Okay, this is your bonus day of the 5 days, 5 Consumer Pet Peeves. If you missed them, here are Day 1-Crappy Weathermen, Day 2 – Pushy Car Hops, Day 3 – Tow Truck Drivers, Day 4 – Texas Home Builders and Texas Real Estate Agents and Day 5 – TxDot and DPS Troopers.

It seems like it has been about a year or so since our local Kroger store started using those self checkout kiosk. Right away the whole thing smelled like rotten eggs.

Here I am with a cart full of groceries and I have to check and sack my own groceries. Yet, I’m paying higher prices already just to shop there (in our area, my wife says Wal-Mart is cheaper, but I don’t much care for their meat.) And now they want me to check myself out and sack my own groceries all the way paying them more for…..what?….the privilage of shopping at their store?

Sorry Kroger, there are other stores that still sack my groceries and check me out. But I am curious, do you pay the remaining Cashiers more? I thought so.

So now I do not shop at stores that require you to go through that stupid self checkout. It’s just absurb and a stupid decision by any stores management. If you’re going to have them in place, you should at least have 1 or 2 lanes open that have real live Cashiers at them.

So about a month ago I was at our local Home Depot and got ready to check out. Looked for the lighted pole that indicates a Cashier is on duty, but only saw one. As I got close to the “checkout” I saw they had put in those stupid self checkout kiosk!

Man, I was hot! Here i was with lumber and some hardware for a project I was doing. I did not look forward to checking myself out with all that stuff. A little ole Cashier must have seen me looking around…or looking P***ed Off and come over and asked if there was somehthing I needed.

“Why yes there is” I told her

“I need a Cashier to check me out”

“Well, we now have these self checkout kiosk so you can check yourself out. It’s easier and faster” she told me.

“No offense” I said “If I’d wanted to be a Cashier at Home Depot, I would have applied for the job”. 

“Either someone checks me out or I leave all this stuff here and go to Lowes where they still have Cashiers who check people out”

She kindly pulled my flat over and started checking me out, took my money and gave me a receipt.  Before I left, I told her that she should be telling management that some people do not like checking their self out.

She said “All of us here have, but it’s a corporate decision”

“Too bad” I said “I bet Lowes is loving that Corporate decision”.

She said I wasn’t the only one complaining about it. She said in fact the vast majority of people hated it but that management said “Once they use it a while they’ll come to deal with it”

No, I won’t. I won’t shop there any longer just like I don’t shop at my local Kroger any longer. I go where I can get service.

Corporate America seems to think they can push whatever they want on us and we’ll accept it. I guess for most Sheeple, that’s correct because many will just bitch and moan about it and keep on shopping the same old place.

Well, I don’t. I have choices and if I have to choose, I’ll choose convienance and service over a low price any day of the week!

Here is Day 5 of my 5 Days of Consumer Pet Peeves. If you missed them, here are Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

Since both TxDot and the DPS Troopers are so closely related, I decided to lump them both together.

As someone who has to drive in the Houston Metro area daily, I’m on the receiving end of a lot of TxDot’s utterly stupid decisions. These have to be some of the most incompetent road planners in the country, perhaps the world. It’s my opinion that their road construction decisions are based more on kickbacks from contractor rather than the public good.

In a former career, I crisscrossed the country several times a month in a truck. I saw what other areas of the country did when they needed to expand their infrastructure. Many major cities will keep their roads open during the day and work on them at night, when traffic is the lightest.

Not TxDot! Hell no!

I can not tell you how many times I’ve seen 1 or 2 lanes shut down on a busy highway and there be no one working on that section. Just Orange barrels keeping traffic out of those lanes. Or how about their latest decision to shut down one of the busiest intersections in the State, if not the country, at Beltway 8 and the I-10 Intersection? You have to be smoking or drinking something really wacko in order to think that was a good idea. Or be taking kickbacks from contractors.

If memory serves me correctly, TxDot is made up of appointtees, not elected Officials. I also believe the Gov. appoints these individuals, but I could be wrong, let me know if I am. (this would make perfect sense though!)

