Posts Tagged ‘Ken Paxton’
Friday, March 3rd, 2017
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! (On a personal note, if you know of any technical writing positions here in the Austin area, please let me know.)
U.S. troops in Iraq finally get to enjoy sane rules of engagement. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
George Soros-funded group is providing scripts for those “spontaneous” town hall protests. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
For many Democrats, President Trump’s joint address was the first time they actual heard and saw him unfiltered. “He just crushed the Drive-By [Media] last night. He just crushed them. He just blew up every narrative they’ve established on the guy. And they don’t even realize it.”
“As one might imagine given the Democrats’ breathtaking electoral collapse, there is basically nothing but bad news for Democrats across the board. The data showed that the voting patterns of key demographic groups shifted dramatically downward from 2008 through 2016.” More: “Contrary to the emerging Democratic majority thesis, there does not seem to be any demographic category with which Democrats are progressively improving.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Maine: Want to work for a living? Welfare recipient: Nah! Maine: Well then, I guess you won’t be needing these food stamps.
Man arrested for making threats to Jewish groups is a Bernie Bro and former reporter for The Intercept. Bonus 1: His Twitter page calls capitalists “bloodsuckers.” Gee, that rhetoric seems familiar somehow… Bonus 2: This is hot on the heels of another Intercept writer poo-pooing the idea that Democrats might be targeting Jews.
“The Congressional Review Act of 1996 is a ‘sleeper statute’ (aka, a secret weapon) in that its practical application took 20 years to enter the realm of viable possibility. The CRA allows Congress to overturn executive regulations by a simple majority—and this is the moment it’s been waiting for.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
TBS guy at CPAC asks DA Tech Guy to help him make fake news.(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
No. Just no. And how come SMONE ELSE isn’t running away with the race?
“Trump Was Right: Large Amounts of Actionable Intelligence Found in Yemen Raid.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Leading French Presidential candidate Francois Fillon investigated for paying his own family “€1m ($1.05m) of public money for allegedly fake jobs.”
Geert Wilders’ party is poised to win the most votes in Dutch elections March 15. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Members of an elite Baltimore Police Department squad charged with getting guns off the streets gets hit with federal racketeering charges and held for trial without bail. More: “In one case, four of the officers are alleged to have stolen $200,000 from a safe and bags and a watch valued at $4,000. In July 2016, three officers conspired to impersonate a federal officer in order to steal $20,000 in cash.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Apple Board Member Al Gore makes $29 million in profit selling Apple stock.
Authenticity is bunk. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Help me Watergate, you’re my only hope!
The NYT and the Washington Post have a motivation to ally with the Democratic Party in its last-ditch effort to Watergatize Trump after Trump’s endless criticisms of them. And this anti-Trump approach may get them a spike in readership, even as it repels some readers like me.
I’m missing the sense that I’m getting the normal news. It seems unfair and shoddy not to cover the President the way you’d cover any President. What looks like an effort to stigmatize Trump as not normal has — to my eyes — made the media abnormal.
Snip.
The more seemingly normal Trump becomes — as with his speech to Congress the other day — the more the anti-Trump approach of the news media feels like a hackish alliance with the Democratic Party in its sad, negative, backward-looking effort to disrupt the President the people elected.
Have any of my friends lost a gun transiting Austin Bergstrom Airport? If so, a baggage handler may have stole your gun to trade for pot.
Austin police have charged Matthew Bartlett, 21, and Catronn Hewitt, 36, with felony possession of marijuana, police said in a news release.
Ja’Quan Johnson, 25, was charged with federal charges in connection with the thefts. Johnson is a contract baggage handler at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and is believed to have been behind the thefts, according to police and the Justice Department.
Buying pot? Likely misdemeanor charge. But stealing guns from airport luggage is likely an interstate federal gun trafficking felony. Also: Our airport security is in the best of hands!
Houston Chronicle to move its call center from the Philippines to Dallas. 1. Who thought it was a good idea to move it to the Philippines in the first place? 2. “The move will result in 130 new jobs for Texas.” Why does the Chronicle need 130 people in its call center? 3. Dallas? Really? Because it’s evidently impossible to locate a call center in the 4th largest city in America…
SEC charges against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dismissed. A state felony trail is pending, but given that the state charges are based on the same issue as the SEC case just dismissed, chances of a conviction would appear to be very slim. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Trump Derangement Syndrome in La La Land.
