Sheila Jackson Lee (D – Houston). Fox 26 Houston. McThag.
Whitney Rydbeck, actor. Other credits include “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island”, “Battle Beyond the Stars”, “Switch”, and one of the spin-offs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.
This is breaking, and I may have more later on: “Kinky” Friedman, Texas musician, author, and politician. KVUE. KSAT. HouChron (archived). (Hattip: Lawrence.)
Bill Cobbs, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “A Mighty Wind”, “The Slap Maxwell Story”, and one of the spinoffs of a minor 1960s SF TV series.
Finally, a weird one:
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I usually don’t like to cover politics here, even Texas politics, because it tends to drive me up a tree.
In this case, I haven’t seen anyone else pick up on this, and it’s an interesting story.
The Texas Legislature has eliminated annual safety inspections for cars, starting in 2025.
The Libertarian side of me thinks this is swell: as far as it was concerned, the annual inspection didn’t do much of anything except put money in the pockets of certified state inspection stations for “adjusting your headlights” and “replacing your wiper blades”.
The less Libertarian side of me is skeptical for a few reasons. While I think most people are motivated not to drive with bad tires and brakes, and those kind of things can be picked up when you take your car in for an oil change anyway, there probably are some folks who got some warning out of the annual inspection process. Then again, the people who did drive with bad brakes and bad tires probably would be driving even if they didn’t have an inspection or registration, and these days the odds of getting caught seem to be slim.
If safety is really a concern, the insurance companies can start requiring a “voluntary” inspection: you get a discount if you get your car inspected yearly at an approved facility. Or even better, no inspection, no insurance. Worst case, you go through the assigned risk pool.
Secondly, this doesn’t eliminate the state inspection fee: the state is still going to make you pay $7.50 (or $16.75 if it is a new car) as part of the annual registration.
Also, if your car is registered in one of the areas that requires emissions testing (that includes Travis, Williamson, and Harris counties, among others: full list in the article) you still have to get your car emissions tested before you can register it. (There’s an exception for cars that are 25 or more years old: I managed to get out of emissions testing for a few years before my old Honda blew a head gasket.)
I thought most states still required at least a safety inspection, but I was wrong, according to Wikipedia: “Fifteen states have a periodic (annual or biennial) safety inspection program, while Maryland requires a safety inspection and Alabama requires a VIN inspection on sale or transfer of vehicles which were previously registered in another state.”
Interestingly, Louisiana requires a safety inspection, and “New Orleans requires a “brake tag”. In addition to the state requirements, if the vehicle is registered in New Orleans, the brakes must be tested annually with a short stop test.”
Must be fun to get your car inspected in the Big Easy.
This story snuck up on me, which is why I haven’t covered it before today. It has nothing to do with the protagonist being a Republican: as I have said before, I am an equal opportunity observer of hyenas on fire.
Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) resigned from the Texas House yesterday.
His resignation came one step ahead of his being expelled from the House, in what appears to be a massive bi-partisan consensus that he needed to go.
So what the heck happened? Former Rep. Slaton apparently plied one of his aides, a 19-year old woman, with rum and cokes until she was drunk. Then he had sex with her.
On Sunday, the Texas House Freedom Caucus, a group that includes some of the most socially conservative lawmakers in the chamber who are usually politically aligned with Slaton, also called for his resignation.
“The abhorrent behavior described in the report requires clear and strong action,” the caucus said in a statement. “He should resign. If he does not, we will vote to expel him Tuesday.”
Later that night, 36 members of the 62–member State Republican Executive Committee, party activists who help set the agenda for the party, also called for his resignation, calling his conduct “wrong and unacceptable.” They were joined by the party’s vice chair, Dana Myers, and secretary Vergel Cruz. Three more committee members who could not be reached Sunday night added their names to the call for resignation Monday morning.
More from KVUE, which does not appear to be a re-hashed Texas Tribune story (unlike Fox 7 and KXAN). Statesman coverage.
