MRT: Family: Human Remains Found are Missing Soldier, Suspect Commits Suicide; Feds Planning ‘Blitz’ Test of Young Adults in TX; Patrick Slams Fauci
Here's What You Need to Know in Texas Today.
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BY: @MattMackowiak
THURSDAY – 07/02/20
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TOP NEWS
"Family: Human remains found in Texas are missing soldier," via AP-- "The family of a soldier who has been missing since April believes partial remains that were found in Central Texas are her remains, the lawyer for her family said Wednesday, and the Army said it has identified two suspects in her disappearance.
Pfc. Vanessa Guillen was last seen April 22 in a parking lot at Fort Hood, where she was based. The 20-year-old soldier’s car keys, barracks room key, ID card and wallet were found in the room where she was working the day she disappeared.
The U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Command has yet to officially identify the remains, which were found Tuesday near the Leon River in Bell County, about 20 miles east of Fort Hood.
But Natalie Khawam, the Guillen family’s lawyer, said evidence connects the remains to the missing soldier. She didn’t specify the evidence.
“We lost a life, a beautiful young soldier,” Khawam said during a news conference.
The Army said in a news release that one of the suspects was another Fort Hood soldier who died by suicide on Wednesday. The Texas Rangers have arrested the second suspect, who is a civilian, it said.
Officers tried to make contact with the soldier who was considered a suspect around 1:30 a.m. in Killeen, but he shot himself and died, police said.
The Army said the civilian suspect is the estranged wife of a former Fort Hood soldier. She is being held in the Bell County Jail, with charges pending.
Authorities have not released the suspects’ names.
The family says they believe Guillen was sexually harassed by the military suspect and is calling for a congressional investigation, Khawam said.
Guillen’s sisters said at the news conference that they believe the Army is covering up details of her disappearance, and Khawam said the military was withholding information.
The Associated Press left a phone message Wednesday seeking comment from an Army representative.
The Army Criminal Investigation Command and the League of United Latin American Citizens offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to Guillen’s whereabouts." AP
"Feds planning to ‘blitz’ test in Texas to find young adults silently spreading COVID-19,"The Dallas Morning News' Allie Morris -- "Federal officials are developing plans for a “blitz” of testing in Texas and other states to find young adults who have no symptoms and may be unknowingly spreading the coronavirus.
The effort would target people under age 35 in “moderate sized” communities, which have not yet been named.
“The strategy would be to surge test,” Admiral Brett Giroir, the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a press call Wednesday.
“You would do the number of tests you do in a month in just a few days, to try to make sure we identify these asymptomatics and get a better handle on them.”
The department is currently in discussions with state health officials in Texas, Florida and Louisiana, Giroir said.
The announcement comes as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging in Texas to their highest levels since the pandemic began. On Wednesday the state reported 8,076 new cases. It’s the the first time Texas crossed 8,000 cases, an increase of more than 1,000 from Tuesday’s record number." Dallas Morning News
"Critics slam changes in ICU capacity reporting in Houston,"AP's Juan A. Lozano -- "A change in how Houston area hospitals report intensive care unit capacity during the coronavirus pandemic has drawn criticism from the top two locally elected officials who are questioning if the medical facilities are being fully transparent.
But officials within the Texas Medical Center, a sprawling medical complex made up of Houston’s major hospitals, say the change was done to provide more accurate information and reassure the public that it was not running out of ICU beds.
As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have continued to rise in Houston, the Texas Medical Center has been providing a daily pandemic-related update on its website, including charts on ICU capacity, when base ICU capacity could be exceeded, when sustainable surge capacity could be exceeded and other metrics from its local member hospitals.
Last week, the medical center reported that its normal ICU capacity was at 100% and warned that “ICU capacity is becoming increasingly stretched.”
Hospital leaders later held a news conference in an effort to tamp down public alarm.
Adding to the public concern, the medical center then took its charts offline for several days and when they reappeared, references to sustainable and unsustainable surge capacity and when those could be exceeded were replaced with discussion of different phases of intensive care. Many of the bright yellow and red colors used to highlight concern and warnings in some of the old charts were replaced with shades of blue.
Dr. James McDeavitt is senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine, which is one of the member institutions within the medical center. He said the way the data was presented didn’t provide a complete picture of ICU capacity.
“Not to minimize the fact that we’re getting stressed at hospitals, but that was the wrong message for people to take away. I think that was the underlying concern because we had plenty of capacity,” McDeavitt said Wednesday.
