Congressman Kucinich Please Shut Up!

Hamas Bears Responsibility for Palestinian Casualties

I really get tired of the endless refrain of moral equivalency coming from American politicians, mostly those on the Left, like Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

Today Representative Kucinich had the effrontery to send a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon requesting, "an independent United Nations inquiry on Israel's War in Gaza."

Here is the announcement from his Congressional web page:

“Today I sent a letter to Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urging the United Nations to establish an independent inquiry of Israel's war against Gaza. The attacks on civilians represent collective punishment, which is a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm). The perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice, but Israel cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible. The Israeli leaders know better. The world community, which has been very supportive of Israel's right to security and its right to survive, also has a right to expect Israel to conduct itself in adherence to the very laws which support the survival of Israel and every other nation,” Kucinich said.

“Israel is leveling Gaza to strike at Hamas, just as they pulverized south Lebanon to strike at Hezbollah. Yet in both cases civilian populations were attacked, countless innocents killed or injured, infrastructure targeted and destroyed, and civil law enforcement negated. All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law. Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable. It is time for the UN to not just call for a cease-fire, but for an inquiry as to Israel's actions.”

According to published news reports, since the commencement of aerial strikes, over 300 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 1,400 have been wounded. The dead include 20 children under the age of 16--nearly half of them killed while on a school bus, according to the United Nations--and 9 women. The attack aggravated a humanitarian crisis wrought by the Israeli-imposed blockade of food, fuel, and medical supplies. With a population of 1.5 million people, the Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated territories in the world. [All emphasis added]

Either Congressman Kucinich is pathetically uninformed, stupid, or intentionally lying in his appeal. What we see here is a perfect example of "moral equivalency" of the same type to which Israel was subjected in Southern Lebanon, and to which we Americans and our troops were subjected in Iraq, by the same bad actors.

Mr. Kucinich uses hyperbole, distortion and intentionally inflammatory language; all of it aimed at Israel while barely acknowledging that their attacks have occurred in response to extensive and repeated rocket attacks by Hamas against civilian Israeli targets. I suppose that one should be happy that an anti-semite like Kucinich is willing to acknowledge that any attacks against Israel have occurred at all.

I seem to have missed his repeated calls for U.N. action against the terrorist organization Hamas over the past 6 months for their nearly daily missile attacks intentionally directed against civilian targets in Israel.

What I cannot miss are his statements like "the attacks on civilians represent collective punishment..." as if the Israelis are through their IAF specifically targeting civilians for elimination. Such lies cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

1. Israel has not been launching "attacks on civilians," that particular activity lies in the province of these terrorist organizations.
2. Israel did not "create a war against an entire people," to the contrary, their attacks have been surgical in nature and where possible civilians have been warned ahead of time about the upcoming attacks. Again it is Hamas, like other terrorist organizations that have "created a war against an entire people."
3. Israel is not "leveling Gaza," only specifically targeted building which have long been associated with Hamas military activities.
4. Israel never "pulverized south Lebanon," again they used surgical strikes against known Hezbollah strong holds.
5. Israel never attacks "civilian populations." Again that is the sole province of Congressman Kucinich's terrorist friends.
6. "Countless innocents" have not been killed or injured, the numbers are pretty well known, although we do also know that in South Lebanon there were attempts by Hezbollah to grossly inflate the casualty numbers for propaganda purposes.
7. The attacks by Israel have been anything but "indiscriminate." They have been very carefully and specifically targeted at Hamas military strongholds.
8. Of the "over 300 Palestinians" killed, we know that a vast majority of them are Hamas terrorists, not civilians.

Yes, civilian casualties do occur. In war such unfortunate events do occur, but any attempt to draw moral equivalency between inadvertant "collateral casualties" caused in the course of attacking clearly military targets, as has happened in Israel's attacks and the direct and intentional efforts by Hamas and other terrorists organizations to inflict civilian casualties using suicide bombings and indescriminate rocket attacks against civilian targets is beneath contempt.

Just as American pilots used particular care to avoid civilian casualties in attacking Iraqi targets, even to the point of endangering their own lives to do so, members of the IAF have gone out of their ways to avoid civilian casualties including sending text messages to the cell phones of civilians who reside inside of targeted buildings warning them of the upcoming attacks.

Mr. Kucinich lies with all of the ease I have come to expect from those on the Left. He knows quite well (or should if he doesn't) that members of Hamas as did members of Hezbollah in South Lebanon, intentionally locate their headquarters and armories in areas heavily populated with civilians with the sole intention of causing high civilian casualties for use as propaganda.

In attacking Israel for the resulting civilian casualties, Mr. Kucinich is working hand in hand with these terrorist organizations against an ally of America, just as he and his supporters worked to enable our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is dishonest, it is amazingly cynical, and it is despicable and deserving of public repremand.

Kucinich and his followers have a long history of blaming America and Israel for doing accidentally what groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda do intentionally. This cynical attempt at moral equivalency is unbecoming of a member of Congress and should be soundly and loudly criticized by his fellow members.

Mr. Kucinich, sit down and shut up. You are an embarassment to your nation and are working against our nations established foreign policy.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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Hamas Bears

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TPPF COMMENTARY: A New Day for Texas Juvenile Justice

By Marc Levin

While some Texans may think the Sunset Advisory Commission regulates the time of day, it is actually a unique state entity that conducts wholesale reviews of state agencies to determine if they should set with the sun or continue on a different trajectory.

In the case of the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) and Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC), Sunset has recommended merging the two agencies into a “Texas Juvenile Justice Department.”

Consolidating the two agencies would save taxpayer money on administrative expenses. But the key to limiting incarceration costs is a strong local probation system, and it is far from certain whether an agency whose budget is primarily based on incarceration can also be an advocate for probation.

The state’s adult prison population has increased 300 percent and the state’s corrections budget has quadrupled since adult probation was consolidated from a separate agency into the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 1989.

Although the consolidation recommendation has attracted the most attention, Sunset’s proposed pilot program represents the most fundamental and welcome shift in juvenile justice policy.

The recommended pilot program would allow county probation departments to keep some of the funds that now go to incarcerate that county’s youths at TYC. In Ohio and Illinois, this approach has proven to save money and reduce recidivism. Youths benefit from being closer to their families and communities, while taxpayers save because local solutions cost less than TYC.

In this scenario, TYC would compete on recidivism and cost with local lockups called post-adjudication facilities run by counties and private operators, as well as non-residential alternatives such as day reporting centers. It would also eliminate the fiscal incentive to unnecessarily refer youths to TYC in order to preserve county funds.

