TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalVan de Putte to run for San Antonio mayor
SAN ANTONIO — After months of speculation from local political observers that state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte would run for mayor here, she declared Wednesday her candidacy to San Antonio’s top elected office.
Van de Putte’s decision to run for mayor disrupts the bid of state Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, who has been mounting a mayoral campaign for months and might otherwise have easily sailed into the seat next year.
“I think any leader has to have a basis of a character and of that makeup that makes them strong — and not strong physically, and maybe not strong emotionally, but strong in the sense of commitment — and for me, that strength comes from a faith and family,” Van de Putte told the San Antonio Express-News on Wednesday.
“And so the decision that our family has made and that I want is to be the next mayor of San Antonio,” Van de Putte said in an interview with the newspaper.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Van-de-Putte-to-run-for-San-Antonio-mayor-5904776.php
[font color=green]San Antonio is blessed to have two qualified Democratic candidates running for the office.[/font]
Former Hidalgo County Sheriff Treviņo appeals 5-year money laundering sentence
McALLEN — A lawyer for former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said Wednesday that the federal judge who sent him to prison for five years didn’t adequately say why she handed down a harsher sentence than prescribed by federal guidelines.
Treviño took the first step Wednesday toward possibly reducing his prison time, if lawyer Roberto Yzaguirre successfully argues the ex-sheriff’s case before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
“Although no evidence supported a conclusion (Treviño) used his position as sheriff to commit or conceal his offense, he was subjected to an abuse of trust enhancement and an upward departure simply because he was the Sheriff,” Yzaguirre wrote in the initial brief for the appeal, filed Wednesday afternoon.
Yzaguirre declined to comment Wednesday. No court date has been set on the appeal.
Read more: http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/former-sheriff-trevi-o-appeals--year-money-laundering-sentence/article_5e89a504-703b-11e4-bff8-2be28544a8b4.html
Mathis 98 - Kingsville 0 (Girls basketball)
Talk about an off night.
According to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the Mathis High School girls basketball team defeated Kingsville 98-0 Tuesday in a non-district game.
Let that sink in for just a moment...
KRIS-TV in Corpus Christi reported Mathis, a Class 3A team, pulled its starters 11 minutes in the into the game. Kingsville is in Class 4A.
Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/high-schools/girls-basketball-news/headlines/20141119-south-texas-high-school-girls-basketball-team-loses-98-0.ece
[font color=green]Ouch, my high school alma mater is in the same district as Mathis.[/font]
Dear Democrats: When You Lose, Don't Lose the Lesson
By Carol MorganEvery single political analyst, strategist and partisan think tank is still digging around for the definitive answer to Democrats’ recent fall from grace.
There’s probably not a single answer to the beat down we suffered, but I’ll point out one reason that’s had me steaming for the last two weeks: Democrats pretending to be Conservatives as an election strategy.
Even though I abhor Mitch McConnell’s practices, I felt nauseous when I saw Allison Grimes’ shooting a gun in her political ad on YouTube. Apparently, a lot of other voters felt that way also.
Voters gave the green light to progressive issues like minimum wage and marriage equality, but when it came to Democratic Party fakery, it was thumbs down. I had to hold my nose part-way down the ballot.
Statewide and locally, there were too many Democratic candidates pretending to be someone they weren’t; believing they’d have a greater appeal to swing voters and moderates by sidestepping to the right. A pro-gun Democratic? Puhleeeze… Perhaps gun-tolerant, but pro-gun?
Democrats did a lot of bad acting; reminiscent of 13 year olds in the annual middle school musical, Of Thee I Sing. It was fremdscham all the way; a lack of embarrassment on their part.
To all those who vomited out those worn-out-soporific-semi-conservative talking points, disassociated yourself from Democratic Party values and went MIA at the slightest mention of PBO:
How did that work out for ya?
One of my many jobs is that of a college and career consultant to high school students and their parents. You’d be surprised at the similarities between applying to college and the art of political campaigning.
Both tend to use marketing-branding-advertising techniques to portray themselves as someone they are not. For kids, it’s to appeal to a certain college, for candidates, it’s to appeal to certain voters.