The hospitals in the medical center have reached their phase one ICU capacity, which is 1,330 beds. But McDeavitt said there are two other phases that could add nearly 900 more ICU beds.
“There are plenty of levers now to help manage that capacity before we risk tipping over into” the most serious phase, McDeavitt said.
In Harris County, where Houston is located, the number of people hospitalized in ICU beds with COVID-19 has increased by more than 52% since May 26.
Texas’ case levels continued to skyrocket Wednesday as the state soared past 8,000 new confirmed infections in a single day for the first time. It was also the second deadliest day of the outbreak with 57 new deaths reported, bringing the total confirmed death toll to at least 2,481.
Nearly 7,000 people with COVID-19 are now hospitalized, meaning that Texas is starting July with nearly four times as many patients in hospital beds as on June 1.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she was alarmed by the changes to how the information on ICU capacity in the Houston area was now being presented.
“The timing is suspect. I find it very, very problematic,” said Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the change raised questions and he asked the medical center to go back to its original reporting.
“We need to be very truthful and be upfront and not try to camouflage the severity of this virus,” Turner said.
But William McKeon, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, said the data is constantly being refined as medical professionals learn more about the virus.
“There’s nothing sinister here,” McKeon told KTRK-TV.
Questions have also been raised about whether the hospitals will have enough staffing if additional ICU beds are needed.
McDeavitt said hospitals at the medical center have developed training programs and have hired additional staff to ensure that patients have qualified nurses and doctors taking care of them." AP
"Valley's hospitals are over capacity with COVID-19 patients," KVEO's Sydney Hernandez -- "All COVID-19 units in the Rio Grande Valley are at or over capacity, according to doctors on the frontlines.
Tuesday, Hidalgo County reported its largest single day increase of COVID-19 cases.
Cameron County doctors say all major hospitals with COVID-19 units are full.
“Cameron county is at 131% capacity, we went from being at 71% percent of COVID-19 beds to 131% percent, so overcapacity,” said Dr. James Castillo, M.D., Cameron County Health Authority.
Data posted to the Hidalgo County COVID-19 dashboard online show there are more people hospitalized than there are beds.
Both counties are on ‘Level 1 Emergency’ which means maximum capacity and can call for outside help.
The problem? Because all COVID units are full, doctors are having to pull beds from other areas like the Emergency Room, in turn leaving no beds for those patients.
“Right now people are waiting a long time, unfortunately, some people are leaving without receiving care and that’s always a huge concern,” said one doctor at the Cameron County press conference, Tuesday morning.
On top of not enough beds, Valley hospitals also do not have enough staff.
“Yes, you have this room, but we still need doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, I need them to come to work and if they’re getting sick, which is what we are seeing, then we’re in a bigger deficit, so we have to bring nurses from other areas, pay them much more money to get them here for budgets we did not account for,” said Mayor Dr. Ambrioso Hernandez, a medical doctor and the mayor of Pharr.
Which is exactly what happened.
Close to 400 nurses have been deployed to hospitals across the Valley ranging from Mission to Edinburg to Harlingen.
“Some of these nurses came from New York City, so they have been in the fire, they have been in the trenches and now they get to bring that experience and expertise to the Rio Grande Valley to help with this crisis we’re dealing with,” said another doctor at the press conference.
The counties have not released if there will be an alternate location for COVID-19 patients to go if all hospitals become even more overwhelmed.
Tuesday, Hidalgo County has 257 people hospitalized from COVID-19 complications.
Cameron County has 172 hospitalized." KVEO
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Dr. Anthony Fauci 'doesn’t know what he’s talking about',"The Texas Tribune's Alex Samuels -- "Despite Texas’ surge of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday evening that he doesn’t need the advice of the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci.
“Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Patrick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview. “We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”
Patrick also said Fauci has “been wrong every time on every issue.”
While he initially did not elaborate on specifics, the lieutenant governor on Wednesday afternoon pointed to an example from January when Fauci told Newsmax that the coronavirus was “not a major threat.” (According to Politifact, Fauci did say that twice in late January, when there was a handful of reported COVID-19 cases in the country, that Americans should not fret. But both times, Fauci added that the situation could change.)
Since Fauci’s initial remarks, however, case numbers have risen nationally. And during a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, Fauci said the nation is going in the “wrong direction” with coronavirus cases." Texas Tribune
"Texas DA files new charges resulting from deadly drug raid,"AP's Juan A. Lozano -- "The investigation of a Houston Police Department narcotics unit following a deadly 2019 drug raid has resulted in charges being filed against six former officers, who are accused of routinely using false information to get search warrants and of lying on police reports, prosecutors announced on Wednesday.