How was I to know/She was with the Russians too?
Speaking of which:
Indeed, “Russia!” is now the go-to move for the media the same way a bad video game player will just use the same button combination over and over again:
Happiest stinkiest place in the world. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Leonardo DiCaprio flew eyebrow artist 7,500 miles to do his brows for the Oscars. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Insecure Mongo DB run by toy company hit with ransomware.
Ever wanted Mickey Spillane’ typewriter or his World War II uniform? Now’s your chance. I already put in a bid on Spillane’s concealed gun permit…
Tags:Al Gore, Apple Computer, Austin, Baltimore, Budget, Catronn Hewitt, CNN, CPAC, Crime, Dallas, data security, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, France, Francois Fillon, Geert Wilders, George Soros, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Houston, Houston Chronicle, Internet, Internet-of-Things, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Ja’Quan Johnson, Jews, Jihad, Juan Thompson, Ken Paxton, Leonardo DiCaprio, LinkSwarm, Maine, Matthew Bartlett, Media Watch, Mexico, Military, Mosul, New York Times, Russia, TBS, Texas, The Intercept, Tijuana, Washington Post, Yemen
Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 26th, 2016
A number of lawsuits related to local or federal overreach in Texas are working their way through the court system. Here’s a quick roundup of developments in a few notable cases.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor reiterated that the injunction that stops Obama’s tranny bathroom mandate still applies nationwide. Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the tranny bathroom mandate which has been joined by 13 other states.
Paxton has also joined a Texas Public Policy Foundation lawsuit against the City of Austin over their new short-term rental ordinance. “The Ordinance raises significant constitutional questions, because it functionally ousts homeowners and investors from real property without just compensation.”
Paxton also joined another TPPF lawsuit against the City of Brownsville over their $1 fee on plastic checkout bags, calling it an illegal sales tax, as bags are not taxable under state law.
Speaking of Paxton, in case you missed it, the SEC case against Paxton was thrown out by a federal judge:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won a sweeping victory in court Friday when Federal District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III dismissed a fraud case the Securities and Exchange Commission had brought against him.
Mazzant, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama, found that even if all the facts the SEC alleged were true, they didn’t amount to any violation of securities law by Paxton.
The SEC had dogpiled on Paxton after Collin County special prosecutors got a local grand jury to indict Paxton under state securities law in August 2015.
Now the question is whether Collin County will drop its own case against Paxton, and end payment of high dollar special prosecutor fees, now that the SEC has dropped the case.
Also note that Texas is still a co-plaintiff in State of West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, over the Obama Administration’s “Clean Power Plan,” which the Supreme Court ordered stayed February of last year.
Tags:Amos L. Mazzant III, Austin, Brownsville, Collin County, EPA, Ken Paxton, Reed O’Connor, SEC, Supreme Court, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Tranny Bathrooms
Posted in Austin, Supreme Court, Texas | 2 Comments »
Friday, September 16th, 2016
It’s Friday! Something to be thankful for!
Its 52 days until the election! At least we can be thankful it isn’t more! (Alternate theory: We’ve all died and gone to Hell, and will be watching this Presidential race for the rest of eternity…)
Donald Trump widens lead in LA Times poll. “The poll shows Trump leading Clinton, 47%-41%.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Another poll puts Trump up by eight in Iowa. Downside: Same poll has Trump up by only seven in Texas. There’s no way in Hell or Terlingua that’s happening, but let’s hope Battleground Texas cons some national Democratic donors into throwing more money down that particular rathole based on that poll… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
Scott Adams on Hillary’s 9/11 collapse: “The optics of a potential commander-in-chief collapsing at that holy place, and on an important anniversary, rendered her unelectable in my opinion.”
“Hillary Clinton has stage-three Parkinson’s disease and suffers from seizures, according to three sources who have had a personal relationship with the Democratic Party presidential nominee.” Grains of salt, anonymous sources disclaimer, yadda yadda.