Anyway, let’s move on to DPS Troopers.

As stated before, I’ve been to every State in this here Union and I’ve dealt with Law Enforcement in most of them. So when I say Texas has some of the rudest, most unprofessional State Troopers I’ve ever seen, I know what I’m talking about.

Now some of you are getting your panties in a wad because you think I’m issuing a blanket statement on ALL Texas State Troopers, I’m not, just the 1 to 2 dozen I’ve dealt with over the last decade.

Out of the dozen or so I’ve dealt with, about 8 have been because of a traffic violation (real and imagined on the Troopers part). Out of those 8 I can honestly say there were only 2 that were professional. One gave me a ticket and one didn’t.

The last 4 times I’ve been stopped, it’s been because of a seat belt violation. 3 out of the 4 times I had my seat belt on. When I tried to explain to the Troopers that I had a light grey interior with a light grey seat belt and that I was wearing a light grey shirt that matched the color of the seat belt, all but one understood.

The biggest jerk of the bunch was a tall, black Trooper who stopped me on Rayford Sawdust road last year for “not having my seat belt on”. His last name was something like Burreal or Burden it seems like. He virtually came unglued when I said that I did have it on. He made a real A$$ out of his self.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that I would have lost a lot more than the $135 fine by missing jobs, I would have gladly taken it to court.

Yes, I know the State uses this as an income generating tool, but it doesn’t mean the Troopers have to be so gung ho about enforcing it when it falls into a grey area.

Unless the have a “quota” to fill?????

I know it may seem like I don’t have respect for law enforcement, but anyone who knows me knows that isn’t so. But it takes a helluva man or women to wear a law enforcement uniform, especially a Texas State Trooper uniform, and not let it go to your head. Unfortunately for the good people of Texas, I don’t see that we’re getting the cream of the crop of Trooper graduates. And that’s all I have to say about that…..

Since I enjoyed this little 5 day series (yes, I know I missed a day, I was tired after getting home yesterday..lol) I’m going to give you fine readers one more day of my Pet Peeves, yes, that’s right, a BONUS Day!

So tune in tomorrow when I’ll give you Day 6 of my Consumer Pet Peeves – Self Check Out Kiosk

This is Day 4 of my consumer pet peeves. If you missed them, here are Day 1 , Day 2 and Day 3.

I’m not really sure how to classify Texas Home Builders and Texas Real Estate agents, slightly above tow truck drivers, below used car salesmen or above them all at the top of the list.

In my line of work, I have to deal with both of these groups of people. While there are good people in both groups, like tow truck drivers, I think the good ones are the exception to the rule.

Time and time again I see people from both groups prey on consumers. If its not a Texas Real Estate agent trying to push their client to the closing table with lies and deceit, it’s a crappy Texas Builder taking short cuts to get the consumer in the home and closed quicker.

As consumers, do we get protection from these predators? No. Both have a powerful Lobby in Austin and any law designed to reign them in is normally easily defeated due to all the politicians taking their money.

Texas Real Estate agents have the Texas Real Estate Commission. You have to screw up pretty bad in order to have your hand slapped by TREC. Most of the times it’s a relatively low fine for most infractions or a warning.

On the Texas Builder side of things, they were able to get the Texas Residential Construction Commission organized under the sheeps clothing of consumer protection. All one has to do is look at the past and present commission members to see what I’m talking about. The commission is made up of a Who’s Who in the Texas Residential Construction Industry. Builders, Attorney’s for Builders, Vendors to Builders, etc. You get the picture.

No truer words were spoken than when Carol Keetan Strayhorn called the TRCC “A Builder protection commission created for Builders by Builders.”

One only has to look at their rate of finding in favor of the Homeowner in construction related complaints against Builders to see that this statement has come to pass. The complaint process, designed by the TRCC, is a very complex and drawn out process. Some have said it was designed like this to discourage many homeowners from filing complaints. Imagine that!

