A Day in the Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

 

We can see the fruits of equality down at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse, where no matter your status as attorney, witness, accused, or victim, no matter your race, no matter your sex, all are treated alike as criminals. 

They set it up to make you know “They” are in charge from the beginning.  There’s a guy yelling about Jesus handing out religious literature and next to him a guy yelling about COVID handing you a mask.  I’m not superstitious, so I take neither. 

Then the imperious black security mama is yelling at everybody in the line the same old shit about what clothes to take off and how they’re gonna smell your shoes for bombs.  Sniff my leather belt, Aunt Jemima!  Oh yeah, good girl. Good thing she checked my ankles while my pants were down, if it wasn’t for that I’d be keeping my combat knife there just in case negotiations with the prosecutor broke down.

GIT' YO' MASK ON, WHITEY

Speaking of proctology, I did have to take a surgical mask after all.  They do care if they can see your mouth, because that means they can actually hear the attorney talking, something Court staff never do if they can help it.  But if a brother doesn’t want to pull his pants up over his ass, that’s a form of expression worth protecting.  That’s a personal choice.  One dude lifted up his shirt so the Mammy could look for grenades.  Lord Jesus, we could see nearly the entire moon shining and there wasn’t even a filter of underwear to conceal his bare black ass.  

Me and a few other lobbyists bonded briefly over this moment and I asked an open question to the lobby “Anyone here been to the Grand Canyon? Well, you just seen it.”  That was probably the high point for me and I know it was for all who heard.

You wonder why black people complain about the Court system when they are the ones who are making it completely distasteful.  The only “poleez brutalidee” I expect is from the giant ape with a gun who tells a misdemeanant to move seats because he is making the Supreme Lord Bailiff “nervous” because his required face covering is in fact a balaclava.  Here’s a hot idea: how about you don’t require accused criminals show up to court looking like a bank robbery in progress! That would mean we’d have to tell the truth about how masks are bullshit.

The truth about masks are that it’s just another tool of control that the CJC building is the epitome of.  It’s narrow aisles and walls impose upon you and suffocate you before you ever crowd yourself into the courtroom.  No one knows where to go, know one knows what to do.  And when you are told what to do, it’s from a uniformed black abusing the little authority we have been forced as a society to give him.

Why do decent people have to suffer through this?  Maybe the magistrate judges should be a little less worried about stupid masks and get back to accusing indigent defendants of being welfare cheats.  It’s time the uneducated drones understand they don’t run the Courtroom.  Stop lording your authority over everybody, and just keep your head down and do your job.  We’ll call you when there’s a bullet to jump in front of, but short of that, the adults are talking so stfu.

And they if they don’t start talking to litigants and attorneys with some courtesy and respect, I think they’re gonna regret it cause people are gonna stop taking this shit.  The security at the courthouse is on the thinnest of margins.  A full uprising by the litigants in one court could subdue the whole staff before the swat team could react.  Long enough to do something that’ll make the next Court staff think twice before yielding to the temptation to mouth off to a bunch of toughs gathered in one place.   

Judge Jeff Williams, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 2

 The first thing this Judge wants you know about himself is the first thing I want you to know too.  He collects over $6,000,000.00 in annual revenues in what is probably the busiest court in Texas in terms of sheer number of cases. From the official website:  

Judge Jeffwee Brags About Stealing Thirty Shekels of Silver 

Funny how this prosecutor in a robe says the quiet part out loud.  But he wouldn't have to tell you that he is running a State-sponsored collection agency for you to know it. You expect this from small-town Texas, where the starving residents attempt to eke out an existence not from their own trade and industry, but from the traveler sojourning through their forlorn, shuttered, and overpriced main street.  

This Judge is aggressive about collections, more than any small town Texas judge.  So aggressive in fact, he teaches his staff to lie for him and cut corners.  Innocent people who are ignorant of the law and their rights are constantly given misdirection and bad advice by Court staff.  

I caught this "honorable" Judge tampering with documents in a case in order to make a judgment look legitimate when it was fraudulent.  He back-dated a judgment of conviction in a traffic case over a year back from the actual day he signed it, in order to cut off any chance of appeal based on the 10 day deadline.  God knows how many other people he has done this to.  I caught him and he blamed it on a scapegoat staff member "who no longer works" there.  Bullshit.  It's still your signature on the document, Jeff! Judge Jeffrey pressures his staff to collect for him.  When they do bad things because he tells them to, he covers it up.  Anyone who wants proof of this can email for the documents at the harriscountyjudgewatch@gmail.com and I will send them to you in a form redacted of case-specific information. 