The work of the narcotics unit has been under scrutiny following the January 2019 drug raid in which Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, 58, were killed.
Two former members of the unit — Gerald Goines and Steven Bryant — had previously been charged in state and federal court in the case, including two counts of felony murder filed in state court against Goines.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Wednesday that 15 new felony charges have been filed against Goines and Bryant, as well as four other ex-officers, three who were supervisors. The other ex-officers are Sgt. Clemente Reyna; Sgt. Thomas Wood; Lt. Robert Gonzales; and Officer Hodgie Armstrong.
The supervisors are accused of signing records saying they saw officers pay confidential informants for buying drugs when they did not, Ogg said. The officers are also accused of falsifying government documents to steal money meant for drug buys and falsifying time sheets.
Ogg said the crimes were part of a pattern that eventually resulted in the deadly raid.
“Some will say that this scheme is just mismanagement. It is not. It is long running evidence of graft and corruption than can literally rot an institution from the inside out,” Ogg said.
Nicole DeBorde, Goines’ attorney, said she had not yet seen documentation regarding the new charges but accused Ogg of using the case to get good publicity “after a bad week of press.”
“She is also using this as an opportunity to further damage Mr. Goines’s ability to get a fair trial,” DeBorde said.
An attorney for Bryant did not immediately return an email seeking comment. Court records did not list attorneys for the other ex-officers.
In a statement, the Houston Police Officers’ Union called Reyna, Wood, Gonzales and Armstrong “victims” of a “political ploy” by a “rogue DA.”
Prosecutors had previously accused Goines, 55, of lying to obtain the warrant to search the home of Tuttle and his wife by claiming that a confidential informant had bought heroin there. Goines later said there was no informant and that he had bought the drugs himself, they allege. Five officers, including Goines, were injured in the raid.
Since the raid, prosecutors have been reviewing thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit." AP
"Dallas police announce policy to quickly release video," via AP-- "Dallas police have announced a policy to release videos of police shootings and other incidents in which someone dies or is badly injured within three days, although it’s unclear whether this will lead to the prompt release of footage in all such cases.
City police previously released body and dash camera videos on a case-by-case basis, and the department routinely withholds footage it says is exempt from Texas public records law as part of an “ongoing investigation.”
The policy announced Tuesday evening gives the police chief discretion over releasing videos. A spokesman did not answer questions about whether footage will be made public if its part of a criminal probe.
The change in how Dallas police handle video of shootings and in-custody deaths follows other departments taking similar steps in the wake of mass protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.
Since 2013, American police have widely adopted body cameras. But some departments’ resistance to releasing video of critical incidents has led some to question whether the tens of millions of dollars spent on the technology has provided the accountability and transparency expected." AP
"HISD under state investigation again -- this time for special education,"The Houston Chronicle's Jacob Carpenter -- "Texas Education Agency officials are deep into a wide-ranging investigation of Houston ISD’s special education department, examining whether district staff violated numerous federal laws and state rules that help ensure students with disabilities get vital support while in school, the Houston Chronicle has learned.
Records reviewed by the Chronicle show state investigators have spent the past 8 1/2 months reviewing whether the state’s largest school district failed to follow about 20 special education regulations, such as properly identifying students with disabilities, delivering legally entitled services, re-evaluating students’ needs and involving parents in key decisions.
The inquiry, known as a special accreditation investigation, is the same type of review launched by the TEA in early 2019 following allegations that some trustees had violated the Texas Open Meetings Act, interfered with district contracts and failed to follow their governance role.
TEA officials substantiated those allegations and Education Commissioner Mike Morath moved in late 2019 to replace HISD’s governing board. However, the district’s elected trustees remain in power pending the outcome of a lawsuit they filed to stop their ouster.
While state officials typically handle several individual special education complaints brought by HISD families each year, the current investigation dives into HISD’s district-wide performance and could produce far more serious consequences.
If state investigators find evidence of systemic special education issues in HISD, Morath could appoint an official to oversee changes in the district or try again to replace the school board. TEA officials declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
In a statement, HISD’s administration said it is “fully cooperating” with the investigation, directing additional questions to the TEA. HISD Board President Sue Deigaard said she is “looking forward to seeing the results.”
“If there’s a problem, and it’s taken a third-party to identify the problem, then we can fix it,” Deigaard said.
The investigation marks the latest development in HISD’s troubled history with providing special education services to children in the 210,000-student district.
