Collin County Politics: VOTE EARLY!!

October 25, 2022

Covid Update: Collin County has 259,543 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 1,180 more cases than I reported last week and 1,565 of our Collin residents have died (5 additional deaths). Our transmission remains Low yet the number of cases increased. This may be indicative of the surge we could see this winter. I know we don’t want to go back to wearing masks and social distancing but experts are encouraging people to get the new vaccine and practice the same preventative measures we did at the beginning of the pandemic. Better safe than sorry!

ICYMI: I’ve written about this before but it’s essential that everyone realizes two things about reproductive healthcare in Texas: (1) the abortion ban is putting women’s lives at risk; and (2) the media isn’t covering it as much as they should. Many people are unaware that the abortion ban is affecting women suffering a miscarriage, women needing medication for severe conditions that have nothing to do with pregnancy, and conditions threatening the life of the mother in addition to those not wanting to become mothers at all. It’s horrific and the people in charge know this. It’s not for nothing that they’re delaying the maternal mortality report until after the election. The Dallas Morning News recently covered an incomplete miscarriage that went bad. The woman’s health had to deteriorate so badly before they could help her that she almost died and now isn’t sure if it’s permanently affected her ability to get pregnant. Seriously: is this what we want for Texas women?

It isn’t just healthcare that’s broken; it’s our courts too. I recently was watching a TV show in which a plot centered around judges being threatened to rule a certain way. I told my husband I no longer wanted to watch the show because having a corrupt judiciary was too much. If we don’t have the courts, we don’t have anything. Those words were still hanging in the air when I sat down to read D Magazine‘s article entitled “The Most Lawless County in Texas.” Just to be clear, the article is referencing Collin County and you should read it. After I finished, I realized the TV show’s plot had nothing on Collin County. We are lost.

The article covered the election of Suzanne Wooten to judge, the trial that convicted her of bribery (and robbed her of her judgeship), and Collin County recently paying her $600,000 for abuse of power and malicious prosecution. If you ask me, the county got off cheap and the men involved should’ve been penalized a lot more. What happened to Judge Wooten, her 3 fellow defendants, and the people of Collin County (who deserve better than what we’ve got) is mind-blowing and terrible. I honestly don’t know what to say anymore. We have got to oust the Republicans because many of them are truly evil.

Speaking of evil, the DMN just published an article on the many indictments, investigations, and scandals of Felonious Punk Ken Paxton. While I would prefer the right-leaning newspaper reach for greater journalistic objectivity and not interview Punk’s friends, for them, the article was a hit piece. It’s no wonder people outside of Texas think we’re crazy. Our Attorney General, our “top cop” if you will, should be beyond reproach. Instead, we have a criminal who, inexplicably, keeps getting away with it. For Punk and his wife, crime truly does pay! And Republicans being the party of “law and order” is a joke.

Education: It’s so weird that the “party of limited government” (a phrase the DMN used in their ridiculously stupid endorsement of Greg Abbott) is the one asking parents to turn over private information about their children. Instead of actually doing anything about the gun crisis plaguing our state, the TEA is distributing DNA and fingerprint identification kits to parents in case they need to provide their child’s DNA to law enforcement. That sounds great! Although this information is supposed to be secure, it’s done in conjunction with the FBI. I’m sure there’s no possibility at all of a breach or for law enforcement to use that information inappropriately. Since providing that information is voluntary, I’d urge everyone to give it a miss.

While we’re on the topic of guns: Abbott and his cowardly cronies insist on avoiding the real problem, instead preferring to “harden” campuses (sure, that’s worked so far) and have actor Chuck Norris promote the state’s suspicious activity reporting system, iWatch Texas. I feel incredibly confident this won’t be misused to racially profile people. Beto (as usual) totally nailed the situation: “More school shootings in our state than in any other. More police officers gunned down here than in any other state. More Texans shot to death each year that Abbott has been governor. Inaction won’t change this. We must win and take commonsense steps to reduce gun violence.” BTW, Beto said this BEFORE the two nurses were shot. Do you want to know why they were shot? Because the dude (it’s almost always a man) had a handgun. In the hospital! He was there for the birth of his child and accused his girlfriend of cheating. Yes, the one who’d just given birth. He hit her with the gun several times and fired on the 2 nurses there to help take care of his family. How heartwarming! There will be more stories like this if Republicans remain in power. Count on it.

