Texas

WILLisms.com: Texas’ Interest Payments On Government Debt: Third Lowest In America.

See more of this post at WILLisms.com: Texas’ Interest Payments On Government Debt: Third Lowest In America..

Texas also has the second lowest state debt as a percentage of personal income.

While it is true that voters in Texas have approved far more bond debt, mostly for roads, in the past decade (voters, even conservative Texas voters, tend to vote “yes” to almost any shiny objects on the ballot), those bonds are at least paid for with fees and assessments, and they are targeted and temporary, for specific purposes like infrastructure.

Texas has seen its non-self-supporting debt (the kind that gets you in trouble because the money is spent on who-knows-what and there’s no mechanism for paying back the borrowing) fall significantly in recent years, to the tune of roughly 16%.

Forbes ranks Texas number four (meaning, one of the best) on its debt weight scorecard, and gives Texas four stars out of four for avoiding a state debt disaster. All this, and Texas remains a donor state, contributing more in taxes to Washington than it receives back in federal benefits.

Moreover, while America got downgraded under President Obama, Texas got a credit upgrade under Rick Perry.

via WILLisms.com: Texas’ Interest Payments On Government Debt: Third Lowest In America..

Governor Perry wants to be President | Mark Halperin’s Interview with Rick Perry

Governor Perry says he wants to be President in video with Time’s Mark Halperin.

Perry says S&P downgrade of U.S. validates his approach | Texas Politics | a Chron.com blog

The National Conference of State Legislatures is a very good way to stay and/or get up to date on issues.

Perry says S&P downgrade of U.S. validates his approach

Sounding increasingly like a candidate for national office, Gov. Rick Perry told the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting in San Antonio this morning that Standard & Poor’s recent downgrade of United States investments validated his administration’s frugal approach to government.

The rating agency’s action came because of “a reckless culture” of out of control spending in Washington D.C. “piled on our next generation’s credit card,” Perry said. Referring often to the “economic turbulence” buffeting the country, he declared that the U.S. was experiencing “one of our darkest hours.”

“You can’t tax and spend your way to prosperity,” he said, hitting hard on the theme of his 2010 book, “Fed Up!”

In his most descriptive and passionate moment in the 20-minute talk, Perry noted that Texas has created 40 percent of the nation’s net new jobs, though it is home to only eight percent of the U.S. population. Job loss, he said, creates many social ills including “an entire generation losing faith in the American dream.”

Perry, who committed to speak to the group of about 1,300 legislators and their staff long before he began considering a presidential campaign, earned a standing ovation and moderate enthusiasm from the bipartisan crowd.

via Perry says S&P downgrade of U.S. validates his approach | Texas Politics | a Chron.com blog.

Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Gov. Perry: Fiscal Responsibility is Essential for Prosperity and Job Creation

Gov. Rick Perry touted Texas’ strong economy and job creation, and discussed the importance of fiscal responsibility at all levels of government. The governor delivered the keynote speech at the National Conference of State Legislatures Legislative Summit (NCSL).

“Jobs are the fundamental building blocks of any community, and over the last two years, 40 percent of the net new jobs created in the United States were created in Texas,” Gov. Perry said. “That’s why we continue to make the tough choices that all states and the federal government should be making. We passed a balanced budget while maintaining essential services, kept taxes low and preserved more than $6 billion in our Rainy Day Fund.”

Gov. Perry noted that government doesn’t create jobs, it creates the environment for jobs to grow. He credited Texas’ economic strength to our state’s low taxes, reasonable and predictable regulatory climate, fair legal system and skilled workforce.

“Employers fleeing the over-taxing, over-regulating and over-litigating atmosphere that has taken hold in so many other states come to Texas because we’ve cultivated a culture that rewards innovation without all the red tape,” Gov. Perry said.

via Office of the Governor Rick Perry – [Press Release] Gov. Perry: Fiscal Responsibility is Essential for Prosperity and Job Creation.

UPDATE 1-Republican tax hardliners on US debt super panel | Reuters

Pray for Texas’ Representative Jeb Hensarling. He will co-chair with Patty Murray.

In a move that could deadlock the 12-member panel over taxes, but perhaps set the stage for changes later, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell named Tea Party ally Patrick Toomey to the panel with Jon Kyl and Rob Portman.

The panel is known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction and was established to find $1.5 trillion in additional budget savings over 10 years, but markets have been looking for signs that it may be able to do more.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, appointed Dave Camp, who chairs the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, along with conservative “young gun” Jeb Hensarling and Fred Upton.

via UPDATE 1-Republican tax hardliners on US debt super panel | Reuters.

Perry Sounds Optimistic Tone On Economic Outlook – San Antonio & Texas News Story – KSAT San Antonio

Optimism is good in a leader.

SAN ANTONIO — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is calling the nation’s economic turmoil a national nightmare. But he’s also saying the country’s brightest days are ahead.

His optimistic tone in a speech to a conference of state legislators made him sound very much like the GOP presidential candidate he’s all but certain to become in the coming days.

Perry promised to work with governors and lawmakers to — in his words — return power to the states, where he said it belongs.

He called himself a West Texas optimist during one of the country’s darkest hours.

And he said “our brightest hour is just around the corner.”

via Perry Sounds Optimistic Tone On Economic Outlook – San Antonio & Texas News Story – KSAT San Antonio.

Doggett layoff author opposes Perry

Big surprise: Lloyd Doggett doesn’t like Perry. I guess he’s given up on winning his primary against one of the Castro twins (I can’t tell them apart), so he’s going to spend time campaigning against the Governor who wouldn’t lie for money.

ABC.news has a blog entry explaining the details, here.

