Cancun Shaman
NEWS FLASH!
From the Chron:
Vice President Kamala Harris is coming back to Houston for a campaign rally on Friday as the first week of in-person early voting wraps up.
The Democrat’s campaign has not announced the exact location, but the rally will be between 3 and 8 p.m.
It is on!
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According to the Chron, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett has been AWOL from her job for years. See this from the Chron:
The elected official in charge of Harris County’s voter registration and tax collection appears to have been absent from her office for years, last swiping her ID to enter the county building in late 2020, county records show.
First sworn into office in 2017, Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett is tasked with a wide array of duties that affect nearly every Harris County resident, from collecting billions of dollars in property taxes to processing millions of vehicle registrations and title transfers every year. As the county’s voter registrar, she also oversees voter registration and maintains records for over 2.5 million voters.
In October 2023, Bennett announced that she would not seek a third term, citing a desire to focus on her family and health. The retiring official, however, still needs to lead her office in fulfilling its election duties through this year’s high-stakes presidential election cycle, including assisting voters with any registration issues that may arise.
Her prolonged absence from public view raises questions about what she has done since she was reelected in 2020, when she appears to have stopped showing up at the office. She has also hardly corresponded via email and missed a string of key public appearances last year while state Republican leaders targeted Harris County’s election process.
Bennett’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on her badge swipe history, email records, absence from public meetings and events, or criticisms regarding her lack of public engagement.
Records obtained through public information requests reveal Bennett has not used her employee badge to access any county facility since October 2020. She swiped her badge 92 times in 2019, seven times in 2020 and not once since then.
Additionally, she has sent only 18 emails from her work account since the start of this year, aside from those approving employee time-off requests. Some of these emails were forwarded messages sent to her chief deputy, Wendy Caesar, while the rest dealt with topics such as software access and the office website, according to county records.
Here is the entire Chron read: Harris County voter registrar hasn’t keyed into her office in 4 years.
It is kind of sad that we learned about her absence from the Chron. The Democrats that run the Harris County Courthouse need to tell us that she has gone missing, not the Chron. You can’t tell me they didn’t know about this. You can’t tell me they didn’t know the Tax Assessor-Collector has been a no-show for years. I think this is a big deal. Let the rest of the public know.
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“Today” had a feature on the races to control Congress. They had a quick look at the Texas U.S. Senate race and Cancun Cruz said he was going to win because Texans want “less regulation.” I chuckled because he wasn’t talking about “less regulation” for Texas women. The today hard copy Chron opinion page has a killer editorial cartoon of Cancun in QAnon Shaman gear, and it is the featured photo. Nice job, Chron E-Board.
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I received a pro-HISD bonds mailer yesterday.
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FYI: Commentary is against the death penalty. Always have been and always will be. I paid some attention last week to the death penalty case that the Texas State House committee was reviewing. The death chamber was being set up for this Robert Roberson fella. The courts were asked to get involved from Ausin to the U.S. Supreme Court. Crooked GOP AG Ken Paxton weighed in. Nothing from the office of Gov. Greg Abbott. The House committee was successful in getting a delay. Then yesterday we finally heard from Gov. Abbott, and he chastised the House committee. What a joke of a governor.
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Nothing to report from The Yard this morning.
