Texas

Texas Redistricting: two (Dem) white lawmakers hold up primary

The real hold up seems to be white Dem Lloyd Doggett and white Dem Wendy Davis. These are the “coalition” “choices” being fought over.

With the incumbent in the middle of the gallery, the lawyers argued over Congressional District 25, a district that is either safe for or hostile to U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin. It depends on the map.

In the proposal offered by the state and accepted by some of the plaintiffs — notably, the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force — Doggett would find himself in a Republican district that stretches from Hays County, south of Austin, north to Tarrant County. He would probably run in a newly created Congressional District 35, which includes eastern Travis County and runs south to San Antonio. It’s Democratic, but designed to give Latino voters a bigger say in who goes to Congress.

Attorneys for Doggett and for several of the minority plaintiffs argued that his district gives minority voters a choice and as a result is protected by the federal Voting Rights Act. Attorneys for the state, and for the Latino Task Force, argued that it’s not a protected district and that the changes make it easier to draw a new minority seat.

In Congressional District 27, the plaintiffs argue that the state stranded more than 200,000 Latino voters, again in violation of the voting laws. But the state said that the adjacent congressional district is a new minority seat and that there aren’t enough people in that area to draw two such seats.

In Congressional District 33, an inkblot of a district that straddles the Tarrant-Dallas county line, the plaintiffs said the state packed black voters into another district and denied them more say in the new seat. The state said that district was drawn to accommodate growing populations and not to create a new minority district, and said the plaintiffs were trying — there and in Congressional District 23 in south and west Texas — to draw new seats for Democrats and not for minorities.

via Redistricting lawyers reach deal on Texas senate maps | San Marcos Mercury | Local News from San Marcos, Texas.

Nominate a grassroots blogger for CPAC Blogger of the Year! @SonjaHHarris @CPAC2012

Do we want a big name blogger – one who is nearly a member of the traditional media – named to the CPAC Blogger of the Year? Or do we want a grassroots, self-taught blogger like you and me to represent us?

I know many of the bloggers who will most likely be nominated and would be proud to call them friends, but Sonja Harris better represents me and most of the Pajamas crowd.

So read the blog, nominate Red Sonja!

EMAIL THIS FORM, FILLED OUT WITH YOUR INFORMATION, TO BloggerAward@conservative.org

CPAC 2012 Blogger of the Year Award
Please submit nominations by COB on Wednesday, February 8

Your Name: ____________________
Your Organization/Blog:_____________
Your Email Address: ___________________
NOMINEE: ________Sonja Harris, Conservatives in Action_____
Nominee’s Blog Title: Conservatives In Action_____________________
Nominee’s Blog URL: http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/
Nominee’s Twitter ID (if applicable): @SonjaHHarris
Nominee’s Email Address: __libertyphoto@att.net_________________________________

Description of Merit:

Self-taught conservative with an email list that is forwarded to over 10,000 readers a week, including Israeli and other international readers. While the e-mail is her biggest effort, Sonja has a facebook page https://www.facebook.com/#%21/pages/Conservatives-in-Action/219411951422716 and publishes a blog under the name “Red Sonja” at http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/
She also publishes on TexasGOPVote.com http://texasgopvote.com/users/sonja-harris
Sonja was a volunteer blogger for the Rick Perry campaign in Iowa http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/2012/01/rick-perry-and-iowa-caucus-2012.html , live-blogged the Newt Gingrich/Herman Cain debate in Houston http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/2011/11/cain-gingrich-debate-on-november-5-2012.html ,

and has covered Texas http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/2011/06/medina-valley-hs-class-of-2011-and.html , national and international news.
Please read her coverage of Pro-life rallies, take a look at her photographs of political and social events and her series on art. http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/2011/02/photographys-place-in-art-art-for-our.html
http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/2011/04/arts-in-your-community.html
http://redsonja-conservativesinaction.blogspot.com/2011/04/art-and-conservatives.html

So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin.
James 4:17
CONSERVATIVES IN ACTION

Federal judge says he can’t block Texas sonogram law, says higher court forced ruling

Sonogram (while awake and aware) and informed consent to be enforced in Texas.

District Judge Sam Sparks had previously struck down parts of the law, but his latest ruling said he’s bound to follow the direction of the New Orleans-based appeals court

via Federal judge says he can’t block Texas sonogram law, says higher court forced ruling – The Washington Post.