Here’s the catch in that kind of thinking: Even if you succeed in getting what you want, the facade must fall at some point. Before that time comes, you won’t sleep well at night and eventually, you won’t even recognize your own face in the mirror.
You’ve become nothing more than a cheap knock-off of a Louis Vuitton purse.
My advice to both students and candidates is to BE YOURSELF.
Do you really want to join those who twist the truth to their advantage, employing unsavory skills in the art of the deal, like a plaid-coated used car salesman? Right now, the statehouses are full of individuals who are as credible as a bi-vocational preacher-car salesman.
I can’t imagine wanting to emulate them.
When I am down and discouraged I remember this quote from Gandhi:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
Whatever the goal, changing things requires time, patience, and persistence. It’s taken years to get to the crappy place where we are today. There’s always the tendency to give up; if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, but that’s not the way to create good policies for people.
If you’re a Democrat and you hold the philosophy, “whatever it takes to win an election”, perhaps you need to run as a Republican because that’s not a Democratic value. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson, kids.
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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Email Carol at elizabethcmorgan@sbcglobal.net , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2014-11-19/dear-democrats-when-you-lose-dont-lose-lesson#.VG1OQRbuPoE
Permission granted to post Carol's blog in its entirety.
Dallas Group Files a Complaint with the Department of Justice Against City, DPD for Police Brutality
On Thursday, a Dallas community organization will file a formal complaint with the Department of Justice against Dallas and its police department for fostering what the group sees as an environment in which police officers can kill blacks and Hispanics without fear of consequences. The complaint is the product of months of work from members of Dallas Communities Organizing for Change and its lawyer, Shayan Elahi.
"I started working on this around March," Elahi wrote in an email, "and it took shape over summer." Before starting work on the complaint, the group had filed open-records requests with the Dallas Police Department and received information on all police shootings since 2002. Based on that information, the group wrote a report showing that minorities are much more likely to be victims of police shootings here, which mirrors a national trend. Elahi said the group waited until now to file because members had hoped the City Council would meet and discuss their report and possible solutions. However, Elahi wrote, "except for Councilman Adam Medrano, no one else agreed to meet with us. So the best course was to go directly to DOJ."
"There is a real and imminent necessity that the Department of Justice investigate the systematic police violence and misconduct that continues to plague the African American and Hispanic communities in Dallas," reads a draft of the complaint. "Without an investigation, the safety, well-being, and welfare of these communities will continue to be put in jeopardy."
Between 2002 and mid-2013, there were 185 incidents in which a Dallas police officer fired a gun, according to the complaint. This resulted in 58 people who were killed, including 36 who were unarmed. Of the 58, 33 were black and 10 were Hispanic.
Read more: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/11/dallas_communities_organizing_for_change_dallas_police_department_department_of_justice_complaint.php
Texas Textbooks Will No Longer Deny Climate Change
There is a lot of crazy in the textbooks that the State Board of Education is considering for approval this week, and which will be going to a final vote on Friday. They downplay the role of slavery in the Civil War, claim Moses was an early influence of democracy, gloss over the Inquisition and cite Islam as the source of all terrorism in the world, to name a few examples. But even if the textbooks are racially biased, misleading and full of conservative drivel, at least they won’t deny climate change thanks to relentless pressure from advocates.
In a striking turn of events, climate change denial will no longer be found in the social studies textbooks under consideration by the State Board of Education. Two textbook publishing companies – Pearson Education and McGraw-Hill – have submitted corrected textbooks.
The McGraw-Hill textbook previously stated, “Scientists agree that Earth’s climates are changing. Not all individuals, however, agree on the causes of these changes.” Given that 95 percent of scientists believe human activity is the cause, this passage was removed. The Pearson Education book struck similar passages suggesting that scientists disagree about the cause of climate change. Both publishers also corrected factual errors about the science behind climate change.
Texas Freedom Network led the charge against misleading textbooks, organizing an effort that resulted in over 116,000 signatures in support of accurate climate-change information in textbooks. “We applaud these publishers for responsibly listening to scholars and the tens of thousands of people from across the country who have signed petitions insisting that the textbooks put education and facts ahead of politics,” Texas Freedom Network Kathy Miller said in a statement. “We hope they will stand firm in their decision and resist pressure from politicians on the state board to lie to students about one of the biggest challenges facing our planet.”
