Fuck Yeah Texas

Photo

texnessa — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 18:03:51 -0500

Photo

texnessa — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 18:01:38 -0500

Hi Wil, I was born and raised in the southern part of the U.S., and I just wanted to say, I've eaten a lot of watermelon, but never with salt. Just by itself, nice and chilled. And now I'm kinda side-eyeing everybody. But also interested to hear your reaction, if you do try it. For science!

texnessa — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 18:07:33 -0500

If you’d told me that the salt on a watermelon thing would be the most controversial thing I’ve posted in a month, I never would have believed you.

MJ Hegar - Doors

texnessa — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 17:46:29 -0500

MJ Hegar - Doors:

Watch the fuck out of this of the day.

Veteran. Purple Heart with Valour. Injured in Combat. Mother. Leader. Game Changer. Door Breaker. Glass Ceiling Shatterer. Fucking Badass.

MJ HEGAR FOR CONGRESS!!!

pleasedontsqueezetheshhh: peterfeld: Medium deleted this post...

texnessa — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 17:19:42 -0500

pleasedontsqueezetheshhh:

peterfeld:

Medium deleted this post with a link to the database of everyone on LinkedIn who works for ICE, the Gestapo agency that rips kids from their parents and cages them in concentration camps, but the working database can still be found here.

Let’s get social.

Well howdy that’s useful.

They Wanted to Raise $1,500 for Immigrant Families at the Border. They Got Over $5 Million.

texnessa — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 06:01:27 -0500

By Julia Jacobs

June 19, 2018

It all started with a viral photo of a toddler crying as her mother was detained at the border.

Charlotte and Dave Willner saw it on the internet, like so many other people, and responded by starting a fund-raising page that would rapidly become the largest single fund-raiser in Facebook’s history.

The Bay Area couple had been struck by the sight of the anguished 2-year-old Honduran girl looking up at her mother, who was being searched by a United States border patrol agent in southern Texas. They have a 2-year-old daughter of their own, and the image made them want to help the families being separated under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.

On Saturday morning, they started a Facebook fund-raising page for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or Raices, a nonprofit organization that provides low-cost legal defense services to immigrant and refugee families in Texas. The Willners set a modest goal of $1,500.

Three days later, it has garnered more than $5 million from more than 130,000 people, stunning the staff at Raices.

“We’ve had moments of ecstasy and there have been a lot of tears in response to this outpouring of support,” Jonathan Ryan, executive director of Raices, said in a phone interview. “But those moments of joy are curtailed by a realization of great responsibility.”

The funds will go toward legal representation for immigrant children and parents in Texas, as well as toward paying parents’ bond so they can be released from detention centers and reunited with their children. The organization — which currently has about 50 lawyers on staff — plans to go on a hiring spree and fund training for volunteer lawyers willing to travel to Texas to assist, Mr. Ryan said.

The Trump administration policy, which aims to criminally prosecute all immigrants crossing the border illegally, has resulted in nearly 2,000 children being taken away from their parents in six weeks. Public outcry over family separations at the border has risen in recent days as children’s experiences in custody have been documented. A recording of children calling out desperately for their parents after being separated from them was released on Monday by ProPublica and was met with immediate outrage.

President Trump has defended the policy by saying that people crossing the border “could be murderers and thieves and so much else.” And Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of Homeland Security, said in a news briefing on Monday that the only way the practice would change is through legislation in Congress, even though there is no law requiring that families be separated at the border.

On Tuesday afternoon, the page — called “Reunite an immigrant parent with their child” — was receiving about $3,000 per minute, according to a spokeswoman for the Willners, who are both former Facebook employees.

“When we look at the faces of these children, we can’t help but see our own children’s faces,” Ms. Willner told The Mercury News of San Jose, Calif. Ms. Willner now works at Pinterest and Mr. Willner at Airbnb, according to a spokeswoman for the couple.

The Willners’ page is the largest single fund-raiser in Facebook’s history, said Roya Winner, a Facebook spokeswoman. Several broader campaigns made up of multiple fund-raisers, like one created in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, have raised more. Other single fund-raisers that have recently been highly successful include a Norwegian campaign for Doctors Without Borders, which garnered $2 million, and an effort to raise money for medical aid to Palestinians in Gaza, which raised $1.7 million.