Did I miss this from 2015? “The charitable foundation run by Hillary Clinton and her family has received as much as $81m from wealthy international donors who were clients of HSBC’s controversial Swiss bank.” Including Frank Giustra. But why would you trust such a notoriously right-wing news outlet as The Guardian? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“It Was Easier To Cure Trump Of His Trumpiness Than Hillary of Her Hillaryness.” “For Hillary, the problem runs deeper. People think she’s corrupt and dishonest. That’s because she’s corrupt and dishonest.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Email leak exposes Democratic Party Pay-for-Play scheme, despite cleverly hiding their intent by actually using the phrase “pay-for-play.” Just think: This would have been a major story dominating the news for months if it were a Republican Administration. In the age of Obama and Hillary, it’s just another selection on a vast buffet of corruption. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
America’s trust in media hits all time low:
Well, what did they expect when they went all in for Hillary? And now Trump is climbing in the polls — 6 points up in the new L.A. Times poll — and they’ve already squandered their credibility. They can’t help her now. They tried too hard before. Too bad the Democratic Party didn’t give us a democratic experience this time. They foisted a candidate on us, they rigged it, with the assistance of the media. And now the candidate we didn’t want zombie-walks and stumbles to the finish line, and there is nothing the Party or the media can do to stir up our affection. Meanwhile, the man the media loved to hate is powering through to the Presidency, looking only stronger for all the shots he took.
More Americans murdered in Chicago since 2001 than U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
The European Dream gives way to nightmare:
Viktor Orbán, together with the prime ministers of the Visegrad countries and the Ukrainian prime minister, took part in a discussion where he highlighted: a whole generation of European politicians had a “secret dream”, that they can use the EU to achieve the weakening of the member states’ national, religious, and historic identities, and that all this would be replaced by a new European identity. But we found out there is no such identity that could replace the old ones, he said. He added: now it is proven that the only successful countries are the ones with strong identities.
(Hat tip Director Blue.)
Someone is learning how to take down the Internet.
Someone is extensively testing the core defensive capabilities of the companies that provide critical Internet services. Who would do this? It doesn’t seem like something an activist, criminal, or researcher would do. Profiling core infrastructure is common practice in espionage and intelligence gathering. It’s not normal for companies to do that. Furthermore, the size and scale of these probes — and especially their persistence — points to state actors. It feels like a nation’s military cybercommand trying to calibrate its weaponry in the case of cyberwar… The data I see suggests China.
Former Ohio mayor arrested for raping a 4-year old. Guess which party they were a member of, and guess how deeply the Washington Post buried that information.
Have an Android? Enjoy your Big Brother inside.
Happy Land Social Club arsonist dies in prison. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
The end of the Euro?
Austin to hire an official Social justice Warrior.
Local Texas school districts try to reduce or repeal Local Option Homestead Exemptions, get smacked down by Texas Attorney general Ken Paxton.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, 9/11 Attacks, Android, Austin, Border Controls, Chicago, corruption, Crime, cyberwarfare, Donald Trump, Euro, Europe, Frank Giustra, Happy Land Social Club arson, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Health, Hungary, Iowa, Ken Paxton, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Parkinson's Disease, polls, rape, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Viktor Orban
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »
Sunday, July 31st, 2016
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is so unreasonable as to expect that the City of Austin actually obey the law, and is now suing them for failing to do so:
Section 411.209 prohibits state agencies and political subdivisions from wrongfully excluding handgun license holders from property owned or leased by the government. The law prohibits the City from providing not ice by a communication described in Texas Penal Code § 30.06, or by any sign expressly referring to that law or to a concealed handgun license, that a license holder carrying a handgun is prohibited from entering or remaining on a premises or other place owned or leased by the governmental entity unless the license holder is prohibited from carrying a handgun on the premises or other place by Texas Penal Code §§ 46.03 or 46.035. Id. § 411.209(a).
Snip.
On or about April 4, 2016, the Attorney General received a citizen complaint that the City was in violation of §411.209 based on: (a) the display of a permanent etched glass “no guns” sign; and (b) oral warnings prohibiting the carrying of handguns on the premises of Austin City Hall, a building that does not fall within any exception under Texas Penal Code §§ 46.03, .035.
(Wonky spacing via PDF.)
And this is already after they had taken down one (illegal) sign due to an earlier citizen complaint.
Paxton is asking for $1,500 a day in fines, plus fees.
