Category Archives: State news

State news

Susan Bland’s death cries out for explanation

The circumstances surrounding the arrest of a young woman by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper have been fairly well established.

Trooper Brian Enciana pulled Susan Bland over for failure to signal a turn in her motor vehicle. She mouthed off to him. He told her 15 times to get out of her car, after telling her to put out her cigarette — which she declined to do.

He threatened to “light you up,” meaning, I guess, he would use his Taser on her. She got angrier.

Then the two of them walked out of “dashcam” range, where she allegedly kicked and elbowed the trooper.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog

Then she got tossed into the Waller County jail.

Three days later jailers found her hanging in her cell. Sandra Bland was dead.

Can there be some explanation as to why this young woman was taken into custody in the first place — in an incident that started out as a traffic stop? And what in the world happened to her in that lockup?

This young woman’s death while in police custody has created yet another national furor centering most notably on the race of the victim. As Erica Greider reports in Texas Monthly: “And so I agree with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: Bland’s family and loved ones deserve answers; since it may take some time to provide them, the search should be handled as transparently as possible, wherever it may lead.”

State news

Texas trooper goes under the glare

Now this. What in the world … ?

Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian Encinia pulled a young woman over for what some media actually reported was a “routine traffic stop.”

He told the young woman, Sandra Bland, to douse a cigarette. She refused. The trooper then became agitated. So did Bland. They argued. He threatened her with his Taser. She got even angrier.

The “routine stop”? Well, it became un-routine in less than two minutes.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/21/video-officer-became-enraged-bland-over-cigarette/

Bland was arrested … forcibly. She was taken to the Waller County jail. Bland then died in her cell by hanging.

And the stuff has hit the fan.

This case is looking for all the world like some other police cases involving the arrest of African-American suspects. Eric Garner was choked to death by a New York City police officer, who sought to arrest him for selling cigarettes illegally. Walter Scott was shot to death by a Charleston, S.C., police officer as he was running away from the officer. Freddie Gray died in jail from a broken neck after he was arrested in Philadelphia.

Now we have Sandra Bland arrested and rousted out of her car by a police officer. For what? Because she mouthed off?

Sure, Bland shouldn’t have sassed the trooper. But aren’t police officers taught in the academy to look past rude behavior? Aren’t they schooled on how to respond with coolness and calm?

Was the young woman drunk? No. Did she brandish a weapon? No. Was she using an illegal drug? No.

And what in the world happened in that jail cell?

Oh, my. This case is troubling in the extreme.

local news, State news

Texas drought is over? Really?

drought

Usually, I am likely to accept the word of experts when they proclaim something about which they’ve acquired lots of knowledge.

My instinct is being tested, though, just a tad by a report from the U.S. Drought Monitor’s office.

It says Texas’s drought is over. Finished. Kaput. Drowned out.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/20/texas-drought-done/

Hey, I know we’ve had a lot of rain. The Texas Tundra — aka the Panhandle — has been blessed beyond measure by abundant rain this spring and well into the summer.

We’re barely halfway through the year and we’ve already surpassed by a significant margin the region’s annual average precipitation amount. More rain is sure to come. Late in the year, we can expect snow.

But the Drought Monitor says the drought is over.

Our playas are full. Our reservoirs are filling up. Lake Meredith, the region’s primary surface water source, now is well more than 50 feet deep, about double its depth from the worst of the drought in 2013. Water authorities are pumping water out of the lake and supplying it to cities, such as Amarillo.

My wife and I drove to Allen — just north of Dallas — this past weekend and were blown away by the vast expanse of green we saw every mile of the way. We had to remind ourselves that this is the middle of July, in Texas, for crying out loud!

Is the drought over? Well, the experts say it is.

I think we’re going to keep acting, though, as if it’s still got its grip on us.

military news, State news

By all means, let soldiers carry their firearms

Gov. Greg Abbott has issued exactly the right order to allow Texas National Guard personnel to carry firearms while they are on their various military installations.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/18/gov-greg-abbott-calls-national-guard-be-armed/

The order comes in the wake of the shooting deaths of four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tenn., by a young man.

Abbott said: “Arming the National Guard at these bases will not only serve as a deterrent to anyone wishing to do harm to our service men and women, but will enable them to protect those living and working on the base.”

