In 1986, Texas horse racing backers promised $200 million direct annual tax revenue to the state if pari-mutuel (a betting system in which winners share the total stakes minus a percentage for the management) racing was legalized, yet in the total years since its legalization, the horse racing industry has not produced that much direct tax revenue.

From the beginning, the horse racing industry was such an economic boondoggle that in 1991, the infamous year that Texas voters approved lottery gambling, the Texas legislature reduced the state’s cut from 5% to 1% to try to buoy the industry.

Even though public interest in horse racing continues to decline, lawmakers in 2001 gambled another $2 million tax subsidy for the Lone Star Park in hopes of winning the Breeder’s Cup to Texas, which finally materialized in 2004. This once a year race was hardly enough to revitalize horse racing in Texas as races in 2005-2007 will take place in New York, Kentucky and New Jersey, respectively.

Since 2003, the gambling moneygrubbers have been pushing for slot machines at their tracks. And the Texas lottery would like to join them, which would create a gambling monopoly worth millions of dollars.

Even though the Texas lottery feigns benefit for our children’s educational funding, the lottery only provides less than 3% of the $30 billion education budget, which is the single largest item in the state budget. Furthermore, the lottery, like the horse racing industry, has never produced the tax revenue that was promised to legislators and voters in order to gain their approval.

All across the country, racetrack lobbies are doing the same thing. Since horse racing is not profitable, their ruse is to manipulate the state into granting them casino gambling monopolies and legalizing video lottery terminals (VLTs) at racetracks.

VLTs are video slot machines. They are casino devices that are illegal, according to a Texas Attorney General opinion. Yet only a handful of District Attorneys have aggressively confiscated and destroyed them, as has Dallas DA Bill Hill, who has made a public spectacle of seizing and destroying the “crack cocaine of gambling” machines in metal crunchers.

Gambling promoters will stop at nothing; they are even creating slot machines with “child-enticing themes,” such as Candyland, a board game for young children. Gambling is not only highly addictive; it undermines our parental responsibility to teach children a moral work ethic.

In research mandated by Congress, it was found that as many as 20% of adolescents are already having gambling associated problems. A Harvard Medical School study estimated that nearly eight million adolescents are problem or pathological gamblers. A letter signed by Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and others, state that people who begin gambling as children are “predisposed to becoming pathological gamblers…. These child-enticing slot machines are the latest innovation in a broader advertising and marketing campaign by casinos and the gambling industry to promote a ‘family friendly’ image, and apparently, to bring children to the casinos, and thereby shape the next generation of gambling addicts.” Texas’ children deserve better.

There are supposedly about 143,000 VLTs or 8-liner gambling machines in Texas, which are the most highly addictive form of gambling. Current Texas law is somewhat complicated, yet an aggressive District Attorney can confiscate and destroy them. Unfortunately, the gambling scoundrels are also aggressive and simply buy new machines to replace the old ones. And the cycle continues.

Texans need a higher penalty in order to help law enforcement eliminate them altogether. The WORST thing the Texas legislature could do is to pass legislation that would allow horse racing tracks and the Texas lottery to gain a gambling monopoly. Yet during the 2004 special session dealing with education funding, a proposal was made to do just that. The horse racing industry and the Texas lottery pushed to legalize the VLTs, enabling 40,000 of them to be installed at the tracks, essentially allowing the horse race tracks to become casinos with a little horse racing on the side. That proposal would surely have led to casinos on Indian reservations as well.

As Texas legislators try to find ways to lower property taxes, as well as an alternative to the Robin Hood school funding scheme, we must inform our legislators that gambling is NOT their answer. Gambling interests always promise huge taxpayer benefits for gambling expansion, but history has shown that their figures are absolutely unsubstantiated. If their lips are moving, they are surely lying! Their promises are all hat and no cattle.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Ask your State Senator and State Representative to OPPOSE any expansion of gambling.