This one is short and lazy because I missed the story, while Lawrence is on it like flies on a severed cow’s head in a Damien Hirst installation.
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On June 30, 2020, Dolcefino entered Jordan’s courtroom to question the judge about his lack of action on a series of complaints of public corruption. Dolcefino was wearing a hidden camera to document the interaction.
According to the video evidence, Jordan at first greeted Dolcefino, but then told the reporter he would not answer his questions and threatened to hold him in contempt if he persisted. Moments later, Jordan had Dolcefino shackled and taken to jail.
The following day, television cameras recorded guards ushering Dolcefino back into the courtroom in handcuffs and a jail-issued orange jumpsuit. Jordan then sentenced him to three days in jail and 180 days of probation. After Dolcefino appealed, Jordan added an alcohol monitor and random drug tests to his probation conditions.
Although Jordan maintained he had been holding virtual hearings when Dolcefino entered, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later overturned Dolcefino’s conviction, writing, “after a review of evidence and arguments, the contempt of court allegation is not supported by the habeas corpus record.”
In haste, for two reasons. One is that I have other things to blog.
The three people charged are Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis, Wallis Nader, and Aaron Dunn. The charges are related to a “COVID-19 communication contract” which…
My second reason for blogging in haste is: Lawrence is on this story like flies on a severed cow’s head in a Damien Hirst installation. You should really go over to his site for coverage on this, especially since he’s linking to more local sources.
I’m running a little bit behind due to Ash Wednesday. My apologies.
Number one on the hit parade: Michael Madigan, the former Speaker of the Illinois House, indicted on 22 counts of racketeering.
The 22-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury comes after a yearslong federal investigation and alleges Madigan participated in an array of bribery and extortion schemes from 2011 to 2019 aimed at using the power of his office for personal gain.
The long-awaited charges punctuate a stunning downfall for Madigan, the longest serving leader of any legislative chamber in the nation who held an ironclad grip on the state legislature as well as the Democratic party and its political spoils. He was dethroned as speaker in early 2021 as the investigation swirled around him, and soon after resigned the House seat he’d held since 1971.
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Also charged in the indictment was Madigan’s longtime confidant, Michael McClain, a former state legislator and lobbyist who is facing separate charges alleging he orchestrated an alleged bribery scheme by Commonwealth Edison.
That same alleged scheme forms the backbone of the indictment returned Wednesday, outlining a plan by the utility giant to pay thousands of dollars to lobbyists favored by Madigan in order to win his influence over legislation the company wanted passed in Springfield.
There’s also some stuff involving a land deal in Chinatown, Jake.
I haven’t laughed this hard since the hogs et my kid brother.
The indictment was the culmination of a long-running federal probe of Madigan that broke wide open in summer 2020, when prosecutors identified him as “Public Official A” in bribery charges against ComEd.
Four people, including McClain, former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, former lobbyist John Hooker, and Jay Doherty, a consultant and longtime leader of the City Club of Chicago, were charged that November with bribery conspiracy and are awaiting trial. A fifth, former ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez, has pleaded guilty to his role and is cooperating with investigators.
Someone asked me yesterday if it counts as a flaming hyena if the politician is out of office. My answer in this case is:
1. Yes, because the alleged conduct took place while he was in office.
II. I have the distinct impression that Madigan, while out of office, probably still wields a lot of power behind the scenes.
C. I’m not going to pass up a chance to kick an Illinois politician.
Number two is a bit more local story, but it has received national attention.
Van Taylor, who represents the 3rd Congressional District (in the Plano area) got 49% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, and was in a runoff.
At least, until yesterday, when he dropped out.
Why? Well, he was married and having an affair. He paid the woman $5,000 to not say anything but the story came out anyway.
The affair part isn’t so bad, I guess. Consenting adults, between him and his wife, etc. I don’t know where the $5K came from, or if there’s a crime involved with that.