Read about his brutal handling of eviction cases in these articles, where these articles describe nothing short of antic hysterical behavior on the part of this judge when anyone has anything to say on their own behalf.  He finds it a personal insult that anyone insisted he follow the CDC eviction moratorium during the time that it was in effect.  He threatened tenants with contempt just for trying to tell their side of the story, and they're not exaggerating in the least how unprofessional and rude this Judge is.  He is constantly yelling at people and threating them with fines and contempt.  

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2021/08/30/407237/after-their-landlord-rejected-rent-relief-money-houston-parents-are-evicted-and-separated-from-their-toddler/

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/houston/2021/02/24/392145/houston-area-judges-are-evicting-renters-who-could-be-protected-under-federal-order/

Last known picture of Jeff Williams before his attempted suicide.  Found hanging in his office, the bailiff cut him down from the rafter and after an appropriate time for reflection and recovery, Judge Williams was able to re-take the bench about five minutes later. 

Someone even suggesting this Judge follow the law sends him into furious rage.  His cheeks billow in and out as he attempts to breathe and makes a sound like a wild boar depredating a root vegetable garden.  When you begin to argue your case against the state, he takes it personally as if you were depriving his children of food.  When you even whisper a threat against his money, he bangs the gavel wildly around.  He honestly tries to hit the wooden little round thing on his desk, but he actually dents up his own desk with his inaccurate swings.   He disrespects everyone who comes into contact with his Court as nothing but common criminals who should empty their pockets to a nagging nanny with his grasping hand outstretched for money they worked for and he didn't.  If you have dignity to resist his disrespect, he blusters into a climax of green-eyed rage. He stands with his gavel and waves it around in a bizarre ritual snake dance.

Tell this Judge Roy Bean wanna-be that you know of him and his lies.  I don't know what this guy had to do to become an eagle scout, but someone should have told this dude that no other boy had to go in the vault toilet at the remote forested campsite alone with the scoutmaster to earn that merit badge.  It was just you, Jeff.

It's time to grow up and start taking some accountability yourself for third degree Felony tampering with a governmental record rather than spending your time bitching about the evils of driving without car insurance, which according to you is unpaid-for scratches and dents.  Especially if it's your car.

Fuck this liar.  I hope he inhales carbon monoxide from his own soviet-style gas van in this petty third world communist dictatorship kangaroo crackhead court.

Lying Women Bureaucrats

Ever notice how the women who work in any office are willing to lie for their superior (usually a man)?  It's really annoying how persistent this phenomenon is.  From legal secretaries to clerks for judges, these office bitches are so inconsiderate of their own dignity they are willing to lie just because they think it secures their paycheck for another week and their pension another year.  Time for judges to be able to fire these blood-sucking bureaucrats.  One less pension to pay.  

Office flunkies are ignorant of any type of loyalty except that which must be paid to the almighty dollar, truth be damned.  Office flunkies tell the attorney is on vacation til next week, the next office flunkie you talk to says he'll be in this afternoon.  They instinctively lie because even when their boss hasn't done anything wrong, they don't know he hasn't.  They just assume he has and cover his ass.

The honest man is not happy with a naked scramble for comfort and resources.  Some people are not willing to do certain things that are immoral just for a profit, and it is the duty and right of honest men to see these liars punished as far as it is in our power.  

Hon. Elmer Fudd, JP 2, Grimes County

 If you get lost wandering where the banjo music is coming from, you may end up here at Justice of the Peace Precinct 2, Grimes County.  They don't want you to find it, because there's no signs telling you this judge is sitting in the building where the jail also is.

So much for open courts.  They have to buzz you in.  And the Judge holds hearings in secret in his chambers.  How are members of the public supposed to be able to see what's going on?  

Elmer Fudd doesn't care.  Look at him in this pretentious smoking jacket.  Yes, smoking jacket.  Apparently this expensive garment is no concern to a man on a JP salary in a rural butt fuck county.  

Speaking of that, you don't have to get all the way into the jail for a good fuckin' in the butt, cause this guy will give it to you if you have a case.  He must've spent all his time studying up cigars instead of law.  I tell people we have judges in Texas with no law degree, they think I'm joking.  Does this look like a joke?

