Temple - A man arrested in Bell County for continuous domestic violence was wanted in McLennan on a charge of assault on a family member, according to court records.
When police were called to a Temple residence about 7 p.m., they were told Jason Tate was inside and believed to have a handgun.
Officers learned that a woman Tate had a previous relationship with left the house earlier and contacted police after he allegedly assaulted her.
After police set up a perimeter around the home and called Tate on the telephone, he came outside and police arrested him without incident. They found no handgun.
Tate had an outstanding warrant from McLennan County for Assault with Bodily Injury on a Family Member.
He is now charged with Continuous Family Violence and is being held in the Bell County Jail.
McLennan County adopts $14.5 Mil Budget, raise taxes
When they instituted the scofflaw program, it was part of a revenue raising, scofflaw program designed to put offenders on notice.
It didn't work out that way.
According to ex-policeman and jailer R. Scott Gates, a Moody resident who won a Justice of the Peace slot four years ago, only to see the County Commissioenrs eliminate his precinct, the $60,000 budgeted to pay cleerical staff in the Tax Assessor-Collector's office is all for nought.
"They've turned it into a catch and release program," he said with a wry chuckle.
He defeated the Honorable Raymond Britton, Jail Magistrate, only to see him appointed by the Court as the McLennan County Jail Magistrate.
In a statement before the Commissioners Court, Mr. Gates said, "I hope the court will note that the name of the magistrate appoionted by this court in lieu of the magistrate elected by the people appears on the booking card as being involved in the release of a man charged with a violent crime. The name of the magistrate removed by the voters but reinstated by action of hte court also appears as the authorizing authority."
Mr. Gates was the only member of the public who spoke during the public budget hearing portion of the meeting. He said "catch and release" seems to be the norm rather than the exception since two accused rapists of children have been released on Personal Recognizance bonds requiring no outlay of a cash fee within the past few months.
He was referring to the case of Steven Ray Johnson, a black man of 41 who is charged with slashing and stabbing a Robinson car lot owner so severely he spent a week in the hospital, three days of which he was hospitalized in the intensive care wing with a brain injury and a punctured lung.
"By funding an indigent electronic monitoring fund, the magistrates can use Article 17.44 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure to increase public safety. In the absence of that funding provided by this court, it appears their hands are tied."
Mr. Gates referred to a record of release without monitoring for DWI offenders who have gone on to cause serious accidents that took the lives of other motorists.
"If an individual involved in this catch and release program kills someone more prominent that a Baylor computer specialist or violently assaults someone more prominent than a used car salesman from Robinson, I predict the backlash could be significant. I sincerely hope the court will include funding..."
In an interview, Mr. Gates pointed out that the scofflaws who arrive at the Tax Collector's office to buy license tags for vehicles or renew driver licenses at the DPS are turned down because of outstanding warrants on unpaid traffic fines.
They are sent to the County Jail where they spend one night, have breakfast and are released with credit for time served and given a release that enables them to pay for their vehicle registration or renew their licenses.
The Legendary could not help laughing out loud to think of uniformed traffic police and Highway Patrolmen reeling in offenders while seated in a bass boat during some kind of catch and release tournament, weighing them and tossing them back into the waters of the lake while they spit Red Man tobacco juice over the gunwales of the boat.
When they drop the gavel this morning at the McLennan County Commissioners' Court meeting, the war of nerves will continue in confrontations between Tea Party watchdogs, individual commissioners and constitutional officers.
As late as May, the 816-bed Jack Harwell Detention Center remained empty in a bleak situtation that left taxpayers supporting the entire debt service on the $49 million facility.
Now that the privately operated jail is housing prisoners, it's still nowhere near full and the dollar sink is sucking the green down the drain.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Joe Mashek is on record accusing County Judge Jim Lewis of ethics violations and violations of anti-trust laws, County Sheriff Larry Lynch receives a $12,000 per year salary "supplement" paid by the county from funds it receives from CEC, Inc., the jail's operator, and there is a history of jail culinary contractor Jack Madera being indicted on 15 counts of corruption in Dallas County for precisely the same kind of things officials have been accused in Waco.
All that leaves Judge Jim Lewis on the hot seat. He promised in May that the jails would be full within a few months and the budget would be back on an even keel.
Not true. As of today, McLennan County is losing money left and right on a jail operated by a corporation whose bottom line is the bottom line.
That decision has already cost two Commissioners their jobs.
No doubt, the floggings will continue until morale improves.
The nation's top narcotics cops are beginning to re-think their role in law enforcement in terms of counterinsurgency.
It's a war, plain and simple, and a special one at that, a war that employs special weapons and tactics, a war of terror and extortion, soul enslavement through cruel drugs and a bankroll that can easily buy off low-paid soldiers and policemen by the hundreds.
A Mexican chief of police is gunned down on a Nuevo Laredo street, the top narcotics officer of the nation's fourth-largest city, Houston, is shot in the face.
It's all a part of the daily routine in this hot war of attrition waged on the streets and in the countryside of two nations, the U.S. and Mexico.
When Mexico's federal police busted Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal in Toluca, Mexico State, it marked a new departure in a war within a war.
He had been in a protracted battle with his former colleague, Hector "El H" Beltran Leyva, for territory once dominated by Leyva's organization.
When the Mexican cops stepped in, they gained not only a treasure trove of new information about the gangs, their members and a look at the books, but they took an active counterinsurgency role in a war that is beginning to threaten the social fabric on both sides of the border.