Read more: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/23107/texas-textbooks-will-longer-deny-climate-change
HealthyTexasWomen.org Launched, But Where Did the $85,000 Go?--Another GOP Sham
There are several ways to expand women’s access to healthcare, improve reproductive health, prevent unplanned pregnancies, and keep Texas families healthy. They vary in cost and effectiveness. Here are two options.
One: Fund women’s healthcare, accept federal Medicaid money, and let Planned Parenthood (one of the state’s largest providers of women’s health services) back into the Women’s Health Program.
Two: Donate $85,000 to a shady nonprofit that builds a glorified GeoCities site to “raise awareness” of existing healthcare programs.
I’m sure you can deduce which option sounds most appealing to GOP legislators.
Read more: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/23117/healthytexaswomen-org-launched-85000-go
New LGBT youth homeless shelter in San Antonio among few of its kind in US
Growing up in a small town in the Texas Panhandle, Sandra Whitley says she knew she was gay from the age of 13 — in 1975.
“I thought I was the only person in the world that had these feelings,” Whitley writes. “As much as I tried to keep it a secret, it was not long until my classmates, the town, and my parents knew. The parents of my classmates would not let their children associate with a homosexual. I no longer had friends. I was the talk of the town and my parents were not pleased. The school board tried to expel me from school. I was very lost and had no one to talk to.”
Whitley said she considered running away but ended up in a mental hospital.
“As horrible as that place was and as angry as I was when I got out (and for years to come), I did not end up on the streets,” Whitley writes. “As my life continued, I was always in trouble for being gay. My relationship with my parents suffered for 20 years. I often said my only crime has been being gay.”
Read more: http://www.lonestarq.com/new-lgbt-youth-homeless-shelter-in-san-antonio-among-few-of-its-kind-in-us/
Cross-posted in the LGBT Group.
New LGBT youth homeless shelter in San Antonio among few of its kind in US
Growing up in a small town in the Texas Panhandle, Sandra Whitley says she knew she was gay from the age of 13 — in 1975.
“I thought I was the only person in the world that had these feelings,” Whitley writes. “As much as I tried to keep it a secret, it was not long until my classmates, the town, and my parents knew. The parents of my classmates would not let their children associate with a homosexual. I no longer had friends. I was the talk of the town and my parents were not pleased. The school board tried to expel me from school. I was very lost and had no one to talk to.”
Whitley said she considered running away but ended up in a mental hospital.
“As horrible as that place was and as angry as I was when I got out (and for years to come), I did not end up on the streets,” Whitley writes. “As my life continued, I was always in trouble for being gay. My relationship with my parents suffered for 20 years. I often said my only crime has been being gay.”
Read more: http://www.lonestarq.com/new-lgbt-youth-homeless-shelter-in-san-antonio-among-few-of-its-kind-in-us/
Cross-posted in the Texas Group.
ExxonMobil again shits the bed on LGBT inclusion, but 6 Texas companies earn perfect scores from HRC
Irving-based ExxonMobil is again the only company with a negative score on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2015 Corporate Equality Index, released Wednesday.
ExxonMobil, with a minus-25, is the only company ever to receive a negative score on the CEI, which it has done in each of the last four years.
In addition to having no qualifying pro-LGBT policies, ExxonMobil was penalized 25 points for rescinding domestic partner benefits and LGBT nondiscrimination protections following a merger with Mobil in 1999. Last year, ExxonMobil announced it would offer benefits to married same-sex spouses, but that doesn’t qualify as equal benefits for the purposes of the HRC index.
ExxonMobil has rejected shareholder resolutions calling for LGBT nondiscrimination protections 17 times. In 2014, the resolution garnered only 19.5 percent support.
Read more: http://www.lonestarq.com/exxonmobil-again-shits-the-bed-on-lgbt-inclusion-but-6-texas-companies-earn-perfect-scores-from-hrc/
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
Number of posts: 112,167
