of conservative alarm that was still very much present in the early 1960s, even though the Red-baiting era of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had faded in the 1950s.
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Communists, Mr. Stormer wrote, were bent on infiltrating the American government and had largely succeeded, as evidenced by American and United Nations economic support for Communist countries.
“The Communists have sworn to bury us,” Mr. Stormer wrote. “We are digging our own graves.”
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Though the accuracy of “None Dare Call It Treason” was often disputed, Mr. Stormer was confident he was right, so much so that in the book’s final chapter, “What Can You Do?,” he urged his readers to scrutinize him.“First, you must educate yourself,” he wrote. “Determine that the facts in this book are true.”
Among his other advice was that people read two newspapers a day of opposite editorial viewpoints. He also urged his readers to make God a meaningful force in their lives and to be politically active.
You know, all of that is pretty good advice. But good luck finding “two newspapers a day of opposite editorial viewpoints” in this day and age.
Headline of the day
Saturday, July 14th, 2018Kicking, screaming, biting Kansas councilwoman finally taken down with Taser, arrested, police say
It’s not quite “You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!” but it’s close enough for government work.
Bonus points:
A few days later, on July 2, Fowler refused to cooperate with jail workers as they tried to complete the booking process.
When officers were forced to remove jewelry and personal items from her, Fowler bit one of them on the thumb hard enough to break the bone.
The original charges against her were failure to appear on a public drunkeness and interferring with law enforcement charge from last year. Now she’s managed to escalate that into at least two, probably three counts of battery on a law enforcement officer. Plus interference with a law enforcement officer times two. Plus the drunkenness charge.
I wouldn’t expect her at a council meeting in the near or far future.
Real estate watch.
Wednesday, July 11th, 2018Do you have a spare $1.7 million lying around? Or can you get a mortgage for that amount? Zillow says the payments would be around $6,900 a month (20% down, 30 year fixed).
What are you getting for that amount?
Welcome to the Terrazzo dell’Infinito!
Or, in other words, the Infinity Terrace.
Take a step into this Tuscan sanctuary and be whisked off to the Old World.
It’s not just an infinite terrace, it’s a sanctuary. From what, I’m not clear. Certainly not the cares of the world, if you have to come up with $7,000 a month for 30 years to pay for it.
Enjoy the stylish Italian warmth with hints of royalty.
“hints of royalty”. I think you can get that in spray bottles; a spritz here, a spritz there, and pretty soon your home smells like Henry VIII.
The attention to detail was paramount during this design.
But apparently not in the writing of this blurb.
Relish in the tranquility of the grounds that provide multiple seating areas and a pool flanked by statues and lush foliage.
I don’t much like relish myself, but I guess if that’s your thing, “multiple seating areas” (as opposed to just dragging a lawn chair over), a pool, and lush foliage might make the relish taste better. Nothing like throwing some dogs on the grill next to your $1.7 million home.
This property is truly captivating, unmatched by its beauty.
Meh.
This isn’t simply a home-it’s a lifestyle.
Specifically, a criminal lifestyle. You see, this isn’t just any old Tuscan-style home: this is former Democratic state Senator and now convicted felon Carlos Uresti’s house.
Memo from the police beat.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2018Oddly, this one is mostly Houston based this time, though there is an APD connection that I’ll mention at the end.
Somebody put flyers on some Harris County Sheriff’s cars parked outside of one of their buildings.
The flyers promoted the organization Targeted Individuals, an organization which believes that the “Deep State” targets certain individuals.
The group believes the FBI and CIA purposefully inflict mental, physical and emotional stress on enemies of the “Deep State,” in part, by shooting microwave technology at their heads in order to cause brain damage, according to the group’s website.
I think this is their website. At least this is the one linked in the HouChron article. There’s another site called “Targeted Individuals” which seems to cover similar ground. I haven’t had time to dig deeply into either of these sites yet, though I’m generally familiar with the whole beaming microwaves/gangstalking/etc. theory.
But that’s not what makes this story weird. A deputy with HCSO went out, found one of the flyers on her car window, and removed it.
Apparently, the flyer was laced with fentanyl.
She initially did not think anything of it but soon started to feel light-headed and showed other fentanyl-related symptoms.
She was rushed to the hospital and is expected to survive as authorities investigate the flyers’ origination. She was released around 4:30 p.m., authorities said.
My first thought was: “How do they know?” Could it just have been heat-related stress or some other condition, and everyone jumped to the conclusion it was fentanyl? According to the HouChron, at least one flyer (I assume it was the one the deputy handled) “tested positive” for fentanyl, and the remaining flyers are being analyzed by the county forensic lab. No idea if the positive test was a field test, or something more sophisticated.
If someone is actually putting drug-laced flyers on cars in an effort to hurt or kill police officers, that’s a pretty serious escalation. I’m hoping it isn’t true, but in the meantime: paranoia and gloves are your friends.
A while back, I wrote about the cases of Terry Thompson and his wife. Briefly: Terry Thompson confronted a man for public urination at a Denny’s and pinned him to the ground. His wife, a HCSO officer at the time, helped him hold the man down. (The wife has since been fired.) The man passed out and died three days later. Mr. Thompson and his wife were charged with murder.
Terry Thompson’s trial was last week. It ended in a mistrial. The Harris County DA announced yesterday that they plan to retry the case. But:
Although all the jurors agreed deadly force was justified under the circumstances, [Scot] Courtney [Thompson’s attorney – DB] said, one refused to find him not guilty of the murder charge.
