{"id":10420,"date":"2016-01-05T05:50:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=10420"},"modified":"2016-01-05T05:50:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:50:31","slug":"h-e-b-grocery-stores-the-ugly-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/05\/h-e-b-grocery-stores-the-ugly-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"H-E-B Grocery Stores: The Ugly Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all of your fellow Texans out there who shop at H-E-B, this story may discourage you from patronizing them any longer. -SF<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"butt\"<\/p>\n

Charles Butt, the Texas billionaire magnate\u00a0behind the H-E-B supermarket chain which forbid<\/a>\u00a0the open carry of firearms law that\u00a0went\u00a0into effect January 1, 2016<\/a>, opposes school choice, funds anti-school choice lobbyists, and is even credited<\/a> for his role\u00a0in\u00a0killing\u00a0a 2011 state bill banning \u201csanctuary cities.\u201d<\/h2>\n

Butt is the 2015\u00a0fourth richest Texan<\/a> and Forbes\u2019 44th wealthiest<\/a> person in America with a net worth of $10.7 billion known for funneling hard earned assets into educational lobby groups that fight school choice, although the 77-year-old grocer received\u00a0a private Ivy League college education\u00a0that included an\u00a0undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s prestigious Wharton School and a master\u2019s in business administration from Harvard<\/a>. Texas Watchdog stated<\/a>\u00a0Butt believes that private competition \u201cundermines government schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

His\u00a0vested interest in Texas public education includes H-E-B\u00a0handing<\/a>\u00a0out\u00a0$800,000\u00a0a\u00a0year to public education pursuits through the\u00a0Excellence in Education Awards<\/a>.\u00a0In\u00a02006, he\u00a0founded Raise Your Hand Texas<\/a>, which\u00a0lists<\/a>\u00a0Butt\u00a0as an advisor. The\u00a0Texas Tribune\u00a0<\/em>describes<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Raise Your Hand Texas as a \u201cseasoned lobbying force on education issues at the Capitol.\u201d<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Raise Your Hand Texas is a corporate sponsor of the Texas Tribune<\/em> and\u00a0Buttcontributed <\/a>$500,000 to the Tribune<\/em> in 2014,\u00a0with his\u00a0all-time contribution<\/a>\u00a0to them\u00a0at $1,150,000. Last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, primary funder of the\u00a0Common Core State Standards, donated $249,763 to the Tribune<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Texas Watchdog charged<\/a>\u00a0Raise Your Hand Texas \u201cpushes for increased public school funding while opposing every substantive education reform at the state legislature,\u201d including\u00a0supporting and funding candidates who oppose reform efforts to the state\u2019s education system,\u00a0and\u00a0measures that expand parental rights.\u201d The dubbed<\/a>\u00a0Butt\u00a0a\u00a0key player\u00a0blocking school choice instead\u00a0\u201cpropping up a faltering public monopoly.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Anthony, who heads up<\/a> Raise Your Hand Texas, was one of 35 Texas public school superintendents instrumental in formulating<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0new vision<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0\u201cfuture ready\u201d classroomsunder<\/a> the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), another powerful education lobby.<\/p>\n

In 2015,\u00a0Breitbart Texas reported<\/a> on the jarring\u00a0conflict-of-interest that arose at the onset of the state\u2019s last legislative session because House Education Committee Chairman Jimmie Don Aycock\u2019s daughter, Michelle Smith, works for Austin-based lobbyist powerhouse\u00a0HillCo Partners<\/a>, which Texas Monthly<\/em>\u00a0placed<\/a>\u00a0\u201cat the top of the lobby pyramid\u201d since 1998. Smith\u2019s two key\u00a0clients were Raise Your Hand Texas and Fast Growth School Coalition<\/a>\u00a0(FGSC), which promotes<\/a>\u00a0rapid growth and spending on building new public schools statewide.\u00a0Public outcry over the father-daughter\u00a0connection put Aycock\u2019s chairmanship at risk.\u00a0Breitbart Texas reported<\/a> that Smith withdrew her lobbyist registration status at the onset of the 84th Legislature\u00a0to thwart that\u00a0outcome.<\/p>\n

Butt also funds the Texas Parent PAC<\/a>, the largest\u00a0recipient<\/a> of his 2014 contributions at\u00a0$1,498,000 and recognized<\/a> as a top \u201cpower PAC\u201d in the state.\u00a0Texas House Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio), who appoints the House Education Committee, received $168,000 from Butt that year. Butt contributed $161,458 directly to the committee members, according to<\/a> the Austin American-Statesman<\/em>.\u00a0Texas Watchdog highlighted<\/a>that\u00a0the largest contribution chunk, $76,920 went to Straus\u2019 committee chair pick Aycock (R-Killeen), also\u00a0the lead author on the state\u2019s 2013 college and career ready standards,\u00a0House Bill 5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Texas Parent PAC contributed another $81,931 to House Education Committee members, according to Texas Watchdog. The Parent PAC has proudly endorsed<\/a>\u00a0Aycock since his 2006 election, although he announced<\/a>\u00a0last summer he would not run again.\u00a0In 2013, he voted against vouchers. Last year,\u00a0Senate Bill 4, an education tax credit scholarship bill designed to help low-income and at risk K-12 students, was sidelined in the House Ways and Means Committee after passing<\/a>\u00a0in the Senate. The\u00a0House never gave it a hearing.<\/p>\n

