Video from Houston restaurant: Armed customer kills armed robber
After the shooting, the customer discovered that the robber’s gun was fake. But the customer didn’t know that when he killed the robber. And the robber had pointed his fake gun at customers’ heads. So I’m glad the customer killed the robber. I hope this sends a message to anyone else who is considering committing armed robbery in Texas.
The robber was an idiot to try this in Texas. What did he think was going to happen in Texas? This is not San Francisco or New York City or Chicago, where armed robbery is tolerated and goes unpunished. It’s Texas.
This is the censored version of the video from NBC News. The description says, “On Thursday night, a masked man pointed a gun and demanded money from the patrons inside Ranchito #4 Taqueria. A customer attempted to stop him, pulling out a gun of his own and opening fire, shooting the suspect multiple times. After the robber was killed, the shooter retrieved the stolen cash to return to the other customers when he discovered the gun the suspect used was fake. The question now is whether the shooter will face any legal action for his deadly intervention.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4xNs0HwQ7c
This is the uncensored version of the video. The description says, “Houston Police want to speak this man, but he’s not charged with a crime. HPD says a gunman was robbing people at a taqueria on S. Gessner last night. During the robbery, this man shot and killed the suspect… collected the money, gave it back to the robbery victims, and left.”
Californians Move to Texas – Episodes 1 and 2
Episode 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlDWzN6TW5Y
Episode 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MOy6Z_UP7c
Icy weather chills Texas wind energy as deep freeze grips much of U.S.
https://news.yahoo.com/icy-weather-chills-texas-wind-030156166.html
Icy weather chills Texas wind energy as deep freeze grips much of U.S.
By Steve Gorman
February 14, 2021
(Reuters) – Ice storms knocked out nearly half the wind-power generating capacity of Texas on Sunday as a rare deep freeze across the state locked up turbine towers while driving electricity demand to record levels, the state’s grid operator reported.
Responding to a request from Governor Greg Abbott, President Joe Biden granted a federal emergency declaration for all 254 counties in the state on Sunday, authorizing U.S. agencies to coordinate disaster relief from severe weather in Texas.
The winter energy woes in Texas came as bone-chilling cold, combined with snow, sleet and freezing rain, gripped much of the United States from the Pacific Northwest through the Great Plains and into the mid-Atlantic states over the weekend.
An Arctic air mass causing the chill extended southward well beyond areas accustomed to icy weather, with winter storm warnings posted for much of the Gulf Coast region, Oklahoma and Missouri, the National Weather Service said.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s grid operator, issued an alert asking consumers and businesses to conserve power, citing record-breaking energy demands due to extreme cold gripping the state.
“We are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units,” the agency said.
Wind farms in West Texas, stricken by weekend ice storms, were particularly hard hit.
Of the 25,000-plus megawatts of wind-power capacity normally available in Texas, some 12,000 megawatts was out of service as of Sunday morning “due to the winter weather event we’re experiencing in Texas,” ERCOT spokeswoman Leslie Sopko said.
Wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year, behind natural gas, which represented 45%, according to ERCOT figures.
Forecasts call for heavy snow and freezing rain to spread across a larger swath of central and eastern sections of the country through Monday, with a storm front in the West likely to dump 1 to 2 feet of snow in the Cascades and northern Rockies through Tuesday, according to the weather service.
When Project Veritas is wrong about something, liberals are mildly annoyed. It’s only when Project Veritas is right about something that liberals’ full hatred and anger for it comes out.
When Project Veritas is wrong about something, liberals are mildly annoyed.
It’s only when Project Veritas is right about something that liberals’ full hatred and anger for it comes out.
