Texas

CORPUS CHRISTI — Black Democrats caucusing at the Texas Democratic Party convention Friday cheered when state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, said November would bring an end to three decades of one-party statewide rule.

But some of the most emphatic applause he received during his remarks came when he acknowledged the Democratic Party’s “troubling history of taking Black voters for granted.”

“Let’s just be very honest,” Talarico said Friday to a room in Corpus Christi packed full of Black Democrats from around the state. “I am committing to you to not make those mistakes. I am committed to working with the members of this caucus to show up for, invest in and fight for the votes of every Black Texan.”

Nearly four months after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas — one of the state’s most prominent Black politicians — for the U.S. Senate nomination, Talarico’s quest to coalesce Black Democrats behind his candidacy was still ongoing among the party’s rank-and-file activists at a convention where Texas Democrats were looking to present a forceful show of unity.

The unease about Talarico’s standing with Black Texans stems from a primary in which polls consistently showed the Austin Democrat with meager support — sometimes under 10% — from Black voters. The rest went to Crockett, forming the basis of her 46% vote share in the March primary. She endorsed Talarico the day after her loss and urged Democrats to “rally around” their nominees.

More recently, however, Crockett has cast doubt on whether Black voters have unified behind Talarico and the broader statewide ticket. Ahead of this week’s convention, which she skipped, Crockett also declined to commit to campaigning for Talarico, telling the Dallas Morning News she was “more focused on down-ballot races.”

Source: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/religion/article/anti-islam-video-conroe-22315685.php

cross-posted from: https://toast.ooo/post/14682986

Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto and Meagan Morris were sentenced to 50 years in prison. Maricela Rueda, another demonstrator, was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Benjamin Song, who fired the gun at the police officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

The sentences handed down on Tuesday were unusually long, said Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor who served as the US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan during the Biden administration.

“Most often, judges will sentence defendants for separate counts concurrently. Here, it appears that the judge stacked the sentences for each count consecutively. I would have expected lengthy sentences here, more in the ballpark at 15 to 25 years, but nothing like 50 to 100 years,” she wrote in an email.

The punishment for the protesters exceeds the lengthiest prison sentences given out for the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right group the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/66602676

Cross posted from https://lemmy.today/post/55238769

The man who killed his "estranged" wife has been identified as previously filed affidavits shed light on prior domestic violence incidents between the couple.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48413378

The new curriculum would have students as young as 6 interact with biblical stories titled “Noah’s Ark,” “David and Goliath” — meant to be read aloud from picture books — and “Daniel and the Lion’s Den” in their English classes. Daniel’s story is to be supplied by the Christian Broadcasting Network, a media company founded by televangelist Pat Robertson in the 1960s.