Yet,\u00a0in the 11th hour of the legislative session,\u00a0the House flung\u00a0House Bill 1891<\/a>\u00a0out for a vote. This\u00a0big government community schools<\/a>\u00a0initiative backed by the\u00a0Texas American Federation of Teachers was the union\u2019s solution to combat public charters, Breitbart Texas\u00a0<\/em>reported<\/a>. Its\u00a0inspiration was the\u00a0American Federation of Teachers Promise Schools<\/a>, a co-initiative with the Albert Shanker Institute, a proponent<\/a> of Common Core state standards.<\/p>\n

Like Raise Your Hand Texas, Texas Parent PAC opposes school choice, which means\u00a0different things to different advocates on both sides of the debate.\u00a0Breitbart Texasreported<\/a> the premise behind \u201cschool choice\u201d as educational options decided upon by families and not educrats whether that choice is public, charter, private, parochial, or home school. School choice opponents often depict advocates as\u00a0trying to dismantle public education and privatize schooling, attack teachers, and drain taxpayer funds from public schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot so,\u201d Americans for Prosperity State Director Michael Hasson told Breitbart Texas last year. He said the point of school choice was to \u201cmaximize\u201d educational opportunities. \u201cEducation is the gateway to the American Dream. It\u2019s ridiculous to assume we can eradicate the system. We want to strengthen it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2013,\u00a0Raise Your Hand Texas supported virtual (online) education and adding more charter schools, although they pushed for legislation\u00a0that limited the reach of the proposals backed by pro-school choice advocates, the Texas Tribune <\/em>reported<\/a>, saying\u00a0Butt created Raise Your Hand Texas to \u201ccombat private school vouchers.\u201d Groups like Texas Freedom Network oppose<\/a>\u00a0school choice because they do not want taxpayer dollars to move out of the system with the child.\u00a0Arizona, Florida, and Nevada<\/a>\u00a0embraced<\/a> education savings style \u201cvoucher\u201d accounts (ESA) as a means to flee failing schools and empower parents in making educational decisions for their children.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0December, the Texas Education Agency released<\/a> its Public Education Grant (PEG) list for its 5.2 million publicly educated K-12 students and it identified the degree to which the\u00a0system failed \u2014 1,532 campuses landed on the list for\u00a0poor test scores or unacceptable ratings, an increase<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0the previous year\u2019s\u00a01,199 failing schools. Texas has approximately 8,600 campuses totalling 1,200 school districts and charters.<\/p>\n

Texas Public Policy Foundation\u2019s Kent Grusendorf\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0a core\u00a0conundrum of the public education \u201cmonopoly.\u201d He wrote: \u201cThousands of great people work in the field of public education. Unfortunately, union leaders, bureaucrats and politicians all think they can tell teachers what is best. We must set educators free. We must set our children free.\u201d He underscored that historically \u201cmonopolies are inherently inefficient in the allocation of resources,\u201d adding that\u00a0Texans spend over a quarter of a million dollars per year for a classroom of 25 students where the average teacher earns $50,000. \u201cIn order to advance professionally, great teachers must leave the classroom, where they have great value to the institution, and move into administration, where in many cases, they add less value,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Butt, along with Houston homebuilder Bob Perry,\u00a0no relation to former Gov. Rick Perry, worked to kill important legislation in the fight against illegal immigration.\u00a0H-E-B operates 300-plus markets in Texas and also 52 in Mexico.\u00a0Through HillCo Partners, they applied pressure to the state\u2019s House panel to block Perry\u2019s anti-sanctuary cities measure. The supermarket mogul gave nearly $2.2 million to squash the bill, the Dallas Morning News<\/em> reported<\/a>, footnoting\u00a0that\u00a0Texans for Public Justice ranked Butt third among givers to legislative candidates in 2008.<\/p>\n

That blocked legislation would have allowed law enforcement officers to inquire about the immigration status of people they detained, the Houston Chronicle<\/em> reported<\/a>.\u00a0Since\u00a0the Texas legislature failed to pass any anti-sanctuary cities measures, Gov. Greg Abbott made this a 2015 priority, coming up with his\u00a0own plan to deal with law enforcement officials who won\u2019t enforce the law, Breitbart Texas\u2019 Bob Price\u00a0reported<\/a>.\u00a0In October, Abbott\u00a0called to end sanctuary city policies in Texas, Price also reported<\/a>. That\u00a0came in response to a Dallas County Sheriff who intended<\/a> to lighten up on immigration holds for\u00a0jailed illegals and legal aliens, no longer detaining\u00a0them for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Abbott said\u00a0these\u00a0types of sanctuary city policies will \u201cno longer be tolerated in Texas.\u201d A week later, he\u00a0announced a new\u00a0plan to strip state grant funding from county sheriffs with a Sanctuary City policy of not honoring ICE detainers, Breitbart Texasreported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Texas H-E-B stores\u00a0will continue to abide by state CHL laws and allow concealed carry of handguns in stores.<\/p>\n

Read the Original Article at<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For all of your fellow Texans out there who shop at H-E-B, this story may discourage you from patronizing them any longer. -SF Charles Butt, the Texas billionaire magnate\u00a0behind the H-E-B supermarket chain which forbid\u00a0the open carry of firearms law that\u00a0went\u00a0into effect January 1, 2016, opposes school choice, funds anti-school choice lobbyists, and is even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[389,74,2045,1405,3631],"tags":[2615,3626,3509,3627,3628,3629,3630,3632],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}