Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Book Review: The Great Revolt by Salena Zito and Brad Todd

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Review by Steve Parkhurst

If you ever pondered during the 2015-2016 campaign season or even since President Trump’s inauguration, “exactly who are the Trump supporters?” well, The Great Revolt has some answers for you.
 
These people were not hard to find, in fact they were “hidden in plain sight,” a theme that appears throughout The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics, which hits bookstores nationally next Tuesday (May 8). First-time authors Salena Zito and Brad Todd have endeavored to understand the Trump victory of 2016, and they went a step further by having a survey conducted to get into the who, what, why and how of that victory. The “where” was a given: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, typically Democrat voting states that flipped to Trump and delivered a victory.
 
I have been familiar with Salena Zito’s writing for many years now. Her writing was invaluable in the 2012 election when many people assumed a Mitt Romney victory. Ms. Zito was in the cafes and the small town mom-and-pop shops in the Rust Belt talking to real people and her writing reflected a slightly different story than the narrative that ultimately played out as President Obama was re-elected. Ms. Zito paints some beautiful word pictures in her writing whether she is sitting at the kitchen table of a mother of five in a city with a population under 8,000 people, or whether she’s sitting across from the Speaker of the House or the Vice President. In that respect alone, this book does not disappoint.
 
Ms. Zito was again in the small communities of America during the 2016 election, and her storytelling that year reflected that something different was in the air. Indeed it was.
 
She takes the same approach to introduce us to the coalition that helped elect Donald Trump in what was appearing to be the most unlikely of scenarios. As it turns out, if more elites, and by extension their media representatives, had actually spent time in small town America, they may have picked up on the story, and they may have understood Donald Trump’s appeal better, if at all.
 
The Great Revolt takes an interesting route through America’s Rust Belt region and talks with voters where they live and work. We hear from people who have faced really difficult times. We hear from people who have watched their morals laughed at and mocked. We hear from people who have watched hometowns decline in population as people left to find employment elsewhere. We hear from people who work hard. We hear from people who were just fed up. The list of grievances was considerable as Zito and Todd profile one voter after another.
 
The Great Revolt features what we might refer to as “voters unplugged.” We get to hear their real words and hear how they speak. There is no paraphrasing, which makes for a really interesting, almost conversational read. “To recognize the potential of the Trump coalition, analysts would have had to visit places they had stopped visiting and listen to people they had stopped listening to,” write Zito and Todd. That is important to note. As is the fact that Ms. Zito was in these places throughout 2016, she was there before, she’s been there since. I might be making this sound like a National Geographic special where they go into a vast jungle and attempt to monitor some animal or another in its natural habitat. For some, especially members of the media, reading The Great Revolt will be very much like that.
 
Ms. Zito in her typical writing fashion brings these voters to life on the page.
 
The people of The Great Revolt are classified into catchy categories, which became chapter titles, like the “Rotary Reliables” or “King Cyrus Christians” or “Girl Gun Power.” The voters in The Great Revolt did not share an ideology, or more properly, they were not interested in a shared ideology other than “Make American Great Again” which proved to be more of a cause for the revolt, than a slogan for it.
 
The lack of an ideology on Trump’s part is an intriguing conundrum. He spent a fair amount of time mocking the ideology of the Republican party. Zito and Todd show some cases where Trump openly mocked conservatism and they noted that, “Trump went one short step further, enacting a primary strategy in which outsider credentials were not a veneer for ideological stripes but a replacement for them.” Even against forces like Bill Kristol, whose Never Trump pleadings went unheard by many Republicans, Zito and Todd keenly suggest that there was “an angst that perhaps the voters among the electoral coalition of the Right were suddenly more interested in triumph than tribe.” There needs to be a time when ideology matters though, and the Trump years probably will not be that time. If a realigning of priorities and the role of government takes place and takes hold during the Trump years, and we have a true return to localism, then perhaps we will see the Trump years as “the great reset” on ideology.
 