The bizarre part is who he was having the affair with: a woman who became somewhat famous as “ISIS Bride”.
From another source:
[Tania] Joya was born in London and is a UK citizen. In 2003, at 19 years old, she met John Thomas Georgelas, an American-born convert to Islam, jihadist, and supporter of the Islamic State. In September 2013, she moved to Syria and “hated” living there for how they treated women, she told Breitbart News.
“They will kill you or enslave you,” she said of ISIS. “They [Muslim fundamentalists] have medieval ideas,” she added.
Joya later informed American authorities on Georgelas, and afterward worked on counter-terrorism for three years “so we could drone him,” she said of Georgelas.
So I gather she wasn’t married, and got a divorce the old-fashioned way: by informing on her husband, so US drones could turn him into something that looked like tomato paste.
I rather liked this Twitter thread:
did Congressman Taylor not have, like
just *one* dude friend who could set him straight on this
— David Hines (@hradzka) March 2, 2022
I think that qualifies as an important safety tip for all of us dudes: have at least one friend who you can trust to tell you “banging an ISIS chick isn’t a good idea, especially if you’re already married”.
Edited to add: Battleswarm has their own take on this, which you should really go read as well.
Frances T. “Sissy” Farenthold, noted female Texas politician of the 1960s and 1970s.
I wouldn’t have picked up on this if it wasn’t for the NYT obit: the HouChron ran one, but it was kind of buried, and they just re-ran the WP obit. The Statesman ran one…from the Corpus Christi newspaper.
Yeah, she was a progressive, and I probably would have disagreed with her about everything. But she was a significant figure in Texas politics. Also, her story is full of sad.
Owing to the efforts of a slightly older brother, Benjamin Dudley III, to pronounce the word “sister,” the infant Mary Frances would be known to the end of her life as Sissy.
When Sissy was 2, and Benjamin 3, he died from complications of surgery to remove a swallowed coin. Her parents’ grief suffused the household ever after, she said.
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Three days after Ms. Farenthold’s runoff defeat, the body of her 32-year-old stepson, Randy Farenthold, from her husband’s prior marriage, was found in the Gulf of Mexico near Corpus Christi. His hands were bound and a concrete block was chained round his neck.
The younger Mr. Farenthold, described in the press as a millionaire playboy, had been scheduled to testify in the federal trial of four associates alleged to have defrauded him of $100,000 in a money-laundering scheme reported to involve organized crime. (One of them, Bruce Bass III, was indicted in the murder in 1976 and received a 16-year sentence in a plea agreement the next year.)
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In 1989, her youngest child, Jimmy, disappeared, at 33. Jimmy, who was Vincent’s identical twin, was said never to have gotten over his brother’s death; by the time he was a young man he was addicted to drugs and drifting around Texas. Despite extensive searches, he was never found and is presumed dead. (The family held a funeral for him in 2005.)
Ms. Farenthold’s marriage ended in divorce. She is survived by her son George Farenthold II, who said the cause of death was Parkinson’s disease; another son, Dudley; a daughter, Emilie C. Farenthold; a sister, Genevieve Hearon; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a step-grandson, Blake, the son of Randy Farenthold. A younger brother, Dudley Tarlton, was killed in a helicopter crash in 2003.
Jean Hale, actress. She was in “In Like Flint” and “The Oscar”, appeared on “Batman” twice, and did guest shots on the good “5-0”, “Cannon”, “Perry Mason”, and “The Wild Wild West”, among other credits.
Bobby Zarem, noted PR guy.
Mr. Zarem’s clients included (in alphabetical order) Alan Alda, Ann-Margret, Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Cher, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Sophia Loren, Jack Nicholson, Diana Ross, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
He publicized the films “Tommy” (by staging a gala party in a Midtown Manhattan subway station) and “Saturday Night Fever” (after stealing stills of the production from the studio, which expected the movie to flop and neglected to distribute photographs of John Travolta), as well as “Rambo,” “Dances With Wolves” and “Pumping Iron,” the 1977 documentary about bodybuilding, which starred Mr. Schwarzenegger. For that film, Mr. Zarem arranged a meeting with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that helped elevate Mr. Schwarzenegger to global superstardom.
