• Americans are being kidnapped along the U.S. Mexican border*.

• Drug lords continue to rule Mexican border towns and cities.

• Violence, including murder, against police officials is now common.

• Chaos in the streets of Oaxaca continues.

• A parallel government is being flaunted in Mexico City.

• Illegal immigration continues to flourish along the border

I am sad to report that a rare disease called “Paralysis of the Spine” has afflicted U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza

Here are some of the common traits. 

• An inability to be a strong voice against unfettered illegal immigration.

• The lack of interest in conducting ongoing prominent and vocal denunciations of kidnapping along the border. When was the last time you saw a press conference with the ambassador railing against the kidnappings of Americans at a border town?

• The failure to get very tough on the Mexican government on the theme of drug cartel violence along the border. It is wise to speak softly and carry a big stick, as suggested by Teddy, but when is the Ambassador going to roar?  This billion dollar illegal drug trade affects our children every day.

When is this Ambassador going to start acting like our Texas Ranger in Mexico City? 

Never. Why? His “Paralysis of the Spine” is pretty severe and intense. He is thinking about his future run for Governor of Texas since he now has the checkbook for it. Ambassador Garza doesn’t want to offend Hispanics in Texas. (Governor Bush picked up over 40% of Hispanics in his re-election campaign in Texas.) This disease is really bad and there is only one cure. The chap needs to be replaced ASAP. Our national security is the issue now.

Mr. President, Iraq is important, but what about us down here in South Texas?

Garza needs to follow Rumsfeld into retirement NOW!!

(Note to Senator John Cornyn: This is nice opportunity to stand out on this issue.  Please tell “W” and Rove that this fellow has to go. The status quo is no longer acceptable.)

* Please pray for my friend Eddie Pina.  His brother and nephew were kidnapped in Mexico last week. They were spending time in their vacation home.  They are both businessmen in Laredo. 

Friends, it is time of us to demand more from our government when Americans are being kidnapped in a bordering country. I am proud to say that I am the only voice who has consistently said that we need change in leadership in Mexico City.

 It is time for you to speak up. Contact your representatives in Washington today!!! Go to SouthTexasRepublicans.com for a list of your representatives.
 

Thursday, December 14th at 11:30 AM

San Antonio Country Club, 4100 North New Braunfels Ave

Lunch will be $17.00

Please RSVP to Dee Brame at deeb@satx.rr.com or call 21-493-5512.
 

By John Merrifield,
Professor of Economics
Director, Entrepreneurial Conservatism Institute

December 11, 2006

End it, don’t mend it. Mostly, thanks to California, Oregon, and to a lesser extent, Florida, we have empirical evidence that even they over-estimated the benefits of reassessing property value between the times when a home sells. You see, those states, like almost everyone else, assumed that ending reassessment would reduce property tax revenue, but they ended it anyway because of periodic re-appraisal’s (PR) significant disadvantages. California and Oregon ended PR, despite the expected fiscal impact, because local governments refused to offset the effect of rising property values with lower property tax rates. The resulting rapid increase in property taxes was forcing some people to sell their homes, while others made painful spending cuts in order to pay the higher taxes.

My preliminary findings from an analysis of data from 31 states, indicates that PR has no long-run fiscal benefits, and the short-run benefits are dubious even in fast-growing places like California, Florida, and Oregon. The reasons are intuitive. While PR can keep the taxable value of fast-appreciating property closer to market value (catch-up effect), PR reduces market value (market value effect). The market value effect results the renovation deterrent of increased taxation, and because the possibility of appreciation-induced, much increased property taxation reduces what people will pay for a residence. Renovation deterrence reduces market values in entire neighborhoods. Among the 31 states, the catch-up effect offsets the market value effect. The market value effects are strongest in states like Texas that have the highest property tax rates.  Indeed, there is some preliminary evidence that Texas’ ten percent per year limit on assessment growth increases property values more than enough to offset the effect of reduced “catch-up” on rapidly appreciating properties.

Students of California’s Proposition 13 and Oregon’s Measure 50 will note that those states’ property tax revenues did shrink a lot. My empirical analysis says that the termination of PR was not the reason for reduced property tax revenues. Revenues fell because both states rolled back assessments. For example, Oregon set each property’s 1998 assessment at ninety percent of the 1996 assessment. California reduced the property tax rate from a statewide average of about 2.5 percent to a maximum of one percent. Because of rapid property turnover, taxable property value (acquisition value adjusted for inflation) in both states grew rapidly. 