This five minute video on voter fraud in Texas is a great example of the real reason why liberals have such strong hatred for Project Veritas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jH6GaqAU0
Texas AG: San Antonio woman in Project Veritas video arrested on election-related charges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jH6GaqAU0
Texas AG: San Antonio woman in Project Veritas video arrested on election-related charges
Raquel Rodriguez accused of illegal voting and other felony charges
January 13, 2021
SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio campaign worker seen in an undercover video last year appearing to persuade a woman to change her vote faces a long list of felony charges after being arrested Wednesday, according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Raquel Rodriguez faces charges of election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot, according to a press release from AG Ken Paxton’s office.
“Many continue to claim that there’s no such thing as election fraud. We’ve always known that such a claim is false and misleading, and today we have additional hard evidence. This is a victory for election integrity and a strong signal that anyone who attempts to defraud the people of Texas, deprive them of their vote, or undermine the integrity of elections will be brought to justice,” Paxton said in the release.
The release spelled Rodriguez’s first name as Rachel, even though public records for her repeatedly have it spelled as Raquel.
A San Antonio Police Department spokeswoman said via email Wednesday Rodriguez was taken into custody on the city’s East Side and that the AG’s office asked for assistance transporting Rodriguez, but referred all other questions about the arrest to the AG’s office.
A spokeswoman for the AG’s office responded via email only that the arrest took place in San Antonio Wednesday morning.
Rodriguez faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, according to the news release.
She was captured on an undercover camera as part of a video released by Project Veritas last fall.
In it, Rodriguez appears to show an older woman how to change her vote on a mail-in ballot.
In the same video, Rodriguez described various types of small gifts she gets for voters she comes into contact with.
Project Veritas is a far-right activist organization that utilizes undercover video and audio in its projects. The organization, along with founder James O’Keefe, have been criticized for using what are described as deceptive editing techniques.
Texas state representative Terry Meza introduces bill to make it easier for criminals to commit crimes
Original: https://twitter.com/terryfortexas/status/1329504824879173634
My bill HB 196 and my position on the Texas Castle Doctrine has been misrepresented in the news as of late.
It does not repeal the Castle Doctrine, and it does not restrict homeowners from using firearms in self-defense as applicable to current Texas stand your ground laws. 1/3
Original: https://twitter.com/TerryforTexas/status/1329504826875666441
What my bill would do if passed, would require a homeowner to exhaust the potential of safely retreating into their habitation before using deadly force in defense of themselves or their property.
I filed this bill because the castle doctrine as it currently exists emboldens 2/3
Original: https://twitter.com/TerryforTexas/status/1329504827928358912
people to take justice into their own hands. While theft is obviously wrong, we have laws to address that. I don’t believe that stealing someone’s lawn ornament should be an offense punishable by death. 3/3
Pennsylvania House Leaders File Brief to Support Texas in Supreme Court Lawsuit Against Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania House Leaders File Brief to Support Texas in Supreme Court Lawsuit Against Pennsylvania
By Jack Phillips
December 10, 2020
Pennsylvania’s House speaker and majority leader on Thursday filed an amici curiae brief with the Supreme Court against the state of Pennsylvania and in favor of Texas’s lawsuit against the commonwealth and three other states.
A brief filed by Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, both Republicans, requests that the Supreme Court “carefully consider the procedural issues and questions raised by the Plaintiff concerning the administration of the 2020 General Election in Pennsylvania.”
“The unimpeachability of our elections requires clear procedures of administration so that everyone gets a fair shake. Unfortunately, outside actors have so markedly twisted and gerrymandered the Commonwealth’s Election Code to the point that amici find it unrecognizable from the laws that they enacted,” they wrote, adding that the state of Texas “raised important questions about how this procedural malfeasance affected the 2020 General Election.”
In the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleged that Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin introduced changes to election laws, deeming them unconstitutional. The suit also contends that by doing so, those states treated voters unequally and created significant voting irregularities by rescinding certain ballot-integrity measures.
Filed on Monday night, the lawsuit is requesting the Supreme Court to declare the four states carried out their respective elections in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the legal petition.