Have you every tried to sue a Builder in Texas?

Good luck. It likely won’t happen. The way the laws are written, (again, thank your politician who’s taking Building Lobby money), it’s virtually impossible due to all the hurdles one must get over before being “allowed” by state law to sue a Texas Builder.

The Texas Building Industry also managed to prevent Texas Builders from being sued under the Texas Deceptive Trades Practice. They have also been successful in blocking every attempt into forcing Builders to be licensed and pass a competency test. You have to have a license to cut hair and go fishing, but not to build a $500,000 home. Go figure.

The more I think about it, the more I believe they deserve the #1 spot on the Dregs of Texas Consumers list.

Tune in tomorrow, Day 5 of the 5 Days of Consumer Pet Peeves when I’ll discuss TXDOT and DPS Troopers.

This is Day 3 of a 5 day series on my Pet Peeves as a Consumer. If you missed them, here is Day 1 and Day 2.  You’ve seen these vultures of the highway hovering around an accident, just waiting to get a chance to pounce on a disabled motorist.

Question: What’s the difference between a tow truck driver and a Vulture?

Answer: A Vulture will wait until the roadkill has stopped kicking before it moves in to feast.

Before I start my rant, I want you to know, that I Know, that there are decent hard working tow truck owners out there. However, I believe they are in the minority rather than the majority. I do not believe this is a case of “A few bad apples.” I think the stereotyping the industry gets is just and the industry doesn’t seem to care what the general public thinks of it. If they did, they’d work to clean up their image.

Years ago I heard a statistic that said that for every single car wreck in the Houston metro area, there would be 3 wreckers waiting to get the car. I’d say that statistic has doubled.

More often than not, tow truck drivers cause more of a distraction at the scene of an accident than they help. Hell, people are wondering why there are so many wreckers at an accident. “Must be a heckuva wreck with all those wreckers around” When they finally see the accident they’re disapointed that it was only a fender bender.

Tow truck drivers routinely break all the rules of the road in an effort to get to the scene of an accident. I’ve seen these bozo’s blast through red lights, drive the wrong direction on a street to bypass stopped traffic, tailgate within a few feet of a car in front of them trying to intimidate the driver to pull over so they can go around, not to mention flying down a road at a high rate of speed. There is no Texas law that allows them to break the law in order to get to an accident, yet they somehow feel they have the right to put innocent motorist at risk in order to get there in time to put their token in a hat for the drawing to see who gets to haul away a car.

Many moons ago I did the night delivery thing for a major auto parts corporation. My route ran from Houston to Lake Charles La. and back. I could write a freakin’ book on how bad wrecker drivers are. In fact, I’d classify them right up there with Metro Bus drivers as the worse drivers on the road. I don’t know where the tow truck companies find these people, and I’m sure they don’t care, but they should show them how to drive.

Many also cheat the public with ridiculous fees. Every major TV station in every major Texas city has done an expose on how crooked tow truck drivers are.  They common theft happens when they tell you a price, get you to sign the ticket, then write in the amount AFTER you have signed their ticket. Never sign a ticket until the form has been filled completely out with the amount of the tow included. This also means the tow truck driver should sign the ticket along with you. This way, they can’t tell you that it’ll be $75 for the tow then charge you $200 or more.

Tow truck drivers are also notorious for making deals with shopping centers to haul away cars of people not shopping in the shopping center. Tow truck drivers routinely haul away legitimate customers cars as well as those who are parking there for other reasons.

There was a story recently here in Houston where an owner of a tow truck company was hauling away cars from a parking area where there were posted signs that cars would be towed. The catch? The owner of the tow truck company put the signs there his self! No authority was given this guy to do this. Surprisingly he was arrested.

It’s no big secret either than Tow Truck Drivers give kickbacks to police officers. The scam goes like this. Whenever there’s  wreck or the Officer pulls someone over, the Officer gives the tow truck driver a call. This gives them a heads start in arriving before other tow truck drivers. In many cases, the tow truck driver will hook up and take the car away before other tow truck drivers can arrive after hearing the call on their police radios.