Austin’s city government evidently feels that they have no need to comply with state law, Because Liberalism. I expect that they’re about to find that the Texas judicial system feels otherwise.
(Hat tip: Stuff From Hsoi.)
Tags:Austin, Guns, Ken Paxton, Texas
Posted in Austin, Guns, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 20th, 2016
I haven’t been able to focus much time on the issue, but parents in Ft. Worth have been fighting a tranny bathroom policy unilaterally imposed by Fort Worth ISD superintendent Kent Scribner over their objections.
Good news! After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a ruling stating that the new rules violated chapters 11 and 26 of the Texas Education Code, Ft. Worth ISD has finally backed down on their tranny bathroom plans.
After the uproar of parents, citizens, and students in Fort Worth over the past 3 months, the Fort Worth Independents School District (FWISD) has reversed its dangerous transgender guidelines that allowed boys into girls’ showers, locker-rooms, and bathrooms. The school district issued new guidelines today with significant changes that should go a long way to better protect all students in FWISD.
Among the policy changes:
An explicit affirmation of parental rights: “Parents are partners with educators, administrators, and the board in their children’s education. Parents shall be encouraged to actively participate in creating and implementing education programs for their children. Texas Education Code § 26.001(a) unless otherwise provided by law, a board, an administrator, an educator or other person may not limit parental rights. Texas Education Code § 20.001(c).”
The critical recognition that “A parent is entitled to full information regarding the school activities of the student, except as precluded by Texas law.”
The replacement of rules about restroom and locker-room access. The previous rules have been replaced with the statement that accommodation requests will be “reviewed and addressed on a case-by-case basis based upon the particular circumstances of the individual student and school facilities.”
The removal of an unlawful requirement that punished school officials for notifying parents if their child showed transgender behavior.
Here’s a hint for the Social Justice Warrior crowd: Ft. Worth, like most Texas cities, is not going to take your culture war shenanigans lying down.
Tags:Democrats, education, Ft. Worth, Ken Paxton, Kent Scribner, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Tranny Bathrooms, transexual
Posted in Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 7th, 2016
Obama’s unlawful “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans” (DAPA) backdoor amnesty program wouldn’t just shield illegal aliens from deportation. According to this brief filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, it would circumvent both statutory law and congressional will to bestow a number of government transfer program benefits to to those illegal aliens.
DAPA is unlawful because the Executive exceeded its statutory authority.
The power to establish when aliens are lawfully present is “entrusted exclusively to Congress,” which enacted “extensive and complex” statutes governing lawful presence. Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2499, 2507. Congress has never given the Executive carte blanche to grant lawful presence to any alien it chooses not to remove. Congress would have needed to delegate such power “expressly,” because this is “a question of deep ‘economic and political significance’ that is central to [the INA’s] statutory scheme.” King v. Burwell, 135 S. Ct. 2480, 2489 (2015). After all, DAPA removes eligibility bars for numerous significant benefits—such as Medicare, Social Security, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Yet Congress in 1996 amended immigration statutes expressly to deny benefits to unlawfully present aliens whom the Executive chooses not to remove. DAPA flouts that congressional directive.
For Democrats, they get to create another 4 million voters and make them eligable for government transfer programs, all in one fell swoop, and get the American taxpayers to pay for it…
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags:amnesty, Border Controls, Illegal Aliens, Ken Paxton, Medicare, Social Security, Supreme Court, Texas
Posted in Border Control, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, March 18th, 2016
I hope you’re not too hung over from St. Patrick’s Day (and didn’t get stabbed to death on the Ides of March). Here’s a Friday LinkSwarm:
Marco Rubio says that Ted Cruz is the only conservative left in the race. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
John Boehner calls Ted Cruz “Lucifer.” With that even-tempered perspective, it’s impossible to figure out why he’s no longer Speaker…
Ted Cruz unveils his national security coalition. Media reports on this have been particularly poor…
“African-Americans living in poor neighborhoods cannot rely on Democratic leaders to take the decisive steps needed to ameliorate the problem as long as the Democratic Party can take the black vote for granted. The question, then, is how long can Democratic Party leaders and candidates continue to rely on African-American voters before African-American voters take matters into their own hands.”
No amount of primary wins will make Hillary Clinton’s email troubles go away.