Photos of humanitarian crises have galvanized the public for decades, but internet fund-raising platforms have enabled donations to stream in. In 2015, images of a 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy whose body had washed up on a beach in Turkey caused a spike in donations to humanitarian efforts addressing the Syrian civil war. The average number of daily donations to the Red Cross relief effort in Syria increased 100-fold in the week after the images were published compared with the week before.

Mr. Ryan said that he did not yet know when the millions of dollars in donations would reach Raices, but that it is already starting to deploy its lawyers to assist detained immigrants and their children.

Costs for this kind of legal assistance can add up quickly, he said. Bond for a single detained immigrant can be set at $10,000. Lawyers must locate the parents, travel to detention centers and meticulously prepare applications for asylum.

“These people need lawyers,” Mr. Ryan said. “Beyond the punditry and politics, each person suffering from this policy has a huge legal case to begin to prepare for.”

12 Things You Should Know About Juneteenth

texnessa — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 14:41:35 -0500

12 Things You Should Know About Juneteenth:

The June 19 announcement came more than two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, so technically, from the Union’s perspective, the 250,000 slaves in Texas were already free—but none of them were aware of it, and no one was in a rush to inform them.

Read the fuck out of this of the day.

thedogist:Available for adoption: Hyatt, Chaco, & Doskie,...

texnessa — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 18:17:51 -0500

thedogist:

Available for adoption: Hyatt, Chaco, & Doskie, Pit Bull mixes & Hound mix, Austin Animal Center, Austin, TX • “Hyatt is just SO excited to see you that he can hardly contain himself. Once he’s out of his kennel he’s a doll, seeking affection, exploring and giving kisses. Chacho is a gentleman on four legs. Practically perfectly behaved, self-managing while alone, and he’s good with other large dogs too! Doskie is a sweet and energetic girl who has been at the shelter for almost a year. She’s captured the hearts of staff and volunteers, and even has a special staff member champion named Lisa, who comes to work early (and on her days off) to walk Doskie and brings her toys and treats.” @austinanimalcenter

C’mon Texas. Bring them HOME.

BRING IT ON FOR BETO!!!!!

texnessa — Sun, 10 Jun 2018 05:35:17 -0500

BRING IT ON FOR BETO!!!!!

justsomeantifas: This secretly taken photo comes from a Texas...

texnessa — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:18:27 -0500

justsomeantifas:

This secretly taken photo comes from a Texas courtroom during mass trial where dozens of immigrants are chained and tried all at once. Here’s what’s happening:

· Lawyers Are Representing Dozens of People At Once (Literally)

What you see is somewhere between 20 and 40-something people, all triple-shackled, not to each other but individually, their hands in handcuffs chained to their waists, and their feet shackled. And they clunk and clang into court. I mean, there’s this clanging sound of chains. And they go through these mass processes in less than an hour, usually. And they often—they are instructed to answer in groups or answer en masse. So you’ll hear like 40 people being asked a question, and they’ll say, ”Sí,” all at once, or they’ll say, “No.” And it’s just—it’s really uncanny. It’s shocking. It doesn’t feel like due process. One after one after one after one after one, with only one lawyer, they plead guilty: ”Culpable,” ”culpable,” ”culpable,” ”culpable.”

They’re getting somewhere between seven and 10 minutes of counsel right before the proceedings.

…

There were 60 defendants, and they were split into 20—into three groups of 20. And so, each group of 20 had a lawyer. And I interviewed one lawyer who told me that, of his 20, not one of them had been separated from a child, and not one of them had an asylum claim or a credible fear claim. So, then, in the third group, I was able to interview the attorney, who spoke Spanish, unlike the first one, and seemed very concerned about the immigration issues. And he told me that, of the 20 that I saw him representing, 10 of them had been separated from a total of 15 children, including one woman who was separated from three children. And, you know, he obtained that information by just really speaking with these people.