Elmer Fudd flanked by some confused deer he shot while hunting wabbits.

White People: Wake up and Fight

 Aren't we all tired of being censored from speaking our mind about other races?  The white man must endure all kinds of criticism, and when he has the temerity to respond, he is silenced by those who own the platforms that have the widest readership.  

As if black people and other racial minorities (yet) can't stand up for themselves.  As if the negroes cannot muster the words to protect their own race from criticism.  No, silence their opponents is all the confidence in their convictions they care to demonstrate.  

The hypocrisy of the black race is censorship, as is the hypocrisy of white savior antifa.  I can think of nothing more associated to the Nazis of Germany and nothing more inimical to the Anglo-Saxon created right to free speech than censorship.

These censors are truly cowards for they lack the courage of not only their own convictions, but they lack the convictions that are required of true and decent citizens of this Republic.  

The fact these censors, black and white, are natural cowards shows why they can and must be opposed.  At every turn.

White man, and especially White woman: You look into your personal life and tell me there isn't constant affront and insult to our way of life.  Black people take up the air space on the roads by playing their vicious rap music so that everyone must listen and have their peace disturbed.  

In the post office, in the movie theatre, in the restaurant, they and their children are always shouting, playing videos and music on their phone out loud because everyone else observes silent phone etiquette.  They take the longest in line with their complaining.  

White people can't go to movies and enjoy it because black people talk to the movie.  White people can't go to the swimming pool because black people are taking up the space as if no else was there. They slowly walk six abreast and block the way of those whose time is more limited.  They dawdle in the store aisles blocking the way, they shout their embarrassing personal life over their public speakerphone call. They can't figure out how to use the ATM when I'm the next car.  It would've saved them and me time I'd a gone first.  

On buses and public transportation, their behavior is a dreaded nightmare each time you step on.  As was said "respectable white people and white women especially are subjected to every species of affront and insult, which they cannot resent without risk of being drawn into a dispute in which no decent person cares to be involved.  The negroes realize this and it emboldens them still further."

No more emboldenment of minorities to ruin our white spaces.  They must learn to live as we do.  Some Mexican piece of shit actually allowed his two year old to watch a video on his tablet as the curtain rose on my daughter's six grade play. Everyone sighed and wished the mexicans wouldn't do that, but I stood up and told him to turn it off.  He refused and I called him a bitch in front of his wife and two year old.  He stood up and sat back down.  He had to turn it off.  Every white person was grateful to watch in peace.  

This is what we do.  We stop taking insults from niggers and spics, and let them know there are consequences for talking back to the white man.  Stand up and tell those sumbitches what's what.  And have a plan to whup their ass or go down swinging.  If every white man does this the harassment will stop and we can all live in peace.  Make those niggers think twice before they open their baboon mouth.

Why Black Lies Matter

 

 I walked down the sidewalk on a typically hot Texas summer day. We all know the sidewalk is intersected by a street every block in your average neighborhood, and this was your average neighborhood.  Average for many reasons, including for the fact many blacks live here in peace,  including the one who was riding down the sidewalk on his bike.  Now I was walking in his direction and he was riding in my direction on the sidewalk, and we were separated only by the street which interposed perpendicularly between us. 

In the street a car was idling at the stop sign.  I saw the driver was staring down at her phone, probably pulling up directions.  It occurred to me that she might be so preoccupied with her directions that she might start pulling out into the intersection before looking up again.  So
I crossed with a wide berth behind her vehicle. 

Now the black rider saw something different.  Instead of seeing the driver, he saw me.  He saw me going out of my way to avoid something.  He thought that something was him.  Of course I mind my business when out, so he initiated contact by yelling “Yeah! Go all the way around the black man!” 

As he said this he rode into street at the same time the car pulled out, just as I had feared would happen.  I yelled back “look out!” but it was too late.  The driver pulled out and tossed the rider from his bike.

He struck his head on the pavement and it opened a fountain through the freakishly large gash.  I rushed to his side and tore off every article of clothing decency could allow to cushion, comfort, and stanch the rush of blood. As we waited for the ambulance, he told me something I’ll never forget. 