The other information Texas schools want parents to disclose is menstrual cycle information (When was your first menstrual period? When was your most recent? How many periods have you had in the past year?) for girls wanting to play middle and high school sports. Except for some rare medical conditions, information about a student’s menstrual cycle is not relevant to coaches. Yet that’s what girls are being asked to provide. This can be dangerous. In a state increasingly hostile to women, this information (uploaded to a third-party vendor) could be seen by people who might be willing to out transgender girls and keep track of girls’ periods. This is unconscionable. Some ethical parents in Florida have raised medical privacy concerns about handing over this information. Ethical parents in Texas should do the same.

Commissioners Court: Susan Fletcher was probably glad she chose not to attend their 37-minute meeting on October 17th. The business component of the meeting was filled with boring public hearings on a thoroughfare revision in Lavon and plat divisions in ETJs. However, Josh Murray (much to their displeasure I’m sure) showed up to point out that they need to make certain Animal Control and the Sheriff’s Department can handle the increase in services needed to accommodate that growth. Hill asked Bill Bilyeu, the county supervisor, to look into the Animal Control issue. If anyone thinks Bilyeu will do anything to serve resident interests instead of Hill’s, disabuse yourself of that notion. Similarly, Hill asked the Chief Deputy of the Sheriff’s Department had any objection to the re-platting. Looking like a deer in headlights, he said no.

Per usual, the Public Comments were the most interesting and informative part of the meeting. Sabrina Tipton, a Public Information Officer from the SBA, showed up to give everyone information about a federal program helping people recover from natural disasters. If people or businesses can show physical or economic damage from the August 22-25 storm, they’re eligible to apply for assistance from this program. That’s good to know! If we had a functioning commissioner’s court, I’d instruct people to find that information on their website. But since we have what we’ve got, I recommend googling it instead.

Judy Dishong referenced her comments from last week when she asked when the results of the partisan audit were going to be released. Hill told her they couldn’t help because the Secretary of State is in charge. Judy rightfully pointed out that the commissioner’s court is in charge of local elections and should care about letting people know whether our elections are secure because it’s such a vital issue for our democracy. Damn straight! I love Judy’s tenacity. She talked with a reporter who finally got the Secretary of State to admit that the results will be released in December. Judy doesn’t believe this is sufficient. Neither do I. Hill told Judy that he was pleased she got the information about when the results will be released. Sure he is. Umm….since he’s in charge of our elections, shouldn’t HE have been the one to determine when the audit results will be released? This is just one more example of how none of them actually do their jobs.

Josh Murray also recalled his remarks from the last meeting about the Court voting to provide $200,000 of taxpayer money toward renovations for the CD3 representative should it be Keith Self. Apparently, Hill ordered the constable to remove Josh from the courtroom when he tried to answer some of Hill’s ridiculous assertions and then called Josh a liar in front of county staff. Sheesh! If Hill can’t handle conflict, perhaps he shouldn’t be a politician. It’s clear that he hasn’t had anyone truly oppose him before because he has no idea how to respond. Josh said that he didn’t lie about anything but Hill is clearly uninformed about how commercial real estate works. He pointed out that Self (should he win) would benefit from that $200,000 upgrade off of taxpayer money. He told them that if they want to be landlords, they should find the best tenant. He then calls out the other commissioners by saying, if they believe this might be a conflict of interest (given Self donating to Hill’s campaign), that they move to add this item to a future agenda where Hill can explain himself. LOL! There wasn’t a chance any of these sheep would go against Hill like that. I truly don’t understand what kind of hold he has on them.

Hill’s a big coward and a do-nothing. He refused to debate Josh and the one forum they attended simultaneously was held at the Prestonwood Baptist Church where they got asked questions about their faith journeys. That’s wildly inappropriate and terrible for democracy but, just as Republicans do for everything bad they do in this state, they get away with it. Despite being in friendly territory, Hill was visibly nervous and could only come up with his degrees and his dangerous refusal to close down everything during peak Covid. He got a round of applause for that decision that threatened public health which should tell you everything you need to know about that audience. They have no idea what we could have. Dallas County is using ARPA funds to expand broadband by building infrastructure like cell towers and installing fiber optic cable across the entire county. In contrast, Collin County’s getting a parking garage and a bigger jail.

Josh bravely went into the hostile territory of Prestonwood and crushed it. He ran energetically on stage and seemed at ease during his speech, both of which were in stark contrast to Hill’s presentation. Josh briefly answered the inappropriate religious question in a respectful and engaging way, then used the rest of his time to discuss his platform. If they’re thoughtful and truly care about Collin County, anyone hearing the two of them will vote for Josh Murray.