The remaining argument for PR is that it is necessary to pursue equal taxation of properties of equal value. In a neighborhood where homes appreciate must faster than the rate of inflation, new residents will owe more taxes than longtime residents in similar homes. PR is not needed to correct that inequity, and it is not clear that an inequity that mostly favors infrequent movers, especially the poor, should be corrected by any means. The U.S. and California Supreme Courts have ruled that acquisition value is a legal basis for assessed value despite such inequities. Market value of property is a poor measure of ability to pay taxes, or the value of benefits received from local governments. If the political process demands it, pursuit of equal taxation of properties of equal value can be achieved with deferral of taxes on property appreciation in excess of the overall rate of inflation until the time the property is sold.

The Governor’s Task Force on Appraisal Reform will present their report to Governor Perry later this month. Contact them with your thoughts on this important matter through: annerben@flash.net. For a copy of my November 10 testimony, e-mail me at: jm1eci@sbcglobal.net
 

And it will come. I quit reading his diatribes long ago, just as I don't read the Muslim professor's tripe. Why ruin a perfectly fine day with their backward, ignorant and un-American rants? Mr. Guerra should realize that Ciro Rodriguez is running in a race he will lose; even so, he figures that showing up at military funerals might garner him a few votes. Demos are masters at getting out the dead vote.
 

1.  "And what you're sending out, uninvited, is certainly not demagoguery, is it? Let's see who gets his stuff read amd (sic) who is taken seriously."

2.  "And for the record, I have the goods on Mr. B[Bonilla] that will show that he has betrayed his constituency, benefited personally from his public post and violated the public trust. It is all in federal recoids (sic) and I will probably sit on them until after the election but when they are revealed, I suspect that it will cause a major stir.

And by the way, when was the last time you went to a funeral or visited a family of someone in our military who was felled in the service of national security? I have personally seen Ciro at five funerals for young men from South Texas. Never saw Bonilla or you at any.

And just how did Bonilla become a member of a very exclusive, and pricy, West Texas private club to which was built a federally subsidized road?

Careful who you support. I'm keeping copies of all your writings so I can quote them later."

I am not sure what to make of all of this. Is this appropriate behavior from a columnist of the San Antonio Express-News in response to reader comments on his/her work? Is this a threat? Carlos continuously criticizes those of us on the “right” but can’t seem to take criticism in return.  From my perspective, Carlos seems like a very angry man! 

Interestingly, the “scowling” picture of himself that he uses for his column appropriately fits these angry e-mails.
 

New Line Cinema, one of the festival’s sponsors, planned to play a loop of their new film “The Nativity Story” on televisions mounted around the square. According to the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, the German Christkindlmarket was encouraged to drop New Line as a sponsor because of concerns that ads for the film might “offend non-Christians.” When asked by Associated Press for a comment, an executive of the studio remarked, "One would assume that if [people] were to go to Christkindlmarket, they'd know it is about Christmas."

Well said. To assume otherwise is delusional, so it seems clear that this concern was not the true motive behind the actions of Mayor Daley and his anti-Christmas cronies. T he true motive probably has something in common with the reason a woman from Raleigh, NC called McDonald’s corporate headquarters last year during the Christmas season to complain that a franchise in her town was displaying a “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” sign. The Grinches, or “Christophobes,” as columnist Peter Brimelow affectionately refers to them, frequently hide behind the guise of “political correctness” and “tolerance for all holidays” (except for Christmas itself, of course) to accomplish their humbug agenda.

Despite the Christophobes’ best efforts, however, the tide is slowly turning in favor of those who love Christmas. Wal-Mart in early November announced that they would be launching a more “aggressive” Christmas campaign this year, with their TV and print ads proudly displaying “Christmas” trees and ornaments, as opposed to “Holiday” ones, as well as the “Merry Christmas” slogan. Target has followed suit by making a conscious effort to re-integrate the word “Christmas” into its holiday ad blitz. As encouraging as these announcements may be, incidents like the one in Chicago are becoming all too common and all the more egregious in nature.

The best way to take Christmas back for America is to take action. Call Best Buy or Lowe’s at their corporate headquarters and ask why the word “Christmas” is conspicuously absent from their campaigns. Better yet, call Mayor Daley’s office and ask for a logical explanation for  dropping “The Nativity Story.”  The worst thing you can do is absolutely nothing at all, because that is really how the Grinches win.