Doggett’s the creator of the Doggett layoff, causing school districts all over the Nation to layoff teachers. Doggett was the author of the amendment to part of a stimulus bill, refusing money to Texas education by setting specific, individual requirements for Texas that no other State must meet and that go against Texas’ Constitution. Doggett repeatedly claimed at the time that claiming the Governor could lie and violate the State Constitution if he wanted the money badly enough.Doggett kept repeating that the requirements weren’t “unConstitutional.”

Last year, I met with this man with a group of doctors about graduate medical education, identifying as a doctor interested in primary care, not as a Republican. He assumed he could talk freely to us and literally shook with fury when he criticized Conservatives and the Tea Party. Claims Republicans don’t think for ourselves and only listen to Fox news and Limbaugh.

And yet, here I am reading ABC.news and there he is spouting his hate for conservatives. Well, he won’t be unopposed this election – and he’ll have a great panel of Conservatives vying to run against him on the Republican ticket, too.

Mona Charen: Gov. Perry right to question skyrocketing cost of college | The Daily News Journal | dnj.com

Governor Perry takes on the Academic elites:

“Between 1978 and 1997, home prices increased annually at about the same rate as general prices, but then appreciated at a faster pace over the next decade. In the ten-year period starting in 1997, home prices increased by 68 percent, or more than twice the 29 percent increase in overall prices, and that home price appreciation caused an unsustainable housing bubble that burst in 2007 and contributed to the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

During that same 1997-2007 decade that home prices increased by 68 percent and created a housing bubble, college tuition and fees rose even higher — by 83 percent. In fact, college tuition and fees have never increased by less than 73 percent in any ten-year period back to the 1980s. And in the decades ending in 2009 and 2010, college tuition increased by more than 90 percent. The still-inflating increases in the price of higher education are starting to make the housing bubble look pretty tame by comparison.”

In addition to suggesting that tuition be reduced, a panel appointed by Governor Perry suggested that professors were “wasting time and money churning out esoteric, unproductive research.” Shocking. The panel suggested dividing the research and teaching budgets to encourage excellence in both, while also introducing merit pay for exceptional classroom teachers.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that students are flocking to colleges and universities in flat, freezing North Dakota to take advantage of lower tuition rates. Enrollment at public colleges has jumped 38 percent in the last decade, led by a 56 percent increase in out of state students. Colleges around the nation, the Journal advises, must now compete for a new kind of student: “the out-of-state bargain hunter.”

via Charen: Gov. Perry right to question skyrocketing cost of college | The Daily News Journal | dnj.com.

(Hat Tip to tweet from @TotalProfMove

Why I support the Texas DREAM Act

I was the first in my family to graduate from college, much less to go to Medical school. I believe I was blessed by attending Texas elementary and high school, Tyler junior college, UT at Tyler, and then Med school and residency in San Antonio, Texas. I’m grateful, knowing that a “non-traditional student” (an older woman with a family) couldn’t have done that in any place but the USA and Texas. No one took my place or squeezed my kids out of a good education, even though we live in a small city where more than 50% of the surnames are of Spanish origin and we know that we have kids of illegal aliens in our schools.

Our law in Texas, (unofficially called The Texas DREAM Act after the failed Federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors), allows a young adult — who was brought here as a minor through no fault of his own – to be counted as a resident only for calculating tuition rates in our State-supported colleges. The Federal residency or citizenship requirements do not change for someone going to college under this provision. Young people who finish at least 3 years of high school, get their diploma from a Texas high school, have lived in Texas the 12 months before applying, and who get admitted to a Texas college, pay in-state tuition. In contrast to what we often hear, the law doesn’t discriminate against legal aliens from other states: rather than 3 years of residency, they only have to live in Texas for one year to establish residency and it doesn’t matter where they went to high school.

In order to continue to qualify for in-State tuition rates, he must pass his classes, take a full or near-full load and promise to formally apply for legal residency status as soon as Federal law allows.

The “Texas DREAM Act” is the law in our state and was passed with veto-proof numbers by the Texas Legislature over 10 years ago, in 2001. HB 1403 passed in the Senate with 29 “yeas,”no “Nays.” It received 130 votes in favor in the House.   The text of the Bill is, here.  The Texas Legislature has never repealed the DREAM Act, although it was revised and made stricter in 2005 with SB 1528. That Bill also appeared veto-proof, with 31 votes in the Senate, and a non-recorded vote in the House.  This year, the sole attempt by Senator Birdwell to increase tuition for undocumented students failed to make it out of the 82^nd Legislature’s Senate, even when he tried to tie an amendment onto the larger Education Bill.

On most immigration subjects, I’m probably to the right of many people. I would insist that adults who cross the border illegally must go back to their country of origin before beginning any path to citizenship or residency. They should start the process on the other side of the border — *especially* if they have an anchor baby as proof that they have already broken our laws.  No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

In fact, I’m all for identifying adults who came here illegally, breaking our laws and for deporting the whole family until they can get in line and come here legally. Otherwise, we are encouraging people to break the law over and over. They go “underground” and are vulnerable. As a consequence, young people often graduate from our high schools truly “undocumented” in either country.

However, Federal law interferes with any attempt by the State to stop the problem where it begins. The Feds won’t deport people. They won’t allow us to identify those illegal adults with kids in our schools and deport them. Federal Courts have ruled that we must bend over backwards to prevent any appearance of scrutiny that might “chill” the educational prospects of any child, from preschool to high school graduation.  In spite of all these limits on what the States can do, there’s no Federal attempt at a legal provision for identifying their country of origin.

So, until we can get the federal law changed to better control and deport known adult illegal aliens, do we Texans encourage their identification as (grateful) United States Americans and Texans or do we make them men and women without a country?

Rick Perry is against embryonic stem cell research, but he wants Texas to be center of stem cell advances | Texas on the Potomac | a Chron.com blog

The Governor has always opposed unethical destructive stem cell research, but Representative Hardcastle changed his mind on embryonic stem cells and cloning this year.

