Brownwood Lessons

Let me start out by saying GOP Harris County Commissioner Jack Cagle is a lying punk. A chump, may I add.

The Chron has an online story today on the race for Harris County Commissioner Precinct 4 between incumbent Cagle and Democrat Lesley Briones. Here is from the article:

“My opponent was hand picked, announced and endorsed a couple of days after redistricting,” Cagle said. 

Cagle is a dumbf_ck. Briones won the Democratic Party primary race in a runoff.  The Democratic Party primary voters elected her.

It was dumbf_ck Cagle who was appointed to his position by then County Judge Ed Emmett back in 2011. He was appointed after the then commissioner, Jerry Eversole, was forced to resign.

This Trump led GOP these days makes lying a regular thing for a ton of GOP elected officials. Cagle is a lying dumbf_ck.

The Chron got lazy on checking this fact.

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The Chron E-Board endorsed Alexandra Mealer for Harris County Judge.  Look. I read it so you don’t have to.  It reads like they were trying very hard to find a reason not to endorse Judge Lina Hidalgo.

The Chron went after Judge Hidalgo on local crime rising. Last I heard, Judge Hidalgo doesn’t command a single law enforcement agency in town, does not have prosecutorial authority, and doesn’t make laws on crime.

The E-Board mentioned the three aides that were indicted on a contract bid deal. I get it was a bad look, but she kept her pledge not to accept vendor contributions. Let’s remember, Judge Hidalgo wasn’t indicted.

Here is the dumbest line from the E-Board endorsement:

Is Mealer as “extreme” as Hidalgo painted her in a recent campaign ad attempting to align her with Donald Trump and election-deniers? We don’t think so.

There is a picture out there with Mealer doing an interview with Trump’s photo strategically placed behind her.

Maybe Mealer isn’t extreme, but she is clearly playing up to the extremists and that in itself makes her extreme in Commentary’s book.

It is disappointing to see the Chron E-Board buy into this BS.  In December, on social media, Mealer called out the Chron for being “liberal” and used the hashtag #FakeNews because the Chron ran a story on Judge Hidalgo’s reelection. The Chron E-Board was played for sure.

The bright side. The Chron didn’t endorse Judge Hidalgo in 2018 either.

Chron reporter Dylan McGuinness tweeted this after the E-Board endorsement was put out:

Your annual election szn reminder: The reporters who bring you day-to-day news coverage play no role in endorsements, and the Editorial Board plays no role in that coverage. They’re separate entities, reporting to different people.

A tweet like this is posted because the reporter knows it is a fuc_ed up endorsement and they don’t want to get hosed by their readers.

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The GOP running the state continues to damage our public education system.  Here is from a Channel 13 story: 

PEARLAND, Texas (KTRK) — For the first time in the district’s history, Pearland ISD has reached out to members of the Parent-Teacher Association to see if they wanted to be substitute teachers.

And while the district tells ABC13 that their substitute numbers are currently standard, a letter sent to PTA parents at the end of last month says otherwise.

This is a district-wide initiative, but in an email from the Jamison Middle School PTA to parents, the campus said there is an issue with substitute teacher shortages.

The GOP continues to harass professionals out of the classroom. What a shame.

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This is preventable, inexcusable, and downright greedy. Commentary is talking about subsidence. Here is this from the Chron:

Fast-growing suburbs in the Houston area are sinking at “significant rates,” primarily because of groundwater and oil and gas withdrawal pumping, a recent study conducted by a University of Houston geology professor has found.

The study, led by professor Shuhab Khan and published earlier this year in the academic journal Remote Sensing, found substantial subsidence in The Woodlands, Spring, Katy,  Fresno and Mont Belvieu. Remote Sensing is  is a peer-reviewed, open access journal about the science and application of remote sensing technology, published semimonthly online.

If the ground pumping continues, Khan writes, faults in The Woodlands and Katy and will likely become reactivated and increase in activity over time, he said. Subsidence left unchecked could threaten the foundation of homes and leave the area at a greater risk of flooding.

Here is the entire read: Katy, Woodlands ground sinking at ‘significant rates’ (houstonchronicle.com).

Commentary knows what I am is talking about. Everybody knows I grew up in BAYtown. We are by the bay on the Gulf Coast. In Baytown, we used to have a subdivision named Brownwood next to the Houston Ship Channel that no longer exists.  It was a victim of subsidence. It sank. All of Brownwood sank and all the homes became uninhabitable.  The homes flooded all the time from hurricanes and heavy rains.

I didn’t know the word subsidence existed until Brownwood.

I had friends living in Brownwood.

Brownwood is the poster boy of subsidence.  You can’t undo subsidence. You can try to stop it or slow it down. If I was a homeowner or property owner in one of those areas, I would be really unhappy right now. 

The Brownwood area where the homes once sat is now a nature reserve.

There apparently were no lessons learned from Brownwood.

The featured photo is a flood ravaged Brownwood from a few decades ago.

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Commentary forgot to mention that Astros reliever Phil Maton is injured and had surgery on his pitching hand for slugging his locker after his outing last week. Dumbsh_t.

We get back at it today at 2:30 pm at The Yard. Carlos Correa will be one of the TBS in-studio talking heads today. The game is on TBS.