It takes all the tiny grains of sand to hold back the oceans of oppression.

Mwalimu Johnson

Frisco School Board: The board members are probably getting tired of the long meetings (their most recent one ended after 11 pm) but they had a lot to cover and, of course, there were the usual idiotic comments from the public. The only rational public comments were from the 4 middle schoolers who asked for school lockers since their backpacks are heavy. Hurrah for them for being activists for themselves! Per usual, Marvin Lowe took up a lot of time by harassing staff (whose tones and body language make it crystal clear how much they despise him) and making stupid statements.

The issue Lowe was discussing is, in fact, a serious one. The staff were discussing Significant Disproportionality rates (SD) which looks at the time students who receive special education services are removed from the classroom environment in response to behavior infractions. Anything over 2.5 is flagged as problematic. Rates for the general population of students will be covered in a future presentation. FISD was flagged in 2021 as being SD across 3 different types of disciplinary actions for black SPED students. Basically, black SPED students were disciplined at higher rates than any other SPED group. Clearly, this is a problem.

The district has worked to improve and, in 2022, are SD in only 1 indicator. They’ve also improved their rate as they went from 5.3% to 3.2%. In other words, fewer black SPED students are being disciplined disproportionately but still too many. This is deeply concerning. That’s especially true when, compared to 10 other school districts across the state comparable to FISD, 5 of these other school districts are SD in the same area as FISD. Thus, schools across the state are punishing black SPED students more than they deserve. Hey! It seems like this data may be part of this Critical Race Theory thing the white supremacists are so desperate to hide.

As a black man, I’d expect Lowe to be bothered by this data. I know I was! However, that’s not quite what he was arguing about. He wanted to know whether more black SPED students were acting up (which is what he seemed to expect) or if they were being disciplined at unfair rates. The whole back and forth was uncomfortable to watch as at least 4 staff members jumped in to explain and Lowe refused to meet with them personally to get his questions answered. It’s obvious he wants to showboat for his base. In contrast, Stephanie Elad was fairly quiet. Perhaps she’s trying to be the “reasonable” crazy person.

Local Politics: This Monday started the 2 weeks of Early Voting. I hope everyone has a voting plan which includes going to vote early. Campaigns and other liberal groups need everyone who plans to vote to vote as soon as possible so we can concentrate our efforts on the reluctant voters. I hope your voting plans also include taking like-minded friends and family. If we want anything to change in Texas, Democrats need to vote in numbers too big to ignore and too large to allow cheating. If you want to know more about our local Democratic candidates (or know someone who will benefit from this information), please sent them to our second Dem Talks video. It’s both informative and fun.

Please check your completed ballot (where you voted Democrat in Every. Single. Race all the way down) twice, once on the computer and again on the printout. Dan Patrick once said in an interview that he personally knows 7 ways Democrats cheat in elections. Since we all know Republicans lie and project their villainy onto us, his statement means he knows of 7 ways Republicans cheat. Thus, we must outvote their evil ways.

One of the reasons we must do this is so we don’t end up with terrible representation. Take Frederick Frazer (please!), who is running for HD61. It isn’t bad enough that Felony Frazer has been indicted since June. What’s even worse is that he was a bad cop. He was investigated NINE TIMES for brutality, mostly towards people of color. Of course, the police “investigations” let him off (because they don’t get rid of bad apples) but it’s clear they shouldn’t have. If we don’t vote for Sheena King, the Democrat challenger, we might end up with a racist criminal representing us. We deserve better!

I voted on Monday at the Gay Library in McKinney. Afterward, I stood in the rain with my sister who tried to educate a Felony Frazier poll greeter about his own candidate. That guy had no idea Frazier was indicted or had 9 brutality investigations!! She also educated him on Felonious Punk’s indictments and FBI investigation. I chimed in to say our “top cop” should be beyond reproach, especially for the party of law and order. The guy just shrugged and said all politicians are the same. I told him that 1 party cares about people and the other is trying to take away civil liberties and are coming for him (a man of color) and me (a woman). I pointed out that, depending on the outcome, this could be our last free election. He shrugged again. Ignorance and tribalism will literally be the death of our democracy.

It’s not enough to vote though. If you want to positively impact democracy long-term, please sign up to join the team covering your city council or school board. Everyone is welcome. Contact me at localpoliticsdirector@collindemocrats.org and let me know you’re interested.