Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.
In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.
DEMOCRATS HAVE UPHILL CLIMB TO TAKE BACK TEXAS HOUSE
No one is suggesting Texas will turn from red to blue at the top of the ticket. Sen. John McCain is expected to best Sen. Barack Obama in Texas, and Republicans are expected to maintain a majority in the Texas Senate.
It is the Texas House of Representatives where Democrats, who hold no statewide offices, hope to regain a majority and defeat Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, as the next step in their comeback.
The Democrats need a net gain of five seats to win the slimmest of majorities in the Texas House. They expect to build on their gains from 2006 when they picked up six seats. They also point to the unprecedented turnout of Democratic voters — twice that of Republicans — in their spring primary as evidence of a political shift among voters.
UTMB CUTTING INDIGENT-CARE PROGRAM FUNDS BY $24 MILLION
The budget for providing medical care to the poor is being slashed by $24 million as the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston continues to move away from its traditional role of caring for the region's uninsured, officials said Friday.
UTMB announced this week that it is cutting its indigent-care program from $115 million to $91 million for fiscal 2008, which began Sept. 1.
The medical school has traditionally assisted the uninsured in nearly 160 of Texas' 254 counties, but fewer state and federal dollars and higher costs have caused UTMB to shift away from what it terms unsponsored care, said Karen Sexton, interim executive vice president and health system CEO.
MORTGAGE GIANT OVERSTATED THE SIZE OF ITS CAPITAL BASE
The government’s planned takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, expected to be announced on Sunday, came together after advisers poring over the companies’ books for the Treasury Department concluded that Freddie’s accounting methods had overstated its capital cushion, according to regulatory officials briefed on the matter.
The proposal to place both companies, which own or back $5.3 trillion in mortgages, into a government-run conservatorship also grew out of deep concern among foreign investors that the companies’ debt might not be repaid. Falling home prices, which are expected to lead to more defaults among the mortgages held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, contributed to the urgency, regulators said.
BRODER: CAMPAIGN LOOKS LIKE A FAIR FIGHT — AND A HOPEFUL ONE
Change is coming, change you can count on.
That is the simple, central message from the two presidential nominating conventions held in Denver and St. Paul during the past two weeks.
Whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain going to the White House next January, the new president will understand that his mandate from the voters is to cleanse Washington of its excessive partisanship and attempt to break the gridlock that has prevailed on almost all the big issues.
The good news is that Obama and McCain, for different reasons, have about as good prospects of achieving that change as any two politicians you could find.
SARAH PALIN'S APPEAL TO WORKING-CLASS WOMEN MAY BE LIMITED
Polls show that working-class women have emerged as one of the most critical categories of swing voters at a time when McCain and Barack Obama have galvanized their party bases but still need more votes to win.
Palin, a little-known 44-year-old mother of five, burst onto the scene just days ago, presenting herself as the woman to finally shatter the glass ceiling cracked by the Democratic New York senator's historic candidacy.
But now, after a chaotic introductory week that sparked national debates on McCain's judgment, Palin's experience and even her teenage daughter's pregnancy, the initial signs are not entirely positive for the reinvigorated Republican ticket.
TREASURY SECRETARY PAULSON'S BALANCING ACT ON FANNIE AND FREDDIE
When Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. reveals how the Bush administration intends to steady tottering mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- probably this afternoon -- he will be walking a knife edge between two seemingly irreconcilable views on what the government should do.
Free-market analysts and their allies in the Bush administration believe that the companies -- government-chartered but shareholder-owned -- pose a threat to Washington's own solvency and must be thrown into a bankruptcylike receivership, run by the government until the current financial crisis eases and then broken up or sold off. In no case, say advocates of this view, should the Treasury Department pump taxpayer money into the once-rich enterprises, which hold more U.S. home mortgages than any other company and have seen their fortunes plummet with the housing market.
A month after the F.B.I. declared that an Army scientist was the anthrax killer, leading members of Congress are demanding more information about the seven-year investigation, saying they do not think the bureau has proved its case.
In a letter sent Friday to Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee said that “important and lingering questions remain that are crucial for you to address, especially since there will never be a trial to examine the facts of the case.”
The majority of Maryland's voters and lawmakers are Democrats, but the state has several residents who are top contributors to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican.
Seven Marylanders have collectively raised at least $900,000 for the campaign and are listed on Mr. McCain's campaign Web site by name, city of residence and amount of money contributed. Among them are a freelance writer, a former ambassador to Luxembourg, and the head of the Marriott hotel chain.
During the summer of 2006, from her office adjacent to the White House, deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan sent President Bush a daily top secret report cataloging the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq. "Violence has acquired a momentum of its own and is now self-sustaining," she wrote July 20, quoting from an intelligence assessment.
Her dire evaluation contradicted the upbeat assurances that President Bush was hearing from Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq. Casey and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were pushing to draw down American forces and speed the transfer of responsibility to the Iraqis. Despite months of skyrocketing violence, Casey insisted that within a year, Iraq would be mostly stable, with the bulk of American combat troops headed home.
TEXAS SCHOOLS SCRAMBLING TO GET DROPOUTS BACK IN CLASS
This fall, a political spotlight and a sense of urgency hangs over the yearly quest to get potential dropouts back to class.
From principals to superintendents to mayors in the state's largest cities, the heat is on to get these students in school quickly.
Two changes are bringing extra attention to the more than 50,000 students lost from Texas schools each of the last few years.
Citigroup Inc. may be exploring a sale of its Texas retail banks, banking industry experts said Friday.
Rob Julavits, a Citi spokesman, declined to comment on what he termed "market rumors."
But Houston-based investment banker Dan Bass said he put together a consortium of a half-dozen smaller banks to buy Citi's Texas retail business and divvy up the bank branches among them.
"I got the impression from when I talked to Citi that they wanted to sell to one entity rather than a consortium of banks," said Mr. Bass, managing director of Carson Medlin Co., an investment banking firm.
What's about to happen in Austin next year will look awfully familiar to many Texans. Legislators again must figure out how to adequately fund the state's public schools.
Yes, that tired, old saw of school finance rears its head. Texas' struggle to fund its schools is like the cousin who keeps showing up for the family reunions with the same old tales told every two years or so. Except legislators can't avoid this by saying, "Oops, gotta run, pal."
Here's why.
The new business tax created in the 2006 special session is coming up short. Early estimates suggest its revenues could be $1.5 billion behind projections when the 2009 Legislature begins work.
OVERBURDENED SYSTEM TO PROTECT KIDS RIDDLED WITH GAPS
When Child Protective Services removes an abused child from home, a small army mobilizes to help the parents improve and the children recover.
But it's also part of an overtaxed system riddled with gaps that threaten the court's ability to keep children safe and properly serve parents. Three of the most pressing concerns are:
Waits
CPS contracts with outside agencies to provide services ranging from parenting classes to psychiatric treatment, but waiting lists for children and parents can be weeks or months long.
David Allen Hall is outnumbered, outlawyered and outspent in his appeal of a settlement in a landmark lawsuit against Pedernales Electric Cooperative.
The retired IBM Corp. engineer-turned-patent lawyer from Blanco is pressing his first appeal since he graduated from law school six years ago. He's up against a team of veteran litigators from three big-city law firms. Their clients are the defendants — including current and former leaders of the co-op — as well as three co-op members who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed early last year.