Texas media lies about Texas “Sonogram Law”

An article, based on lies, by the Texas Tribune’s Emily Ramshaw was picked up by the New York Times Sunday (January 29th) edition.

The lies are neatly tied up in these two sentences:

” This past fall, doctors were required to start performing a transvaginal sonogram at least 24 hours ahead of an abortion, a shift they say has had frustrating consequences for clinics and patients.”

and

“Now the physician performing the abortion — not an ultrasound technician, for example, or a secondary doctor — must conduct the sonogram on a separate day.”

(I have a “Google News search” for articles on the Texas Sonogram law, so I get emails as soon as they’re published. These same lies are duplicated in other articles and op-eds, like this one in “The Jurist,” from a law professor at the Saint Louis School of Law.)

Editor-in-Chief, Evan Smith, and Ramshaw at the Texas Tribune must know they’re publishing emotional falsehoods. Even Judge Sam Sparks knew better.

Anyone who has read the text of HB 15 or Judge Sam Spark’s ruling would know that we’ve had a formal informed consent process and a 24 hour waiting period since 2003, that there is no mandate to use a “transvaginal sonogram,” and that “an agent of the physician who is also a sonographer certified by a national registry of medical sonographers” may perform the sonogram. The doctor is required to show the sonogram “images,” to make the heartbeat audible and to describe the development of the embryo or fetus. That the language did not require that the actual, real-time sonogram be conducted by ” the physician performing the abortion” was clear to Judge Sparks. As he said,

     “The net result of these provisions is: (1) a physician is required to say things and take expressive actions with which the physician may not ideologically agree, and which the physician may feel are medically unnecessary; (2) the pregnant woman must not only passively receive this potentially unwanted speech and expression, but must also actively participate—in the best case by simply signing an election form, and in the worst case by disclosing in writing extremely personal, medically irrelevant facts; and (3) the entire experience must be memorialized in records that are,at best, semi-private.”

Still, Ramshaw revealed some truth:

    “. . . a scheduling struggle when doctors providing elective abortions are in short supply and rotate between clinics.

“They’ve had to set aside a whole other day doing ultrasounds, visits that in most parts of medicine would be dedicated to people with less training than a physician,” Hagstrom Miller said. “The effect on their travel schedule, on their reimbursement, on patients’ access to them has been tremendous.”

In the typical elective abortion, there’s rarely any on-going doctor-patient relationship and the real problem is bureaucratic and financial.  The clinic owners are mostly worried about the money and their ability to get doctors to show up for the informed consent and to return the next day to perform the abortion.

And it’s not all about money.  The doctors who “rotate between clinics” usually fly in, sometimes from another state, for “procedure day.” The “Sonogram law” doesn’t force the woman having the abortion to look at her sonogram. But it does force the doctor to spend time counseling the women – possibly more time than the abortion itself will require. They will now have to look the women in the eye and describe the development of the child. How can a doctor “not ideologically agree” with the facts visible on the sonogram when describing the heart or limbs?

Great Day at the Texas Rally For Life in Austin, Texas

It was a beautiful day to go to the Capitol in Austin, Texas! I took my 11-year-old granddaughter to the Texas Rally for Life and we handed out information on the new “Choose Life” license plates that are available in Texas.

Texas’ Attorney General Greg Abbott was our key-note speaker. The video at this link has a portion of his speech and comments from people who attended – by their own free “choice.” The crowd displayed warm, loving support for those lives, mom and baby, threatened by abortion.

Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst (who is running for US Senate) and our Senator John Cornyn also spoke, along with Joe Pojman, PhD, of Texas Alliance for Life, and Carol Everett, a long-time supporter of pregnancy assistance services.

From the Austin, Texas TV station, KVUE.com:

AUSTIN — Crowds carried hundreds of signs in protest of abortion as they marched up Congress Avenue. For decades the Texas Rally for Life has brought people from all across the state to the steps of the capitol.

The Texas Rally for Life brought close to 3,000 people marching through downtown Austin Saturday afternoon.

Crowds listened as anti-abortion leaders urged them to spread their message to everyone.

Keynote speaker Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott explained how he learned the beauty of life when he lost the ability to walk.

Those who took part said the polarizing issue of abortion should not be approached with hate, but with love.

“Being Pro-Life is just such a blessing and seeing how much love we have for everyone — even after they have an abortion,” Elise Bockover said. “We’re still here for them, and I want people to know that — we’re here for them always.”