Ask your District Attorney to follow Dallas DA Bill Hill’s example of confiscating and destroying the crack cocaine of gambling: VLTs.

Click her for more information: http://texaseagle.org/
 

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Hilton Austin

500 East 4^th Street

Austin, TX 78701

On Tuesday, July 25, 2006, the White House and the Departments of Justice, Commerce, Agriculture, Labor, Veterans Affairs, Health & Human Services, Housing & Urban Development, Education, and Homeland Security, the Agency for International Development, and the Small Business Administration will host a conference in Austin to help social service organizations learn more about President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative. These conferences are geared towards faith-based and community organizations that have no history of applying for government grants as well as those that have applied, but have not yet been successful.

The conference is free, but pre-registration is required.  Registration is on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Visit www.fbci.gov to register online.  Please register by Wednesday, July 19^th.  If you must cancel your registration, please send an email to fbci@dtihq.com so we may accommodate as many people as possible.

The conference is part of a series of regional events that are being held around the country. The conferences provide participants with a general overview of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative, information about the government grants process and available funding opportunities, and an overview of the legal responsibilities that come with the receipt of Federal funds. The events also offer grant writing tutorials for select Federal grant programs.

For more information, please call 202-456-6708, send an email to fbci@dtihq.com, or visit www.fbci.gov. 

We very much hope you will be able to join us in Austin!
 

WHY THEY NEED US: IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT AMERICA

By PETER BROOKES

Copyright: NEW YORK POST

July 4, 2006 -- FOR all the worldwide whining and bellyaching about the United States, today - America's 230th birthday - provides an opportune time for them to consider for just a moment what the world might be like without good ol' Uncle Sam.

The picture isn't pretty. Absent U.S. leadership, diplomatic influence, military might, economic power and unprecedented generosity, life aboard planet earth would likely be pretty grim, indeed. Set aside the differences America made last century - just imagine a world where this country had vanished on Jan. 1, 2001.

On security, the United States is the global balance of power. While it's not our preference, we are the world's "cop on the beat," providing critical stability in some of the planet's toughest neighborhoods.

Without the U.S. "Globo-cop," rivals India and Pakistan might well find cause to unleash the dogs of war in South Asia - undoubtedly leading to history's first nuclear (weapons) exchange. Talk about Fourth of July fireworks . . .

In Afghanistan, al Qaeda would still be an honored guest, scheming over a global caliphate stretching from Spain to Indonesia. It wouldn't be sending fighters to Iraq; instead, Osama's gang would be fighting them tooth and nail from Saudi Arabia to "Eurabia."

In Asia, China would be the "Middle Kingdom," gobbling up democratic Taiwan and compelling pacifist Japan (reluctantly) to join the nuclear weapons club. The Koreas might fight another horrific war, resulting in millions of deaths. 

A resurgent Russia, meanwhile, would be breathing down the neck of its "near abroad" neighbors. Forget the democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, Comrade! In Europe, they'd be taking orders from Paris or Berlin - if those rivals weren't at each other's throats again.

In Africa, Liberia would still be under Charles Taylor's sway, and Sudan would have no peace agreement.  And what other nation could or would provide freedom of the seas for commerce, including the shipment of oil and gas - all free of charge?

Weapons of mass destruction would be everywhere. North Korea would be brandishing a solid nuclear arsenal. Libya would not have given up its weapons, and Pakistan's prodigious proliferator, A.Q. Khan, would still be going door to door, hawking his nuclear wares.

Also missing would be other gifts from "Uncle Sugar" - starting with 22 percent of the U.N. budget. That includes half the operations of the World Food Program, which feeds over 100 million in 81 countries.

Gone would be 17 percent of UNICEF's costs to feed, vaccinate, educate and protect children in 157 countries - and 31 percent of the budget of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which assists more than 19 million refugees across the globe.

In 2005, Washington dispensed $28 billion in foreign aid, more than double the amount of the next highest donor (Japan), contributing nearly 26 percent of all official development assistance from the large industrialized countries. 