Warning signs abound for the Texas banking industry.
Many financial gauges for Texas banks declined sharply in the second quarter, and analysts don't expect the numbers to improve anytime soon. Some prominent banks are mired in bad loans. And there are a small but growing number of "problem institutions" — banks deemed to have significant regulatory problems.
Despite trouble spots, "We have a long way to go before the macro banking sector is at death's door," said Stephen Skaggs, president of the Bank Advisory Group LLC in Austin, a bank consultancy. "But what has everyone concerned is, where is the bottom?"
State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, said today that he’ll run for governor at the end of the 2009 legislative session if he doesn’t succeed in passing legislation targeting illegal immigrants.
“If we can’t get anything done next session because it’s blocked, I will run for governor at the end of the session,” he said in an phone interview from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where he landed early this evening after attending the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.
Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office today released a document showing Berman has requested Abbott’s official opinion on whether a House member would lose his seat if he announces his candidacy for governor during the first year of a two-year term.
By asserting that PEC and Bluebonnet are not members of Texland, are Fuelberg and Burnett suggesting that those coops' recent reconstitution of the Texland board was invalid, and that they or others still control Texland — and the bank account? If so, by their logic, I might not really be a Texland board member, just a pesky outsider.
It was as an outsider that I began the effort that I pledge to continue as a Texland director. I assure members of the PEC and Bluebonnet that I along with the other parties who have been thrust back into this time-warp will work with the Texland board to fully investigate and provide as much information as we are able to obtain. After all these years, perhaps we can finally open all of the records and have a clean showing.
AAS: TEXAS SUPREME COURT SHOULD REVERSE DECISION THAT HURTS WORKERS
The Texas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Oct. 16 on its much criticized Entergy ruling. The court should follow up on the hearing by reversing a ruling that was deeply unfair to injured workers and was called unjustified even by an association of lawyers who represent business owners and insurers.
The Entergy case involved one of those legal issues that can set listeners to yawning when explained — but when put into practice in the real world, inflicts terrible hardships on the personal lives of people who have been horribly injured while at work.
COPPER THEFTS RESULT IN CALL FOR A NEW FEDERAL TASK FORCE
Citing the rise in copper thefts around the nation, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced plans Saturday to introduce legislation that would create a federal task force to combat these crimes.
"It is time to take this issue to a national level," Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said at a town hall meeting at the Houston Heights Library, where representatives from the FBI, the Houston Police Department and CenterPoint Energy spoke.
Along with supporting a bill making its way through Congress that would require metal recyclers to keep detailed records of all transactions they make, Jackson Lee plans to write legislation that would create and fund an FBI task force.
Sen. John McCain is being branded as "the original Maverick," the appropriateness of which I leave to the reader.
My purpose is to take this opportunity to introduce the real original Maverick.
No, I'm not referring to the Texan who gave us the word, though a few words on him are in order.
That was Sam Maverick of South Carolina, who came to Texas in 1835 and so impressed his fellow immigrants that they elected him the following year to attend the Convention of the People of Texas at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.
FORT BEND'S AMONG TEXAS' HIGHEST MEDIAN INCOME LEVELS
The new housing communities of Aliana and Tucker Hill are separated by nearly 300 miles of Texas landscape, but they share a common link.
Both master-planned developments — Tucker Hill, near McKinney, and Aliana, northwest of Sugar Land — are being built in suburban counties that rank among the top of the highest median household incomes in the state.
Collin County, northeast of Dallas and home to numerous corporate headquarters, finished first in recently released U.S. Census Bureau data.
2 TEXAS MEN FACE FEDERAL CHARGES IN REPUBLICAN CONVENTION SCHEME
Two Texas men who authorities say planned to target law enforcement during the Republican National Convention face federal charges of illegally possessing Molotov cocktails.
David Guy McKay, 22, and Bradley Neil Crowder, 23, both of Austin, are each charged with one count of possession of firearms that were not registered to them.
They were in custody after an initial court appearance Friday. A court hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in Minneapolis.
If convicted, they could each face up to 10 years in prison.
DALLAS-AREA PROSECUTOR TO OPPOSE REVIEW OF AFFAIR ALLEGATIONS IN DEATH ROW CASE
A suburban Dallas prosecutor said Friday that he will oppose attempts to review allegations of an unethical romantic relationship between a judge and a district attorney who were handling the case of a condemned killer scheduled to die next week.
Lawyers for Charles Dean Hood, set to die Wednesday, want retired state District Judge Verla Sue Holland and former Collin County District Attorney Tom O’Connell to be deposed about claims that they had a secret affair during Hood’s trial.
A hearing in civil court on whether to depose the two was originally scheduled for two days after Hood’s execution date.
An element of due process missing from the case of Death Row inmate Charles Dean Hood might at last be addressed this week.
After a baffling series of miscues, a Collin County judge is scheduled to decide Monday whether Hood’s attorneys can question Verla Sue Holland and Tom O’Connell under oath about claims that the two were having an affair while he was the district attorney and she was the presiding judge in Hood’s 1990 capital murder trial.
For the second time this year, there will be last-minute scrambling over whether it’s fair for the state to execute Hood, who’s scheduled to die Wednesday.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats have outlined an adequate strategy to deal with border security and immigration, Texas border leaders said last week.
"Neither one of them is taking a holistic approach," El Paso Mayor John Cook said.
At their national conventions in the past two weeks, both parties adopted platforms that describe their political philosophies and policy plans.
The Texas Border Coalition, a group of elected officials and business leaders, said that both platforms contain some good ideas but don't have what it takes to provide security and a fair immigration system.
KEFFER: ‘CHANGE’ IS THE WORD, WHAT KIND IS THE QUESTION
The optimum word in the November elections is change, state Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, told members of the Brownwood Board of Realtors Friday.
“Both parties have pretty much told us that’s what is going to happen,” Keffer said. “That’s all they’re talking about. What kind of change they will bring is something we’ll have to wait to see. It’s going to be interesting. It’s an historic race for both parties.”
Keffer said Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee, has energized that party’s ticket and will “help immensely.” Palin is evidence that both parties want to change the “staleness of the situation where nobody can work together. Everybody has had their fill... There will be change.”
Keffer also offered Realtors an overview on how the presidential election might affect Texas politics.
Ethanol's wild ride has brought it quickly from political golden child to scapegoat for everything from soaring food prices and world hunger to pork-barrel spending.
This past week, the Republican Party in its national platform called for an end to ethanol mandates in just the latest shot at a fuel alternative that, in some circles, has grown more targeted than treasured.
High-ranking politicians, including presidential candidate John McCain — have publicly opposed ethanol subsidies before, but the platform approved during the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., marks the first time a major U.S. party has taken an official stance against publicly funded ethanol incentives.
STATE REPRESENTATIVES TO VISIT BORDER FENCE ON TUESDAY
State representatives from north Texas will travel to sites along the path of the U.S.-Mexico border fence on Tuesday to see where construction has begun and is being planned.
"With the U.S. economy teetering on recession and ballooning federal budget deficits, the border wall is the wrong way to address the country's news/" class="autolink">immigration problem," wrote Craig Adair, spokesman for Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, in a press release.