And if the FBI doesn’t get her, the NSA might. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“The Tea Party movement — which you also failed to understand, and thus mostly despised — was a bourgeois, well-mannered effort (remember how Tea Party protests left the Mall cleaner than before they arrived?) to fix America. It was treated with contempt, smeared as racist, and blocked by a bipartisan coalition of business-as-usual elites. So now you have Trump, who’s not so well-mannered, and his followers, who are not so well-mannered, and you don’t like it.”
Got to hand it to Donald Trump: this is an effective ad. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Jews leave France in record numbers. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Obama Administration finally comes out and admits that the Islamic State has committed genocide against Yazidis, Christians and Shiites. That’s like Harry Truman finally declaring the Holocaust genocide two years after the liberation of Auschwitz…
Putin takes his toys and goes home.
Contrary to his expectations of finding a pliable ally in Iran, he found the Iranians in control, glad to borrow his air force, arrogant and disdainful in Damascus (and Baghdad) and well on the path to dominating a vast stretch of strategically vital territory. And Iran has no interest in playing junior partner to anyone—least of all a traditional Christian enemy.
Suddenly, Putin had a vision of a nuclear-armed, radical-Shia empire on Russia’s southern flank. Those Iranian missiles that can reach Israel? They can reach major Russian cities, too.
Putin’s initial bet on Shia Iran also backfired by turning the Islamic world’s Sunni majority against him — not least Saudi Arabia, which can continue to hold down the price of oil and gas, punishing Russia’s economy far more than it wounds American fracking efforts. And Sunni terrorists have taken a renewed interest in Russia.
Hellfire missile intercepted in-route to Portland, Oregon.
Minimum wage hike causes fast food restaurants to start investing in automation. Just like conservatives said it would.
Texas Public Policy Foundation vs. Bureau of Land Management is now TPPF and The State of Texas vs. BLM. (More background here.)
Penny Arcade on Gawker:
Gawker is poison AIDS cancer. In the same way that the Cross is the symbol for the redemptive power of Christ’s blood, Gawker is the symbol of a metastasized social media. Gawker is Nidhogg, the dragon which gnaws at the root of the World Tree. The causes they enunciate are tarnished, just for being in their mouths.”
I don’t wish ill on anyone who works there, obviously. I mean, I guess their every action technically does sustain a legitimately evil beast of legend, some Revelations type shit, and they ruin lives for profit whenever they aren’t simply wasting your time.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rules that state contractors must continue using E-verify.
Everything you know about Altamont is wrong. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
The story behind that memorial mural on the pillar at the Lamar underpass right before Fifth Street.
Man the pollen in the air is really bad this time of year in Austin…
Dog shows up safe a month after being presumed lost at sea. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Will the last Elvis impersonator to leave Las Vegas please turn off the neon.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Austin, black, Border Controls, Crime, Democrats, dogs, Donald Trump, Elections, Foreign Policy, France, Gawker, genocide, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Islam, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jews, Jihad, John Boehner, Ken Paxton, Las Vegas, LinkSwarm, Marco Rubio, minimum wage, NSA, Portland, Republicans, San Bernardino, Shiites, Star Wars, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, Yazidi
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Thursday, August 27th, 2015
Got a bunch of links building up concerning Wallace Hall, Joe Straus and related topics that I’m just going to shotgun out here:
UT reforms admissions process so it can only admit unqualified, well-connected students if it really, really wants to.
Wallace Hall was not impressed with the reform. “This memorializes bad acts from a hidden admissions policy.”
Hall says that Joe Straus came after him to make an example of him.
Hall sues University of Texas chancellor McRaven for access to all of the Kroll report, not just the expurgated version.
Meanwhile, the UT system is sueing Attorney General Ken Paxton in turn, to keep their dirty laundry secret.
Former Texas Public Policy Foundation President Jeff Judson is running against Joe Straus for his state house seat. Here’s his website.
Tags:2016 Election, Crime, Elections, Jeff Judson, Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, Republicans, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, University of Texas, Wallace Hall, William McRaven
Posted in Crime, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, August 17th, 2015
Dwight covered the indictment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on “three felony counts of securities law violations” a while back, but I wanted to touch on a few unusual aspects to the indictment.
