more smh Texas...

[ElNono]

Even if a state has a law that prohibits discrimination in such things, there's absolutely no way that the State can apply that law to religious groups without infringing their right to Free Exercise.

Not to mention that, realistically speaking, if there was a bill in Congress that would remove tax exemption solely based on religious objection, it wouldn't pass. Especially in this Congress.

[FromWayDowntown]

Not to mention that, realistically speaking, if there was a bill in Congress that would remove tax exemption solely based on religious objection, it wouldn't pass. Especially in this Congress.

I think the exemption thing would more likely be handled at the administrative level (within IRS) rather than at the Congressional level (by the enactment of a law) -- likely because it would be determined on a case-by-case basis rather than in some sort of holistic way. Regardless, I think that the "realistically speaking" part of that is important; if IRS tried to strip a church of tax exemptions on the basis of a refusal to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, the political blowback would be nuclear in its intensity.

[FromWayDowntown]

If a church opens it doors to the general public to hold wedding ceremonies, I think tha le vii is gonna get tested very very soon thanks to gay marriage ruling.

I put the over under on a lawsuit coming at +/- one year.

Anyone can bring a lawsuit. That doesn't mean that such a lawsuit would have merit.

[TheSanityAnnex]

If a church opens it doors to the general public to hold wedding ceremonies, I think tha le vii is gonna get tested very very soon thanks to gay marriage ruling.

From one non-religious person to another, why do you care so much? It sounds like you want the churches to be taken to court for something that violates their personal beliefs. If the church denies them another church will hold the wedding. Your hate for all things religious is amusing, maybe a nice Sunday in church is what you need.

[Blake]

Here's one for CC....not quite what you were getting at, but close:

By*JILL*P.*CAPUZZO

SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

A boardwalk pavilion in the seaside town of Ocean Grove, N.J., that has been at the center of a battle over gay civil union ceremonies has lost its tax-exempt status because the state ruled it no longer met the requirements as a place open to all members of the public.In a letter to the administrator of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a Methodist organization that owns the pavilion property, the state commissioner of environmental protection, Lisa Jackson, declined to recertify the pavilion as eligible for a real estate tax exemption it has enjoyed since 1989 under the state’s Green Acres Program, but did renew the tax-exempt status of the rest of the boardwalk and the beach, also owned by the association....

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/09/18...html?referrer=

[Blake]

From one non-religious person to another, why do you care so much? It sounds like you want the churches to be taken to court for something that violates their personal beliefs. If the church denies them another church will hold the wedding. Your hate for all things religious is amusing, maybe a nice Sunday in church is what you need.

It's mostly just fascinating to watch and to guess how things will play out. Like the Tom Brady case, I'm really fascinated with no dog in the fight. I'm just here talking about it, but nothing more than that off this board.

A good Sunday nap sounds good tho

[Blake]

Anyone can bring a lawsuit. That doesn't mean that such a lawsuit would have merit.

I thought there was precedence for churches having to perform marriages based in skin color. Apparently not...my mistake.

[ElNono]

Here's one for CC....not quite what you were getting at, but close:

lol, Ocean Grove is not that far from here... it's a well know town, tbh... They seem to have won the case on discrimination grounds:
https://www.aclu-nj.org/news/2012/01...mination-case/

What should be noted in this particular case is that the tax-exempt status was granted under a program that requires the pavilion to be an "open space" to qualify.

[Shastafarian]

graduated at the top of my class

If he had chosen the Spurs he would of already announced imo.

I'd hate to see the bottom of that class.

[RD2191]

I'd hate to see the bottom of that class.

bruh. if you can understand it then the message was conveyed.

[boutons_deux]

I'd hate to see the bottom of that class.

most have been received "mental health care" from police guns.

[Shastafarian]

bruh. if you can understand it then the message was conveyed.

Doesn't change the fact your class must have been pretty terrible if you were at the top.

[Shastafarian]

Crofl. Semen shield Blake to the rescue.

And no, my name isn't even Rob.

Explain your name change request then. What does "RD" stand for?

You wanna be able to talk but don't want people to be able to do the same to you. Grow up kid.

[RD2191]

Explain your name change request then. What does "RD" stand for?

You wanna be able to talk but don't want people to be able to do the same to you. Grow up kid.

Tf is your got ass talking about

[Shastafarian]

Tf is your got ass talking about

Someone who graduated at the top of his class would know exactly what I'm talking about "RD".

