Fort Bend Conservative

By FBCStaff-Diversity and Inclusion is the new buzz word progressives are pushing on us. What does D&I mean?
“Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is the new catchphrase of today’s elite businesses and universities. Those institutions assume D&I is both a means—to excellence—and an end in itself, making them more closely resemble the larger world of which they are a part. So understood, companies from Facebook to Apple to Goldman Sachs, and academic establishments from UC Berkeley to Harvard to Yale, have found their new holy grail. Their commitment to D&I is all too often treated as a self-evident truth that none should be allowed to question in public discourse. But this new consensus for D&I, if left unchallenged, has an unintended consequence: unthinking intellectual rigidity, a malaise that all successful institutions must guard against.”
and of course the danger of this type of thinking is:
“The first difficulty with D&I is that it says very little about whom to admit and whom to exclude. Scarcity of places is a major constraint, so any institution committed to D&I has to decide whom to exclude from its community. Ironically, these institutions depend for their success on the institution of private property, which gives them the breathing room on which their cooperative activities rest. Defenders of D&I constantly bewail the bogeyman of exclusion, but no one is suggesting that these D&I stalwarts should select their new students and employees at random, in order to spare every poor soul from the heavy burden of being turned down on the merits. Institutions pursuing D&I necessarily have to adopt policies that privilege some people at the expense of others.”

Picking winners and losers does not serve the majority of citizens of Missouri City. To some in Missouri City government it means putting some minorities ahead of others. To some it means forcing an agenda of a few instead of what’s best for the city, i. e. moving the city elections to November. This is a slippery slope and will not be beneficial to the city in the long run.

Missouri City Council is no longer listening to committee recommendations and this does not bode well for the city of Missouri City. Council positions A, B. C, D are up for election in November. Our city is not being served well by this council.

There are two things you are a citizen of Missouri City can do.
1. Call City Manager Anthony Snipes and voice your concerns about D&I and the direction the city is headed.
2. Get out and vote. One person sitting on council did not not receive one vote last election and he made the deciding vote to move the elections to November to help implement programs like D&I.

Our city’s future depends on it.

By FBCStaff-Vp Pence cast the deciding vote to open up the health care debate.
“The Senate voted 51-50 to start debate, with Vice President Pence casting the tie-breaker. The procedural vote once again brings the ObamaCare overhaul legislation back from the brink of collapse, after intense prodding from President Trump who had pressured senators to skip recess until they act on health care.”
with two republicans voting no with democrats:
“The result was kept in suspense for a while. Sens. Susan Collins, of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, voted no from the start. Several other Republican senators then delayed casting their vote, with no wiggle room left for additional defections on the GOP side.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/25/senate-health-bill-clears-test-vote-aided-by-mccain.html

Sen Republicans campaigned on repealing Obamacare for seven years. Why would these two senators not be open to discussing an unpopular bill?  Voters sent a republican congress to change the AHA, so why are they ignoring our wishes?   Both senators voted for this bill when it was sent to President Obama and now they are against even discussing it.  Their actions defy logic.  We know Sen Murkowski was defeated in the republican primary so she ran as an independent and won.  So there maybe some rancor towards republicans.  Senator Collins has never had a job that wasn’t in politics so her views may be skewed having never served in private industry.

I’m not sure how we can hold them accountable, but it behoves our elected officials to work around them and their agenda of not cooperating or representing republicans.

By FBCStaff-Are citizen’s committees in Missouri City now just for show. An alarming pattern in Missouri City has emerged since Anthony Maroulis has grabbed a seat on city council. As you may recall Marlouis was not elected to council but arranged a swap with a seated council member.

Immediately after taking his seat Marlouis voted with the other three democrats against the Citizen’s Charter Review Committee’s recommendations to keep Missouri City’s muni elections in May. Instead the four voted to move the city elections to November without allowing for citizen’s input.