Members of the Texas House of Representatives will speak to those who live along the path of the planned fence whose land has been condemned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Transparency in government is the only way that the public can know for sure their elected representatives are doing the right thing. That means politicians are obliged by law to disclose details of their financial interests.
There are ways to avoid complete disclosure and Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — whose fortune is assigned to the David Dewhurst Trust — takes advantage of them. Campaign watchdog group Texans for Public Justice this week called on prosecutors to investigate whether Dewhurst not disclosing his wealth complies with state law.
As lieutenant governor, Dewhurst is presiding officer of the Texas Senate and holder of enormous influence.
The Republican candidate to be the Hays County Commissioner for Precinct 1 was arrested Friday and charged with deadly conduct after a neighbor told authorities that he had pointed a gun at her.
Nick Ramus was held at the Hays County Jail briefly Friday. He was released after posting $5,000 bail, said Lt. Leroy Opiela of the Hays County sheriff's department. A conviction on the Class A misdemeanor charge could result in a jail term of up to a year, a fine of up to $4,000 or both, Opiela said.
Ramus, a former chef who said he has lived at 2511 S. Old Bastrop Highway for 20 years, denied pointing a gun at Carolyn Logan. He said his gun was always pointed at the ground.
FORT WORTH LAWYER CHARGED AFTER ALLEGED COURTROOM KISS
An alleged kiss in a Texas courtroom has a longtime attorney facing a misdemeanor assault charge.
Jerry Loftin is set to stand trial in October on one count of assault by offensive contact for allegedly kissing a court reporter in a Johnson County courtroom last month.
The Fort Worth attorney called the accusation "the silliest thing I ever heard." His accuser, LuAnn Gill, said the facts will be presented in court.
If convicted, Loftin faces a maximum fine of $500.
MADD PUSHING AGAIN FOR SOBRIETY CHECKPOINTS AND IGNITION LOCK DEVICES
Two bills that failed during the last Texas legislative session are getting renewed focus from Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
At its national convention this weekend in Dallas, MADD is pushing for sobriety checkpoints and ignition interlock breathalyzer legislation that the group says will dramatically reduce the number of drunken drivers.
"Texas has a revolving door for drunk drivers right now," MADD spokeswoman Misty Moyse said, noting that the state leads the nation in alcohol-related traffic deaths, with almost 1,300 last year.
The American Beverage Institute said both efforts fail to target the real threat: habitual alcohol abusers.
INDIANAPOLIS' LUCAS OIL FIELD MAY GIVE ARLINGTON A LOOK AHEAD AT NEW DALLAS COWBOYS STADIUM
The cavernous football stadium is finished. The retractable roof now opens to let in warm summer air. And a city is pinning its tourism future on what happens inside.
This is Indianapolis today and Arlington in a year.
The debut of the Colts' Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday night means that the new Dallas Cowboys stadium will be the next stop in the National Football League's steady march to replace the old with the new. And these past few months of preparation in Indianapolis could give a hint about the pace of the beautification, revitalization and economic development that might be headed to Arlington.
BARS THAT WERE BASES FOR SEX RING STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS
For years, Gerardo Salazar played the Romeo in dusty Mexican villages, trolling town squares and schoolyards for women and girls he could seduce with declarations of love and, ultimately, sell in seedy Houston cantinas.
Salazar, who called himself El Gallo — the Rooster — could have been arrested three years ago after a federal indictment named him leader of an international human trafficking ring. Instead, he escaped to Mexico, where his hometown is a notorious center for kidnapping.
But the cantina sex trade Salazar helped build in Houston continues to flourish.
Despite enforcement efforts, human traffickers and prostitution operators have constructed resilient and lucrative networks of organized crime that have a franchise-like ability to persist and prosper, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.
EVERSOLE EXPECTS FBI PROBE TO FORCE HIM OUT OF OFFICE
Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole said Thursday that he expects to be forced from office by an FBI investigation into corruption allegations that appears to be centering on the design of his home by a prominent retired architect.
The Precinct 4 commissioner said FBI agents have interviewed many of his friends, some as recently as this week. He said he expects to be called in for questioning soon and would not be surprised to be indicted, though he insists he is innocent.
BELL FILES LAWSUIT TO REMOVE CANDIDATE IN DISTRICT 17 RACE
Democrat Chris Bell filed suit in state district court Thursday, seeking to remove an opponent from the ballot in the Nov. 4 special election for the District 17 state Senate seat.
Bell's campaign contends that Stephanie E. Simmons, an attorney from Missouri City who filed as a Democrat just before the filing period ended on Friday, is a "phantom" candidate planted by Republicans seeking to siphon Democratic votes from Bell.
Bell's best chance of winning the seat, previously held by Republican Kyle Janek, is to win outright on Nov. 4. Until Simmons filed, he was the only Democrat in the race.
Four Republicans also have filed for the seat. If no candidate wins a majority in the first election, there will be a runoff between the top two vote-getters.
The drive to hire private contractors to take over duties performed by state employees in agencies under the oversight of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission — mandated by the Legislature five years ago — has been a slow-motion disaster. The commission was forced to terminate a major contract with Accenture last year after the attempt to privatize eligibility screening for social service programs caused chaos and erroneously denied services to thousands of qualified Texans.
In early 2006 the state auditor issued a report critical of another commission contractor, Convergys, which was selected in 2004 for a five-year, $85 million pact to provide human resources and payroll services for the 46,000 employees in the agencies the commission supervises.
The nominee’s friend described him as a “restless reformer who will clean up Washington.” His defeated rival described him going to the capital to “drain that swamp.” His running mate described their mission as “change, the goal we share.” And that was at the incumbent party’s convention.
After watching two political conclaves the last two weeks, it would be easy to be confused about which was really the gathering of the opposition. As Senator John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president, he and his supporters sounded the call of insurgents seeking to topple the establishment, even though their party heads the establishment.
The Democratic Party no longer has the Next Big Star.
With Sarah Palin smiling everywhere from TV screens to supermarket tabloids, the Republican convention has turned Barack Obama into yesterday’s news.
Seven days after a crowd of 84,000 gathered in a Denver football stadium, only 200 Democrats were on hand Thursday when party Chairman Howard Dean led the Register for Change bus tour to a college campus.
Of 3,800 students at Augsburg College, a Lutheran liberal-arts school, Minnesota’s top Democrats could draw barely a handful in a light rain. And those few talked about Palin more than Obama.
Senator John McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday with a pledge to move the nation beyond “partisan rancor” and narrow self-interest in a speech in which he markedly toned down the blistering attacks on Senator Barack Obama that had filled the first nights of his convention.
Standing in the center of an arena here, surrounded by thousands of Republican delegates, Mr. McCain firmly signaled that he intended to seize the mantle of change Mr. Obama claimed in his own unlikely bid for his party’s nomination.
Mr. McCain suggested that his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate gave him the license to run as an outsider against Washington, even though he has served in Congress for more than 25 years.
PALIN YET TO SAY 'NO THANKS' TO OTHER BIG EARMARKS
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has said repeatedly that she told Congress "thanks but no thanks" to the notorious bridge-to-nowhere project derided nationally as an example of pork-barrel spending. But some are waiting to see whether she'll also pull the plug on another big earmark dubbed "Don Young Way" that could benefit her hometown.