Hardcastle said the governor’s office didn’t ask him to carry it — as the only member of the Legislature with MS, he said, it’s been on his mind for “a long time” — but one of the governor’s staffers did advise him on it. Somewhat involved, Hardcastle said, was Jones, who has already removed some of Hardcastle’s stem cells to prepare them for re-injection.

A spokeswoman with the Health and Human Services Commission said the agency is in the very early stages of considering whether to create the stem cell bank. A few weeks ago, the agency received a letter from Houston Reps. Beverly Woolley, a Republican, and Senfronia Thompson, a Democrat, expressing their “serious concern” with the measure, for fear it might hinder the work of public and private scientists.

Meanwhile, Texas Medical Board spokeswoman Leigh Hopper said the regulatory agency held a stem cell stakeholder meeting last week — “at the governor’s behest, via Dr. Jones” — to start dialogue about adult stem cell treatments in Texas. The question? If Americans are — like Jones — increasingly flying all over the world to get promising stem cell treatments, shouldn’t Texas be a scientific and economic center for it?

via Rick Perry is against embryonic stem cell research, but he wants Texas to be center of stem cell advances | Texas on the Potomac | a Chron.com blog.

Texanomics: Texas Wage Growth Faster than Other Big States and US

Pretty graph!

Texanomics: Texas Wage Growth Faster than Other Big States and US.

Dose of Reason: Perry and Gardasil

Bear with me, this isn’t a “sound bite” subject.

(Edit 8/23/11: The opt out is for 2 years, not 1. BBN )

The Human Papilloma Virus is an infection, and should not be a moral issue. In contrast, the vaccine against four strains of the virus, Gardasil, has become a political issue, even though the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now recommends it for all boys and girls.

Governor Rick Perry has been criticized for his February, 2007 Executive Order that made the vaccine mandatory for girls before entering the 6^th grade. Very little is said about the part of the EO that affirmed the right of and facilitated parents who wish to “opt out” of not only Gardasil, but other vaccines as well.

We expect the Governor to direct the people that he appoints, right?  The Governor is responsible for management of the Executive Branch, including the Department of State Health Services. He appoints the head of the DSHS, who supervises the people who decide which vaccines will be mandatory. Texas’ Legislature modified Chapter 38.001 of the Texas Education Code over the years to mandate certain vaccines and allow the DSHS to add other mandated vaccines without Legislative oversight.  Just before the Gardasil controversy, the Department had mandated Chicken Pox and Hepatitis A, which are both manufactured using cultures of human fetal tissue obtained at an abortion.

The Governor’s Executive Order (RP 65) that caused all the controversy also ordered the director of DSHS to make it easier for parents to opt out of vaccines. The Legislature had changed the law from “opt in” to a requirement to “opt out” once for all the school years. Next, they changed to a two year limit on the opt out, and then in 2005, the Legislature restricted the period to one year and required a new State form bearing a “seal.” Parents had to go to Austin or start early in the summer. There were bureaucrats who maintained that the only way to get the form with the seal was to go to Austin, find the right office and make the request in person.  Perry used his EO to tell the Director of DSHS to make the request (and the seal) available on-line, making it easier to “opt out.”

In fact, the reason for the Executive Order was to speed up private insurance coverage and to make it easier for parents to exercise their right to opt out.

The Federal government doesn’t have the authority to mandate vaccines in the States.  Not yet, not exactly. However, thirty days after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended the vaccine, Texas was required by Federal law to buy and distribute the vaccine in the “Vaccines for Children” program.  The program provides vaccines without cost to uninsured children up to age 21, those who are insured by Medicaid, and those whose private insurance does not pay for vaccines at all. In effect, the only families who have to pay for Gardasil – for whom the State of Texas will not pay, anyway, under Federal law – are those whose private insurance will only pay for mandated vaccines.

Gardasil is manufactured the same way that insulin for diabetics is made these days: using recombinant DNA. In this case, common bakers’ yeast makes the proteins that cause the immune response. Gardasil had been thoroughly studied even in 2007, and is not only included in the Vaccines for Children program, it is the most-requested vaccine for girls. We are even seeing cross-protection from other strains.  It has recently been recommended for boys. The recommended time to give the HPV vaccine is at 11 or 12 years old, when children are scheduled to receive other shots (tetanus and MMR boosters) and before they were likely to be infected.

The only reason that we do “Pap smears” (the papanicolaou test) is to look for changes in the cell nuclear DNA of the cervix, the opening to the uterus or womb. Over the last 15 years, we have found that 99.7% of these changes are due to HPV infections. In the US, 70% of cervical cancers are caused by HPV 16 and 18. (50% by HPV 16.) These are the two types of HPV that result in the most damage and cost, due to repeat paps and the subsequent biopsies, freezing, “LEEP,” or other treatments in which the surface of the cervix (the opening to the uterus or womb) is burned off to remove cancerous and pre-cancerous cells. These treatments lead to infertility and premature births.

Because 15% of girls begin sex before age 15 and half of girls who have sex before 20 say their first time was involuntary, the first trial of Gardasil involved 1200 girls between the ages of 9 and 15. The girls 15 and under had a better response to the vaccine than the older girls and women 16 and above. The researchers compared blood levels of antibodies. The research ethics committee ensured that no paps or pelvics were done on the young girls. (Every one of the young women under the age of 21 when I sent them for colposcopy for cancerous changes had been raped before they were 15 years old.)

