Texas State Senator Sends Lewd Image/Text To UT Student

 It didn't look like there was a really good chance of Democrats taking the District 5 Senate seat in the Texas legislature this year. At least, that was the general opinion before the GOP incumbent showed his true colors.

It has been revealed that the University of Texas is investigating Republican State Senator Charles Schwertner for send a text saying “I just really want to f--- you”, and then sending her a picture of a naked man in the shower showing his genitals. The head of the man was not shown, and it is not known if the picture was of Schwertner.

Schwertner has denied sending the text and picture, but has not explained how it happened if he did not send it (since it came from his device). Schwertner had met the UT graduate student last summer when she expressed an interest in working at the legislature. He had communicated with her several times about career advice before abruptly sending the offending text and picture.

This dirty old man posing as a senator needs to be replaced. Fortunately, the Democrats have a capable and intelligent person running for the District 5 Senate seat -- Meg Walsh. The problem is that this story just broke and most voters have not heard of it. Is there time for voters to become aware and oust Schwertner? I don't know. I hope so. He doesn't belong in the Texas Legislature.

I live in District 5, so I will have the pleasure of voting against Schwertner. I beg my fellow District 5 residents to do the same.

Brits Make It Clear That Trump Is NOT Welcome There

Donald Trump told The Sun that the demonstrations made him feel like he is not welcome. He's absolutely right, and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in London to make that perfectly clear to him. The pictures below are from Think Progress:

Some Pictures From The Texas Democratic Convention

The Texas Democratic Convention is over now, but it was a good one. The official delegate count was 7,569. It was wonderful to be surrounded by that many good Democrats.

I thought I'd share a few photos I took (and please forgive my poor photography).

The youth movement for saner gun laws and safer schools dropped by, and the convention attendees loved them.

The entrance to the exhibit hall welcoming us Democrats.

Demonstration outside the convention hall for justice.

The concessions area. Food was pretty good at this convention.

This is me with noted atheist Aron Ra at the secular caucus (which was once again overflowing). It was an honor to meet Mr. Ra.

Fort Worth Police had their mounted patrol protecting the convention.

And here are some of my favorite booths at the convention.

The Democratic Party booth.

The Beto for Texas booth.

The Moms Demand Action booth.

The NARAL booth.

The Medical Marijuana booth.

The Texas Freedom Network booth.

The Planned Parenthood booth.

The Stonewall Democrats booth.

The anti-death penalty (tcadp) booth.

The Smithsonian Unveils Official Portraits Of The Obamas

The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery unveiled their pictures of First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama last Monday -- and they are GREAT! Both were painted by Black artists.

Michelle Obama's portrait was painted by Amy Sherald, and Barack Obama's was painted by Kehinde Wiley. Both are pictured in the photo below (by Mark Wilson/Getty Images).

Photo Evidence Of Donald Trump's G-20 Humiliation

When Donald Trump met with the NATO countries, there is video of him shoving another leader aside to get to the middle of the front row for the photo of the group. It speaks to Trump's narcissistic personality that he felt he should be the center of attention.

That did not happen at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg. The top photo is of the G-20 leaders. Note that Trump is NOT front row center, but has been moved down toward the end -- a clear sign that he no longer is considered to be a leader by the other nations of the G-20.

There is always a group picture of the G-20 leaders during their yearly meeting, and the American president is always given a spot of honor in that picture (front row near the center), because the U.S. president was considered to be a leader of the free world and a prime architect of world economic policy. Note in the other photos that Bush in 2008, Obama in 2009 and Obama in 2016 all had positions on the front row near the center (and while I didn't include the 2010 through 2015 photos, the U.S. president was given the same position of honor in those also).

That is no longer true. Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement on global change, and has expressed his desire to pull the U.S. out of trade agreements it has signed. Both have made the other members of the G-20 unhappy with Trump -- and they no longer look to the U.S. president for leadership. Trump's place in the photo expresses that feeling very clearly.

I doubt Trump (with his narcissistic personality) was very happy with this demotion, but he has earned it. You cannot be looked to as a world leader when you make it clear to everyone that you come first, your own country second, and the rest of the world is only an afterthought.

Pictures

For those of you who have wondered what I look like, I present you with these fun pictures (from Dreamscape). The top picture of me is in the style of a watercolor sketch, and the bottom pictures are in the styles of Picasso and Van Gogh.

Do These GOP Candidates Now Regret These Pictures ?

The man in these pictures with Republicans presidential hopefuls (Bush, Cruz, Huckabee, Jindal, Paul, Perry, Santorum, and Walker) is Josh Duggar. At the time, Duggar (along with his parents and siblings) was the star of the TV "reality" show 19 And Counting, and the executive director of the christian hate group Family Research Council. The candidates were obviously trying to score points with christian bigots.

Duggar was flying high for a while there, but an expose by intouchweekly.com has ended that. They revealed that Duggar was guilty of molesting several children (including some of his siblings) a few years ago -- and they had the proof to prove their allegation. Allegations that his "christian" parents helped to cover up.

The parents said they had sent him to a facility so he could receive counseling to overcome his "problem". That was a lie. They actually sent him to stay with a friend of the family out of town, and he received no counseling at all. They also said they reported his criminal behavior to the police, but they did that only after being sure the statute of limitation on his crimes had expired. In other words, they made sure he got no negative action because of his molesting children.

Duggar has now confessed his crimes to People Magazine. And he has resigned his position with the Family Research Council. He is trying to pass off his crimes as something in his past, which has been now magically cured through prayer. I have to wonder though -- can child molesters really be cured through nothing but prayer?

I also wonder if the presidential hopefuls pictured above with Duggar regret having their picture taken with him -- a self-confessed child molester. At least one doesn't -- Mike Huckabee. Huckabee said Duggar made a mistake, and has been forgiven. I beg to disagree -- it wasn't a mistake, but a criminal acts (and repeated several times).

Will any of the other candidates be willing to make a statement about Duggar, or these pictures. I doubt it. I think they'll just remain silent (and be thankful they weren't the only one to make this mistake).

(NOTE -- All of these pictures were found at Addicting Info.)

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UPDATE -- Ted Cruz has now spoken -- and proved that he is not just a fool, but a dangerous fool. He would have us believe that consensual and loving acts between gays are worse than molesting children (a crime). We must make sure this idiot never lives in the White House.

Sam Houston

The picture above is of Sam Houston -- hero of the Texas war for independence and the first president of the Republic of Texas. Houston also served as senator and governor after Texas became a state -- and was the only Southern governor to oppose secession from the United States (shortly before the Civil War).

This picture and 55 others from the early days of Texas can be seen at the website of the Beaumont Enterprise. It's some pretty interesting stuff for history buffs (like me).

A "Baby Picture" Of The Universe

This new picture (artificially-colored) is a picture of the heat distribution of our universe when it was very young -- about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. That may sound like a long time, but it's not in terms of the age of the universe (about 13.8 billion years old). The blue areas are the coolest and the yellow and red areas are the hottest. Scientists say this new picture will allow them to understand more about how the universe developed -- and even reconstruct what it was like much closer to the Big Bang.

Let me make a comparison to illustrate just how young the universe was when it looked like this, by comparing it to a human life. Assuming a human life span of 80 years, this would be a picture of a baby at only 19 hours old -- less than a day old. So the above image is truly a "baby picture" of the universe, since it was actually still a "new-born".

Here's how CNN describes the picture:

This new photogenic moment, released Thursday, comes courtesy of the European Space Agency's Planck space telescope, which detects cosmic microwave background radiation -- the light left over from the Big Bang. Scientists used data from Planck to create an artificially colored map of temperature variations across the sky in the early universe, in more detail than ever before.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

This picture (by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty images) is from the debate last night. I think it sums up what happened pretty well. Well done, Mr. President!

Public Says No To Release Of Osama Pictures

The cartoon above is just a joke to most Americans. It plays off the conspiracy theory nuts in this country who won't accept anything the president does or says without "proof". But I suspect that it is more about racism (they just can't accept an African-American president) than really wanting proof (like the refusal to accept the official birth certificate from the state of Hawaii for the last two years).

The newest of these conspiracy theories now questions whether Osama bin Laden is really dead (even though the military has DNA evidence and al-Queda admits Osama was killed). These "deathers" are demanding proof of his death and say they won't believe it until they see the pictures of his dead body. Of course this is just silly, since the DNA evidence is much better proof than any picture and our military has no reason to lie about it. Even if the pictures were released to the public, these "deathers" would probably just claim they had been faked.

So our president has decided that the pictures of a dead Osama will not be released. This is the appropriate decision. Releasing the pictures would prove nothing, would only serve as a kind of "blood porn", and might even further enrage some terrorists to attack us. We generally like to pride ourselves as being a decent people, and the decent thing in this case is to not release the pictures. We've probably celebrated a little too much anyway.

So what do the people think of President Obama's decision? Thankfully, about two-thirds of them agree with the president's decision. A recent NBC Poll (taken May 5th through May 7th of 800 adults with a 3.5 point margin of error) shows that 64% agree with the decision not to release the pictures. Here are the numbers:

SHOULD NOT RELEASE...............64%
Definitely not...............52%
Probably not...............12%

SHOULD RELEASE...............29%
Definitely should...............24%
Probably should...............5%

I'm glad that most people aren't willing to go along with the bloodlust or the conspiracy nuts. Osama is dead. It's over. Let's move on. We have an economy to fix, and that's a lot more important than arguing about some pictures.

Pics From Amarillo Democratic Rally

These are pictures taken at the Democratic political rally held yesterday at Memorial Park in Amarillo, Texas. A couple of hundred people braved the heat to kick off this year's campaign.

1. The dude in the cowboy hat is Toby Lankford, chairman of Potter County Democrats.

2. The lady in the center wearing white is Senate District 31's State Democratic Committeewoman Roberta Hicks. The lady on her left in the orange hat is Potter County Justice of the Peace Nancy Bosquez. Sorry, but I didn't get the names of the other two ladies.

3. The good folks in Hutchinson County sent a few people to enjoy the festivities.

4. Iman and Leslie Crawford and an unidentified fellow Democrat corral the escaped donkey.

5. Amarillo Democratic Headquarters put up a stand and handed out literature (and free cold drinks). The distinguished gentleman in the red shirt is Tony Raphael, head of the Amarillo Democrats.