The Harris County Republican Party is imploding, which means more trouble for the Texas GOP.
If you missed it, last week we published “Texas’ GOP SREC Elections were Illegitimate.” This is a huge deal and I hoped that more mainstream media would have picked it up by now, but perhaps it isn’t sensational enough for them. As it turns out, Allen West’s election wasn’t the only illegitimate election, some SREC district chair elections are also coming into question. As Keith Nielsen prepares to take office as Chair of Harris County GOP, infighting within the party is spilling over to center stage, and it is becoming apparent:
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]The Harris County GOP is more divided than ever.
Back in June, Harris County, GOP Chair-elect shared a racist post on Facebook. The post was an MLK quote next to a banana. This prompted elected officials like Greg Abbott, Dan Crenshaw, and Ted Cruz to speak out about this and denounce racism in the Republican party. To which, the entire state laughed, because we all knew without racists in the Republican party, there would be no party left. However, one needs to look no further than the Texas GOP 2020 Platform to see that racism is very much alive and thriving among the GOP.
Initially, Kieth Neilson said he would resign. But after the troops of white ignorance rallied around him and Conservative Blogger and prominent Houston Republican, Don Hooper laid out his defense, Neilson reneged his intentions of resigning and is planning on taking office on August 3.
The defense of Keith Nielsen has mostly boiled down to, “How could anyone in their right mind think a banana next to an MLK quote is racist?” And as Don Hooper put it, “These folks use the tools of the left against their own. They are pretty much uniformly “Never Trumpers.” Don’t let Ted fool ya. His calling for Keith to resign is virtue signaling.”
Since the initial incident, Keith Neilson has filled up his social media page with pictures of him and Black people. You know, the age-old, I’m not racist, I once had a black person at my house defense. Only a moron would believe that taking a picture with a Black person makes you not racist.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Then there is Don Hooper.
The word on the street is that Don Hooper and his wife show up to speak at nearly every Harris County Republican Executive Committee meeting and his bullying tactics have become so well known within the Harris County GOP that some Houston layers within the party don’t want to get involved with the executive committee because of the Hoopers.
The funny thing about Don Hooper though, his own social media accounts are littered with racism and far-right extremist conspiracy theories. He is even one of those who deny the Southern Strategy.
While looking around online to learn more about who Don Hooper was, I happened upon this gem. A request for retraction of defamatory statements in the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee Facebook Group. (Unlike most Republican Groups, this one is set to private. Trust me, I looked.
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Apparently, Don Hooper falsely accused some 22 year old kid named Dylan Glass of money laundering. I wonder if Hooper thinks money laundering is typically a college-aged kid type crime. It gets better.
It says in the last 5 months Hooper also posted in that group:
- He wanted to string Gary Polland up, on more than one occasion.
- He questioned whether Dan Crenshaw was racist and said, “he will pay mightly for his treachery and face a world of hurt.”
- And he also had been calling members of the group racists and telling them to shut the fuck up and resign.
I really wish that group was public, I bet it’s highly entertaining.
According to this letter, Don Hooper has lambasted Sam Harless, Tom Oliverson, James Murphy, Ted Cruz, Dan Patrick, and many others. It also said that the things he has said were because of his disdain and vitriol for Paul Simpson and preference for Keith Nielsen.
The letter goes on to assert that Don Hooper at some point stated that Ted Cruz and Dan Crenshaw led a coup to get Keith Neilson removed from his post.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]It looks like in Harris County, the inmates are running the asylum. Also, on Dylan Glass’ Twitter I found this video:
The Terror of Harris County GOP
The video is intriguing. Are they eating their own? Who’s in the video? A couple of the faces were familiar, others I had to do a little of digging around for. I was able to identify Len Swanson, Ralph Fite, Rachel Palmer Hooper, Jarred Woodfill, and Tex Christopher.
So, who are all of these people? When I started looking into this I had no idea of the depths of depravity which I would encounter. Yet, it’s 2020, nothing should shock us anymore.
These people are prominent and all have major pull within the HCRP. From the outside looking in, it looks like they have more than the normal pay for play pull, but some of them may even be pulling some behind the scenes strings.
Len Swanson
Woah! This guy is nuttier than a fruit cake. He is one of the organizers of the Houston rally against face masks, thinks the coronavirus is a hoax, and has called for an armed insurrection against Greg Abbott. More so, he has publicly stated that there is a Texas Veterans Militia which is actively hunting Muslims.
His Facebook page is public, where you can find all of this yourself. Not only is he nuttier than a fruit cake, but his statements of violence also show that he is possibly dangerous.
