The bond is broken. 

The glass mosaic of trust is shattered into a thousand pieces.

Let me explain my personal perspective.

The Vaccine:

His mandate: Your daughters are getting this vaccine because I say so.

Our view: Whoa, where are we, “The People”, in this debate?  How do we feel about this mandated issue that affects every 6-year girl in Texas, including my two young daughters? What about us?

Illegal Immigration:

Pre-Election Day Perry: Appear on the border, in endless commercials, with your “I don’t like Mexicans” stern look.

Post-Election Day Perry: Lecture Texans, specifically conservatives, about the need for a guest worker program and why we should not be “Anti-immigrant” in your (39% victory) swearing-in speech in Austin.

Our view: You used us for your 39% “victory.” You really fooled us good.

Toll Roads:

His view: You are getting them because I say so. It is MY vision.

Our view: What a minute. Do we really need the Trans-Texas Corridor that Paul Burka has called “the worst public fiasco in my lifetime."

You treat us with contempt because we “don’t get it.”

The 2006 Margin/Business Income Tax:

His view: We needed a new margin tax because we are under the Supreme Court gun to “do something” now for education.  It is for the kids.

Our view: Did we really need a new business income tax when we now have a $14 billion dollar surplus?  Was it the right thing to do?

A 39% victory is not a mandate for strong-arm executive orders.

The message was this: You are not the King of Texas.

Governor Rick Perry, you have made me a true believer.

I now believe with a passion.

I believe that ambition and a self-serving attitude guide you.

I believe I was fooled by your rhetoric.

I believed I was wrong when I did not vote for any candidate for Governor last November even though I was on your steering committee.

I felt bad at the time.

How do I now feel? I feel relieved. Why?

After seeing your recent actions, after being re-elected, I can now say with confidence that my vote (or my lack thereof) was not wasted.

As a conservative, I no longer trust you.

For some reason, I feel many conservatives in this state now feel the same way. It is a dispiriting feeling because I once believed.

Yes, the long honeymoon is over and so is your political career with many of us.

This I believe.
 

Report and Commentary by Joe Solis/South Texas Republicans

Commentary: Kids, serve in Austin and you can also become millionaires. There is so much money if you know the right people at the highest levels of state government. Do you need proof? 

Look below at these shiny examples of success. Go to school, play the system like a violin and you can make up to $1,550,000 in one legislative year just like UNCLE MIKE TOOMEY. You thought there was no money in serving in Austin? The big fat pig is ready for ready for you. Show me the Money!!

Coming next week:  (Satire) “The Toomey and Shelley HOW TO WIN FRIENDS, INFLUENCE PEOPLE AND GET RICH SCHOOL”

Learn how you can make money off your high level contacts by serving in state government. It is time for you to make money!!! You will also learn how your own family members can get rich off the state. 

It is all here if you let GREED be your master.

News Report below:

All the items below are from the STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU

By JOHN MORITZ (2/21/2006)

Let’s take a look at three former Perry aides and the value of their lobbying contracts.

Mike Toomey, Former Perry Chief of Staff

Contracts worth up to $1.55 million


Dan Shelley, Former Perry Legislative Liaison

Contracts worth up to $1.2 million

PATRICIA SHIPTON, Former [Perry] legislative liaison

Contracts worth up to: $860,000
_____________________

Some former top aides to Rick Perry who have moved to the private sector have a nearly $10 million stake in state business

[ARTICLE SEGMENTS]

AUSTIN -- When Rick Perry assembled his senior staff after being sworn in as governor for the first time, he promised Texans that he would have the most stringent policy in history when it came to slowing down the so-called revolving door that enables top officials to trade the skills honed in government service for lucrative careers in lobbying.

But six years later, more than a dozen of Perry's former senior aides as both governor and lieutenant governor are now lobbying lawmakers and top statewide officials on some of the highest-profile issues awaiting the governor's and the Legislature's attention.

And added together, the lobbying contracts of those former aides are worth up to nearly $10 million, according to a Star-Telegram’s analysis of data maintained by the Texas Ethics Commission.

Hot issues:

Conservative organizations, such as the Texas Eagle Forum, have suggested that Perry issued a controversial vaccine order because his former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, is a lobbyist for the vaccine's manufacturer, Merck & Co. The order requires girls entering the sixth grade to be vaccinated for the sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical cancer.