The date of this year’s rally added significance to everyone. Late January marked the anniversary of Roe V. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion in 1973.

This is very positive coverage of our Texas Rally for Life!

To all who call us “anti-abortion and “anti-choice” and to you who say that we who are pro-life should “adopt all the unwanted children” (see comments at this page): The people who attend this rally are the most likely to give their time and money to charities to directly help mothers, babies, and their families. We are truly “pro-life” and we do support the mothers and babies we defend. Take a look around, I’ll bet there’s a pregnancy crisis center close to you, run by volunteers and donations.

If you would like to support adoption, you can easily donate $22 when you renew your license plate by choosing the “Choose Life” license plate option.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I’m on the board of Texas Alliance for Life and my local “Options for Women” pregnancy assistance center.)

Remember the “Contract From America?”

‘Way back in history – In the Spring of 2010 – a wide variety of Conservative, independent, grass roots organizations (mostly from the Tea Party and 912 groups) held meetings in cities across the US. I attended one with Comal County (Texas) Republican Women and Tea Party members, in Austin, Texas, sponsored by the Austin Tea Party on April 15, 2010. Within a couple of weeks, my friend chartered and filled a big ol’ bus full of men and women willing to pay for their seat on the bus, meet very early in the morning, and give up a day to hear Newt Gingrich speak.

The former Speaker (and current candidate for Republican nomination for President) told us about  the initiative for a “grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress.”

In the heat of our very long Primary build up, I’m afraid that we might have forgotten the Contract and how it came to be, from the idea that began in Houston, Texas, to the document, below.  I encourage everyone to visit the website, take a look at the names of the sponsors and to remember the Contract and why we were excited by it ‘way back then. (The numbers in parentheses represent the strength of support from the participants.)

The Contract from America

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty

Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

Limited Government

The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

Economic Freedom

The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

1. Protect the Constitution   Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)

 2. Reject Cap & Trade– Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)

3. Demand a Balanced Budget – Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform – Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)

 5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington – Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)

 6. End Runaway Government Spending – Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)

 7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care – Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy – Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)

9. Stop the Pork – Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)

10. Stop the Tax Hikes – Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)

Supreme Court Rejects Judgermandering

It looks like somebody remembered that the Constitutions (of Texas and the US) don’t say that judges get the important decisions and the Legislatures get the unimportant ones. I do wish the SCOTUS had said “hands off,” but this is better than nothing.

A second map was then drawn by a panel of federal judges in San Antonio, and seemed to favor Democrats through its deference to the state’s booming Hispanic population.



via Supreme Court sends judge-drawn maps back in Texas redistricting case – The Hill's Ballot Box.

The only “minority” the map San Antonio Federal District judges favored was the minority Party, the Dems. They actually created a brand new District! Don’t forget that the Democrats were the Party that discriminated in the first place.

From the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

The ruling is a blow to Texas Democrats who had cheered late last year when a San Antonio federal court released new legislative and congressional maps that were widely seen as less favorable to Republicans.

The Justices said that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a key provision often pointed to by minority groups in redistricting cases, could not be used as a way to ignore the plans approved by state lawmakers just because federal approval had not yet been achieved.

“Section 5 prevents a state plan from being implemented if it has not been precleared,” the Justices ruled. “But that does not mean that the plan is of no account or that the policy judgments it reflects can be disregarded by a district court drawing an interim plan. On the contrary, the state plan serves as a starting point for the district court.”

Our Republican Legislators include “minorities.” The judges ignored that all minorities turned more toward the Republicans in 2010.

Does Texas ‘informed consent’ law signal a successful new strategy against abortion? : News Headlines – Catholic Culture

Knowledge is power. Especially when it comes to Courts and lawyers. Knowing that the baby who might be aborted is not just a lifeless “tissue” or “product of pregnancy” is bound to change hearts and minds. Someday, abortion will be thought of in the same way that we think of slavery.

Legal scholar Hadley Arkes believes that the groundwork for a powerful challenge to legal abortion has been laid, in a judicial decision affirming the “informed consent” law in Texas.

Judge Edith Jones wrote a carefully reasoned decision in Texas Medical Providers v. Lakey, Arkes writes. Her decision, emphasizing that the new Texas law does not place any barriers in front of a woman seeking an abortion, is very likely to withstand a Supreme Court challenge, Arkes believes.

Beyond the judicial sphere, the Texas precedent should encourage legislators to consider bills that protect the unborn without directly challenging the Roe v. Wade precedent, Arkes suggests.

