Charge dropped against Black man walking on icy Texas street

PLANO, Texas (AP) — A misdemeanor charge has been dropped against a Black man who was arrested last week for walking home on a street during a snowstorm in Texas.

Rodney Reese, 18, was arrested Feb. 16 in Plano and charged with being a pedestrian in the roadway, news outlets reported.

Police said officers received a call about a Black man seen stumbling along in the middle of the snowy street wearing a short-sleeved shirt and were sent to perform a wellness check.

Police released body camera footage of the encounter on Facebook on Friday. In the video, police are seen following Reese and repeatedly asking him where he is going and if he was OK, to which he replies that he is fine and he is on his way home.

Reese told KDFW-TV that he was walking home from his job at a Walmart and didn't stop for the officers because he didn't need their help.

Officers continued to follow Reese for about two minutes before stopping him, telling him they were “doing an investigation” and informing him that he was being detained.

Reese replied “no” and continued walking, but was stopped again. In the video, a brief scuffle is seen as officers attempted to handcuff Reese, who can be heard asking to be released.



https://www.chron.com/news/article/Texas-storm-Abbott-Rodney-Reese-arrested-jaywalk-15969000.php

Tweet of the Day

Pacific Rim: The Black Official Trailer #1 Netflix

Texas Democrats issue report on 2020 elections

The Texas Democratic Party, whose entreaties for more spending in the state by the Biden campaign were denied in the final stretch of the 2020 election, is already making its case for future resources in a report to be released on Monday.

The “2020 Retrospective” obtained by The Washington Post optimistically concludes that with a beefed-up voter registration program capable of registering 100,000 to 150,0000 more Democrats than Republicans per cycle, Democrats can turn the state blue by 2024.

“We need to massively expand our voter registration ambitions,” according to the review conducted and authored by Hudson Cavanagh, the Texas Democrats’ director of data science. “From 2018 to 2020, we lost ground in terms of voter registration, losing about 26,000 net votes. However, there are more than enough potential registrants to flip the state if we invest in and execute effective programs at scale.”

“Republicans did better in activating their base in Texas among high-propensity voters, low-propensity voters and everyone in between. Republicans had a better turnout operation than we did,” the report states.

The Democratic dream of turning Texas blue failed to materialize last November. But President Biden came closest to flipping the Lone Star state than any other Democrat in the last 25 years, losing the state to Donald Trump by 631,221 votes....

Democrats turnout efforts were severely hampered by suspension of in-person voter contact due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the report’s findings, along with “inefficient targeting” of low-to-moderate propensity voters. That, wrote Cavanaugh, was “partially a symptom of our inability to do in-person canvassing because we were not able to effectively reach large portions of our base for whom we lacked quality contact information."

“The pandemic prevented us from getting the most out of our most powerful competitive advantage: our volunteers. We struggled to reach voters for whom we did not have phone numbers, who were disproportionately young, rural and folks of color,” the report concludes.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/21/texas-democrats-issue-report-2020-elections/

Jill Biden is hitting the ground running -- in all directions

(CNN)As far as Jill Biden is concerned, there isn't necessarily going to be one "first lady platform," or even two or three. A month into the job, and Biden has heaped a lot on her agenda, unsure at the moment exactly how it will unfold, only that it will "naturally evolve," she has told her staff.

Unlike her predecessor Melania Trump, Biden has packed a calendar-full of events, appearances (most virtual) and interviews, aggressively pursuing policy passion projects, and maintaining her schedule as a teacher at a northern Virginia community college.

There will be areas of focus for Biden, but a branded campaign, a la "Let's Move!" or "Be Best," isn't on her radar for now, according to two White House officials. They said the first lady is not concerned about having a catchy handle, or, not having one.

She has indicated military families, cancer research, free community college and education in general are where she wants to continue her work as first lady, but which noses ahead of the pack isn't of as much concern. Biden, several people who know her well tell CNN, has for decades often juggled several important initiatives and jobs and tasks -- the question now is, with the added responsibilities that come with the White House, can she succeed?


https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/politics/jill-biden-first-lady-agenda/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNNp&utm_content=2021-02-21T02%3A13%3A01&utm_term=link

Extra Bonus Tweet of the Day

WandaVision Episode 8 Promo Disney+

Florida Woman Charged for Threatening to Shoot FBI Agents Investigating Her for Possible Capitol Rio

Man...I really thought we were done with this Capitol riot shit.

I mean, I understand that the FBI is still investigating and rounding up possible participants in the Jan. 6, whiney wypipo war on non-Republican votes, but I didn’t think I would still be reporting on crazy Caucasians who insist on outing themselves on social media as domestic terrorists well over a month later.

Anyway, the latest contestant on The Price of Your Stupidity is Right is a woman from Boca Raton, Fla., who was recently arrested over videos she posted to social media threatening to shoot FBI agents who contacted her about her “visit to D.C.” and possible participation in the riot.

The Daily Beast reports that 58-year-old Suzanne Kaye posted the first video, captioned, “Fuck the FBI,” to Facebook on Jan 31. The video doesn’t appear to be available on her page currently, but the fine folks at South Florida Sun-Sentinel took the liberty of publishing it.

She also repeated everything she said in the video in a second video posted to TikTok. For some reason, the TikTok video had a cover version of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” playing in the background. (Yes, I know that joke pretty much writes itself.)




https://www.theroot.com/florida-woman-charged-for-threatening-to-shoot-fbi-agen-1846308755?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=dlvrit&utm_content=theroot

As Texans endured days in the dark, the state failed to deliver vital emergency information

As millions of Texans fought to survive brutal winter weather without power and water, Gov. Greg Abbott said residents should call 311 or visit a state website to find warming centers — and added that a Google search had also worked for him.

The only problem: Many people lacked internet access, cellphone service and the ability to watch the governor’s press conferences. When the power went out, the state suddenly lost the ability to provide essential information to people desperately in need of help.

“Telling people to Google it is not OK. It’s the result of non-imaginative or non-planning in general, and it’s very, very unfortunate,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a senior research scholar for Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. “And I think there needs to be some accountability for why they hadn’t made the infrastructure more resilient, and also why they hadn’t planned for a situation where the power’s out.”

During natural disasters and other humanitarian crises, the Texas Division of Emergency Management can use the national Emergency Alert System to share important updates, including for weather events, with Texans in specific areas. Impacted residents of the state would immediately receive a cellphone notification through that system with basic information like boil water notices or updates on when power might be restored.

But according to residents and lawmakers around the state, TDEM failed to provide such emergency alerts during this crisis, effectively leaving Texans without the kind of information necessary for living through a disaster. Instead, Abbott and TDEM officials encouraged people to search for resources on social media or Google.




https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/19/texas-emergency-communication-power-outages/

Bonus Tweet of the Day