The reports of deaths and injuries from Gardasil are poorly documented. The great majority of the adverse effects in the reports include pain, redness, and tingling at the injection site and fainting and headaches. People often faint and complain of headaches after seeing a needle, even without being stuck. It looks awful sometimes, like a seizure. The FDA has ruled that none of the deaths that have been confirmed were caused by the vaccine. In addition, this article from the Canadian Medical Association Journal contains a table showing the numbers of serious events and the numbers of deaths in several studies on the use of the HPV vaccine.

Remember your statistics classes. With 33 million doses, there are bound to be deaths that coincide with the timing of the vaccine use. The teen death rate from all causes is 62 per 100,000 across the US. Most of those are boys, but still: In 10 million girls, 30 deaths are not outside the rate for the age group. They are tragic, but consistent with life on this Earth.

More likely the girls who had severe reactions or death had other risk factors, due to the population presenting to clinics giving the vaccine: those who present with worries about STD’s, the newly sexually active and those entering college. The records show that many were given new scripts at the same visit for birth control pills and other vaccines and medicines, according to the analyses in the medical literature. (Also, remember the silicon, SSRI, and the general vaccine scares that have been blown out of proportion through the years and later proven to be untrue.)

The reports on the possible vaccine-related deaths are available for viewing at” the “Vaccine Adverse Event Report Site” (VAERS),(drop down to the table at the middle of the Page, option #3) using “HPV4” (This is the Merck vaccine), at Option#4, check “YES” at “life threatening” (or you could check “death”) and (top of page)”Sort by submission date.”

Here’s a few examples:

    Administered by: Unknown  Purchased by: Unknown Symptoms: Adverse reaction Write-up: It was reported from an article, published on 29-JUN-2009 that there were “hundreds” of life-threatening reactions said to be associated with GARDASIL. This is one of several reports received from the same source. Attempts are being made to obtain additional identifying information to distinguish the individual patients mentioned in this report. Additional information will be provided if available.

Another:

FINAL DX: Hodgkins lymphoma, nodular sclerosing, stage IIA. Records reveal patient was pale & had firm left clavicular lymph node. Excisional biopsy done 7/23/09 revealed diagnosis. Tx w/chemotherapy & possibly radiation tx when chemo completed.

And another:

    Write-up: Vaccine was administered, patient became dizzy 30 seconds after shot. Patient was pale, diaphoretic & nauseous. Symptoms lasted about 45 minutes. BP dropped to 90/50 & pulse to 50/min. 8/20/09 PCP note received DOS 8/4/09. After shots pt became naseated, pale, diaphoretic, dizzy and had difficulty breathing. BP dropped to 90/50 and pulse into the 50’s. Sx lasted ~45 minutes with return to baseline. Vax record states pt “passed out.”

Governor Rick Perry at The Response (video)

Governor Rick Perry spoke at The Response, a prayer meeting held at the Houston Reliant Stadium, without introduction. I watched the Internet live video stream.

News stories said that the big screen only noted, “Rick Perry, Austin, TX.” This was the same sort of identification given the rest of the speakers. There’s a news story and video montage here, at the Austin American Statesman.

There was nothing political in his talk, just prayer, testimony and reading from the Scriptures in Joel, Isaiah, and Ephesians. And he gave a good testimony.

News coverage also said that he had asked the American Family Association, Reverend James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family), John Hagee (of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church) and other groups to organize this meeting long before the media began playing up his name as a possible Presidential contender in 2012.

As I watched the video, I followed the chatter on Twitter (mostly #theresponse, some of the #theresponseusa messages). Maybe 2/3 or more of the messages were from nonbelievers who spent nearly the whole 7 hours mocking the proceedings. The messages were filled with hate and profanity – while claiming that it is Christians who hate. Some of the worst hate messages came during the prayers for Israel.

What a shame – but at least they watched all day, so I won’t call it a waste of their time!

I’m afraid that many of the Internet audience does not understand our motive for praying. Yes, we do ask for help, protection and forgiveness. But the main reason we pray is our gratitude and wish to be one with our Creator and Saviour God.  I wasn’t raised to dance, clap or make showy prayers with my hands in the air, but I appreciate that the people I saw online appeared to be genuine and consistent in their acts of worship.

The protesters online, in Austin, and in Houston claim that the evangelicals represented “hate groups” and a religion that excludes most Americans. Well, they’re wrong. Christianity has some basic rules of conduct, but no one is excluded. It’s not as though we check your pedigree or believe that Christ requires years of study and onerous tasks before you can become a Christian. John 3:16 pretty much tells you what to do, Romans 5:8 tells you why He died for us, and Ephesians 3:14 -21 explains what we were doing today.

John 3:16  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Rom 5:8  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 3:14 – 21  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,   that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,   so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith–that you, being rooted and grounded in love,   may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.   Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
Eph 3:21  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Perry, Palin: fish or cut bait!

It’s time for Governor Sarah Palin and Governor Rick Perry to fish or cut bait. Conservatives must begin the process of forming a coalition that can beat Obama. Like everyone else in the Nation, I’m waiting for an announcement from one or both, declaring their candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.

However, Conservatives must remember that we are first of all Conservatives, not Palin-supporters or Perry-supporters. Our true enemy is big government and threats to our Conservative ideals. We must strive to conduct the 2012 Primary in order to build up and not tear down fellow Conservatives and avoid writing the Dem’s ads or making the progressive spoilers stronger.

Today, Governor Palin “reTweeted” an essay written by one of her supporters on the blog Conservatives4Palin. The article is absolutely more pro-Palin than anti-anyone, and rightly praises her for her accomplishments  in her two years in office in Alaska.  Unfortunately, the fact that she shared the piece is being touted as proof that Governor Palin will run and/or will not endorse Governor Perry.