John Moritz, 512-476-4294 jmoritz@star-telegram.com

Article #2  (Article Segment)

Feb. 21, 2007, 10:20AM

Merck's reversal may mean setback for Perry

Drug company says it will stop lobbying states to require HPV vaccines for girls

By TERRI LANGFORD and JANET ELLIOTT

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

“Some critics have wondered whether Perry was influenced by former chief of staff Mike Toomey, now a Merck lobbyist. E-mail released by the governor's office under the Public Information Act show that Toomey and his partners asked Perry's staff for the cost to the state of requiring 11- and 12-year-olds to get the shots. In November and December, the lobbyists were provided statistics from the governor's budget writers. The lobbyists also sent the governor's staff information about Medicaid coverage for the vaccine in other states.”

“A Perry aide said there is nothing unusual about the exchange of information.”

Janet Elliott reported from Austin.

Mark Babineck contributed to this report.

terri.langford@chron.com  janet.elliott@chron.com
 

Friday, February 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST/ Copyright © Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lately we are hearing of President Reagan's famous 11th commandment: "Speak no ill of a fellow Republican." It's a good rule for both parties, but it's good also to remember how he approached it in practice. Ronald Reagan turned his own party upside down, enraged its establishment, and threatened its immediate future when, in 1976, he mounted a fierce challenge to an incumbent Republican president. He ran full and hard against Jerry Ford and it was bitter--the stakes were high, the issue freedom at home and abroad. Reagan lost, his challenge doomed Ford in the general election, and four years later Reagan roared back. And when he won the nomination he turned around and seriously considered as his running mate . . . Jerry Ford.

When he ran against Ford, it wasn't personal. And when he almost picked Ford as his vice president, that wasn't personal either. It was more like this: This is America. We have been arguing about everything for 200 years. It's what we do. It's our glory.

Our politics then were grimmer yet had a lighter touch. The Soviets could nuke us tomorrow; let's have a hellacious brawl. It was a serious time, but I don't think we were in general so somber, so locked in. The 11th commandment meant the fight should never be mean, low or unnecessarily injurious to the person, or the party. But a fight could be waged--should be waged--over big, big things.

That he knew that is part of why we remember him as great. It's part of why when you next fly to Washington, you'll land at Reagan National Airport.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
 

By John Merrifield,
Professor of Economics
Director, Entrepreneurial Conservatism Institute
February 26th, 2007

Ultimately, the maxim, raise all you can, and spend all you raise, will drive the political process. A cap on spending growth through a carefully-crafted Taxpayer Bill of Rights is a must to blunt the incentive to exploit the vote-getting potential of broad taxation combined with focused spending.

But it is possible to reduce the budgetary pressure that leads to weaker spending caps and or more numerous and drastic voter over-rides of the caps. Here’s the menu of possibilities. All else equal, smaller legislatures spend more than larger ones. Certainly, fewer legislators means fewer spending agendas, but the increased difficulty making deals and forming the coalitions needed to pass controversial legislation, which increases the more legislators there are, swamps the effects of the rise in the number of agendas seeking funding. Marginal deals don’t get done. Other factors underlying legislative transaction costs are legislative turnover and legislative staff. So, term limits help restrain spending, as would term limits on committee assignments. 

Factors that reduce the attractiveness of legislator tenure help restrain spending. For example, gerrymandering that makes legislative races less competitive (less turnover), increases budgetary pressure. The trade-off, both in terms of number of staff, type of staff, and locus of staff (assigned to members vs. assigned to committees [better], for example), between ability to make deals, and ability to cast more informed legislative votes needs much more study. Certainly, staff allocations need to be focused on issue study, not coalition-building capability 

Longer legislative terms also restrain budgetary pressure. They reduce the importance of special interest pressures; the ones that dominate lobbying. Two-year budget cycles, which reduces the frequency of deal making – sausage production at the ‘sausage factory’ – produce less spending growth than annual budgeting.

Balanced budget requirements are known to underlie tax increases during economic downturns. But prohibiting deficit finance appears to outweigh the effect of increased pressure to raise tax rates during economic downturns.