Cutler and Benninghoff, in support of Paxton’s lawsuit, further stipulated that “under the pretextual guise of COVID-19, special interests began attempting to use Pennsylvania courts” to carry out “election procedures of their own choosing,” citing mail-in ballot extensions implemented by Kathy Boockvar, the Pennsylvania secretary of state.
Also on Thursday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed a brief with the court, arguing that Paxton’s assertions are frivolous and an attempt to “disenfranchise voters” in the commonwealth.
“Its request for this Court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for President is legally indefensible and is an [affront] to principles of constitutional democracy,” Shapiro’s brief read. He further argued that Texas hasn’t suffered harm “simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections.”
Limestone County, Texas social worker charged with 134 felony counts involving election fraud
Limestone County Social Worker Charged With 134 Felony Counts Involving Election Fraud
November 6, 2020
Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that his Election Fraud Unit assisted the Limestone County Sheriff and District Attorney in charging Kelly Reagan Brunner, a social worker in the Mexia State Supported Living Center (SSLC), with 134 felony counts of purportedly acting as an agent and of election fraud. If convicted, Brunner faces up to 10 years in prison for these offenses.
“I strongly commend the Limestone County District Attorney’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, and Elections Office, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General for their outstanding work on this case and their commitment to ensuring a free and fair Presidential election in the face of unprecedented voter fraud,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Registering citizens to vote or to obtain mail ballots without their consent is illegal. It is particularly offensive when individuals purport to be champions for disability rights, when in reality they are abusing our most vulnerable citizens in order to gain access to their ballots and amplify their own political voice. My office is prepared to assist any Texas county in combating this insidious form of fraud.”
State Supported Living Centers serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Brunner submitted voter registration applications for 67 residents without their signature or effective consent, while purporting to act as their agent. Under Texas law, only a parent, spouse or child who is a qualified voter of the county may act as an agent in registering a person to vote, after being appointed to do so by that person. None of the SSLC patients gave effective consent to be registered, and a number of them have been declared totally mentally incapacitated by a court, thereby making them ineligible to vote in Texas.
Texas Republicans ask federal judge to throw out 117,000 legally cast ballots
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/texas-drive-through-voting-throw-out-ballots.html
Texas Republicans Ask Federal Judge to Throw Out 117,000 Legally Cast Ballots
By Mark Joseph Stern
October 31, 2020
Texas Republicans have asked a federal judge to throw out at least 117,000 ballots cast in Harris County, a heavily Democratic area that has experienced an unprecedented surge in early voting this month. The brazen effort to undo legally cast ballots in a diverse, populous county is an eleventh-hour attempt to diminish Joe Biden’s chances of carrying the swing state on Nov. 3. Republicans claim that Harris County’s use of drive-thru voting violates the U.S. Constitution, requiring the judge to throw out every ballot cast this way—more than 117,000 as of Friday. This argument is outrageous and absurd. But the case landed in front of U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, one of the most notoriously partisan conservatives in the federal judiciary. Democrats have good reason to fear that Hanen will order the mass nullification of ballots as early as Nov. 2, when he has scheduled a hearing.
Because Texas strictly limits mail-in voting, Harris County—which has a population of over 4.7 million people—has sought to make in-person voting safer during the pandemic. Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, who runs the county’s elections, established 10 drive-thru voting locations for the 2020 general election. Drivers pull into a large tent, where election officials confirm their identity, then give them privacy to vote. The process has proved wildly popular.
Harris County raised the idea of drive-thru voting in June, and Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs promptly approved it. The county tested it in July and approved it in August. Yet Republicans did not contest drive-thru voting in court until Oct. 15, two days after the start of early voting. On that day, the Harris County Republican Party, joined by several GOP operatives, asked the Texas Supreme Court to halt drive-thru voting. The court, which is entirely Republican, refused, over a single dissent. Republicans then went back to the Texas Supreme Court, asking it to toss out every ballot cast via drive-thru voting. The court is currently considering that request, though it seems unlikely to side with the plaintiffs given its previous decision.
