In the News
The United States Postal Service has temporarily suspended activity at multiple Houston-area facilities until further notice due to the impact of Tropical Storm Imelda.
Despite damage experienced at the north Houston mail processing facility, USPS says it is "working daily to return to full operations, as soon as we can safely do so."
USPS released the following statement Monday:
A new Congressional bill proposes to offer cash bounties to people who voluntarily provide original information on potential audit-related violations to the U.S. regulator of audit firms.
The bill, called "PCAOB Whistleblower Protection Act of 2019," proposes to establish a whistleblower program at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that will be similar to the whistleblower program at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The bill was passed Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives, and will be considered by the Senate next.
"I am proud of this bill and what it will do to ensure that the PCAOB functions properly and protects consumers and workers from bad actors that could jeopardize the future stability of our public markets," said Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D., Texas), who introduced the bill.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Sept. 18 on oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), examining specifically whether to reauthorize four provisions of the act set to expire in December. One could be forgiven for missing the hearing amidst the deluge of news this week. And it was anyone's guess going into the hearing whether it would consist of a substantive discussion of FISA, or whether committee Republicans would simply exploit the opportunity to continue to decry alleged government abuses of the surveillance law in the form of the FBI's now-declassified applications to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE to truly make an informed judgment or assessment about how HOUSE DEMOCRATS' JUDICIARY hearing with COREY LEWANDOWSKI went Tuesday. Because no one has any idea what the party's end goal is.
YOU HAVE ONE CAMP OF PEOPLE -- the Democratic leadership -- holding out against impeachment, saying that the party would pay a political price for proceedings to remove the president, almost no matter what the evidence shows. And another camp -- House Judiciary Chairman JERRY NADLER (D-N.Y.) chief among them -- that believes the committee and the public have the information they need to begin the process of getting rid of President DONALD TRUMP.
For Part Two of BELatina's Hispanic Heritage Month series "Know Your Latina Congresswomen," we're highlighting a few of the Latinas who are helming "majority-minority" communities, all of which happen to be located in Southern California.
Latinx elected officials usually end up representing districts that are heavily Latino, unless they play down their Hispanic heritage. Well, these mujeres are unapologetically Latina, proudly representing Congressional districts with a Hispanic majority of constituents — all of whom have been the first woman to have ever held their posts in their district.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard
When Donald Trump announced his candidacy for presidency back in June 2015, he did so by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists and promising a Great Wall.
Texas is increasingly becoming a "battleground state" as Democrats are hopeful of winning statewide offices and even Texas' 38 electoral votes in the next presidential election.
On Friday, Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez joined local Hispanic Democrats for an outreach event at Talento Bilingüe in Houston's East End, called "Cafecito con Politics."
It also included U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, state Sen. Carol Alvarado and state Rep. Christina Morales.
Perez said his party needs Latino votes to turn Texas blue.
"Beto lost by 200,000 votes," he said, referring to Beto O'Rourke's 2018 U.S. Senate race against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. "There were 3.5 million voters – Latinos – who did not vote and could have voted."
HOUSTON — With the Democratic presidential debate just days away, there was excitement in the air at the Harris County Democratic Party's Monday morning staff meeting. But Chairwoman Lillie Schechter urged her troops to keep their eyes on the prize: November 2020.
"Everyone's goal here is to turn Harris County darker blue and that we elect a Democrat to the White House," she said. "I just want to remind everyone that our focus is the November election in 2020."
"We have all of these awesome things that we are doing, the millions of events that we're doing in September alone, we're working on 12 different activities," she added. "All of those is to build up our volunteer army to make sure we win in November."
HOUSTON — With the Democratic presidential debate just days away, there was excitement in the air at the Harris County Democratic Party's Monday morning staff meeting. But Chairwoman Lillie Schechter urged her troops to keep their eyes on the prize: November 2020.
"Everyone's goal here is to turn Harris County darker blue and that we elect a Democrat to the White House," she said. "I just want to remind everyone that our focus is the November election in 2020."
"We have all of these awesome things that we are doing, the millions of events that we're doing in September alone, we're working on 12 different activities," she added. "All of those is to build up our volunteer army to make sure we win in November."