Moreover, President Bush's five-year $15 billion commitment under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment by a single nation toward an international health initiative - ever - working in over 100 (mostly African) countries.

The United States is the world's economic engine. We not only have the largest economy, we spend 40 percent of the world's budget on R&D, driving mind-boggling innovation in areas like information technology, defense and medicine.

We're the world's ATM, too, providing 17 percent of the International Monetary Fund's resources for nations in fiscal crisis, and funding 13 percent of World Bank programs that dole out billions in development assistance to needy countries.

And what does Uncle Sam get in return? Mostly grief, especially from all the ungrateful freeloaders who benefit tremendously from the global "public goods" we so selflessly provide with our time, effort, blood and treasure. How easily - and conveniently - they forget . . . unless they need help, of course.

But let us never forget, especially today, that despite the name-calling, the jeers, the petty jealousies, we're the envy of the world - and rightfully so.

The fact is that no matter what anyone says: No country has given so much to so many so often - while asking for so little in return - for so little gratitude than this great country of ours. So Happy birthday, America! Stand tall and proud - you've earned it.

Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Peter Brookes is the author of: "A Devil's Triangle: Terrorism, WMD and Rogue States."

peterbrookes@heritage.org
 

This event will feature national speakers like Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family; Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center; Reverend Don Wildmon of the American Family Association; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and many more! As part of the entertainment, “Mr. President” Steve Bridges will be on hand doing his impersonation of President George W. Bush.

My goals for this trip are 4-fold:

1. Recruit nationally recognized speakers for our Rough Riders of Bexar County Educational Series

2. Build new relationships with national conservative organizations and individuals for South Texas Republicans, P.A.C.

3. Utilize these contacts to gain support in terms of resources and finances for the P.A.C., and our South Texas Candidates at the state and federal levels

4. Demonstrate the strength of the Republican Party in South Texas at the grassroots level

As a result of my most recent trip to D.C. in May for the Jesse Helms Communications in Foreign Policy School, I developed a relationship with Peter Brookes, Senior Fellow of National Security Affairs with the Heritage Foundation. Because of that relationship, South Texas Republicans is in talks with Peter about speaking to grassroots activists here in San Antonio in the fall!

The costs to attend the ‘Washington Briefing’ in D.C. will be about $1,800. The package to attend all 3 conference days and gain admittance to the exhibit halls/book signings will cost $550. The hotel room on location (Omni Shoreham in D.C.) will cost $550 for 3 nights (needed by August 15th!!). Roundtrip airfare is expected to run about $400-600 (plus tax).

All work I do for South Texas Republicans, P.A.C. is as a volunteer. I live strictly on my disability income, which only amounts to $500 a month.

Ideally, to get whatever price breaks I can for travel, and the conference, I need the funds available by August 30, 2006. This would allow for plenty of time planning arrival and transportation while in our nation’s capitol.

Checks/Money Orders can be made out to me, and mailed to:

Schuylar Crist

9570 Autumn Shade

San Antonio, Texas

78254

You may also reach me by phone at (210) 663-6093 or via e-mail at skyskyrider@hotmail.com

You can also check out conference information at www.frcaction.org

Thank you in advance for your prayerful and thoughtful consideration.
 

I don't know who Cathy Cockrell-Newton is or what she does, but one thing I do know is that she doesn't know Terri Hall. Tolling our roads isn't the only answer to giving San Antonio a good road system for the future. Terri Hall has presented a consistent, easy to understand message against the toll road mentality of the management of the state of Texas. Most of the ordinary citizens who live in San Antonio are against tolling roads because it isn't needed. The people supporting toll roads are mainly those who will have some monetary gain. Carlos Guerro of the San Antonio Express News expressed it well when he said it is about money, not efficient transportation.