The Trump coalition was not a pure Trump fan club, we know those people exist, but they are not the feature of this book. There were certainly the voters who said, “I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I voted against Hillary Clinton,” but their reasons for the way they voted is why The Great Revolt is invaluable. We hear them tell us. The Access Hollywood tape with Billy Bush was mentioned plenty of times as a point of hesitation. Conversely, appointments to the US Supreme Court were also crucially important in deciding. The women who considered their right to keep and bear arms of utmost importance were prominent here. As was the cover provided for then candidate Trump by the National Rifle Association, which micro-targeted women with a strong, repetitive message of women protecting themselves with a firearm, and how Hillary Clinton was the one person standing in the way of that continuing freedom. The NRA was a great unsung hero of the Trump 2016 victory. So for these groups, a lack of ideology was not a deal breaker.
 
Some of the people come from areas where there is no other way than a hard work ethic, in fact, anything else is foreign. And in a country where multitudes of people are encouraged not to work and in some cases actually discouraged from working, well, there comes a point where people find that unacceptable, and they push back. “The whole workforce changed from people who looked forward to going to work, to people who make excuses not to,” notes one voter.
 
In other cases, the raw emotion of some of the people that Zito and Todd spoke with was really breathtaking. For instance, one voter, semi-rationalizing her vote for Trump, made the point about other politicians before him, she said, “but because the other politicians’ faults are so worse. Because their failures were our lives, and that is unforgivable.” “Their failures were our lives…”
 
As Zito and Todd note, these voters shared, “The sense that Trump was looking at the overlooked, and fighting for the forgotten in Middle America.”
 
An equally valuable section of the book is the concluding four chapters which serve as a sort of road map, summation, and conclusion. This is where we understand that just as there are many things that make up a so-called populist revolt, there will be many things that need to happen to sustain the revolt and to change our politics. The media takes some much-deserved heat here. But, instead of an anti-media screed, The Great Revolt is a look at and a challenge to, media and elites alike to do the work necessary to hear everyone. That includes the people who may not live within the New York City or Washington D.C. zip codes. The media, which is always an easy target for conservatives, gets pigeonholed in their echo chambers, where they become sources for each other, and they think the complaints of a New York apartment renter who overpays for a small roach-infested place to live and commutes to work via the subway carries greater weight than the opinion of the small town shop owner or the family that operates a multi-generational farm.
 
What might a change in media look like? Mark Cuban makes a brief appearance and astutely notes that we now follow our news the way we follow our sports teams. He is not far off on that. If you go to ESPN.com today, you can set the website to show you the news and the scores of your favorite teams and colleges across all sports. If you prefer to filter out hockey and horse racing, no problem. What Cuban points to is quite fascinating in our news consumption as well. Even Drudge is complicit to a degree. Look at how often a story is in the news, yet Drudge links to Info Wars or Breitbart as though either is a reliable source for actual news. That filter is what leads to a 2016 and the uprising we saw that year. If we are all choosing our news and want to continue to do that, maybe we should reconsider the sources and the content.
 
The media may think they are doing a great job of destroying President Trump’s presidency and we shall see what happens in the 2018 midterm elections, but the fact is that for the people that had a grievance in 2016, to listen to them post-2016 is to see they are even more upset now than they were then. Zito and Todd note, “Leading national journalists missed the potential efficacy of Trump’s grievance appeal because they exemplified, professionally and personally, the other end of the complaint.” Exactly right.
 
The true test for the Trump coalition might be the midterm elections this November, a chance to see if the voters only wanted a temporary change, or to see if these voters want a peaceful revolution that leaves its mark. The fact that these voters were not devoted Trumpians “no matter what,” means that the coalition could easily fracture for any number of reasons. The Democrats, and the media by extension, have their work cut out for them though. As Zito and Todd correctly note regarding the Democrats’ uphill climb, “This obsession with the redefinition of cultural norms has come at a price for Democrats. Beyond the people it offends, it denies Democratic candidates time to discuss the pocketbook issues that swing voters are more likely to use in guiding their votes.”
 
Where is the gulf between the Trump voters and the members of the media? “When the press picked Trump’s words apart for strict fact analysis, voters assumed he spoke directionally; the press took him literally, but voters…took him merely seriously,” write Zito and Todd. In that context, it is not difficult to figure out how and why the media missed the story of 2016, with one national weekly going so far as to prepare a “Madam President” issue for print.
 
The Great Revolt is not a screed against “the liberal media” or “media bias,” it is instead some of the voices of the people who had stopped being heard until 2016, people who were first given a choice by Donald Trump, and who have now been given a voice by Salena Zito and Brad Todd. This cross-section of people is worth studying, their stories are worth hearing, not all of them came to Trump the same way, but they all got there eventually. Salena Zito and Bradd Todd have done a remarkable job of sharing these stories and showing us how.