In Ohio, this remittal of funding to counties reduced commitments to state lockups by 36 percent and cut recidivism from 54 to 22 percent. (TYC’s recidivism rate is 52 percent.) Under Ohio’s Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternative to Incarceration of Minors (RECLAIM) funding system, juvenile judges may use the same pool of funds allocated to committing non-violent youth to state lockups for community-based options.

The RECLAIM model does not cover youth convicted of the most serious violent offenses. These are actually the youths with whom TYC is best equipped and most effective to deal through its Capital Offenders Program.

Ohio’s success with pooling funds is not unique. A similar pilot program in Illinois called REDEPLOY reduced youths sent to state lockups by 44 percent and saved $11 million over two years.

The savings in Texas from this pilot program could be much greater. The Sunset Commission identified three TYC facilities that should be closed, each of which holds fewer than 100 youths. Shutting these units down would save taxpayers $25.4 million per year.

Texas already has 32 post-adjudication facilities at the county level, costing $90 a day per youth compared to TYC’s $153 per youth. In the major urban counties that account for 80 percent of TYC commitments, post-adjudication facilities could compete with TYC to attract placements.

Transparency and performance measures are critical to effective competition. Armed with information including recidivism benchmarks on each TYC and local facility, judges would be empowered to choose the best option based on outcome data for similarly situated youths.

With this pilot program, counties will be incentivized to carefully evaluate youths currently being sent to post-adjudication facilities to identify those that would be appropriate for day reporting centers. Over time, high-performing local facilities may expand to meet demand if TYC continues to produce poor results.

Competition can make any system better, and the juvenile justice system is no exception. Whatever the agency running state lockups is called, what is most important is that it competes with local and private providers. The market will then deliver the verdict on how many youths should be in state custody.

Marc A. Levin, Esq., is Director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

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TPPF COMMENTARY: Texas Toll Money - Give It Back

By Justin Keener

Last week, Attorney General Greg Abbott concluded that state law does not allow the Texas Department of Transportation to transfer proceeds from a $3.2 billion payment made for the Texas 121 toll road project to a bank account controlled by local DFW-area governments.

This situation should alarm anyone who pays a toll to drive in the Metroplex.

Now their toll fees can be plundered by the upcoming Legislature and spent anywhere in the state, rather than being used as intended to build local transportation projects.

The effect of the attorney general’s ruling is that local governments will have to wait and hope the Legislature appropriates this money directly to them.

Until that appropriation becomes a reality and the money is returned to the DFW region, the funds will sit in an account controlled by the state.

Budget writers could use it for any purpose they desire.

While it may seem implausible that the Legislature would dare allocate these funds elsewhere, the public has good reason to be concerned.

The Texas Legislature routinely raids transportation funds that are otherwise protected by the state’s constitution.

Citizens expect that the transportation user fees they pay—whether tolls, vehicle registration fees, or gas taxes—will be used to alleviate traffic congestion; that is simply not the case.

According to the Transportation Department, the Legislature already diverted $1.57 billion from the state highway fund during the current budget cycle to pay for nonroad-building purposes such as historic preservation, narcotics enforcement and even certain Medicaid programs.

Besides diverting gas tax dollars away from fighting traffic congestion, the Legislature has a long history of using accounting tricks and gimmicks—such as deferred payments and raiding other dedicated funding sources, including sporting goods taxes and occupational licensing fees—to free up money to expand other government services.

Many of these diversions have been reined in during the past few years.

But we cannot ignore history’s lesson that politicians rarely pass up opportunities to spend money available to them—especially other people’s money.

When the Texas 121 project started, the DFW region was given assurances from the state that the money generated from this project would stay in the region for use on a list of projects developed by the regional transportation planning agency.

The region worked hard to fashion a plan whereby the North Texas Tollway Authority would build and operate Texas 121, and in turn the authority put forward a $3.2 billion payment to the state, which it raised from existing toll revenues, as well as from bonds that would be paid back from the tolls charged on users of the entire DFW toll road system.

After intense negotiations and public debate, the region trusted the state to follow through on its commitment.

As transparent consumption-based user fees, the gas tax and tolls are superior methods of generating funds to pay for highway construction because they are directly related to the service being used by the people.

If revenue from these sources is used elsewhere, lawmakers can no longer call them user fees, and have, in fact, created a new, arbitrary tax on its populace.

State lawmakers should remedy this situation as soon as possible, and take steps to ensure that the Legislature is never again given the opportunity to raid local funding.

Similarly, representatives and senators should end the practice of using state highway dollars as a slush fund for government services not related to building roads.

Justin Keener is vice president of policy and communications at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a nonprofit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

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Bleeding Heart Tightwads: Liberals Would Rather Spend Your Tax Money

Holy cow, can it be that a sudden realization that they are losing readers has finally caused the "Old Gray Lady" to begin telling the truth? Nah, I wouldn't bet on it. It's more likely that even some Liberals' hypocrisy only goes so far.

Nicholas Kristof posted an Op-Ed on the 20th about Liberals and their generosity which has got to have some of the NYT readers squirming...here's the skinny:

Bleeding Heart Tightwads

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: December 20, 2008

This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy.

Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.

Hey Saint Nicholas, thanks for the gift. I would like to make on correction though; "compassion" is an act of voluntary sacrifice, not an act of getting the government to take money from others and give it to your favorite cause. That's called "redistribution of wealth," not compassion.

Well my readers know that I have railed about this for some time. In fact, taking Liberal hypocrites to task is one of my favorite pastimes and this particular manifestation is my favorite.
I especially like it when the super-wealthy "Limousine Liberals" from Hollywood campaign for some special charity from the sitting room of their 20,000 sq. ft. mansion. I love it when and wealthy Liberal politicians admonish tax-payers to "give more" so that others may enjoy more of the benefits of being an American.

So here's my Christmas gift to these big spending Liberals. Their generosity (with your tax-dollars) knows no bounds.


Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) loves to admonish Americans about tax-cuts for the wealthy and the need for a national health-care system. It's understandable since he lives so frugally himself.

So the question for the reader is which of these five modest homes belongs to our egalitarian senator and his moderately well-to-do wife Theresa Heinz-Kerry?

Ha-ha! Trick question, all of them. Yep the tony Beacon Hill brownstone in Boston, the sprawling Ketchum, Idaho "ski getaway on the right, then there's this lovely little "Nantucket Bungalow on the right, the nice little spread on the left in Pennsylvania, and we mustn't forget that a Senator needs a modest little place to call home when he is "serving his constituents' needs.

