As I mentioned previously, the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club held their annual Christmas Party/Toys for Tots collection this week. The featured speaker was Attorney General and the next Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. Here is General Abbott with the new officers of the DHPC:
I don’t know if there was an “official” count or not but the attendance easily exceeded the expected 150 guests.
Abbott is a very good campaigner. It almost seems that if you shook his hand once, he remembers your name and where you shook hands. And he has been working with various Republican groups so long that the has a lot of “institutional” knowledge to draw on during his speeches. He gave a nice shout-out to Paul Simpson, who is currently running for Harris County Republican Party Chair, joking that he learned at the knee of Simpson.
Abbott started by reminding the crowd of his work fighting for women and families. He put away child predators, tracked down human traffickers, fought to make schools safer for kids, protected women when they were trapped by domestic violence, and helped single moms collect a record breaking $27 billion in child support for the kids in the state of Texas, elevating the program to number one in the nation.
He also stressed that he has fought for the freedom of Texans, suing the Obama administration 30 times for violations of the United States Constitution. When President Obama looked the American people in the eye and promised you that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor, Abbott knew that it was a false promise. We’ve already seen the devastation caused by Obamacare and gave a couple of examples of people losing their doctors in the critical stages of their treatment. He is going to continue fighting Obamacare until it no longer devastates Americans.
He also mentioned his lawsuit against Eric Holder on the Voter ID issue and reminded the crowd that voter fraud is real and that he has prosecuted people for it. He will take the Voter ID law all the way to the Supreme Court to protect the integrity of the ballot.
On Texas values, he reminded us that he took the case of the 10 Commandments monument all the way to the Supreme Court, won, and the monument stands today. As well, he stood up for students in the pledge of allegiance, and students today still say “one nation under God”.
Abbott reminded us that Texas is exceptional and he will focus to keep Texas the leader in job creation in the U.S. He will also increase funding to transportation without raising taxes by stopping diversions of fees and taxes.
Lastly, he talked about the difference between Texas and most states in the union and that is that we have more freedom and he intends to make certain it stays that way.
He received much applause and a couple of standing ovations during his speech.
Everyone was in a cheerful mood and the meeting is best expressed in pictures. DHPC Vice President Jack Lee took the photos in the slideshow below and allowed me to use them for your viewing pleasure. If you click on the pictures, you can scroll through them or they will automatically scroll after five seconds. Thanks Jack!