If we are going to begin to compare the candidates, I would like to see a true comparison that properly evaluates Governor Perry’s 10 years in office:

1. that doesn’t mix liabilities and debt

• Texas has  a Constitution that requires a balanced budget.
• Texas does not allow the Governor a line item veto.
• Occasionally, we have to dip into our “rainy day fund” for Katrina, Rita, Ike, wildfires and other unexpected expenses.
• Governor Perry oversaw two years of hard cuts in Texas, in 2003 and 2011.

2. the equivalent calculation considering relative population through the years and in light of Texas’ originally higher population compounded by growth of approximately 1000 a day, mostly from people who move here from other parts of the US,

3. the relative burden of illegals crossing the Rio Grande

• The Feds impede our State’s attempt to identify and deport illegals.
• We are forced to educate and provide healthcare, food stamps.
• Our State must pay for law enforcement when other crimes are committed.
• Governor Perry has waged constant fights to control our Border. Governor Perry has had to deploy Texas Rangers to assist the Border Patrol,fight off claims that the drug cartels are of no concern in South Texas,finally persuaded the Feds to send us 2 (maybe 3) of 6 unmanned drones and 250 of the grudgingly deployed 1200 National Guard troops sent to assist the Border Patrol, andmanaged to get their stay extended when Obama tried to remove them after less than 6 months.

4. the Federal  Department of Justice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security policy of transporting illegals from all areas of the US to Texas prior to deportation.

• Texas has eleven (11) ICE detention facilities where the detainees are often criminals from other States.  Alaska has none – 0. California, 6 and Arizona, 5.
• The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have been dismissing these cases in large numbers over the last 2 years, releasing illegals into our State.
• Our courts and State bear up under the backlog, with legal costs and law enforcement expenses.
• ICE Detention Centers list here.
•  Here is a Houston Chronicle article on the dismissal of several thousand cases and anticipation of up to 17,000 of 23,000 pending cases last August, 2010. Note these are often people convicted in other States who served time in prison and then transported to the detention centers, according to this article.

(edited at 5 AM, to add note that “Texas does not allow the Governor a line item veto.” BBN)

Open the Doors and Windows to the Ivory Towers – Big Government

More on that fuss about Texas higher ed from Dr. Trowbridge:

A barn burning study last month from Richard Vedder’s Center for College Affordability and Productivity revealed that of the more than 4,200 faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin, the 840 most productive faculty members teach an extraordinary 57 percent of student credit hours, while the least productive 840 members teach only 2 percent of student credit hours.

But this disparity is not the greatest abuse.

Rather it is the fact that of the faculty members outside the 20 percent most productive teachers, the average teaching load is 63 students a year. That borders on semi-retirement – research and publications notwithstanding.

Former Harvard dean Harry Lewis writes in Excellence Without a Soul that universities have shifted priorities to research first, students second. “The ultimate source of this cultural shift,” he writes, “is the replacement of education by research as the university’s principal function.”

But not all research is valuable. John Silber, former dean at UT-Austin and president of Boston University, recently told the Texas Tribune that many products of research “aren’t worth anything.”

Hofstra University law professor Richard Neumann reported at a conference in April that it costs approximately $100,000 for a tenured law professor to publish one article per year and that 43 percent of law review articles are never cited by anyone. In Neumann’s words, “At least a third of these things have no value.”

World Shakespeare Bibliography reports that from 1980 to mid-2010, there were 39,222 scholarly articles published on Shakespeare. Professors can research and publish anything they wish; it’s a free country. But should they be given reduced teaching loads, at student and taxpayer expense, to publish the 39,223rd article?

Lewis reports that “academic presses now publish books selling fewer than 300 copies,” and he quotes a humanities editor as saying that “the demands of productivity are leading to the production of much more nonsense.”

Yet former Harvard president Derek Bok reports in Our Underachieving Colleges that “fewer than half of all professors publish as much as one article per year.”

A September 2010 issue of The Economist reports that “senior professors in Ivy League universities now get sabbaticals every third year rather than every seventh. This year, 20 of Harvard’s history professors will be on leave.” Perhaps one reason universities may not want regents to peek inside the ivory tower is that it’s somewhat empty—with the exception, of course, of adjuncts and young, inexperienced teaching assistants.

via » Open the Doors and Windows to the Ivory Towers – Big Government.

» Higher Education Reform Meets Professor X – Big Government

Wow, what this man exposes! No wonder our Universities and Colleges are so expensive. And no wonder Governor Perry’s recent recommendation that State institutions spend more on teaching and less on research caused such an uproar.

Professor X pulls down a six-figure salary, plus 25 percent in fringe benefits. He teaches two 15-week courses per semester – for a total of 30 weeks per year – and has 22 weeks off.

He says he “works 60 hours a week.” Maybe so, but many of these hours are extraneous to his teaching and focus on outside matters that he wishes to pursue.

With tenure, he has no accountability to students, administrators, or the public. He can confess, with impunity, that his teaching is beyond reproach.

With tenure, he cannot be forced into retirement at any age, but even in retirement, his benefits will be bountiful.

Is there any wonder why college teaching is one of the most coveted positions in the world?

Now here is the sad part: the above prototype is real. There are countless professors like Professor X. I have discovered a great many of them in my five decades of working in higher education.

To be sure, there are thousands of excellent, conscientious, hard-working professors out there, but the educational system enables indolence and abuse, with impunity.

Now here is the key question: How many professors at our colleges and universities are like Professor X?

I don’t know.

But I can also tell you that regents, chancellors, presidents, faculty, students, parents, and the public don’t know either – at least not yet. Awareness is limited to the respective trenches of compartmentalized universities. The history faculty knows who the slackers are in the history department, but not in the physics department. Nor do regents or presidents know who the slackers are because there is no overall accountability.

And naturally, the status quo defenders want to keep it that way.