[boutons_deux]

BRENHAM //

For the safety of residents in Brenham (pop.15,716), “defensive shooting” and CHL instructor John Deans penned a timely guide to “Protecting yourself during mob violence” in the pages of the Brenham Banner-Press. “You need to have your situational awareness in high gear,” Deans advises. “You must assume that the police cannot save you during those war-like events. Your survival skills will be all that is protecting yourself and your family.” Deans recommends keeping abreast of national news and being aware of “highly charged court decisions” and “questionable shootings” that could prompt local reactions. Shooting or running over rioters with your car should be considered “a last resort in many ways,” employed only after one of them breaks your window. “With Ferguson and Baltimore demonstrating how the War on Cops is raging, officers are under siege in many urban areas,” Deans wrote. “I would include the massive shooting in Waco last month at Twin Peaks, but let us just see what the real story is there since things in Waco are smelling a bit fishy again.”

SULPHUR SPRINGS

// A 14-year-old Sulphur Springs Middle School student came home at the school year’s end toting a handsome certificate bordered in metallic gold, announcing him as the winner of “The ‘huh?’ Award” in the “8th Annual Ghetto Classroom Awards.”



The African-American child’s grandmother, Debra Jose, related her reaction to Dallas’ CBS 11: “Tears just started falling out of my eyes. I was like, ‘What did they just do to him again? … I just lay in bed and thought about it all night long.” Teachers Stephanie Garner and Tim Couch have since apologized for issuing the baffling awards, which include the forged signature of their principal—a detail that one teacher said “is what makes this award ghetto.” TheSulphur Springs News-Telegram reported that the family was finally able to forgive the teachers after meeting with them, school officials and their pastor. Morning Chapel Baptist Church Pastor Harold Nash told the paper the teachers’ case was compelling. “For the Jews, the ghetto was where the Jews lived. The teachers stressed that if the Jews could overcome such incredible oppression, students can do anything if they wanted to,” Nash explained. “It was supposed to be a positive message.”

LAMESA

// The Honorable Judge Carter Tinsley Schildknecht—who ran unopposed for re-election last year for a term ending in 2018—was ordered by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to take four hours of “additional education” after she referred to District Attorney Michael Munk as a “New York Jew.” The public condemnation follows Schildknecht’s earlier attempts to smooth things over by simply explaining to Munk, “When I tell people why you are different and have different thoughts, I explain because you are from New York and because you are Jewish.” Schildknecht has also explained that “I may be too blunt, but I am not biased or prejudiced against New Yorkers or Jews.” It’s a courtesy she may not extend to other religions. The disciplinary action, reported by The Texas Tribune, notes her comments to another lawyer about his beard: “You look like a Muslim, and I wouldn’t hire you with it.”

DEL RIO

// As part of its ongoing goodwill mission, the U.S. Border Patrol staged a Holocaust-themed art contest for Del Rio and Comstock middle school students. Part of the Congressionally approved, weeklong Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, the contest prompted students in South Texas to imagine a life cir scribed by fences and checkpoints, under a police force that kills with impunity. “All the students did an outstanding job with their art exhibits,” Del Rio Sector Chief Rodolfo Karisch said in a statement. “In the end it was about a learning experience and awareness of a time in history that should never be forgotten so that it may never be repeated.”

http://www.texasobserver.org/strangest-state-an-uninvited-bull-and-a-holocaust-art-contest/

[Slutter McGee]

BRENHAM //

For the safety of residents in Brenham (pop.15,716), “defensive shooting” and CHL instructor John Deans penned a timely guide to “Protecting yourself during mob violence” in the pages of the Brenham Banner-Press. “You need to have your situational awareness in high gear,” Deans advises. “You must assume that the police cannot save you during those war-like events. Your survival skills will be all that is protecting yourself and your family.” Deans recommends keeping abreast of national news and being aware of “highly charged court decisions” and “questionable shootings” that could prompt local reactions. Shooting or running over rioters with your car should be considered “a last resort in many ways,” employed only after one of them breaks your window. “With Ferguson and Baltimore demonstrating how the War on Cops is raging, officers are under siege in many urban areas,” Deans wrote. “I would include the massive shooting in Waco last month at Twin Peaks, but let us just see what the real story is there since things in Waco are smelling a bit fishy again.”

SULPHUR SPRINGS

// A 14-year-old Sulphur Springs Middle School student came home at the school year’s end toting a handsome certificate bordered in metallic gold, announcing him as the winner of “The ‘huh?’ Award” in the “8th Annual Ghetto Classroom Awards.”