Now I’m just a simple Hyper-Chicken from a backwoods asteroid blogger, so I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the security laws Paxton theoretically violated. But it does appear that something stinks about the Paxton indictment:
The two charges of fraud against Paxton don’t involve misrepresentation on Paxton’s part, or any other violation of a clear principle. Rather, the prosecutors think Paxton should have volunteered more information about his own investments in the course of selling stock in a company, and that his not doing so amounts to fraud.
Snip.
Paxton isn’t being accused of telling a lie, which is a factual question. He’s being accused of the much more subjective charge of misleading investors by failing to state a material fact. Actually, the indictments just allege the failure to state a fact; they don’t explain how anyone was misled.
Mateja told Texas Lawyer he had expected Paxton would be accused of making a fraudulent misrepresentation, and that he was surprised by the actual indictment.
“They are saying that it was unlawful for him to fail to mention that he had not personally invested (in a tech company called Servergy) and he would be receiving compensation,” Mateja said.
If that by itself were found to be a crime, securities traders across the state could be facing criminal exposure every time they make a sale, unless they take the unusual step of telling clients that they hadn’t purchased the stock for their own portfolios.
Paxton did have stock in Servergy, though: 100,000 shares that he’s been reporting on his annual disclosure forms since 2011.
The prosecutors are apparently unclear about whether Paxton already held those shares when he solicited investors, or whether he got them later, as they accuse him of failing to disclose to them that he “would be compensated, and had, in fact, received compensation from SERVERGY, INC., in the form of 100,000 shares.”
So either he would be or he had been. What the newspapers miss is that this isn’t an explicit violation of any law. It’s the special prosecutors’ opinion that Paxton should have volunteered this information.
The Paxton indictment becomes even more suspect when you see who’s really behind them, mainly Texas Speaker Joe Straus’ team.
There is now little doubt that the coalition government of liberal Republicans and Democrats who control the Texas House are responsible for the politically motivated indictments against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The leadership of that coalition, headed by Speaker Joe Straus, and Paxton have been political opponents for several years. In 2011, Paxton challenged Straus for the Speaker’s office and though he was unsuccessful, Paxton went on to win an open state senate seat in 2012. From there, he launched an underdog bid for Attorney General, defeating Straus’s boyhood friend, Rep. Dan Branch, in the process.
The indictments against Paxton were unsealed on Monday to reveal that the complainants were none other than Rep. Byron Cook (R–Corsicana) and a Florida businessman with connections to Cook, Joel Hochberg.
Cook is chairman of the powerful House Committee on State Affairs. It was at Cook’s Austin home that Straus was chosen to be speaker in 2009. As one of Straus’s most powerful lieutenants, Cook used his committee this session to stop a major ethics reform package, to bury pro-life legislation and legislation aimed at curbing illegal immigration, and to prevent a vote on legislation aimed at protecting paychecks from being raided by public employee unions.
Hochberg was not well known to Texans before Monday, but research reveals connections to Cook spanning decades. Cook earned his millions at the helm of a videogame publishing company named TradeWest that was founded by his father. Joel Hochberg was the creator of the popular video game “Battletoads” and other games that were published by TradeWest in the 1990s.
(I never played it, but Battletoads is widely described as the most difficult video game to beat of all time. )
On Saturday, just before the indictments were leaked to the New York Times by one of the special prosecutors involved in the case, we ran a piece examining, amongst other things, a series of open records requests filed with the offices of several members of House leadership. The requests, which were filed with the offices of House Speaker Joe Straus (R–San Antonio), Rep. Jim Keffer (R–Eastland), and Rep. Charlie Geren (R–Fort Worth), sought records of communications and meetings with the Travis County DA’s office about Paxton’s case. It is unclear what records specifically were being sought, but it is clear that the person who filed the requests, Democratic operative Matt Angle, thought there had been communications between those offices and the DA about Paxton.
Since then, a source has informed us that two other member’s of Straus’s leadership team, Rep. Drew Darby (R–San Angelo) and former Republican Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, were overheard discussing Paxton’s case at the 2014 Republican State Convention. According to the source, Darby and Hilderbran stated that they were waiting until after the 84th legislature commenced to renew their attacks on Paxton.
In short: The Paxton indictment, like the Perry indictment, appears to be more about politics than crime.
(Hat tip: Push Junction.)