I guess this little Georgetown dump enables our Senatorial gigolo to squeak by while he is in Washington. Really, one would think that a nice Liberal like John Kerry-Heinz would be a little embarrassed to claim to be a man of the people; friend of the "working man" and live in such an ostentatious manner (Manor?), but I keep forgetting, these Liberals are also elitist to the core.

I seriously doubt John Kerry loses one minute of sleep worrying about the plight of the poor folks who live in his state...except to the extent that he should extort more taxes from those of us who can't afford five estates valued at over $29 million.

Hey what about old Joe Biden? I know he's just like me. Heck he probably lives in a little old shack in Wilmington, Delaware. Something like this little number.

Whoa Nelly! Nice digs! Hmmm...I'm not quite sure your average Joe (say Joe the Plumber...even the one's that Joe Biden "knows") could manage this baby.

Of course we all know that Barack Obama is a true man of the people, just look at this modest little home he purchased along with the help of convicted felon Tony Rezko.
Niiice. 6600 sq. ft. 6 bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths with a 4 car garage.

Yep, Barack Obama is a true believer in the egalitarian principles of the rich, Marxist, elite.

So exactly how "caring" is Joe Biden so comfortably ensconced in his $3 Million estate and his dedication to the working man? Well here's a summary of his charitable giving over the past few years, compared to his salary.

Uh-oh Joe, looks like old Saint Nicholas Kristof was right about you. For someone who can't shut up about increasing taxes and spending on social programs, it sure does appear your actions don't quite live up to your rhetoric.

Now how do you expect to convince the American tax-payer to fork over more money when you don't even contribute 1% of your income to charities?

Maybe if you and your buddies on the Left would act as generously with your own funds as you expect Americans to act in paying taxes, we wouldn't have to pay as much.

Joe Biden.....HYPOCRITE!!!

What about old Barry Hussein Obama? Does he walk the walk? Well it depends on if you mean does he walk the walk of a typical elitist Liberal or does he walk the walk of a caring and generous donator of his wealth. Sorry, he is more generous than his running mate, but he doesn't quite manage to attain the 10% that the average family earning over $200,000 gives in charity.

Yep, Ole Barry is just another Liberal HYPOCRITE!!!

Okay, now I know that John McCain and his wife own 5 or 8 or however many houses, some are not even used as residences, but solely as income investments. That's cool with me and, you know it's cool with me that John Kerry-Heinz and Theresa Heinz own all of that lovely real estate and I hope they enjoy themselves where ever they are.

I don't begrudge Barack Obama and Michelle and the kids their nice looking digs nor Joe Biden his 4 acres and a mule...er mansion. The fact that Al Gore owns a 20,000 sq. ft. house is nifty. If you can afford it, why not? Nope I have no bones to pick on that score; I'm a capitalist. I believe that a person deserves whatever they can afford. I all for it.

What I object to is being preached to by a bunch of self-righteous, sanctimonious jerks who don't mind living like royalty about the need for "shared sacrifice" and the redistribution of wealth from those who have to those who don't.

And unfortunately, this nation is filled with self-righteous individuals preaching the ills of our economic system while living the life of royalty. Just look at the names of these Congressional Liberals and their net worth's.

• The Clintons are worth over $30 Million.
• Dianne Feinstein nails it at $84 Million
• Nancy Pelosi and her husband rate $29 Million.
• The Kerry-Heinz's are worth $300 Million.
• John "Jay" Rockefeller is worth $93 Million.
• Jon Corzine comes in at over $300 Million.
• Herb Kohl has a nice tidy $250 Million.

Good, true blue (blooded) Liberals one and all...and every one a screaming HYPOCRITE!!!

America does have its royalty and they tend to be elitist, as becoming royals and they tend to be Liberals. What they don't tend to be is generous...except with your tax-dollars.

They can preach till they're blue in the face, I ain't buying it and neither should you.

Next time one of you Liberals come up to me and tell me how compassionate you are and how bloody cold and uncaring I am, just remember these numbers...if you don't, I'll help you...BELIEVE ME!

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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The Governor That Stole Christmas

It’s hard to tell which performance was more cringe-worthy—last week’s Saturday Night Live impersonation of New York Gov. David Paterson, or his real-life budget presentation on Tuesday.

Paterson laid out a plan to create and raise 137 different taxes and fees on the people of New York. Gov. Paterson’s holiday scroogery includes 4% taxes on: cable and satellite television services; clothing and shoes under $500—with a two-week tax holiday; music, videos, and pictures you download to your iPod; and tickets to movies, concerts, and sporting events. Non-diet sodas will come with a new 18% tax.

But drivers, in particular, will find themselves caught in Paterson’s tax trap:

* 5% tax on luxury vehicles;
* 4% tax on tax, limo, and bus rides;
* 25% increase in the motor vehicle registration and driver’s license fees;
* $10 increase (from $15 to $25) in the price of new “reflectorized” license plates; and
* Elimination of the 8-cent-per-gallon cap on the state’s gasoline tax.

For decades, states like New York and California acceded to the demands of the labor unions and professional agitators to create and expand government programs, paying for them through high income, capital gains, and dividend taxes on “the rich.” But now that Wall Street is shedding jobs by the tens of thousands, those pools of revenue have run dry. While Paterson was willing to cut next year’s growth rate to a little more than 1%, without the political will to take on the bureaucratic interests and roll back the runaway spending, he ends up diming and quartering his citizens to death.

At least, those who choose to stay. “You name it, he taxes it,” said state Sen. Martin Golden of the Paterson plan. “If anybody's contemplating leaving the state of New York, this should push them over the top.”

New York businesses seeking an alternative to Paterson’s panhandling might want to consider Texas. Because our elected leaders made the hard choices and exercised fiscal restraint during our 2003 budget shortfall, “Texas has created and maintained a business-friendly environment that continues to attract companies and support innovation and competitiveness,” as our governor, Rick Perry, reiterated earlier this week.

Let’s hope that the 81st Texas Legislature approaches its decisions with the mindset that New York and California need to be more like Texas, and not the other way around. The continuing headlines out of Albany and Sacramento should make that a no-brainer.

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Paul Weyrich, R.I.P.

Paul Weyrich passed away earlier this morning. That name may not ring a bell to the younger staff at TPPF or those who have not worked in DC, but to say he was one of the giants of our movement would be a major understatement. Consider his legacy:

* Co-founder and the first president of the Heritage Foundation, which inspired the development of the state policy infrastructure – notably TPPF.
* Founder, CEO, and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, another influential think tank on economic, cultural, and international issues.
* Co-founder of the Moral Majority, which got evangelical Christians off the political sidelines and connected them to our movement.
* Co-founder of the Council for National Policy, a key networking and strategy development group for conservative leaders.
* Founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization for conservative state legislators.
* Co-publisher of Conservative Digest, a compendium of conservative commentary that I read during my college years and helped me to hone my philosophy.
* Founder of National Empowerment Television, a satellite TV channel that provided an outlet for conservative programming during the mid-1990s.
* President of the Krieble Institute, which trained activists for democracy movements in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

I had the privilege to meet and interact with him on several occasions when I interned in DC, and volunteered in the NET studios on election night in 1994. He cared passionately about our principles, and about building and developing the infrastructure and the people to promote them.