“During the October 17, 2016, Regular City Council meeting, Councilmembers voted 4-3 to approve a resolution that will move the City’s general elections from May to November. The adopted resolution in full may be viewed here.”
http://www.missouricitytx.gov/index.aspx?nid=558

So why didn’t some on the council want to follow the committee recommendations?
Democrats hope putting the city elections far down ballot will give them an advantage in the upcoming November elections.

Districts A, B, C, and D are up for election this November.  Marlouis currently occupies the District C chair on council.

FBCStaff-To keep Texas under the control of the DOJ ran by career bureaucrats:
“Federal redistricting litigation is unlikely to ruin the Republican majorities in the Texas House or the state’s congressional delegation. But Republican overreach might give Texas Democrats the next best thing: powerful leverage the next time the political maps are drawn.
The latest round in the seemingly endless legal proceedings over the state’s maps for legislative and congressional districts resumes this morning in San Antonio. Three federal judges are deciding whether the state’s maps are illegal and need some changes. But there are only two major elections left — 2018 and 2020 — before the next Census comes out and new maps are drawn by the state Legislature.
The maps in use in 2020 will elect the lawmakers who draw the maps for the decade that follows. And here’s the thing: Unless there’s a political earthquake, Texas Democrats won’t have a majority in that mapmaking Legislature no matter what a court decides later this year.

That is correct,  the republicans will still be drawing the maps in 2020.

“What they’d really like to get is a ruling that puts Texas back under federal preclearance, which would require the state to have the permission of either the U.S. Department of Justice or the federal courts before making any changes to election and voting laws. If the courts conclude, after all of the appeals have ended, that the state intentionally discriminated in its mapmaking or, in another ongoing case, in changing its voter ID laws, preclearance is one possible remedy. That could create a serious obstacle to Republicans hoping to cement their current numbers with new laws and maps.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/10/analysis-biggest-prize-texas-redistricting-fight-isnt-new-map/

It had nothing to do with redistricting.  SCOTUS ruled parts of the Voting Rights Act no longer applied and Texas did not have to ask the DOJ for approval on everything the lege did.  The democrats have lost their DOJ stranglehold over Texans and they want the Voting Rights Act back.

Texas is no longer under the control of a DOJ corrupted by career politicians.

By FBCStaff-Every 10 years after the census the districts are to be redrawn to reflect the population.  We remember the battle in 2001 when democrats shirked their duty and left the state, fleeing to Oklahoma. The battle to control redistricting has been fought in courts and continues today.

The lines were redrawn again in 2011 and the democrats immediately sought to redraw the lines in court.  Filing suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Judge Orlando Garcia has ruled consistently in favor of the democrats.  Judge Garcia even redrew the maps to mirror the maps drawn up by then Senator Leticia Van de Putte.  Van de Putte and Judge Garcia are related:

“Judge Orlando L. Garcia is the Brother-In-Law of Democrat State Senator Leticia Van De Putte. Van De Putte was recently the Texas State Senate Caucus Chairman for nearly a decade and she is one of the most liberal Democrats in Texas. Judge Orlando Garcia should have stepped down because of this clear conflict of interest.”
http://www.texasgopvote.com/texas-redistricting/federal-judge-redistricting-battle-brother-law-texas-democrat-senate-caucus-003656

That definitely is a conflict of interest.  But it is 2017, and redistricting is still tied up in the courts and Judge Garcia is the reason.

“The March 10 court ruling was handed down by the same three-judge panel that is handling the current trial. Those judges, Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas and Jerry Smith of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, heard arguments on the constitutionality of the interim boundaries for congressional and some state legislative districts but issued no decision Saturday and gave no indication when they would issue a ruling.”

and the reason:

“Regardless of which side the judges favor, Vera noted, the case seems destined to be immediately appealed and then taken up by the Supreme Court.

“We’ve been fighting this fight for years,” he said.
http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/At-redistricting-trial-Hurd-says-more-districts-11291476.php?t=5ee9aca81a4b6b00f7&cmpid=fb-premium

Democrats haven’t won a statewide race since 1994.  Unable to get elected they have taken to the courts to legislate.  Look for democrats like Van de Putte’s brother-in-law to try to rewrite our laws to favor democrats.