That move is bound to set off crippling tensions within the party of abortion in Congress. They are the tensions that could make that party come apart, and bring us to the beginning of the End.

via Does Texas ‘informed consent’ law signal a successful new strategy against abortion? : News Headlines – Catholic Culture.

Texas has already determined that it’s wise to regulate doctors, medicines and surgical procedures. In the case of the abortion laws and sonogram requirements, the rules for action are placed on the doctor doing the procedures. The doctor is the only one being “made” to do anything.

We have a 2005 State law mandating 24 hour waiting period and a set of steps to ensure that the patient, the woman who is going to have an abortion, receives thorough informed consent.  Texas also protects other patients with regulations requiring specific informed consent for sterilizations, hysterectomies, radiation therapy and electric shock therapy. These procedures are often performed on patients who may be vulnerable to outside influence (by the doctor or family members pr social expectations) and all carry risks of permanent harm and consequences that the patient should know about.

The Sonogram Bill ensures that the woman seeking an abortion will meet the doctor who will perform the abortion and that the physician will tell her the status of her pregnancy and the development of baby, all before she’s sedated and in a gown, before she’s up in the stirrups.

Who would go for any treatment without first meeting the doctor? Would you consider it “punishment” or “shaming,” much less based on some “religious value” to enforce Texas’ similar informed consent laws for patients about to undergo radiation therapy, electric shock therapy, or a hysterectomy? Where’s the outrage about shaming or frightening the smoker when the doc sits down to explain why you need bypass surgery?

Would any one argue that the man who goes in for radiation therapy does not know that he might have cancer cells remaining in his body? Or that a woman doesn’t know that she won’t ever be able to have children again if she has a hysterectomy? (We’ll skip the problems with consent for electric shock therapy.)

The Bill is reminds me of our earlier fights to allow patients to own their own medical information, to make our own choices with full, informed consent. It’s patronizing to tell women seeking abortion that they don’t need to see their own sonogram or to consider sharing her medical information with her as interference by the State.

‘You Know What’s Despicable? Beheading Daniel Pearl’ @GovernorPerry

Go watch the video, it’s impressive. “I saw a reduction of force  . . .and the results of it in the sands of Iran in 1979. Never again.”

Rick Perry sounded off on what he called the Obama administration’s “disdain” for America’s servicemen and women. He then addressed the video that surfaced of Marines urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters, saying that these “young men made a mistake.” He then asserted, “The fact of the matter is this, when the Secretary of Defense calls that a despicable act … Let me tell you what’s utterly despicable. Cutting Danny Pearl’s head off and showing the video of it. Hanging our contractors from bridges. That’s utterly despicable.”

via Perry on Marines Peeing on Taliban: ‘You Know What’s Despicable? Beheading Daniel Pearl’ – Rick Perry – Fox Nation.

Immigration Proposal Not Seen as Major Step —The Texas Tribune

Paging Libertarian Ron Paul: What do you think. Is this a major step? The Obama Admin plans to let people apply for mini-amnesty from this side of the border.

This waiver won’t fit all 11 million (typo in the article says 11.2 total), but 24,000 made this sort of application from their home country last year. Any bets on how quickly fraud will rear up on this scheme?

Current law mandates that illegal immigrants applying for legal status must return to their home country to do so. Once there, they are barred from re-entering the United States for either three or 10 years, depending on the length of their unauthorized stay.

But immigrants can apply for a waiver that allows them re-entry during the process if they can prove that their separation is causing extreme hardship for spouses or parents who are U.S. citizens. The new proposal would allow the applicant to apply for the waiver before leaving the country; if granted, the applicant could return to the U.S. during the visa application process.

via Immigration Proposal Not Seen as Major Step — Immigration | The Texas Tribune.

BTW, read the odd comments about “nuts with machine guts.”

5th US Court of Appeals: Texas may enforce abortion law

Wonderful news! The sonogram bill will be enforced as it winds its way through to the Supreme Court. For my critique of the very poor reasoning of the Federal judge who delayed enforcement, see this.

Will post the link to the ruling when it’s available.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Texas abortion law passed last year that requires doctors to show sonograms to patients can be enforced while opponents challenge the measure in court, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks’ temporary order against enforcing the law, saying Sparks was incorrect to rule that doctors had a substantial chance of winning their case.