A surprising result is that line-item veto authority accelerates spending growth. Yes! While some governors have used the line item veto to reduce spending growth, the more typical use of the tool is to pressure the legislature to give greater weight to the governor’s spending priorities. Governors threaten line item vetoes to pressure legislators to approve marginal spending favored by the governor.

Finally, increased visibility of taxation would reduce spending growth. The most ‘visible’ taxes are personal income, sales, and property taxes.  That does not mean that implementation of a state income tax would reduce spending growth, but increased sales taxation to substitute for, say, reduced oil revenues, would reduce spending growth.
 

The bad news is that no one has introduced an honest-to-goodness cloning ban in the 80th Texas Legislature and we’re seeing the same old “clone and kill” (and “build a big, expensive bureaucracy”) bills that we saw in 2005.

The first bit of good news is that Representative Ken Paxton has introduced H.B. 225, a bill which would prevent taxpayers from being forced to fund human cloning, the destruction of human embryos, and harm to women in order to obtain the eggs to create those embryos. Please ask your Representative and Senator to limit Texas tax funds to stem cell research that was eligible for Federal research money as of January 1, 2007 by supporting H.B. 225.

More good news comes from the push to increase support for the Texas Cord Blood Bank, so that more Texas parents can donate their baby’s umbilical cord blood after a natural birth, with no cost to them and no danger to their baby. It’s personal news to me, since a transfusion of donated cord blood saved my granddaughter’s life in 2001. 

Cord blood is rich in stem cells and has already helped more than 20,000 people in the United States. We can treat leukemia and sickle cell anemia, replace the bone marrow of cancer patients after chemotherapy, and even treat Rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, heart disease, and the blood vessel and nerve disease of diabetics.  Researchers have been able to turn stem cells found in cord blood into insulin-producing cells, functioning liver and lung cells, and the type of cells that could cure Parkinson’s disease.

Public banks make blood available to patients who need it, when they need it. You and I could pay to store our own blood, but we probably won’t need it before it spoils. The chance that anyone in a baby’s family will need cord blood is less than 1 in 200,000. Over 300,000 babies are born in Texas each year, but there are still only 4 hospitals that collect cord blood for the Bank. If there are enough units available, the chance that everyone who needs cord blood will get cord blood could be 100%.

I usually fight to keep our Legislators from spending money. However, the Texas Cord Blood Bank has the potential to benefit a lot of Texans personally, and help Texas continue being a leader in ethical stem cell research. Money spent on cord blood banking and research will help more Texans than any money spent on embryonic stem cell research. And no one is harmed or has to die for it. 

Please encourage your legislators to support H.B. 225 and increased funding for the Texas Cord Blood Bank.

Here’s more news about the HPV vaccine: Thirty days after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended the vaccine, Texas was required by Federal law to buy and distribute the vaccine in the “Vaccines for Children” program.  Those who are eligible to choose to receive the HPV vaccine without cost to them include uninsured girls and young women up to age 18 and those who are insured by Medicaid.

The uninsured can include illegal immigrants and families who are eligible for insurance but who do not buy it.

The “Vaccines for Children,” like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is paid for by a mix of Federal and State taxes. The Federal taxes are our Income, Medicare and Social Security taxes that we send to Washington, D.C., and which get dumped into the general fund.

The US Congress will “give” the State of Texas over $2 in “matching funds” for each dollar that we spend on CHIP and Medicaid. However, because our Texas legislators chose not to break our budget or raise our taxes even higher (or begin a state income tax) in the last 10 years, over $900 million of the money we should have received went to New York and other States that spent more than they were allotted.

We need to stop the United States Congress from rewarding bad spending with more of our Texas dollars.
 

While the money trail is correct as told by Dr. Nuckols above, it still requires MORE of your tax dollars due to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that requires state Medicaid programs to offer the HPV vaccine. Here are the FACTS concerning what Texans pay for indigent health care: for Medicaid and CHIP we pay about $25 BILLION. That's about $800 for every man, woman and child in Texas. By adding the most expensive vaccine ever manufactured, the HPV vaccine, which costs almost $1,000 for the 3-shot series in a Lubbock public clinic, then we're adding MUCH to our TAX BURDEN!

Uncompensated medical costs for Texans cost $3 BILLION in 1993, $7.7 BILLION in 2003 and $9.2 BILLION in 2004. How much more are YOU willing to pay?
 