· International Law is Being Broken

Denying people the right to request asylum:

Traditionally, you go to the port of entry, and you—which is this big building at the bottom, you know, in Brownsville. It’s the big curved bridge. You go to the bottom of the bridge to the U.S. side, to the port of entry, and you tell the agents that want to request asylum. And that is your legal right. You’re in the United States at that point, and you request asylum.

So, what’s been happening up and down the border is—and this has been going on probably for at least a year and a half, that I’m aware of, anyway—is that they’re putting agents up at the top of the bridge, because, you know, there’s sort of an invisible line, which is often marked with a plaque, but there’s a line dividing the United States and Mexico. So, they want—what the government wants at this point is for people not to be able to step into the United States at that invisible line, because then they can’t apply for asylum. And so they’ve got these agents at the top of the bridge, and they’re standing there. And they’re asking everybody who they’re suspicious about—you know, and suspicious of not—you know, of maybe they’re going to apply for asylum, but asking people for their documents. And then they won’t let people go into the United States. So, I mean, it’s almost like they’re not even in Mexico. Technically, they’re in Mexico, but they’re like six inches from the United States. And that’s illegal. I mean, that’s against American law, and it’s against international law. But that’s what’s happening up and down the border.

Separating families:

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said in a statement that the U.S. government’s separating children from their parents as they seek asylum is “a flagrant violation of their human rights. Doing so in order to push asylum seekers back into dangerous situations where they may face persecution is also a violation of U.S. obligations under refugee law.”

· Border Patrol is Lying About Violence

Multiplying the number of assaults:

CBP claimed that there were 454 assaults on agents nationwide in 2016, a 20 percent increase from the previous year. In 2017, according to CBP, there were 786 assaults, a 73 percent spike from the previous year. But The Intercept obtained data from CBP showing that the agency was using an unconventional method to count assaults.

I started investigating the claims the Border Patrol has been making for about, oh, the past several months, that it’s a very dangerous job and that their assault statistics were way, way up from last year. And I got data from the Border Patrol which showed that, in fact, assaults were down and injuries are down, but they were using this accounting method—they were counting in this very strange, unconventional way.

And, for example, what I was told from law enforcement people is that, you know, police and law enforcement officials usually—like, if somebody is assaulted, that’s considered one assault. I mean, somebody could throw seven rocks at you, and that would be—and you’re one agent, so that’s counted as one assault. But the Border Patrol was—or still is, I guess—multiplying the number of agents assaulted—and, by the way, an assault doesn’t necessarily cause an injury, and in most cases with the Border Patrol it doesn’t—but multiplying the number of agents assaulted by the number of perpetrators and the number of weapons.

So, the example that they gave me was six agents assaulted by seven perpetrators who used a water bottle, a rock and a tree branch. So, when you multiply and multiply and multiply, you get 126 assaults. Conventionally, that would be counted as six assaults.

Immigrants who are tried and acquitted for assault are also included in these inflated statistics:

A recent trial in south Texas provides a good case in point. In November, Border Patrol agent Steven Yackanin chased Eliseo Luis García, a young Guatemalan migrant, through a field near the Rio Grande. The area was only about a mile from where Claudia Patricia Gómez González would later be shot to death.

After Luis was apprehended and taken to lockup, another immigrant there noticed that Luis had blood coming out of his ear. Luis explained that he had been trying to escape and that, as a result, Yackanin and some other agents beat him up.

Yackanin claimed it was he who was assaulted by Luis, and he filled out a Department of Labor form to authorize medical care. He was diagnosed with an elbow sprain and a bruise.

Luis was charged with assault and went to trial. His public defender attorney introduced into evidence photographs of the immigrant and the Border Patrol agent, each standing next to a door with markings. The markings suggest that the Guatemalan immigrant stood about 5 feet tall and weighed perhaps 100 pounds. Yackanin was a full head taller and appeared 60 pounds heavier. The jury apparently believed Luis. He was acquitted.

Even so, the Border Patrol will likely fold the charges against Luis into its fiscal year 2018 assault statistics. Likewise for Claudia Patricia Gómez González, the young Guatemalan woman shot last week. Her death will probably be analyzed as the outcome of a purported assault against a Border Patrol agent.

