President Biden Needs To Watch His Words

President Biden, who ran on a promise to re-unite the country has not been doing a very good job of keeping that promise. Some of the remarks he has recently made are totally unacceptable. Townhall posted an article on March 4th about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to some recent remarks by President Biden.

The article reports:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has been taking heat from Democrats and progressives after he announced the state will be completely reopening and the mask mandate will be lifted. His actions have caused such a stir that it prompted criticism from President Joe Biden.

Biden, referring to both Texas and Mississippi, said lifting the COVID-19 lockdowns was “neanderthal thinking” and a “big mistake.”

Abbott was asked to respond to Biden’s comments during his interview on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday.

“Two things, Brian, first, obviously it is not the type of thing that a president should be saying, but second, he kind of said it on the worst day he could have. Because the same day he said that, in Texas, the Biden administration was releasing illegal immigrants into our communities who had COVID,” Abbott said.

“The Biden administration was spreading COVID in south Texas yesterday because of their lack of constraint of testing and quarantining, people come across the border illegally. The Biden administration was exposing Texas to COVID,” Abbott continued. “That is a neanderthal type approach dealing with the COVID situation.”

Americans are required to quarantine, wear masks, social distance, etc., while illegal aliens are allowed to freely roam about the country??!! There is something seriously wrong with that picture.

 

Seeding The Epidemic

America’s two-week lockdown to flatten the curve has lasted for more than a year now. Some states are now opening up. That’s good news. However, some federal policies are putting Americans at risk.

Yesterday NBC News reporting the following:

Miriam Izaguirre, a 35-year-old asylum-seeker from Honduras, crossed the Rio Grande at dawn Monday with her young son and turned herself in to the authorities.

A few hours later she was released, and the first thing she did was take a rapid test for Covid-19 at the Brownsville bus station. They told her her test came out positive.

“Right now we were tested for Covid and they separated about eight of us because we were positive,” she told Noticias Telemundo Investiga. “We are waiting right now.” She was waiting to catch a bus to Houston.

Other migrant families who also said they had tested positive were waiting to go to other destinations: North Carolina, Maryland and New Jersey.

The city of Brownsville administers these rapid tests at the bus station, after migrant families are released by the Border Patrol. A spokesperson for Brownsville confirmed that, since they began doing these tests Jan. 25, 108 migrants have tested positive for Covid-19, which is 6.3 percent of those who took the test.

In response to Noticias Telemundo Investiga, a spokesperson for the city said in an email that Brownsville does not have the authority to retain these migrants who plan to travel to dozens of cities throughout the country. The city assured that municipal workers recommend to those who test positive to keep quarantine as indicated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The city employees suggest to families they go to nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits in the the border area who can take them in and isolate them in order to keep quarantine.

This is ridiculous. If the people testing positive were Americans, they would be quarantined. This ridiculous policy will spread the coronavirus throughout the nation. What insanity is this?

What Failed?

The snow and cold in Texas has been a disaster. That part of the country is simply not prepared for that kind of weather. I’m not even sure that New England, where I spent 45 years, would handle this situation well. Now it’s time to look at why the power went out, the water went out, etc. Admittedly, this was a hundred-year storm, but as those of us who live in hurricane zones know, you have to prepare for the hundred-year storm, regardless of what form it arrives in.

Just the News posted an article today citing some of the statistics that led to the epic failure of the power grid in Texas. There was failure in all areas of energy generation, but some were greater than others. Please follow the link to read the entire article.

The article reports:

A statewide blame game has accompanied the crisis, with numerous industries and commentators alleging that, variously, wind, solar, natural gas and coal failed to meet the surge in heating demand accompanying the cold snap. Yet federal data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicate that, of the state’s major energy sources, wind experienced the sharpest drop-off in energy production

The plunge in temperatures led to both a surge in heating demand and the concomitant power outages. Data from the EIA show that at nearly the exact same time demand was surging and energy grids were buckling, wind energy experienced a catastrophic drop-off: In the evening of Feb. 14, wind in the state was producing just over 9,000 MWh of energy, while 24 hours later it was putting out less than 800 MWh, a roughly 91% decrease in output.

Virtually every other energy industry in the state also saw decreased output over the same time period amid record demand, yet none saw as steep a decrease as did wind power. Natural gas, the state’s largest source of energy, saw a 23% decline in output, as did coal, the second-largest source. Nuclear, which competes with wind for third place, dropped 26%.

Texas has come to rely increasingly on wind power in recent years. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts said last August that the state’s usage of wind power has “more than quadrupled” since 2009, with wind rising to supply 20% of the state’s total energy needs in 2019. Coal power, meanwhile, declined from 37% of the state’s electricity generation in 2009 to 20% in 2019. 

The article concludes:

The natural gas losses could also be partly explained by wind production having plummeted so steeply in the initial cold snap and remained at low levels in subsequent days while natural gas rates remained relatively elevated. With natural gas producing so much more KWh relative to other fuels, it stands to reason that its role now in ongoing outages would likewise be disproportionately large.

A 30-day review of energy production in Texas shows that, while natural gas and wind energy were at times neck-and-neck in production rates throughout January and into mid-February, natural gas production skyrocketed following the cold snap while wind plummeted. 