Sparks ruled in Austin in August that several provisions of the state law violated the free-speech rights of doctors who perform abortions by making them to show and describe the images and describe the fetal heartbeat — all of which doctors have said is not necessary for good treatment.

The appeals court cited a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “upheld an informed-consent statute over precisely the same ‘compelled speech’ challenges made” in the current Texas case.

Earlier rulings have found that laws requiring doctors to give “truthful, nonmisleading and relevant” information are reasonable regulation, not ideological speech requiring strict scrutiny under the First Amendment,” the appeals court said.

“‘Relevant’ informed consent may entail not only the physical and psychological risks to the expectant mother facing this ‘difficult moral decision,’ but also the state’s legitimate interests in ‘protecting the potential life within her,'” Chief Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the appeals’ decision.

via The Associated Press: Appeals court: Texas may enforce abortion law.

Supreme Court Busy Today: Texas Redistricting, EPA, Election Law, Speech

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has ruled (by refusing to take the case) on at least one important election law dispute and will hear arguments on Texas redistricting, whether the EPA can use the Clean Water Act to control all water and even shut down construction of homes on private property and (as explained by the Wall Street Journal), “broadcasters be able to air whatever the &#%@ they want?”

There are complaints that the first case, Bluman v. Federal Election Commission, which will in effect uphold a ban on political contributions by non-citizens of the United States is inconsistent in light of Citizens United ruling of a couple of years ago that allowed corporations, including non-profits like the pro-life Citizens United to accept donations and make political statements. I’m concerned about the problems related to reporting contributions to the corporations or non-profits, but agree with the basic premise that there should not be any limits to political speech by US citizens, other than those in the Constitution (and the Declaration of Independence, on which it’s based). I believe that it’s logical to discriminate between US-based corporations and foreign citizens or corporations.

As to the Texas Redistricting case, I hope someone reminds SCOTUS that some of our Republican Legislators are Hispanic!

The Path Forward @GovernorPerry and the GOP Primaries

Governor Rick Perry has decided to follow the path to New Hampshire and South Carolina, calling the race for GOP candidate for President a “marathon” in a post to Twitter on Wednesday morning.

He is planning for the back to back debates in New Hampshire on January 7th and 8th in advance of the Primary on Tuesday, January 10th, and then to head on to South Carolina for debates and that State’s Primary.

I’m afraid that the Iowa Caucus was all for show, or as one of the people we called this week said, “a circus.” The second and third votes for Delegates were the real policymakers, but even few Iowans understand that their approval of Paulers and Romneyites negated their vote for Santorum or Gingrich.

I’m Interviewed about @GovernorPerry in IA Patch

Rick Perry: Beverly Nuckols, a doctor from New Braunfels, Texas, was among a group of supporters watching results come in at the Texas govenor’s party at the Sheraton West Des Moines.

Dozens of people milled about the main lobby of the hotel and also in the Des Moines Room, where Perry’s disappointing results were flashed across flat panel televisions.

Nuckols arrived from Texas on Wednesday and spoke for the man at a West Des Moines caucus location before coming to the hotel. “I do believe in the man,” she said.

The doctor and pro-life advocate said Perry has a good understanding of bioethics issues.

Perry came out and addressed his supporters in the Sheraton late into the evening thanking the group that had come from more than 30 states to support him. He read a letter from a supporter surrounded by his wife, Anita, and their children and then said that he didn’t run because he thought be would become president, but that he wanted to serve his nation one last time.

“Our country is in trouble,” Perry said. “Our country is not really on the track we want it to be on.”

But with the voters decision in Iowa he said that he would return to Texas and assess the caucus results and “determine whether there is a path forward for myself.”

via UPDATE: Mood at Candidates’ Election Night Parties Varies Greatly – Iowa City, IA Patch.

@GovernorPerry MSM Loves Abortion and Hates a Texas White House

Every time I convince myself that the MSM hates Governor Rick Perry because they don’t want to spend time a hundred miles from nowhere (or 200 miles from Dallas), they remind me that the real problem is the Governor’s core values.

The fuss this time is due to Governor Perry’s statement recognizing that the children of rape and incest are human enough to deserve society’s protection from intentional, elective killing. Last night I wrote about Rachel Maddow’s mad rantings concerning abortion and the children of rape or incest. Today,  (while breaking with the rest of the media in choosing to use the term, “pro-life,” rather than the usual “anti-choice”) WFAA-TV in Dallas made sure that we understand that the Governor “enjoys deep support among pro-life groups, and signed their favored sonogram bill into law earlier this year.” Not only that, but,

“Pro-choice groups and many Democrats say they will keep fighting the sonogram law.