In any big city, drug gangs extract "street taxes" from businesses as diverse as the local beauty or barber shop or concerns as large as Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX).
Police executives are studying hard.
They are scouring books on the subject of this new and unconventional warfare, according to two brainy analysts, a Los Angeles County cop and a career foreign policy and security specialist, John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus.
Both have written extensively about intelligence, terrorism, transnational gangs, counterinsurgency and small wars.
Here is a lineup of their best recommendations in reading material devoted to this new paradigm of police work:
"Accidental Guerilla," David Kilcullen "Leaderless Jihad," Marc Sageman "Criminal Insurgency in America," John Sullivan "Criminal States and Criminal Soldiers," Robert J. Bunker "Brave New War," John Robb "Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy," John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt
A lesser-known wrinkle in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law is sending corporations scrambling to comply.
In the future, CEO's salaries will be public information and the ratio between compensation and bonuses paid to the top cats and all other corporate employees will be required reading in disclosure reports.
It's got the bean counters buzzing and the big wigs blustering.
Inserted into the massive, 2,000-page bill "at the last minute," this provision is "a political disclosure, as opposed to an economic disclosure," said a corporate governance professor from The University of Delaware, Charles Elson.
According to the Standard & Poor Index, the median salary of a corporate CEO of any top 500 company is $1,025,000, or 25 times that paid to the average private sector employee at $40,174.
A total pay package of $7.5 million for a chief executive is 187 times that of the average employee and 19 times President Barack Obama's annual salary of $400,000.
It's an emotional issue, one that will have little appeal to the average small shareholder. Already, the lawyers are finding ways to skirt the law.
One way is to eliminate the marketing program of company stores and use private contractors. This way, the relatively low pay involved will not affect the bottom line on the CEO's ratio of pay to that of the lowest paid employee.
SEC officials are charged with drafting the regulations that will determine the actual operation of the new law. Business groups are clamoring for fair and consistent regulations.
It would take one full time accountant to comply with this portion of the reform law alone, certain key honchos complain.
An internal investigation blames the disastrous blowout ofthe Macondo Well on a faulty interpretation of pressure tests by BP engineers.
According to published reports, the test on April 20 showed dangerously high pressure in the well, but the engineers mistakenly made a decision to pump in seawater instead of drilling mud to contain the eruption of natural gas and crude petroleum that followed.
Seawater is lighter than natural gas, drilling mud and crude.
As a result, 11 men lost their lives, more than 4 million barrels of crude spewed out into the Gulf, and beaches, bays and marshes were heavily damaged from Grand Isle to Panama City, along with aquatic creatures.
The internal probe questioned why BP engineer John Guidedisregarded warnings of a potential blowout from contractor Halliburton Co. and why managers failed to test for flaws in the cement outside the well that was intended to keep natural gas from forcing the blowout.
Though BP's attorneys have tried to put at least some blame on Halliburton and Transocean, the key players on the rig with those two concerns have steadfastly denied any wrongdoing. They say they were complying with orders from BP's staff.
Rumors attributed to a news report from the Hong Kong news agency Ming Pao quickly circled the globe this morning that People's Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan has defected.
The speculation is that he is trying to avoid being punished for a loss of some $430 billion on U.S. Treasury bonds, according to the Austin-based private intelligence bureau Stratfor.
Gov. Zhou has been believed to be under house arrest for months, according to the report, following an investigation that led to the 2006 arrest of Wang Yi, vice governor of the China Development Bank.
Though there has been no official confirmation of the rumor, the fact that the People's Bank has gone to elaborate lengths to impress the Chinese state-run media that the bank chief is in not trouble is seen by intelligence analysts as a strong indication there is a shakeup in the power structure within the Chinese Communist Party.
Zhou's name has been blocked from search engines on the Chinese internet.
He is known to have political ambitions and is a close ally to former Chinese President Jiang Zemin. He is also a core figure in the "Shanghai Gang" associated with President Jiang.
Several news stories released today mentioned Zhiou in connection with a visit by Japanese Financial Services Minister Shozaburo Jimi during a high level Chinese-Japanese economic dialogue on the relative values of the Yen and the Yuan.
In which The Legendary reminds our leaders of our federal government's historical aloofness from matters of a spiritual nature and the reasons thereof...
It is, quite simply, a matter far too important to be left to the ministrations of some silly government, this matter of the individual's spiritual approach and moral posture in the presence of his Creator.
I have two reasons and they are to be found in the preamble to the Virginia Religious Freedom Act authored by Thomas Jefferson and the Memorial and Remonstrance authored by James Madison against the appointment of any particular church as an agency of the government.
This is a letter of veto President Madison wrote to Congress in 1811:
Having examined and considered the Bill, entitled "An Act incorporating the protestant Episcopal Church in the Town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia," I now return the Bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections.
Because the Bill exceeds the rightful authority, to which Governments are limited by the essential distinction between Civil and Religious functions, and violates, in particular, the Article of the Constitution of the United States which declares, that "Congress shall make no law respecting a Religious establishment." The Bill enacts into, and establishes by law, sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the organization and polity of the Church incorporated, and comprehending even the election and removal of the Minister of the same, so that no change could be made therein, by the particular Society, or by the General Church of which it is a member, and whose authority it recognizes. This particular Church, therefore, would so far be a religious establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given to certain articles in its constitution and administration...
Because the Bill vests in the said incorporated Church, an authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the education of poor children of the same, an authority, which being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precident for giving to religious Societies as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.
Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities...
This is a portion of James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance:
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled "A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate...
Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents...
Mr. Bowen is the Special Inspector General for Iraq.
His harsh critique of a failed program points up $4 billion in waste, an estimate of more than 20 percent of the $21 billion spent so far of total combined contributions of the U.S. and Iraq of $112 billion.
Designed to hold 3,600 prisoners, the buildings sit in the sand, tumbleweeds growing in the stacks of brick and barbed wire left behind on the unfinished compound.
There is a sister prison compound left similarly unoccupied at Nasiriyah.
Inspectors found honey-combed concrete beams unsatisfactory to bear loads, brick walls out of plumb and incomplete plumbing. The IG terms the effort a waste, a failure.
It's not the only one. There are stories of the pediatric hospital with no staircase to the second floor, the Fallujah sewage treatment plant with no pipes to connect it to the city's system of wastewater conduit, and the $5.7 million Baghdad Convention Center where the contract did not stipulate that the structures had to be wired to the electrical power. They sit useless, unlit, without air conditioning or ventilation, unused and crumbling.
About 43 percent of all the contracts were terminated at one time. Of 4,800 projects completed, 233 are nearing completion and 595 have been abandoned.
The projects were originally funded to keep Sunni fighters busy working for a paycheck and not fighting against U.S. forces in the "surge" strategy of 2004.
Many projects were begun and left unfinished by a California firm named Parsons Delaware, Inc., which completed only about a third of 53 planned jobs.
It is true that the contractors attempted to work during the height of the violence, dodging bullets and bombs as they laid pipe and drove nails. Most projects that were abandoned were terminated due to security concerns.
The Executive Summary of an IG report generated in 2007 is filled with the classic gobbledegook of bureaucratic politesse.
But nothing can blunt the incisive thrust of the figures.
There was one auditor detailed to the fund and 16 comptrollers.
This compares, according to the report, with the following commands, which operate stateside.
* U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 8 auditors, 64 comptrollers, $3.2 billion * U.S. Army Forces Command, 6 auditors, 47 comptrollers, $3.0 billion * U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armanments Command, 7 auditors, 45 comptrollers, $3.6 billion.
The IG report describes the way projects were abandoned in this way.
"Actions by the Command. According to the Comander, Multi- National Security Transition Command-Iraq, Command has already taken steps toward implementing the recommendations in this report. These steps include drafting a standard operating procedure for property accountability; partnering with the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence to develop a standard operating procedure to improve transfer and acceptance of real property; reviewing and correcting DD Forms 1354; setting up an accounting section to ensure accurate and timely oversight of accounting processes and documents; initiating an in-depth review of open obligations and commitments, which has already resulted in 950 documents being deobligated (freeing up $831 million); and working with Defense Finance and Accounting Service personnel to improve financial reporting, accounts payable, and cost accounting in the combat zone. We commend Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq for promptly taking these steps to implement the recommendations."
Apparently, guarding the border along the east-west border highway, Interstate 8 from Casa Grande to San Diego, is too great a task.
The Bureau of Land Management has erected signs warning motorists the route is not recommended for travel. Travelers are warned away from the area in the strongest terms because it is an "active drug and human smuggling area."
Congressman Ted Poe of Beaumont gave a speech on the subject in the well of the House of Representatives earlier in the summer.
Washington, D.C.--Conservative icon Glenn Beck and 2008 Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin stood in the same spot where Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his "I have a dream" speech 47 years ago and called for Americans to "return to God" in order to save America's honor.
A huge crowd approaching the permit limit of 300,000 allowed by U.S. Park Police assembled on the National Mall, their ranks stretching from the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the grassy knoll of the Washington Momument.
The audience, mostly white and apparently, to a huge percentage, members of the Tea Party, listened as the two ultr-conservative public figures praised the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a civil rights activist who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts fighting discrimination in housing, transportation, voting rights and employment.
The Rev. Al Sharpton protested the selection of the very anniversary of Dr. King's "I have a dream speech." His followers assembled at a high school and then the Reverend led them on a three-mile march to the Tidal Basin near the Mall.
He made fun of the white crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, saying they were the people who once looked at civil rights activists as troublemakers. "The folks who used to criticize us for marching are trying to have a march of their own."
Mr. Beck said the choice of dates for the restore honor rally was just a matter of "providence."
Almost all his remarks were of a religious nature.
Knowledgeable observers told news analysts that they feel the large turnout of Tea Party activists at the event shows the new element in conservatism will be able to swing the November elections.
Comanche Peak requirements for cooling water would drop lake level as much as 4 ft.
Two new reactors at Luminant's Comanche Peak nuclear power station at Glen Rose would take 33 billion gallons of water each year to cool.
Almost all the water would evaporate, but that which is saved would be added to the Brazos River downstream, bypassing Lake Granbury.
An environmental impact statement prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends approval of the new project, as well as the assent of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
That would result in Lake Granbury lake levels dropping by as much as 4 feet and an average elevation at Possum Kindom Lake to be 1.5 feet below where they are now, according to Save Lake Granbury.
"Last year on Lake Granbury the lake was 4 ft. lower because of drought conditions. With the additons of Comanche Peak 3 and 4 under those same conditions, the lake would actually be 6.5 feet lower. Some models are indicating that might actually be closer to 8 ft."
Estimates of as much as 12.8 feet lower water levels on Possum Kingdom Lake are indicated by computer models, according to Save Lake Granbury.