Natural gas energy output in Texas hit a high on Feb. 15 before declining sharply in the following days, yet it still remained over 400% higher than it was on Feb. 7, compared to an overall 83% decrease in wind output.

The lesson here is that green energy always needs good back-up.

Making Progress Two Weeks At A Time

Yesterday The Epoch Times reported:

A federal judge in Texas extended the suspension of President Joe Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations until Feb. 23.

U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton in the Southern District of Texas on Tuesday ruled that the federal government cannot make immigration enforcement changes without consulting Texas. As a result, he extended the temporary restraining order by another 14 days, asserting that the state of Texas would face more harm than the federal government if the extension wasn’t granted.

”The irreparable harm that would accrue to Texas if an extension of the [temporary restraining order] is not granted before consideration of its motion for a preliminary injunction is more substantial than any harm incurred by the defendants,” wrote Tipton in his ruling, adding that his ruling will give parties more time to “provide for a more fulsome record” to assist the court in “adjudicating Texas’s motion for a preliminary injunction.”

This is the information on the lawsuit that has resulted in the suspension:

Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, sued the Biden administration over its order to pause some deportations, asserting that the White House would violate its agreement with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S.-Mexico border security, and instead requires 180 days’ notice to change immigration policy.

“On its first day in office, the Biden Administration cast aside congressionally enacted immigration laws and suspended the removal of illegal aliens whose removal is compelled by those very laws. In doing so, it ignored basic constitutional principles and violated its written pledge to work cooperatively with the State of Texas to address shared immigration enforcement concerns,” Paxton’s lawsuit said. “This unlawful reversal will cause Texas immediate and irreparable harm if it is not enjoined.”

So why is a secure border important? Well, Mexico has a high rate of the coronavirus–if Americans are being told to wear masks, socially distance, and get the vaccine, why are we letting unmasked, unvaccinated groups of illegals potentially create a ‘super-spreader’ event? Why are we letting the cartels bring drugs and human trafficking victims across the border unchecked? Why are we allowing potential terrorists into the country without being screened? The Biden administration’s immigration policy is not only a threat to the safety and security of Americans, it will also result in higher unemployment for Americans. We need more states to sue and more judges to stand up for the rule of law.

Freedom Wins

I understand that the coronavirus is serious. Recently updated statistics about the survival rate of the coronavirus show that age is a major factor:

For people age 0-19 the survival rate is 99.997%, for people age 20-49 the survival rate is 99.98%, for people age 50-69 the survival rate is 99.5%, and for people over the age of 70 the survival rate is 94.6%. These are the CDC numbers reported at Breitbart on September 25, 2020. So why are we quarantining everyone?

Meanwhile the lockdowns are having a negative impact on not only the economy but also the mental health of Americans. Oddly enough, the lockdowns seem to be highlighting the differences between blue and red states.

The Hill is reporting today that the Rose Bowl will be moved from California to Texas because of the growing number of Covid cases in California. California has some of the strictest lockdown orders in the country, and yet the number of Covid cases there is increasing. Could it be that lockdowns don’t actually work?

The article reports:

California’s ban on spectator sports has caused a College Football Playoff (CFP) semifinal game to move from Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena to AT&T Stadium in Texas.

“The game in Dallas will still be played in the mid-afternoon window on New Year’s Day,” said CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock in a statement. “We are pleased that parents and loved ones will now be able to see their students play in the game.”

According to Hancock, the decision to move the game was mutually made by the CFP’s management committee and the Tournament of Roses, citing the “growing number of COVID-19 cases in Southern California.”

The article concludes:

The Rose Bowl’s inability to accommodate players’ families had caused coaches and school officials to complain, the AP noted, with Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly even going as far as to say the school’s players would boycott the game if they were selected and their families couldn’t attend.

Notre Dame is now scheduled to play Alabama in the game. 

According to Hancock, it has not been determined if the game played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington would still be referred to as the Rose Bowl. If not, this would be the first time since 1916 that the Rose Bowl has not been played.

I also suspect the game is being played in Texas so that it would not be subject to the whims of the Governor of California who seems to have no logic behind his shutdown orders. At least in Texas the teams involved can be pretty sure the game will be played.

 

 

Voting With Your Feet

California is a beautiful state. As a teenager I remember being enthralled by the Beach Boys and the lifestyle they talked about–beautiful beaches and surfing most of the year. At that point I was not smart enough to realize what the water temperature is along most of the California coast. At any rate, for a long time California was a very desirable place to live. Now–not so much. Taxes, the high cost of living, the homeless problem, crime issues, and generally poor leadership by the state politicians have taken a toll on the desirability of making California your home.

Yesterday Fox Business reported the following:

The smart money may be sticking together and sticking it to California.

Oracle is joining Tesla and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in moving some operations to Texas, detailing the move in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday.

“Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work. Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part-time or all of the time. In addition, we will continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world, including those in the United States such as redwood City, Austin, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington, among others, and we expect to add other locations over time. By implementing a more modern approach to work, we expect to further improve our employees’ quality of life and quality of output” the SEC filing noted.

While the move signals working remotely is here to stay, it also signals more corporations could be becoming disillusioned with California.

