Texas officials are fuming over the tab for the upcoming special election to replace former Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold. The cost of the June 30 election to replace Farenthold is expected to be at least $157,000 in total — and many of the 13 largely rural counties holding the election say they can’t afford their…
The Victoria Advocate (Victoria, Texas) filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that the Calhoun Port Authority broke the Texas open meetings law in hiring former Congressman Blake Farenthold as a lobbyist, err “legislative liaison”. The suit comes almost two weeks after a public meeting in which port authority’s executive director and board members discussed Farenthold’s hiring.…
Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the suspected gunman who opened fire at a Texas high school on Friday morning, apparently posted photos of neo-Nazi iconography online, before allegedly killing at least 8 people. The suspect is a 17-year-old male student at Santa Fe High School and has been taken into custody. Explosive devices were left inside the school…
The Calhoun Port Authority apparently violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when it hired former Congressman Blake Farenthold as its lobbyist. “This is one of the most clear-cut examples of a notice violation that I’ve ever seen,” said longtime media attorney Joe Larsen, who serves on the board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. …
I spoke to a Victoria Advocate Reporter who confirmed that Blake Farenthold’s new job is a newly created position. The Port Director has not responded to questions about whether the position was advertised or whether there were any other applicants. A Public Information Act request has been filed for contract details. For more: The Victoria Advocate
As early voting begins in Texas’ Republican congressional runoffs, just about every race has devolved into a battle over which candidate supports President Donald Trump more. Nearly all six of the Republican congressional runoffs in Texas have turned into a pitched battle over who supports the president more or who has done just about anything…
Former Congressman Blake “Ducky Pjs” Farenthold went right back to Washington DC Monday as the legislative liaison for the Port of Port Lavaca-Point Comfort, located in the district he represented until April 6 of this year. Seems the Good Ol’ Boy Network felt sorry for him and found him a job, despite the fact that…
It seems the complete freak out in Texas about Operation Jade Helm 15, a completely legitimate U.S. military training exercise, was fueled by Russians trying to dominate ‘information space’ and stoke fear in U.S. citizens – much like they seem to have done in the 2016 elections. The tactic worked so well that Pander Bear…
Blake Farenthold, disgraced former Texas GOP congressman, says he won’t pay for the special election to replace him nor the $84,000 sexual harassment claim paid for with taxpayer dollars. Gov. Greg Abbott called for the special election even though the regular election to fill Farenthold’s seat will occur this November. Gov. Abbott is not going…
President Donald Trump on Monday blamed “mental health” for a shooting rampage that left at least 26 people dead in a Texas church early Sunday. Speaking during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Trump appeared to shrug off concerns over gun control. “This isn’t a guns situation. This is…
Tropical Storm Harvey made landfall again Wednesday morning, this time near Cameron, Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said, bringing more rainfall to Louisiana after causing unprecedented flooding in Texas. Two new deaths were confirmed in Houston on Wednesday morning, raising the official storm death toll to 20, Texas officials said. In Houston, the main shelter…
At a news conference Monday morning, FEMA Administrator Brock Long said that Tropical Storm Harvey will likely drive at least 30,000 people to temporary shelters as record floodwaters inundate Houston and a widening area of Texas. “This disaster’s going to be a landmark event,” Long said. More than 30 inches of rain have fallen in…
UPDATE: Potentially ‘Catastrophic’ Harvey Now Major Category 4 Hurricane A South Texas children’s hospital has begun airlifting its sickest infants out of the path of Hurricane Harvey and several counties have ordered mandatory evacuations amid fears the “life-threatening” storm due to hit Friday as a Category 3 will wreak devastation. CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE…
BREAKING: UPDATE… Harvey is expected to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane. CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE LIVESTREAM Tropical Depression Harvey in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico strengthened into a tropical storm on Wednesday, with top sustained winds of 40 miles per hour. Now-Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to continue growing more powerful as…
A Texas police department has changed a key detail in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, amid mounting calls for the officer to be arrested. Jordan Edwards, 15, died after an officer fired a rifle into a car that was driving away from a house party in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs. Police…
Alex Jones was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder in a psychiatric evaluation, the divorce case manager confirmed during his custody trial in Austin on Wednesday. Austin psychologist Alissa Sherry said that a different doctor compiled the report, part of what she said was the most time-consuming divorce case she has ever worked. People diagnosed with…
The death toll in a Texas bus crash rose to 13 late Wednesday after one of the injured passengers died at a hospital. The midday crash occurred when a bus carrying a church choir group from the city of New Braunfels collided head-on with a pickup truck outside Garner State Park, some 90 miles west…
A White House press release on a new ExxonMobil expansion appears to have lifted an entire paragraph from ExxonMobil’s press release on the expansion, The Washington Post reports. The two passages are identical, with the exception of the words “United States,” which appear in full in the White House statement and abbreviated in ExxonMobil’s release.…
The Trump administration is considering a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press. The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland,…
President Trump on Tuesday reportedly joked about using his power to destroy the career of a Texas state senator. According to White House pool transcripts of a meeting with representatives from the National Sheriff’s Association, Rockwall County’s Sheriff Harold Eavenson complained about a state senator “getting in the way” of an unnamed objective, to which…
High-school students in Texas did a Nazi salute in their senior pictures, setting off a firestorm of controversy after the photos spread on social media. A student who witnessed the incident at Cypress Ranch High School told KPRC that the students pictured, about 70 of them, were shouting phrases such as “Heil Hitler” and “Heil…
President Donald Trump on Tuesday set in motion the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. The directives were given through an executive order. The Obama administration killed the Keystone project in 2015, citing environmental concerns, while it also commissioned a report on the environmental impacts of the Dakota Access pipeline as fears grew…
A major ice storm plus freezing rain will make for dangerous conditions across the Midwest this weekend, stretching as far as Texas and Washington, D.C. One motorist has already been killed by the storm, which is expected to lay down a glaze of ice up to an inch thick that will make travel difficult and…
A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday blocked a Labor Department rule that would double the salary level for workers entitled to time-and-a-half pay for work beyond 40 hours in a week. The rule had been scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. It would have extended mandatory overtime pay to four million workers by doubling…
For the first time since before World War II, the Dallas Morning News endorsed a Democrat, Hillary Clinton, for president. Breaking with decades of encouraging readers to vote for the Republican presidential candidate in the general election, the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, whose editorial board previously…
Police said the pilot of the Texas hot air balloon that crashed, killing 16 people on Saturday, had been arrested for driving while intoxicated in 2000. He pleaded guilty to that charge in 2002. The crash near Austin is being heavily investigated, the AP reports. The news agency also writes that the Better Business Bureau…
A divided U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that had threatened to close three-quarters of the state’s abortion clinics by putting new requirements on facilities and doctors. The 5-3 ruling is the court’s first abortion decision in almost a decade. It invalidates a law that required clinics to meet hospital-like surgical standards and…
Five soldiers died and four more remain missing after an Army truck overturned Thursday during major flooding in Fort Hood, Texas. An additional three troops were recovered and are in stable condition. The service members are part of the 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, and the 1st Cavalry Division.…
Officials have identified the victim of an Austin homicide as a University of Texas theater and dance student and freshman named Haruka Weiser. Her body was found on campus Tuesday, and Austin police are working with UT officers on the investigation, which authorities are treating as a homicide. UT President Gregory Fenves released a statement…
The Texas state trooper who arrested Sandra Bland, the black woman who was later found hanged in jail cell, was officially fired Wednesday. The Texas Department of Public Safety announced Brian Encinia was formally terminated after he was unable to rebut disciplinary charges brought against him in January. He was accused of failing to act…