Indeed, military personnel are trained in the use of firearms and they absolutely should have standing orders to carry them when the needs arise.

If the governor sees the potential for violence — and the tragedy in Chattanooga suggests such potential exists anywhere — then it’s right for him to arm the men and women who are serving the state.

My hope is that every governor in every state issues the same orders to the men and women in uniform under their respective commands.

national news, political news, State news

Get rid of gun free zones? Really?

Back in 1995, when the Texas Legislature was debating whether to allow Texans to carry concealed handguns, the publisher for whom I worked posed an interesting question to our state senator.

“Why don’t you just allow folks to carry guns on their hips and walk around the State Capitol?” he asked the late Teel Bivins, a Republican and an avid proponent of gun-owners rights.

I cannot recall Bivins’s response. Perhaps he thought it was a rhetorical question.

But it comes to mind now as I read this essay about gun free zones in the wake of the Chattanooga murders of four Marines and a sailor.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/gun-control-us-capitol-120310.html?hp=t2_r#.VapPCbnbKt8

Why not allow guns into the U.S. Capitol?

Joel Zeitz, the author of the essay, noted that Donald Trump sounded like a mainstream Republican when he said we need to “get rid of gun free zones.” According to Trump, the men who died at the hands of the shooter didn’t have a chance because they were in a zone where gun are prohibited, which of course didn’t stop the shooter from sneaking a gun into the place.

The U.S. Capitol has seen gun violence erupt. People have gotten past security systems with weapons. They have harmed individuals and damaged the structure.

Would guns inside the Capitol stopped the incidents? I have trouble believing they would have worked.

Texas’ concealed handgun carry law, by the way, hasn’t been the disaster some of us thought it would be when the Legislature enacted it two decades ago.

However, this argument that more guns makes us a safer society has yet to be proven — at least to me.

International news, Intgernational news, State news

‘Inside job’ helped free El Chapo?

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul is on point with an assertion that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman had inside help when he escaped from that maximum-security prison in Mexico.

The Texas Republican’s contention also adds a serious twist to the difficulty in protecting our territory against foreign enemies. They’re right across our borders.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/14/mccaul-absurd-think-guzman-fled-without-inside-hel/

McCaul chairs the House Homeland Security Committee and he has said that in order for the notorious and highly dangerous drug kingpin to escape from prison he needed help from prison officials. That means Mexican government officials. And that also means we need to broaden our attention to those who would do us harm to those who live on our very continent.

OK, so it’s not exactly a scoop to suggest that danger lurks far closer than the Middle East, South Asia, or East Africa.

McCaul’s comments come after a leading Democrat on the House panel, Filemon Vela, also of Texas, leveled a similar blast at Mexican authorities. So the concern and the fear cross party lines.

“The idea that there wasn’t a complicity and corruption going on when you got a mile-long tunnel underneath the facility is absolutely absurd,” McCaul said on CNN.

Here’s an idea: When the authorities capture Guzman, let’s redouble our efforts to extradite him to the United States, where he and his drug cartel inflict most of their damage. McCaul and others in Congress tried, and failed, after Guzman’s first escape from maximum-security.

Let’s also hope the authorities can capture this monster quickly.

State news

Burger chain: You can pack, just not in the open

Now that Whataburger has declared that people carrying guns in the open won’t be served in its Texas restaurants, let’s be sure we understand something else.

Texas also has a concealed carry permit provision, meaning that Texans can carry a handgun hidden under their clothing. The only people who’ll be allowed to carry openly are those with concealed permits.

So …

If you have a concealed carry permit and you want to go to Whataburger for a big ol’ burger, you’re entitled to do so.

That’s my understanding.

Whataburger staffers aren’t going to frisk customers walking into their establishments to ensure they aren’t carrying weapons. The company, based in Texas, is merely banning those who have a gun strapped to their hips — in plain sight. The open-carry law takes effect in January.

After all, the concealed carry law that the Texas Legislature enacted in 1995 was meant to keep these firearms hidden from view and deterring bad guys from doing something they shouldn’t be doing for fear that the person next to them is packing a pistol.

Bon appetit, y’all.

military news, State news

No takeover is imminent

Jade Helm 15 is about to commence in Texas.