So Republicans ran to federal court. On Wednesday, they asked Hanen to declare drive-thru voting unconstitutional and void every ballot cast this way. They relied upon a radical theory that is quickly gaining popularity among conservative judges. Republicans alleged that the state Legislature has sole authority over election law under the U.S. Constitution. They also claimed that the Legislature never approved drive-thru voting. As a result, they argued, the procedure is an unconstitutional usurpation of the Legislature’s power, meaning every ballot cast via drive-thru voting is illegitimate.
There are so many flaws in Republicans’ argument that it’s hard to know where to begin. The GOP operatives probably don’t have standing to challenge a voting procedure that merely makes it easier and safer to vote. But leave that aside and look at the merits. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the legislature does not have sole authority over elections. To the contrary, it has held that different parts of the state government can regulate voting procedures. Thus, the lawsuit’s chief claim—that Harris County has infringed on the Legislature’s constitutional rights—is simply false.
But even if it were true, the lawsuit would still fail, because the Texas Legislature has authorized drive-thru voting. State law explicitly allows counties to create temporary polling locations “in any stationary structure,” including a “movable structure.” Drive-thru voting takes place in large, stationary tents that obviously fit this definition. Indeed, other Texas counties have set up stationary tents at walk-in polling locations to provide extra booths to early voters. No one seriously argues that it is illegal to use tents for walk-in voting. So why are they illegal to use for drive-thru voting?
Republicans cannot provide an answer because there is none. That’s why Texas’ secretary of state approved drive-thru voting, informing Harris County election officials that they could use it for the general election. Republicans are trying to conflate drive-thru voting with curbside voting, a separate procedure subject to a different slate of regulations in Texas. They are lying. Harris County’s drive-thru voting is fundamentally distinct from curbside voting; it more closely resembles traditional in-person voting, with voters entering a polling place in their cars instead of on foot.
As a backup claim, Republicans also alleged that Harris County ran afoul of the equal protection clause, as interpreted in Bush v. Gore, because officials in that county offered a way to vote that other counties in Texas did not. Because Bush v. Gore is not precedent, this argument is utterly frivolous. If Bush v. Gore were precedent, the argument would still be frivolous, because that decision never said counties within a state could not provide different voting procedures. The nuts and bolts of voting vary widely across counties within states, and no court has ever suggested that a county violates equal protection when it makes voting easier in compliance with state law. Bush v. Gore involved vote counting, not vote casting. No SCOTUS precedent supports the proposition that voting procedures must be uniform across an entire state. Some smaller, rural counties in Texas, in fact, have a much easier time voting by mail because of a Republican-implemented rule that allows just one ballot drop box per county.
There are two more reasons the lawsuit should fail. First, Republicans brought this case nearly four months after Harris County announced its intent to provide drive-thru voting this fall. Yet the Republican officials only brought their lawsuit on Oct. 28, as early voting neared its end in Texas. More than 117,000 eligible voters have taken advantage of it, and will be disenfranchised if the lawsuit succeeds. Under a doctrine known as laches, litigants cannot wait to bring a claim until the last minute, then ambush their opponents with a surprise lawsuit. Republicans’ four-month delay in suing Harris County should be enough, on its own, to doom their case. Second, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly warned lower federal courts not to alter voting procedures shortly before an election. Republicans are now asking a federal court to shut down drive-thru voting just before Election Day, when it is in the highest demand, in addition to a request to invalidate votes that have already been legally cast. That request is precisely the kind of preelection challenge that SCOTUS has forbidden.