The article notes that earlier this month, Hewlett Packard Enterprise also announced it was moving its headquarters to Houston. Tesla is also moving. The high taxes and bad government in California are driving businesses out of the state. This will result in a loss of tax revenue, tax increases for people and businesses who remain in the state, and eventual bankruptcy for the state. Unfortunately, depending on who controls Congress, the rest of the country may be asked to pay for the mistakes of California.

 

It’s Not Over Yet

There are some real questions about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Witnesses have signed affidavits about transporting ballots from one state to another, about seeing mail-in ballots being processed that had never been folded, and about seeing Republican observers being barred from observing. There are a lot of questions, and there seem to be very few answers.

The Epoch Times posted an article today about President Trump’s next legal move to challenge the election after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case brought by Texas and nineteen other states.

The article reports:

President Donald Trump’s legal team is planning on filing retooled lawsuits, his lawyer said Saturday.

“We move immediately, seamlessly, to plan B, which is to bring lawsuits now in each one of the states. We had them ready. They’re just a version of the one that was brought in the Supreme Court. So last night, the president made the decision,” Rudy Giuliani said during an appearance on “War Room: Pandemic.”

Texas filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan, alleging the elections there were run contrary to the Constitution. The nation’s top court rejected the suit late Friday.

Trump’s team is going to file suits or has already filed in the four states as well as Arizona and Nevada. The suits will incorporate allegations in the complaint filed by Texas.

“If the state doesn’t have standing, surely the president of the United States has standing. And certainly the electors in the states have standing. So they will be bringing those very cases right in those courts, starting today,” Giuliani said. “And let’s see what excuse they can try to use to avoid having a hearing on that.”

Courts have been using the matter of standing to dodge facing the facts, he alleged, adding, “Nobody wants to face the reality that this election was stolen.”

On November 27th, The Spectator posted an article about the anomalies in this presidential election. Please follow the link to the article and read the list. It provides a lot of food for thought.

The article at The Epoch Times notes:

According to certified counts in Georgia and the other five battleground states where election results are contested, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden beat Trump. Trump won all but Nevada in 2016. Biden’s team didn’t respond to a request for comment.

I am sure we are not done with this yet. It is frustrating to be still dealing with an election a month later, but if there was voter fraud (and I believe there was), ignoring it would have serious consequences for our republic.

Headed For The Supreme Court

The Epoch Times is reporting today that Texas filed an election lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit alleges that the states unconstitutionally changed election laws, treated voters unequally, and triggered significant voting irregularities by relaxing ballot-integrity measures.

The article reports:

The lawsuit seeks a determination by the court that the four battleground states conducted the 2020 election in violation of the Constitution. Texas is asking the Supreme Court to prohibit the counting of the Electoral College votes cast by the four states. For the states which have already appointed electors, the lawsuit asks the court to direct the state legislatures to appoint new electors in line with the Constitution.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the challenge on the day of the so-called safe-harbor deadline. The cumulative electoral votes in the four states are enough to determine the outcome of the 2020 election.

“Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together. Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election,” Paxton said in a statement.

“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections,” he added. “Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”

This will be the week that determines who will be sworn in as President next month. This court case is part of the battle for secure and honest elections.

What Do We Do Now?

Voter and election fraud have been with us for a while. For the most part Americans simply ignored it, and cities like Chicago and Philadelphia simply continued doing what they were doing. I am sure other cities routinely practiced voter or election fraud, but those are two of the more obvious one. Because the fraud was ignored and allowed to continue, it spread. And that is one of the major reasons we are at the place we currently find ourselves. It is similar to the broken windows theory of law enforcement–if you prosecute the lesser crimes, eventually the number of crimes decreases. If you allow the lesser crimes to continue, crime increases.

Yesterday The Daily Wire reported the following:

Texas state officials announced late on Friday afternoon that they have charged a social worker with 134 felony counts of election fraud and other related charges.

“Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that his Election Fraud Unit assisted the Limestone County Sheriff and District Attorney in charging Kelly Reagan Brunner, a social worker in the Mexia State Supported Living Center (SSLC), with 134 felony counts of purportedly acting as an agent and of election fraud,” the state said in a statement. “State Supported Living Centers serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Brunner submitted voter registration applications for 67 residents without their signature or effective consent, while purporting to act as their agent.”

The article concludes:

In September, Paxton announced that law enforcement officials had arrested several individuals for their alleged involvement in an illegal ballot harvesting scheme in Texas’ 2018 Democrat primary.

“The four individuals—Charlie Burns, Dewayne Ward, Marlena Jackson and Jackson’s husband Shannon Brown, a Democrat who was serving as Gregg County’s Precinct 4 commissioner—collectively stand accused of 134 different felony charges of election fraud and ballot tampering,” Newsweek reported. “If found guilty, each individual could face six months in jail to 99 years in prison.”

And that, my friends, is how you deal with voter fraud or election fraud.

Undermine Or Steal–The Democrat’s Plan

Election fraud is an issue. Mail in ballots or absentee ballots that are harvested are a problem The spotlight right now is on two states that are attempting election fraud.

Yesterday American Greatness reported:

A Biden Campaign operative in Texas is attempting to rig the 2020 election with the help of others in a massive ballot harvesting scheme, according to two private investigators who testified under oath that they have “video evidence, documentation and witnesses” to prove it. With the help of mass mail-in ballots, the illegal ballot harvesting operation could harvest 700,000 ballots, one Harris County Democrat operative allegedly bragged.