The organization insists that this is unacceptable, that the lake was marketed to property owners such as the Lake Granbury Waterfront Owners Assocation as a "constant level lake."
The developer of the lake, The Brazos River Authority, disagrees.
According to the Brazos River Authority, "The lake was built without use of tax dollars; having been financed entirely with revenues from sales of water by the Authority. The principal revenues used to finance the project are provided under a contract with TXU Electric Company for purchase of water for industrial use, including cooling water for a natural gas-fired steam electric power plant on the lake and the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant near Glen Rose."
Construction on the dam began in 1966 and H.B. Zachry finished work on it in 1969.
Since then, a sprawling recreational and retirement suburb of Ft. Worth has sprung up on the prairie around the lake.
Low water levels leave boats and docks high and dry, which causes homeowners in a bad economy to default on mortgages and move out. That has lowered the tax base to a point where those owners left behind are experiencing much higher taxes due to higher assessments on much higher appraisals.
Most property owners predict a slow and ignominous death of a booming economy in the area.
There will be a Town Hall meeting on Sept. 21 at Glen Rose for the public to make their views known.
According to statements made by Save Lake Granbury, water will be in high demand over the next 50 years.
Population growth will force an increase from the current 85,138 acre/ft. per year to 107,302 ft. A computer model shows that 25 percent of the lake's volume will decrease due to sedimentation.
"The additional use of water needed by the Comanche Peak Expansion from the Brazos River Basin would cause a historic impact on Lake Granbury," a statement from the protesters concludes. "All models indicate the lake would reach historic lows more often and would continue with longer periods of time...We believe there are alternatives for the Comanche Peak Expansion Project that would exempt the use of Lake Granbury water."
To read what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Brazos River Authority is ready to approve, click here:
The prosecutor, Roberto Jaime Suarez, disappeared last Wednesday, an apparent victim of kidnapping, according to U.S. officials of the Department of Homeland Security who were quoting local news media reports.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon vowed he will not back down in his efforts to contain the violence of drug cartels and the enforcement organizations they employ.
Speaking at a security conference, he said, "Violence will persist and even intensify."
President Calderon has more than doubled the federal budget for combating drug cartels with Mexican military troops from about $5 million in 2009 to $10 million in 2010. He has used funds supplied by the U.S. government.
The escalating violence has claimed the lives of more than 28,000 people during the 4-year crackdown.
The Zetas are a coalition of former Mexican Special Forces commandos trained by the U.S. Army. They mulitplied their earning capacity by hundreds upon hundreds of percent by deserting the Army and joining the drug kingpins.
A native of Ecuador, 18-year-old Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla said the killers demanded the migrants assist in carrying out assassinations. When they refused, they herded them into a grain barn and shot them all.
He was wounded in the neck and escaped to a road block commanded by Mexican Marines whom he guided to the scene of the killings.
McLennan County Commissioners to consider budget of $3 for JP Precinct 6
Chapter 7-A Mad Tea Party: The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree, directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears but his grin remains behind to float on its own in the air prompting Alice to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a grin without a cat. Alice becomes a guest at a "mad" tea party along with the "Mad Hatter," the "March Hare," and a sleeping "Dormouse " who remains asleep for most of the chapter. The other characters give Alice many riddles and stories. The Mad Hatter reveals that they have tea all day because time has punished him by eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever been to.
It's a tale of a courthouse war told so often it's worn grooves in the soft soap stone of the charming old double- domed Italianate-Beaux Arts building on the bluffs overlooking the banks of the Brazos. In the latest installment of the serial:
The McLennan County Commissioners' Court will meet at a budget hearing and be asked to consider a budget of $1 per month for the Justice Court Precinct No. 6, which was elim- inated in 2006.
PULL CORD TO STOP PRESS!
The purpose of this exercise?
To ensure compliance with The Texas Constitution, of course.
What else would one suspect?
Though the voters spoke at the ballot box 4 years ago in the general election to elect a Justice of the Peace in Precinct 6, the newly elected Judge was never allowed to take the bench because, in the interim, the Commissioners' Court acted to eliminate the precinct.
County Judge Jim Lewis refused to issue a certificate of election. Ergo, Randall Scott Gates was never allowed to assume his office and do business as the Justice of the Peace in the rural community of Moody in far southwestern McLennan County.
Without a budget, however, the Texas Constitution is slighted and the will of the voters frustrated, according to Mr. Gates. He has petitioned the Court to adopt a budget of $1 per month for the non-existent Court for the remaining three months of his elected term of office. Commission- ers will be asked to consider the item in the Budget hearing to be held on Aug. 31.
Our story so far:
At some point prior to the election season, the local Constable set up a radar speed detection surveillance program on State Highway 317 near the Moody Elementary School Zone.
Though constables are law enforcement officers, they by and large confine their duties to serving process for the Courts, standing by at evictions and public sales and the like. You rarely find them enforcing speed laws, except in rural Dallas County where the practice is a matter of some controversy.
Someone complained to County Road Commissioner Wendell Crunk and he admonished the gentleman of the law to desist, a warning that fell on deaf ears.
The shakeout, when it came, was radical, to say the least.
The Court voted to eliminate Precinct 6, but not until after the primary election, when Randall Scott Gates had been nominated as candidate for Justice of the Peace.
For the past four years, Mr. Gates has served as the Justice of the Non-Existent Precinct 6 Justice Court.