Named after Alaska's lone member in the U.S. House, Republican Rep. Don Young, the Knik Arm Bridge proposal was one of two so-called "bridges to nowhere" that won more than $400 million combined through congressional earmarks in 2005. If built, it would span two miles of Cook Inlet and link Anchorage to nearby Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Gone were the fedora, dark trench coat and swagger that had become the signature of a Washington power broker. In their place were a drab prison uniform and a self-described "broken man" fighting back tears.
Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff came to federal court Thursday to plead for mercy.
"I am not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political corruption and business corruption," Abramoff told Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle during a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "I've fallen into an abyss, your honor, I don't know quite how to get out."
Sen. John McCain of Arizona completed a long and often improbable journey to the Republican presidential nomination Thursday night, offering himself as an "imperfect servant" who will never surrender in his fight to change Washington and the country.
In a speech to the Republican National Convention that was interrupted by boisterous applause and occasional protests, McCain said his record demonstrates a dedication to remaking Washington and an instinct for putting the people's interests over party loyalty. McCain has spent nearly 26 years in Congress and, at 72, would be the oldest president elected to a first term, but he presented himself as an agent of revival for a political system in disarray.
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will begin the final 60 days of their general-election campaign with a political climate still more favorable for Democrats but with Republicans newly united and confident that they can compete for the undecided voters who still harbor doubts about both presidential nominees.
Once the air clears from an unusually compressed two weeks of politics that saw the selection of two vice presidential candidates and back-to-back national conventions, advisers to McCain and Obama foresee the same competitive race, but with some of the battle lines redrawn.
Political parties usually reform in the wilderness. They suffer some crushing defeat, the old guard is discredited and the pain compels turnover and change. John McCain is trying to reform the Republican Party before a presidential defeat, with the old guard still around, and with a party base that still hasn’t accepted the need to transform. The central drama of this week’s convention was the struggle by reform Republicans to break through the gravitational pull of old habits and create something new.
Before the convention, some McCain aides wanted to sunder the links to the past in one bold stroke: Name Joe Lieberman as the vice presidential nominee, promise to serve only one term, vow to take a hiatus from partisanship and work by compromise to get things done. That proved to be a leap too far.
Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”?
Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?
Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?
Yes, they can.
It's odd to present yourself as a maverick to the most partisan audience imaginable, as John McCain did Thursday night.
But the real audience wasn't sitting in the Xcel Center this evening to watch the Arizona senator accept the Republican Party's presidential nomination; it was the independents at home looking for a reason to vote for him.
It wasn't that long ago that McCain was the Republican most admired among Democrats. He retains some residual popularity with Democrats and particularly independents.
Child by child, Texas authorities are acknowledging that many of the children seized during a raid on a polygamist sect's ranch can safely live with their parents or guardians.
Since the April 3 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, 235 children's custody cases have been dropped. That means fewer than half of the 440 children seized remain bound by a court order for their families to stay in Texas, attend parenting classes or be available for unannounced visits by Child Protective Services.
More cases are likely to be dropped, CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said, though he was unsure how many that would be.
Dub it Sen. John McCain’s big flag and blue-screen speech (per below), launching the Republican presidential nominee and the nation into the two-month fall campaign season.
The handful of GOP Texas activists I caught just afterward each gave a thumbs up to McCain’s acceptance speech preceding the end of the convention.
They weren’t identical in what they liked.
Dallas lawyer David Schenck, an alternate delegate, awarded a solid “A” based on substance.
“It’s the best speech I’ve seen him deliver,” Schenck said, singling out as memorable McCain’s description of education as the civil right of the 21st century.
TEXAS GOP DELEGATES CONFIDENT IN MCCAIN, LOOK TOWARD STATE RACES
Texas Republicans who attended the Republican National Convention pack for home today, confident Sen. John McCain will carry their state while focused on preventing Democratic Party inroads in lesser known races in November.
James Huffines of Austin, one of three co-chairs of McCain's Texas campaign, wasn't worried about McCain's chances in Texas. Republican presidential nominees have carried Texas every four years since 1980.
"We do not have a single paid staff member in Texas," Huffines said. "It does not appear that Texas will be a battleground state."
The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has hired a Texas coordinator and operatives to be stationed around the state in hopes of putting money into voter registration and turnout.
Obama spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said Thursday: "We expect to open offices shortly and are ready to hit the ground running."
You might say that Connie Bauer needed the money a lot more than Texas budget writers did, especially after she got the $400-plus electric bill.
The Grand Prairie mother has three autistic children. The family relies on Supplemental Security Income.
Fortunately, someone at the phone company told her help might be available with her electric bill. The good news is that it was. The bad news is that for others like her, it isn't.
Bauer receives roughly a 20 percent discount on subsequent bills and a break retroactive to the whopper that sent her head spinning.
John McCain showed his true grit and unwavering love for America – two things especially close to the hearts of Texans, they said Thursday night.
"It was just what people needed to hear," said Timothy Stainback of Greenville. "They really needed to see what kind of man he is. He's a tremendous man."
The McCain speech, they said, made it clear that he's running for president to serve his country and the American people – and not for personal glory or celebrity or, as one Houston delegate said, "for glorification."
Texas could be leading the country in catastrophic cheerleading accidents and nobody would know it.
Once known simply for shaking pom-poms and smiling beauties under Friday night lights, the extra-curricular activity has transformed into an athletic feat featuring supersonic tosses and complex flips. But unlike certified sports, state regulations have not kept up.
No monitoring system or organization totals injury reports, slaps fines on violators or tracks participation rates in most states, including Texas. Meanwhile, stunts have become more sophisticated and interest continues to peak.
HUTCHISON, PERRY KEEPING THEIR NAMES OUT THERE WITH GIFTS FOR TEXAS DELEGATION
The love comes from arms wrapped and warm smiles for the cameras, or maybe in the daily calls from home to say how much they're missed.
Texas GOP delegates were courted this week, through cheek pecks and thoughtful gifts, by two of the state's largest political figures – U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison here at the national convention and Gov. Rick Perry, kept in Texas by Hurricane Gustav.
Could it be jockeying for position for the 2010 governor's race?
"Logically, this is where it would start," said delegate Bill Lawrence of Highland Village.
IT'S FINAL: KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON WON'T GET TO ADDRESS REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
It’s official: Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will not have a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention.
Ms. Hutchsion, the senior senator from Texas, was originally scheduled to speak Wednesday, but GOP officials shuffled the script after Hurricane Gustav prompted them to cut nearly five hours from the program Monday night.
The senator was holding out hope that she might get a spot tonight -- the last night of the GOP convention -- but she did not.
SENATORS WARN OF F-22 ASSEMBLY DISRUPTIONS, LAYOFFS IN FORT WORTH
Lockheed Martin’s F-22 production line will face serious disruptions, resulting in layoffs in Fort Worth, unless Congress quickly authorizes $523 million toward the purchase of additional F-22s, two Republican senators warned Thursday.
Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and James Inhofe, R-Okla., issued the warning in a letter to the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee as Congress moves toward approving a defense bill for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins in October.