Gina Parker, CEO of Dental Creations, a dental manufacturing company, and a successful attorney, is the National Eagle Forum Chairman for Judicial Reform. Miss Parker also served as a Bush and Perry appointee to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. She serves on the American Family Radio Advisory Board (Texas), and she was both the former Republican Party of Texas Treasurer and Associate General Counsel. For more information, please visit http://www.ginaparker.net.  
 

Lone Star Report

December 4, 2006

New toll roads aren’t the only pathways to financing the state’s transportation needs, according to a recent report commissioned by the Governor’s Business Council (GBC).

An eight-cent increase in the gas tax indexed for inflation may be all that’s needed to pay for new state roads over the next 25 years.

Read more here: http://satollparty.com/post/?p=483
 

No one can give a single rational reason taxpayers should pay tolls for roads and improvements that are already 100% funded, like Hwy 281 here in San Antonio, Hwys 71 and 183 in Austin, and Hwy 121 in Dallas. The Texas Mobility Fund, also known as Proposition 15 passed in 2001, was sold to voters as accelerating transportation projects using bonds. Toll roads were in a list of transportation projects noted in this vague ballot wording that politicians also used to divine the Trans Texas Corridor. Nowhere did this authorize the conversion of existing roads and right of way into toll roads, nor did it authorize privatizing our public highways, nor did it authorize a Minute Order the Transportation Commission passed in December 2003 calling for ALL new improvements to be considered for tolls first.

Our Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is repeatedly attempting to use population growth as the reason to toll existing and new improvements to Texas roads. Let’s look at the facts. When population increases, tax revenues also increase. TxDOT’s budget has more than doubled since Rick Perry took office without RAISING OUR TAXES. TxDOT’s revenues have gone up at a rate of approximately 178% in the last 20 years, and that’s adjusted for inflation and population growth. Then consider that close to $10 billion in transportation funds have been raided to fund things like cemeteries, tourism promotion, and a computer system in the Comptroller’s office, there’s no shortage of cash. Rather there’s a shortage of fiscal discipline in favor of frivolous earmarks, which were a contributing factor in Republicans losing control of Congress in this last election.

TxDOT also has $7 billion (which is nearly equivalent to an amount doubling their annual budget) available in bonds right now today to accelerate FREEway improvements. Instead, they’ve earmarked them for toll roads. TxDOT also has its own study for how to relieve congestion on I-35 using existing funds and right of way, but it’s now ignoring it in favor of tolling I-35, Hwy 130 (a bypass route from San Antonio to Austin), and the Trans Texas Corridor making it nearly impossible to travel north-south in this state without paying a toll.

When tolls increase the cost of a project anywhere from 40%-100% more than constructing them as non-toll projects, when we pay 1-3 cents per mile under gas taxes versus 25 cents or more per mile on a toll road (per TxDOT’s own studies and admission they’ll charge “whatever the market will bear”), and when TxDOT uses non-compete agreements allowing the private entity control over the free lanes (including downgrading free lanes to frontage roads, slowing speed limits, increasing stop light times, and prohibiting the State from upgrading or improving free lanes/roads near the tollway), it’s a no-brainer to conclude the taxpayer is getting fleeced! This Governor’s toll and “innovative financing” scheme is destroying our public FREEway system. This new version of tolling is about generating more taxes (a toll is a TAX) for the State while engaging in a revenue sharing scheme that also lines the pockets of private and foreign companies (many based right here in San Antonio), not about providing safe, efficient transportation ALL Texans can use.

Let’s get a reality check on what the public thinks about those shiny new Austin toll roads:

From the Lone Star Report, November 13 edition

Toll roads were a non-starter on Election Day Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock) gets only 50 percent of the vote in a solidly Republican district? And his Democratic opponent is within five percent?  (My addition: Since this report, the election results are in doubt since Travis County made a 6,000 vote mistake and Krusee is now under 50%) This is but one example of the unpopularity of the state’s current transportation policies.

Most successful candidates ran as fast and as far as they could from the governor’s policy of making almost all new freeways toll roads. The Trans-Texas Corridor also did not play well on Election Day for a variety of reasons.

The Legislature will likely revisit this issue, which could put lawmakers on a collision course with Gov. Rick Perry.

It remains to be seen exactly what changes to current policy will gather steam at the Capitol. But transportation will be an issue in the spring.