· Parents and Children are Being Separated

Public defenders unable to find their defendant’s children:

One woman who spoke about her children in open court was from Honduras. “Is my little girl going to go with me when I get deported?” she asked Morgan.

“Your Honor,” interjected Jeff Wilde, director of the Federal Public Defender’s office in Brownsville, “both she and the man next to her have their children with them. They had a credible fear claim [for asylum]. … Their children have been separated from them, and I’ve been unable to figure out where their children are at this point.”

A young father then said he’d been separated from his 6-year-old and was very worried.

Threats and taking children away:

Another parent who appeared in Morgan’s court was from a Central American country that provides no meaningful protection to women and children who are victims of homicidal domestic violence. She asked for her identity to be concealed, because she fears retaliation by the U.S. government. We will call her Delia. Before fleeing her country, she was for years beaten up, cut, assaulted with guns, and threatened with death by her partner. He also threatened to kill their young child. When she hid in another city, he found her and dragged her home.

Delia said she fled her country weeks ago and went on the road to Mexico, eventually crossing the Rio Grande with her child on an inner tube. She saw three Border Patrol agents watching her and floated in their direction, so she could turn herself in.

Delia said that when she arrived later that night at the hielera — the Border Patrol processing office — she told the officers that she and her child needed asylum. She described the beatings and assaults and death threats. “Oh, come on!” she said the officers snickered. “You and everyone else with that old story!”

“You’re going to be deported,” she remembers them telling her. “And your child will stay here.” The next morning, the child was taken. Delia fell on her knees during the removal, wailing and begging not to be separated. Officials looked on indifferently, she said, as her child screamed incessantly.

Uncertainty of policy:

In Brownsville, Judge Morgan also started alluding to biblical matters. It was Thursday, the fourth day of “zero tolerance” in his court, and defendants were telling their stories. The judge had just asked Holly D’Andrea, the assistant U.S. attorney handling illegal entry prosecutions that day, if it were true that families were being reunited in detention. D’Andrea sounded uncertain, but answered that she thought it was true.

“Tell you what,” the judge said slowly, with a hard edge in his voice, “if it’s not, then there are a lot of folks that have some answering to do.

· Sources

I’d suggest reading these in full:

Hidden Horrors of “Zero Tolerance” - Mass Trials and Children Taken From Their Parents

Border Patrol Continues to Exaggerate Danger to Agents to Justify Violence Against Immigrants

“Hidden Horrors”: Reporter Debbie Nathan on Mass Trials & Kids Separated from Parents at the Border

Photo

texnessa — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 16:07:32 -0500

sphinxnomore: The Magnolia/Mobil Oil Pegasus soaring atop the...

texnessa — Wed, 23 May 2018 19:07:01 -0500

sphinxnomore:

The Magnolia/Mobil Oil Pegasus soaring atop the Magnolia Building Dallas. Texas 1935 by Lloyd Long

“The original Pegasus took its place atop the 29-story Magnolia Building in 1934. A rotating icon of porcelain and neon made by the Texlite sign company, it remained there until 1999, when, rusted and decrepit, it was taken down.”

“It was conceived as the symbol of Magnolia Oil, which in 1959 was folded into Mobil. Pegasus also appeared on Magnolia and later Mobil signs at filling stations.”

Source: Dallas Morning News

http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2015/pegasus/

dumnhpy: jumpingjacktrash: fierceawakening: bitchybijou: micdo...

texnessa — Thu, 17 May 2018 04:36:03 -0500

dumnhpy:

jumpingjacktrash:

fierceawakening:

bitchybijou:

micdotcom:

Sportscaster Dale Hansen defends student wrestler Mack Beggs and takes a stand against transphobia

this man just CHECKED™ his privilege im living

this is what i mean when i say “actually tolerance isn’t all that bad”

this guy says several times that he doesn’t understand and even is uncomfortable, but that that isn’t what matters.

imo, that’s how tolerance works.

true tolerance is, “i don’t have to understand, because you don’t need my permission to live. my job as a member of your community is to have your back, whether i understand your situation or not.”