Unlike the England of 1865, when the Oxford churchman Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote his classic fantasy-satire about the intrigues of Court of the day under the psuedonym Lewis Carroll, Texans and Americans are under no constraint to conceal in fantasy or allegory the privileged comments they make about public officials. There is the landmark Supreme Court case to consider, Sullivan v. New York Times, in which the justices held that public officials are beyond the pale when it comes to considerations of libel.
As such, they are holding themselves out as public servants and are thus fair game for public comment, all of which is entirely privileged unless a plaintiff can prove that there was malicious intent on the part of the writer. To this day, no such rules apply in England.
Some of the legal rhetoric generated by the Precinct 6 controversy assumes the tenor of Mr. Dodgson's tale of illogic and madness exhibited by high public officials, aided and abetted by the likes of those twin political stalwarts, Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Considereth: the words of Mike Dixon, Esquire, the at- torneywho represented the Commissioners' Court in the matter before the 10th District Court of Appeals:
"Furthermore, since no certificate of election has been issued, it was improper for the Relator (Mr. Gates) to seek to qualify and assume the duties of office by filing a purported oath and bond with the County Clerk. Sect. 601.003 of the Texas Government Code...presumes that the person has been elected in the first instance.
"The only possible motive for the filing of these purported instruments is an attempt to convince the Court that the office actually exists. The Relator, however, cannot, in a defiant act akin to Napoleon Pope (?) taking the crown from Pope Pius VII and placing it on his own head, become a self- anointed justice of the peace merely by filing what purports to be an oath and bond that were not approved by the County Judge or the Commissioners' Court."
Of 1,560 votes cast, Randall Scott Gates received a slim majority of 4 votes.
According to "Art. V §18(c) creating Post-Redistricting Officials (which) was approved by the voters in 1983 to overturn that aspect of Ashmore," the office of Justice of the Peace, Precinct 6 exists to this day, according to an analysis of the amendment to the Texas Constitution approved by voters in 1983 and the legal situation regarding the elimination of Precinct 6, in an opinion authored by McLennan County District Attorney John Segrest.
"It was approved not out of fondness or fairness for the individual in a now abolished office, but to foster the interests of the people of the State. Thus, the public is defended from anyone who 'from time to time, for the convenience of the people,' redraws lines eliminating a Justice of the Peace here and a constable there, which would in effect disenfranchise the voters of an abolished or redrawn precinct who did not have the opportunity to vote for their inherited officials. 'From time to time, for the convenience of the people,' redistricting may appear to override the will of the voters or change the outcome of elections."
He went on to say that voters could just as easily have re- jected the measure and a controlling opinion in a previous court case would have remained in force. Such is not the case, he noted.
The 10th Court denied the petition of Mr. Gates seeking mandamus relief that would have allowed him to take office. The Court did not issue an opinion en banc.
In a dissenting statement, Chief Justice Tom Gray wrote that the election by the people takes precedent over the refusal to issue a certificate of election by the Commissioners' Court.
The Texas Supreme Court heard the resulting appeal, but neglected to issue an opinion, one way or the other.
Hence, the move afoot to adopt a budget of $1 per month for the "non-existent" justice court in the precinct eliminated by the Commissioners' Court. To fail to do so would circumvent the will of the people who approved the Texas Constitution and its amendments.
Look out, kid, they keep it all hid...Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," ca. 1965
Consider the preamble of the Texas Open Records Act.
Sec. 552.001. POLICY; CONSTRUCTION. (a) Under the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government that adheres to the principle that government is the servant and not the master of the people, it is the policy of this state that each person is entitled, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. The provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to implement this policy. (b) This chapter shall be liberally construed in favor of granting a request for information.
Waco -- There is a fundamental schism between the basic assumption of the law and those who have custody of the public record.
A highly valued associate of The Legendary came close to being accused of a serious crime by a hypervigilant Deputy District Clerk in the McLennan County Courthouse one day this past week.
R.S. Gates, a veteran narcotics detective, jailer and crime scene investigator, was busy accessing public records at a bank of computer terminals in a third floor corridor of the Courthouse Annex building just outside the door of the clerk's office. These computer terminals are intended for public use and are there to help people find and access legal instruments filed in the system and are therefore part of the public record.
District Clerk Karen Matkin approached Mr. Gates and said a staff member had observed him loading computer files onto his laptop computer with an external "thumb drive."
Mr. Gates assured Ms. Matkin that the allegation was not true, that he was merely looking for corroborative information to help him locate the instruments which he sought.
They visited in her office a few minutes later and he assured her that he is aware that there are various grades of an offense under the Texas Penal Code that declares it an offense to seek unauthorized access to an electronic network. In cases where it is proven that the actor benefited by $200,000 or more, it is a grade "A" felony to do so.
The law is clearly stated at Section 33.02 of the Texas Penal Code.
Sec. 33.02. BREACH OF COMPUTER SECURITY. (a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly accesses a computer, computer network, or computer system without the effective consent of the owner...
The fundamental question is, then, just who owns those records?
I think we all know the answer to that one. After all, the Texas Open Records law clearly refers to all officials so charged as the legal "custodian of records."
Happily, they were able to straighten out a misunderstanding, but the truth is that a very basic violation of a much more ancient and important law took place there.
Moses, the prophet and law giver, the only human being ever documented to have actually seen the face of God, is credited with handing down ten commandents that deal not with God's guidance as to how people should deal with Yahweh, but how they should treat each other.