The investigators—a former FBI agent and former police officer—claim that Biden’s Texas Political Director Dallas Jones and his cohorts have been “hoarding mail-in and absentee ballots” and ordering operatives to them fill out for people in Harris County illegally, “including dead people, homeless people, and nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election,”  Patrick Howley of the National File reported.

While law enforcement agencies are reportedly investigating these potential crimes, nothing will be done about it until “well after the November 3, 2020 election” the former FBI agent said.

Dallas Jones was appointed the Biden campaign’s Texas Political Director in late August.

Meanwhile in Minneapolis, Project Veritas uncovered a massive ballot harvesting scheme.

I am posting the two undercover videos before the censors take them down:

I have had some negative experiences recently with videos that show liberals in a bad light mysteriously disappearing from the Internet. That is the reason these two videos are embedded in this site.

Project veritas reports:

James O’Keefe, the founder and CEO of Project Veritas, said: “Ballot harvesting is real and it has become a big business. Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities—and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk.”

O’Keefe said, “We are showing Americans what is really going on in one of our great cities—but, it’s not me saying—we have the operators on tape saying it all themselves.”

Our investigation found that among three locations inside Ward 6, a ballot harvesting triangle,  where the scheme operates: the Riverside Plaza apartments,  the senior citizen community at Horn Towers and the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave., which also functions as a voting location and ballot drop-off site.

Mohamed (Liban Mohamed )continued: “Money is everything. Money is the king in this world. If you got no money, you should not be here period. You know what I am saying.”

The videos are long, but you don’t have to watch much of them to realize that there is some serious voter fraud going on. The goal of the Democrats is either to delegitimize this election or to win in by fraud. The Democrat’s best case scenario is that somehow the Presidency would be decided by a vote in the House of Representatives, where they hold the majority. Please pray that voter fraud would be discovered and dealt with before the election.

About That Mail-in Voting Idea

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday listing some of the problems already encountered with mail-in and absentee ballots during this election.

The article reports:

The U.S. Postal Service has reportedly launched an investigation after mail—including absentee ballots—were discovered this week along a road in the swing state of Wisconsin.

“According to the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office, three trays of mail were discovered shortly before 8 a.m. Monday in a ditch along State 96 at Outagamie county CB in Greenville,” the Post Crescent reported. “The mail was on its way to the post office and the sheriff’s office turned it over to the postal inspector. The mail was mixed and did contain ‘several’ absentee ballots.”

In another instance:

The news comes after federal law enforcement officials discovered that some military ballots had been discarded in the swing state of Pennsylvania and that out of all the discarded ballots that had been opened, they all had voted for President Donald Trump.

“The FBI has recovered a number of documents relating to military ballots that had been improperly opened by your elections staff, and had the ballots removed and discarded, or removed and placed separately from the envelope containing confidential voter information and attestation,” U.S. Attorney David J. Freed said in a letter to Shelby Watchilla, Director of Elections of Luzerne County Bureau of Elections.

“Specifically, a total of nine (9) military ballots were discovered to have been discarded,” the letter continued. “Seven (7) of those ballots when discovered by investigators were outside of any envelope. Those ballots were all cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump. One (1) of those seven (7) ballots was able to be identified to an envelope that was recovered, and thereby potentially tied to a specific voter. Two (2) military ballots that had been discarded were previously recovered by elections staff, reinserted into what appeared to be their appropriate envelopes, and then resealed. Therefore, the votes cast on those two (2) ballots are unknown. Thus, is appears that three (3) of the nine (9) recovered ballots can be potentially attributed to specific voters. Six (6) of the ballots were simply removed and discarded, and cannot be attributed to a specific voter at this time.”

Yet another instance:

Also on Thursday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced more than 100 felony charges in an illegal ballot harvesting scheme in a Democrat Primary.

“It is an unfortunate reality that elections can be stolen outright by mail ballot fraud. Election fraud, particularly an organized mail ballot fraud scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in voter disenfranchisement and corruption at the highest level,” Attorney General Paxton said in a statement. “Mail ballots are vulnerable to diversion, coercion, and influence by organized vote harvesting schemes. This case demonstrates my commitment to ensuring Texas has the most secure elections in the country, and I thank the Gregg County Sheriff and District Attorney for their continued partnership. Those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas must be held accountable.”

We need in-person voting with voter id. Note that Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are both considered swing states.

The Push Toward Mail-In Voting

As has been said multiple times before, mail-in voting is different from absentee voting. Mail-in voting generally does not have the controls that absentee voting has to prevent voter fraud. There are court cases in various states right now to push for mail-in voting. One of those states is Texas.

On Friday, Hot Air reported the following:

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a lower court’s preliminary ruling that would have required the State of Texas to expand mail-in voting to all eligible registered voters. The Texas Democrat Party claimed that denying universal mail-in voting in Texas is age discrimination.