One of my mentors and another conservative titan, Morton Blackwell, recently said that, “without Paul Weyrich, there would likely have been no conservative movement worthy of the name—and no Ronald Reagan presidency. If there were a Mount Rushmore for conservative leaders, Paul’s face would have to be on it.” I second Morton’s sentiment. We all owe Paul a debt of gratitude. Rest in peace.

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TPPF COMMENTARY: EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Blueprint for Disaster

By Kathleen Hartnett White

Who knows how many rules by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encompass our daily lives and regiment our businesses. This July, however, the EPA proposed the mother of all economy-controlling environmental rules.

Called an “Advanced Notice for Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) to Regulate Greenhouse Gases,” the proposal uses existing law to assert EPA regulatory jurisdiction far, far wider and deeper than before. They even want to permit your lawnmower!

The number of entities required to obtain one type of permit would increase from 15,000 to 550,000, by EPA’s estimate. This unprecedented reach of EPA authority disproportionately hurts Texas because we are the nation’s leading energy producer, the most productive economy, and the second largest state population.

As the chief executive of our state and an appropriate national voice on the matter, Governor Rick Perry has vigorously responded to this EPA blueprint for disaster.

As the Governor’s letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson states, “Simply put, Texas fuels the nation,” through conventional and diverse new energy sources and technologies. The Governor summarized grave concerns about this “unprecedented expansion of EPA regulation …, the massive costs that will be imposed on our economy and the certainty that the proposed regulation will fail to achieve the intended goals … given the global nature of these emissions.”

On November 25, Gov. Perry held a press conference to highlight his response to the EPA. He was accompanied by agency leaders recently named to a Governor’s Advisory Group on Federal Environmental Regulation.

The report from Gov. Perry’s Advisory Group, “Potential Impacts to Texas of the EPA’s Proposed Framework for Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” reveals what implementation of the ANPR would mean. Combining expertise from multiple agencies, the report translates the 600-plus page ANPR into plain English.

As a startling example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that EPA jurisdiction would extend to more than 3,800 farms, 28,000 beef cattle operations, and 640 dairy operations in Texas alone. The CO2 limits would extend permitting requirements over large office buildings, churches, hospitals, hotels, and large residential homes. Impact on the energy sector would cause energy shortages and soaring costs for consumers. State government would exponentially grow in size and cost merely for paperwork compliance.

The ANPR is a legally unnecessary response to a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that CO2 could be considered a pollutant. The Court ruled that the EPA must legally justify its discretionary answer to the following question: is CO2 a pollutant endangering human health within the legal meaning of the Clean Air Act? The EPA has yet to make this ”endangerment finding” and instead turned to policy opposed by the White House and denounced by five other Cabinet secretaries.

A justifiable response to the Supreme Court is simple. CO2 is wholly unlike pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act. In ambient concentrations, CO2 is a harmless and beneficial gas, uniformly distributed across the world. EPA’s adoption of a numeric National Ambient Air Quality Standard for any greenhouse gas is preposterous. If, as emerging empirical science is disproving, CO2 accumulations increase global temperature, this occurs in the troposphere, not at ground level. Man-made CO2 from fossil fuel use contributes only 5 percent of global CO2.

Federal policymakers have allowed scientifically questionable environmental policy to supplant energy policy. With an ever-widening economic downturn, carbon regulation without sufficient energy alternatives right now means disaster.

A realistic, environmentally sound national energy policy would, as Gov. Perry recommends: assure reliable, affordable energy from all viable sources, including coal; promote modernization of the nation’s transmission grid; remove barriers to nuclear generation; accelerate development of carbon capture and sequestration technologies; and provide long-term regulatory and tax certainty for energy development and technologies.

The President-elect says he likely will direct EPA to proceed with this wild rule. Federal policymakers need a strong Texas voice on energy and environment. Gov. Perry capably expressed this voice and I so hope he continues to do so.

Kathleen Hartnett White is Director of the Center for Natural Resources at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

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Texas PolicyCast: Opening Texas' books

Texas has set the national standard for government financial transparency, thanks in large part to the leadership of the state's Comptroller of Public Accounts, Susan Combs. Her agency's "Where the Money Goes" website lets you see how state agencies are spending your money - right down to the pencil. And last week, Combs unveiled Open Book Texas, an initiative that will provide an even more comprehensive view of government spending, and she discusses it with us on this episode.

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TPPF COMMENTARY: Ending Secret Ballots Will Cause Worker Misery

If the U.S. Congress succeeds in its push next year to end secret ballots in union elections – paying back Big Labor for its truckloads of financial contributions and personnel during the last presidential campaign – countless workers’ lives will become nightmares, pitting friends against friends. I know the hard way.

Some years ago, I crossed a faculty picket line at a large university – the only faculty member out of several hundred professors to cross. Every fiber in my body opposed the strike and I was pathologically unable to not cross. The nightmare that followed was the most stressful experience in my life, save for the cancer and death of my wife.

On my first crossing, I was met and surrounded by my colleagues of 14 years. But they were now transformed into characters whose behavior I did not recognize. These were my friends with whom I had conversed about Shakespeare, had invited into my home, and had drunk wine with. I had known them as Ph.D., pipe-smoking listeners of Mozart and readers of Jane Austen.

Right before the strike I encountered two arguments. One, if I couldn’t out of principled disagreement honor the strike on the picket line, would I simply stay home? No, I said, because that would be de facto support of the strike.

Two, since I would be a recipient of any gains achieved by union-management negotiations, I was morally obliged to join the union. I countered this by pointing out that since their faculty salaries had been significantly raised by Michigan’s Republican governor and Republican legislature, weren’t they therefore morally obliged to become Republicans?

As for my professorial friends, Frank screamed to me down the pathway filled with students, “You a******!” Walter said he was going to take a picture of my crossing the line and show it to people, hoping that I would get hurt.

Donald said to me in the crowded faculty lunchroom, “There’s Trowbridge. No, he’s not a scab; he’s an oozing, running sore.” Laughter erupted. Sheila called me a “scab,” with a scowling, mean face. She really meant it.