High on the list is the commandment that "Thou shalt not bear false witness..."
Most of what is found in any codification of criminal law and civil regulation is predicated on the basic assumption that people will be decent in their behavior toward one another, hence all the various degrees of the laws against killing, stealing, lying, and the like.
The Legendary has had negative experiences with the system of looking up public documents in the Clerk's office.
For one thing, the system is expensive. I was charged $8.06 simply to learn the cause number of a criminal action against an individual charged with 8 counts of forcible rape of a little girl younger than 14 and a single count of continuous sexual abuse of the same person.
Without that cause number, the number of the criminal or civil complaint entered at the top of all pleadings, it is impossible to go any further in the system. And yet, who is the custodian of records of those cause numbers?
Having given my credit card number by phone, I was unable to obtain any further information when I showed up in person because the deputy clerk steadily ignored me as I stood at the counter attempting to get the information for which I had paid.
For the sum of $8.06, I was able to learn, exactly, nothing.
Stings.
Makes a certain impression on a boy of Scots-Irish extraction.
At the McLennan County Sheriff's Department, records clerks charge the sum of $10 per minute if information technologists are required to do electronic searches for information that is, ostensibly, part of the public record.
Now, it is impossible to write with any intelligence or clarity about a legal action in the absence of basic information about the allegations of complaint, of jurisdiction, and the actual pleadings of defense and prosecution counsel before the Court.
What's more, some members of the public seem to be more equal than others. Brand X grub street journalists such as The Legendary and associates are considered to not be full fledged members of the media, as are those who represent more main stream publishers and broadcasters.
The sad truth is this. Alternative means of communication by internet broadcast over satellite transmission, cable or telephone connections are fast outstripping more traditional means of publishing information. Anyone can carry a broadcasting station around in a briefcase, and people do just that.
I am reminded of an observation of Dr. Marshal McLuhan in his seminal work, "Understanding Media." He said that in the Soviet Union, every public official had a telephone on the desk. The truth was much more complex than initial appearances would indicate, however. Unless that public official wished to have his phone number known, it was impossible to obtain it and use it to establish communications, because at the time there were no phone directories published in that prison society, nor were there directory assistance operators!
Therefore, people had no telephonic access to their public officials.
Interesting - dreary, dull, depressing, humdrum and a total humbug - but, nevertheless, it is all very interesting.
Crime victims, police upset at release of violent offender
Robinson -- Excel Motors is not an impressive place of business. Tucked in a weedy gravel lot at the side of Robinson Road, near the intersection of Moonlight on the
edge of town, it's easy to pass it up without noticing the used car lot.
On August 2, two men arrived in a car and one of them, a black man named Steven Ray Johnson, 41, allegedly approached Mr. RayEasley, owner of the establishment and stabbed and slashed him so badly he spent the next week in the hospital - three of them in intensive care - according to an elderly lady who stands by there when he is not at his place of business.
Mr. Johnson was reportedly trying to wash Mr. Easley's blood from his hands and clothing as they escaped in the car in which they arrived with a bag containing keys to the cars on the lot, having obtained no money and no car in which to escape.
Mr. Easley's assistant said he was not there, that he was out running errands in town and that if he chose to speak with anyone from the media, he would.
She was visibly upset, angered when informed that Mr. Johnson was released from the McLennan County Jail on a personal recognizance bond after a four-day sojourn by Jail
Magistrate Raymond Britton.
"We've been told not to talk with anyone about this because it's an ongoing investigation," she said, referring all inquiries to the Robinson Police Department.
"Besides, it is none of your business," she said, asking The Legendary to leave the property.
At the Robinson Police Department, records clerks were just as adamant. They said they could release no information about the attempted capital murder of Mr. Easley for which Mr. Johnson was charged.
They directed The Legendary to fill out a Public Information request "so we can check into it and see if it's anything we can release."
The lady called for the Lieutenant in charge of Criminal Investigations, a man with a shaved skull and a very reddened face, who shouted through the glass partition of the office that "The matter is part of a continuing investigation and I will not discuss it with you!"
Informed that Mr. Johnson had been released on his personal recognizance in lieu of a $100,000 lien to be levied against his property and chattels if he fails to appear in court, he became visibly upset and shouted even more loudly.
"I'm not going to argue with you!"
The thing is, no one was arguing with him. The Legendary was speaking to him as a neighbor, nothing more, or less.
The awful truth is, all the posturing and anger in the world will not buy any of The People of the State Of Texas one shred of peace and dignity, law and order, safety and security - any more than that which they may be able to provide for themselves.
It is a known fact that police agencies are under no legal obligation to protect the public. Their weapons are for their own protection, no one else's.
One may easily imagine the frustration of a professional police officer seeing two allegedly violent offenders released during the same seven-day period with no exchange of cash money to secure their return.
Jailers released Robinson karate instructor Danny Passmore last Friday. He had been held since late May on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child. District Attorney John Segrest declined to prosecute him in the absence of further physical evidence from the DNA analysis laboratory of the Department of Public Safety at Austin. The DA had declined to present the case to a McLennan County Grand Jury, which triggered the need to release the alleged child rapist due to a delay in prosecution of more than 90 days.
Scrutiny of jail records for Thursday, August 26, show that several others accused of serious felonies were released, either on their personal recognizance by McLennan County judges, or by a letter from the DA declining prosecution during that one 24-hour period.
