BREAKING NEWS!!
Check these latest tweets:
Rebecca Elliott @rfelliott 1h1 hour ago
With endorsement of > 50% of precinct chairs, looks like @RodneyEllis is likely the next Precinct 1 commissioner.
Kris Banks @KrisBanks 17m17 minutes ago Houston, TX
Game over. @RodneyEllis has the votes to win outright next week #hounews http://ellisforcommissioner.com/2016/06/sixty-five-precinct-one-precinct-chairs-endorse-rodney-ellis-for-commissioner/ …
I don’t know if the game is over. The problem I have with this is that the names are now public and it gives the incumbent Commissioner Gene Locke the opportunity to win them over via the incumbency. Plus, folks can always change their minds so I don’t know if victory laps are in order.
OK, who leads the ‘Stros in RBIs this morning?
Some in the GOP criticize the President for refusing to use the term “radical Islam” when talking about ISIL. Like it is some sort of abracadabra phrase that is going to make ISIL go away. Donald Trump is making this issue a big part of his campaign against Secretary Hillary Clinton.
Yesterday, the President decided enough is enough and on live national TV with a four-star Marine general standing beside him tore a new one into Trump. It was absolutely epic. You need to check it out on CNN or wherever you can find it. Here are parts:
And let me make a final point. For a while now, the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize this administration and me for not using the phrase “radical Islam.” That’s the key, they tell us — we can’t beat ISIL unless we call them “radical Islamists.” What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction. Since before I was President, I’ve been clear about how extremist groups have perverted Islam to justify terrorism. As President, I have repeatedly called on our Muslim friends and allies at home and around the world to work with us to reject this twisted interpretation of one of the world’s great religions.
There has not been a moment in my seven and a half years as President where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn’t use the label “radical Islam.” Not once has an advisor of mine said, man, if we really use that phrase, we’re going to turn this whole thing around. Not once. So if someone seriously thinks that we don’t know who we’re fighting, if there’s anyone out there who thinks we’re confused about who our enemies are, that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists who we’ve taken off the battlefield.
If the implication is that those of us up here and the thousands of people around the country and around the world who are working to defeat ISIL aren’t taking the fight seriously, that would come as a surprise to those who have spent these last seven and a half years dismantling al Qaeda in the FATA, for example — including the men and women in uniform who put their lives at risk and the Special Forces that I ordered to get bin Laden and are now on the ground in Iraq and in Syria. They know full well who the enemy is. So do the intelligence and law enforcement officers who spend countless hours disrupting plots and protecting all Americans, including politicians who tweet and appear on cable news shows. They know who the nature of the enemy is.
So there’s no magic to the phrase “radical Islam.” It’s a political talking point; it’s not a strategy. And the reason I am careful about how I describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with actually defeating extremism. Groups like ISIL and al Qaeda want to make this war a war between Islam and America, or between Islam and the West. They want to claim that they are the true leaders of over a billion Muslims around the world who reject their crazy notions. They want us to validate them by implying that they speak for those billion-plus people; that they speak for Islam. That’s their propaganda. That’s how they recruit. And if we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion — then we’re doing the terrorists’ work for them.
Now, up until this point, this argument about labels has mostly just been partisan rhetoric. And, sadly, we’ve all become accustomed to that kind of partisanship, even when it involves the fight against these extremist groups. And that kind of yapping has not prevented folks across government from doing their jobs, from sacrificing and working really hard to protect the American people.
But we are now seeing how dangerous this kind of mindset and this kind of thinking can be. We’re starting to see where this kind of rhetoric and loose talk and sloppiness about who exactly we’re fighting, where this can lead us. We now have proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States to bar all Muslims from emigrating to America. We hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests that entire religious communities are complicit in violence. Where does this stop? The Orlando killer, one of the San Bernardino killers, the Fort Hood killer — they were all U.S. citizens.
Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently? Are we going to start subjecting them to special surveillance? Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith? We’ve heard these suggestions during the course of this campaign. Do Republican officials actually agree with this?
Here is the entire statement from the President: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/14/remarks-president-after-counter-isil-meeting.
A lot of GOP officials actually don’t agree with Trump. The U.S. House Speaker and the GOP Senate Majority Leader both ran for cover when asked about Trump’s latest remarks. Same for a number of leading GOP U.S. Senators.
Who is advising Trump? Or is he just ignoring his advisors and going rogue? The latest Bloomberg poll has him behind Hillary by 12 points – 49 to 37. Is that going to serve as a wake-up call or is he just going to double down on the President and Hillary?
By his own doing, he is starting to make the GOP Convention in Cleveland a lot more interesting. Here is a front page story from today’s Chron on a possible revolt by delegates. Here is how it starts:
Growing conservative unease with Donald Trump’s outspoken pronouncements on race and a host of other hot-button issues is giving life to a fledgling movement to throw open the Republican convention to rein in the presumptive nominee or find an alternative general election candidate.
Here is the entire article: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/us/article/Cruz-backers-among-GOP-activists-looking-for-8146033.php?cmpid=btfpm.
Bill King was the only candidate to talk about this last year. Here is from a Mike Morris article also on the front page of the Chron:
Years of Houston’s cracked, clogged or flooded sewer pipes belching raw waste into residents’ yards and city streets have City Hall facing a federal decree that sources say could force the city to invest $5 billion in upgrades.
Here is the entire Morris article: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Massive-city-sewer-struggles-will-mean-higher-8137024.php?cmpid=btfpm.
Oh, well.
It looks like the HCC Trustees are going to censure one of their own – Dave Wilson. Here is from the Chron:
HCC Board Chair Adriana Tamez, who is leading the effort to censure Wilson, said the move “has been a long time coming.”
Wilson asked for it if you ask me.
It looks like UH and the Judge Roy Hofheinz family worked everything out. Again, go check out your Chron for the details.
Jose Altuve and George Springer each have 38 RBIs to lead the team of course.
This is a good read on the A’s Pride Night in Oakland last night: http://m.athletics.mlb.com/news/article/184035318/as-pride-night-takes-on-greater-significance.
It was a good win last night in San Luis. We are 7-6 in June and 31-35 overall and still 9 ½ out.
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