Tags:Charlie Geren, Crime, Drew Darby, Harvey Hilderbran, Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, Texas
Posted in Crime, Texas | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 16th, 2015
We’ve known, from the drips and dabs that slipped out, that the UT admissions scandal was worse than the Kroll report actually let on. But we didn’t know it was ten times worse:
At least 764 applicants initially denied admission to the University of Texas were admitted thanks to a backdoor program for the wealthy and politically connected administered by former president Bill Powers.
More than 200 of those applicants were admitted despite having their applications cancelled by the Admissions Office.
The total is more than 10 times the 73 applicants widely reported from an investigation paid for by the university and conducted by Kroll Associates. Kroll withheld the full findings from its 107-page final report.
More:
The Kroll investigation confirmed what had been common knowledge in the wealthy Dallas-area community of Highland Park, which includes UT Regent Wallace Hall and House Education Committee chair Dan Branch: students were getting into UT at extraordinary rates, despite bad grades.
UT admitted seven Highland Park students with grade point averages below 2.0 and SAT scores below 800.
Also this:
The very worst of the students UT admitted, the investigation showed, were clustered in the districts of Branch, House Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio), and Sen. Kirk Watson, (D-Austin).
Straus has gone to even greater lengths than UT to cover up the abuses. He authorized a special committee operating behind the scenes in an effort to impeach Hall for asking too many questions about the admissions process.
A very cynical part of me wonders if this is the root of Straus’ stranglehold on the Speaker’s office: his power as the go-to fixer for getting unqualified students into UT.
If you hadn’t heard, Wallace Hall, who uncovered the scandal, is suing UT chancellor William McRaven for access to the documents Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has already said he’s entitled to.
Indeed, UT’s dishonest coverup may be a big factor in the Supreme Court in agreeing to hear an appeal on Fisher vs. University of Texas, “a 2008 lawsuit brought by a white student claiming the university’s diversity-seeking admissions system had unfairly deprived her of admission.”
The Dallas Observer‘s Jim Schutze (who, unlike myself, favors affirmative action) explains:
The court did receive a blistering friend-of-the-court brief (see copy below) from the Cato Institute, a conservative think-tank, in support of Fisher’s request to be heard again. The Cato brief called the court’s attention to an investigation of admissions at UT that grew out of the Hall disclosures. Cato told SCOTUS the investigation proved that UT’s “claimed diversity rationale is a sham.”
That would be new evidence, maybe. But if it goes to the university’s core integrity – if the university has been lying to the courts about why it handles admissions the way it does – then maybe it’s not so new. Maybe it goes right to the heart of the existing case.
We have talked here often before about revelations brought forward by Hall showing that the former president of the university and some of the regents were handing out undergraduate admissions to sons and daughters of influential state legislators the way favors of love are distributed in a bawdy house. But does that kind of corruption go to the affirmative action question?
Nobody knows if the Cato amicus brief played any role at all in the high court’s eventual decision to rehear Fisher. But if it did, this would be why: When the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 to send Fisher back down to the 5th Circuit, the court said the lower court needed to take a tougher look at the university’s admissions policies. The Supreme Court told the lower court not to just take the university at its word but to examine the university’s admissions closely under a doctrine called “strict scrutiny.”
The 5th Circuit basically said yeah, yeah, OK, we strict scrutinied them, and we still trust them. So the 5th Circuit upheld the university. Fisher appealed back to the Supreme Court saying the 5th Circuit hadn’t really done the strict scrutiny strictly enough.
Then along comes the Wallace Hall evidence of an under-the-table secret admissions program the university forgot to tell the courts about. In fact, Hall’s investigation found evidence of lying, destruction of documents, coercion – enough story lines for an entire season of The Sopranos, all having to do with UT admissions.
A Supreme Court case is likely to bring national attention to a scandal the local mainstream media has tried to downplay or bury. And if it turns out UT actually lied to the courts, well, that sort of thing tends to make federal judges a mite testy…
(Hat tip: Push junction.)
Tags:Affirmative Action, Austin, Bill Powers, Cato Institute, Crime, Dan Branch, Fisher vs. University of Texas, Highland Park, Jim Schutze, Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, Kirk Watson, Kroll Report, Media Watch, Supreme Court, Texas, University of Texas, victimhood, Wallace Hall, William McRaven
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