Texas allows mail-in voting for voters who are age 65 or older, voters who will be out of the county during the voting period, disabled or ill voters, and people incarcerated but eligible to vote. Absentee voting is allowed, as in other states. For absentee voting, a voter has to request a ballot. Democrats want to move to universal voting by mail, with registered voters receiving a ballot by mail automatically, without the step of requesting one.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court didn’t agree with the Democrats:

The 5th Circuit’s majority said the state’s law did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on age discrimination because it merely conferred an extra benefit on older residents, rather than limiting the right to vote for younger Texans.

“A law that makes it easier for others to vote does not abridge any person’s right to vote,” the majority wrote.

The article concludes:

The age discrimination part of this lawsuit is clearly malarkey. Democrats are just throwing everything against the wall in hopes that something will stick so that universal mail-in voting will come into play in Texas. The court rightly points out that no such argument can be made. If people can go shop at Walmart or a grocery store, they can go vote in person.

The lawsuit now goes back to the court of U.S. District Judge Fred Biery. In May, he ruled that all Texans can vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic. In June, however, the 5th Circuit blasted his ruling and blocked it. Biery is a Clinton appointee. It will fall upon Biery now to rule on the remaining issues in the lawsuit, including whether or not the Texas restrictions on mail-in voting violate equal protection guarantees.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a brief statement – “I am pleased that the 5th Circuit correctly upheld Texas’s vote-by-mail laws, and I commend the court for concluding that Texas’s decision to allow elderly voters to vote by mail does not violate the 26th Amendment.”

Stay tuned. This fight is ongoing in many states.

This Is Not A Political Story–I Just Couldn’t Resist Posting It

This article is from September 2019. It is posted at southernthing.com . The article relates the story of a Texas judge attempting to remove a raccoon from his house.

The article tells the saga:

A Texas judge recently had a show-down with a clever raccoon squatting in his house, and, lucky for us, the hilarious saga between the unlikely adversaries unfolded on social media.

Judge Matthew Wright, of Falls County, Texas, first shared a request for help after he found the pesky critter in his home around 5 a.m. on Monday. Wright said he had prepared a trap for the raccoon, but instead they both ended up napping. Sometimes, you got to know when to retreat, y’all.

Around 3 p.m. on Monday, Wright updated his followers, saying that the two had ” reached a tactical impasse” and there were hopes the raccoon would mosey his way into one of the set traps for food on his own. As you might guess, that is not what happened.

At 6:15 p.m., Wright shared another post, saying he had decided to take action and catch the little guy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough and the raccoon scurried up a curtain where he proceeded to taunt the judge.

Alas, the judge realized what he needed to do to finally capture the beast. When you’re dealing with a Texas raccoon, you got to use Texas bait. So, naturally, he loaded the traps with queso and tamales.

After a nearly 20-hour stand-off, Judge Wright shared his final update to inform everyone the raccoon had fell for it, saying “authorities have captured Rosebud’s Most Wanted. He will serve 20 – 30 (minutes) then be released with conditions not to enter illegally again.”

I guess if you’re going to get caught anyway, might as well do it with a belly full of queso and tamales.

You have to admit, the raccoon looks comfortable!

Why All Of Us Should Question What We Hear

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the number of coronavirus cases in Texas.

The article reports:

Texas health officials removed more than 3,000 reported coronavirus cases from an overall count after “probable” cases for people who were never tested were counted as confirmed cases.

“Since we report confirmed cases on our dashboard, we have removed 3,484 previously reported probable cases from the statewide and Bexar County totals,” Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the state health agency, said to the Austin American-Statesman.

“The State of Texas today had to remove 3,484 cases from its Covid-19 positive case count, because the San Antonio Health Department was reporting ‘probable’ cases for people never actually tested, as ‘confirmed’ positive cases.- TDHS,” Fox 4 Dallas Evening News anchor Steve Eagar tweeted Wednesday. “What other departments make this same mistake?”

This is not an isolated problem. Recently a friend told me of an incident where a person who had tested positive for coronavirus was retested three times during a two week period. When two of the tests came back positive, the results were reported as a new case each time. Therefore, one person’s battle with the coronavirus resulted in the reporting of three new cases. There was another incident of a person who signed up to be tested, but left before being tested because of the extended wait time. Two weeks later she received a telephone call stating that she had tested positive. When she explained that she had not actually been tested, she was removed from the positive test list, but why was she on the list to begin with?

The article at The Washington Examiner concludes:

The change in cases comes as questions have been raised across the country about coronavirus testing, most notably in Florida. An investigation in the state determined that the test positivity rate reported by officials was inaccurate and that the number of positive tests was much lower than reported.

In May, coronavirus task force member Dr. Deborah Birx suggested that the actual number of coronavirus cases could be inflated by as much as 25%, while others have argued that cases have been undercounted.

Questions about the number of coronavirus cases have also been raised in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey over claims that suspected coronavirus patients are dying from causes other than the virus.

Be careful what you believe.

Would You Vote For This Person?

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson, a Democratic candidate in a closely watched House race in Texas.

The article reports:

“What the hell you got snipers on the roof for in a peaceful march? Even if people loot, so what? Burn it to the ground, you know, if that’s what it’s going to take to fix our nation,” retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson said during a live digital event on Tuesday, shown in a clip obtained by the Washington Examiner.

“I don’t think people want me to say that,” added Olson, a Democratic candidate in Texas’s 24th Congressional District, which covers much of the suburban area in between Fort Worth and Dallas.

