Dalia Kasseb
The hijab that Dalia Kasseb wears in public never seemed to disturb Woody Owens, her opponent in a June 10 runoff for a Pearland City Council position. Owens, Kasseb told me, has been perfectly cordial when their paths have crossed on the campaign trail.
Imagine Kasseb’s surprise, then, when she watched a video that includes screenshots of various groups’ harsh anti-Muslim messages that Owens had shared on Facebook. One particularly crude post features an image of a goat and the words: “I don’t want to grow up to be abused as a Muslim sex slave. Please ban Islam. #GoatLivesMatter.”
Another post recommends banning the Quran.
“Our few meetings have been very pleasant,” said Kasseb, a 30-year-old pharmacist who appears to be the first openly Muslim candidate for elective office in Brazoria County. “But for him to be sharing that stuff on Facebook really shows what he believes.”
The video criticizing the posts, which was produced by the Brazoria County Democratic Party, shows them interspersed with clips of longtime Mayor Tom Reid expressing his support for Owens at an event in April. “We need more guys with his background, his type of approach, and his vision,” Reid says of Owens.
Reid, 91, who has spent 34 years as Pearland’s mayor, also faces a runoff opponent: Quentin Wiltz, a 36-year-old executive at a pipeline coating firm. The winner will have to confront many challenges facing the fast-growing suburb on Houston’s southern edge, from mobility to tax policy to noxious odors from a landfill.
[…]
“We can’t not talk about the presence of misinformed people or what seems to be bigotry in this community,” said Wiltz, who is African-American.
Kasseb, who placed first among six candidates on May 6 with 41 percent of the vote to Owens’ 21 percent, said she is confident most Pearland residents don’t share the views expressed in her opponent’s Facebook posts.
“I’ve knocked on over 3,000 doors, and we’ve met people from throughout Pearland,” she said. “It has been a wonderful experience.”
See here for a bit of background. The seat in question is a new one, so there is no incumbent. Mike Snyder couldn’t get a comment from candidate Owens, which may have been just as well for him since when he has had something to say about this, it’s pretty lame.
Owens said he’s not apologizing because he didn’t share those posts on his Facebook page or at least he doesn’t recall doing so.
Owens said three posts had been removed from his page by Facebook at his request. He said Facebook told him it appeared the posts were doctored and he said he did not post them.
When Owens was asked if he shared all those posts, he said he doesn’t believe he did.
“I don’t think so to be honest with you, because when Facebook came back it looked like those posts were doctored with a name above it,” said Owens.
While Owens said the posts had been removed, ABC13 found they were still on his page and had not been removed.
When ABC13 asked to see the message sent to him from Facebook indicating they removed the doctored posts, he said he deleted the message because it contained the name of the person who was likely involved in doctoring the post and he didn’t want that person’s name out there.
“I did delete it off because it said something about the person who did it and I don’t want them mentioned,” said Owens.
Must be those Russian hackers I keep hearing about. The video in question is embedded in the Chron story, and if you view it you will see that all of the images are of Owens’ personal Facebook page, with none of them had being shared to his page by someone else . Even if one were inclined to believe that someone else infiltrated his page, these posts date back to 2015. One might think that if he himself hadn’t put them there, he might have noticed and taken action on them before now. If he didn’t approve of them being there in the first place, of course.
So yeah, I think we can agree that this has revealed Owens’ character, and I think we can agree that Mayor Reid would do well to at least state that he doesn’t approve of such trash. I don’t know what effect this will have on either of those races, but I do know that runoffs are so often determined by who cares enough to show up. The runoff elections are Saturday, June 10, and early voting for them begins today, Tuesday, May 30. In addition to Kasseb and Wiltz, there are other candidates worth supporting, Pearland and Pasadena and elsewhere. Now is not the time to lose focus. Look at that last link, and if you live in one of those places then make a plan to vote.
Victim card: played.
Dahlia’s main campaign theme seems to be diversity and opposition to a landfill that was in place before most of West Pearland grew up around it. Woody’s campaign theme is more traditional…..fixing traffic, lower taxes, and public safety, like crime, which is higher in West Pearland…..go figure.
Personally, I’d like the best people for the job to be hired by the city, regardless of their “diversity,” and at some point, you just have to ask yourself, “should I buy a house that is directly downwind of a landfill that has been around decades longer than that house?”
Would any Kuff readers buy a house near the landfill on Hwy 90 @ Oates? Why or why not?
There’s a reason that land was so cheap to build on in the first place. But hey, let’s harass the existing business that was there first.
@Bill… Good point. I feel like I’ve been downwind from some of the stink coming out of you for awhile as well, but chalk it up to you being here first.
A damn shame this happened, as at least the candidates had all been acting like grown ups up to this point.
Diversity is a more minor consideration for me, but I can’t help but notice that the people who are the most dismissive of the concept are also the ones who find plenty of people who “look just like them” in gov’t, on the board of directors, on TV, etc.