And yet there is good reason to worry that Republicans will prevail, at least initially. Hanen, the federal judge overseeing the case, is a rabid partisan. During the Obama administration, Hanen attempted to dox more than 100,000 immigrants living in the U.S. and chastised the Justice Department for declining to prosecute an immigrant mother. His behavior on the bench radiated partisan bias. Now Hanen holds the fate of more than 117,000 ballots (and counting) in his hands. Alarmingly, he scheduled a hearing in this case for Monday morning—without even giving Harris County a chance to file a response brief. It is possible that Hanen is rushing to throw a wrench into Texas’ election, purporting to void a vast number of votes in a critical battleground state.
However Hanen rules, his decision will be appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Thanks to President Donald Trump, the 5th Circuit is one of the most extreme and partisan appeals courts in the country and an avowed enemy of voting rights. Its members may be eager to seize upon this case to prevent Joe Biden from carrying Texas. At that point, only the U.S. Supreme Court could end Republicans’ mischief. And SCOTUS’ ultraconservative bloc has already expressed its zeal to throw out as many Democratic ballots as possible under the theory that only legislatures get to run elections.
The 2020 election is entering dangerous territory. Harris County is key to Biden’s Texas strategy, and its residents have already voted in record-shattering numbers. It is heavily Democratic, which makes it a prime target for GOP voter suppression. Republicans think the federal judiciary will thwart a Biden victory in Texas. If they prevail, they will have stolen an election in broad daylight.
Trump praises drivers that Biden campaign says tried to run bus ‘off the road’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B30zHE7DJ0
Trump Praises Drivers That Biden Campaign Says Tried To Run Bus ‘Off The Road’
By Andrew Solender
October 31, 2020
President Donald Trump on Saturday offered praise to a group of pro-Trump pickup truck drivers in Texas who surrounded and slowed a Biden campaign bus and who the Biden campaign accused of trying to run it “off the road,” underscoring allegations that Trump encourages his supporters to act violently.
“I LOVE TEXAS!” Trump tweeted, along with a video of a dozen pickup trucks, sporting American and pro-Trump flags, following a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a highway in Texas.
The scene appeared to show the same incident chronicled in other videos posted to social media on Friday and Saturday showing the trucks following the bus and, in one case, ramming a white SUV accompanying it.
A Biden campaign spokesperson told Forbes the pickups “attempted to slow the bus down and run it off the road,” and that the campaign called law enforcement to escort the bus to safety and offload passengers, which included U.S. House candidate and former Texas legislator Wendy Davis.
The incident came after Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. told supporters to give Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who visited Texas on Friday, a “nice Trump Train welcome” to “show them how strong Texas still is as Trump country.”
The Biden campaign told Forbes it canceled a planned event at the Texas AFL-CIO out of an “abundance of caution,” while Texas state legislator Sheryl Cole said a joint event with the campaign and the Austin Young Democrats was called off for “security reasons.”
Cole said the pro-Trump drivers “escalated well beyond safe limits,” citing Travis County Democratic Party Chair Katie Naranjo, who alleged they “followed the Biden bus throughout central Texas” and “ran into a person’s car, yelling curse words and threats.”
The Texas Tribune reported that Texas GOP Chairman Allen West “dismissed questions regarding the incident,” telling them “It is more fake news and propaganda. Prepare to lose… stop bothering me.”
The White House referred Forbes to the Trump campaign, which did not respond to several requests for comment, nor did a local Trump Train organizer.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris – who was not on the bus – made three stops in Texas the same day the incident occurred and was met by Trump supporters during her visit. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who campaigned with Harris, was also heckled by Trump supporters, who he called “a––holes with their louds horns.”
Conservatives took to social media Saturday to dispute the Biden campaign’s interpretation of incidents, noting that some videos show the white SUV and bus driving between lanes – although the trucks appear to be attempting to box the bus in as the white SUV tries to stay on its tail. Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler, a Republican running for reelection, told the Tribune the Biden campaign did not give advanced notification of its trip, adding “The planning of this was questionable.”