Goldie Dukes, 39, was released on a personal recognizance bond by 54th District Judge Matt Johnson on charges of evading arrest and robbery after the DA refused charges of robbery, evading arrest, theft of property and interfering with an emergency call.
Corey Hutchinson, 28, was released when the DA refused the charge, after an arrest for violation of a protective order for which he had been held under $50,000 bond.
Delvin Pope was released after the DA refused the charge of failure to stop and render aid. He was arrested and held on $5,000 bond.
Felipe Alvarez, 30, was released by Judge Britton on personal recognizance following an arrest for DWI for which he had been held on $10,000 bond.
State Republican Chairman Steve Munisteri alleged at a Waco press conference yesterday that State Representative Jim Dunnam is not actually eligible to hold his District 57 seat because he has lived since the redistricting of 2001 in what was then Representative Kip Averitt's and is now Representative Doc Anderson's 56th District, which is entirely within the bounds of McLennan County.
"The fact is that state Rep. Jim Dunnam does not live among the people of District 57," Mr. Munisteri said. The Waco Democrat "chooses not to live among the very people he purports to represent. Even worse, he is dishonest about it."
After the district was gerrymandered, warped, woofed, massaged and bowdlerized into a snaky shape that rambles across McLennan, Falls, Leon, Robertson and Madison
Counties in 2001,Mr. Dunnam built a place in Chilton,
where he takes ahomestead exemption.
He kept his place near McGregor so his kids could continue to attend school where they started their education.
"My wife and I decided that we weren't going to uproot the kids," Mr. Dunnam said. "They had spent their whole career in the same (Midway) public school district. We sat down and we said we're not going to move our kids and so we were going to maintain something so they they could go to school where they'd always gone to school. "There's no hiding anything about it. Everybody's known about it for a long time."
When a Republican-dominated legislative committee redrew the 57th District in 2001, a panel of three federal judges upheld the new shape of things to come. The redistricting had been accomplished by John Cornyn, who was then Attorney General, Land Commissioner David Dewhurst and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, comptroller, who was then named Carole Keeton Rylander. Mr. Dunnam was one of 27 Democratic incumbents who got a whole new district following the census of 2000. He has represented the 57th District since 1996.
The following year, the Republicans took over the legislature, going from a number in the low seventies to a majority in the high eighties.
Retired construction executive Marva Beck, who ranches near Centerville in Leon County, is Mr. Dunnam's opposition in the general election.
The Secretary of State ruled at the time that though he was indeed a registerd voter in Prince William County at Manassas, it was always Senator Birdwell's clear intention to return to his native Texas, where he had bought property at Granbury to build a new home.
When Senator Birdwell won the runoff contest and became the default Senator to replace Senator Kip Averitt during his unexpired term, the County Republican Chairmen in the 10- county Senate District 22 nominated him to stand for the general election in November.
The justices declined, siding with the same opinion previously held by the Secretary of State. Mr. Cullum withdrew his nomination last week, saying he prefers to allow Democratic candidates to collect campaign contributions and thereby increase their chances of election to office.
GOP officials said they plan no litigation on behalf of Ms. Beck in this contest. They prefer to let the voters make the decision of who is elibible to fill the slot in Representative District 57. Mr. Dunnam is the current
Cases of illegal aliens who are not violent, a threat to national security, and are related to a legal resident, receive top priority, according to a memo written by Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Joe Morton.
Victims of trafficking in humans also receive amnesty, according to published reports. Some 2,500 cases in Houston have been culled over the past month.
Edwards lagging behind Flores in TV ads, which started today
Bryan -- Strolling through a machine shop, Bill Flores appeared in a 30-second television ad today saying jobs are created in the work place, not in government programs in Washington, D.C.
The campaign of Representative Chet Edwards has not started to show advertisements on television or in print media.
A voice-over announcement reminds viewers in the markets of Waco and Bryan-College Station that the Republican challenger led the 10-term Democratic veteran in a scientific poll conducted by the Washington firm of On Message, Inc., by a dozen points in May.
The announcer points out that "Edwards, who isn't releasing his own survey, remains confident he can turn the contest from a referendum on President Barack Obama and national atmospherics into a chioice between the two candidates."
Reached for comment, Bill Flores campaign manager Matt Mackowiak said he would not discuss results of recent polls, but added that "We're very encouraged with internal polling."
The net effect will be to force people to change their prescription drug plan, even though they may like the one they have and want to stick with it.
According to a consulting firm working for the government, about 3 million seniors will face having to change plans.
It's a heady risk to take in an election year, say the nation's policy experts. Republican office seekers and incumbents have made a lot of political hay over the issue, pointing out the fact that seniors were promised they could keep their health care plans, even though the Health Care Reform Act squeaked through Congress with the narrowest of margins.
Medicare managers are seeking to consolidate some 40 different plans now available in each state. Their goal is to reduce this number to about 30.
"Some opponents of the law may say that this is taking away choices, but we have heard from our members for years that the (drug coverage) options can be confusing," said Nora Super, AARP's top health care lobbyist.
Nationwide, there are about 1,600 separate plans, many of them nearly identical.
A new estimate by Avalere, the consulting firm hired by the government to make recommendations, could result in a hassle for seniors who had planned to keep the same plan during the open enrollment season this fall, according to Bonnie Washington, a senior analyst with the firm.
He told Mexican Marines manning the outpost that he had just come from a nearby ranch where gunmen from the feared Zetas enforcer wing of the drug cartels had killed a large number of people and buried them in a mass grave.