Rebuttal to Hunter White’s Post on Marijuana

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Posts here at Big Jolly are political in nature and therefore debatable.  Generally, out of respect to the authors, regular contributor or guest, I won’t offer a rebuttal as the marketplace of ideas should not be stymied.  However, in regards to the legalization of marijuana the facts/claims need to be clearly and accurately articulated as the issue is relatively new and opinions are still being formed.  To that end, this rebuttal is offered to correct some perceived misstatements and to add nuance to the argumentation in Mr. White’s post for the purpose of better evaluation and opinion formation.

“Other studies contradict Mr. Katz and Mr. Halls claims that marijuana is a gateway drug…Other studies by the National Institute of Drug abuse bolster the claim that marijuana is not a gateway drug”

“Truly the gateway drug idea itself is simply absurd. There is nothing intrinsic in marijuana that makes users more likely to use other drugs.”

These two points are related and discussed together.  In an emerging field it’s not unusual to find contradictory studies.  As long as the studies are peer reviewed arguing the specific studies are appropriate argumentation as they have scientific support to some degree.  Studies are like the saying about statistics, “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts – for support rather than for illumination. ~ Andrew Lang.” You can find studies to support both sides of most scientific propositions.  So the fact that Howie and Mr. White can both point to studies doesn’t do much for illumination.

What’s striking, though, is Mr. White refers to the National Institute of Drug Abuse for support that marijuana isn’t a gateway drug.  This brings us to the claim that the gateway drug idea is simply absurd. Although Mr. White is correct in claiming “there is nothing intrinsic in marijuana that makes users more likely to use other drugs” the statement is misleading.   Just because the individual components don’t “make[]users more likely to use other drugs” doesn’t mean marijuana use doesn’t “make[] users more likely to use other drugs.”  Who published information in support of a gateway element to marijuana?  None other than the National Institute of Drug Abuse (hereinafter NIDA). Specifically, NIDA points to the studies showing the cross-sensitization as a result of marijuana exposure.

Just because none of the components in marijuana makes “harder” drug use more likely doesn’t mean that marijuana itself doesn’t.  When discussing cross-sensitization studies NIDA states, “These findings are consistent with the idea of marijuana as a “gateway drug.”” Does this mean that marijuana users will go on to use harder drugs? No, and NIDA acknowledges the same.  However, it does lend some support to the concept of a gateway drug.  Claiming otherwise isn’t accurately presenting the current state of the science.

“[D]eny life saving medicine to millions of Americans each year because of this outdated and factually incorrect theory.”

Let’s leave out the opinion of “outatdated an factually incorrect theory” and look at the claim of “deny life saving medicine to millions of Americans each year.”  To assess this claim it’s necessary to look at exactly what medical marijuana is used to treat.  In order to be “life saving medicine” the medicinal use needs to be directed at curative measures rather than symptom control.  With that in mind, let’s look at what the studies on medical marijuana say the purpose of the marijuana is in treatment.

Looking at National Institute of Health publications, the studies looking at medical marijuana show treatment is for: treatment of chronic noncancer pain specifically neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and mixed chronic pain; chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting; patient-reported spasticity scores and central pain or painful spasms when used for MS.  Successful treatment in these areas would improve quality of life, but cannot be considered to be life saving medicine.  Even turning to the states that approved medicinal marijuana doesn’t support the life saving medicine argument as the “conditions accepted by states that allow medicinal cannabis relate to relief of the symptoms of cancer, glaucoma, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and MS.”  Emphasis added.  Treating symptoms isn’t life saving, so these treatments are out when arguing life saving medicine.  This leaves us with epilepsy as the condition that may support the claim.

In regards to epilepsy the same article notes CBD, not THC, can be used as an adjunct treatment to other antiepileptic treatment. Any given seizure has an extremely small chance of mortality.  However, epilepsy prevalence is 2.2 million people.   Out of this population, thirty to forty percent are uncontrolled seizures. Splitting the difference gives uncontrolled seizures prevalence at 770,000.  This number is the cap, and would be further reduced by the nature of the seizures.  Not all of the seizures will be tonic-clonic and therefore dangerous.  Not all tonic-clonic seizures are without aura reducing the danger further.  CBD doesn’t eliminate all the remaining seizures.  While it’s not possible to completely eliminate the chance of death from seizures, the claim of marijuana as “lifesaving medicine to millions of Americans” doesn’t survive factual analysis.

