Okay, I need to give y’all a heads up. Stay away from the Family Dollar Store. And Michigan. Stay out of Michigan.

Last Saturday, in the middle of the damn afternoon, a man walks into the Family Dollar Store in Detroit. The clerk asks him to put on a mask. He did not want to put on a mask, so he wiped his nose on her clothes.

She was so stunned that she was afraid to move.

And there’s plenty of reason she should be afraid.

The day before, a security guard in Flint, Michigan, at the Family Dollar Store was shot in the head and killed for telling a woman to put on a mask inside the store.

And these are the people that President Trump says are “good people” and that Governor Whitmer should give a little to them.

Suggestion: give them a life sentence.

Thanks, Trump.

Thanks to SGray for the heads up.

Ken Paxton’s crookedness is like a virus spreading all over the country.

The story starts here. Lots of Texans have summer homes in Colorado, and a lot of them have million dollar homes there.

When a small county in the Colorado mountains banished everyone but locals to blunt the spread of the coronavirus, an unlikely outsider raised a fuss: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who called it an affront to Texans who own property there and pressed health officials to soften the rules.

“The banishment of nonresident Texas homeowners is entirely unconstitutional and unacceptable,” Paxton said in a news release April 9, when his office sent a letter asking authorities in Gunnison County to reverse course.

Unconstitutional? Why, my goodness, that’s a heady word to be tossing around in another state where I seriously doubt that Paxton has a home, a recognized license to practice law, or even has a sled. What Paxton does have is gall and a pay-to-play attitude.

On April 9, Paxton sent a letter to small Gunnison County from the official office of the Texas Attorney General “urging” them to reverse course and let part-timers come stay at their property during the lockdown.

The remote community of 17,000 people has only one hospital with 24 beds and no intensive care unit, and health officials cited the scarcity of resources in ordering nonresidents to leave.

This is happening at the height of Texas requiring people from New York and Louisiana to self-quarantine for 14 days.

So why is is important for Texans to be allowed to come back to one small county in Colorado where it just so happens that college friend of Paxton’s (Robert McCarter) has a $4 million home?

Paxton has at least nine donors in Texas who own property in Gunnison County, and who collectively have given him and his wife nearly $2 million in political contributions.

Less than three hours after Paxton announced the letter, Gunnison County granted McCarter an exemption to stay, according to documents obtained by AP. The county says the timing was coincidental.

Ken Paxton: Still indicted for tax fraud.

Thanks to Anna the Geek for the heads up.

So, Trump holds a press interview to announce that deaths due to the virus have almost doubled from his last prediction.  His estimate went from 50,000 to 90,000.

But his real concern?  That he is being treated worse than Lincoln by the press.

Hy, did y’all notice how very small he looks in pictures of this event.  Heck, the Fox reporter’s feet hit the ground. Trump looks like a little boy up against two giant press people who just might treat him even worse than they did Lincoln.

I cannot think of another president who would be presumptuous enough to hold an interview at the Lincoln Memorial.  Not even Nixon.

But while we’re on the subject, can we all agree that the press treats him worse than they did Nixon? I can agree with that. Why doesn’t Trump say that, especially when he pardons Roger Stone?

The Lincoln Project, a group of GOP leaders who are trying to oust Trump, released a new ad, this time using Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme from his first campaign.  This one is just a little different.

The latest polls show that Trump is bleeding ego juice in Texas.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are in a dead heat in the race for Texas, signaling that the Lone Star State is evolving into a presidential battleground.

A new Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll shows that Trump and Biden are backed by 43% of poll respondents, with 5% opting for “other” candidates and only 9% undecided. Trump’s overall approval rating was 45%.

It is in the big urban areas, where Democratic mayors and county judges have taken the reins of leadership or lack thereof, from Trump and Governor Gregg Abbott that will flip the state.

Houston is in Harris County, where a 27 year old woman born in Bogota, Colombia, with a degree from Stanford, was elected county judge over a long time Republican incumbent.  She is the first woman to hold the post. There was much doomsday talk and moaning following her election because of her youth and inexperience. Lina Hidalgo has been spectacular.  What a county judge does is explained here, but one of her duties is to be head of emergency management.

What Judge Hidalgo has proven is that Democrats can lead, women can lead, young people can lead, and if you put all three in one package holy cow step back and be delighted.

There are other strong Democratic leaders in Texas cities and counties. Watching them put Trump to shame is a joy.

I’m not a political scientist although I play one on the internet. But, I think Tump is losing by comparison. Seeing real leaders in our own backyard has reminded us how great we can be.

By the way, there are 4.5 million people in Harris County.  There are 25 entire states with less population than that.

From a former student of Deb T. –

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