Governor Abbott Coming to Eagle Pass
And Mayhem in Kinney County
Hello again friends,
A lot of tidbits this morning. Perhaps the biggest one, is confirmation from one of our acquaintances in the press that Governor Greg Abbott and a constellation of other Governors from other States will be visiting Eagle Pass today, and making some sort of major announcement as they tour ongoing Operation Lone Star efforts there.
A quick check of the Governor’s website shows no sign of this— but that isn’t unexpected— it’s routine for well-known news organizations and individuals to receive special notifications and advance scheduling.
It’s not 100-percent clear what they’ll be doing or who all exactly will be present. Our own personal expectation is that Governor Ron DeSantis is probably too busy to attend while running for President, though we’ve heard many of the Florida State Troopers in the area are about to rotate back home. This suggests that perhaps other troopers from other states are about to rotate in and today’s announcement could be related to that.
The latest release on the Governor’s website makes mention of some changes at the Texas Indigent Defense Commission— one new appointee and another individual who is being reappointed to oversee the thing.
The TIDC is one of the more overlooked components of Operation Lone Star— responsible for steering taxpayer monies to organizations that represent the many broke and penniless individuals being arrested by State Troopers and local deputies. It bears pointing out that these organizations have received sums of money from the TIDC that dwarf the budget and Operation Lone Star awards controlled by Kinney County and others that have been making OLS arrests and cases.
It has resulted in what seems like some very sort of twilight zone lopsided legal situations. Ordinarily, the conventional wisdom in a court case would have you believe that the defendant and their representation are dwarfed by the prosecution. The monolith of the state, against the individual. And that defense attorneys and their clients must be both clever and quick as they grapple with a money-swollen prosecution.
In these cases, however, something of a reverse has been playing out, and it shows in how protracted they can be, considering that the vast majority of them are simple misdemeanors.
Along the way, there’s been all kinds of criticisms and quiet suggestions of shenanigans on the part of at least one of the defense organizations, called the Lubbock Private Defender’s Office, but ultimately nothing that has derailed their participation or the participation of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
Taking a closer look… well, anyone thinking there’ll be big changes at the TIDC is bound to be disappointed. The returning appointee is a man named Alex Bunin.
He’s the Chief Public Defender of Harris County. We don’t know the man, but if he’s originally from Texas, he’s certainly spent a lot of time away from the Lone Star State, with a professional history of working in Alabama, New York, and Vermont, as well as Houston, with a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin.
The newly appointed attorney is a man named Jay Cohen, also from Houston, with many memberships and leadership positions in various professional and civic organizations, including the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the Texas State Bar.
So, if you happen to be paying attention to the state of Houston’s legal system these days… well… you might be skeptical about the whole thing. Our impression could be totally wrong—for all we know, these gentlemen are closely involved in trying to fix what seems to be broken in Houston. Or not.
Here’s a giggle:
Customs and Border Protection agents sent the following screen shot our way. It needs very little introduction:
Yes— it’s chestfeeding month, friends.
Someone at CBP is very serious about chestmilk and chestmilk awareness.
We’ve neglected to purchase our own chestmilk pump, sad to say.
Hope it’s not too late. Hope the profiteers on Amazon aren’t gouging— the month’s almost over.
And then there’s the cuisine complications. Is the waiter going to know what’s up when you order a chicken chest?
How long can one keep their children chest-fed?
This is serious stuff!
We were away from home for much of last week— traveling and taking care of some family business. While out and about, we heard some ridiculous chisme, or gossip about circumstances in another border town.
According to the gossip, and what we’ve found published elsewhere, about a year ago a veteran County Constable from somewhere not called Kinney County, was sentenced to a term in Federal Prison, for 1 count of something like attempting to sexually exploit a woman.
Just the tip of the iceberg. Word around the campfire is that this individual and almost assuredly others, were running a ring of Chinese-born prostitutes out of a well-known landmark hotel right next to the Rio Grande.
Odds are, if accurate— these women didn’t come to the US with a goal of being prostituted— they were forced into it. According to the gossip, this Constable basically took the fall for other well-connected figures who were also involved.
As we’re fond of saying— who knows? The border’s a murky place. So far, other than gossip in the community, we’ve found a newsletter from somewhere that isn’t Substack that names some of the names. We’d link it— but well— right now, it’s all just gossip right? It’s something we’re only about 70-percent confident is true. So, we’ll see if there’s anything more solid there before going whole hog on some future date.
In the header above, we mentioned mayhem in Kinney County. Folks keeping watch on the Sheriff’s Facebook page have already seen it— but we’ll share it here as well.