_________________________________________

Then in the Austin American Statesman on November 10, 2006:

Just avoid the tolls

The easiest way to prevent the Trans Texas Corridor from happening is to not use the toll roads that are completed. I will never get on one of them, so the state will never reap one penny from me. If we all do that, then they won’t be able to repay the bond debt and won’t be able to sell future bonds for more toll roads.

Skip the toll roads, and let them eat cake.

KATHY SCHULTZ

kmsboz@hotmail.com

Round Rock

————————————————————————

Not happy with tolls roads

I was a tentative supporter of the new Austin area toll roads, based purely on the desperate need that any traffic relief option is better than nothing at all. The key word in my prior statement is “was.” As I witnessed the construction process, I gave the benefit of doubt that all the puzzle pieces would eventually fall into place. Oh, how I was wrong. The new traffic pattern will cause significant harm to the already tortuous Interstate 35 northbound traffic flow. It will also severely limit accessibility to the I-35 corridor businesses. The appearance indicates an overall intent to force tremendous misery; thus maximizing the opportunity to extort commuters through the toll system. More misery equates to more dollars. Where’s the accountability? This is a system with potential for good intent and purpose, but is severely tainted with tremendous deception. Ultimately, it will offer benefits to a large portion of frustrated Austin area commuters, but we have been sold a bad bill of goods with a perpetual high cost.

CLAY BRANDENBURG

clayb@osmtech.com

Cedar Park

Then, a group of independent truckers called the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, OOIDA, has recently called for truckers to bypass the Indiana Toll Road, which was leased to a consortium composed of Cintra, a Spanish investment consortium with ties to Juan Carlos and the ruling family of Spain (same group who was granted development rights to the Trans Texas Corridor and who is vying to take over the first San Antonio toll roads), and the Australian investment firm Macquarie Infrastructure Group (also vying to control the first San Antonio toll roads).

It’s time for the public’s concerns to be addressed not swept under the rug or sidestepped to “give toll roads a chance.” Most folks have no problem with traditional toll roads like Houston and Dallas that were brought to a public vote, were completely brand NEW roads, and the money and control stayed local. But this “let them eat cake” mentality is going to be a political noose around the neck of any politician who continues down the road of privatizing our public assets to enrich special interests and hijack our free lanes to line the pockets of private entities in 50-year monopolies.

For more information on this statewide shift to tolls and the many anti-taxpayer aspects to them, go to http://www.SATollParty.com.

His Way or the Highway
(Highlighting was done by a Toll Party Member)

Now that Rick Perry has won another term, his transportation plan moves on down the road. What kind of a toll will it take on Texas?

December 2006
by Paul Burka, Senior Executive Editor
Texas Monthly Magazine

Every day I can look out the window of my office in downtown Austin and watch traffic creep along Interstate 35, half a mile away. The time of day doesn’t seem to matter, nor does the weather: morning or evening, wet or dry, the snarl persists. Part of this is due to the unwieldy design of the downtown exit and entrance ramps, but the main reason is the volume of traffic, much of it commercial. I dread the drive to Dallas, which I last made on the Friday afternoon before the Texas-Oklahoma football game – surely the worst day of the year for such a trip. It took me forty minutes to negotiate the eighteen miles from downtown to the suburb of Round Rock, and much of that time was spent idling in a canyon of eighteen-wheelers.

The announcement several years ago that the Texas Department of Transportation - TxDOT, as it’s widely known – would build a toll bypass known as Texas 130 east of Austin was cause for celebration. Texas 130 was particularly welcomed by community leaders in the fast-growing town of Pflugerville, which abuts Austin to the northeast. The annexation, years earlier, by Austin of a strip of land along I-35 had kept Pflugerville from reaping the taxes generated by the high-dollar commercial property along the freeway frontage. Now, with the completion of another brand-new toll road, Texas 45, which will tie into the bypass, Pflugerville could lookforward to development along the flanks of the new highway, which would relieve homeowners from bearing the principal responsibility of paying for city services. But when TxDOT announced the design of Texas 45, it has no Pflugerville exit and no frontage road, and that made the adjacent property unattractive for development.  What was the reason for this oversight?  It was no oversight, according to state senator-elect Kirk Watson, who, as mayor of Austin, had served on the board of the federally mandated regional mobility planning organization for the Austin area. “TxDOT,” he says, “wanted to maximize its toll revenue.”