I’m not the only one who has a beef against the tow truck industry, check out this bloggers post.  (warning, he was a little PO’d when he wrote that article and he uses some “adult” words to describe tow truck drivers)

How about your area? Are tow truck drivers more of a menace to the public rather than a help?

Tune in tomorrow when I’ll have Day 4 of my Consumer Pet Peeves – Home Builders and Real Estate Agents

Today I want to talk about Car Hops. There is a certain national fast food chain that uses car hops to bring your food and drinks to your cars. This chain has been around for many, many years. I love their food and their drinks. In fact, this chain use to be a regular source of dates for me in my younger years.

Now days, they’re an Oasis on a hot day. You’ll find them everywhere, from small one horse towns to large cities such as Dallas, Houston and Corsicana (ha! gotcha, just seeing if you were paying attention)

Anyway, the last several years I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among the younger Car Hops and to a certain extent, the older ones too. 

What’s the Peeve?

They keep your change without asking!

Now, I tip these gals (and occassional guy) when they bring my order. Even when paying by CC at those new menu kiosk.

However, the better car hops actually “pretend” they’re going to give you change, knowing most people are going to say “You keep the change.”

There’s not a faster way to head back inside empy handed if you’re a Car Hop than not to at least go through the motions of giving my change back. I don’t care how little it is. It’s mine.

You ought to see the looks on many of these gals faces when they drop my order off and head back inside with my 47 cents worth of change.

“Whoa there ma’am, I think you forgot my change”

“Oh” is all most say when you point out the obvious

What I’d really like to say, and may as I grow older, is;

“Excuse me. I know it’s only 47 cents, but why do you believe that it’s your right to keep my money just because you brought me an order? Is it your goal to work for the U.S. Government?”

My normal system for tipping car hops is this: if my order is $x.01 to $x.70, I usually tell them to keep the change. If it’s less, I’ll usually give ‘em a dollar. I keep this dollar down low, usually in my lap so they can’t see it. This way, I have the option of tipping the dollar, or keeping it should I see fit. Kinda like playing Poker.

Since I’m a regular at a few of these drive-ins, I get to know some of the Car Hops. I automatically tip the good ones $1 because I know I’ll get good service.  I also want to “train” them to realize there’ll be a $1 waiting for them if I get my order in a timely manner, brought to me with a smile and if it’s right.

There’s been more than one littly snooty girl who lost out on the dollar tip by keeping my 13 cents in change or having an attitude when they brought my food.

My wife scolds me for this practice, but I just tell her it’s the price they have to pay for being a jerk.

I once pulled into one of these drive-in’s and it had just stopped sprinkling. This drin-in had bays on the left and right as you pulled in and most of them on the left (next to the building) were full. I pulled into one on the right, across from the building. When I placed my order I saw the button flash for a few seconds and then go dark. (this means they’ve answered your call) We’ll a minute went pass and I realized that the people inside had just “cancelled” me. I pushed the button again and it blinked a few times until the girl answered. I gave her my order then she say’s “Could you use the drive-through, our car hop doesn’t want to take a chance getting wet”

We’ll, excuse the crap out of me! I thought

I simply replied “Yes, I do mind. If I’d wanted to go through the drive through, I would have pulled through the drive through. But since you’re more concerned with your Car Hop getting a few stray sprinkle drops on her, I’ll pull over to Chic-fil-et where they’re not as concerned about inconvienancing a customer.”

I’ve never been back to that drive-in.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 3 of my Consumer Pet Peeves – Tow Truck Drivers

I decided to do this week long series after thinking about it this weekend watching my local weather.

There are several things that just burn my butt as a consumer. So for the next 5 days, I’ll have 5 things that really aggrevate me as a consumer.

Day 1- Crappy Weathermen & Weatherwomen

Perhaps it’s only Houston who has the crappiest weather people. I don’t know about your area but here in Houston, I can watch Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC and get 11 totally different weather forecast for the next several days, and every damn one of them will be wrong.