Jay, my telephone mate and one I had taken in as a guest at my summer cottage, was so red-faced with anger at me that he yelled, “That’s it, Trowbridge, I am never again going to answer your telephone!”

The striking professors would sometimes latch on to students going to my classes, directing them to pass on certain epithets to me, such as “Up yours,” “Scab,” “Give him the finger.” My students did so, with laughter and anger aimed at – the strikers. Students had paid tuition, but were getting nothing for it.

Strikers were seeking an agency shop, which would require non-union members to pay a fee commensurate with dues. When Gene, a white-haired Southern gentleman with proper etiquette and precise diction always, learned of this agency shop provision, he exclaimed to me in the crowded lunchroom, “Goody, goody, goody, goody.”

I had trouble eating and sleeping because I knew that everyday my strident friends would be waiting for me outside the classroom door. All this anger for one lone picket crosser. Shortly after the illegal strike ended (because of a student’s lawsuit), I was offered a vice presidency at Hillsdale College and took it. Though having been at this university for 14 years, there were no formal farewells, no goodbye parties, no nothing – not a single person came by my office to say goodbye.

If Congress passes the “card check” proposal, millions of non-union members will be stunned when even some of their friends turn on them. The pressure on employees to sign the cards will be intense, personal, and traumatic.

In all states, including Texas, elimination of secret voting will bring about two deleterious changes: internecine battles among warring employee camps and increased economic demands on employers. Imagine the proliferation of United Auto Workers-like unions throughout Texas.

Dr. Ronald Trowbridge is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

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Time to "Bag" Google for A Less Biased Search Engine

Well folks, there have been rumors and suspicion for years about the objectivity of Google's search engine, now we have proof from Google themselves, admitting they selectively filter their search results.

This comes from The Register, UK

Google cranks up the Consensus Engine
Manufacturing isn't dead - it just went to Mountain View

By Andrew Orlowski
Posted in Music and Media
12th December 2008 19:38 GMT

Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.

Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that:

The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.
A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm "relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. "

That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being rigged.

For an editorialist/blogger like me, objectivity in search engine results is an absolute must. Any hint of bias in my searches inhibits my ability to "get the dirt" on whomever or whatever I am researching.

Over the past couple of years, rumors of bias have been circulating about Google.com and the other websites they own, such as YouTube. With this announcement, the Google team have removed all doubt. Their Left-leaning bias is no longer a matter of debate, it is an established fact. That renders their usefullness to folks like me moot.

Searching for news becomes an exercise in futility if the provider is selective in their presentation. Microsoft offers its default LiveSearch engine, but...MSNBC...need I say more?

So for now, I am going to experiment with a number of other options outside of the Left-leaning sphere of Google (google.com) and Microsoft (Live Search). A number of alternatives are out there and I am going to experiment with them.

Yahoo is also a viable alternative, but I have become mildly disillusioned with their search engine as well and Yahoo News' close associaton with USA today and AP brings their engine into question as well.

Both AltaVista (altavista.com) and Clusty (clusty.com) appear to be possible alternatives that offer a "news" search option. Another possibility recently brought to my attention is Cuil (cuil.com) which claims to have the broadest reach of any search engine (but lacks the "news" catagory) and is supposed to have been started by the same guy who created the original Google engine.

AltaVista is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, search engines on the internet and it used to be my primary source. I guess it's time I return to it and give it a try. Time will tell on this effort, but I'm willing to bet that Google.com suffers substantially for this revelation.

My other complaint with Google is the number of commercial hits I get when I search.

I will continue to use The Drudge Report and the Conservative blog site FreeRepublic.com as sources as well. FreeRepublic especially provides a useful source of news simply because so many folks over there search the web for news stories and happens to be where I picked up this little gem.

Anyway, I encourage you to consider avoiding the use of Google...at least until they cease to filter their results.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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Why the Auto Bailout (Thankfully) Failed...Hint, Think UAW

Good news from Washington, the Senate failed to find the votes needed for a 3/5 majority to invoke cloture on the stalled $14 Billion bailout of the Big Three Automobile manufacturers. It was close, but negotiations broke down when the UAW/Democrat cabal refused to accept the three little words, "a date certain," when the corporations would have to achieve paycheck parity with the three Japanese based automobile manufacturers who are profitably building automobiles in America.

That's it. That's all it would have required, and the UAW could have saved its members' jobs. All they would have had to do was to agree to make the concessions in pay and benefits that would bring their labor costs into line with those of Nissan, Honda, and Toyota America by "a date certain."

That date was never specified, contrary to the claims of the Democrats in the Senate like Christopher Dodd who are wholly owned by the unions. They could have specified any day of the year in 2009 to achieve parity, but instead of doing what was necessary for the survival of GM, Chrysler, and Ford, they chose to sink the entire industry.

They are banking on one of two possible saviors,

1. That President Bush will mandate a $14 Billion "loan" out of the already allocated TARP $700 Billion, or
2. That the Big Three will manage to survive through January 21st so that the new Congress and President can immediately allocate those funds without strings attached.

Both are good bets. President Bush is a soft touch when it comes to largess with tax-payer money in situations like this. His natural inclination (and thus, his greatest failing as a leader) is toward "compassion;" which translates in this case as a willingness to spend tax-payer money to fund the bloated benefits of UAW members.

Should President Bush unexpectedly demonstrate some degree of fiscal responsibility (a long-shot, I know) then the Democrats in Congress will do what they do best, spend tax-payer money to feed the coffers of their political benefactors (and bosses) in the unions. With both of those near guaranteed bailouts waiting in the wings, there was little in the way of motivation for them to make more that a token gesture of concession to their ultimate benefactors, the American tax-payer.

In short, this is but a minor victory for our free-market system and will certainly be circumvented by those who care more about the bloated pensions of UAW workers than they do about those of us they are asking to bail them out.

As usual, compassion is a code word for "we're going to stick it to the tax-payers and the middle-class."

Watching Senator Debbie Stabenow's (D-MI) near tearful plea for her fellow senators to vote for cloture was nauseating. She blamed "Republican" and then called on senators to put politics aside...an interesting tactic that Democrats have honed to a fine edge...injecting politics and then calling for others to put their politics aside.

She talked about all the jobs that would be lost in the support industries should the Big Three fail. She said America must manufacture something besides pushing paper...I guess she forgot about Nissan, Honda, and Toyota and their manufacturing activities here in the United States. Honda alone has six automobile manufacturing plants and eight other manufacturing plants in North America, Toyota has 13 manufacturing locations throughout America, and Nissan has 3.