A single nonexistent exit on a single yet-to-be-completed highway is of little consequence in the big picture of transportation policy in Texas. And yet the missing Pflugerville exit is emblematic of why so many Texans are upset about that policy and why it became an issue in the governor’s race. The importance of roads is not merely to make sure that you and I can get from point A to point B rapidly and safely. Roads create wealth. They multiply property values. They bring economic development. They improve the quality of life. But as Texas turns more and more to toll roads, critics of TxDOT fear that the tail is wagging the dog, that the funding mechanism has become an end in itself, and that a mammoth stage agency has lost sight of its duty to serve the public and instead serves its own ends.

This is not going to be a screed against toll roads or against Rick Perry’s multi-highway Trans-Texas Corridor plan, through the opponents have made some legitimate points. Existing highways built with tax dollars ought not to be converted to toll roads; this is double taxation.  Commuters should not be forced to tithe for the privilege of using a freeway overpass, as TxDOT wanted to do on another Austin expressway which conjures up the memory of Ludwig of Bavaria, who built his medieval castle on an island in the Rhine, the better to extract tolls from passing boatmen. Yet toll roads are an essential part of our transportation future. The current revenue stream, which depends on a twenty-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline, one fourth of which goes to education, is not enough to meet the state’s needs. Without toll roads, gridlock will continue to strangle Texas cities.

All of the rhetoric over whether to toll or not to toll has obscured a much bigger issue, which is privatization of transportation.  TxDOT’s plan for toll roads is to surrender public control of these roads by entering into “comprehensive development agreements” (known as CDAs) with private companies, such as the partnership between Cintra, a Spanish company, and Zachry construction in San Antonio, which is building the first link in the Trans-Texas Corridor, an alternative to Interstate 35 known as TTC-35. Cintra-Zachry paid $1 billion to TxDOT for the right to collect tolls for the next fifty years. I ’m not going to make a xenophobic argument, as Carole Keeton Strayhorn did in her gubernatorial campaign, that this is a land grab by foreign companies. It doesn’t really matter whether the company operating the toll road is American or European or Qatari. What matters is whether the arrangement protects the public interest. Here is what John Carona, a Republican state senator from Dallas who is the new chairman of the Senate committee that deals with transportation, has to say on the subject: “Within thirty years’ time, under existing comprehensive development agreements, we’ ll bring free roads in this state to a condition of ruin.”

It may seem as if the system of granting a concession to private companies in return for money, like restaurants at an airport, is a great idea – “free money” that TxDOT can use to build other toll roads, enter into still more concession agreements, and build still more toll roads, as if the agency had succeeded in creating a perpetual- motion machine to finance roads in perpetuity. But alas, there is no free money, and there is no perpetual-motion machine. The private companies that will build and operate the toll roads are in business to make a profit. In order to ensure that profit, they must have people who want to drive on their roads.  And – here’s the rub – in order to be sure that people will want to drive on their roads, the CDAs with TxDOT will contain non-compete clauses that prohibit to TxDOT from building new roads or upgrading existing highways. Any improvement to an existing highway that is not already planned at the time TxDOT enters into the contract is prohibited. That billion-dollar concession limits TxDOT’s ability to improve nearby secondary roads. How about adding extra lanes? Sorry, prohibited by the CDA. An HOV express lane? Not a chance. This is why Carona says that free roads will be reduced to ruin. TxDOT will no longer be able to respond to the transportation needs of the state, other than to say: If you don’t like the traffic, use the toll road.

Oh, I almost forgot. About that free money. It may be free for TxDOT, but it isn’t free for you and me. The billion dollars represents the present value of future toll revenue. TxDOT finds it attractive for the same reason that buyers of lottery tickets ask for the “cash option.” They want their money up front – so they can use it now, so that it won’t be eaten up by inflation – rather than have it dribble in over twenty years (or fifty). Meanwhile, the private toll road operator wants to get that billion dollars back.  And the way the company will get it is by raising its tolls over fifty years, largely unrestrained by the public sector. Tolls will be market based – that is whatever the traffic will bear. In effect, TxDOT’s free money amounts to a tax on our children and grandchildren.