Woke Andy Rooney is right!

TEXAS TREASURE.

Dale Fucking Hansen. Anyone comes for Dale, I will stab em.

Its the least I can fucking do.

mapsontheweb:Dry (red), Moist (yellow) and Wet (blue) US...

texnessa — Sat, 12 May 2018 18:33:35 -0500

mapsontheweb:

Dry (red), Moist (yellow) and Wet (blue) US counties (alcohol).

Oh Texas. I do love our drive thru alcohol barns so much.

mapsontheweb:Map of England over Texas, where the capitals are...

texnessa — Mon, 07 May 2018 15:21:30 -0500

mapsontheweb:

Map of England over Texas, where the capitals are at the same point.

As a Texan and Chef who now lives in a town well West of “English Austin”, please come visit and bring the following:

Tamales
Tomatillos
Fritos and OG Cheetos [seriously, we don’t have them here.]
Gebhardts Chile Powder
Masa Harina

Free room and board to anyone who brings this to me.

mapsontheweb:The true size of Texas.

texnessa — Sat, 05 May 2018 19:09:24 -0500

mapsontheweb:

The true size of Texas.

Candidate for Texas school board: Preschool will make your child a homosexual Muslim

texnessa — Tue, 01 May 2018 14:01:21 -0500

Candidate for Texas school board: Preschool will make your child a homosexual Muslim:

Oh Texas. Are you ok?

mapsontheweb:Digital river map of the State of Texas.

texnessa — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:19:40 -0500

mapsontheweb:

Digital river map of the State of Texas.

"The idea that Texas will be eternally red I think is a false one. But when it will turn is hard to..."

texnessa — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:48:15 -0500

“The idea that Texas will be eternally red I think is a false one. But when it will turn is hard to say. Once it does turn, though, if you take the largest red state and add it to the blue column, the politics of America totally transform.”

- Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of God Save Texas (via nprfreshair)

West Texas Gothic

texnessa — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 17:47:04 -0500

kamithemusicbox:

-The land is so flat here, you could stand on a coffee can and observe everything at once. You shouldn’t do that, though. The image will close on you and claustrophobia will set in, leaving you gasping.

-The putrid scent of oil permeates the air. As roughnecks roar by in their white work trucks, they grin toothily and say, “That’s the smell of money!”

-In a field just beside I-20, the gnarled, twisted forms of dead mesquite trees absorb the light from the too-bright sun. You try not to look at them as you drive by. They hold secrets no one should know.

-People come from all over the country for jobs offered to them by oil. Everything centers around the boom and bust. There is a housing shortage and overcrowding in schools, but still they come, one after the other, and the city swells to near bursting.

-The stars at night really are big and bright, but only out there where it is darkest. And we all know what happens when you stare long into the abyss…

-Downtown is a testament to what was, the town in it’s heyday. Strangely, only a select few can remember it back then… and their memories are awfully fuzzy.

-300 days without rain and even the cacti were turning brown. The cacti.

-Tinny mexican music floats out of a dozen shops on the south side of town. People from the dry counties drive through to buy their liquor. You wait for a sign that the pattern will change. It never comes.

-Dust settles over everything here. You can’t get away from it. Bit by bit the dust consumes all.

-High school football was god, and the friday night games were worship. The lights of the stadiums stay on just a little longer, for the prayerful masses.

-The lights of the refinery glow in the darkness, lighting up the snowfall that will melt tomorrow. You think you see movement up high on one of the pipes, but it’s just an illusion. You hope.

-There is a vast stretch of nothing between the towns. The drive is monotonous. You try to ignore the idea in the back of your mind that everything you’ve ever known has disappeared.

-The crosses beside the road mark highway tragedies that linger in the collective memory. Traffic is deadly, they say, so buy buy buy a bigger vehicle to keep you safe. The bleary eyed masses do as they’re told.

-Your asthma tends to flare when the humidity is high. A dark voice within chuckles, reminding you that no matter how hard you try, you can never truly escape the desert.

inspired by this post and this post.