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Newsletter: New Military Fortress in North San Antonio (Terror Target?) Report and Commentary by Joe Solis/South Texas Republicans   Is a military fortress being built in my backyard? A business owner in the area has informed me that the Department of Defense has converted an old Albertson's grocery store into a "language school" in the past few months.  This link will take you to the legal description of the 54,000 square foot building located on 10103 Wurzbach Road. (Go to "Property Search" and enter the address above.)  It is interesting to see that NO property taxes are being paid on this $3,922,000 property. I do have one concern.  Could this building be a terrorist target based on the current occupancy?  Why in the world is the building being guarded like a fortress?  Look at these pictures.  What is going on? Have there been community meetings about this new neighbor?   This building is in the middle of a densely populated commercial and residential area.  My family lives within walking distance of this building.  Is this fortress being constructed because the Department of Defense has security concerns for the people inside the building?  What about us?  Does the Department of Defense have an evacuation plan for citizens if there is an anthrax attack against this cold and unattractive building?  What efforts have been made to inform us about the activities going on in this building? We deserve answers now.  Why?     The citizens of this humble community never asked for a terrorist target in our backyard.  It is time for some answers before we become accidental casualties of an attack against a Department of Defense military installation in our community.   Let our leaders step forward now with answers to these questions.

Senator John Cornyn Commends Dallas Students For Creative Efforts to Fight "Cheese Heroin" Joins Mayor Leppert and Dallas ISD Superintendent in recognizing student winners in anti-"cheese heroin" poster contest Friday, January 11, 2008 DALLAS-U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today joined Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert and Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa in recognizing 12 student winners of a recent poster contest aimed at developing effective anti-"cheese heroin" messages for Dallas youth. The three officials served as honorary co-chairs of the poster contest, which they launched in early October to encourage Dallas youth to learn more about the harmful effects of "cheese heroin" and participate in a campaign to stop its use among other children and teens. "I'm proud of all the Dallas-area students who participated in this poster contest to help fight against 'cheese heroin.' Each one of them has contributed in an important way to our overall goal of ridding Dallas of this deadly drug. Many of these young people have witnessed firsthand the serious impact of 'cheese heroin' on their peers. They know best how to communicate the dangers of this drug in a creative, powerful way to other students," Sen. Cornyn said. "The 12 students we recognized today developed the most effective messages of all the entries, and I congratulate them on their hard work and artistic talent. "I also commend all of the teachers, administrators, law enforcement officials, and community leaders who have aggressively and proactively worked to curb the use of 'cheese heroin.' While the drug still remains a serious threat, progress is being made and more children are being protected. The way this community has come together to tackle a local problem before it becomes a national problem should serve as a source of inspiration for communities across the state and the nation." The contest was open to all middle and high school students in the Dallas ISD, and was sponsored by The Today Foundation, a Dallas-based non-profit dedicated to stemming drug abuse among area youth. Over 100 submissions were received, and in December, a committee of judges including various community leaders selected 12 finalists based on the creativity, effectiveness, and artistic quality of their entries. Sen. Cornyn has been committed to directing funding and attention to efforts to halt the use of "cheese heroin." In September, the Senate passed legislation sponsored by Sen. Cornyn to add "cheese heroin" to the list of illegal drugs in the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The campaign is a public awareness program carried out by the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the White House. The initiative prevents drug abuse among youth in the United States through public awareness efforts. Most recently, Sen. Cornyn was able to secure $658,000 in the Fiscal Year 2008 federal spending package for drug treatment programs at the Phoenix House in Dallas. The Phoenix House is a non-profit alcohol and drug abuse treatment and prevention facility that has teamed up with school and community officials to help the fight against "cheese heroin." The Phoenix House provides substance abuse treat­ment to teens struggling with addiction to drugs and alcohol and fields a growing number of requests from parents looking for help for their children. The following 12 students were recognized at today's event: Juan Castaña, W. H. Adamson High School Stephanie Sanchez, W. T. White High School Melissa Tovar, L. G. Pinkston High School Brenda Mata, L. G. Pinkston High School Mariana Medina, L. G. Pinkston High School Jamie Baldwin, L. G. Pinkston High School Shaquisha Beecham, L. G. Pinkston High School Kadavion Henderson, John B. Hood Middle School Evelyn Cabrera, Sam Tasby Middle School Eric Garcia, Sam Tasby Middle School Brigette Reyes, W. E. Greiner Exploratory Arts Academy Jamal Cole, Maynard H. Jackson Middle School

Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, (www.TexasTURF.org) by Terri Hall   TxDOT hires spin doctors to sell Trans Texas Corridor at Town Hall Meetings The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is quite proud of itself for what it calls an unprecedented "public outreach" effort for the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 project. What it calls "outreach" is clearly a propaganda campaign using public relations firms and political strategists to "sell" the public on a privatized, tolled trade corridor from Laredo to Texarkana. TxDOT requested proposals from two private consortiums, Cintra and Zachry, of course, (http://www.dot.state.tx.us/news/034-2007.htm) who will not only build, but also buy the rights to control one of our country's trade routes.   In documents uncovered through TURF's lawsuit against TxDOT for using taxpayer money to promote toll roads and the TTC and for illegally lobbying elected officials, TxDOT's response to the overwhelming opposition to the TTC 35 project is to hire a PR agency to convince the public foreign-controlled toll roads are a brilliant idea. TTC 69 plans to convert existing highways into privately controlled toll roads, making Texas taxpayers pay twice for the same stretch of road. TxDOT plans to hold a series of Town Hall Meetings ahead of the official LEGAL public hearings for TTC 69 in order to butter-up an unsuspecting public or to divert critics AWAY from registering their opposition on the official LEGAL record at the public hearings to follow. In most cases, you're doing good to get folks to attend a single government meeting much less two within two weeks, so TxDOT is enticing people to attend the Town Hall Meetings over the hearings by saying people can get their questions answered at the Town Halls.   So it should be no surprise that it's the Town Hall Meetings that will be run by spin doctors and PR firms, hardly a "public information" forum. TxDOT documents show the purpose of the Keep Texas Moving ad campaign and these Town Hall Meetings is to win public approval for their controversial projects. The people of Texas struck fear into the hearts of the Texas Legislature forcing it to pass a private toll moratorium. What's clear is that the Legislature didn't stop this train wreck nor did it rein-in this out-of-control agency that is now misusing taxpayer to promote its own agenda. TxDOT's behavior demonstrates why there are laws prohibiting the government from using its power and OUR money against the taxpayer. The citizens have the deck stacked against them when their own government forcibly takes their money and uses it to clobber them. Instead of defending the taxpayers, Attorney General Greg Abbott is defending TxDOT's actions in court. And where is the Travis County District Attorney's office? Have we no law enforcement in Texas?   There's BIG MONEY on the table and the road lobby, bond investors, and global corporations wanting to ship their cheap (lead-laden, poisoned) goods into the U.S. isn't about to let a little thing like democracy or public dissent get between them and their billions. Far worse is our government complicit in these deeds that are more responsive to lobbyists than the public who pays the bills. Unless the courts or Legislature steps in, the taxpayers will not only be victims of illegal bullying by their own government, but also left holding the bag for generations to come. Is there no justice?

Alamo City Republican Women 1/15/2008 Meeting Sherry Sylvester, founder of Texas Media Watch, and award winning journalist/communications specialist whose career includes national reporting, political campaigns, public policy research and advocacy to address Alamo City Republican Women regarding Texans for Lawsuit Reform on Tuesday, January 15, 2008  11:00 Am at Oak Hills Country Club. RSVP Contact: Barbara (210) 342-5482 OR Carolyn 493-6210 or Email to: ACRW.Reservations@gmail.com with your name, how many guests attending and a phone number. Cost: $17 With  Reservations made by Noon on Friday January 11th         $20 AT THE DOOR on January 15th. Make all checks payable to: ACRW/PAC

President Calvin Coolidge The Duties of Citizenship Radio Address from the White House November 3, 1924 The people of our country are sovereign. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! The institutions of our country rest upon faith in the people. No decision that the people have made in any great crisis has ever shown that faith in them has been misplaced. It is impossible to divorce that faith which we have in others from the faith which we have in ourselves. The right action of all of us is made up of the right action of each one of us. Unless each of us is determined to meet the duty that comes to us, we can have no right to expect that others will meet the duties that come to them. Certainly we cannot expect them so to act as to save us from the consequences of having failed to act. The immediate and pressing obligation for tomorrow is that each one of us who is qualified shall vote. That is a function which cannot be delegated, which cannot be postponed. The opportunity will never arise again. If the individual fails to discharge that obligation, the whole nation will suffer a loss from that neglect. America, more thoroughly than any other country, has adopted a system of self government. Sometimes we refer to it as the rule of the people. Certainly it is a system under which there is every opportunity for