If Ms. Cockrell-Newton has been listening (or even attended any public meetings where Terri Hall has given a presentation) she would know that very few want tolls. I don't know what motivated this attack on Terri Hall, but it is unwarranted. Terri has just presented the facts, but all I can see from Ms. Cockrell-Newton is an uninformed opinion. If we are really interested in getting and maintaining a good road system, we need to make the managers of the effort more accountable to the taxpayer. The present boards (Alamo RMA, San Antonio MPO, and the Texas Transportation Commission) are too removed from the voters and taxpayers.
 

By John Merrifield,
Professor of Economics
Director, Entrepreneurial Conservatism Institute (This is the new think tank established by South Texas Republicans.)

Thirty-six years ago, the first Earth Day energized the environmental movement. The event gave form and substance to long-simmering concerns about the environmental side effects of free enterprise. It empowered the leaders of the environmental movement to pursue safeguards through the political process.

Unfortunately, environmental leaders made a fundamental error at the outset. They misdiagnosed the problem. They attributed environmental problems to uncontrolled pursuit of profit, while the true source of the problems was poorly defined and un-enforced property rights. Consequently, they sought (with the best intentions) controls on behavior, rather than property rights corrections.

There were many easily vilified targets, and the most widely recognized tool of government is its police power, so public officials gladly accepted the increased power that came with the authority to prescribe the behavior of others. To environmental leaders and the public it seemed quite sensible to have the government determine the best available control technologies, and then command polluters to install them (for example, the Clean Air and Water Acts), or demand that landowners consult with experts (for example the Endangered Species Act).

Despite their preference for a flawed approach, environmental leaders deserve credit for successfully going after the easy targets, and thereby achieving some major improvements. But subsequent resistance to reform was much less understandable or forgivable. Mounting evidence of failures to reach objectives, excessive costs, and rising public resentment should have at least led to an admission that command-and-control (CaC) approaches had become obsolete.

Except in the few cases where CaC is the only option, we should abandon the behavior-prescribing CaC approach. Since the cause of most environmental problems is poorly defined or un-enforced property rights, environmentalists should be the first to support policies that strengthen property rights in environmentally friendly ways. That will allow environmentalists to harness, rather than fight, strong forces like the profit motive, and political support for property rights protection.
 

USO Council of San Antonio and Central Texas, Inc.

Volunteer Opportunities

Airport Reception Center

Volunteers needed to staff the airport reception center seven days a week. Teams of two people per three to four-hour shift preferred. Free parking is available for the volunteers. High guest contact on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Basic Duties: Provide hospitality support to military members and their families in designated lounge area; provide free coffee and snacks; answer questions – usually questions about local hotels, closest ATM, and ground transportation to San Antonio area military installations. Reading materials, TV, PlayStation 2, and board games are available for guest use. Support holiday season Exodus.

Downtown Community Center

Volunteers needed mostly on Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Sundays/Holidays, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Free parking is available for volunteers. High guest contact on Saturdays.

Basic Duties: Provide “home away from home” atmosphere through hospitality support to authorized guests. Assist with information about downtown area – The Alamo, ATM locations, restaurants, movie theaters, tourist attractions, discount tickets, etc.; provide free beverages and snacks; assist with serving Saturday lunch plates; and provide local-area transportation information. Facility has two lounge areas, a Cyber Café, PlayStation 2, reading materials, large screen TV, pool tables, etc.; and a family room (nursery-type area for small children).

Groups to Conduct Care Package Items Drives

The USO San Antonio needs individuals and groups to hold independent care package items drives. These items will be packed in care packages for our military men and women deployed to the Middle East. The products needed for care packages are as follows: Snacks: Beef jerky, corn nuts, protein bars, prepackaged tuna or chicken salad, crackers, Chex mix, Gardetto's, Goldfish crackers, easy spray cheese, potted meats, candy or cookies (anything that will not melt), pretzels, licorice, gum, etc. Individual packs of: Instant coffee, powdered hot chocolate, tea bags, powdered Gatorade, Kool-Aid, etc. Toiletry items: Chapstick, baby wipes, personal size hand sanitizer, Q-tips, etc. Slinkies, Nerf balls, Frisbees, disposable cameras, chemical hand and foot warmers. Olive green T-shirts and socks. Letters/cards of encouragement.                                                   

Basic Duties: Be able to plan and organize a group effort to collect products and deliver, at the completion of the drive, to USO San Antonio Downtown Community Center. This volunteer opportunity would be great for church, community or civic groups, Scout groups or schools. It is suggested that the group choose one or two items to focus on collecting.