The simple fact is, that today's Toyota has more US manufactured parts than any of the automobiles the Big Three build. I suspect the same holds true for Nissan and Honda, though I have no proof one way or the other.

The truth is, this is a battle which revolves solely around the survival of the UAW. It is nothing more than a quid pro quo for big labor's support of the Democrat Party.

In the end, unless the American tax-payer stands up and raises hell against this bailout, the next Congress will pass it...probably in a much inflated form and then proceed to pass the Card Check Bill in an effort to burden the Japanese Big Three with the same union albatross.

The sad news for today is that I fully expect President Bush, in concert with Hank (it really should be Pat) Paulson to provide "bridging funds" (euphemistically called loans) to tide these bloated dinosaurs of industry over until the new Congress can step in a feed union coffers.

So much for free market capitalism and tax-payer advocacy.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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This is Global Warming??? Earliest Snowfall in Houston Since 1944

Now I realize that a single anomalous event doesn't spell proof or disproof of an environmental theory, unlike the raving lunatic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) Chicken Little's on the Left, but I find it intriguing that in this coldest year in a decade we in Houston have just experienced our earliest snowfall since 1944...that's longer than I've been alive.

Here's the Houston Chronicles article:

Surprise flurries warm Houston hearts

Fluffy flakes bring delight to some, consternation to others — and tie a 64-year-old record

By ERIC BERGER,, JENNIFER LATSON and JENNIFER LEAHY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 10, 2008, 11:09PM

Falling snowflakes glimmered in streetlights, so wide that they billowed to the ground like parachutes, and so tantalizing that even awestruck adults reached out their hands or stuck out their tongues to catch one.

By Wednesday evening, the flakes were big enough to hold their shape for a moment on the street before melting into the pavement, and a dusting had collected on parked cars in some parts of town.

The flurries tied a record for Houston's earliest snowfall ever and warmed the hearts of winter weather lovers who have pined for snow since it last made an appearance on Christmas Eve 2004.

"I've got a pot roast in the Crock-Pot, and I'm going to go home, change into my warmest pajamas and eat pot roast and enjoy what may be the only real winter day we have all year," said Tina Arnold, an Illinois native who took advantage of the wintry backdrop to pick up Christmas presents Wednesday at The Woodlands Mall.

Since 1895, records indicate, snow has fallen this early just once — on Dec. 10, 1944.

This rare December Houston snow occurs on the tail of another anomalous event, the coldest year in a decade. These two anomalous events are not dispositive evidence that AGW is the scam I have been claiming it to be since I began discussing it, but they do provide two further data points among many which stand in the face of the AGW tidal wave of the past couple decades.

The fact is that, since 1998 global surface temperatures have been trending downward, not upward as AGW advocates would have you believe.

An unfortunate corollary of bad science is that bad politics will invariably follow it. Just as an increasing number of scientists, including a number of those who were included in the ill-advised, ill-conceived, and soon to be ill-fated UN-IPCC, report are coming out in opposition to AGW dogma, Johnny-come-lately politicians are jumping on the AGW bandwagon.

In AGW, Liberal politicians see the answer to their dreams...absolute control of our society. Using the threat of AGW, they can restrict our use of fossil fuels, wreak havoc on our economy, institute government controls on our travel, our consumption, and our freedom; all the while claiming to be doing so "for our own good."

This stuff is straight out of the communist's playbook and it provides those against whom our nation's founders warned us...the "usurpers"...an excuse to exercise absolute power over our lives.

Unlike our AGW advocating brethren, we DENIERS aren't inclined to cite a single event as proof of our beliefs and we tend to rely on facts rather than propaganda to form our opinions...small "inconvenient" facts like evidence of global warming occurring on other planets within our solar system and changes in solar activity which appear to correlate well with changes in our global temperatures, as indicative of what we have been recently experiencing being a system wide phenomenon rather than a man-caused global phenomenon.

We don't look at a 150 year graph of temperature data and declare it as proof of anything but a short term variation in global temperatures. We refuse to make sweeping assertions of "fact" based on that short term data when we know global temperatures have varied widely throughout the history of our planet.

We also know that science ceases to be science when it abandons the principles upon which it has been based throughout history. Cold dispassionate examination and experimentation, not issue advocacy and efforts to defend a theory, are the basic tenets of science.

These AGW theorists like James Hansen and the authors of the IPCC findings have long since abandoned science for politics. They have become Defenders of the Faith for the Religion of AGW and as more and more scientists have become willing to take a stand publicly against this egregious political scam, the voices of the true believers have become more and more strident.

Declarations of urgency and the abject dismissal of and attack against any and all who dare to speak out, as heretics, stand as further proof that these scam artists like Al Gore know their time is limited as is their ability to impose the draconian changes they demand.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is what it began as under Margaret Thatcher back in the Eighties; an effort to impose social changes using a highly questionable theory backed by very weak evidence.

In Thatcher's case, it was an effort to break the power of the coal unions. In Al Gore's case and that of the UN, it is a simple power grab; an effort to impose economic and social changes to more closely resemble the Marxist model and to rein in the free-wheeling economic power of the more successful capitalist nations...nothing more and nothing less.

Thankfully, since 1998 global temperatures have been trending downward again and there is a growing body of evidence that Earth is a self-regulating system that neither warms too much nor cools too much.

There is even a growing minority in the scientific community who assert that not only are we not going to see catastrophic global warming, but that we are on the cusp of a new "mini-Ice Age" similar to that experienced in the 17th and 18th centuries.

What is manifestly clear is that man's existence and efforts can have very little effect on the overall climate of the planet.

It is time for the Leftist Priests of Global Warming Alarmism to shut up and for real scientists, those who can discern fact from wishes, to tell the truth. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, it is a naturally occurring gas which every living animal emits...as is the methane coming from the livestock that these same idiots now want to tax.

Beware of fanatics, alarmists, and those who "know" they are right, the more certain they are, the more likely they are wrong.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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Proposed EPA Fee on Livestock Flatulence Proves Our Governments Growing Insanity

Well it's official, our federal government has gone completely insane. The EPA has put forward several proposals to charge farmers fees for the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by their livestock.

As we conclude the coolest year in past ten years, global warming insanity is reaching new heights. Never mind the fact that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) as a theory is rapidly losing credibility as the data continue not only to fail to support the theory, but to disprove it.

The religion of AGW continues to thrive in the rarefied air (most of it hot) they breathe in the (not so) hallowed hallways of our national government and the universities in which these hoaxers receive their grant money.

Let me repeat, the data do not support the theory of manmade global warming. Yet those idiots we have chosen to lead our nation continue to pursue a suicidal course of action guaranteed to destroy our economy (more than it already has been by their "brilliant" leadership) and drive our farmers out of business just as they have, through their policies, driven our industries overseas.