“There’s a Biden bus and it’s surrounded by pickup trucks on a highway all with Trump signs,” Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro said of the incident. “I mean it’s just ordinary Americans taking this election into their own hands and getting out there and being real clear on what they stand for.”
“The words of a president matter. And time and time again, Donald Trump has callously used his to incite violence, stoke the flames of hatred and division, and drive us further apart,” Biden tweeted on Saturday, after Trump praised the drivers. “It’s time for it to end.”
1 point. That’s the size of Trump’s lead in Texas in the FiveThirtyEight polling average. The state has been hotly competitive this year, despite Trump winning it by 9 points in 2016, with the Biden campaign sending Harris, as well as Jill Biden and Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, to campaign there.
The incident is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Tribune reported.
Was That a Cough? Going Back to the Movies in Texas.
I support what Texas is doing here. I hope it works out well. I doubt that it’s any more dangerous than going to the supermarket.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cough-going-back-movies-texas-160636639.html
Was That a Cough? Going Back to the Movies in Texas.
May 3, 2020
SAN ANTONIO — It happened early inside the cool, darkened cineplex, before Vin Diesel even had a chance to turn superhuman, as people sat munching popcorn and sipping sodas in their plush recliner seats.
Someone coughed.
If anyone seated nearby was alarmed, no one showed it. The cough sounded muffled: The moviegoer was wearing a mask — part of the recommended etiquette of going to the movies in the middle of a pandemic.
On Saturday, three movie theaters in the San Antonio area became some of the first in the country to reopen, a move that worried some infectious-disease experts but was applauded by those who bought tickets and went to the show.
Santikos Entertainment opened three theaters, offering discounted prices, a limited food menu, workers in masks and greeters who opened doors as people entered, limiting contact with door handles.
The theaters were showing older releases for $5, and at the Palladium, in an upscale shopping center called the Rim, business was steady — low for a Saturday in May, but higher than what might be expected in a state still grappling with a coronavirus outbreak that has killed nearly 900 people, 48 of them in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio.
Texas took a big step out of its coronavirus lockdown Friday, allowing restaurants, malls, retail stores and some other businesses to resume operations, with strict limits on the number of patrons allowed inside.
Movie theaters, like restaurants, were allowed to seat only 25% of their listed capacity.
Grady McClung and his wife Rachel went to the 1:10 p.m. showing of the Christian movie “I Still Believe” at the Palladium, each wearing a mask.
“Yesterday was my birthday, so I got the first two tickets for the first opening of the first movie in the first movie theater,” said Grady McClung, 51, a project manager for a telecommunications company who lives in nearby Boerne. “There’s about 12 seats in a 150-seat auditorium. We’re well spaced out.”
To sit in a theater with dozens of strangers was a walk on the wild side of public health. But as the movies played and the plots thickened amid the crunch-crunch of patrons chewing popcorn, Hollywood was doing what it has done for decades: providing an escape, albeit masked and at a distance.
Grady McClung and others at the theater said that before buying their tickets they had researched the steps the company was taking to keep people safe and were satisfied that they were not putting themselves at risk. Going to the movies, some of them said, brought back a touch of much-needed normality after weeks under quarantine.
“If you feel like you have fear, then that’s perfectly fine, and you don’t go out,” Grady McClung said. “But other people need to get their lives back. We didn’t go to movies all the time. I mean, probably five or six a year. But this was something that was right for now.”
At the afternoon showing of the Vin Diesel action-adventure flick “Bloodshot,” moviegoers kept their distance, sitting two, three or four seats apart. Some wore masks, and others wore them in the lobby but took them off in the auditorium to eat popcorn.
In Row F, the company mistakenly put three guests in F1, F2 and F3, nearly elbow to elbow. F2 moved down to F7 to ensure social distancing.
Tim Handren, the chief executive of Santikos Entertainment, said the company was taking the safety of both employees and customers seriously and was going beyond the state’s health requirements.
“We are following, we believe, the best guidelines that we can to open safely,” Handren said in a YouTube message to the public.
