News Flash: Republicans and the Press Still Not Getting Along
Burnet, Texas, is a small town in the Texas Hill County where they take their country music seriously and their politics even more seriously.
Smokin' Johnnie B Rogers, Weighing in for the Lightweight Mental Championship
There’s a staunch Republican in Burnet named Johnnie B. Rogers, who is 60 years old and ain’t never seen nothing like all this liberalism sprouting around in his whole life, dammit.
Johnnie is tad peeved about Rush Limbaugh’s show not being broadcast 24 hours a day so on election night, Johnnie decided to take on the Lamestream Liberal Media Hisownself.
A local newspaper reporter for the Burnet Bulletin, 65 year old James Walker, had the gall to come to the Burnet Republican Headquarters to get a story for the Burnet Bulletin on election night in Burnet. That did not sit well with Johnnie.
[Police Chief] Paul Nelson was there and said he saw the president of the local Republican group, Johnnie B. Rogers, walk outside and start throwing punches at 65-year-old local newspaper reporter James Walker.
The Burnet County sheriff, several county commissioners and other elected officials were also standing around when it happened, according to witnesses.
Now under Texas law, assaulting somebody over the age of 65 is a felony, plus it’s just bad manners.
Now comes the good part.
Steve Munisteri of Austin, state Republican chairman, said an unadjudicated felony charge would not bar Rogers from being re-elected to the party’s executive committee at the GOP’s state convention next week in Fort Worth.
Johnnie is on the state Republican executive committee. That’s a big damn deal. There’s only 31 men on that executive committee in all of Texas and one of them is a damn felonious pugilist. I gotta admit that is shocking, even to me.
But there’s more, yes there is.
Johnnie Rogers hired himself a writ twit. The writ twit is a guy who got defeated in the primary for a judgeship. And then it gets weird.
[Police Chief] Nelson, who was standing nearby in plain clothes with several other police officers, said he intervened. But as he was pulling Rogers away, another man – subsequently identified as Todd Gallaher, an Austin political consultant and associate of Rogers – tried to grab him from behind. Gallaher represented Rogers’ attorney and three other candidates in Burnet County and the judicial districts that encompass it.
Have mercy, there’s incest going on. No, seriously, I think that there alone violates at least 7 laws of decency and propriety.
You know, I am not fond of political consultants, and Republican political consultants in particular. But a Republican political consultant who would assault a police chief from behind has got to have learned that behavior from Karl Rove himself.
In the understatement of the week, the newspaper reports …
Gallaher’s actions are included in the continuing police investigation, Nelson said.
Ya think? Ya think trying to grab the police chief from behind is gonna get you a medal?
I hate to be th eone to tell you this, but the Burnet County Republican Party is kinda considered to be the intellectual center of Texas Republicanism.
Damn, I love Texas.
Thanks to Marge and Steven for the heads-up.
I have family in Burnet County. I’m afraid they think this is normal behavior. Bless their hearts…
1I’m trying to keep score here, but this is getting complicated. Isn’t Texas a state where the Republicans pushed through a voter ID Law, which one would assume would keep criminals from voting? And if Johnnie Rodgers is convicted of a felony, doesn’t that prevent him from voting? And yet, the state Republican chairman says it’s OK for Johnnie to sit on the party’s executive committee overseeing among other things, voting issues? Or does an unadjudicated felony allow the felon to legally vote?
2Well, daaayum….my great, great, great grandfather was a founder of Burnet, and has a street named after him, plus his cabin is replicated at Ft. Croghan. (Logan Vandeveer) I hope that he would have thought this was bullcrap.
3In the picture Johnnie B. looks like he had a face implant; too bad the doctors didn’t have a brain to give him.
No doubt the unadjudicated felony charge will help him get re-elected. I just cannot understand Texas Republican politics.
4Now hang on a minute…”unadjudicated” means that he hasn’t pleaded or been found guilty yet, and even morans like what we apparently have here are entitled to their civil rights. Yes, I know that he prolly wouldn’t return the courtesy, but I flatly refuse to sink to their level.
5Folks do strange things on election nights. Stay home and lock your doors.
6Just be glad Rogers didn’t have his gun with him. (I assume he didn’t have his gun with him since he didn’t shoot anyone.)
7To paraphrase Molly Ivins, the committee has to have a few felons on it or it wouldn’t be a representative body.
8Rick. You took the words out of my very mouth. This weird stuff never stops.
9Don’t you think the Republicans would want to add some brain power to the RXC instead of just another pretty face like Johnnie B?
10If he’s one of the head Republicans in Burnet County, he has to know the chief of police, even out of uniform (assuming the chief even wears a uniform). So does his political consultant. They almost certainly just assumed they wouldn’t be charged since they were Republican bigwigs. Sometimes assuming stuff gets you in trouble. But even in Texas, you’re still innocent until convicted, and he may not be convicted of anything, this being Texas and him being a Republican bigwig, after all.
11We we have be trying to rid ourselves of the Johnnie B Rottens out here with limited success, that is until Johnnie B Rotten decided to beat the crap out of a reported half his size…go Johhnie go, you are making this easy.
12I live in this county and this guy is a hot head…none of us are surprised at this. It’s the good old boy system out there and damn you for trying to get involved. They hand select who they want to run…this includes judges, sheriff’s, etc. The Atty. General even went as far as to back the sheriff who was running in the primary….and this has never happened before. Corruption runs a muck in county.
13Fortunately for Truth, Justice & the American Way (Texas Republican style), Johnnie B.’s case was first dropped to a misdemeanor because the D.A. says that law about attacking old people doesn’t apply if the attacker is a Republican, and then the prosecution was dropped entirely if he promises go get some anger management, pay a little fine & pick up a couple of beer cans out of the ditch or something.
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