The wounded man told the road block guards that the Zetas had kidnapped him and other migrants as they made their way to the border in the northeastern border state, took them to the ranch in San Fernando, and killed them.
Washington, D.C. -- In a game familiar to all sides, President Barack Obama had Secretary of State Hilary Clinton invite the players for yet another round of Arab-Israeli peace talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will arrive around the first of the month for one-on-one meetings with the President and aceremonial summit billed as another attempt to hammer out differences over Israeli expansion into Palestinian territory, new Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, and an end to the need for Palestinian smuggling in the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Netanyahu not only welcomed the talks, he issued a statement remarking "the American clarification that the talks would be without preconditions."
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told media outlets that the guidelines laid down for the talks are "doable," that "It's time for decisions."
A product of a high stakes gamble by the so-called "Quartet," a special team of negotiators from the U.S., The European Union, Russia and the United Nations, the scenario is nothing new to international observers, whose reactions have been flat in spite of the media hyperbole surrounding the announcement.
"Mutual fear is the foundation of peace among enemies," according to the veteran intelligence expert who writes a regular report on hot spots for the private information service based in Austin.
Unlike the time when U.S. President Jimmy Carter brokered a peace accord between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, in this case there is no real impetus for results.
Following the 1973 war, "Both Egypt and Israel were shocked and afraid," he wrote this week. "The uncertainty of the future sobers both sides."
In this war of words, he added, "But the United States wants a peace process, preferably a long one designed to put off the day when it fails."
He's not alone in his skepticism.
Critical thinkers point out that Mr. Abbas is "only in control of one half of the Palestinian territories, following the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the Islamist Hamas group in 2007," said a report from "The Financial Times."
Besides, FT's Jerusalem Correspondent Tobias Buck pointed out, "...the chief Palestinian negotiator has already warned that the Palestinians will pull out of the new talks if the Israeli government announces further settlement building..."
"But I ask the parties to persevere...to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region."
It's more like a just and lasting round of peace talks, according to veteran international observers in arms production, petroleum drilling, transportation and private security services.
The story goes like this.
The Israeli right is pressing to resume settlement building in Palestinian strongholds. The deadline on the moratorium is fast approaching.
This brings the traditional balance of power into play.
It's common knowledge that pro-Western republics such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria and Egypt are publicly hostile to Israeli and American sentiments while at the same time they depend for survival against an onslaught of radical Islamic aggression from such rogue states as Iraq and Iran on the hegemony of American and Israeli military might and nuclear weapons capabilities.
Hence, the long, drawn-out peace talk process has its advantages for all sides.
In a world of many flags unfurled and a constant racket of clattering, clashing sabers, the prospects of peace talks well underway by late September is a refreshing change to what looks to be a long, hot detente filled with brush fire wars and flare-ups.
Two 4-star Generals heap praise on Congressman's record
Representative Chet Edwards praised the military families of America in remarks before approximately 100 veterans today in Clifton.
He said he is only a partner with veterans, voters and military people in making the Armed Forces good at what they do.
Two past commanding generals of Ft. Hood, Pete Taylor and Tom Schwartz, told the gathered veterans he's the best man they know on Capitol Hill when the military needs help.
Said Gen. Schwartz. "There are a lot of us out here who would like to be a lot more like you."
He said Chet Edwards helped the Army in its struggle to keep from being cut to as little as 8 divisions from a high of 16, then 12.
When it comes to base housing, military families owe Congressman Edwards a debt of gratitude, the General said.
"Chet Edwards is a combat Congressman. He's had to go across the aisle to ask for things from the other side."
Here are some of his accomplishments, according to the two veteran general officers.
He has doubled the budget for post traumatic stress disorder treatment, saved the Waco VA Medical Center from certain closure, added 10,000 new claims processors in the VA system and funded 92 new Vet Centers for returning combat veterans.
Catherine Henson, a veteran of the Women's Army Corps and former State Commander of the DAV, said "It would be an American tragedy if he were not sent back to Congress." She criticized Bill Flores for suggesting that wounded veterans should be treated at the Army hospitals and non-service connected veterans should get their care from private health providers.
"They can't handle what they've got now," Mrs. Henson said.
With all due humility, Rep. Edwards said, "I didn't do any of those things by myself; I'm just a partner in it."
He recalled how the John David Fry Scholarship Fund came to be funded by Congress.
Gunnery Sergeant Fry was a bomb disposal technician in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was just one week away from coming home from Iraq when he volunteered to disarm three Improvised Explosive Device bombs on a road during the hottest period of the war.
Ater he disarmed the first two, he lost his life when he worked on the third, which was wired to a fourth, concealed bomb under the surface of the ground.
He recalled re-dedicating the U.S. Post Office in Gunny Fry's home town of Lorena.
"I looked at his three kids and his widow, and I thought, 'I'd like to be able to do something more in his memory.'"
The reality today is that any son or daughter of a veteran who lost his or her life in combat receives an all-expenses- paid scholarship to a college or university. Period.
There were no dry eyes in the house as he told that part of Gunny Fry's story.
When it comes to improving housing for soldiers, sailors and Marines, he said, "I don't find many lobbyists knocking on my door seeking funds for that purpose."
The House Subcommittee for Appropriations he chairs rides herd on the VA and Military Construction.
"It's about respect," he said. It's about respect for the men and women who do "America's number one job and that's protecting us from our enemies."
Temple - A man arrested in Bell County for continuous domestic