Host Committee

Ms. Hope Andrade
Mr. Jack Biegler
MR. Richard C. Danysh
Mr. & Mrs. John Feik
mr. Jim greenwood
mr. peter holt
Mr. w. James jonas,iii
Representative Joe Straus, District 121
Mr. tom e. turner, jr.
Valero energy pac
mr. richard l. wade
mr. emmett c. wells
mr. & mrs. j. tullos wells
senator jeff wentworth, District 25

cordially invite you to attend a reception

honoring

Rudolph W. Giuliani

 to benefit the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee

Saturday, March 3, 2007

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

at the home of

Mr. & Mrs. John W. Feik

221 Geneseo

San Antonio, Texas 78209

5:00 pm – 5:30 pm - Host Committee Reception with Photo Opportunity

$2,300 per person or $4,600 per couple

Time: 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm Reception

$1,000 per person - Supporter

                            $500 per person - Friends

please Contact: Melynda Gulley at 210.828.9162  Melynda_Gulley@sbcglobal.net
 

STATEWIDE PUBLIC HEARING ON TOLLS, PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, TRANS TEXAS CORRIDOR

This is our golden opportunity to shape public policy on this issue! Have your voices heard. Senator Carona needs EVERY TEXAN OPPOSED TO THIS SHIFT TO TOLLS TO GET ON THE RECORD! Submit comment in advance of the hearing.

Senator John Carona's Transportation and Homeland Security Committee hosts Public Hearing on Tolls, Public-Private Partnerships, & the Trans Texas Corridor

Thursday, March 1

8:30 AM- 6:00 PM

Capitol Annex Auditorium

( Room E1.004 )

Austin, TX

"DON'T TAG TEXAS" CITIZEN PROTEST & RALLY

(Meaning no tolls, no TTC, no toll tags, no animal chipping)

Friday, March 2

2:00 - 5:30 PM

March down Congress Ave. begins at 2 PM and

Rally on south steps of the Capitol in Austin starts at 2:30 PM

For more details and transportation options to the events, go here.

In the news...

San Antonio toll road bidder (Australian-based Macquarie) posts 76% increase in profits due to US toll roads for sale!

Politician revolving door - a big rip-off for taxpayers!
 

I believe, if this country is to survive with all of its Glory and Liberty, that we must stop playing Republican versus Democrat games. The people, our children, must start demanding that we, including our ELECTED officials, must start playing American games according to the Constitution. Our people and politicians must understand the role of government in its God given role and its constitutional role, in which there is little difference. Social programs, 100,000 new laws, an all Republican government, an all Democratic government, an all Libertarian government will not solve our country’s problems.

It must begin with the individual, governing himself according to the Law of God and the Law of the land and insisting that our elected officials and clergy do the same with no exceptions. We must insist that government never over step its bounds and that it is not permitted to define those bounds. The Law of this land and the Law of God defines what those bounds are. The government craves power that is not rightly theirs. Without true Law and true Justice you will end up with anarchy or totalitarianism of which we are not very far away.

To achieve this goal they must do three things: 1) keep the people poor, through taxation, wealth redistribution, the Fed and paper money. 2) disarm them and 3) keep them ignorant through State Mandated Educational curriculum with does not teach them the truth about our history, Constitution, while removing the parent form the equation, a controlled biased media and on and on. The Antinomian Churches in this country have contributed to our downfall as well. They too have taken power not given to them by the Law of God or the Law of the land; they have fleeced the sheep and made the Word of God to no effect. It is time for all Americans to awaken from this long sleep and elect people who will govern according to the Law and not overstep their bounds.

A society crumbles when it is based on false witness. Our city halls, state and federal capitals, court rooms, law offices, churches, and campaigns are full to the top with false witness, greed, and power hungry and money hungry people. It takes hard work, dedication, knowledge, commitment, and sometimes blood to maintain True Liberty and Justice for all. We the people must demand nothing less from ourselves and elected officials. You have an opportunity here in this forum to begin to wipe the sleep from our people’s eyes and turn the apathy around before it is too late. Good luck and Godspeed.
 

Welcome to the world of La Prima!  I will share my view of what is going on in Bexar County politics with its insider and outsider happenings. My poor cousin has reached her breaking point and had to leave for a much-needed vacation. I have agreed to fill her size 7 pumps (although mine are a smidgen smaller) and keep you, the wonderful readers as up-to-date as possible.