As I mentioned at the outset, there are charges and countercharges, both sides seeming to be right at the time to the confused public. There is only one way to resolve this conflict: regents must require thorough examination of compartmental trenches in the university and report the results to the subsidizing students and taxpayers. That is beginning to happen in Texas, with predictable howls of indignation from university faculty, administrators, and the alumni elites.

via » Higher Education Reform Meets Professor X – Big Government.

Jeffs delivers proclamation during sentencing phase » Standard-Times

Bravo to the jury for finding this man guilty. Thank you all for your service. Now, put him in jail and throw the key away!

On Thursday, Jeffs, the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was found guilty of one count of sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child. The penalty phase of the trial proceeded almost immediately late Thursday afternoon.

via Jeffs delivers proclamation during sentencing phase » Standard-Times.

New Right to Government Funding?

“Americans will be thrilled to know that the courts have invented a new “right” to government money.”

These are points that need to be clarified: How much control do the people of the State have when money passes from the taxpayers to the Feds, and then back through the State’s Treasury under the State Legislature and does any entity have a “right” to tax funds? In other words (borrowed from something I read somewhere from Justice Rehnquist) are the courts to decide the big issues and only allow the Legislatures to decide small, inconsequential issues?

Today’s Washington Update, an e-mail newsletter from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, reviews a recent legal ruling in a Kansas Court.

The Judge indulged in political speech, himself (“The purpose of the statute was to single out, punish, and exclude Planned Parenthood.”) but he may have a point that Kansas Legislators might not have legal standing to limit the use of Federal Title X (“Title Ten”) family planning funds that come out of Medicaid appropriations. This is a point that needs to be clarified: How much control do the people of the State have when money passes from the taxpayers to the Feds, and then back through the State’s Treasury under the State Legislature?

Here in Texas, there haven’t been any challenges against our new laws that will eventually limit tax payer funds that will go to PP. We worked on Texas’ family planning funds rather than Federal money. We prioritized funds going to hospitals, county health and federally qualified health clinics that provide comprehensive and continuing care for more than one body system. We also tightened up law prohibiting State tax funds from going to any organization or clinic that performs abortions.

The Brief: Top Texas News for Aug. 4, 2011 — Texas News | The Texas Tribune

Governor Rick Perry is quoted as saying, “You know I don’t mind being the first. I like it.”

The Brief: Top Texas News for Aug. 4, 2011 — Texas News | The Texas Tribune.

Susan Combs: The TT Interview — 2014 Statewide Elections | The Texas Tribune

A change of heart? I certainly hope so,and she says that she and her husband have donated to the Austin Crisis Pregnancy Center. I thank her for this conversation and testimony, but I’d like to hear more. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs on “personal responsibility,” but not on the wrong of abortion itself:

Twenty years ago, I was pro-choice, not pro-abortion. I was pro-choice because I had concerns about the role of government. Here we are, you go to 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8, and I am actually stunned to find, in the 21st century, past the year 2000, that we are seeing abortion — which I really thought was rare — being used as a contraceptive. It’s just birth control. I spent some years that I am very proud of, being a prosecutor, handling child abuse and incest cases. And I saved kids. I really did save kids. I really think that I got them a better life.

I don’t know what you can call it but a lack of personal responsibility. If people are having abortions because they’re not taking personal responsibility, I find that just morally repugnant. It has reached such incredible numbers. I have been looking at studies and data and reading books and it is stunning to me. I say this with all seriousness. It is stunning to me that we are at the point in this country where in 2011, you have incredibly high numbers of women choosing to abort rather than have a baby or to have avoided the problem in the first place.

So I am unequivocal about it. I was wrong and it’s 20 years later, and I feel very strongly about it.

via Susan Combs: The TT Interview — 2014 Statewide Elections | The Texas Tribune.

Perry’s Surgery Included Experimental Stem Cell Therapy — Rick Perry | The Texas Tribune

I’ll admit it: this is just cool!  Notice the political and ethical comments from the Texas Tribune:

The governor’s procedure did not involve embryonic stem cells, which he and many other conservatives ardently oppose using for medical research on both religious and moral grounds. His treatment involved removing his own adult stem cells from healthy tissue and injecting them back into his body at the time of surgery, with the belief that the cells would assist tissue regeneration and speed recovery.

via Perry’s Surgery Included Experimental Stem Cell Therapy — Rick Perry | The Texas Tribune.

The FDA, which is in litigation over its authority to regulate new stem cell clinics, has not approved the use of adult stem cells for anything other than bone marrow transplants, which have been used for decades to treat cancer and sickle cell anemia patients. This has largely kept doctors from openly advertising these stem cell injections, but not from capitalizing on them by offering the therapy to their patients.

It also hasn’t stopped Perry from pushing for adult stem cell research and industry in Texas. During the governor’s 2009 State of the State address, he called on state leaders to invest in adult stem cell companies. Later that year, his Emerging Technology Fund awarded a $5 million grant to the Texas A&M Health Science Center Institute of Regenerative Medicine and $2.5 million to Helotes-based America Stem Cell to develop new adult stem cell technology.

Last month, three weeks after his adult stem cell treatment, Perry wrote a letter to the Texas Medical Board, which is considering new rules regarding adult stem cells, saying that he hoped Texas would “become the world’s leader in the research and use of adult stem cells.” He asked board members to “recognize the revolutionary potential that adult stem cell research and therapies have on our nation’s health, quality of life and economy.”

In the weeks since the procedure, the governor has traded his cowboy boots for orthopedic shoes and donned a back brace, raising questions that his recovery may be slow-going. Still, he has traveled extensively; in an interview with The Associated Press last week, Perry said he felt 80 percent recovered and was swimming and using the treadmill.

As for the high cost of such stem cell injections, Miner said that whatever health insurance didn’t pay for, “Perry did.”

