Twenty-one vie for appointment to bench; only one of them ever elected to serve as a judge...

The McLennan County Courthouse during Reconstruction 

By The Legendary Jim Parks

They removed a constable when they could have deferred to the voters.


They gave voters elected officials they were not allowed to vote for.


They prevented the person elected taking office.


They refused to appoint the person elected by the people to fill the vacancy.


They made a job for the guy who the people fired at the polls.


Two down, one to go! - Anonymous

When Randall Scott Gates won a seat on the Precinct 6 Justice of the Peace bench in the elections of 2006, he saw all his hard work and worn-out shoe leather go down the drain to politics.

Plain and simple.

County Judge Jim Lewis would not canvass the vote, and he would not issue a certificate of election. Gates could get no justice from the court system. He finally ran out of bullets and gave up. (Click here)

Mr. Gates, a veteran peace officer with experience in narcotics, crime scene investigation, and all around detective work, sat out his elected term of office from 2006 until 2010. He also did a creditable and credible job of chairing the board of the McLennan County Employees' Credit Union.

But he stayed busy. As a co-founder of the Waco Tea Party, he raised much hell about the way good old boy politics nullifies the will of the people, quashes their votes, overcharges them for what they get, and results in not much, if any law and order, peace and security. 

Six years later, three judges are gone from their offices – all of them resigned – and the tax collector is doing time in a State Felony Jail. They have been replaced by appointment of the Commissioners Court.

Hmmm. Reckon that's just  how they do these things at Six Shooter Junction, or, that is, Jerusalem-on-the-Brazos.

For his troubles, Mr. Gates has been banished from both the Tea Party and the Blue Collar Republican Club. He is self-employed, driving anywhere from Cleburne to Aggieland and Ostentatious to install and repair new printers, computers and other gee gaws that help big box stores and other commercial establishments keep track of their accounts.(click)

But he's still a Scoutmaster, a member of the Moody Library Board, and a social media journalist.

There is a point to this rant.

Gates is the only one of the 21 candidates for appointment who has actually written probable cause affidavits for search of premises, and the arrest of the actors upon whom he has developed information to present to a Grand Jury and obtain a conviction.

He knows what he's looking for in a warrant, and he actually enjoys reading them. It's his profession, you see. (Click here for a story he helped develop on the subject.)

He also understands the intricacies of bench warrants, blue warrants, the likelihood of accused criminals to abscond, and the common sense mechanics that weigh on a decision as to how to place bail amounts on offenders by judging their past criminal history and the likelihood they are wanted to answer for other offenses allegedly committed in other jurisdictions. (click here for a report on the matter, information assembled by Gates)

He drove that old gas hog squad car with a mobile data terminal riding shotgun for a number of years. Knows the drill.

(Click here for another story in a series for which Gates developed the information through public information act requests – the kind that drive public officials crazy as hoot owls)

As Nicolo Machivelli once wrote, you should never do an injury to man unless it is so devastating that he can never truly recover from it.

This old boy is alive and kicking, meaner than ever, and raring to go. He's got another bad habit. He just won't tolerate ceramics in the dialect of high glaze. Tells it like it is.

I'm just saying.

And I can't wait for the vicious, the lame, the just plumb plug ugly and ignorant to get started with their little rant.

You all can be replaced, too, even if you are all named Anonymous and have a lot of kinfolks. There is never a shortage of professional mourners, y'unnastan'? 

Besides, Steve Munisteri and Ted Cruz got quoted in "The New Yorker" saying either the Republican Party goes for the Hispanic vote, or it becomes as much of a rump party, trumped like the GOP in California, as the Whigs became in their day. 

C'est la guerre... - The Legendary

The names of the other applicants:

(According to the Lib Trib, the people up at the Courthouse were having a very busy day and just hadn't had time to gather the information on who these folks really are. Uh, yeah, right.)

Walter H. “Pete” Peterson

Judson Griffis

William F. “Fred” Brown

Angel de J. Gavito

Nina Patterson

John E. Fugate

Jose R. Villanueva

Denton B. Lessman

Sandra Michell

Gerald Villarrial

Doyle Young

Paul Wash

Jarred Hankhouse

Tony Uzzell

William Patrick Jones

Gary William Cunha

Bryan Henson

Joshua Tetens

Galen B. Edwards

R.S. Gates

Joel Douglas Froneberger

Good luck, folks...