And when they’re wrong, boy are they quick to come up with an excuse!

What happened to Weathermen who could predict the forecast? I think today’s Weathermen rely too much on so called “modern technology” to predict the weather.

I can remember in years past that neighbors had “favorite” weathermen. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a rural area, but if you wanted to stay on the air as a Weatherman, you’d better be pretty darn good. The “favorite” weathermen in the areas we lived were liked because they were accurate.

Do you remember the days when they would walk over to the U.S. map and move the Low fronts and Highs with their hands or long pointers? I sure do and those men knew weather. I think they also knew how to network with other Weathermen across the country.

Now days, if they say you have a 30% chance of rain on Tuesday, you’ll probably get it Monday or Thursday if at all.

One of the positive thing I like about the modern technology is the Doppler Radar and it’s ability to predict paths of Tornadoes. However, once again it looks like the bunch of people from Houston either don’t know how to use it or use scientific “guesstimates” more than they do the technology.

Today’s requirements for a Weatherman or Weatherwoman are based more on looks rather than how well they can predict the future. It seems the local TV stations think we do not care about the Weather so much as we care about how the person giving the weather looks.

This is one reason I know get my Weather from the Internet. It’s more accurate and afterall, that’s why I used to watch the Weather, to see what it’s going to do in a day or so.

Which brings me to another point a little off topic. That’s this so called Global Warming. Al Gore and a bunch of illegitimate wannabe scientist and celebs are running around telling me that the polar ice caps are going to melt, etc.

You can’t tell me what the weather is going to do in 3 days, you think I’m going to believe you when you’re telling me what it’s going to do in 100 years? Get a life people, you or I do not know what the weather will be like in a 100 years. My guess is that it’ll be much like it is today. Hot June thru Sept, somewhat cooler Oct and Nov. with rain. Cool in Dec. Jan and Feb. and temps in the 70’s and 80’s during March thru May.

Tomorrow’s pet peeve – Car Hops

I sit there thinking of the many different ways I could resolve this situation. Everything from “Hey Mr. Beach House Owner, perhaps no one told you, but that Mexican flag should not be higher or even on the same level, as the United States flag” all the way down to throwing a rope over the top of it and dragging it down.

Someone beat me to the “punch” per say, because a few hours later when I walked back out on the deck, I saw this.

What get’s into someones head that makes them believe this is even remotely an ”okay” thing to do on Memorial Day weekend?

Another thing that P***ed me off was apparently some of the neighbors and the homeowners friends showed up for a little get-together. Apparently the site of the Mexican flag never bothered them or if it did, they drowned thier opposition to it with Corona’s.

I don’t know about ya’ll, but I sure as heck would not party at someone’s house that had this going on. As I’ve always said, I believe the majority of Sheeple don’t want to be made to “think” about their surroundings as long as the water and electric comes on and there’s a cold beer in the fridge. Life must be good!

You can find a town by town list of known speed traps in Texas by going here.

Since there are so many Newspapers, I try and lump all of them on one page so I can scan the headlines. I do this thru a My Yahoo page.

I first find the RSS feed on the newspaper I want, go to My Yahoo page, click the “Add Content” button, then next to the search field is a RSS link. I click that and Paste the RSS address that I just copied from the Newspaper. Some of the larger newspapers make this easier by adding a My Yahoo button in their RSS.

Now this is 2007. You’d think these newspapers would have got a clue by now. As I stated earlier, Newspapers are battling declining ad revenue and subscribers to the Internet. It makes me wonder who in the world is running the Online version of some of these Newspapers when they do not include a freakin’ RSS link to their sections!

No wonder you’re loosing subscribers!

If a small paper like the Wichita Falls Times Record can have full RSS feeds to their News section, why in the World can’t Newspapers such as the Beaumont Enterprise or the El Paso Times get a clue and add RSS to their News sections?

Clueless, absolutely clueless people running the Online versions of these Newspapers.