self government and every encouragement for the people to rule. Ours has been described as a government of public opinion. Of course, public opinion functions all the time. It no doubt has its influence on the actions of the executive and legislative branches of our Government, and even though it be imperceptible on any given occasion it is probably, as time passes, reflected in the courts. But all the influence of public opinion, all the opportunity for self government through the rule of the people, depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box. If the time comes when our citizens fail to respond to their right and duty, individually and collectively, intelligently and effectively at the ballot box on election day, I do not know what form of government will be substituted for that which we at present have the opportunity to enjoy, but I do know it will no longer be a rule of the people, it will no longer be self government. The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action. To live up to the full measure of citizenship in this nation requires not only action, but it requires intelligent action. It is necessary to secure information and to acquire education. The background of our citizenship is the meeting house and the school house, the place of religious worship and the place of intellectual training. But we cannot abandon our education at the school house door. We have to keep it up through life. A political campaign can be justified only on the grounds that it enables the citizens to become informed as to what policies are best for themselves and for their country, in order that they may vote to elect those who from their past record and present professions they know will put such policies into effect. The purpose of a campaign is to send an intelligent and informed voter to the ballot box. All the speeches, all the literature, all the organization, all the effort, all the time and all the money, which are not finally registered on election day, are wasted. We are always confronted with the question of whether we wish to be ruled by all the people or a part of the people, by the minority or the majority; whether we wish our elections to be dominated by those who have been misled, through the presentation of half truths, into the formation of hasty, illogical and unsound conclusions; or whether we wish those to determine the course of our Government who have through due deliberation and careful consideration of all the factors involved reached a sound and mature conclusion. We shall always have with us an element of discontent, an element inspired with more zeal than knowledge. They will always be active and energetic, and they seldom fail to vote on election day. But the people at large in this country are not represented by them. They are greatly in the minority. But their number is large enough to be a decisive factor in many elections, unless it is offset by the sober second thought of the people who have something at stake, whether it be earnings from in vestment or from employment, who are considering not only their own welfare, but the welfare of their children and of coming generations. Our institutions never contemplated that the conduct of this country, the direction of its affairs, the adoption of its policies, the maintenance of its principles, should be decided by a minority moved in part by self-interest and prejudice. They were framed on the theory that decisions would be made by the great body of voters inspired by patriotic motives. Faith in the people does not mean faith in a part of the people. It means faith in all the people. Our country is always safe when decisions are made by a majority of those who are entitled to vote. It is always in peril when decisions are made by a minority. Lately we have added to our voting population the womanhood of the nation. I do not suppose that George Washington could be counted as one who would have favored placing upon the women of his time the duty and responsibility of taking part in elections. Nevertheless he had seen a deep realization of the importance of their influence upon public affairs at the time when we were adopting our Federal Constitution, that he wrote to one of them as follows: "A spirit of accommodation was happily infused into the leading characters of the continent and the minds of men were gradually prepared, by disappointment, for the reception of a good government. Nor could I rob the fairer sex of their share in the glory of a revolution so honorable to human nature, for indeed, I think our ladies are in the number of the best patriots America can boast." The praise of Washington was none too high. Without doubt the intuition of the women of his day was quick to reveal what a high promise the patriotic efforts of Washington and his associates held out for the homes and for the children of our new and unfolding republic. What was then done by indirect influence is now possible through direct action. The continuing welfare of the home, the continuing hope of the children, are no longer represented by an expectation. Experience has made them the great reality of America. If the women of that day were willing to support what was only a vision, a promise, surely in this day they will be willing to go to the ballot box to support what has become an actual and permanent realization of their desires. But the right to vote is conferred upon our citizens not only that they may exercise it for their own benefit, but in order that they may exercise it also for the benefit of others. Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day. They do not hold a mere privilege to be exercised or not, as passing fancy may move them. They are charged with a great trust, one of the most important and most solemn which can be given into the keeping of an American citizen. It should be discharged thoughtfully and seriously, in accordance with its vast importance. I therefore urge upon all the voters of our country, without reference to party, that they assemble tomorrow at their respective voting places in the exercise of the high office of American citizenship, that they approach the ballot box in the spirit that they would approach a sacrament, and there, disregarding all appeals to passion and prejudice, dedicating themselves truly and wholly to the welfare of their country, they make their choice of public officers solely in the light of their own conscience. When an election is so held, when a choice is so made, it results in the real rule of the people, it warrants and sustains the belief that the voice of the people is the voice of God. Speech Source Link

"The Republicrat PLUS" (A Moderate Viewpoint) This is a series by 3 anonymous political insiders in Bexar County and one in Webb County. The views of this section do not represent the views of South Texas Republicans PAC.   Now I am really mad.  Get ready for a Southside catfight of epic proportions. My target is Jennifer Brooklyn who writes the "Scene & Heard" column in Scene In S.A., a conservative magazine that recently trashed the San Antonio Current, one of my favorite newspapers.  Jennifer is one of those cutie fraternity girls who loves to hang out with our local Democrats. Of course, I do not get to go to all those expensive parties she goes to.  There are two things have that have forced me to go to war with Jennifer.   First, in the current issue of Scene in S.A., Jennifer is acting as the unofficial promoter of the Julian Castro for Mayor Campaign.  He has been "running" for close to one year. I just loved the way he sucked up to Mayor Phil recently. She mentions him 3 times in her column.  Of course, there was a big section about the campaign for Mayor. She floats the name of Christian Archer as his probable campaign manager. Jennifer had the audacity to say that she saw Julian at a holiday fundraiser WITHOUT his wife.  This is way too weird for me.  Who cares if Julian's wife could not make the party? Is she a bad person for not attending?  She should have issued a full endorsement of Julian Castro for Mayor. It was pathetic. I still believe our savior is Justin Rodriguez. He rocks my world. I am also upset with the fact that Jennifer Brooklyn took a nasty shot at my friend, Mary Alice Cisneros in the same column. At the recent American Sunrise gala, according to Jennifer, Mary Alice Cisneros gave a "less than enthusiastic speech to the 'VIP' crowd, followed by her husband's more riveting speech."   American Sunrise is the nonprofit that Henry and Alice started a few years ago. It is focused on renewing communities that have been neglected over the years. They focus on rebuilding homes that need help. It is about saving lives.   The Cisneros family has devoted time and resources to do something in depressed areas. What gives this North side girl the right to knock Mary Alice for giving a speech that is not a strong as a Henry Cisneros one?  Who speaks better than Henry in this country? My God, this is a charity event.  She is not seeking political support at a political rally.  It just drives me crazy that these North side girls think they can criticize a private reception speech.  Jennifer, I would like to see you start a national charity and raise millions of dollars for an organization. It is easy to attend fancy cocktail parties and knock the folks who made it happen. Maybe one day you will have some class and realize that taking these cheap shots make you look petty and low class.  She is so on my hit list for playing favorites and knocking Mary Alice.  This will be fun because she will never be allowed to fight back in her magazine column. Of course, she will never have the class to take back her mean, cold-hearted and nasty Cisneros comment. What do you expect from a Princess? Speaking of Southside politics, we are awaiting the final decision of the Bexar County Democratic Party's decision whether to leave Judge Monica Caballero on the ballot for Justice of the Peace, Pct. 1 or not. Seems challenger Tomas Unrest is contesting her signatures. The results should come this week.   In the other contested Justice of the Peace, Pct. 2 race, the former Balcones Heights Councilman and blogger apparently successfully challenged some guy named Cortez and put him off the ballot. You may remember that Walker guy is always putting a camera in everybody's face and flashing them so to speak. Even though his pictures are good, it is always the same people all the time. It also looks like he got religion too with all the Christian headlines. Why doesn't he post photos of Jewish people and events? I have seen a Muslim photo or two. He also seems to show up at Republican events as well. Maybe he is a Republican in disguise! He has actually taken my picture and doesn't even know it. If, he knew who I was, he would be shocked. Then there is Carla Vela the Party Chair. She knocked off her nemesis Dan Ramos off the Primary ballot and only has to face some kid named de la Paz. She will win because no one knows who he is and she is a woman!   Having said that, that is the Moderate Viewpoint, I AM the Republicat.

Thanks for reading the new edition of South Texas Republicans.  We welcome your comments, complaints and suggestions.  Joe Solis, Founder and Director  (SolisJoe@sbcglobal.net)