“”This will probably lead to a law saying that if a 14-year-old victim of incest wants to get an abortion, she would then have to submit to a sonogram, which is one of the most invasive procedures this legislature has come up with,” said Andy Brown, chairman of the Travis County Democratic Party.”

via Perry’s tougher abortion stance: What does it mean for Texas? | wfaa.com Dallas – Fort Worth.

I would like to commend WFAA for using the term, “pro-life.” Thank you, WFAA!

Disclaimer: I’m on the Board of Directors of the Texas Alliance for Life, mentioned in the article. And yes, we’d like to see all children, including those of victims of rape and incest, protected at least as much as the eggs of birds on the Endangered Species List.

CMS overturns Texas’ abortion provider exclusion @GovernorPerry

The Houston Chronicle article (not available when I wrote this earlier post) implies that the ruling from CMS is much more far-reaching than I’d thought. Our laws prohibiting State funds going to anyone who provides abortions may be overturned. This looks like it goes farther than simply disapproving of the priorities we placed on allocating our funds. It appears that Obama has decided that we can’t continue to make recipients of Texas funds sign a contract to not perform or refer for abortions.

If this is true, women can get prenatal care and teen girls can get their vaccinations in the same building where their neighbor is having her unborn baby killed! Or Texas can refuse Medicaid funds.

Texas will no longer be allowed to prohibit Medicaid recipients from receiving care at family planning clinics that perform abortions, the federal government informed the state Monday.

Arguing that the Social Security Act prohibits states from excluding such clinics, the federal agency that runs the program informed Texas that next year it will not approve an agreement like the one now in place in Texas.

“The issue is … whether a state can restrict access to a qualified health provider simply because they provide other services Medicaid doesn’t pay for,” Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, said in a phone interview with reporters. “The law does not permit this.”

Mann stressed that Medicaid “does not pay for abortions and will not pay for abortions.” She said the agency will extend Texas’ current agreement through March while negotiating a new one.

In a statement, Gov. Rick Perry responded that President Barack Obama is making women “pay the price for its pro-abortion agenda.”

“I am concerned the Obama Administration is playing politics by holding women’s health care hostage because of Texas’ pro-life policies, sacrificing the health of millions of Texas women,” said Perry.

Since 2006, Texas has provided low-income women 18 to 44 with family planning exams, related health screenings and birth control through the Medicaid Women’s Health Program. Last year, it provided services to more than 180,000 women, with 90 percent of its funds coming from the federal government and the rest from the state.

via Texas abortion provider exclusion blocked – Houston Chronicle.

Obama to Texas: Fund PP or no Well Woman money

The Obama Administration has told Texas that our State is not allowed to decide who will provide medical care under Title X Family Planning and Well Woman funds. The Administration has recently ruled in a similar manner for other States. (

This in spite of the fact that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) did give Texas a waiver allowing Texas to move all Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries to doctors in managed care plans. The managed care plans, along with cooperative coalitions between hospital systems and the doctors they will pay for seeing managed care patients, is consistent with the plans laid out in “Obamacare.” Evidently, so is Planned Parenthood’s survival.

CMS claims in this letter to Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission that we’re limiting the choices of the women because the State prioritized where to spend our money and who to pay for healthcare, beginning with county clinics and hospital districts, followed by doctors and clinics that provide comprehensive, continuing care. Since we only have so much money, our Legislature decided to support the most vital care givers. Even though we don’t specifically write in law that “Planned Parenthood, Inc., need not apply,” CMS doesn’t like our plan.

CMS was asked to give a “waiver” to Texas since the funding is outside normal Medicaid rules, because it funds care for adults who are not at the rock-bottom income levels. Texas also has a waiver in order to use funds for prenatal care, justified by counting the unborn child. (The pro-aborts have protested over and over that the mother, not her child, should be the one we count and that she should be allowed to use the money for any “reproductive services,” including abortion, that she wants.)

Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life have both issued statements opposing the CMS ruling.

From Joe Pojman, Ph.D., TAL’s Executive Director:

“We believe the State of Texas has every right to deny millions of tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, which is what the Texas Legislature and Governor Perry has chosen to do,” he said. “Senate Bill 7, passed last summer during a special legislative session, prohibits Medicaid tax dollars under the Women’s Health Program from going to abortion providers and their affiliated organizations.”