Ralph Fite
Ralph Fite was a precinct chair in Harris County and he also just married the SD7 committeewoman, Deborah Kelting. If you remember from a recent article, “Texas’ GOP SREC elections were illegitimate,” SD7 delegates recently voted to censure SD7 chair Dave Riddle (more on this later). It appears that SD7 is a hotbed for GOP drama.
A lot of the Facebook groups for this area are public, Senate District 7, Northwest Harris County Activists, and SKT Conservatives. It would appear as if when leading up to the SREC Convention, where Deborah Kelting was elected for SD7 committeewoman, that opponent’s ads and information were censured from these groups. At least, that’s what the accusations are. And that Ralph Fite had his hand in it, to make sure that the delegates weren’t privy to information about SD7 committee candidates, and that his fiancee’s promotions were allowed in these groups.
Ralph Fite also ran for SD7 committeeman, but lost. The relationship between Raph Fite and Mark Ramsey is unknown, Mark Ramsey recently called far-right extremist and SREC chair candidate, Amy Hedtke, an anarchist. There have also been leaked photos from the convention which show Mark Ramsey crying on Zoom after Ralph Fite lost.
Rachel Palmer Hooper
She’s Don Hooper’s wife. So assuming, she likely falls in line with his bullying tactics. According to this post, Don and Rachel Hooper along with Robert Jeter III, (we’ll get to him), are destroying the chances Trump has to win Texas. Haha. I guess that’s pissing a lot of people in the GOP off.
Jared Woodfill
Jared Woodfill used to be Harris County’s ex-GOP chairman and was in trouble a few years ago for stealing $300,000 from a client’s trust, (he was an attorney). The investigation against him was for theft and money laundering from his own clients. I couldn’t find any follow up to see if he was charged, but he’s still an active attorney, so, probably not.
Woodfill also participated in the no-mask rallies in Houston and is suing the governor regarding his mask orders.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Tex Christopher
This is Tex Christopher, if you can’t tell by his shirt, he’s straight. There is a video of him floating around interviewing Blackberry with Drag Queen Story Time. The video is pretty deplorable, he calls Blackberry lude and evil. Then he went on to say he thought that Blackberry reading stories to children, because he called it an indoctrination. Yep, he’s one of those. He bases his hate and discrimination on Christian Values. Tex is the one who led the fight to stop Drag Queen Storytime in Houston.
According to the Terror of Harris County GOP, these are the people who are messing up the local party.
I tried to understand what specifically each one of them were doing to cause this public friction. And what it seems is not so much what they are doing, but what their values are. Bullying, corruption, cheating, and bigotry.
Which reminded me of a conversation I had a while back on Twitter with a Young Republican. Well, he was a Republican with the Young Republicans Group. He was also gay. He told me that the Young Republicans had more progressive beliefs than what I thought the Republican party to be. The conversation was on my Twitter a few months back, if you want to go and look for it, but I forgot the guy’s handle. He said that the Young Republicans Group were accepting of the LBGTQ community and wanted to legalize marijuana.
Then, when I saw this post, it all snapped together.
The reason the Republican party is imploding, specifically in Texas, and more specifically in Harris County is that the younger generations of Republicans want to focus on economic values and stay away from the social issues. While, the older Republicans want the same ol’, same ol’.
Some in the Republican party are realizing that the platform of hate and infringing on others’ rights is a dying ideology and want the part to move in a more progressive direction. Not progressive in the sense of healthcare and education, just more progressive than their current draconian values.
Because of this friction and infighting, it ultimately led to the clusterfuck we saw at their convention. (Which probably pissed the young’uns off even more, because they know how to use Zoom.)
Then there was the police report incident.
This brings us to Robert Jeter III. Jeter had been accused of harassing one of the SD7 committee candidates, Charlotte Lampe, and they had some type of history before this incident. Jeter is also a precinct chair. It seems that Jeter filed the police report accusing Lampe of threatening to shoot him, a claim which Lampe had denied.
Jeter is in the Hooper camp to mess up Trump’s chances in Texas, according to the screenshot above, and more so it would appear as the SD7 election for committee, was also illegitimate. Not only did SD7 not get a chance to vote for state chair at all, but their vote for their own committee was done in an emergency meeting, with 30 minute notice, and many of them did not attend.
It appears that several SD7 Republicans might have coordinated a conspiracy to stop Charlotte Lampe from being elected as committeewoman, and pulled it off.
Dirty politics, indeed.
This means that while the Harris County Republican party is in shambles, Democrats are in a great position to focus on the 2020 elections, while the HCRP focuses on sabotaging themselves.
Still Blue in Texas 