The African-American child’s grandmother, Debra Jose, related her reaction to Dallas’ CBS 11: “Tears just started falling out of my eyes. I was like, ‘What did they just do to him again? … I just lay in bed and thought about it all night long.” Teachers Stephanie Garner and Tim Couch have since apologized for issuing the baffling awards, which include the forged signature of their principal—a detail that one teacher said “is what makes this award ghetto.” TheSulphur Springs News-Telegram reported that the family was finally able to forgive the teachers after meeting with them, school officials and their pastor. Morning Chapel Baptist Church Pastor Harold Nash told the paper the teachers’ case was compelling. “For the Jews, the ghetto was where the Jews lived. The teachers stressed that if the Jews could overcome such incredible oppression, students can do anything if they wanted to,” Nash explained. “It was supposed to be a positive message.”

LAMESA

// The Honorable Judge Carter Tinsley Schildknecht—who ran unopposed for re-election last year for a term ending in 2018—was ordered by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to take four hours of “additional education” after she referred to District Attorney Michael Munk as a “New York Jew.” The public condemnation follows Schildknecht’s earlier attempts to smooth things over by simply explaining to Munk, “When I tell people why you are different and have different thoughts, I explain because you are from New York and because you are Jewish.” Schildknecht has also explained that “I may be too blunt, but I am not biased or prejudiced against New Yorkers or Jews.” It’s a courtesy she may not extend to other religions. The disciplinary action, reported by The Texas Tribune, notes her comments to another lawyer about his beard: “You look like a Muslim, and I wouldn’t hire you with it.”

DEL RIO

// As part of its ongoing goodwill mission, the U.S. Border Patrol staged a Holocaust-themed art contest for Del Rio and Comstock middle school students. Part of the Congressionally approved, weeklong Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, the contest prompted students in South Texas to imagine a life cir scribed by fences and checkpoints, under a police force that kills with impunity. “All the students did an outstanding job with their art exhibits,” Del Rio Sector Chief Rodolfo Karisch said in a statement. “In the end it was about a learning experience and awareness of a time in history that should never be forgotten so that it may never be repeated.”

http://www.texasobserver.org/strangest-state-an-uninvited-bull-and-a-holocaust-art-contest/

Perhaps you should stop blaming teachers and blame black communities who devalue education. I blame them.

[boutons_deux]

Perhaps you should stop blaming teachers and blame black communities who devalue education. I blame them.

Perhaps you should join the herd that stalks The Great Boutons.

Blaming blacks for poor school performance, blaming SCHOOLS for failing, is how whites refuse ALL responsibility for anything.

[Blake]

Perhaps you should stop blaming teachers and blame black communities who devalue education. I blame them.

So you're cool with the ghetto award.

neat.

[boutons_deux]

Bodycam legislation closed too many records


Texas' new legislation related to police body cameras has been mostly praised in the media, but Grits must admit I'm not a fan.

But the dashcam legislation - which was really part of a larger bill defining and banning racial profiling - did not include the sort of closed records provision in Texas bodycam bill, SB 158, which to me go too far. ACLU of Texas and the NAACP reportedly negotiated these provisions. With all due respect to my friends at those groups, if they really agreed to these closed records provisions then frankly they got rolled.

Under Texas' Public Information Act, police already don't have to release video unless there's a conviction or deferred adjudication in a case. So there exists plenty of discretion to protect privacy in situations where there's no public interest in disclosing the footage.

At first glance, SB 158 appears to include open records provisions but, on closer inspection, imposed new, needless restrictions. (See text.) For example:

A member of the public is required to provide the following information when submitting a written request to a law enforcement agency for information recorded by a body worn camera:

(1) the date and approximate time of the recording;
(2) the specific location where the recording occurred; and
(3) the name of one or more persons known to be a subject of the recording.

So if you don't know all of those details, you can't access the records. Say you witnessed an event but didn't know the people involved? Can't get the records. Say you know who was involved and the date but not the "specific location"? Can't get the records. Moreover, this would prevent research projects using the video because one could not, for example, get all video for a certain time period if you didn't have the specifics stated above regarding each police encounter.

I really can't think of another brand of open records request where the requester must know so much detail before filing the request. Typically one files open records requests to get that sort of detail, requiring folks to have it up front is an unnecessary barrier.

Another loophole you can drive a truck through: You can't get bodycam videos from misdemeanor traffic stops under an open records request without written permission from the person being recorded, even though about 44% of police encounters with the public are at traffic stops. From the bill:

A law enforcement agency may not release any portion of a recording made in a private space, or of a recording involving the investigation of conduct that cons utes a misdemeanor punishable by fine only and does not result in arrest, without written authorization from the person who is the subject of that portion of the recording or, if the person is deceased, from the person's authorized representative.

Consider: Dashcam video is still public at traffic stops but the bodycam video is not? What possibly justifies that distinction? Drivers in public don't have a legal expectation of privacy, so to me this is more about protecting the cop from accountability than enforcing privacy rights.