Now this insanity has achieved a new pinnacle...the flatulence tax:

"SPARKS VOICES OPPOSITION TO EPA LIVESTOCK FEE PROPOSAL

Darryl Ray
Alfa Farmer News
November 26, 2008

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Ron Sparks, commissioner of Alabama’s Department of Agriculture and Industries, has criticized a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to charge mandatory permit fees in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The EPA would, in effect, put our livestock producers and dairy farmers out of business,” said Sparks. “At a time when we are becoming more and more reliant on other countries for our food, we should be looking for ways to help farmers, not punish them for producing the food we put on the table for our families.”

The proposal would affect any farm or ranch with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs by requiring permit fees based on tonnage of greenhouse gas emissions, which is based on emitting 100 tons or more of carbon per year.

According to the American Farm Bureau, the fee and/or tax would result in about $175 per dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog annually.

Wow, what a brilliant move, pricing our ranchers and dairy farmers out of existence! I have an even better idea, why don't we just pass a tax on all the flatulence coming out of the Capitol. Surely if cattle pose a threat to our environment, then all of those lips flapping up there in Washington DC pose an even greater threat. Talk about hot air...

Through a judicious use of corporate taxation, proposed "windfall profits" taxes, and social engineering through acts of crass pandering to their constituents, such as the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to make high risk loans to individuals who shouldn't have received them, our Congress has done everything within their power to destroy our economy...and they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Now to those actions we can add their inane adherence to the unproven Global Warming Religion and the commensurate destructive actions it has provoked. We can spend $Trillions in tax-payer money (euphemistically called "government money" by the thieves in DC) on unproven technologies and make-work programs. That way we can destroy our economy completely and replace this tired old proven model of capitalism with the manifestly unsuccessful European model of socialism.

I believe it is called "shared sacrifice" by the money grubbing politicians in Washington. What it really means is reducing all Americans to a state of dependency on the government for everything. At last, true freedom. Freedom from work, freedom from affluence, freedom from travel, and freedom from...well...FREEDOM.

Slaves to the state...yeah, that's always been my dream. Well bend over America because here it comes. The gift of universal suffering; straight from your elected representatives to you...because you asked for it.

Now we can take all of that wasted land we used to call farm land and plant solar energy farms or windmill farms on it. We will just become dependent on imported beef, pork, and dairy products from those bastions of safe consumables like Mexico, China and India; Citizens of the world at last.

What a wonderful Utopia our government leaders are giving us. As a bonus, we now have our own messiah for President. Won't it be nice when he takes away all of our firearms and magically causes all crime to cease? I can't wait.

Hope you idiots enjoy it...after all your voted for it.

If we survive the next four years, maybe Americans will realize what total idiots they have been and we will elect a Conservative who actually believes in our economic system as it was when this nation became the "bread basket of the world." Maybe we can return to the system which built this nation into the most prosperous, most powerful, most generous, and greatest nation in the history of the world.

I have to wonder what justifications the crooks in Washington will use when they discover that AGW was what we "Deniers" have said all along...a SCAM...designed to keep incompetent pseudo-scientists employed in the academic community.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that, just as James Hansen did in October of this year, they will simply lie about global temperatures and tell us the snow we feel falling on our collective heads is really frozen particulate water, which is a pollutant caused by too much water vapor in the sky and is caused by continued global warming.

I know it's a mildly disgusting saying which I have used rather recently, but when referring to the actions of our government these days it just seems appropriate..."Don't p*ss down my leg and tell me it's raining."

That seems to be what our Federal Bureaucracy is best at.

If it wasn't so pathetic, it would all be rather humorous.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!! (what's left of it)

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TPPF COMMENTARY: Compassion? Not in My Book

States like Texas have drawn criticism for not expanding government health care programs during strong economic times. But now that the national economy has slipped into recession, what has happened to the states that chose the other path? As former state representative and TPPF Visiting Research Fellow Arlene Wohlgemuth points out in this week's commentary, those states (notably California) are facing substantial budget deficits – and one of the first places they're looking for budget cuts is health care.

---

Compassion? Not in My Book
By The Honorable Arlene Wohlgemuth

Bailout requests by numerous states have recently been a top news item, as everyone lines up behind the financial sector with their hands out. Rather than debate the wisdom of these bailouts, it is time to look at the states’ fiscal policies and see whom they hurt.

The recession of the early 2000s saw states scrambling to balance their budgets. Texas’ watershed year was 2003, with a $10 billion budget shortfall for the biennium, but we were not alone. California faced a whopping $38 billion shortfall that same year. The way the two states responded then, set the stage for what is happening today.

Texas reduced spending to cover the deficit that represented about 15 percent of its general revenue. The commitment was made, and kept, that the shortfall would not be resolved by increasing taxes.

Today, Texas has become the nation’s top job producer, hosts more Fortune 500 companies than any other state, and was cited by the Financial Times as the state best able to weather the financial storm. Although the economic downturn will cause short-term problems, especially in retirement system investments, the state will enter the next budget cycle in the black, just as it did in 2005 and 2007.

California, on the other hand, not only raised taxes as part of its deficit plan, but also borrowed $10.7 billion – about 15 percent of its general revenue. The result has been that California has lost both jobs and population. The current budget year has a $26 billion budget gap, representing 25.7 percent of general revenue. Its solution again is to borrow much of the money rather than significantly reducing spending. But this time, there is a steep price to pay.

California now has the lowest bond rating of any state and will pay for that through a high interest rate. Stateline.org reports that the state may be the first to “nose-dive into junk bond territory.” Instead of facing the recession from a position of fiscal strength, the state is incredibly weak.

Next will come the budget cuts, not only in California but in up to 36 other states. Not surprisingly, the two areas of the budget most often cited for targets of cuts are Medicaid and education.

California, in the name of compassion, has expanded its Medicaid rolls to the highest in the nation, with 29 percent of the population enrolled. Provider rate cuts are always first on the chopping block when things get tight, and that is what California has tried to do. Its 10 percent cut to providers in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid plan, was temporarily halted by a federal judge in August, further complicating their budget woes.

California has expanded its Medicaid rolls in the good times, creating a dependency on the program, and now that the economy has gone south, health care for the poor will be the first area to take a hit. Expansion of government-paid health care programs inevitably increases the cost of health care for everyone and contracts the private market, meaning that everyone suffers. If the federal government decides to bail out states like California, it will reward them for poor fiscal management and punish Texas for being responsible.