“One of the jurors said that he could not, he would not vote not guilty – and he hung up the jury for a day,” Courtney said. “It’s disappointing that a juror was seated and swore an oath to follow the law and then ultimately didn’t.”
On the lesser charge of manslaughter, 10 jurors voted not guilty and on the count of criminally negligent homicide eight voted not guilty, Courtney said.
And finally, noted for the record and without much comment, because I just don’t know what to make of it:
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Hyenas on fire.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2018Quick update on (now former) state Senator Carlos Uresti:
(Previously. Previously. Previously.)
(Note how far down you have to scroll in the article before former Senator Uresti’s party affiliation is mentioned.)
Flaming hyenas update.
Monday, June 18th, 2018Democratic state senator Carlos Uresti is resigning his seat.
Short memo from the police beat.
Thursday, June 14th, 2018After 18 months, countless hours of debate, and several public meetings (one of which interfered with the Austin Citizen’s Police Academy graduation, not that I’m BITTER or anything), the Austin Police Department finally has a non-interim chief…
…Punch Rockgroin! Brian Manley.
As I’ve said before, he seems to me to be a good guy with a truly macho name and a good leader with local ties. We’ll have to see how his tenure plays out, but I am cautiously optimistic.
In other news, the felony perjury and misdemeanor official misconduct charges against Joel Abelove, the district attorney of Rensselaer County (in upstate New York) have been dropped.
I would have sworn I wrote about this at the time, but apparently I didn’t. It’s rare to see a sitting DA charged with a crime, and the backstory is interesting.
In April of 2016, a man named Edson Thevenin was stopped by police in Troy on “suspicion of drunk driving”. The stop escalated, there was a “brief chase”, and somewhere in there a police officer became pinned between his cruiser and Mr. Thevenin’s car: Mr. Thevenin was shot eight times and killed.
I can see two ways of spinning this: former AG and known abuser Schneiderman was peeved that the state couldn’t go after a cop who was involved in a shooting, and tried to take it out on the DA instead. Or: Abelove was trying to manipulate the grand jury system and cover for a cop in a bad shooting.
Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat who resigned in disgrace last month after allegations that he had physically abused romantic partners, was empowered to investigate Mr. Abelove under a 2015 executive order from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The order allowed the state attorney general to serve as a special prosecutor for investigations into the deaths of “unarmed civilians caused by law enforcement officers.”
In the case of Mr. Thevenin, Mr. Cuomo issued a second executive order that allowed Mr. Schneiderman to specifically examine Mr. Abelove’s handling of the investigation, including “its grand jury presentation.”
What led to the decision to drop the charges?
Justice Jonathan D. Nichols questioned the scope of the authority included in the Thevenin executive order and ruled that the attorney general’s office “was without jurisdiction and hence unauthorized to appear in front of the grand jury,” in relation to the perjury charge.
“The court finds the integrity of the grand jury was impaired in this case,” Justice Nichols wrote. “And impaired to the extent that prejudice to the defendant is clearly possible.”
Obit watch: June 7, 2018.
Thursday, June 7th, 2018Jerry Maren, one of the Munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz” and the last surviving little person from that group. (According to the NYT, some young girls were also hired to fill out the Munchkin ranks, and some of them are still alive.)
With a friend and fellow actor, Billy Barty, Mr. Maren in 1957 founded Little People of America, a nonprofit advocacy organization that says it has roughly 6,000 members.
“He took it as his responsibility to show, through a strong sense of self and speaking out and personal example, that little people are just people,” Mr. Cox said. “All of the other Munchkins had a great deal of respect for Jerry.”
Mel Weinberg, of ABSCAM fame.
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Historical note, suitable for use in schools.
Monday, June 4th, 2018Approximately 50 years ago today
LAT retrospective. Steve Lopez column.
In case you were wondering, Sirhan is still alive, still in prison, and his next parole hearing will be in 2021.
I wish I could say more about this: I was barely three at the time.
Smart people writing smart stuff.
Thursday, May 17th, 2018This isn’t me being lazy, hand to God: this is me pointing out some things other people wrote that deserve wider attention.
1. There’s a good (and by “good”, I mean “reflects my biases”) op-end in the Statesman that’s a response to the complaints about the academy (previously discussed here):
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2. Pat Cadigan (who, as we all know, is two orders of magnitude smarter than I am) takes apart a misguided recommendation from the Macmillan Cancer Support folks: avoid using the “fighting” metaphor.
3. South Texas Pistolero on two recent books about Pearl Harbor and Curtis LeMay.
The Summers and Swan book looks interesting: I plan to keep an eye out for it. I have heard the Kimmel and Short theory before, though: when we rewatched “Tora! Tora! Tora!” recently, one of the themes that stood out for me was that Kimmel and Short got the shaft because of stupid decisions above them.
See also: “Thank God For the Atom Bomb” by Paul Fussel.
Bring me my extinguisher of burning hyenas…
Tuesday, May 15th, 2018The felony invasion of privacy charges against Missouri governor Eric Greitens were dropped on Monday. In the middle of jury selection, no less.
It sounds like the case had become a freaking mess. The supposed photo that kicked off the case hasn’t been found, the victim is reluctant to testify, the judge disqualified some of the expert witnesses the prosecution planned to call, and the defense was apparently planning to call the prosecutor who filed the charges as a witness.
But don’t throw away the popcorn yet: