1950-1960, Houston was labeled the murder town of the USA.
The story goes that a young Eastern lawyer complained to an old Texas judge about the Texas way with crime. “I don’t understand Texas justice,” said the lawyer. “You will suspend sentence of a convicted murderer, but you wall hang a horse thief.” The old judge rang a spittoon with a stream of tobacco juice. “Sonny,” he replied, “I reckon that’s ’cause we got men that need killin’ but we ain’t got no hosses that need stealin’.”
It was against that frame of mind that Houston’s citizens were up in arms last week. For Houston (pop. 901,922), with its booming pace and blooming wealth, has a blemish on its shiny pride: in 1957 it had the highest per capita murder rate in the whole country—about 15 per 100,000, or a total of 136 for the year.* What makes Houston so special? Says one cop simply: “Houston is a city of murder without motive.”
Maybe ICE should visit those Mattress Mac stores. Latinos, both legal and illegal, have been a significant part of his success. If they won’t stop buying there, maybe they should be discouraged by throwing ICE at them?
When I visualize Trump, the only supernatural being I see associated with Trump is like the image below, with horns and goat’s feet.
We’re cooked’: Mattress Mack issues stark warning for Harris County
“We pray, may Harris County be great again.”
Famed furniture mogul and conservative firebrand Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale joined local GOP activists Wednesday night to rally support for the newly formed Harris County MAGA PAC, calling on hundreds of attendees to help “save Harris county” before it’s too late.
“If we go to hell in a handbasket and become Detroit, we’re cooked,” McIngvale said on Wednesday night.
… he stressed the need to crack down on crime while headlining the PAC’s debut party. He spoke from personal experience, discussing his decision to shut down his Post Oak Boulevard store due to an uptick in criminal activity at the location and a road-rage-related incident his son-in-law experienced while on his way to work.
Throughout the evening, speakers echoed a shared narrative: that Harris County had drifted too far from God, country and conservative values. McIngvale praised President Donald Trump for returning both God and patriotism to the national spotlight.
Mattress Mac is either not telling the truth now or has lied before about why the Galleria store is closing.
The shuttering of the 30,000-square-foot store at 2411 Post Oak Blvd., the smallest of the furniture chain’s three locations, does not come as a surprise, as Mack discussed the closing in 2019.
“The traffic went down by half because they tore up the road,” McIngvale told radio host Michael Berry in 2019, referring the the construction of the new Uptown BRT line on Post Oak.
It has been a challenging year for McIngvale, due to several health-related scares. He was hospitalized for cellulitis, a bacterial infection in September, which caused the Texas salesman to vomit in the Gallery Furniture parking lot and speak gibberish to store employees. In December, McIngvale underwent open heart surgery at Methodist Hospital to repair a leaky mitral valve.
The Houston furniture magnate also lost quite a bit in wagers. One of the Lone Star state’s most notorious gamblers, McIngvale lost $1.5 million betting on the Texas Longhorns to win the NCAA Division I FBS National Championship, but UT lost to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl semifinal game. Earlier in the season McIngvale wagered $500,000 on Texas to win the SEC Championship game, but Georgia won in overtime.
While the Post Oak location has remained largely about furniture, Mack has turned the other locations into Houston attractions. The 165,000-square-foot store in Richmond features an atrium containing 11,000 plants and exotic birds and capuchin monkeys. The store also contains a 30,000-gallon aquarium that holds a zebra shark.
Well, I guess his god deserted him with the gambling.
Mattress Mac should maybe study the history of Thomas Jefferson, whom he mentions.
“Isn’t it interesting that the governments which deny the existence of God are the same governments that deny the existence of human rights?” Mcingvale questioned the crowd of hundreds. He suggested that God may be stirring conservatives in Harris County, bringing them to the “edge of danger” to restore “Thomas Jefferson’s vision, the dignity of man, and the belief in God” in local politics.
Thomas Jefferson was a Deist:
Going back to when people of color were second-class citizens is not going to make Houston or Harris County great again, if it ever was. Maybe the mattress salesman need to read a little of Houston’s history.