Concession agreements are not the only way to build toll roads, just the most expensive one. (Carona likens it to “renting to own.”)  In fact, toll road authorities have functioned in Houston and Dallas for years by using the conventional method of building the roads: issuing revenue bonds that will be paid off with toll revenues over a period of twenty to thirty years. When major league baseball first came to Arlington in the seventies, I drove to games from Dallas on the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. In twenty years (1957-1977) the bonds were paid off and the turnpike became a free road, Interstate 30. It remains free today. The Dallas North Tollway followed a similar pattern, except that when the original section, from downtown to Interstate 635, was paid off, tolls continued to be collected so that the tollway could be extended farther north. The Harris County Toll Road Authority has built 101 miles of toll roads, including a section of the Sam Houston for which I gladly pay $1.25 four times in order to drive to my hometown of Galveston without having to contend with Houston traffic. This method of financing is, in the long run, far cheaper for the public than concessions and higher tolls. In the past, TxDOT cooperated with these local authorities – for instance, by making right-of-way available – but since Rick Perry has been governor, a much more aggressive department seems to regard the local toll agencies as competitors.  The North Texas Tollway Authority wanted to build Texas 121, for example, but TxDOT stepped in and forced the NTTA to cede control of the project, thereby allowing TxDOT to do another concession agreement. The NTTA will be allowed to collect the tolls, but that is all.

How did we get to this point, and what can we do about it? For years, state budget writers have been dipping into the pot of money that is earmarked for highways to fund the Department of Public Safety, on the theory that state troopers are responsible for highway safety. This policy diverted $700 million from road building in the current biennial budget. At the same time, lawmakers have refused to raise the gasoline tax since 1991. In a Republican era, any kind of tax increase is unthinkable, even if its purpose is to further the case of free roads. TxDOT played politics too, putting more projects on its approved list for future construction than it could afford; now it uses the length of the wish list to win the support of local transportation planning organizations for toll roads, warning communities like Austin and El Paso that their only other option is to wait 25 years for free projects.

The final step was that the 2003 legislative session, when Republicans controlled all the levers of power – House, Senate, governor – for the first time. Major bills were rushed through the Legislature with little debate or discussion. One of these was the omnibus transportation bill that authorized concessions and other mammoth changes in the way we build highways. Few lawmakers knew what was in the bill. The Senate gave it only cursory inspection. The result was a scheme in which TxDOT will be taking in billions of dollars from the private sector with no oversight by the Legislature, no responsibility to say how that money will be used, and no assurance for the public that free roads, as well as toll roads, will benefit from that money. Governor Perry has strongly supported transparency, accountability, and oversight in public education. He could do the state and the public a great service by insisting on the same standards for highways. Otherwise, we are headed for the worst public fiasco in my lifetime.
 

It has been a rough week to say the least. Who knew it would take all the legal maneuvering to add additional early voting to the mix. Between MALDEF, LULAC, the Governor, the Secretary of State, Republicans and Democrats, it was a nightmare to say the least.

Commissioner’s Court did the right thing extending the early voting in Bexar County. Apparently, the lone Republican on the Commissioner’s Court exhibited some integrity and voted with the rest of the Court to do the right thing. 

Governor Goodhair, on the other hand, continues to show his true nature. He just doesn’t get it.  He is so enamored with his own smell stinking up the place, showing his vindictive, arrogant and cavalier attitude it is a wonder that self-respecting Republicans could actually put him back into office. Leopards don’t change their spots and he certainly doesn’t either.

Now that the November election is over for Governor Goodhair, suddenly he no longer supports a border fence and wants a guest worker program for undocumented workers. Can you say flip-flopper? Does the word "pandering” mean anything to you?

Speaking of arrogant, we now move on to the real arrogant and despicable character known as Henry the “Horrible” Bonilla. What a joke. Word out on the street is that he is desperately trying to save his seat and it is not going well for him.  Why am I not surprised?

Good reliable sources from the Right tell me that many in the Republican establishment are not enthusiastic about putting block walkers on the streets. It appears that people are repulsed by his latest nasty negative ads.

I actually heard him on radio claim that he is only offering facts on his opponent and stands by his allegations that Ciro is the one who is going negative by attacking him on hiring an undocumented worker as a Nanny. Rumor is that no one wants to get too close for fear the dirt and slime will get all over him or her.

Have you seen or heard his latest abomination? He claims that Ciro Rodriguez supports terrorists and takes their contributions to help pass legislation in their behalf. Is Henry the “Horrible” for real? What kind of low life has the audacity to put that on the air and claim moral superiority? The same alleged terrorist also contributed money to President Bush and Republicans as well. I guess President Bush aids and abets terrorist.