Events and Programs

We can always use volunteers with the planning and execution of events -- such as Alamo Heights Night, Injured Soldier Program, Kids Costume Party, Thanksgiving Day Dinner, Care Package Program, Saturday $1 Lunch Program, USO Canteen Dance, etc.  Free parking is normally available for volunteers at most locations where special events and programs are held.  High guest contact.

Business Office

A volunteer is needed at least two days per week in the business office helping with data entry, updating monthly performance reports, photography, writing/mailing newsletters, etc. The USO business office is co-located with the Community Center. Free parking is available for volunteers. Business Office Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Low guest contact.

For more information, please contact:

Julie Nichols, Volunteer Coordinator

USO San Antonio

420 E. Commerce Street

San Antonio, Texas 78205

(210) 227-9373 Ext. 12

(210) 299-4435 Fax

jnichols@alamouso.org
 

I'm getting the feeling that in the effort to appear nonpartisan (even though this newsletter is under the banner of the Republican Party), you are maligning our Party by allowing Democrats so much "space time" in your newsletter. I sometimes get the feeling I'm reading a Democratic newsletter, instead of one that is trying to lift up our Party. To be sure, we've got our set of unique dilemmas, but a majority of our Republican Representatives are voting as true Republicans. The problem is with RINOS. Let's weed  them out and not malign the entire Party because of them.

I'm particularly miffed by your allowing Madeleine DeWar space and time in your newsletter. Would she, if she had the grassroots support at all from her Socialist Party, allow a Republican to write a similar piece deriding Democrats in a Democratic newsletter? Not only no, but Hell No!  Republicans are the Devil Incarnate to Democrats. To this woman, Republicans are "mercilessly malicious" about those less fortunate. This could not be further from the truth.

DeWar lives in a fantasy world, which is where most Democrats live, where throwing money is ALWAYS the answer and to them the compassionate response. We've been throwing money at our education system and to those less fortunate for four decades and longer, and look where we are today, NO BETTER and in fact WORSE.

The Republican Party believes in giving those less fortunate fishing poles so that they can catch their own fish. Democrats want to keep giving them fish. Republicans want people to be independent, and believe they can be given the right tools. The Democrats want to keep people dependent, so Democrats can feel good about themselves. Their sanctimonious posturing is sickening, not to mention detrimental to the people they purport to care about.

Yes, we've got a few bad apples representing our Party, but considering the alternative – the Socialist Democratic Party and the Nancy Pelosi's of the world ­ I'll pick a Republican every time.

[Signed]

A True Republican, like so many others
 

You've got name recognition right now with South Texas Republicans. You might put a line somewhere stating that STR is not an official mouthpiece for the GOP, but is striving to keep the GOP in line with its historic roots of conservatism, which is what attracts people to the party in the first place.
 

I am resolved that I will not tolerate and passively abide the mismanagement of Texas highways by TxDOT. I will not tolerate TxDOT's failure to find ways to allocate and direct resources to growth areas, just as California road builders managed to build freeways in an environment of far more dramatic growth, and without imposing tolls. 

I am finding that Republicans are building TWO AMERICAS, and TWO CLASSES OF TEXANS.  In a Republican run Texas, the wealthy will have expressways for their exclusive use, while ordinary citizens will be relegated to slow moving inferior access roads with frequent stops to get to their destinations. 