This law would prohibit landlords from renting to [tag]illegal immigrants[/tag]. According to the Dallas Business Journal;

The Villas at Parkside Partners, an apartment complex located in Farmers Branch, sued Farmers Branch over the ordinance, which prohibits apartment complexes from renting to illegal immigrants.

Well, it makes you stop and think what kind of tenants the Villas want to rent to. It should also make you stop and think about why they’d put the interest of their community and their neighbors above that of illegal immigrants. But hey, what do I know?

By the way, should you want to rent an apartment in Farmers Branch and you’re looking at the Villas, you should check their satisfaction rating out here. Wow, with those kinds of feedback, maybe illegals is all they can rent to!

Even though the law has not went into effect, it looks like it’s having positive affects after all according to this story.

After reading that story, I felt warm and fuzzy all over that other apartment owners were taking advantage of Farmers Branch illegal immigration laws with fliers that said “No Papers, No Problems”.

What the hell are the apartment owners drinking up there? I know a few apartment owners and they sure wouldn’t actively solicit illegals to fill their apartments.  It seems those in the Dallas area are going spastic over the chance to lure these illegals away.

I hope everyone in those Sanctuary cities get their wish. Thousands of illegals camping out in their front lawn.

But back to Farmers Branch for a moment.  It was only back in Jan. that another Judge tried to side line this law.

Once again we have Judges trying to legislate from the bench and supercede legal citizens wishes.  What this means is that your vote as a legal citizen does not matter and can be over ruled by one judge or even a group of judges.

Of course we have the usual suspects helping the illegal aliens. Groups such as the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

I wonder how many people from those two organization live in Farmers Branch?

It’s obvious that these groups hope to keep sueing cities that try to protect its citizens from illegal immigration. Their hope is that they bleed them dry and the cities will have to give up. You and I can help. Farmers Branch has a legal defense fund that you can make donations too so they can fight this battle. Please give, I did. Click here for the Farmers Branch Legal Defense Fund. Or you can go here and donate.

After a little digging, I found a podcast of the incident. Seems Senator Whitmire was throwing a fit because he was not on the floor at the time of a vote on the Voter ID bill and his vote was not counted.

In fact, he became so belligerent, that Lt. Gov Dewhurst had to ask him to compose his self or remove his self from the Senate Floor.

At one point, Whitemire can be heard saying “I was working the G**D**n floor”. Apparently there were other comments the microphone did not pick up.

From my research, this isn’t the first time Sen. Whitmire has lost his temper on the Senate floor.

My question is, where is all the media stories on this? Why did I have to spend nearly 30 minutes to try and find this story.

If Sen. Dan Patrick or Sen. Williams had pulled such a stunt, every news outlet in the State would have been all over it. It would have been all you’d heard for days. They’d probably even asked for their resignation. But not Democrat Senator Whitmire.

He sets a fine example for all Texans.

My, my, what short memory we have. I’m sure most people could care less that Citgo is a subsidary of the Venezuelan state owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. Which means that Venezuela President Chavez controls their purse strings.

Why should this bother me or any other American?

Let’s see…I dunno….the only good reason I could think of is because the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, would like nothing more than to see the United States become ashes. I’m sorry, but for me, that is the only reason I need to never visit another Citgo station.

7-11, the convenience store chain, had enough sense to break it’s ties with Citgo, why is it hard for other independent stations and consumers to break their ties?

Some 7-11’s were so concerned that they posted the following sign on their pumps.

That’s how you get their attention!

Hugo Chavez has made it no secret that he’d like to help Anti-American terrorist destroy the United States, this includes the street you live on and the street I live on. Why would anyone help support such an enemy?

A day after 9-11, Chavez stated

The United States brought the attacks upon itself, for their arrogant imperialist foreign policy.”

He further went on to call our efforts to find Bin-Ladin as “terrorism”.

Before Saddam was stretched from the Gallows, Chavez referred to the dictator as a “friend and business partner”. Personally, I’d like to see the Chavez/Hussein partnership continue. I think it’s only fair to Saddam that Chavez receive the same treatment as his “friend and business partner”.