In Perry’s procedure, his doctor, Houston orthopedic spine surgeon Stanley Jones, said he pulled stem cells from fatty tissue in the governor’s hip, left the cells to expand in culture for several weeks at a Sugar Land lab, then injected the cells back into the governor during his back surgery, into the spine and into Perry’s blood stream.

Judge Tosses Suit Seeking to Stop Gov. Perry’s Sponsorship of Texas Prayer Rally – FoxNews.com

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop Gov. Rick Perry from sponsoring a national day of Christian prayer and fasting, ruling Thursday that the group of atheists and agnostics did not have legal standing to sue.

U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller said the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued against Perry’s involvement based merely on feelings of exclusion, but did not show sufficient harm to merit the injunction they sought.

“The governor has done nothing more than invite others who are willing to do so to pray,” Miller said.

via Judge Tosses Suit Seeking to Stop Gov. Perry’s Sponsorship of Texas Prayer Rally – FoxNews.com.

DPS caught up (for me, anyway)

The DPS website let me know that my State permit to prescribe has been renewed for another year.Yeayy!

The story is that DPS brought in extra people and have been working nights to put about 3000 delayed permits through their new software before Midnight, August 1.

I’m glad they’re catching up, but I still believe that it was irresponsible for them to install the new software program during what is probably their busiest time of the year, when they knew they’d have less personnel, because of budget cuts and because of vacations, etc.

Texas DPS Bureaucratic Snafu

On August 1st, a bureaucratic snafu might cause me to lose my ability to write prescriptions and, if so,there’s a good chance that hospital privileges will be suspended until some future date.

The Texas Department of Public Safety regulates prescription permits for Controlled Substances – the right to prescribe medicines – for doctors, dentists, advanced practice nurses, pharmacists, and veterinarians. (That ‘script for Oxycontin has the line, “Patient or pet owner’s name.)  The unofficial rumor is that the cuts in their Department because of the tight State budget caused a manpower shortage. Knowing that there would be less staff, the Department chose that moment to initiate a new, complicated software system. Those who were not laid off or re-assigned had to learn the new input and verification system at the busiest time of year. With fewer people and more work, they’ve gotten way behind in issuing the pieces of paper. The powers that be refuse to give extensions to those who have paid, are in the system, and who should have received those little pieces of paper by the last day of July.

The Texas DPS permits are redundant in light of the fact that the Federal government also issues prescriber permits through the Drug Enforcement Agency. This latter number is what most pharmacies ask for, along with our State license number. While Texas requires re-credentialing each year, the DEA permits are valid for five years.

Since most docs in Texas qualified for their first DPS permit at the end of their internship (with the permits issued July 31), there’s no telling how many prescribers will lose their ability to treat patients with antibiotics, blood pressure and diabetes medications, or Botox unless we can find some doc whose renewal is due at a later date and who is willing to co-sign. Oh, and of course, they have decreed that we can’t prescribe narcotics and other truly controlled substances under any circumstances.

Another giant bureaucracy stumbles once again, putting the process first, complicating the practice of medicine and endangering patients. The stifling regulations and paper pushing is frustrating!

An Open Letter to Republican Leaders

Conservative Republicans from my home town of New Braunfels and all over Texas have made it a point to tell me that they are frustrated with you. Even as you begin asking for our support in next year’s election, y’all don’t seem to remember who brought you to the dance, and that we are supposed to lead.

You may have heard our Conservative song at times; even going so far as to dance all around your own Bills in order to appear in step with us. But you still dance to a beat we don’t like far too often.

We worked so hard last year to send a Republican majority to Austin and Washington, only to have the people we elected seem to pay little attention to us and our Party Platform.

In Austin, it was a compromise on the Speaker and toll roads. In DC, we’re watching this political theater about the budget and the debt ceiling.  Why are Republicans, with a majority in the House and a clear mandate from the voters, still getting bogged down in “negotiation?”

And don’t tell us how hard it is to hammer Bills into Laws. This is your job, the one you volunteered for. It can’t be any harder than what we did to get you there in 2010, and what you’ll ask us to do in 2012.  And we did it on top of our regular duties, not as a paid, full-time job!

After all the time and money we  invested in your campaigns before the primaries, some of us spent  thirteen hours working the polls on Primary Day and rushed from there to attend our Precinct Conventions.  Delegates to our Precinct and County Conventions gave up hours on Primary night and on a Saturday later in the month. Before these meetings, we reviewed the old Party Platform and carefully crafted new resolutions. Then we defended them at our Precinct, County and State Conventions. Some of us served on Convention Committees at the County and State level, giving more time to sift through the Resolutions, put them in order and finally come up with a Platform that our Delegates approved at the State Convention.

I’m sorry if this seems like I’m giving you a hard time, and I’d rather be spending my time encouraging you than griping. But, still,  if we can do all that, why can’t y’all cut spending in DC?

Will this help the deficit: Texas drug cartel crackdown?

In the second nationwide attack on La Familia, dubbed Project Delirium, 1,985 people were arrested, and officials seized $62 million in cash, 2,773 pounds of methamphetamine, 2,722 kilograms of cocaine , 1,005 pounds of heroin, 14,818 pounds of marijuana and $3.8 million in other assets over 20 months, the DEA said.

via La Familia cartel crackdown yields 35 arrests in area.

Angelina County jury finds man guilty of evading arrest after being mistaken for burglar in his own home – The Lufkin Daily News: Local & State

Angelina County jury finds man guilty of evading arrest after being mistaken for burglar in his own home – The Lufkin Daily News: Local & State.

Following a one-day trial and four-hour deliberation, a six-panel Angelina County jury concluded Sauceda was guilty of resisting arrest on March 15, 2009, while being pepper-sprayed, shot with a pepper ball gun and wrestled to the ground by nine Lufkin Police officers in his own living room, according to testimony.