Despite what some nut jobs have put out there, the U.S. military is not about to take over the state and hand it over to international spies.

Do not listen to the goofballs who actually persuaded Gov. Greg Abbott to order the Texas State Guard to “monitor” the activities of the Army, Navy and Air Force special forces who’ll be conducting the exercises.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/jade-helm-15-no-that-helicopter-is-not-coming-for-you.html/

It’s going to be all right.

The exercise was announced some months back and the Internet then jumped to life with conspiracy theories about what it all meant to some individuals and groups. As the Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell notes, one of the nuttier notions involves the Alamo: the United Nations declared the old mission a Unesco World Heritage Site, which apparently sealed it for some. Anything that involves the U.N. has got to be bad news for Texas, they feared.

The founding fathers didn’t get it perfect when they drafted and then ratified the U.S. Constitution. One thing they got right, though, was to build in a checks-and-balances system that’s designed to prevent one branch of government from getting too powerful.

President Obama knows all of this. So does the Pentagon brass. Even the federal judiciary, which has come under fire lately because of some controversial Supreme Court rulings, understands it. Congress knows its place, too.

Let the troops come to Texas to conduct their exercises.

It’s going to be OK. Honest.

 

local news, State news

Burger chain takes a stand against open carry

open carry

You’re hungry. You decide you want a burger smothered in some sort of gooey sauce.

Then you decide you want to go to Whataburger, a well-known Texas-based chain of burger joints. We’ve got ’em here in Amarillo.

But you’re carrying a pistol on your hip. Then you know that Whataburger has decided it won’t serve customers carrying their weapons openly. What do you do? You love those burgers. Hey, it’s simple. You take your gun out of your holster, store it in your car, go in and get your goopy burger.

Will that be the end of it? Hardly.

Any discussion at all involving guns is bound to get goofy.

Frankly, I’m all in favor of what Whataburger has decided to do.

No shirt? No shoes? Packing heat in the open? No service, man.

It’s a fascinating development in the open-carry era in Texas, which begins in January when the law takes effect.

The Texas Legislature approved the bill; Gov. Greg Abbott signed it immediately into law. The National Rifle Association and other gun-owner rights groups applauded lawmakers and the governor.

Open Carry Texas founder C.J. Grisham called Whataburger’s decision “premature and irresponsible.” He said the restaurant chain is pandering to fear.

Give me a break. This shouldn’t be a problem at all for those who are licensed to carry their guns in the open. If they want to do business with someone that doesn’t allow guns in their establishment, don’t carry the gun into the place.

While the nation has been arguing about the merits of flying the rebel flag, we need to understand that privately owned businesses are able to set certain rules for those seeking to enter their establishment. They must not refuse service to people because of their skin color or their religion.

Prohibiting the open carry of loaded weapons onto their property? That’s a reasonable restriction.

State news

Kids who skip school aren’t criminals

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did right by Texas children and their parents when he signed a bill that decriminalizes truancy.

House Bill 2398 means that kids caught skipping school won’t be tossed into jail. And, as Abbott said when he signed the bill into law, “Criminalizing unauthorized absences at school unnecessarily jeopardizes the futures of our students.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/19/texas-decriminalize-truancy-after-abbott-signs-bil/

Critics of the previous practice had said it punishes poor and minority children unfairly. Too many of them come from home backgrounds where education simply doesn’t take the priority that it should. So, the kids skip school to hang out with friends or, sadly, do things they shouldn’t be doing. If they commit a crime while they’re out cavorting when they should be in school, then by all means, arrest them and treat them accordingly. Skipping school by itself shouldn’t be a reason to put a kid into juvenile detention.

The emphasis now falls on school districts to take measures designed to keep kids in school. Since truancy now will be handled as a civil matter, it becomes critical for districts to work with the Texas Education Agency to deal with habitual truants and seek ways to eliminate their impulse to skip school.

As the Texas Tribune reports: “HB 2398 offers preventative measures districts can take to curb unexcused absences and suggests rehabilitative programs for habitual offenders.”

This is a good — and in my view a surprising — move that the governor has taken. He developed a reputation as a “tough on crime” state attorney general. His statement relating to his bill signing suggests he understands that the state can lean too heavily on children who, after all, are just children.

They don’t need to tossed into the slammer because of unexcused absences from school.