Article written by Megan Fox in "PJMedia":
The Houston Police Officers'
Union is not shy in expressing how they really feel about Harris County
Judge Lina Hidalgo's order that all residents of Harris County must wear
a mask under the threat of fines and prison. Governor Abbot began to
lift restrictions across Texas earlier this week. Hildalgo seems to be
full of authoritarian glee and is giving Gretchen Whitmer competition
for her status as the most hated woman in America.
Hildalgo
swept into power by accident, having the good fortune to be on the same
side of the ticket as Beto O'Rourke. With no experience, and still a grad school student,
Hildalgo was elected to the county's most powerful seat. The title
"county judge" in Texas counties refers to the county executive and not a
judge on a bench who presides over cases.
Hidalgo
has been doing her best to unleash chaos in her county by trying to
release 4,000 convicted criminals from the county jails. That
hair-brained idea was blocked by a federal judge earlier this month.
Hidalgo announced her newest edict on Wednesday. It includes $1000 fines and up to 180 days in jail
for anyone who will not wear a mask in public even though the infection
numbers are flattening out according to Governor Abbot and his medical
experts enough to relax some lockdown restrictions. To clarify this
insanity, Hidalgo wants to release criminals from prisons so she can
fill them up with political dissidents and people who want their
liberties respected.
Houston
Police Officers' Union wasted no time telling the public where Hidalgo
can shove her order hours before she issued it. The letter should be
read in its entirety but the best parts are as follows.
It has come to our attention that County Judge Lina Hidalgo will issue an order this afternoon for all of Harris County, making it mandatory for anyone over the age of 10 to wear a mask in public. Now, we want to be very clear, the Houston Police Officers' Union believes everyone should be wearing a mask in public....However, we draw the line at the draconian measures Hidalgo has decided to engage in. Our officers work every single day to bridge the gap with our community and earn their trust, we will not stand idly by and allow Hidalgo to tear that bridge down with her horrific leadership and echo chamber decision making.The HPOU has made contact with the Attorney General's Office seeking an opinion on the legality of imposing a criminal penalty/fine for anyone not wearing a mask in public. While we wait for that opinion, we are reminding and informing our officers that they have DISCRETION, DISCRETION, DISCRETION in matters such as these. It is clear the so-called leader of Harris County lacks any critical thinking skills, but let me assure the pubic, our officers do! The last thing any of us need to do is kick our community while they are down.Houston Police Officers are already stretched entirely too thin...Violent crime is up this year (murders up by 35%), property crime is up, (burglaries by nearly 30%), and HPD officers are staffing testing centers across the city. We do not have time to be pawns in Hidalgo's game of attempting to control the actions of law abiding, tax paying individuals of our community. Especially since this idiotic order is possibly an unconstitutional one from the County Judge.
Well, then.
At least we know how they really feel! The HPOU deserves a lot of
praise for having the guts to say no to Hidalgo's highly questionable
and seemingly political edicts without any consideration for the rights
of American citizens. We need a whole lot more police unions across the
nation joining in the cause to stop the encroaching police state in
which mothers and fathers are arrested for playing in parks with their
children.
HPOU's response to Judge Hidalgo's draconian mask order:
"Now we want to be very clear, the Houston Police Officers’ Union believes everyone should be wearing a mask in public, in order to protect themselves from the virus and we are encouraging all of our officers to wear a mask. However, we draw the line at the draconian measures Hidalgo has decided to engage in."
"Now we want to be very clear, the Houston Police Officers’ Union believes everyone should be wearing a mask in public, in order to protect themselves from the virus and we are encouraging all of our officers to wear a mask. However, we draw the line at the draconian measures Hidalgo has decided to engage in."
Hidalgo has also been recently embarrassed by the obscene waste of 60 million dollars
on a pop-up hospital that went completely unused. Local media dug into
the costs and found a lot of waste and graft involved in the project's
contracting.
Channel 2 Investigated obtained the full contract between the county and Garner Environmental Services.
Among some of the items in it, we found highly compensated personnel ranging from:
-Various safety officers receiving day rates of $2,875, $2,300 and $2,012
-A finance section chief at $2,875 a day
-Two public information officers at $2012 a day, even though the contract states “contact with the news media, citizens of Harris County or governmental agencies shall be the responsibility of the county.”
The one
positive development of these strict lockdown orders is that the
lunatics are really outing themselves all over the country. Their
willingness to show America exactly what their intentions are for police
states and total authority over our lives should help voters make
better decisions next time. Maybe the voters in Harris County will pay
closer attention to the candidates running for offices instead of
blindly voting Democrat, unless they like being ripped off and ordered
around by a near teenager with no real-world experience. I'm wondering
how Hidalgo thinks she will win the next election if her county is the
only county with draconian edicts still in place while the surrounding
counties are relaxing. Whoever runs against her in 2022 should start
working on their campaign ads right now. Talk about low-hanging fruit.