Masks were recommended, but not required, for customers. In the lobby of the Palladium, a masked worker asked customers as they entered whether they or anyone they had been in contact with had experienced fever, chills or other symptoms in the past 14 days. Signs warned that if the answer was yes, they would not be allowed to enter and the cost of their tickets would be refunded.
Cashiers stood behind plexiglass shields. At least 75% of the seats in each auditorium were left unsold. Many doors were left open so people did not have to touch them. The arcade games were shut down, and no cash was accepted — those with cash exchanged their bills for gift cards.
“We’re trying to minimize the number of touch points, where you could be interacting with, touching, things that we don’t need you touching, or our employees,” Handren said in the video.
The company had asked employees if they were comfortable returning to work before reopening, Handren said, and “our employees have resoundingly said, ‘We want to come back.’” Santikos had furloughed employees and had kept its theaters closed for more than 40 days.
Handren said that the company would probably not make money off the low-capacity showings but that it recognized that people needed to get out of their houses and “just go somewhere else.”
That said, business was brisk: By the early evening, the Palladium had sold 800 tickets and was still getting walk-up customers.
Infectious-disease experts said they worried that the decision by Gov. Greg Abbott to include movie theaters in the first phase of the state’s partial reopening was risky.
“You’re not going to catch me at a theater any time soon,” said Dr. Diana Cervantes, an expert in infection prevention and control who is an assistant professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, a medical school in Fort Worth.
“When you think of what aids transmission, it is going to be the type of contact you have with the person who’s infected, the length of time, proximity — all of those factors come into play. The amount of time starts to be a little too prolonged for me to be sitting there with a bunch of strangers.”
Joe Garcia, 74, a retired military chaplain in a camouflage mask, said he had no health concerns. He printed out a copy of the theater’s safety procedures and brought it with him.
He and his family have a long-running tradition: Once a week, they bring his 41-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy, to the movies, one of her major social outings. The tradition had been put on hold during the coronavirus lockdown.
Garcia, his daughter and his other daughter, Karla Ross, 51, went to the 4:10 p.m. showing of “I Still Believe.”
It was the first time in six weeks that Garcia, who lives in Blanco, had seen Ross, who lives in San Antonio, because Garcia’s age makes him more vulnerable to the virus than others.
For their day back at the movies, he had no worries.
“We feel safe,” he said.
If statewide lockdowns reduce deaths from COVID-19, then why is New York’s per capita death rate more than 50 times higher than Texas’s?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
April 8, 2020
You can see a list of U.S. states ranked in order by the number of COVID-19 deaths per 1 million population. Go to this link, and scroll down to the list of states. At the top of the list, click where it says “Deaths /1M pop.” Then click on it a second time: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
In addition, here is a map that shows which states have a statewide lockdown, and which do not. Source: https://www.indy100.com/article/coronavirus-lockdown-us-cases-map-stay-home-order-9443151
Looking at these two things, we should be able to see whether nor not statewide lockdowns actually helped to save lives.
New York has a statewide lockdown, and has had 319 deaths per 1 million population.
Texas has not had a statewide lockedown, but its death rate has only been 6 per 1 million people.
So even though New York has a statewide lockdown, and Texas does not, New York’s per capita death rate is actually more than 50 times higher than Texas’s.
What is the explanation for this?
Note: Edited to add the following: People are commenting about differences in population density. My response to this is to point out that of the 13 most heavily populated U.S. cities, five of them are in Texas. Source for image: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_United_States_cities_by_population&oldid=949701887
List of United States cities by population
Note from Daniel Alman: If you like this blog post that I wrote, you can buy my books from amazon, and/or donate to me via PayPal, using the links below:
Video: When some idiot tried to carry out a mass shooting at a church in Texas, several other people immediately pulled out their own guns and stopped him. We’ll never know how many lives they saved.