Olson, 62, made the comment during a several-minute answer to a question about what she thought about far-left calls to disband or defund police departments.

Olson started by saying that while “defunding” is a “tough word,” explaining that she supports prioritizing funding services such as rehab centers and social workers.

“You can’t just tackle the police, you’ve got to tackle some of the social injustice issues that are going on within our justice system,” Olson said. “You can’t train racism out of folks.”

The article provides some information about her military career that indicates that she would probably play the Washington game very well:

Her military career is a highlight of her resume — she was one of the first women to attend and graduate from military flight school — but it is also a potential liability. In the early 2000s, when she was stationed in Iraq, the Pentagon accused Olson of directing contracts to a private security firm that she helped operate. While Olson denies personally profiting from the arrangement, she pleaded guilty to charges that included creating the appearance of a conflict of interest, paid a $3,500 fine, and was permitted to retire with an honorable discharge. That history has not been a major issue in her campaigns or line of attack from her opponents.

There seems to be an inference in her statements that everyone is a racist. I object to that statement. There are some (ignorant) people among us who are racists. I have encountered a number of them in my life. I have no idea why they are racist. The best way to deal with them is to understand who they are and treat them accordingly. Keep them out of positions where they can exercise their racism. I don’t know whether the policeman who killed George Floyd was a racist or simply an out-of-control policeman. From the information coming out now, there was a personal vendetta involved that may or may not have included racism.

At any rate, burning down businesses solves nothing. It puts the people the rioters and looters care about at a disadvantage when stores in their neighborhoods refuse to reopen. The best thing we could do to fight racial injustice would be to improve our schools in neighborhoods with failing schools and set up mentoring programs for children without fathers in their homes.

 

Who Is Buying The Bricks?

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article showing the delivery of pallets of bricks to various cities in America. There were no construction sites in the areas where the bricks were delivered. Please follow the link to the article to see the various pictures of brick deliveries in key cities.

The article reports:

These protests are organized – bricks are being delivered uninhibited to riot sites.

In cities around the US bricks are being delivered to riot locations and used to destroy property.

The article includes the following:

The article concludes:

Find who are shipping the bricks and you find who is behind these criminal riots!

Some Really Good News

Breitbart is reporting today that Lt. Col. Allen West (Ret.) is to be released from hospital on Monday after a motorcycle accident over the weekend.

The article reports:

West had been injured in an accident on the way back from a “Free Texas Rally” in Austin on Saturday.

He suffered a concussion, broken bones, an other injuries, but declared “that I am alive by the grace of God.”

West served a term in Congress as a Tea Party-backed Republican who ousted an incumbent Democrat in a Florida district that was later redrawn. He found it more difficult to defend the seat in the new district.

He later moved to Texas and is once again involved in conservative politics.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, sir.

Protecting Election Integrity

Red State Observer is reporting today that the Texas Supreme Court has temporarily put on hold an expansion of voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

The article reports:

Siding with Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Supreme Court blocked a state appeals court decision that allowed voters who lack immunity to the virus to qualify for absentee ballots by citing a disability. That appellate decision upheld a lower court’s order that would have allowed more people to qualify to vote by mail. The state’s Supreme Court has not weighed the merits of the case.

It’s the latest in an ongoing legal squabble that in the last three days has resulted in daily changes to who can qualify for a ballot they can fill out at home and mail in.

The problem with voting by mail is that there are very few controls on it and it is the area when voter fraud is most prevalent. If it is safe to go to WalMart and social distance, then it is safe to vote while respecting social distancing. This is nothing more than an attempt to stuff ballot boxes legally.

Calling His Bluff

Jim Acosta has been very vocal during the President’s briefings on the coronavirus. At one point when President Trump stated that he thought that voting by mail is an invitation to fraud, Jim Acosta demanded evidence. Well, the President obliged.

Breitbart posted an article yesterday with some examples.

The article reports:

Trump replied, “I think there’s a lot of evidence, but we’ll provide you with some, okay?”

The president’s re-election campaign responded quickly to Acosta’s request, noting there were nine people charged in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas with “vote harvesting” and mail ballots, a political operative in New York stealing and submitting absentee ballots, and a resident in Pennsylvania receiving seven separate ballots in the mail.

The campaign also shared a Heritage Foundation document of over 1,000 proven cases of vote fraud.

“Democrats and the mainstream media always scoff at claims of voter fraud, but then completely ignore evidence from across the country,” Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “The obvious reason is that Democrats are just fine with the possibility of voter fraud. And many in the media just see the world their way.”

The Trump campaign also quoted an election expert in the New York Times who said although election fraud was rare, “the most common type of such fraud in the United States involves absentee ballots” through the mail.

President Trump cited ongoing legal action from Judicial Watch forcing states to clear millions of ineligible voter registrations within 90 days as proof of voter fraud.

The White House also shared details of 2005 commission led by President Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush’s secretary of state James A. Baker III that concluded mail-in ballots “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

“Outside those in the establishment media who are more interested in attacking the President than the facts, there’s a clear consensus that universal mail-in voting would be vulnerable to fraud,” a White House source told Breitbart News in a statement.

