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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Tue Jul 17, 2018, 11:35 PM Jul 2018

Democrat Frances Tarlton "Sissy" Farenthold A Noble Citizen

Just found, by total chance, the fact that a Texas Republican Congressman, Rep. Blake Farenthold, who just got launched OUT of the House of Representatives for his congenital trashiness, as shown in this photo of him wearing his best yellow ducky pajamas, and sexual harrassment in his office in Washington, had a famous Democratic hard-working, widely respected step-grandmother who was extremely progressive, a member of the Texas Legislature, who ran for the Governor's office, and has been a constant anchor in Texas politics! Hooray! It appears her step-grandson, wierd Blake, actually hates women who don't bow down and kiss his gigantic backside! Or worse.





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This article reveals Sissy Farenthold has been a strong supporter of reform of the villainous military/industrial/racist/right-wing foreign "policy" against the people of Central America:

Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold
A Noble Citizen
PRESENTED BY THE BERNARD AND AUDRE RAPOPORT CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE

Farenthold has been a fierce advocate for human rights and social justice in Central America, beginning in the early 1980s and continuing to this day. As a result of the contact she had with Salvadoran refugees at her law practice in Houston, as well as policy work in which she participated through other organizations, such as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Farenthold became deeply involved in the issues of El Salvador. Francisco Lopez, who came to Houston as a refugee from El Salvador in 1985, recalls that she “became like a mother for us…She became the mother of our movement there in Houston, our rock.”[1]

In 1982, Farenthold made her first visit to El Salvador as a human rights observer. The delegation was led by Wayne Smith, a former diplomat to Cuba under President Jimmy Carter. Since then, she has visited El Salvador nine times, and traveled to Central America often to monitor and report on human rights. On one occasion in 1989, Farenthold met with the Salvadoran president to advocate for the release of detained human rights workers.

She has also made several visits to other Central American countries, including Guatemala and Honduras. In the mid-1990s, Farenthold visited Guatemala with U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury, whose husband, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, had been disappeared by the Guatemalan Army in 1992. Farenthold joined Harbury in advocating for U.S. acknowledgment of its involvement in the disappearance of Bámaca through CIA operatives and informants. She testified before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights regarding the case, and in December 2000, the IACHR found the Guatemalan military guilty of the disappearance, torture, and murder of Bámaca.

Invariably linking human rights issues in Central America to those in the United States—often matters specific to Texas—Farenthold wrote to Assistant Secretary of Human Rights Richard Shattuck before leaving for Guatemala in the early 1990s: “We all know that the Guatemalan military does not exist in a vacuum. Some members are being trained in San Antonio.”

More:
https://law.utexas.edu/farenthold/international/central-america/

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Making history: On Hillary Clinton, Luci Baines Johnson and Sissy Farenthold
Jul 27, 2016

Originally published July 27, 2016
Originally appeared in the mystatesman.com



Good morning Austin:

Last night, Hillary Clinton made history becoming the first woman to be nominated for president of the United States by a major party. I spoke yesterday with two Texas women who were in Philadelphia for the occasion who know something about being witnesses to history and about making history – Luci Baines Johnson and Sissy Farenthold.

. . .

Enter Sissy Farenthold, who will turn 90 on October 2.

When Farenthold was elected to the Texas House in 1968, she was the only woman in the House. Barbara Jordan was the only woman serving in the Texas Senate.

Four years later, Farenthold ran for governor.

From University of Texas Law School history of Farenthold.

In 1972, as the political fallout from the Sharpstown Bank scandal resonated across the state, Sissy Farenthold launched her first campaign for governor. She hadn’t planned to run for the office, in deference to U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough, the leader of the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party. But when he decided not to run, she entered the gubernatorial race.

Farenthold’s campaign was buoyed by the bank scandal and the ethics reform movement she had led in the Legislature.

“Our present state leaders have run Texas like a cash register,” she said in a TV campaign ad. “The governor profits from the Sharpstown stock swindle. The lieutenant governor makes a fortune on private deals with special interests. Another candidate is a banker who is a back-up man for the big-business interests. It’s time to take Texas from the special interests.”