The man in question is evidently mentally retarded and his crime was that he hid in the bathroom and refused to come out when police crashed into his house. This looks like a case of an attempt to prevent a lawsuit and over-reaching.

According to the DA: “We tried the case simply because we really did believe he resisted arrest,” Jones said. “The statute says that you do not have the right to resist the arrest. We were going to try the case no matter what.”

Well, in my opinion, you ought to have the right to hide when frightened. Not in East Texas – the police get to claim a locked door is “resisting arrest.”

The police evidently beat the man up pretty badly when they got him out of the bathroom.  The jury found the man guilty under the law, but sent a note to the judge saying that,

“We’ve all reached a verdict. To us we feel he has been wronged. Please consider that in his sentencing.”

The victim received 30 days in jail, along with his beating and pepper spray assault.

Conservatives in Action: TED CRUZ THE SQUEAKY CLEAN TEXAS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE

Conservatives in Action

Conservatives in Action: TED CRUZ THE SQUEAKY CLEAN TEXAS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE.

From “Red Sonja”, Conservatives in Action:

In an attempt to bring first hand information to you about some of our 2012 candidates I sat down and visited with Texas Senatorial candidate Ted Cruz. The YouTube video is just 5 minutes and 17 seconds in length. Actually, I spent more like 30 minutes visiting with him. Cruz has never run for elected office before but has a very successful record as former Texas Solicitor General. He has a very impressive family background and other than not graduating from a Texas university, has a squeaky clean record. He has a way about him that is pleasing and his manner of speaking is easy listening. He seems sure of himself and is passionate and unshakable about his conservative values. Because of his court battles he is unflappable and knowledgeable in the critical issues facing us. I believe he would stand firm against the Obama Administration and against tyranny.

As the Solicitor General under Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, Cruz was instrumental in winning several landmark cases in the US Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeals. He has personally argued cases before the US Supreme Court, such as Medellin vs Texas and successfully defended the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2006. Consequently he is well versed in understanding what it takes to win. His knowledge and expertise will be extremely effective if he is elected to the Senate.

Cruz exemplifies the American Dream. His father born and raised in Cuba fought in the Cuban Revolution and was imprisoned and tortured. Ted’s grandfather got him out of prison and he fled to America in 1957 seeking freedom from oppression. Ted’s father enrolled at the University of Texas and worked hard all his life. Ted’s parents, as small business entrepreneurs, managed a data processing company in the oil and gas field. It was great listening to Cruz comment that his father was his ‘hero’.

Read the transcript from the interview, here and watch the video on YouTube:

Texas Succession (not secession)

Yesterday, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst threw his hat in the ring for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s soon to be vacated seat.

The media keeps telling us that Governor Perry will soon declare his candidacy for President.

So, if Perry and Dewhurst win their (speculative) primaries, then in November, how would the New Governor be chosen? Would Dewhurst resign and let us appoint Abbott, or would we wait ’til the middle of November to start the succession, would we need a special election, or what?

“Rebuilding the Dream” (Marx’s dream, that is.)

My initial impression of the moveon.org “Rebuilding the Dream” “House Meeting” on Sunday, July 17, 2011, at the New Braunfels Public Library was that I had visited another planet. However after thinking about my experience for a day or so, I’ve decided it was more like visiting an impoverished culture that sort of speaks my language, but with an almost impenetrable accent. Over the next couple of days, I’ll try to interpret the goings-on for my fellow conservatives from Texas, to whom the ideas, the hatred, and the stereotyping would be completely foreign.

First of all, despite the stereotype, I’ve seen much more diversity at our Tea Party meetings – and certainly at our Republican meetings. I heard no “foreign” accents at all. Among the 25 in attendance, the only literal, non-philosophical accents that I noticed were “Yankee” accents wielded by Non-Texans, maybe from California or the State of Washington, a few even from the Northeast and Chicago. Most had been “born and raised” in Texas. The majority was older than I and retired from various jobs. All but two or three were of the same Western European heritage that we call “White” around here. There were no blacks or Asians and less-than-a-handful of people whose grandparents might have been, like my great-great grandmother, American Indian.

The online news group, RedState has noted in their “Cargo Cult Watch”* that Jone’s Dream is an attempt to recreate a Left wing version of the Tea Party. However, the small group that I met – while very upset that the on-line address for future plans of the Movement was  “contract.rebuildthedream.org,” (warning: video of Robert Reich) because it reminded them of Newt Gingrich – was willing to divide in to 4 tables of 6-7 participants each, with pre-determined table leaders. Can you imagine a Tea Party event like that?

The culture must be “impoverished” because their highest goal is to make the Nation “middle class.” From Van Jones, who is spearheading the Movement, said:

“Rebuild the middle class – and pathways into it – by fighting for a “made in America” innovation and manufacturing agenda, including trade and currency policies that honor American workers and entrepreneurs.”

And they’re willing to vote themselves a lot of everyone else’s money to make sure that no one rises above “middle class,” too! It’s also obvious that Mr. Jones has no clue what an entrepreneur risks – or what he expects in return for his risks and everything he or she gives up for success.

Did you grow up wanting to be middle class? I grew up thinking that if I worked hard enough, I could be rich, the President, or go to the moon. (Okay, I didn’t quite think a girl could do some things until I was grown.  I sure didn’t expect to do it all, myself, but I was very happy to discover that some of my sisters could. Someday, there will be a “Mrs. President.”)

More to come. . .

*Cargo Cult: a reference to a – probably fictional – story about a primitive tribe that lived on a Pacific island that US forces chose for a temporary airbase. After the War was over, the GI’s left, and the planes and air drops containing riches stopped coming. The locals made faux radios, headphones from coconut shells, followed the rituals that they’d seen the tower crew act out in an attempt to get the gods to send more treasures from the sky.