In late 2002, Chavez’s personal pilot defected to the West. Unders sworn testimony, the defector stated that Chavez helped transfer more than one million dollars to Bin-Ladin. Hugo has never hidden his hate for the United States.

In Feburary of 2003, a Venezulean Muslim named Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan was caught at London’s airport with a grenade in his luggage. The British Mail reported that al Qaeda operates a training camp on the Venezuelan island of Margarita.  The Venezuelan Ambasador obtained a “legal stop” that prevented the British Mail from further comments on this subject.

Chavez has ties to Columbian socialist and guerilla groups. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton has stated unequivocally that the Chavez government will not refer to the FARC Colombian terrorists as “terrorists.”

There are even those amoung our own Government (mostly Democrats but a few Republicans as well) who bow down to this dictator.

I’m sorry, what the hell am I missing? The same people who will boycott any store at a drop of a hat because someone got their feelings hurt or some real or imagined wrong was done to a person, think nothing about whipping into a Citgo because they’re 2 cents cheaper than the store on the other corner.

Last fall I was driving through Southern Oklahoma when my “Low Fuel” light came on. I went through one small town that had a Citgo as it’s only gas station. I kept traveling until I came to another town about 12 miles later that had a Citgo and a Chevron in it. The Chevron looked like a little Mom & Pop operation while the Citgo was a Mega Mart type store.

My fuel needle was on “E” and I wasn’t sure the Chevron was open. I thought I’d be walking another 1o miles or so because I sure as heck wasn’t stopping at the Citgo for fuel. I’d rather walk than buy gas from a dictator who is hell bent on destroying my country and family.

So all you who shop at Citgo, don’t bitch and whine when the next terrorist strike hits our country. If you lose friends or family, I don’t want to hear your trap on the nightly news waling about how good they were. Go look into a mirror and thank yourself for supporting a country and dictator who helped kill innocent Americans. And if you do lose family and friends, you can also thank yourself for helping Chavez and his merry band of terrorist while you’re looking back at yourself in the mirror.

In doing so, it looks like Johnny Sutton has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire as they say. Sutton did two radio interviews on Houston talk shows and then followed it up with an interview with the Houston Chronicle. Sutton either has a poor memory or is spinning his side of the story as he wants it told as there are inconsistencies (some would call them lies) between what he said in the interviews, what he’s told others and what actually happened according to legal documents.

One of the most glaring inconsistencies comes at the end of teh Houston Chronicle interview. In the interview, Sutton told the Houston Chronicle

It is not true that Aldrete-Davila (the illegal alien that Ramos and Compean shot) has subsequently been arrested in connection with another attempted drug smuggling attempt in October.

The truth is that Aldrete-Davila was caught a second time smuggling drugs into this country. Sutton never brought against this illegal alien for this crime.

Sutton ended the interview by saying

That case “is under investigation,” Sutton said. “He has never been charged, he has never been arrested.”

I think we can all come to our own conclusions as to why their “Star” witness against Ramos and Compean was not arrested for smuggling drugs the second time.  You got to hate it when your “Star” witness is caught drug smuggling after you let him off the first time.

It seems good Ole Johnny just can’t understand why everyone is up in arms about his biased prosecution against our law enforcement who are trying to protect our borders.

Johnny couldn’t end the interview with the Houston Chronicle without getting in a dig against talk show host Ed Hendee.  In the interview, Johnny quipped…

“I’m giving him the benefit of a doubt,” (speaking of Ed Hendee) ”I try not to take it personally. I went on that show because I grew up on the west side. I know Edd doesn’t have many listeners, but the listeners he does have are on the west side of Houston.”

I’d hope Johnny would know enough about Houston to know that KSEV radio covers hundreds of square miles and Ed’s talk show reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners, and they’re not all on the West side! Once again Johnny Sutton is proving that he’ll spin the truth to make  hisself look good.