“All my life I have looked for white racism everywhere I have gone.  Now that today has come, my life will end because of it.  I regret that I looked for racism instead of the threat which was really confronting me.  Don’t let my death be a waste too.  Tell my people that the lies we tell our children are killing us.  Tell them Black Lies Matter.”

 

That boy died out there on the street that day.  While he may be gone, the lesson isn’t. 

 

Seeing white racism where it doesn’t exist is not just innocent fun, it has deadly consequences.   

A Judicial Candidate's Story of Breaking the Diversity Barrier in Harris County

 

De berry fust time I wuz erected Judge, I went to deh cawt, and Lawd, dis wuz dah fust time I was went into de district cawt and didn’t have to sit in the gallry no mo’ with my firends on de chain. Yes lahd, they told me I’se de judge now and I’se serposed to sit on der bench. 

Well, I spec dey didn’ no how to talk cuz when I’se was plopped down on top in der middle o’ duh’ bench they said you aint sposed to git on it lak dat!  Why yo’ feet dangling over and sitting on der place where de turneys put all dem papers!  You serposed to sit yoself behin’ it!

I says, why in der hell you say sit on it when de judge is serposed to sit behin’ it, dat don’t make no sense!  But I sits down behind it anyway.  I neber see der judge sit any which way cuz I’se just waitin most a’ der time wit my hiyed’ dun til’ dey called my name.

And I’d go up ter de judge and say my name all nice and specful’ and we’d all have laugher ‘bout it.  De judge dat was dar befo’, he ain’t laughin no mo’, do’.

Attorneys introducing the Constitution to Judge Ramona Franklin, who is proud of getting her hair did.

Knock dis chip offa my shoulda, beeitch nyigga! - A criminal addresses a black female defendant.

Bad White Judges: Country Edition

Number one, is the Texas Supreme Court which continues to overturn jury verdicts for campaign money.  As far as I’m concerned any judge who takes money from attorneys with pending cases is a criminal, without qualification.  Yet that is Standard Operating Procedure for Texas Judges because they have to have money to run for election.  I would say they should use their own money, but that would mean only rich people could be judges.  Oh wait…

 

When you think about the 258^th Judicial District Court, the real criminals are more often on the damn bench than in the gallery.  Judge Liz Coker texted one of the prosecution team members how to examine a witness in a criminal prosecution and that was barely sufficient to cause her to lose her bench.  The prosecuting attorney who received the message instead of being horrified, this cold calculating bitch thought it was a great way to take strategic advantage.  And she was disciplined.  Yet this prosecuting attorney, Kaycee Jones, got elected to a bench herself in the 411th! Guess the ignorant provincials thought this was a heroic service instead of a blight on our Anglo-Saxon legal system.  Kaycee Jones got voted out yet she still sits as Visiting Judge on the 258^th, presiding over the same voters who voted her out of the 411^th!  Voted her out presumably because she messed up again by telling the judge of the 258^th, Travis Kitchens, that a certain defendant on a case Kitchens was presiding over stole her car.

 

But wait, why did I still find this terrible woman sitting on the bench, next to the district clerk who never smiles? Yep, there she was, on the bench, complete with her unrepentant tongue too large for even her piggy cheeks.  And on one day she was presiding as visiting judge, the only person who objected was a defense attorney who had an outcry hearing in child rape case.  Bet that objection took .2 seconds to make. 

 

The differences between rural and major city could not be more apparent.  In Montgomery County JP 1 you have a self-aggrandizing judge Wayne L. Mack who wastes everyone’s time with his insincere patriotic politics.  He has the pledge of allegiance to the Texas and American flag said, which is bad enough, but he also invites some crazy preacher on a rotating interfaith basis to offer a prayer.  One time I was in there and it was this little old demure black lady who was mousy and reserved but boy she really let loose on that prayer like a whirlwind.  These scenes are not appropriate decorum.  And then there was this jury trial where a panel of 24 jurors was summoned because a defendant in a civil case paid the jury fee.  The defendant didn’t appear for trial.  But there was a lot of space reserved on the docket for this, so rather than letting the jury go when I waived jury trial to try a liquidated claim for under $10,000 when the defendant had defaulted, the judge kept me and the jury waiting while he went through all these motions just because jury trials are a great way for judges to meet voters and impress them with their BS patriotism.  And it’s because dumb white conservatives eat this shit up.