STATE BRIEFS: PALO DURO CANYON GROWS AS TEXAS BUYS RANCH
Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle just got bigger. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials announced the purchase Thursday of about 2,900 acres of ranchland along a highly visible bluff in the nation’s second-largest canyon. The purchase of the Fortress Cliffs Ranch for $5.2 million forestalls the possibility of private real estate development there, officials said. The department, the Trust for Public Land and an anonymous donor bought the tract, which will protect six miles of scenic cliffs along the state park’s northeastern edge. Palo Duro State Park is now just over 29,000 acres. Only the Grand Canyon in Arizona is larger.
GROUP CLAIMS DEWHURST IS NOT COMPLYING WITH FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE LAW
A campaign watchdog group urged local prosecutors Wednesday to launch a formal criminal investigation of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, saying his failure to disclose details of his vast wealth likely violates state law.
The complaint follows an Associated Press report about the lack of transparency in Dewhurst’s personal financial statements. He is said to be the richest man in Texas politics, but most of his wealth is in a trust whose major assets are not disclosed.
Texans for Public Justice, a liberal group, sent a written complaint to Travis County Attorney David Escamilla. The group said Dewhurst, who wields tremendous influence as presiding officer of the state Senate, appeared to have violated disclosure laws by filing possibly incomplete and misleading reports at the Texas Ethics Commission.
What does Washington have against Texas women?
Every election year, Washingtonian magazine surveys about 1,700 Capitol Hill staffers regarding members of Congress, asking them to pick gold, silver and bronze medalists in competitions ranging from "Least Likely to Star in a Scandal" and "Member I'd Like to See as President in 2012," to "Most Clueless" and "Most Likely to Star in a Scandal."
The theory is based on the ancient notion that nobody knows a man like his butler, and that butlers talk to each other.
Finally first: Jackson Lee
This year our own Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is runner-up in "Meanest," trailing only Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.
President Bush advocated what many conservatives call amnesty for illegal immigrants. He drove up the budget deficit. He expanded federal oversight of local schools.
He also missed his chance to make a political farewell in person, tending to Gustav rather than the GOP.
But while many Republicans disagree with Bush on his immigration, budget and education policies, he shouldn't fret about how he is viewed by the Texas delegates, who wore coordinated state flag shirts here Thursday. They have watched him over the years go from "George's son" to family black sheep to baseball team front man to governor to the White House. They now overlook any minuses.
Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain's sincerity during his speech Thursday struck a chord with El Paso alternate delegate Matt Sistrunk in St. Paul, Minn.
"He did a great job, he really did," Sistrunk said.
McCain's speech concluded the four-day GOP convention, that had been dominated by discussion of the first Republican woman vice-presidential candidate.
David Thackston, an El Paso delegate, said McCain put a human touch on his campaign with his message of unifying not only the GOP but also all other Americans.
ABBOTT: LOOK AT ROMANCE ALLEGATIONS IN HOOD'S CASE
In an unusual alliance, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Thursday he was joining lawyers for a condemned prisoner in urging allegations of an unethical romantic relationship between the trial judge and prosecutor in the case be reviewed even if it means inmate Charles Dean Hood is not executed as scheduled next week.
"I believe that the unique issues in this case, which involve the impartiality and fairness of his trial, warrant thorough review before his sentence is carried out," Abbott said in a letter to Collin County District Attorney John Roach. "A death sentence is the most serious and solemn act of any state. The impartiality of a defendant's trial and conviction must be beyond reproach."
AS KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON HINTS AT GOVERNOR RUN, POSSIBLE SENATE SUCCESSORS MINGLE IN ST. PAUL
Ambitious Texas Republicans, restless after six years with no openings in major statewide offices, see an answer to prayer in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's recent hints about her political future.
Ms. Hutchison continues to suggest, though not confirm, that she may leave the Senate early and run for governor in 2010.
"Might see you in ... Austin," she told a reporter Thursday.
While it's too early for most politicians to declare for Ms. Hutchison's Senate seat, several are believed to be interested. All showed up in St. Paul this week to mingle with the state party faithful.
As public entities vote on new budgets and taxpayers double check their bank accounts, Montgomery County lawmakers are trying to lift the burden of the state’s, counties’ and schools’ reliance on property owners.
Montgomery County state legislators and others across Texas say the appraisal and taxing system in place needs an overhaul. Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton, and Rep. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, believe the 2009 legislative session is the place to straighten out problems with taxation in Texas. And, they say, they aren’t shooting for quick fixes – they want real change.
Residents in Montgomery County and in major metropolitan areas surrounding Houston, Dallas and Austin have battled rising appraisals that have increased taxes for several years. Residents and business owners have seen double- and triple-digit increases in the values of their properties.
While homeowners want their property values to go up for investment purposes, they don’t want to be taxed out of their homes in the process, Otto said.
AS TEXAS EXECUTION NEARS, HEARING IS SET ON A CLAIM THAT JUDGE AND PROSECUTOR HAD AFFAIR
With less than a week to go before the scheduled execution of a man who contends his murder trial was tainted by a love affair between the judge and the prosecutor, a state judge on Thursday ordered a hearing into the accusation and the Texas attorney general called for a review of the fairness of the trial.
The judge’s order and the attorney general’s request are the latest twists in a complicated legal drama that has prompted criticism from prosecutors, judges and experts on legal ethics across the nation. They argue that if the love affair occurred, the condemned man did not receive a fair trial.
On Wednesday, 22 prominent former judges and prosecutors — among them the former F.B.I. director William S. Sessions — urged Gov. Rick Perry to put off the execution to allow more time for a hearing to determine if the claim of an affair is true.
For roughly 25 years, the owners of the private Wonderland School operated their own water well, pulling up enough water to flush the toilets, supply teachers and pupils with drinking water, irrigate the modest lawn and operate a washing machine.
But in 2007, the Edwards Aquifer Authority, which regulates pumping of the giant underground reservoir that supplies water for more than 1.7 million Texans, informed the school for infants through sixth-graders that it had to pay a fine of $6,600 for unauthorized water withdrawals and either buy or lease pumping rights from another permit holder or else cap the well.
JAIL FOOD PROVIDER IN COURT TODAY ACCUSED OF BRIBING POTTER COUNTY SHERIFF
The CEO of a Dallas-based company that provides food services for several jails around the state is expected to be in a Collin County court today accused of trying to bribe the Potter County sheriff in order to maintain a contract there. The case was moved to McKinney from Amarillo on a venue change.
Robert Austin Jr., CEO of Mid-America Services Inc., is charged with engaging in organized criminal activity for offering money and other benefits to Sheriff Michael Shumate to keep the company’s contract at the Potter County Jail. The Texas Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the case that was investigated for more than two years by the FBI.
Don't look now, but the Houston City Council is starting to sound a lot like Bob Barker.
Goaded into action by community outrage after at least six dogs died from exposure to excessive heat in a city animal care vehicle last week, some council members have embraced the mantra of the retired game show host, who closed every broadcast of The Price is Right by urging viewers to "Help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered."
Some, including Mayor Bill White, have floated the possibility of following in the footsteps of Los Angeles, which passed a law in February ordering its 3.8 million citizens to spay and neuter their pets or face repeated fines and criminal charges.
PALIN E-MAILS SHOW INTENSE INTEREST IN TROOPER'S PENALTY
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, wrote e-mails that harshly criticized Alaska state troopers for failing to fire her former brother-in-law and ridiculed an internal affairs investigation into his conduct.