What about “Horrible”s” penchant for selling out his vote to the highest bidder or amassing stocks in companies that come before him in the Congress for favors? 

Better still, isn’t he the one in Congress who stood up for Tom Delay and declared him an honorable and righteous man? What a hypocrite.

He also touts himself as the only Mexican-American Republican in Congress. Does he want a medal for it? Does that make him a role model for Hispanics? I would certainly hope not. The Hispanic community doesn’t need to be looking up to him for guidance. Most Hispanics have a conscience. He reminds me of the Tin Man who didn’t have a heart. At least the Tin Man wanted and searched for a heart.

As a Southsider I can tell you that Ciro rallied his troops and block walkers to hit the streets last weekend. One stopped by my house and we chatted awhile. She told me that there were a large number of block walkers on the North Side as well, for Ciro. That isn’t happening for “Horrible.”  Maybe “Horrible” will go the way of Tom Delay.

Going back to the ad that “Horrible,” aired claiming that Ciro supported terrorists, I heard Ciro defending himself on one of the talk shows about it. He sounded a little tongue-tied at times and very flustered. He just needed to slow down when he talked. He might just pull this off, however.

It is not so much that people love Ciro, but the fact is they despise “Horrible.”  Suddenly, Ciro has become the “less of the two evils.”

Last week I mentioned that there was scuttlebutt on the street that there was turmoil within the Democratic Party in Bexar County. It has been extremely quiet out there so far. No explosions yet, but the talk is still buzzing about Carla Vela’s incompetence as the Chair. It is said that no one really respects her and the rumors are flying that at least two candidates are gearing up to take her out next year.

They say that her penchant for constantly reminding everyone that she is the Chair is getting old. Couple that with the fact she can’t seem to make a coherent decision and stick with it is appalling. Once again the Party faithful, question her leadership abilities. They are equating her to her predecessor Rudy Casias. We will eventually see how this all plays out.

And that’s the moderate view; I AM the Republicrat.
 

I have held back on taking you up on your offer to post a response to the Republicrat when he writes something in error, but personal attacks as well as egregious errors have me at my limit. It has become very clear who the Republicrat is at this point. He has gotten ALL the details because he is the one fomenting the feeble attempt at dissention.

There is no turmoil in the party. I just returned from a CEC meeting and the business of the party progressed well. Everyone (the party faithful) is heartened by the progress that has been made in organizing the Bexar County Democratic Party and they are publicly saying so. Sure there may be a couple of people who have only heard one side of the issue, but they will come around when they hear the actual story from those who have been in the party for many years and know all the players.

 Carla is not a dictator, has no serious character flaws, low self esteem nor a low IQ. The latter of those attacks are personal and would not come from anyone who was really a true Democrat. As a party we have been in terrible shape for six years or more. Through the work of some members who fought in the legal system to force the previous chair to actually follow the rules and Texas Law and Carla’s hard work at gathering people to work with her we have a balance in the bank, an office and the respect of our elected officials. For the first time in years there was a coordinated campaign. It certainly wasn’t the best that could be, but given the resources available we managed a great deal. On the 14th we meet to go over what worked and what didn’t and start planning for 2008.

 No “dictator” would be asking for everyone to become active in all the various committees that are growing this party and working toward these committees becoming totally self sustaining.  She has set some rules about backups for everything including who maintains passwords, has keys and runs anything. That is prudent leadership, not dictatorial. Some people don’t want to share responsibility though. They want all the power to themselves. If someone thwarts that, they stomp their feet and resort to personal attacks.

I suppose I am one of “the wrong people” and a “shady character” because I am now working directly with her as the Executive Director in the office. The only one who has a serious problem is the one attacking and saying so. We are doing just fine.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that one of the things I noticed tonight is the rare diversity of our precinct chairs. They are a true reflection of Democrats and San Antonio. They are young, middle-aged and old. We include well off and poor as well as Hispanic, African American and Anglos. Some dress to the nines and others always wear blue jeans. We are retired, doctors, construction workers, teachers, unemployed, self employed, large corporation employed and small business employed. We share and we learn from each other. We are great and we are small. We make mistakes, but hopefully we learn from those mistakes and we don’t put people down for making those mistakes.

I am a Democrat and I’m a Liberal and I willingly shout that from the rooftops.

Peace, Love and Serenity,

Madeleine Dewar