‘Tis the Season
Commentary has said before that I oppose political criminal prosecutions. We all heard about this yesterday. See this from NPR:
John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, was indicted yesterday for mishandling classified information. The indictment charges Bolton with eight counts of transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of unlawfully retaining such information. Each count could carry a 10-year maximum prison sentence. Bolton became an outspoken critic of Trump after leaving his role.
I have never cared much for the Bolton fella. He knew who Trump was before he went to work for him. What a dumbarse.
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I am sure you might have heard about this at H-Town City Hall a few days ago. See this from the Chron:
The executive director of an immigrant rights group was removed from Houston City Council chambers Wednesday morning after confronting the city’s police chief and accusing him of lying to local officials.
Cesar Espinosa, the co-founder and executive director of FIEL Houston, said HPD chief J. Noe Diaz wasn’t being honest when he told the mayor and council members about the events that led to a 15-year-old immigrant with autism being placed in federal custody.
“Why do you lie? Why do you lie? Chief, we’ve been trying to meet with you. You have yet to meet with us,” Espinosa said as police took him by the arms and ushered him out.
Espinosa’s outburst came after Diaz pushed back against criticism from FIEL and the community over how the autistic child, Emmanuel Gonzalez-Garcia, was taken into custody by immigration agents after going missing earlier this month.
And this is also in the Chron:
An appeals court has cleared the way for Attorney General Ken Paxton to try to shut down an immigrants rights group in Houston that the Texas Republican claims flouted nonprofit laws by criticizing President Donald Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott and others.
But the 15th Court of Appeals stopped short of ruling on Paxton’s allegations or whether FIEL’s charter should be revoked, as the Texas Republican seeks to do. Those allegations should be weighed by a lower court, which erred in blocking Paxton’s effort in 2024, it said.
“We do not rule out the possibility that there are valid legal defenses that may be raised,” the order said.
Paxton cheered it as a victory, calling FIEL an “open borders group that illegally told people not to vote for President Trump.”
“Anti-American organizations like FIEL’s aim is to destroy our country and flood our nation with foreign invaders,” Paxton said in a statement.
Paxton’s suit pointed to a series of social media posts in which the group deemed Trump “El Hijo Del Diablo,” or “son of the Devil,” called Abbott “a violent racist Fascist man,” and advocated repeatedly against SB4, the state’s migrant deportation law that has been blocked by the courts.
He argued the group ran afoul of federal rules governing how far nonprofits can go in seeking to influence legislation, and barring certain nonprofits from backing political candidates.
FIEL has argued in court filings that Paxton is retaliatingafter the group challenged state election laws in court, including in one lawsuit that specifically names Paxton as a defendant.
Cesar Espinosa, the executive director of FIEL Houston, told the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday that the nonprofit is aware of the ruling and called Paxton’s celebration “another spin.”
“[The decision] doesn’t necessarily do anything but send it back to the lower court for them to decide and for our case to now begin,” he said.
I don’t know enough about the background on the case involving the 15-year-old kid. I do know that Cesar got news coverage for the incident at City Hall.
Cesar is on the front lines in the current battle against Trump and ICE. I am the last person to judge folks on what tactics to use. I will say that ICE has thrown out due process, and the masked so-called agents should concern everyone. I will leave it up to Cesar and his folks on how to conduct themselves. Good luck.
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@FoxBusiness tweeted this yesterday:
GOVERNOR’S GAMBLE: Billionaire Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and his wife reportedly took home about $1.43 million in gambling winnings from Las Vegas last year.
What is wrong with this? It is good to see someone beat the house.
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“Today” had a piece on all those unwanted spam and scam calls we get on our phone gizmos. There is no help in sight. Right now, just live with the fact that you will never get back those annoying few minutes every day you have to deal with this crap.
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It is on. Here we are, Halloween is two weeks from today and we are five weeks and six days before Thanksgiving Day, and this evening the Hallmark Channel will start airing its Christmas flicks. Yep. ‘Tis the season. See the featured photo of what I will be doing for the rest of the year.
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The Chron sports section hard copy today has a story on the Astros center field position.