The inquiry also renews the spotlight on TEA’s handling of special education, which remains under intense local and federal scrutiny after the Chronicle revealed in 2016 that the agency’s arbitrary cap on the number of children receiving services led to the denial of support to tens of thousands of students with disabilities across Texas." Houston Chronicle
2020
"If Texas Republicans don’t cancel Houston convention, will Abbott do it for them?"The Austin American-Statesman's Jonathan Tilove -- "Gov. Greg Abbott and state Republican leaders are on the horns of a dilemma.
Having a big in-person Republican State Convention the week after next in Houston, the epicenter of a resurgent coronavirus pandemic, at a time when the governor in increasingly blunt and urgent terms is imploring Texans to hunker down, seems like a politically fraught idea.
But for it not to happen would require either the State Republican Executive Committee or the governor to bite the bullet — and maybe take a political bullet from some grassroots activists who have questioned the severity of the crisis.
State Republican Party Chairman James Dickey has called a special, virtual meeting of the 64-member executive committee to vote on whether to change an expected 6,000-person event July 16-18 at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center into a virtual gathering.
While the committee members tend to hew to a more conservative grassroots sentiment and live for the in-person interaction of the biennial state convention, they are actively polling delegates from their respective districts for guidance.
“I strongly believe in-person is best,” said Mark Ramsey, an influential conservative member who represents Senate District 7. “My constituents seem to be 10-to-1 or more for in person.”" Austin American-Statesman
AAS editorial: "Holding Texas GOP convention now would be reckless," The Austin American-Statesman ed board -- "This is no time to funnel thousands of strangers into a convention hall. Especially not in Houston, a city that has become an epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Hospitalizations there have quadrupled since Memorial Day. The region’s intensive care unit beds are nearly full. Local officials have implored residents to stay home.
The Republican Party of Texas should heed that call and cancel its in-person convention, slated for July 16-18.
Proceeding with such a large-scale gathering at this point would be unconscionably reckless — not only for the roughly 6,000 attendees converging from all over the state, but for the Houston workforce that would be exposed to this mass of people.
After receiving a letter Tuesday from the Texas Medical Association urging the convention be canceled, Texas Republican Party chairman James Dickey indicated the party is evaluating its options. “We are taking all input from those involved with our Convention, including that from our Party leadership and our delegates, very seriously,” Dickey said in a statement.
This shouldn’t be a tough call. Not when Gov. Greg Abbott, the top Republican official in Texas, has already deemed gatherings of just a couple hundred people so risky that he has shuttered bars statewide. Not when Abbott has halted elective surgeries in Harris County because of the need to keep more hospital beds open. Not as long as the Texas GOP can do what so many of us have done in recent months: move meetings to video platforms." Austin American-Statesman
"Renee Swann, husband test positive for COVID-19 with early voting underway,"The Waco Tribune-Herald's Tommy Witherspoon -- "District 17 congressional candidate Renee Swann announced Wednesday she and her husband have tested positive for COVID-19.
Swann could not be reached on her cellphone Wednesday evening but reported on her campaign Facebook page that she and her husband both are asymptomatic and are going to be in quarantine for the next 10 days.
Her campaign manager did not immediately return a phone message Wednesday.
“This campaign continues to get more interesting,” Swann wrote on her campaign Facebook page.
Swann campaigned outside Waco High School without a mask Monday on the first day of early voting in her runoff race against former Dallas Congressman Pete Sessions.
Swann and Sessions are seeking the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Congressman Bill Flores. The winner in the July 14 runoff will face David Jaramillo or Rick Kennedy, who are in a Democratic primary runoff.
Sessions said he is sorry to hear the Swanns have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“We want to send our prayers and best wishes to Russell and Renee Swann for their full recovery from COVID-19,” Sessions said in a statement. “This virus is serious, and everyone must take precautions. We hope to see them on the campaign trail soon.”
Swann’s social media campaign posts show her at meet-and-greets in the past couple of weeks in at least three Central Texas counties. McLennan County Commissioner Will Jones played host to a gathering for Swann on June 23 at his Hillcrest Drive home.
At least one person who attended the gathering said Swann was not wearing a face covering and was seated for much of the evening because she said she was suffering from vertigo.
Jones said about 30 people attended the event and that no one wore a mask. He said he is “not especially” concerned about his health or that of his guests because he thinks Swann was infected after the event at his home.
“We are not concerned,” Jones said. “Everybody who was here knows now that she has it and if they came in contact with her, they just need to have common sense about it.”
He said he is feeling fine and likely will not be tested. Jones on Tuesday joined other members of the McLennan County Commissioners Court in voting against a countywide order requiring business patrons to wear masks during the ongoing local spike in COVID-19 cases.