 

You also have the old school judges and attorneys who need to get busy and die, taking the old system with them.  There’s some judges who preside over their Court as a Supreme Village Elder, making peace instead of judicial decisions, crafting solutions they think is best instead of following the law.  The other Boomer problem I run into is the “gotcha lawyer” This is definitely the province of old school good ol’ white boy courthouse gangism, especially in the ignorant and provincial counties.

 

 

Here’s one example of this:

 

Me: Judge, the defense’s argument that he is making today, while it is meritorious, it is the first time we are hearing about it because the defendant did not include this allegation in his answer.  In fact, if you read the defense’s answer it actually makes a frivolous argument which defendant is not insisting on today, just to throw us off the scent.  We can amend our case to meet these arguments”

 

OC: Judge, I have included this argument in my answer.  You can interpolate it from the vague generalizations that I have thrown in there.  There’s no surprise here.”  He shouted shrilly.

 

The Court: I’m going to deny your motion without leave to amend and jettison this case in violation of the Texas Rule against general demurrers.  I’m also going to ignore the special exceptions procedure as set out in the Rules.  Good luck on appeal, son. 

 

OC: Gotcha.

 

This is entitled boomer white trash stuff.  Go take that discovery trial by surprise shit to your ever-nearing grave where it should stay buried.  This why local boys do better in provincial counties, cause they contribute to the judge’s campaigns.

 

Yeah, there’s a lot of problems.  It’s not just race.  Unqualified judges on the bench is bad no matter what, but we shouldn’t be afraid to explain why that happens, even if we don’t like the explanation, and even if that explanation is race. 

Goading Judges

 For those of you who don't read Attorney Murray Newman's blog, how the hell did you find this?  Anyway, he's about the best there is for the uninitiated to read about the nitty gritty going on in the Harris County Criminal Machine.  So read it here.  He wrote an extremely prescient article about Scapegoating the Judges, and I want to add a few things I know Murray can't say.

For so much time, Republicans enjoyed hegemony in Harris County.  Control by one party is the unfortunate product of the fact that conservative and liberals are no longer in both parties, which happened roughly around 1976 in Texas politics. 

While the County seat, Houston, is its own home rule municipality and has always been a liberal city as long as the rest of the big cities have, the balance of the suburb dwellers who were traditionally more conservative made sure that every county-wide officer who must sit for election was elected as a Republican.  For years, the important judicial races were decided in Republican party primaries, elections which attract far fewer votes than the general election, and which also tend to attract the most devoted partisans.  But these devoted partisans were obviously ignorant of the candidates they voted for.  A system of mailers skillfully addressed to likely Republican Primary Voters would endorse the "most conservative Republican" candidates and if you did not receive the endorsement of these two or three mailers, you didn't win the primary.  And if you didn't win the primary, you didn't win the general election in November, because only the Republican stood a chance.  Of course the endorsement for "most conservative" really just meant their check cleared.

This system of political mailers was so truly influential and powerful, that a narrow populist-leaning majority of the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee was able to pass a resolution condemning the practice in the face of opposition from those who were controlling the Republican party at that time.  I'm referring to the time Jared Woodfill was Chairman.

The effect of this whole pay-to-play system was to make inside baseball in the Harris County Republican party the center of judicial intrigue.  Judges who were slashing you rudely behind your back and gossiping with their silly staff would kiss your ass at political meetings.  Every one of them wanted to grandstand and wave the Bible around, and God, they wanted to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  It was like every political meeting was taken over by commercials for candidates announcing their non judicial activism and vague Protestantism - instead of debating policy and operating the party.  Mercifully, the Republican party no longer has candidates with this disingenuous sleaze taking over meetings, because there are no candidates.  Being out of power purifies the party from the adventurers and opportunists with no real ideals.

In 2008 and 2010, Republican domination started faltering.  Democrats became competitive and suddenly a Judge which found himself/herself running in either party had to make a good case about their actual merit, rather than lip service to party platform platitudes.  Some of the elections were so close that it's totally possible the few deciding votes were actually on the merits rather than the result of a straight ticket pull.  This season of competitiveness ended too quickly in 2018, when the Democrats finally swept all important County offices.  There are still a few Republican officeholders, but even their combined efforts are not able to dictate county policy. 