There have been a few mildly interesting police stories in recent days. Here’s a round-up.
1. The police chief of the Manor ISD Police (yeah, the school district police, not the city police) has been “placed on administrative leave“.
The accusations against him seem to amount to two things: “falsifying timesheets”, and “improperly donating used cellphones to a local domestic violence shelter”.
The defense attorney representing Chief Shane Sexton and three other officers in the force, said credible evidence has been submitted to the district to show that all timesheets have been accurate.
Sexton’s attorney Brad Heilman said Verizon Wireless donated the cellphones to the department, came at no cost to the district and were no longer being used.
Manor is about 34 miles down the road from here, and has an estimated population (as of 2019) of about 13,000 people. Small town politics…but I’ll come back to that in a bit. (I also have some questions about why small school districts need their own police departments, but that gets into other issues: how big does a school district have to be to justify their own police force? Does not having a police force for a small school district divert resources from a small city police force? Is it just a question of which pocket the money comes out of? I haven’t though through all of this yet.)
2. Lorenzo Hernandez used to be a deputy with the Williamson County sheriff’s department. He also appeared on “Live TV”, back when they were in WillCo and “Live PD” was a thing.
And now he’s been charged with “assault and official oppression”.
In the arrest affidavit, a Williamson County detective wrote that the woman Hernandez is accused of assaulting “did not pose a threat.”
“Defendant Hernandez escalates the event through an intentional, unreasonable use of force against [the victim] by placing his hand on her throat directly below her chin,” the affidavit said, adding that Hernandez then squeezed her throat and pushed her back into the apartment wall.
“The intentional use of force by Defendant Hernandez by placing his hand on the throat of [the victim] is unlawful, as no exception provides Defendant Hernandez the justification for the use of said force.”
3. This one is in my own backyard, but I’ve avoided writing about it. The story broke late Friday afternoon, and I’ve been trying to get a little more clarity about what’s happening.
The Lakeway police chief, Todd Radford, resigned on Friday. His resignation was not voluntary.
There is a lot of speculation on NextDoor about what’s going on. Most of it I find unreliable. The theory that I do find compelling is: this is related to a move by the council to eliminate contracts for all city employees and convert them to at-will status. This is something I can get behind for most city employees, but not for the police chief and police officers. I think law enforcement people should be on a contract basis – one which allows termination for clearly defined reasons. I don’t think a cop who murders or rapes someone should keep their job, but I don’t want them being fired because they didn’t fix a ticket for the mayor’s brother-in-law.
…I know I need to update the various lists of politicians. I’ve been waiting until after the inauguration, and for the various IT teams to get things configured.
My hope is that I can get all the lists (City Council, County Commissioners, and state representatives) updated this week, as I know it is becoming increasingly urgent.
This just in: Marty Schottenheimer, NFL coach.
Schottenheimer coached the original Cleveland Browns from midway through the 1984 season to 1988, the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 1998, the Washington Redskins in 2001 (the team dropped that name last July) and the San Diego Chargers from 2002 to 2006.
His teams went 200-126-1 over all, and he was named the 2004 N.F.L. coach of the year by The Associated Press when his Chargers went 12-4 after finishing the previous season at 4-12. But they were upset by the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.
Schottenheimer’s squads had a 5-13 record in playoff games.
Mary Wilson, of the Supremes.
Joe Allen, NYC restaurateur. Noted here because he was the guy who hung posters of Broadway flops on the wall of Joe Allen’s.
Ron Wright, Texas Congressman. (District 6, which is in North Texas.)
By way of Lawrence, a burning in Hell watch: Anthony Sowell, Ohio serial killer.