Trust me, if Johnny Sutton only believed that Ed Hendee “had a couple listeners”, he wouldn’t agreed to be on the show.

Amy Davis of Channel 2 in Houston learned that instead of deporting these illegal alien criminals, ICE routinely lets them go back into the Public. Apparently there is no such thing as “3 strikes and your out” when it comes to the illegal aliens.

A shocking find that Ms. Davis made was that between Jan and the end of March, Harris County booked 979 criminals into the county jail who confessed to being in the U.S. illegally. (this obviously doesn’t count the illegals that didn’t tell county officials that they were illegals) Geez, do the math, thats an average of over 300 illegals per month. THAT’S JUST THE ONES WHO WERE CAUGHT IN HARRIS COUNTY! Now tell me there’s no illegal invasion!

Of those 979, ICE only made an effort to deport 195 of those. The rest, were turned back into the Public to prey on an unsuspecting public.  A majority of these illegal aliens are giving false address so they can’t be found later (big surprise huh?). Where the hell are our elected Officials? Why isn’t there an outcry from every elected Official from the City of Houston all the way up to the Governor of Texas???

Have we became this complacent to allow this to go on?

These are not shoplifters and jaywalkers that they’re letting go. These are hardened criminals, ie; thieves, rapist, drug dealers, etc that our own Government is turning loose on us and apprently none of our elected Officials are concerned enough to raise a stink about it.

By the way, here is a link to the story and video over at KPRC Channel 2 in Houston.

It’s time YOU and ME start doing something about this. We need to contact our elected Officials and hold their feet to the fire until they do something about this. We DON’T take the old excuse of “Our hands are tied, we can’t do nothing about it” or “It’s a Federal Government problem”. If our current elected Officials can’t do nothing about it, then lets send thier asses home and vote in people who can.

As the old saying goes, The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil. We’re not squeaking enough and neither are our elected officials!

House Bill 13 (HB-13) has been a heated topic and was recently sent back to committee due to some stupid technicality. The Bill’s Analysis quoted a regulation number that doesn’t exist. Yes folks, these are your lawmakers. They can’t even proof read a freakin’ bill to make sure laws they reference actually exist!

This bill is labeled as the “Border Security Bill”. Sounds tough doesn’t it? Unfortunately for Texas citizens it’s the same ole water down crap. The Dems and Repubs are arguing over where the power goes. I have to agree with the Dems that I don’t want all the power of these State agencies in the Governors Mansion.

Now the Republican controlled State House could get off their duffs and push through some meaningful Border laws, but that isn’t likely to happen unless you and me raise some ruckus.

You see, Rep. David Swinford is from the Panhandle region and any law about immigration has to get past the House State Affairs Committee which he is Chairman. Rep. Swinford also helped author HB-13.

This is the way it works. Coporations want a liberal Guest worker program. Until they get one, they don’t want the State of Texas (or any other state nor Uncle Sam) scaring away all their illegal workers. Now Rep. Swinford has a lot of Agriculture and Processing plants in his district. If Rep. Swinford and other like lawmakers want to keep in good favor with campaign contributions from these Corporations, any hard knox immigration bill will have to be watered down or killed.

Screw the Citizen! It’s painfully obvious that our Lawmakers will sell us out over illegal immigrants.

In a recenet statement, Rep. Swinford stated that legislation dealing with remittance fees on money sent to Mexico, denial of healt related and educational benefits to illegals are “symbolic drive by shootings” at an issue that requires a much more complicated solution at the federal level.

Common Sense Translation: “I’m a wimp and place political contributions from Corporations over the well-being of legal Texas citizens, even those who voted me into this Office”

This is the attitude many other Lawmakers, both Republican and Democrats have taken since the elections.

Contact both our Texas State Senator’s and Representatives and DEMAND they take action of Illegal Immigration by denying them educational, health or any public benefits! Remind them that any thing less means they are choosing the well-being of an Illegal Alien over a Texas Citizen who voted them into Office.

You can find your Senator and Representative by going HERE.