Every fraudulent vote cancels the vote of an American citizen who has the right to vote. The examples above are only one of many reasons why instead of voting by mail, we need voter id laws that require photo identification to vote. That will not entirely solve the voter fraud problem, but it will go a long way in that direction.

Solving A Less-Than-Obvious Problem

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about a recent waiver signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

This is a screenshot of the waiver recently signed by the Governor:

The article reports:

Leadership is often about recognizing the unique landscape and taking ‘outside the box’ action in response to current conditions.  Greg Abbott recognizes there are two distinctly different supply-chains, and this modification can open one distribution valve.

Most consumers are not aware food consumption in the U.S. is now a 50/50 proposition. Approximately 50% of all food was consumed “outside the home” (or food away from home), and 50% of all food consumed was food “inside the home” (grocery shoppers).

Food ‘outside the home’ includes: restaurants, fast-food locales, schools, corporate cafeterias, university lunchrooms, manufacturing cafeterias, hotels, food trucks, park and amusement food sellers and many more.  Many of those venues are not thought about when people evaluate the overall U.S. food delivery system; however, this network was approximately 50 percent of all food consumption on a daily basis.

This will help the shortages that are appearing in the grocery stores. It will also help restaurants with their bottom line while they are closed. I would also like to remind people when possible to do ‘take out’ from the restaurants you normally frequent. This will help those restaurants recover more quickly. I personally had a fantastic quiche for lunch from Carolina Bagel!

The Fight For Honest Elections

The goal of elections in America is to have every citizen vote and every citizen’s vote counted. When a non-citizen votes, it cancels out the vote of a citizen. That is one of the arguments for voter id requirements.

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about a recent Texas lawsuit that had to do with voting.

The article reports:

The largest county in Texas settled a lawsuit with a watchdog group after refusing to release records dealing with noncitizens on its voter rolls.

A federal district court in Houston entered a settlement agreement this week between the Harris County voter registrar and the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF). The settlement calls for the county to turn over records on its cancellations of ineligible voters, copies of registration applications that have blank or negative responses to citizenship questions, and all registrar communications with law enforcement regarding ineligible registrants, among other records. Officials from Harris County, the most populous county in Texas, previously testified that “thousands” of noncitizens were discovered on its voter rolls every year.

The settlement comes as the election watchdog group seeks to clean voter rolls in major cities ahead of the November elections. Democrats have pushed back against attempts to clean voter rolls, often calling them “purges.” Individuals removed for ineligibility tend to belong to demographic groups that lean Democrat. Texas has in recent years become a target of national Democrats, who have poured millions into the Lone Star State in attempts to gain power.

The article concludes:

PILF has filed a number of lawsuits in cities across the country in recent months. The group filed a suit against Detroit officials after discovering 2,500 dead registrants on the city’s voter rolls. Nearly 5,000 voters appeared more than once on the rolls, and there were more registered voters than there were eligible voters in the city.

PILF also filed suit against Pittsburgh officials after finding dead voters, duplicate registrants, and 1,500 registrants aged 100 or above (49 marked as being born in the 1800s) on county voter rolls.

It is really sad that Americans do not turn out to vote in high numbers, yet those who come here illegally vote. There is something wrong with that picture.

The Possible Cost Of Not Respecting The Chain Of Command

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article titled, “State Department Employee in Japan Ignored President Trump’s Orders and Allowed Americans with Coronavirus to Fly Back to the US.” The State Department employee who ignored the President’s orders is Ian Brownlee, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs. He needs to be fired immediately.

The article reports:

‘It’s important to remember this was an emerging and unusual circumstance,’ said Ian Brownlee, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs.

‘We had 328 people on buses, a plan to execute and we received lab results on people who were otherwise asymptomatic, un-ill people on a bus on the way to the airport.

‘The people on the ground did exactly the right thing…in bringing them home.’

People who had tested positive were put into isolation units on board the two cargo planes, which then flew to Joint Base San Antonio – Lackland in Texas and Travis Air Base in California.

Although officials reassured the press that the sick passengers were thoroughly contained and every precaution had been taken to ensure the safety of the healthy people onboard, reports later emerged that people on the flights had no idea they were sharing yet another even more confined space with infected individuals.

When the planes landed at their respective destinations late Sunday night, six ‘high risk’ passengers from Lackland and seven from Travis were ushered onto an additional flight to Omaha Eppley Airfield in Nebraska.

Mr. Brownlee did not have the authority to override the President’s orders. Hopefully everything will work out in the end, but Mr. Brownlee has created a risk for American citizens that did not need to be there. He should be immediately terminated for insubordination.

This Could Get Interesting

Hot Air is reporting today that Everytown for Gun Safety, a Mike Bloomberg-backed gun-grabbing group, is setting its sights on Texas.

The article reports:

Everytown for Gun Safety, a Michael Bloomberg-backed group that pushes for expanded background checks, red flag laws and other measures, is plotting what its political director calls an “unprecedented financial and grassroots effort” to flip the Texas House, defend vulnerable freshmen Democrats in Congress and help Democrats take congressional seats in the suburbs. A memo detailing the plan, the group’s biggest state investment to date, was shared exclusively with Hearst Newspapers.