But the fact the pendulum has swung the other way would be only temporarily concerning if it was indeed temporary.  But as you see the Democrats cannibalizing their own you realize the pendulum continued to swing within the Democratic party.  White Democratic Judges started drawing primary challengers even when the white judge was already doing a good job and was more qualified than the black candidate.  These candidates know that demographic shifts in the city and in the suburbs of the county made a way for demagoguery and black identity politics to elect black candidates over better qualified whites, even within the Democratic party. 

In addition to so many blacks now overrepresented on civil and criminal courts, all the family judges are black women, even though whites are 70% of Harris County and I suppose half are men.  The unfairness inherent in this is that the idea and concept of family differs from anglo culture to black.  With so many blacks coming from broken and dysfunctional families, it doesn't make sense, on the whole, they should be in the position to judge people whose culture has family values which often differ from the values of black Americans.  It presents more opportunities for racial revenge on whites than it does the best interest of the child.

I have seen the terrible behavior of black women at the courthouse when they were merely serving as office clerks.  They were rude, inhospitable, incompetent.  They talked with snack food in their mouth and slurped their iced tea as they hunched unhappily over their work.  They had a chip on their shoulder.  They took their time on purpose.  They made things hard for you if they could.  It's hard to imagine how this same attitude translates to the judicial office, but one must try to do so in order to grasp the enormity of the problem that we are facing prospectively. 

It disgusted me, the black clerks and bailiffs who would so openly gossip and laugh about the fact families were so broken up.  The judges do it too.  If these judges can't even pose with decorum and sense for what is furniture for sitting and what is not, do you think they can make difficult decisions about your future relationship with your children?

Some Black Women Judges Posing With a Lack of Decorum for the "Courtroom"

While one party rule was always wrong, it seemed a rest when the parties where competitive.  Now I fear that the demographic shift which caused the elevation of unqualified judges is permanent, If it is, it is the only distinction between our time and the worst horrors of the competition for power we last saw among the races in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The lesson of the story is two wrongs make a right. Party politics should not dictate judicial candidates.  In Texas, Judges are allowed to accept money from attorneys who have cases pending in their courts.  This is and was a travesty as much as partisan elections are.  With the permanent change in county demographics, the corruption can only worsen now that for those who sit on the bench, a mere reading of the Constitution of our Republic would constitute a liberal education in and of itself. 

It is insulting that attorneys should have to impress an electorate which is ignorant about law in order to become judges.  It is not a political position, and should not be political; in the same way executive officers and legislators ought to be political.  It leads to nasty demagoguery on both sides.  With the racial demagoguery going on on the left and right, it appears that the newest racial demagoguery concerning bail is going to be ineffective.  Setting bail is not the reason conservatives should be against an all non-white judiciary in Harris County. 

Using bail as a vehicle for communicating about the obvious racial problem is unhelpful because it was in fact the founders of our Republic who took the provisions of the English Bill of Rights of 1688 concerning bail and ensured they were made the Eight Amendment.  And the 1688 Bill of Rights was itself the product of centuries of movement towards the right to bail because imprisonment without it was long used in English history by the Crown to persecute political or religious (and therefore political) enemies.  Bail, habeas corpus, and other important rights were the invention of the English legal system, and certainly not the invention of African barbarism.

We need to pay attention to black female judges like Ramona Franklin of the 338th District Court, who has been without notice unilaterally revoking bail by arbitrarily raising it according to no reason she has disclosed to the public other than her hysteric whim.  I am disappointed to see the majesty of a legal system my ancestors helped create become a minstrel farce on which hangs the life, liberty, and property of all our citizens.

We must fix a system which promotes unqualified blacks over whites simply for the sake of check-marking the diversity box.  We must stop allowing judges to take money from attorneys who have cases pending in that Court.  We must stop the election of judges locally and create a system of executive or hybrid executive and legislative power to select judges which will have reasonable term limits, mandatory retirement, and insulation from popular and ignorant demagogic political pressure.

With these reforms, we can say goodbye to the sisters from the amen corner!

 

 

Harris County Bail - Democratic Judges

 

I'm so done with the peanut butter gallery of local Republicans using the fact the Constitution requires reasonable bail as a political football against the current slate of Democratic judges.  Being Democratic doesn't make them bad judges.  There's far worse characteristics when it comes to judges so why not make a better argument?  Because people who know nothing about our legal system get to vote for judges.  Dumbest idea ever.  It's insulting that I have to appear in front of some of these demagogues - just because they have the money to illegally litter their campaign signs in the public right of way.  And now since the Republicans are seemingly gone forever in Harris County, new candidates with no prior party loyalties have no compunction about putting that big "D" right next to their smiling face in said illegally placed campaign signs.