Republicans are selling out our valuable highway infrastructure to foreign corporations to build toll roads and collect tolls without input or oversight from the Citizens of Texas. 

I will fight Texas Republicans and Texas toll road advocates as long as I draw breath. If I am defeated, and the toll road builders defeat the People of Texas, I will sell everything I own, kick the dry Texas dust from my boots, and find a better place to live, free from the Austin schemers, lawyers, highway lobbyists and crooks who have betrayed us, and I will find a better place to call home.

Robert P. Meshanko*

Bulverde, Texas

*Honorably discharged Texas veteran; father of 5 kids; life-long registered Republican; born-again Christian and proud of the work I did to defeat and remove pro-toll Rep. Carter Casteel from the Texas Legislature.
 

While Governor Perry is out bragging that “no state is laying more asphalt than Texas” demonstrating his total commitment to paving over Texas over the LOUD objections of a supermajority of Texans, a somewhat quieter plan to merge North America is moving ahead with no public input and no oversight by Congress. Conservative Jerome Corsi, swift boat vet and author, has a series of articles published on Human Events and World Net Daily exposing an agreement ALREADY SIGNED by President Bush in March of 2005 to form a North American Union by 2010, including forming a new currency called the “amero” much like the euro.

Part of this shift to merge North America is also part of a move to merge North and South America later through further trade agreements like CAFTA and eventually FTAA (Free Trade of the Americas being pushed by the World Trade Organization). Article by conservative columnist Phyllis Spivey.

How does this relate to toll roads? One of the goals of this Security and Prosperity Partnership between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is to erect a NAFTA supercorridor from Mexico to Canada to facilitate the free flow of cheap foreign goods without the current interference from pesky things like borders, customs, and the U.S. taxpayer. The first leg of this NAFTA corridor is known as the Trans Texas Corridor, Governor Perry’s 4,000 mile toll road network which takes over 580,000 acres of private Texas land (4 football fields wide, including 10 lanes of pavement) and hands it over to foreign toll operators in 50+ year monopolies. He promised NO taxpayer money would be used to erect this $185 billion corridor, yet Cintra has already applied for low interest federal loans to begin building it. The Hwy 130 toll concession agreement just signed by the Transportation Commission last week marks the first Texas highway under foreign control (Spanish-owned Cintra). Hwy 130 will become part of the Trans Texas Corridor.

The Governor’s Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson even says that these FOREIGN companies supersede the PUBLIC on deciding toll road routes. Our Transportation Commission is now officially a member of and partners with the North America’s Supercorridor Coalition, or NASCO, which has already received $2.5 million in earmarks of U.S. taxpayer money! So to adopt Governor Perry’s (and clearly the Bush administration’s) vision for tolling Texas, you have to forfeit private Texas land, cede our state and national sovereignty to foreign interests for the primary purpose of transporting foreign goods, and pony up a lifetime toll tax to use our “public” highways without a public vote!

Tolls determined by foreign companies and the toll rate formulas allowed by the Commission automatically translate into the HIGHEST TOLLS FOR OUR CITIZENS due to the guaranteed 12-19% profit. Read these comments by Collin County officials that say as much: “When the state sells out to the highest bidder, that automatically translates into the highest tolls for our citizens. I think that the Legislature needs to change the focus of TxDOT.” - Collin County Commissioner Jerry Hoaglund, McKinney Courier-Gazette, Feb. 16, 2006

Read Jerome Corsi’s series of articles on this subject.

And, for educating the public on the coming toll tidal wave (on freeways we’ve already bought and paid for), on the threat foreign management of our public highways is to our national sovereignty and security, and for opposing this massive tax increase to the tune of billions sucked out of our Texas economy and pumped into foreign countries, I’ve been called a “negative Nancy.” Well, judge for yourself, but when the sovereignty, security and freedom of our Republic is at stake, I cannot sit idly by without exposing the truth and working with my fellow citizens to preserve what we hold dear! We’ve offered up loads of ways to accelerate projects and relieve congestion without tolls, but the highway lobby just turns up the campaign contributions to keep our politicians in line. It’s time for power to return to the people!