Farenthold competed against three candidates in the Democratic primary for governor, including a favorite of the state Democratic machine—Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes, a protégé of former Governor John Connally. Barnes commanded the state Senate during the Sharpstown scandal. He was not implicated in the case, but his association with the politicians linked to the scandal tainted his reputation. The other candidates were Governor Preston Smith, who had profited from the stock deal, and Dolph Briscoe, a businessman who was not in state government at the time.

Farenthold shocked political observers when she outpolled Barnes and Smith, and forced Briscoe into a runoff election. Briscoe defeated Farenthold in the runoff with 54 percent of the vote. But “That Woman,” as critics called Farenthold, had established her political drawing power with 46 percent of the vote.

As remarkable as her run for governor was, it was not even Farenthold’s most significant contribution to political history that year.

More from UT:

This heightened role for women at the convention, which was held from July 10-13 in Miami Beach, Florida, came as they were entering a new period of political activity. About a year earlier, the National Women’s Political Caucus had been founded at a conference in Washington, D.C. And Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was running for the presidency, the first African American from a major political party to run for the position.

Farenthold was recruited to run for the vice presidency when Chisholm, who didn’t have the votes to win the presidential nomination, turned down the Caucus’s offer to back her as vice president. Farenthold had attended the convention as the leader of the Texas delegates for U.S. Sen. George McGovern, who went on to clinch the party’s presidential nomination. But it wasn’t the first time her name had been mentioned for the vice presidency. Before the convention, a handful of students from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, had circulated a national petition to nominate her, and they brought 2,000 “Sissy for VP” posters to Miami Beach.

. . .

http://www.lbjlibrary.org/press/lbj-in-the-news/making-history-on-hillary-clinton-luci-baines-johnson-and-sissy-farenthold

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Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold
A Noble Citizen
PRESENTED BY THE BERNARD AND AUDRE RAPOPORT CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE



Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold was born in 1926 to a prominent Democratic and Catholic family in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her paternal grandfather was Judge Benjamin D. Tarlton Sr., Chief Justice of the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, state legislator and the namesake of the University of Texas Tarlton Law Library. Her father, Benjamin D. Tarlton Jr., served as the District Attorney for the 36th Judicial District in Hill County, and had a reputation as one of Corpus Christi’s most charismatic and effective attorneys.

Farenthold attended Hockaday School in Dallas, and graduated from Vassar College in 1946 at the age of 19. With the staunch support of her father, she graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1949, where she was one of only three women in a student body of 800.

After graduating from law school, Farenthold returned to Corpus Christi to practice law in her father’s firm. In 1950, she married businessman George Edward Farenthold. Together they had five children: Dudley, George Jr., Emilie, Vincent, and Jimmy. She was also step-mom to Randolph, George’s son from his previous marriage.

She took a hiatus from law practice while raising her young children. But she maintained her bar membership at her father’s urging, who paid her dues, and she became engaged in civic affairs. She served on the Corpus Christi City Council’s Human Relations Commission from 1963-1965.

More:
https://law.utexas.edu/farenthold/about/about-farenthold/

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Gubernatorial Campaigns




Photograph of of Frances “Sissy” Tarlton Farenthold and Bella Abzug with Farenthold campaign signs in background.

More:
https://law.utexas.edu/farenthold/state/gubernatorial-campaigns/

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Texas State Rep. Ron Reynolds, Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Rodney Griffin and Rev. Andrew Burks

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08 MARCH 2008
Feminist Pioneer Feted at ACLU Anniversary Bash

Sissy Farenthold, image from Texas Legacy Project.

Houston's Farenthold wins ACLU honor
By MELISSA LUDWIG / San Antonio Express News / March 8, 2006

Trailblazers and hell raisers.

That may be the best way to describe Molly Ivins and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, two women honored Saturday night at a gala toasting the 70th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas in downtown San Antonio.

Farenthold, 81, received the first Molly Ivins Lifetime Achievement Award, created to honor the spitfire Texas columnist who died last year.

"I am humbled because I know there are so many people who are worthy of it, and especially because it is in memory of Molly. To be associated, even in that way, is very moving to me," Farenthold said.

Farenthold was the first woman to be a serious nominee for vice president at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Before that, she served with Barbara Jordan as one of two women in the Texas legislature, and was part of the so-called "Dirty 30," a group of lawmakers who rebelled against corruption in the speaker's office. She went on to serve as president of Wells College in Aurora, New York and as a human rights observer in Central America.


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http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/sissy-farenthold-image-from-texas.html

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