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that for every 1 percent increase in the national unemployment rate, there are one million new enrollees in Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), costing $3.43 billion in additional program spending.

At the very time when families will need the safety net of Medicaid and SCHIP the most, states that have not exercised fiscal responsibility, particularly those that have expanded their health care programs beyond sustainability, will not be in a position to help. That is not compassion.

Careless spending hurts those it purports to help.

Arlene Wohlgemuth is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.

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Texas PolicyCast: Capped out of charter schools

In August, the Texas Public Policy Foundation published a report that found that tens of thousands of school children were on waiting lists to attend Texas charter schools. Last month, the State Board of Education granted the final charters it is allowed under current law. What does the future hold for charter schools and these children? For that, we talk with Brooke Terry, education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

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Statement on Comptroller Susan Combs’ Transparency Initiatives

Statement by The Honorable Talmadge Heflin, Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy

“Almost 53 percent of spending by Texas governments is done at the local level. Unfortunately, detailed information on that local spending is virtually inaccessible to taxpayers, who are the true local control.

“As our new report Texas Transparency: Then and Now published earlier this week shows, Texas’ experience with spending transparency undercuts all the excuses not to provide detailed expenditure information to the public. The technology is available, powerful, and inexpensive. The state’s savings were many times the startup costs, and hundreds of local school districts have seen value in embracing spending transparency.

“Texas has set the national standard in spending transparency thanks largely to Comptroller Susan Combs’ leadership. Today’s debut of the Texas Transparency Check-Up website affirms her commitment to open government.

“Texas already has open records and open meetings. The next step toward transparent and accountable government is open checkbooks, and the 81st Texas Legislature should make that the standard for local governments as it already is for the state. Taxpayers deserve to know how all levels of government are spending their money.”

The Honorable Talmadge Heflin is Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. Heflin served 11 terms in the Texas House of Representatives and chaired the House Appropriations Committee in 2003, leading the Texas Legislature’s successful efforts to close a $10 billion budget deficit without a tax increase.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. More information can be found on the Foundation’s primary website, www.TexasPolicy.com, or its government spending transparency website, www.TexasBudgetSource.com.

– 30 –

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AP Accuses "Bush Administration" of Having "Blind Eye to the Impending [Mortgage] Crisis"

It appears that Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press wing of the Democrat Party has no compunction about lying by omission in his report about the "Mortgage Meltdown" which has our economy on the ropes.

While there is no doubt that there is enough blame in this financial crisis to lay at the feet of both Congress and the White House, Mr. Apuzzo seems oblivious (whether by intent or ignorance) to Congress' part in creating this mess. He seems obsessed with laying all of the blame at the President's doorstep.

Most egregious of his omissions comes in his complete failure to mention Democrat complicity in the obstruction of Republican efforts to tighten regulations on the lending practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Apuzzo mentions Countrywide Financial Corp.:

Countrywide Financial Corp., at the time the nation's largest mortgage lender, agreed. The proposal "appears excessive and will inhibit future innovation in the marketplace," said Mary Jane Seebach, managing director of public affairs.

Yet, astoundingly, fails to mention that Democrat Senators Chris Dodd, (D-CT) Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Kent Conrad (D-ND) Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee both received "sweetheart deals" from Countrywide in the form of mortgage financing at noncompetitive rates. Senators Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, (D-Il) received huge campaign contributions from Countrywide as well. Courtesy of Open Secrets, here is a listing of the top 20 recipients of Countrywide's largess since 1989:



Of these top 20, 12 are Democrats and 8 are Republicans. As I said, plenty of blame to go around, but these numbers are just those from Countrywide Financial; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also made large political contributions, the bulk of which went to Democrats...which of course makes sense because Democrats dominated the boards of those institutions.

Three of them, close advisors to the Obama Campaign, were Franklin Raines, former Clinton administration budget director; James Johnson, former aide to Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale; and Jamie Gorelick, former Clinton administration deputy attorney general.

Fannie Mae alone has been very lucrative for Democrats. According to David Frum (courtesy of WorldNetDaily), Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year serving as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998; Raines earned $90 million in his five years as Fannie Mae CEO, from 1999 to 2004; and Gorelick earned an estimated $26 million serving as vice chair of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003.



Once more, plenty of blame to go around, but 12 Democrats and 8 Republicans (or 60/40 in favor of Democrats).

My point here is not to direct the blame at Democrats alone, only to point out the glaring omissions of Mr. Apuzzo's highly partisan presentation.
Missing also from his discussion is any mention of Congressman Barney Franks, (D-MA) whose one time boyfriend Herb Moses was a sitting assistant director for product initiatives at Fannie Mae. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie. Representative Franks just missed making the above table; he was #26 on the list at $42,350, $30,500 from PAC's and $11,850 from individuals. As reported on Fox News:

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."

Barney Franks is notable for his vociferous and unbridled defense of the type of loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that caused so much of our economic distress, during the hearings on increasing oversight and tightening regulations on the two organizations.

In the September 11, 2003 hearings on a sweeping Bush Administration proposal to create a new agency within the Treasury Department to supervise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Congressman Franks (D-MA), then ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, stated:

"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Clearly this was a lie and we are now paying for Democrat intransigence. Representative Melvin L. Watt, (D-NC) compounded the Democrats problems with the truth by saying:

"I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."

As one goes back and examines the record, it becomes clear that Democrats were more interested in pandering to their constituents than they were in dealing with an impending crisis while it was still manageable.

In 2004 Maxine Waters (D-CA) stated:

Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines.

As late as July 14, 2008 Reprehensible Representative Franks was still preaching solvency and telling Americans that these two organizations were "financially sound," saying:

I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They're not the best investments these days from the long- term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward. They're in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we're going to do some things that are going to improve them.

They're in "good shape going forward?" How does one get that from all of the efforts by Republicans, including President Bush, to warn Congress and the American people about the dangerous and indefensible loan practices taking place in the two financial giants?

All of the usual Liberal suspects worked tirelessly against any attempt at reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including Maxine Waters (D-CA) who took $17,800 in total contributions from Fannie Mae, Chris Dodd (D-CT), Barney Franks (D-MA) and Melvin Watt (D-NC). The fact is that when early efforts were made to put tighter controls on the lending practices that have caused so much economic misery, the vote in the House Financial Services Committee hearings was strictly along party lines...every single Democrat on the committee voted against instituting stronger regulations on the Mortgage Industry.

Far from being solely a Bush Administration problem, the current economic crisis can be laid much more properly at the feet of the Democrats in Congress. Even former President Bill Clinton has admitted this.

"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

So Mr. Apuzzo, how about a little "fair and balanced" reporting? I doubt you are capable of it.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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