“This bill excludes several dozen Planned Parenthood sites from the Women’s Health Program, but it does not exclude any other hundreds of Women’s Health Program providers in Texas. Many of the other providers offer comprehensive primary and preventative care to low- income women in addition to family planning, which Planned Parenthood is unable or unwilling to provide,” he continued. “By threatening to cancel the Women’s Health Program in Texas, the Obama Administration is showing it would sooner deny tens of millions of dollars of medical services to low-income women rather than allow the State of Texas to cut off tax funding to Planned Parenthood.”

Addendum: this article from the Houston Chronicle (I quoted from it here) which implies that the ruling may go so far as to overturn our long-standing law that requires providers to sign a contract affirming that they don’t perform or refer for abortions.

Conservatives on my mind (Revision of earlier post) @governorperry

Conservatives understand that we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Personally, I’m reluctant to criticize Republican candidates before even one vote is cast in the Primaries. But Conservatives also know that if we ignore our principles for expediency, we risk losing both. if we learned anything in 2008, that is.

Even Erick Erickson of Red State says he’s ready to go “none of the above.” But “none of the above” won’t cut it this year. We are fighting an incumbent that is almost guaranteed the black, gay and pro-abort vote, not to mention all of the many people who can only survive by the redistribution of tax money!

We have an opportunity to vote our principles in Rick Perry. If you can’t bear Governor Perry or don’t believe his experience in governing Texas is indicative of his ability to govern the United States, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum are good options. In contrast, Gingrich or Romney would just be the latest version of “it’s his turn.” We need the consistency and the radical DC outsider that is Rick Perry.

I know that many Conservatives have either been divorced and remarried or have loved ones who have been divorced. Others have family members who are homosexuals. We might even have family members who have been convicted of crimes – and I’m not saying that either of the first two are crimes. However, we understand that messy personal lives are not the ideal, and we prefer that our leaders be someone that we can not only admire, but who will demonstrate that they hold – and live – our principles as their own.

The Newt is everything that we have been fighting since McCain was nominated. The ability to debate does not equate to the ability to govern.He has been selling himself as the next in line, ever since Obama’s inauguration, according to the report in the Real Clear Politics’ Election 2012: the Battle Begins. The story is that Gingrich hosted a dinner for Republicans on the night of the inauguration.

Worse, if Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee, we won’t have the family values and principles that the base of the Conservative Republicans have rallied ’round. I’m not sure his history of serial adultery can stand up to opposition of same sex marriage. If marriage is plastic enough to support Newt’s history, then why not?

I’d like to believe the Catholic conversion that went along with this latest marriage is a good place to reset Newt’s sexual morality and ethical credentials. However, Gingrich can’t even stay on point on when life begins, telling us one thing on Friday and begging Catholics to tell us he meant something else on Sunday.

If Conservative bloggers are willing to go with pretty talk, will Conservative voters follow? I don’t think so. I believe that the TEA Party has proven that we are outside the influence of Party politics. We work from the Republican Party only as long as the Republican Party will honor our principles and at least appear to support *us.*

I am somewhat afraid that the TEA Party is too busy deciding whether personal lives and a true understanding of first principles – life, liberty, “first do no harm” – are important if their property is secured. I’ve watched in disbelief as uncertainty about the flavor of the month’s views on abortion, when life begins, true marriage and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is justified because of some mistaken idea that giving up ideology will give us the White House.

It’s indeed time to make the decision to support principles or not. But few of us will vote in New Hampshire, Iowa or South Carolina. Our choice of which candidate to support is only urgent if we are blogging, writing, advocating and donating money.

Whether your biggest fear is that Obama wins, or that Romney wins, the next 2 or 3 months are the time to support Conservatives. Don’t choose to advocate for or donate to the “electable” candidate long before your own before your primary, for pity’s sake!

Edited at 15:00, 12/8/11 to add last 3 paragraphs, and on December 25 to correct mispelling.

@GovernorPerry to Blitz: “You guys are a bigger pain than the back surgery.”

Governor Rick Perry was grilled by Wolf Blitzer on CNN‘s Situation Room on Wednesday, December 7, with frequent interruptions and repetitious questions. (Full transcript, here.) “Blitz” once again earned the nickname given to him by Herman Cain.

The Houston Chronicle, which leans far to the left, reported on the interview in a blog entry entitled, “Perry talks about pain meds, gay Scouts and the VP job”