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”  - Thomas Jefferson

Join the revolution at http://www.SATollParty.com.
 

This is a series by an anonymous political insider in Bexar County. The views of this author do not represent the views of South Texas Republicans. 

It is still quiet on the Genie Wright front. Not a peep out of her. Mum is the word. Guess she figures if she says nothing and ignores her evil deeds, it will all go away. Wrong!

Both Republicans and Democrats are talking about it, especially down at the Courthouse where rumors are created, take flight and have lives of their own. There will be more to come in the continuing saga of a judicial candidate gone wild. Just when you thought it safe to venture into the political waters of intrigue, it comes back to haunt you at the polls.

Ironically the buzz on the street is that the professional hack who serves as a surrogate for the instigator of wrongdoing, and the only one to step up and defend the teacher turned lawyer, is out there working for other Republican candidates who may also have less than stellar records.

For those who have not been following the political soap opera, the allegation is about Wright instigating rumor and innuendo about the supposed lover’s spat of her opponent, Judge Monica Guerrero, and ensuring that the result of her deviousness, culminate in media attention.

Using her legal contacts to create the furor and reportedly bragging that she used her lawyer expertise within the legal system to inflame the personal/sexual life of a sitting judge makes for quite a novella.

Now let’s move on to Judge Tom Rickoff. The Republicrat has been informed that Rickhoff’s opponent Barbie Scharf-Zeldes has enlisted longtime Republican Mike Beldon as her campaign treasurer. You go girl!

Since Beldon is considered a conservative Republican, business owner, community leader and former chairman of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, what does that tell you?  The web continues to get more tangled as they say.

As a probate Judge, Rickhoff’s claim to fame recently is that he complained to higher court authority about the practice of forum shopping according to an Express-News article. For us non-lawyers that means that lawyers try to get before a particular judge that they think will be more favorable to their client.

Word is that Rickoff is guilty of the very thing he complains about. Apparently a local lawyer was quoted as saying that he did everything legitimately possible to steer his client from Rickhoff’s court because of Rickhoff’s track record.

On the other hand, Scharf-Zeldes campaigns on the notion that when someone comes to the Probate Court, they are in crisis situations and need to be treated with respect and sensitivity which Scharf-Zeldes says is lacking in her opponent.

As a general stereotype, women tend to do more listening than men, which theoretically should give Scharf-Zeldes the edge in the race. Let’s hear it ladies!

Speaking of ladies, we revert to the other side of the political parties since it is headed by Carla Vela. It is extremely quiet on the Democratic side. The only spurt in activity was the appearance of the Democratic nominee for Governor Chris Bell at the Northeast Democrats last week.

I read on the Democratic website that Bell attacked Governor Perry on his track record and called Carol Strayhorn, a flip flopper and Kinky Friedman, a vaudeville act.

A recent poll taken shows Perry at 35%, Kinky Friedman at 21%, Bell at 20% and Strayhorn at 14%. Only time will tell.

Scuttlebutt is now emerging that a number of disenchanted Democrats are already complaining that Democratic Party Chair Carla Vela seems highly disorganized, disaffected, and disinterested.

Her recent high positive profile is beginning to fade under the radar. Too bad her reputation is being impugned, since she is a good lady. One rumor has it that she has admitted that the job is overwhelming and she is having second thoughts about being the Party Chair. Considering whom the Party could have elected, she is still ahead of the game. Only time will tell.

Many question why Vela hasn’t actively pursued securing a new Democratic Party headquarters. She took office in May and still no official place to call home.

With no headquarters, no fundraising, no major events in the works, some are wondering out loud if the Party will ever bounce back on its feet and recapture Bexar County into the Democratic column.

That is the moderate viewpoint. I AM the "Republicrat"!