The e-mails were shown to The Washington Post by a former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, who was fired by Palin in July. Monegan has given copies of the e-mails to state ethics investigators to support his contention that he was dismissed for failing to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, who at the time was feuding with Palin's family.
BARNES: SARAH PALIN CONNECTS WITH PEOPLE IN A WAY THAT FEW POLITICIANS CAN.
That was easy. Sarah Palin delivered what may have been the most important speech ever by a vice presidential candidate and made it look like she'd been performing on the national political stage for years. And she made John McCain look good for having picked her as his running mate.
Yet, as governor of Alaska, Palin had never addressed as large a crowd as she did last night at the Republican convention. She'd never before given a nationally televised speech in prime time. And she'd never had to deal with a situation filled with such political peril for her, McCain, and the Republican party.
So how in the world could this 44-year-old woman with no national political experience handle the whole thing with poise and composure and seeming effortlessness? Simple. She's a natural, gifted with the ability to connect with people in a way that few politicians can and to perform under extreme pressure. She has star quality.
WORKERS' COMPENSATION--SHOULD BURNED WORKER BE ABLE TO SUE WORKSITE OWNER?
The accident has left Herrera disabled, and it upended the life that he and his family once knew. It has also put him at the forefront of a swirling legal and political battle at the state Capitol about whether he and workers like him should be able to sue a worksite owner they claim to be negligent.
Herrera's extensive medical costs are covered by a workers' compensation policy provided by the refinery owner, Citgo Refining and Chemicals Company LP. He also gets about $700 per week in lost wages, about $37,000 a year, compared with annual pay of nearly $100,000 before the accident, he said.
But he also believes that the refinery owner should be held accountable for unsafe plant conditions that endanger workers. So, late last week, Herrera sued Citgo, its parent corporation and another company for what he claims are their mistakes that caused his injuries.
"We're not a tool" that can be discarded when it breaks, Herrera said recently of workers. "We are human beings."
2010 RACES ALREADY ON MINDS OF TEXAS DELEGATES, POLITICIANS
he big show's on the Republican National Convention stage, and the big election is this year, but maneuvering for the 2010 Texas governor's race provides as least as much intrigue, with state GOP officials jockeying for support here.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison -- expected to run for the job now held by Gov. Rick Perry, who says he'll seek re-election -- may have felt her ears burning Wednesday at the Texas delegation's breakfast buffet while Betty Hill was quizzed by a reporter about a possible race between the two.
``We were just talking about you and Rick Perry,'' Hill, a delegate from San Antonio, told Hutchison, ``and who I would support.''
Hutchison asked, ``What did you say?''
Hill responded, ``You.''
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin electrified the Republican convention Wednesday night, pitching herself as a champion of government reform, mocking Democratic candidate Barack Obama as an elitist and belittling media criticism of her experience.
In a speech that served as her introduction to most of the nation after Sen. John McCain's surprise decision to pick her as his vice presidential running mate, Palin pitched herself as the product of small-town America and laced her address with sarcastic digs at Sen. Obama. She said it is his experience, not hers, that is lacking, and she embraced the role of leading the attack against the Democratic ticket.
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she deadpanned. "I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."
Two nights in a row outside the Xcel Energy Center where Republicans scrambled for traction at their hurricane-shortened national convention, I spotted a cluster of chattering ladies strolling in skirts, blouses and, well, snaky fake fifth appendages extending in lewd ways.
Whatever their cause — and the demonstrators had many causes, like the protesters who shadowed Democrats at their Denver convention — their appearance distracted.
The GOP convention rippled with distraction as well, at least after its first of three nights (which would have been four if Sen. John McCain hadn't pulled the plug on all but basic business Monday, the day Hurricane Gustav came ashore).
SLATER: PALIN SKIPS ANTI-ABORTION EVENT, BUT THE CROWD IS WITH HER ANYWAY
These were Sarah Palin's people, all except the woman who jumped onto the stage waving the sign "Pro-Life = Universal Health Care."
Phyllis Schlafly frowned.
"You're not on the program," she said as security hauled the protester away and the roomful of anti-abortion Republicans began chanting, "Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!"
Sarah wasn't there. The John McCain campaign canceled her appearance Tuesday at the Republican National Committee for Life reception, and Mrs. Schlafly, the anti-feminist icon of the right, was not happy about it.
STUDY: CLIMATE CHANGE LIKELY MADE STORMS EVEN STRONGER
The strongest hurricanes have gotten stronger in nearly all oceans around the world, likely in response to global warming, a new study concludes.
Scientists say the research is noteworthy, because it uses only satellite observations.This may eliminate some of the bias in the historical hurricane record that has made it all but impossible to determine whether monster storms such as Hurricane Katrina are stronger or more frequent than they were a few decades ago.
After reanalyzing 25 years of satellite data from the North Atlantic and the other five ocean basins where tropical cyclones form, the study's authors found that the top 30 percent of each year's storms became measurably stronger between 1981 and 2006. The intensity change was equivalent to about 5 mph for the strongest storms.
"I think this makes the argument much more compelling that climate change is really affecting the most rare, powerful storms by making them even stronger," said James Elsner, a hurricane scientist at Florida State University and lead author of the study published in Nature.
Sarah Palin displays an Israeli flag in her governor's office in Juneau, even though she has never been to the country, and attends Protestant evangelical churches that consider the preservation of the state of Israel a biblical imperative.
Her faith makes her a favorite with the staunchly pro-Israel neoconservative elements in the Republican Party.
But other Republicans may be concerned that a John McCain-Sarah Palin administration will disregard the caution of former President George H.W. Bush and some of his top advisers and continue the tilt toward Israel.
Most Republicans and conservatives outside Alaska know little about Mrs. Palin's foreign policy views - on Israel or anything else.
They've long been derided in public by John McCain as part of what's wrong in Washington. And during prime time of the Republican convention, some were even singled out for being "corrupt." But that hasn't kept special interest lobbyists and their corporate patrons from carrying on their normal business this week in the shadows of the Republican Party event, where they are hosting many of the 200 parties and receptions in the Twin Cities.
The Travel Industry Association hosted a reception Wednesday evening in a hangar at the St. Paul airport called "Celebrating America's Skyline: A Toast to Travel, Hospitality, and Real Estate Across America." Roger Dow, president of the association, said that lobbying groups like his need to have a presence at the convention if they expect to be taken seriously in Washington. "If you're not here, you're not seen as a meaningful group," he said.
Sarah Palin often identifies herself simply as Christian.
Yet John McCain's running mate has deep roots in Pentecostalism, a spirit-filled Christian tradition that is one of the fastest growing in the world. It's often derided by outsiders and Bible-believers alike.
Palin was baptized Roman Catholic as a newborn. She was then baptized in a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church as a teen and attended that church until six years ago, when she and her family adopted a different home church, an independent evangelical church.
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, has said Palin attends different churches and does not consider herself Pentecostal.
Details of Palin's religious background and its influence on her public policy are still emerging.
The convention has already included some of the most intense attacks against journalists by a campaign in memory, with Mr. McCain’s aides accusing them of biased, sexist and generally unfair coverage of his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
In the first three days here, Mr. McCain’s aides have sent out news releases criticizing individual reporters for their coverage. They have canceled an interview with Larry King of CNN to protest what they viewed as unfair questioning of a spokesman by Campbell Brown. They have dismissed as “fiction” an article in The New York Times about the process of vetting Ms. Palin. And Mr. McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, has accused journalists here of pursuing a “mission to destroy” Ms. Palin with “a new level of viciousness.”