“It is impossible to overdose on marijuana.”

This statement may or may not be factually accurate depending on how someone defines overdose.  What’s not up for interpretation is someone can get marijuana poisoning.  While the absolute number of marijuana poisoning events isn’t high, it is increasing.  So far none of the instances of marijuana poisoning have been deadly, but the effects can be severe, with documented instances of respiratory arrest and ventilator use necessary.   So while it’s potentially accurate to say it’s “impossible to overdose on marijuana” that’s a misleading argument.

“Mr. Katz claims that marijuana use poses a risk of triggering Schizophrenia, however what he fails to point out from the study he sites, or findings from other studies on this subject is that risk is only prominent in those who already have a genetic predisposition to Schizophrenia… Mr. Katz fearmongering obscures the reality of the findings.”

Both gentlemen seem to not understand schizophrenia. In order to be schizophrenia the disease must exist outside the presence of the effect of a substance, legal or illegal.  This is directly addressed in DSM-V which states, “The disturbance is not attributable to the direct physiological effects of a substance (eg, a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition.”  However, there is support for marijuana leading to earlier onset of schizophrenia. While there’s no causal effect between marijuana and the incidence of marijuana, there is some evidence for marijuana hastening the onset of schizophrenia.  Given how debilitating schizophrenia is, the only word to describe this is tragic.

 

Conclusion

I don’t like criticizing others ideas.  The marketplace of ideas is what makes democracy great.  However, the marketplace is only as good as the ideas proffered.  In instances where misleading argumentation is being proffered, or flat out false facts being offered to support an idea in the marketplace of ideas, it’s important to set the record straight for the sake of the marketplace.

Take the dueling articles as you will.  This is an attempt at informative writing rather than persuasive writing.  But when forming your own opinion keep some things in mind.  The evidence doesn’t support the claims that marijuana is lifesaving medicine for millions of Americans.  That’s simply a blatant falsehood.  It is possible to be harmed by over-consumption of marijuana.  Don’t let the technicalities of what is and is not an “overdose” cloud the issue.  Over-consumption of marijuana is harmful and potentially deadly.

Putting The Blame For The Charlottesville Riots Where It Really Belongs

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Charlottesville

The revisionists of history who want to remove the statues of Confederate war heroes gave the white supremacist scumbags an excuse to crawl out from under their rocks

The Democrats and some Republicans are putting all the blame for the Charlottesville riots solely on the Alt-Right, white supremacists, white nationalists, the KKK and neo-Nazis.  They conveniently ignore the fact that counter demonstrators showed up looking for a fight.  And they even blame President Trump because of the rhetoric he used during the presidential campaign.

But if you want to put the blame where it really belongs, put it on the revisionists of history who want to remove the statues of Confederate war heroes because, according to a few activists both black and white, the statues are a hurtful and tearful reminder to blacks of slavery.

It’s the removal of those statues that gives the white scumbags an excuse to crawl out from under their rocks.  The white supremacy vermin knows that by coming out in the open with a public display of their regalia and flags is very likely to result in violent clashes with their opposition.  The white supremacists would hardly attract any attention if they couldn’t take up a cause that is also supported by many decent people in the South.

A few activists have managed to rile up some black folks and white liberals into believing that those Confederate statues are a hurtful reminders to blacks of slavery.

If those statues are a hurtful reminder to blacks of slavery, they should just suck it up and live with it. It’s part of our history, shameful as it may be.

One of my nephews lives in New Orleans and is very liberal.  He says 90 percent of the blacks there don’t even know who Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard were.  To New Orleans blacks the now removed statues were merely repositories of pigeon poop.  And so it is with blacks throughout the South.  They just don’t know who the pigeons are pooping on, or if they do know, they could care less.

So it’s not the white supremacists and the counter demonstrators who are to blame for the Charlottesville riots.   And it certainly isn’t President Trump.

However, those around the president finally persuaded Trump to be politically correct by calling out the names of the perceived culprits. This is what Trump said on Monday:

“Racism is evil — and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

Well and good, but that’s letting the real culprits off the hook.