“We believe that Texas, as it becomes younger and increasingly diverse, can be the next emerging battleground state with gun safety as the tipping point,” Chris Carr, the group’s political director wrote in the memo. “We believe there are opportunities to elect gun sense candidates up and down the ballot, from the statehouse to the U.S. Congress — and potentially even statewide.”

I will admit that I don’t know a lot about Texas politics, but it seems to me that the basic culture of Texas might make this planned gun grab a little more difficult.

The article concludes:

While Shannon Watts (founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group of activists affiliated with Everytown) uses hyperbole in comparing Texas to Virginia, she should know that Texas is not like most other states. There are plenty of Democrats in elected office who are strong supporters of the Second Amendment and are gun owners themselves. This is not as partisan issue as it is in other states.

“I would say anyone running for office in Texas should look to Virginia,” Watts said. “Six months after a shooting in Virginia Beach, all of the elected officials who refused gun sense were voted out of office.”

Everytown is supporting freshmen Democrats like my own congresswoman – Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, who is vulnerable. The district was a strongly red district – the reddest in Houston – and fell into Democrat hands for the first time in 2018 when she was elected. She is facing a tough battle to retain her seat. I’m counting on my district moving back into the red column in November.

Everytown is also planning to go on the offensive against Republican U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw, Michael McCaul, Chip Roy and John Carter, and it’s planning to spend big in districts left open by retiring Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Will Hurd.

As is said in Texas, come and take it.

Let’s hope Texas voters are awake enough not to repeat what happened in Virginia. One thing to keep in mind when looking at Virginia is that a lot of the Democrat candidates ran unopposed. Hopefully that won’t happen in Texas.

Why The Census Is An Issue For The Democrat Party

The Democrats have been pursuing two paths regarding the 2020 Census and its impact on the 2020 election–the first is to eliminate the Electoral College and the second is the refusing to distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens during the census. Eliminating the Electoral College will put Los Angeles and New York City in charge of our country’s government (those two cities have not really mastered good government with fiscal responsibility) and counting non-citizens in the census will give more Electoral College delegates to the Democrat states.

On January 5th, The Blaze reported the following:

Population estimates show reliably Democratic states, like New York, California, and Illinois will each lose at least one congressional district and representation in the Electoral College. Conversely, states that tend to vote for Republicans—such as Texas, Florida, and Montana—are expected to increase their presence.

“This is looking to benefit Republicans only because of how the landscape has changed,” said Jenna Ellis, senior legal analyst for the Trump 2020 campaign, according to radio station KTRH.

Ellis also noted that Democrats’ anticipated losses is why they mobilized so strongly to oppose the Trump administration’s addition of a citizenship question on the Census.

“They’re not interested in laws,” she said. “They’re not interested in sound reasoning or fair and accurate representation of every American. They are only interested in concentrating their own political power by any means necessary.”

Most Americans have the option of voting with their feet. That is why California is rapidly losing citizen residents and Texas is gaining them.

The article lists the states gaining and losing population:

Among GOP strongholds expected to lose an electoral vote are: Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Among the blue states are California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island. That’s an even minus five for both parties from the 2016 election night map, according to an analysis by NBC News.

However, when analysts looked at states expected to gain seats, the GOP comes out on top. Three Republican states that went for Trump in 2016—Montana, Arizona, and North Carolina—are likely to pick-up one seat after the Census. On the Democratic side of the ledger, two states (Oregon and Colorado) will each add a seat, resulting in a net gain of one Electoral College seat for Republicans.

The big problem for the Left is that forecasts show Florida and Texas—both of which voted for Trump in 2016—picking up a combined five seats (two for Florida, three for Texas). Thus, if the estimates hold, Republicans will pick-up six Electoral College votes. Of course, this assumes that both the GOP maintains control of the Lone Star and Sunshine States, but that’s a topic for a different day.

The only hope for the Democrats is that the people moving to Republican states bring their big government ideas with them and overwhelm the population. As someone who lives in one of those states, I am hoping that doesn’t happen.

A Sad Day In Texas

Yesterday CBN News reported that a jury  has ruled against a Texas father as his ex-wife tries to turn their 7-year-old son into a girl.

The article reports:

Jeff Younger has been locked in a dispute with his ex-wife Dr. Anne Georgulas who has accused him of child abuse for not treating their son James like a girl. He says she’s the one abusing their son by trying to change his biological gender.

Now LifeSite News reports a jury and judge have collectively ruled against Younger, which appears to give Georgulas the go-ahead to turn James into “Luna”.

The article continues:

The SaveJames site contends, “This suggests that the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria should be reviewed by an independent psychologist. James has never had an independent second opinion. Medical and social intervention should be suspended until James’ father can get a good second opinion.”

Younger told the Luke Macias podcast, “I believe this is not just emotional abuse but is the very most fundamental form of sexual abuse, tampering with the sexual identity of a vulnerable boy.”

Macias says this is about the LGBT activist agenda reaching the next level in America.

“The most radical in our society have not found themselves content with expanding their own horizons and throwing off truth in regards to their own lives. They are actively experimenting on the children of Texas,” he says.

Hopefully in the process of making the wrong decision, nothing will be done that is irreversible. The child is too young to be making this decision. I can’t help but wonder how the child will feel as a twenty-year-old. Hopefully if he changes his mind, he will be physically be able to reverse what is done.