If there is one mission Mr. McCain wants to accomplish at his convention, it is to galvanize conservative voters who have shown signs of depression this year. Traditionally, one surefire way to do that has been to attack the “elitist,” mainstream news media.
Six years after the Texas Association of Business boasted of its role in electing a slate of Republican lawmakers, the state's largest business organization will face a jury on charges that it violated campaign finance laws.
State District Judge Mike Lynch on Wednesday set a Nov. 10 trial date for the last indictment against the group in the sprawling six-year investigation by Travis County prosecutors.
"It's about time," said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who's been praised and vilified for his pursuit of felony charges.
Most employees at the five agencies of the Health and Human Services Commission are not given required training and more than 1,000 fired employees continued to get paid over the past two years, according to a state audit released Wednesday.
The agency, which employs about 50,000 people and has an annual payroll of about $2.2 billion, had not administered commission-required training courses to 92 percent of supervisors hired between Sept. 1, 2006, and March 31, 2008, auditors said. Only 43 percent of agency employees hired during that time had completed at least one of the required training courses.
KENNEDY: IT TOOK A WHILE, BUT TEXAS REPUBLICANS ARE WARMING UP TO JOHN MCCAIN, SORTA
A year ago, 1,300 Texas Republicans voted in a presidential straw poll.
John McCain had eight votes.
So much for Texas Republicans’ clout. After isolating themselves by bashing McCain as a liberal for the last year, most have begrudgingly lined up with his campaign, if only to elect religious archconservative Sarah Palin as vice president.
"For the first time ever, I’m voting for a Democrat -- but he’s John McCain," said Jack Wolfe, 62, a Mission attorney and Republican convention delegate.
He was kidding. Or not.
"There’s no choice," he said. "We have a Democrat. But the other party is running a communist" -- Barack Obama.
GROUP CLAIMS DEWHURST IS NOT COMPLYING WITH FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE LAW
A campaign watchdog group urged local prosecutors Wednesday to launch a formal criminal investigation of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, saying his failure to disclose details of his vast wealth likely violates state law.
The complaint follows an Associated Press report about the lack of transparency in Dewhurst’s personal financial statements. He is said to be the richest man in Texas politics, but most of his wealth is in a trust whose major assets are not disclosed.
Texans for Public Justice, a liberal group, sent a written complaint to Travis County Attorney David Escamilla. The group said Dewhurst, who wields tremendous influence as presiding officer of the state Senate, appeared to have violated disclosure laws by filing possibly incomplete and misleading reports at the Texas Ethics Commission.
Fresh off his electoral victory in May, Mayor Vicente Garza Jr. has embarked on a quixotic project, betting against long odds that a casino could secure the future of this indebted town of 485 residents southwest of McAllen.
Founded in 1767 but not incorporated until 1993, Granjeno clings to a sharp curve in the road a mile from the Rio Grande. It has a single city employee, a beer joint is its only business and most residents are kin.
But things are happening.
The border fence that put Granjeno in the spotlight last year when plans had it running through yards and homes is taking shape just behind property lines on the south side of town instead. A new international bridge to Reynosa, Mexico, is under construction to the west.
Texas health and human services agencies continued to pay 1,229 terminated employees a total of $738,192 over the past two years, according to a state audit released Wednesday.
The overpayments were among several deficiencies found in workforce practices at the Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees four state agencies in a system that employs 50,000 workers with a payroll of $2.2 billion.
Auditors also complained of inadequately trained supervisors, lengthy paid emergency leaves for employees facing criminal charges and inconsistent efforts to verify workers' citizenship status.
“The Health and Human Services Commission should improve its compliance with laws, policies and procedures when carrying out human resources functions,” the audit said.
Puffing on a cigarette under a picture perfect sky, Polly Hodge of San Antonio smiled as she remembered the old days.
“It used to be that women were not allowed to smoke, or drink or even wear pants, much less have an opportunity for advancement,” she said.
Hodge, 80, a retired phone worker, recalled an era when “women used to have to wear a hat, gloves and high heels just to go shopping.”
A delegate to the Republican National Convention, Hodge said she was overjoyed “at the fact that this has woken up the Republicans, and it’s about time.”
That joy was widely shared by female delegates from Texas.
Congress appears ready to pour legislative concrete around its misguided 15-year obstruction of cross-border trucking between Mexico and the United States.
The Express-News reported on Sunday that a bill is pending to end the successful cross-border trucking pilot program, which recently was extended by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for another two years.
Teamsters and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are the main forces by the obstructionist effort to do away with a key provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
If the obstructionists are successful, they will take away San Antonio's opportunity to be a key center for warehousing and distribution of cross-border trade goods.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison offered cautious praise for Sarah Palin on Wednesday, a contrast to most Republicans' full-throated defense of the vice presidential candidate.
Kay Bailey Hutchison talked to reporters after she addressed the Texas delegation at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday. The U.S. senator repeated that her aspiration is to return to Texas.
Asked if Ms. Palin is ready to be vice president, Ms. Hutchison said: "She offers a lot to the ticket. We'll see in the coming weeks how she does, where she goes. And I think she's going to do fine."
Texas' senior senator, who also was reportedly considered for John McCain's running mate, spoke to reporters before Ms. Palin's much anticipated speech to the Republican convention.
They're on the screen almost anytime you turn on TV for news of the conventions: smiling, even drawling, Texas political-operatives-turned-pundits.
For some, it's a switch into an industry they openly scorned when they were in office or served in the Bush and Clinton administrations.
Former Bush White House counselor Dan Bartlett, asked if it was awkward to join the mainstream media, said, "I don't know if I accept the title."
Mr. Bartlett acknowledged it's ironic he became a political analyst last month for CBS News, after he led a White House charge to sack anchor Dan Rather over a tainted exposé about Mr. Bush's National Guard service in 2004.
Mr. Bartlett is one of three top Bush advisers who recently landed news media gigs.
He's hosting parties for delegates and lobbyists. He's welcomed warmly by the conservative commentators on talk-radio row. He's appearing on star-studded panels of political talking heads. And Texas delegates to the Republican National Convention hail him as the architect of GOP dominance in the Lone Star State.
For Tom DeLay, it could be a replay of his triumphant appearances at recent national conventions. Except that it isn't.
DeLay — the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill four years ago when the party gathered in New York to re-nominate fellow Texan George W. Bush — is now a private citizen. He's still a devoted Republican and committed conservative, but the once-feared lawmaker is now on the outside looking in.
"I haven't been found guilty of anything, and yet my first name is 'Discredited' in the media," DeLay said Wednesday.
The night's partying had stretched past midnight at the honky-tonk-themed party that AT&T threw for Texas delegates in Minneapolis.
So Houston tutor Vergel Cruz was not surprised to see at Wednesday's delegation breakfast that some of his less nimble fellow GOP delegates had not yet two-stepped out of bed.
Republicans want more young Hispanics like him to fill its banquet chairs — and to vote conservative in the presidential election and the following years. In Houston and elsewhere, that growing category of voters is expected to swing many political contests.