In this case a bunch of agitators and politicians want to remove the Lee statue.  It is downright reprehensible to revise or erase parts of our history.  These activists are not really speaking for the majority of blacks.  It’s the same with the agitators that are demanding that the Washington Redskins change their name.  I’ll venture to say that 90 percent of Native-Americans don’t give a shit about sports team names and school mascots.

The white scumbags would have remained under their rocks and all would have been peaceful in Charlottesville it were it not for those that are demanding removal of Confederate monuments.  But you’re not going to hear that’s where the blame for the riots really belongs.

Major GOP Donor Paul Singer versus Democrat Donor Warren Buffett on Texas Energy

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paul singer warren Buffett
Paul Singer and Warren Buffett

by Artemio “Temo” Muniz

There is an interesting battle going on between Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Ted Cruz and Donald Trump donor Paul Singer over the purchase of Oncor Electric Delivery Company, a Texas electric transmission that matters to 3 million Texans. As a recent article in the “Capitol Inside” describes some of the behind the scenes of the attempt by Buffett’s group to purchase Oncor. Ever since 2012 or so, when the national Republicans and conservative figures began blasting Buffett for his lobbying of the complete stoppage of the construction of the Keystone pipeline, I have been fascinated in how very important issues that affect our energy supply seem to fade in the background while our party engages in loud, bombastic policy battles. BNSF, owned in majority by Buffett, benefited because it was railing in oil, and the Keystone Pipeline would be bad for its business bottom-line. As conservative blogosphere chatter grew in its intensity against Buffet, it was in Tampa Bay at the 2012 RNC Convention that BNSF was plastered everywhere a major corporate sponsor, and the chatter about BNSF benefiting while the Keystone Pipeline was on hold disappeared.

According to the article in Capitol Inside, Paul Singer and his company Elliot Holdings wants to have a competitive shot at buying Oncor. My hope is that as the Texas Public Utility Commission looks over the proposed purchase of Oncor by Buffett, that they slow it down and allow Elliot Management a competitive shot at the purchase. In Texas where Republicans rule, a level playing field is paramount. Sure, I root for GOP supporting businesses to be successful knowing that they are contributors to the overall cultural and policy battles around the nation but in this situation what matters is that our Republican leaders make sure the process is slowed down to allow Paul Singer an equal shot. Such an important purchase should be competitive. We do not need our Republican party to receive any more negative media such as the recent “Buffett Bill” where according to Jay Root of the Texas Tribune,

On Tuesday, the Texas Senate used emergency powers to introduce what was quickly dubbed the “Buffett Bill,” Senate Bill 2279, granting the Oracle of Omaha a special exemption. On Wednesday the author set the bill for a public hearing in a Senate committee. And on Thursday it shot out of the panel like a lightning bolt toward the Senate floor. In Capitol parlance, what Buffett is getting is known as a “carve-out,” a special deal for one company. In the case of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, it was an exemption from the supposedly hallowed rule that vehicle manufacturers can’t be vehicle dealers. Berkshire Hathaway also owns an RV manufacturer, Forest River Inc., in Indiana.

Fellow Republicans should be vigilant. If there is a favoring of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, it needs to stop, slowed down and competitive once again. The GOP brand is important, voter perception is crucial to our future. The appearance of favoring certain businesses can lead to the erosion of the GOP brand in Texas, and can even be more damaging when there appears to be the favoring of corporations who reign nationally as the top contributors of the Democratic Party.

Artemio “Temo” Muniz has been called by the Wall Street Journal “part salesman for the Republican Party and part agitator within it.” Temo serves as chairman of the Texas Federation Hispanic Republicans, Engagement Committee Chair for the Young Republican National Federation, Chairman of the Texas Young Republican PAC and appeared in Dinesh D’Souza’s political film “America: Imagine a World Without Her”.

Trump administration cutting regulations

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regulations

Even as the media obsesses over some mythical Russian interference in the 2016 election, President Trump’s administration continues to make positive changes to help Make America Great Again.

Trump Is Cutting Regulations

The Trump administration has withdrawn or delayed 860 proposed regulations in its first five months, the beginnings of a regulatory overhaul meant to bolster economic growth.

Federal agencies have withdrawn 469 proposed regulations compared to a fall 2016 report when Barack Obama was president, according to figures from the White House budget office. This includes 19 regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more. Another 391 regulations have been delayed for further evaluation and consideration.