First, I would like to comment on the tirade of Mr. Colunga. I can’t quite place who he is, or who he thinks he is or hopes to be. Could he be one of those right-wing Christian coalition folks?

Where did he get his information about my cousin attending St. Mary’s Law School? He assumes they would even let her in!! For someone who claims to know what is right (pun intended!), he certainly used some rather scandalous rhetoric about my cousin. My question is: what kind of man attacks a lady he evidently doesn’t know? What would his mother say about his lack of manners? [A Colunga follow-up will appear soon.] 

The whole idea of not revealing our inner self is part of our mystic to titillate the readers. Many would be shocked to know the real identity of the writers. We are able to glean our information without revealing our sources, which enables others to have a voice when ordered to be silent and keep the real story covered up. How un-American! After all, inquiring minds want to know exactly where the bodies are buried and as Americans, we are entitled to know all the details.

But, enough of the other side. I was thinking about the Democratic Party here in Bexar County, and became rather sad. It seems our beloved party has really suffered over the last several years. Seeing Hillary Clinton stand up and show her true self and awesome leadership abilities gives me hope that perhaps we have a strong person just waiting in the wings to come forward and take control of this wobbly mess we are currently wading through.                           

We need someone as strong as Joyce Peters when she lead the forces and took no prisoners or Benny Frasier, a kind, compassionate leader with a no-nonsense attitude. Perhaps a Rolando Rocha-like persona will emerge who is able to run a meeting effectively and heroically, not backing down or away from the tough characters who threaten the integrity of the processes.

A person unlike our previous past Chairman, who dragged the party down and no one even, knew who he was, other than kin to a name some could recognize. (Although not so well known, as my memory fails to remember HIS name!)       

AND, we need someone who does not share the same ineptness of our current chair. She really breaks my heart because it appears she might have no spine, voice, or recognizable abilities to lead anyone out of a wet paper bag, much less a potentially powerful party that could resurrect Bexar County to a respectable driving force in State politics.         

Without her cohorts to direct her next move in matching Berkies, she will probably continue to keep us in a stalemate. She will allow blowhards like John McConnell to spout drivel about rules. She needs to conduct meetings and not allow coyotes to roam freely, causing more dissension and chaos to reign. Let us get off the nostalgic walk down memory lane.   

Let us move on to other happenings in Bexar County. Unlike my cousin, I find city politics rather a bore. Unfortunately, it is the only thing attracting some of our good women to stand up and make a difference. I am exuberant at the number of women that have filed thus far.         

One of my favorites is Mary Alice Cisneros. She will finally be able to show her true self, out from under Henry’s shadow, despite some whisperings to the contrary. Those of us who know this woman, understand how really strong she is. She has overcome scandal, heartbreak, and a life not always, of her own choosing.         

Mary Alice will be able to come into her own, and may be preparing for even greater things beyond her district. You go Girl!!!            

In some of the other district races, it appears we have one woman in trouble due to not making good decisions and showing her strengths. Did you follow bad advice or were you not able to get it together on your own, Elena Guajardo, District 7?                         

We may have a race (or will it be a beauty pageant?) between Gloria Sanchez and Diane Cibrian in District 8. Gloria’s glamour shot signs make me think she needs a map to find where her district boundaries really start and end. She needs to pay attention since her signs keep popping up in District 6 and 7. Ms. Powerhouse Cibrian is able to hold her own in the beauty department. The question arises; do we really need a beauty contest? Let the cerebral qualities shine and show the men that we are capable of more than looks to run the show.       

My next question is what is REALLY happening on the Southside in a certain law office? My sources tell me that a certain wife is finally fed up with her famous husband’s hi-jinks and is about to declare her own declaration of independence. Everyone keeps watching for the next volley of fireworks from that side of town.   

It has been interesting to share my views with you this week, and I look forward to dredging up more of the past in the coming weeks while mi pobrecita prima is out relaxing and giving her brain a rest. After all, what is la familia for, if one cannot count on them to pick up the slack for you, once in awhile? Our dear Mothers would be so proud to see their daughters keeping la tradition intact. Lest you all forget, I AM La Prima.

That is the moderate viewpoint, I AM also the Republicrat PLUS!