Social media posts from Swann’s previous gatherings throughout District 17 show photos of her and participants, most not wearing face coverings.
Sessions’ recent posts do not appear to show interaction with potential constituents, though he met with Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller on Tuesday. A video of the event shows them standing next to each other and talking for about 15 minutes without masks on." Waco Tribune-Herald
"Republican runoff in battleground congressional district turns explosive with focus on sex trafficking in Fort Bend County,"The Texas Tribune's Patrick Svitek -- "The Republican primary runoff for a Houston-area congressional seat that national Democrats are targeting has come to an explosive home stretch over allegations that one of the candidates, a sheriff, did not take sex trafficking seriously.
Over the weekend, Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls' opponent, Kathaleen Wall, launched a TV ad featuring a prominent sex-trafficking survivor, Courtney Litvak, and her family blasting Nehls. It is the second ad released by Wall in recent weeks questioning Nehl’s commitment to battling human trafficking.
Both ads are partially based on a pair of Houston Chronicle articles in recent years highlighting Nehls' reluctance to label human trafficking as a widespread problem in Fort Bend County. Nehls argues he has stayed on top of the problem.
In the minute-long ad released this weekend, Litvak’s father is visibly angry as he addresses the sheriff directly." Texas Tribune
TEXANS IN DC
"Cruz blocks Senate Democrats’ attempt to pass DACA bill,"The Houston Chronicle's Benjamin Wermund -- "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to pass legislation creating a pathway to citizenship for some 109,000 immigrants living in Texas who were brought to the U.S. as children.
Cruz called it an attempt at offering “amnesty” to those who entered the country illegally. He said Democrats already had a chance to write into law protections for so-called Dreamers when President Donald Trump offered to work with them on a deal.
That offer came after Trump moved to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2017 — an effort the Supreme Court blocked earlier this month.
Cruz’s opposition puts him at odds with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, another Texas Republican, who said the Supreme Court ruling offers “a unique moment and an opportunity” and called for Congress to “take action and pass legislation that will unequivocally allow these men and women to stay in the only home, the only country they’ve known.” Houston Chronicle
"Ted Cruz 'furious' with recent Supreme Court decisions,"The Houston Chronicle's Jeremy Wallace -- "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz says he’s had enough of bad decisions coming from the Supreme Court and blames Republican presidents for continually picking the wrong people to become justices. And Cruz is on a bit of a media tour to drive home that point.
After two weeks of decisions that he’s vehemently disagreed with, Cruz told supporters on a phone call earlier this week that Republican presidents have a terrible track record of picking justices and held up two examples.
“Many of the worst judicial activists have been Republican appointees,” Cruz told the audience as he ripped into Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, and Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Donald Trump appointee.
Cruz said Roberts told the Senate when he was confirmed that he saw the role of a justice as similar to that of an umpire calling balls and strikes.
“He hasn’t been calling balls and strikes,” Cruz said. “He has been playing for one team and it is the team tearing down the Constitution.”
As for Gorsuch, Cruz said he played the role of a lawmaker in the high court’s recent decision to extend job protection to LGBT workers under the nation’s civil rights laws.
“Reasonable people can disagree on the policy but what Neil Gorsuch did was just rewrote the law, he just put on the hat of a legislator and said: ‘Guess what, I’m writing federal statute all on my own.’ And it was lawless and it was disappointing.”
In that decision, the court ruled that sexual orientation and gender identification are protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even though Cruz said neither of those were mentioned in that law.
Over the last 10 days, Cruz has leveled similarly harsh criticism at the justices during national TV interviews, a floor speech in the U.S. Senate, and in the pages of a new book he is writing about the Supreme Court that he says will be out in October.
“I am outraged,” Cruz said on Monday. “I am furious at the rulings from the Supreme Court in the past two weeks." Houston Chronicle
REMAINDERS
FC DALLAS: “Six FC Dallas players test positive for COVID-19 in Florida” AP
'MACK ON POLITICS' PODCAST
LATEST "MACK ON POLITICS" PODCAST: Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) is our guest for the 193rd episode, and he joins us from Tulsa, OK, the scene of the Trump re-election campaign’s first rally in several months.
In this conversation we discuss the protests, the current moment in our country, how rural America is surviving, what he expects from Congress for the rest of the year, what he hopes to see from the forthcoming Durham report on FISA abuse, how he sizes up Trump vs. Biden and what he sees as the stakes for the 2020 election.
Available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and on the web at http://www.MackOnPoliticsPodcast.com.
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