“It’s really the beginning of a kind of fundamental regulatory reform,” Neomi Rao, head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said Wednesday. A report on the regulatory actions was being released Thursday.

(click here to read the entire article on USNews.com)

That is music to the ears of anyone who cares about reducing the size and impact of our bloated Federal government. Hopefully it is only a start and there are many more regulations thrown into the trash bin where they belong.

You certainly would not see this happening had Hillary Clinton prevailed.

Meanwhile, House Republicans keep sticking it to the taxpayer.

House votes to allow Pentagon funding for gender transition

The House voted Thursday against banning the Pentagon from providing transition-related medical care to transgender troops.

The body rejected the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on a 209-214 largely party-line vote. Twenty-four Republicans joined with Democrats to defeat the amendment.

…

Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s (R-Mo.) amendment would have barred Pentagon funding from going to any transition-related medical care, except for mental health services.

Hartzler claimed the cost of surgeries alone could reach $1.3 billion over the next 10 years.

“This is about addressing [North] Korea, Russia, ISIS,” Hartzler said, holding up pictures of each. “We need every defense dollar to go to meeting those threats, not anything else, and we need to make sure our troops are ready and can be deployed.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) added the opposition to the amendment was “silly” and said people should “figure out if you’re a man or a woman before you join up.”

(click here to read the entire article on TheHill.com)

I think the only word for this nonsense is bizarro. We let the 60’s rejects destroy our schools, universities and courts. Now we’re letting them destroy our military.

Hopefully the Trump administration will figure out a way to roll back this stupidity. He should veto the entire appropriations bill if he has to. Congress is worthless.

The Texas Parole System Appears To Be All But Worthless

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A few days after we shared a dinner table, Janel Bernard, 79, was beaten and stabbed to death by a parolee

Texas parole board
Data: Texas Parole Board Compiled by: Houston Chronicle

On July 3, 79-year-old Janel Bernard was brutally murdered in her Hedwig Village home.  Just a few days before, Janel and I shared a dinner table during my sister’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Because there were no signs of forced entry, the police believed the killer was someone she knew.  The police were right.

On Tuesday the Hedwig Police announced that Janel’s killer was in custody.  The killer turned out to be Michael Susberry, a 55-year-old black parolee who is the son of Janel’s former longtime housekeeper.  Susberry confessed to the murder, saying he headbutted the victim, then beat her up before stabbing her to death.

Police were able to ID Susberry because he used his bus pass to get to and from Janel’s home.  Among other evidence, a surveillance camera had placed him near the scene of the crime.

The Houston Police Department assisted Hedwig police by processing the crime scene and Janel’s car, and by lending the small department one of their detectives.

Moteel Susberry, the killer’s 89-year-old mother, retired as Janel’s housekeeper five or six years ago but Janel continued to issue her a check each month.  Michael Susberry would come by to pick up the checks.  That’s why Janel let him in on that fateful day.

On July 5, Moteel Susberry told ABC 13:

“I hope they catch whoever did it and stab them, but before they die, before they send them to the pen or whatever, they need to be sent to the back of the pen by they self for life with no parole. That’s what need to happen.  Or let me get ahold of ’em and I fix ’em.”

Now Susberry’s mother says she does not believe her son is the killer.

Susberry has an extensive record of arrests for violent crimes.  In 1985 he was sentenced to life in prison for aggravated robbery but he was paroled after serving only 20 years.  In 2015, he was convicted of aggravated assault for which he spent almost one year in jail.  However, Susberry’s parole was not revoked.

“He’s been in and out of the penitentiary his entire life,” Hedwig Village Police Chief David Gott said. “It doesn’t appear as though he has ever done anything worthwhile since he has been alive on this earth.”

I wonder what kind of parole supervision, if any, this worthless piece of shit got?  Had Susberry’s parole been revoked upon his 2015 aggravated assault conviction, Janel would still be alive today.

As a former California parole officer, I have been a longtime critic of the Texas parole system.  I’ve been concerned about how Texas parolees are supervised.

The main purpose of parole is to protect the public from criminals, not to serve the parolees.  That requires strict supervision of parolees with surprise home visits, often during the hours of darkness.  That’s not the way it’s being done in Texas.

The Texas parole system is in bad need of an overhaul.  Otherwise it’s all but worthless.