As for the landfill, my question is who #%£¥ gave permission for that land to be zoned as residential ITFP??
Charles, I wish you had like buttons or something similar here….. C.L. comment is the best I’ve read in a long time,lol
@Robert, like they used to say on the Stevens and Pruitt show on KLOL, ‘Humor for all, malice towards none’.
Inability to manage one’s own FB page would imply (to me, anyway) underlying competency issues, as does the deployment of utterly lame excuses.
@Fly:
“A damn shame this happened.”
What happened was Kasseb did her oppo research, looking for dirt on Woody, and she thinks she found some, all the way back to 2015. It’s the Billy Bush Access Hollywood tape all over again. And trust me, each time there’s another Muslim terror attack, those kinds of cartoons make the rounds. I’ve seen plenty. Kasseb wants to take the high road? Yeah, sure she does. I’m pretty sure Woody didn’t “leak” 2 year old Facebook posts. No, Kasseb, or some of her handlers did that. So if we are assigning shame, perhaps it ought to go to the Kasseb camp.
@C.L.:
KLOL? KLOL is a Mexican hip hop station now. Enjoy that diversity!
The “damn shame” is the bigoted post, and the lack of apology so far.
So Bill, it’s the fact that someone dug up dirt, rather that what the dirt reveals about a candidate’s character, that sticks in your craw? The fact that terrorist attacks happen does not give you license to be a jerk. Saying ugly things about people who aren’t responsible for said terrorist attack is a damn good definition of being a jerk. You have a 1st Amendment right to be a jerk, but if you’re also stupid enough to post said jerkiness on social media, where it can and damn well will be used against you in the game of politics, then those are the breaks and please spare us the faux righteous indignation. People should know better. Another pro tip- all mics are live.
As for that Access Hollywood tape, my complaint is that it wasn’t dug up a year earlier. The GOP primary voters were denied relevant information about just how foul Trump’s character is. Because if you brag about committing sexual assault, you are the dregs.
When we found out that the DNC sandbagged Bernie in the primaries, that he never even had a chance, and when we discovered that the debate questions were fed to a certain candidate, the fact that someone dug that dirt up, rather than what it revealed about a certain candidate’s character was what was most important. Remember?
We were appalled at the dirt digger then. Why are we not appalled by the dirt digger now? What changed?
As to the Access Hollywood tape, the blame for that can be laid at the feet of the DNC folks who planned their battle strategy. The tape was too little, too late, and in fact, by the time they released it, it only galvanized Trump’s supporters to fight harder. Just one of many errors made by Mook & Co. Had they just played fair and let Bernie take the nomination, I’m pretty sure I would be railing about the Sanders administration right about now, because between Trump and Bernie, at least Bernie was likeable.
“When we found out that the DNC sandbagged Bernie in the primaries, that he never even had a chance, and when we discovered that the debate questions were fed to a certain candidate, the fact that someone dug that dirt up, rather than what it revealed about a certain candidate’s character was what was most important. Remember?”
I’m not defending feeding anyone debate questions in advance. But exactly what did the DNC do to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination? I know that some staffers made stupid, catty, and even possibly bigoted comments in their e-mail exchanges. But what did they do that affected vote totals?
“We were appalled at the dirt digger then. Why are we not appalled by the dirt digger now? What changed?”
These were the hacked e-mails, right? Hacking accounts is illegal, isn’t it? Now if someone hacked Owen’s computer, then you can claim equivalence.
“As to the Access Hollywood tape, the blame for that can be laid at the feet of the DNC folks who planned their battle strategy. ”
That’s assuming the DNC leaked it. IIRC, Billy Bush was the one with loose lips at a social gathering.
“The tape was too little, too late, and in fact, by the time they released it, it only galvanized Trump’s supporters to fight harder.”
Yeah, grabbing women by the pussy is so damn galvanizing and inspiring.
‘ Just one of many errors made by Mook & Co. Had they just played fair and let Bernie take the nomination, I’m pretty sure I would be railing about the Sanders administration right about now, because between Trump and Bernie, at least Bernie was likable.”
Bernie is indeed likable, but I see no evidence that he got cheated out of anything. And I say this as someone who was never a fan of Clinton. Not likable, but nevertheless the best choice for the job.
@Bill… I leave it to you to turn a seemingly innocuous reference to a couple goofball DJs at a new defunct rock-n-roll station into a lightly veiled slam against changing times and social (and apparently musical) diversity. While not a fan of the format (leaning more towards old school Flaco Jimenez and new school Los Lobos if I’m going to listen to south of the (US) border music) , I can appreciate the music for what it is….Different. Dollar to donuts, I bet the 91 year old Mayor of Pearland hasn’t changed with the musical landscape. And apparently Woody Owens hasn’t either.
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