First— these guys:
Those nine men and women were all involved in a high-speed pursuit last week in Kinney County. OLS Deputy Dicke clocked speeds of 120 miles per hour as they tried to break contact on RR 131, before cutting over on Highway 90 and shooting East toward Uvalde.
At some point, the driver took it offroad smashing through a local rancher’s fence before everyone bailed out and scattered. Not talking about one of the wealthy absentee landlords either. This is property owned by someone we’ve known our whole lives, just about. Not ridiculously wealthy by any stretch, but they’ll be paying the bill.
Apparently, Border Patrol was nearby and able to play a major role in tracking them all down. The men were sent to the Briscoe and Segovia units— the women to the Sanchez Unit, which was recently renovated and opened up for OLS use.
And while that was all being sorted— someone took a local rancher’s old beast of a John Deere for a joyride. You can see busted hydraulic lines and other connectors hanging off the back, where the suspect was able to disconnect the shredder which is normally towed behind. Reckon he didn’t want it to get tangled up and keep him from kill-dozering his way through every fence post and other infrastructure between him and a roughly 7-mile course before he stopped near the “weather ball.”
The “weather ball” is a radar tower, visible from Highway 90 that helps meteorologists around the region keep track of weather patterns and make their forecasts.
We’re told power lines belonging to the Rio Grande Electric Co-Op were downed as well as infrastructure belonging to Spectrum Cable, in addition to miles of fencing.
Take a look at the lower left axle of the tractor and you’ll see all the chain and wire and other crap wrapped around it as a result of this joyride.
We spoke with the owner of the tractor— he says it’s going to be a real trick, cutting all of that off without burning down half of the county with stray sparks, dry grass, and blustery winds.
Now for a little bit of housekeeping. We’ve realized why we’ve seen a nice current of new subscribers to the newsletter. Turns out, we’ve been linked to by Substack royalty.
The Bari Weiss-led publication “The Free Press” linked to some of our past coverage of Brackettville’s Father Clay Hunt while reporting on the ongoing crisis of conservative discontent within the American Catholic Church.
This is something that’s mostly outside of our main self-appointed purview, but we’ve touched upon it again and again for the last couple years.
It seems Father Clay was recently in Illinois, participating in the second annual Coalition for Canceled Priests Conference. The star of the show was Wisconsin’s Father James Altman, who has also appeared in the Cavalry - Dispatch.
The tone of The Free Press’ coverage sounds mostly bemused to us— which is perhaps not to be unexpected. Many outside the Catholic Church are largely unaware of what’s going on even as the Church seems to be turning against what seems like it’s most rapidly growing segment of worshippers in the US— those looking for the Tridentine Mass— for a conservative, traditional, form of worship and message in a faith-based marketplace seemingly crowded with female pastors, trans reverends, guitar choirs, and other developments in other denominations that they seem to be rejecting.
A big South Texas welcome to those who’ve subscribed as a result of this— we’ll have to catch up with Father Clay personally at some point very soon.
And finally this morning— these photos:
That’s conservative speaker and former Texas Gubernatorial candidate Lt. Col. Allen West— receiving a ceremonial Sheriff’s Deputy Badge from Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe.
Mr. West was in Kinney County all last week, helping out at the impound lot, riding along with deputies, and pitching in wherever else an extra set of hands was needed.
We’re told it’s actually his 4th such visit. It’s notable that his comings and goings are relatively low-profile— suggestive of an effort to make it truly be about the work instead of any sort of recognition. We were only aware of two such visits ourselves.
Mr. West was gracious enough to sit down and record a conversational podcast with us while he was here.
In it, he took some blunt shots at the Lege in Austin, cutting right to the heart of certain matters. We’re sure that some listeners will disagree with what he has to say and will perhaps grouse that he wasn’t “challenged.”
Whatever. We’re just glad that we managed to have an open conversation on tape without a whole pile of embarrassing stammering and stuttering on our part.
We’re still waffling about on how to debut the thing— mostly how we’re going to compensate for a minor technical complication— but expect a special newsletter later this week announcing it with a link for download.
Want it to be at least a little bit polished.
And on that note— we’ll call it a morning.
Hope you’re all set to have a great week this week. It’s still hotter than hell out here, but with September and October on the horizon, one can hope cooler temperatures and maybe some rain are not far off.
As always, this newsletter is produced as independently as possible from our day job, fielding public information requests for Kinney County. We mention this in the spirit of full disclosure, and to remain in keeping with County policies regarding social media.
As always, no one should mistake it for any kind of official communication, and any mistakes, errors, or bad gossip are entirely our own.
See you again soon.
I'm a face reader. Alex Bunin and Jay Cohen.....well.....good luck with those two.
Editing, to remove double usage of the phrase "finally this morning." As it turns out, we kept finding things that deserved inclusion.