Ditto for the bit about a "private space." Once you let a cop in your door, you've lost any reasonable expectation of privacy regarding what they see.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co...-too-many.html

[boutons_deux]

TX "small govt"!

TX govt is CORRUPT govt. gov and atty genl investigated for financial corruption. Do ya think they are the only ones?

DPS brass gets massive pay hikes, again


DPS brass continues to enjoy financial rewards that front-line state employees or managers in the private sector could only dream about. Reported the Dallas News, "DPS Director Steve McCraw and 56 agency executives have been given double-digit raises, with most increases reaching 17 percent." Some readers may recall when the Austin Statesman reported three years ago:

When Gov. Rick Perry made Steve McCraw the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety in 2009, only a dozen DPS employees earned $100,000 a year or more at the notoriously tight-fisted agency.

[As of 2012, there were] 73, reflecting an enormous growth in DPS management positions and pay since McCraw, an ex-FBI agent who formerly led the governor’s Homeland Security office, took charge of the department in August 2009.

Under the new management pay scheme, though:

McCraw will now be paid $214,672 annually, up from $183,498. Two deputy directors, David Baker and Robert Bodisch, saw their yearly base pay rise from $176,460 to $206,458.

Figures released by DPS this month show that 15 assistant directors will now be paid $193,330 a year. Seven regional commanders will receive an increase to $176,026. Also, 32 deputy assistant directors will see their annual salaries rise to $161,109.

By contrast, reported the News, "Earlier this year, the Legislature granted many state employees a raise of 2.5 percent to offset increased contributions by workers to their pension fund."

It's not like the free market is offering comparable pay for police administrators. And it begs credulity to imagine these raises were based on pay-for-performance: There's no way managerial productivity gains matched these pay hikes.

A cynic might suggest the state is throwing good money after bad, rewarding folks for going along to get along as first Rick Perry and now the Legislature politicized the agency and its mission. That probably overstates things, just as does the agency's claim that the raises are all merit based. The truth likely lies somewhere in between, though perhaps a bit closer to the cynics' camp than to those justifying the raises.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2015/07/dps-brass-gets-massive-pay-hikes-again.html

as compared with:

http://www.teachingdegree.org/texas/salary/

[FromWayDowntown]

Though it surprises me that the State Bar of Texas has undertaken further investigation of this, the fact that it's pressing forward in assessing whether Paxton violated the rules of professional conduct in his guidance to clerks last summer is noteworthy:

http://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/...duct-after-sa/

State Bar Will Investigate Paxton for Conduct After Marriage Ruling
by Jordan Rudner Feb. 10, 2016

The list of investigations into Attorney General Ken Paxton’s conduct just got a little bit longer. The Texas State Bar was ordered last week to launch a disciplinary probe into Paxton’s conduct in the days following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage — an investigation that could end with Paxton getting disbarred.

In a Feb. 2 letter, the state Board of Disciplinary Appeals told lawyers who filed a complaint against Paxton that it was directing the State Bar to investigate Paxton's "possible violation" of its rules of professional conduct.

The legal saga began last summer, after the Supreme Court announced same-sex marriage had been legalized nationwide. Two days later, Paxton issued an opinion telling county clerks they could opt out of issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples if the clerks had religious objections to doing so. Paxton clarified that clerks might face fines or legal challenges if they refused to issue licenses because “the strength of any particular religious-accommodation claim depends on the particular facts of each case.”

Almost immediately, a group of lawyers, former State Bar directors and judges filed a complaint with the State Bar’s Chief Disciplinary Counsel, alleging Paxton’s opinion cons uted a violation of the rules of professional conduct to which he is bound as an attorney.


“Attorney General Paxton violated his own official oath of office to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Cons ution and laws of the United States and of this state,’” the complaint read.

Although the Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s office originally dismissed the complaint, the group of attorneys appealed to the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, whose members are appointed by the Supreme Court of Texas.

The case is now back in the Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s court, where the office will determine whether Paxton committed professional misconduct and ask Paxton to respond to the complaint.

A spokeswoman for Paxton, Cynthia Meyer, said he is sure he has not violated his oath.

"This complaint has always lacked merit, and we are confident the legal process for resolving these complaints will bear that out," she said in an email.

Paxton also faces three felony charges related to claims that he misled investors in business dealings before he took office. The attorney general, who was indicted last summer and pled not guilty to the charges, has said the case against him is politically motivated.

[Blake]

that jackass, but since he clarified that the clerks that refuse issuing the licenses may be fined or sued, I would think he should be okay there.

Lolsmh Texas that our Bible beating AG is facing felony charges for other shady deals.

[Blake]

And yeah, mildly surprising they're pushing this investigation