Michael Barajas
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michaelbarajas.bsky.social
Michael Barajas
@michaelbarajas.bsky.social
6.6K followers 130 following 74 posts
managing editor boltsmag.org, mbarajas@boltsmag.org
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michaelbarajas.bsky.social
sure it's stunning to see TX lawmakers double down on prohibition and create new criminal penalties for cannabis, tho not entirely surprising considering the reefer madness-style coverage from some of the most vaunted outlets here, just parody-level shit www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...
excerpt/screenshot from article: Dressed in unwrinkled jeans and unscuffed white sneakers, the fortysomething Richardson looks the part of an Ivy League MBA, which he is. He’s also the chief executive of Texas Original, one of three licensed medical marijuana dispensaries in the state. His operation is regulated by Texas Department of Public Safety inspectors with the humorlessness of Soviet functionaries. They don’t worry him. What does are the thousands of licensed hemp dispensaries in the state that, he says, sell strains of cannabis that could lay low a three-hundred-pound rutting hog.
May 28, 2025 at 12:18 AM
michaelbarajas.bsky.social
Simmons has held town halls about the deadly jail and called on county govt to do more to hold the sheriff accountable

boltsmag.org/jail-crisis-...
As circumstances surrounding deaths inside the Tarrant County jail remain opaque, local advocates pushing for more transparency have looked to other county officials for help. Alisa Simmons, one of two Democrats on the five-member Tarrant County commission, organized the January town hall about deaths at the jail and has joined the calls for Waybourn to resign and for a federal inquiry into his jail. Simmons told Bolts that “the only people who can fire [Waybourn] are the voters,” but added that county commissioners could be doing more to force changes at the jail. “We need to, as a court, utilize the power of the purse strings and withhold funds from the sheriff’s office until conditions improve in the jail,” she said. Otherwise, “Tarrant county taxpayers are going to continue to pay a heavy price to subsidize that dehumanizing culture in our jail.”
May 14, 2025 at 5:40 PM
michaelbarajas.bsky.social
i think it’s easy to just see this stuff as mainstream conservative politics now, but really hard to overstate the almost cartoonishly fringe and bigoted history of many of the ppl leading the charge to give the AG more power to police elections boltsmag.org/stop-the-ste...
March 21, 2025 at 1:52 PM
michaelbarajas.bsky.social
The DOJ report also highlighted Joshua’s case (pseudonym “William”) as a prime example of how TX’s youth prisons fail kids w/ disabilities and then ship them to adult prisons as fast as possible
Discriminating against children with disabilities: Children with disabilities in TJJD’s secure facilities do not receive reasonable modifications to complete programs required for their release. Instead, children are expelled from programming due to disability-related behavior and required to repeat it, prolonging their time in TJJD’s custody or resulting in their transfer to prison. TJJD also denies children with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from education. Both practices violate the ADA. During our investigation, we met many children with intense mental health needs who have cycled through TJJD’s facilities and programs, yet their conditions have not improved and their mental health symptoms have not stabilized. Many continue to engage in serious self-harm and exhibit behaviors related to their mental health difficulties that expose them to disciplinary sanctions. William, for example, entered TJJD’s custody at eleven years old. His mental health quickly deteriorated, resulting in over 1,000 suicide risk assessments and over eighty acts of suicidal behavior while in TJJD’s custody. As soon as William turned sixteen, TJJD transferred him to adult prison for allegedly hitting TJJD staff during an incident. William died by suicide six months later. As set forth below, TJJD’s mental health care systematically fails to meet children’s needs.
November 26, 2024 at 4:26 PM