I live in Squirrel Hill, where 11 innocent people were shot and killed at a synagogue last year.
In Texas, just today, when some idiot tried to carry out a mass shooting at a church, several other people immediately pulled out their own guns and stopped him.
It’s a good thing that it’s legal for law abiding citizens to carry guns in churches in Texas.
We’ll never know how many lives they saved.
Here’s a link to a video of the incident:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HqURuaj2Hus7/
And here’s an article about it from CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/29/us/church-shooting-texas/index.html
Suspect shoots and kills 2 inside a Texas church before parishioners fatally shoot him
December 29, 2019
A man shot and killed two people during a church service in White Settlement, Texas, on Sunday before two members of the church security team shot and killed him, authorities said.
City Police Chief J.P. Bevering said it appeared the shooter walked into West Freeway Church of Christ and sat down in the sanctuary, then stood, pulled out a shotgun and shot two parishioners.
“There was a security team inside the church and they eliminated the threat,” Bevering said.
Bevering praised the churchgoers who returned fire and killed the suspect as “heroic” and said there is no ongoing threat.
Matthew DeSarno, the FBI agent in charge of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said the motive is unknown, and nobody knows yet whether the shooter targeted the victims. DeSarno said the investigation will determine whether the shooter was driven by any sort of ideology.
He didn’t identify the shooter, but said he was “relatively transient with roots to this area” and had been arrested multiple times in different municipalities.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the incident was over within six seconds.
“This church has its own security team,” he said. “They were well trained. The heroism today is unparalleled. … Two of the parishioners who are volunteers on the security force drew their weapons and took out the killer immediately, saving untold number of lives.”
Video shows the shooting
A video livestream from the church, seen by CNN, appears to show how the shooting unfolded. The entire incident, from the time the shooter pulled out his gun until he was shot, took six seconds.
Lisa Farmer, the wife of the West Freeway Church of Christ Minister Britt Farmer, was not inside the church at the time of the shooting but said the video shows the inside of the church building.
The video, obtained by CNN affiliate KTVT, shows the shooter seated in a pew toward the rear of the church during the service. The shooter, dressed in dark clothes, approaches someone in the back corner and appears to talk to them. That individual gestures toward the center of the church.
The shooter pulled out a long gun and opened fire on the man before shooting a second man.
It appears that a man, toward the left of the screen, draws a handgun and fires. The shooter falls to the ground immediately. Three muzzle flashes are seen on the video.
The YouTube video has since been made private.
‘It was so chaotic’
The shooting happened during communion, Lisa Farmer told CNN.
“It was so chaotic,” she said. “I think all the congregation is being held inside, all being held for questioning.”
The church normally has around 280 people attending Sunday services, she said. She didn’t identify the congregant who died but described him as a close friend “who would do anything for anybody that he could. Good guy. He’s been there for us through thick and thin.”
Video of the scene from CNN affiliate KTVT showed several agencies present — including Fort Worth Police, Fort Worth Fire Department and MedStar EMS. Several people could be seen outside the church, which was roped off with yellow police tape.
Guns are legal in Texas churches
The shooting comes more than two years after a gunman opened fire at a church in Sutherland Springs — a community about 300 miles away from White Settlement — killing at least 26 people.
After the Sutherland Springs shooting, the state loosened its gun laws to allow churchgoers to carry firearms into houses of worship.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott offered his condolences in the wake of the shooting.
Police got a call just before 10 a.m. about people with gunshot wounds at the church.
“Our hearts go out to the victims and families of those killed in the evil act of violence that occurred at the West Freeway Church of Christ,” he said.
“Places of worship are meant to be sacred, and I am grateful for the church members who acted quickly to take down the shooter and help prevent further loss of life.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he was “shocked and saddened” to hear about the shooting.
“As reports come in, please pray for any victims and their families, this congregation, and the law enforcement officials at the scene. My office will assist in any way needed,” he said.
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