 

 In the bail bond handbook published by the Texas Association of Counties, it even neutrally states that bail is necessary as a practical matter to keep the jail population down.  This is the real nuts and bolts of running a county.  Most conservative voters don't know better, but the people perpetuating this BS certainly do.

 

With COVID bringing real, unmasked, and in person criminal jury trials to a halt (and even more importantly, civil debt collection as well), it was bound to happen that the jail would fill up.  So you have to make choices about who you really need to keep in there. 

 

One annoying example of this phenomenon is the murder of Corey Lennard Thompson.  The family is trying to make so much political hay out of their dead son by bringing up the issue that the guy accused of murder was out on bond.  The only thing he was out on bond for was some chickenshit assault case where he punched a dude over a dispute about girl.  What is a judge supposed to do?  Keep him locked up for two, three years until we can get to a misdemeanor assault trial? Most people haven't even thought through it this far.

 

Hey boomer, you're not for "law and order" if you tear down our legal system just because judges from the opposing party do their mandatory public duty in setting bail. If you're a real conservative, stop complaining about the fact bail exists. You want bail to disappear because you're desperate to make short term political gains in county politics? Be careful what you wish for.  a

 

Black Man Dies at Age 99

Black Man Dies at Age 99.

(With apologies to the Onion)

De Moines, Iowa- Ninety-nine year old black man Isaiah Thomas died yesterday under the care of white physician, Tad Mercer, a 17-year physician and graduate of Iowa State University.  Bystander video of the final encounter between physician and patient quickly went viral. The disturbing video incited large protests against white brutality and systemic racism in Des Moines and more than 150 American cities, leading to a nationwide racial justice movement not seen since the civil rights protests of the 1960s. The National Guard was activated in at least 21 states, and cities announced curfews as protesters filled the streets. The protests sometimes turned destructive, as black people demanded an answer to the unexplained and pointless death of yet another black citizen of the United States.

After the video of the death surfaced, the Iowa Medical Board peremptorily suspended Mr. Mercer’s medical license until a hearing can be held as to the responsibility physician Mercer bears in this death.

 

When asked why she was protesting, one young black protester on the streets of Des Moines stated “This is the kind of thing that happens every day in America if you are black.  There will not be any peace until this kind of unacceptable holocaust of black lives has ended.”

 

Around 8 p.m. on May 25, Physician Tad Mercer responded to a call from the Thomas family that their grandfather of seven and father of two, who had apparently been declining in health over the last several years, seemed particularly lethargic. 

Physician Mercer was apparently attending on Thomas when he died suddenly in his bed.  Family members stated that the patient had apparently repeatedly clicked his morphine dispenser as the family gathered around to discuss who would receive the silver artichoke serving dish now that Thomas could no longer chew.

The day ended in tragedy, however, as Dr. Mercer watched the patient die and apparently did nothing to stop it.  Family members were filming the last moments in a viral video that has now shocked a nation.

 

Jesse Jackson was reached for comment, saying:

“We’re going to bury Thomas today, but the killing of unarmed black men continues. We must break the backbone of lynching forever by punishing this and all doctors responsible for destroying black lives.”

 

Kamala Harris said of this sad case: “That [Thomas] could have been me, it could have been any black person on any given day in America.  The time has come to stop this reign of terror.  White doctors have no place pretending to protect African-Americans if this is the kind of treatment they receive in modern America.”

 

Joe Biden signed off on these events later in the week stating “Systemic racism in American has allowed black people to die in this manner for too long.  It is time to dismantle this racist power structure so we can prevent things like this from happening ever again.”

 

 

 

Jim Crow Scarecrow

Abrams eyed her bathroom glass, 

preparing for TV shows. 

She carefully coiffed her hair, 

combing the furrowed cornrows. 

Suddenly ideas sprang 

from beneath those locks of furry faux. 

She will build a man and say he's kin 

to slavery, America's peculiar sin. 

The principles of the founding 

are unworthy of propounding, 

so erect the Jim Crow scarecrow 

and test the depth of fear by sounding 

"How shall the crows feed upon the land 

with this straw man watching,

built by the white man's hand?"