Politics at Play

From the Chron on Saturday’s election results:

Kyle Scott and Ericka McCrutcheon won runoff races for two Harris Central Appraisal District board seats on Saturday. Though the elections were officially nonpartisan, the night ended with a strong showing for local Republicans.

According to the unofficial results, Scott, a small business owner, beat former Houston City Council Member Melissa Noriega by 57% to 43%.

With 62% of the vote, McCrutcheon, who previously ran for Houston City Council, defeated businesswoman Pelumi Adeleke, who had 38% of the vote. 

Well, the Democrats running in the Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors runoff election came up short this past Saturday. The local GOP now has bragging rights, at least until November 5.

The Harris County voter turnout was 1.8%. In Commentary’s precinct in the Heights, we had a 5.31% turnout. Precinct 461 in West Houston off Briar Forest had a 7.77% turnout.

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H-Town Mayor John Whitmire on Friday said the City Controller had certified the deal with the Houston Firefighters, then not so fast. See this from the Chron:

Hours after Mayor John Whitmire told City Council members on Friday that Controller Chris Hollins plans to certify the mayor’s landmark contract with the Houston firefighters union, Hollins walked back that claim, saying his review continues.

“The mayor doesn’t speak for me or my office. I appreciated the meeting with the mayor’s team, which was long overdue,” Hollins said. “The commitment I made was to review their written responses promptly and to make my decision regarding certification after my office has completed our due diligence. We are working expeditiously to do just that.”

Here is the entire Chron read: Hollins rebuffs Whitmire’s claim that he’d certify firefighters deal (houstonchronicle.com).

The Chron E-Board weighed in today with their take supporting the City Controller’s actions here:  Chris Hollins should question Whitmire’s firefighter agreement. (houstonchronicle.com).

In a tweet on Friday saying he had not certified the deal, the City Controller ended his tweet with this:

“The politics at play have no bearing on the work of the Controller’s office.”

It is part of the featured photo.

Anytime you have to say “the politics at play have no bearing on the work of the Controller’s office” just means politics are at play on the work. Oh, well.

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It is kind of odd that we found out about this fella being a goner eight days after he croaked. Again, we go to the Chron:

Paul Pressler, a leader of the conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention and former Houston judge who was accused by several men of sexual abuse, died on June 7. He was 94.

His death, just days before the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, was confirmed by Baptist News Global. A funeral was held Saturday at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home near Tanglewood, where around 70 people attended, according to the outlet. It was unclear how or where Pressler died.

Pressler, born in Houston on June 4, 1930, was a key figure in the conservative shift within the Southern Baptist Convention, the world’s largest Baptist organization. As part of the so-called conservative resurgence, the convention adopted beliefs that opposed homosexuality and the right to abortion and pushed it rightward.

And this:

In 2017, a lawsuit filed by Duane Rollins of Houston accused Pressler of abuse when he was teenager in Pressler’s youth group. The lawsuit said other defendants, including civil lawyer Jared Woodfill; the First Baptist Church of Houston; the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and the convention knew or should have known about the assaults and could have stopped them. Seven other men who said they were abused by Pressler came forward afterward, and they had agreed to testify against him if the lawsuit went to trial.

The lawsuit was settled in December 2023, about six months before Pressler died, in a confidential agreement.

Here is the Chron read: Paul Pressler, Southern Baptist leader accused of sex abuse, dead (houstonchronicle.com).

Now, I have to go to the following that is on the internet:

Dressed most often in a sky-high Dolly-Parton-esque wig, pink sequined jumpsuit, and eye makeup reminiscent of Japanese anime, Brigitte Bandit is no stranger to the public eye. In fact, the Austin-based drag queen makes a living courting public attention when she performs at gay bars and other venues across Texas. Last year, however, Bandit garnered a different kind of attention when she rallied outside the Texas Capitol twice in protest of the legislature’s proposed drag ban, and then again when she joined the ACLU of Texas and other LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in suing the state law on grounds that it violated the First Amendment right of freedom of expression. The federal judge sided with Bandit, blocking the ban.

Bandit recapped her political work on the stage of the Texas Democratic Convention in El Paso this past weekend in a speech that would very quickly draw ire from Texas’ leading Republicans from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to Gov. Greg Abbott. Alongside an excerpted video of Bandit’s speech and screenshots shared by the prominent right-wing social media account Libs of TikTok, which boasts over 3 million followers on X alone, conservatives accused Bandit of promoting sex-change surgery for minors, among other accusations. Notably, Bandit’s speech made no mention of transgender healthcare for minors or otherwise.

“Sometimes I read books to children in drag,” Bandit said in the clip with a chuckle. “And while some people may argue reading a book in a full-length, long-sleeved, hot pink gown and cotton-candy-colored wig is inappropriate, the truth is that children are safer at a drag storytime than they are in their own schools.”

On “What’s Your Point Yesterday,” host Greg Groogan aired footage of Bandit’s speech to the Texas Democratic Party State Convention, in a lame attempt to depict Democrats as weird extremists. A couple of the “What’s Your Point Yesterday” panelists weren’t buying it.  

Is that the best Groogan can do?

BTW: Unless I missed something, Groogan didn’t mention anything about Pressler biting the dust on his show yesterday. Maybe Fox 26 didn’t want to upset their TV audience who might have been in mourning, you know, Pressler being one of their stalwart far right-wing creepy molesters.

Oh, well.

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Ronel Blanco pitched seven innings of no-hit baseball yesterday. He was pulled after the seventh. He pitched a no-no back in April. Nice.

The team has today off then it is a three-game series at Guaranteed Rate Field against the White Sox that starts tomorrow.