But several polls show that the places at the table remain vacant. Barack Obama leads among Hispanics by a 2 to 1 ratio or higher over Cruz's choice, John McCain. Immigration policy debates and economic doldrums have lowered Hispanic appetites for the GOP message, according to those who analyze the polls.
FEDERAL JUDGE SAMUEL KENT PROMISES "A HORDE OF WITNESSES"
U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent stood before a fellow federal judge Wednesday and vehemently proclaimed his innocence of three federal charges of sexually abusing an employee.
"I plead absolutely, unequivocally not guilty and look very much forward to a trial on the merits of what I consider flagrant, scurrilous charges," Kent stated with force to 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward Prado.
"For the record I absolutely intend to testify, and we are going to bring a horde of witnesses," Kent said loudly.
The next thing that will likely happen in the case is for a judge from another region to be appointed to hear the matter.
BAYTOWN WOMAN SUES LENDERS, SAYS SHE WAS A VICTIM OF PREDATORY LENDING PRACTICES BECAUSE SHE'S BLACK
Nanette Lewis refinanced her mortgage to get peace of mind. Instead, she says, she got a bait-and-switch, predatory loan and heartbreak.
Now far less naive, the Baytown woman decided to fight back.
In a lawsuit she filed against her lenders in federal court last week, she alleges she was targeted for a loan with onerous terms because she's black. Her suit mirrors one filed by the attorney general of Massachusetts and another by the city of Baltimore.
All three accuse lenders of "reverse redlining" — targeting minority loan applicants for the worst possible mortgage deals.
Lewis' lawsuit may be the first of its kind in Texas. She is represented by a legal aid lawyer and seeking primarily, she said, to get the word out about what happened and to remove the lien from her property, though she still would be responsible for repaying the mortgage.
LOCAL GOP DELEGATES LIKE PALIN GOVERNOR CREDENTIALS
Michael Bergsma has heard a lot of talk among Republicans about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the week since GOP presidential candidate John McCain picked her as his running mate.
"They are saying two things," said Bergsma, a GOP activist from Corpus Christi and a delegate at this week's Republican National Convention. "One, they really like her. She's a reform candidate, which Lord knows both parties need. That has been an issue that has hurt the Republican brand image. We need fresh blood, and she definitely is that.
"Also, she's a fiscal conservative. And she's pro-life. She doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk."
With the 81st legislative session just around the corner, funding requests from various state agencies putting together budget documents for next year have begun to circulate – including a Legislative Appropriations Request from the state's Health and Human Services Commission that proposes adding another $1.5 million to the pet project of Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, the Alternatives to Abortion program.
The program, created by a budget rider in 2005, is designed exclusively to "promote childbirth" and to steer women away from abortion. It does so, however, without providing any medical services whatsoever and yet has been funded by siphoning $5 million per biennium from the ever-dwindling pot shared by traditional providers of actual medical services – family planning and reproductive health services – for low-income women and others without other access to health care. Now HHSC has included in its biennial request additional funding for the Alternatives to Abortion program, which is administered by the group Texas Pregnancy Care Network – an outfit created in summer 2005 (presumably in response to the new funding opportunity created by Williams' rider) by three people without experience in either nonprofit administration or in women's health care – but with solid, all-important anti-choice credentials.
TRAVIS COUNTY OPENING TWO 'MEGA SITES' FOR EARLY VOTING
Travis County is setting up two "mega sites" to accommodate the expected crush of early voters in the November presidential election.
One site will be at the West Tower Village shopping center on West Gate Boulevard in South Austin. The other will be at 5335 Airport Blvd., next to the Travis County clerk's office in the old Chair King building. The mega sites should have 35 to 50 voting machines each, County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said.
The sites will only be open for early voting, which begins Oct. 20. Anyone registered in Travis County can vote there, said Mary Fero, a spokeswoman for the Travis County clerk's office.
Las Manitas, a Mexican restaurant that has been a Congress Avenue staple for more than 25 years, has closed its doors. But Cynthia and Lidia Perez, the sisters who own the restaurant, plan to reopen it in a building they own just a few doors north on Congress, associates said.
The original restaurant and adjacent buildings will be torn down to make way for a 1,000-room, 26-story Marriott convention hotel.
The announcement of the hotel plan two years ago set off a debate over the benefits of development versus protecting longtime locally owned businesses downtown. The debate continued Wednesday, as customers showed up for breakfast to find Las Manitas' door locked and a sign reading: "Here was fought the battle for Austin's soul. Austin lost."
Opponents of Farmers Branch’s attempts to ban illegal immigrants from renting apartments in the city filed another lawsuit against the city Wednesday.
The federal lawsuit seeks to stop the third version of a rental ban from going into effect as scheduled Sept. 13.
This latest court battle follows a ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay that Farmers Branch’s previous version of the rental ban is unconstitutional. He ruled that regulating immigration is solely the responsibility of the federal government.
The city had already approved another version of the ban that is set to take effect 15 days after Lindsay’s ruling, which is Sept. 13. City attorneys have argued that the new version will pass constitutional muster because it would have the federal government check people’s citizenship or immigration status before they are allowed to rent in Farmers Branch.
While two North Side councilmen push a steeper property tax cut than City Manager Sheryl Sculley laid out in her proposed budget last month, their colleagues are jockeying for dollars for pet projects not included in the $2.3 billion spending plan.
“We're all trying to push forward projects that are needed in our districts,” said Councilwoman Jennifer Ramos, who's seeking extra funding for a senior center and Southside Lions Park improvements in her district southeast of downtown. The council, she added, is “moving money around” to scare up funding for some of the extra projects, though not big-ticket items.
The council is expected to adopt the budget Sept. 11.
GUERRA: TERM LIMITS HAVEN'T BROUGHT SAN ANTONIO BETTER GOVERNMENT
History provides wondrous rearview mirror views that can provide valuable perspectives about the future. That's how we need to look at our city's term limits, the nation's most restrictive, which limit mayors and City Council members to two, two-year terms, after which they are forever banned from service.
It is time to acknowledge that it is a failed experiment.
It has not cleaned up City Hall. Instead, it has made city staff less accountable while greatly enhancing the role of special-interest money in decision-making. Worse, it has eroded visionary long-term planning and replaced policy development with an unending charade of short-term showcase projects designed to help four-year council members leap to longer-term political careers.
It is also time to admit that when term limits were adopted, they were less about curbing City Hall abuses than they were about limiting the newly felt influence of representatives of South, East and West Side districts in city government.
DAVIDSON: HARDBERGER HAS EARNED A HEARING ON TERM LIMITS
Mayor Phil Hardberger could have easily walked away from the battle to loosen San Antonio's City Council term-limit rule.
After all, the mayor has stacked up a long list of impressive accomplishments during his tenure as mayor.
And he doesn't want to stay in office forever. He interrupted his well-earned retirement to serve the city. He'll be quite happy to return to his sailboat next summer.
But in a recent conversation, Hardberger said that from his temporary inside view of City Hall, he saw that the damage done by the strictest term limits in the nation is far more than he realized before being mayor.
The usual criticisms of term limits hold true, Hardberger said. The revolving door keeps on spinning new faces into city government at a dizzying pace. Staff loses time and momentum training newly elected officials.
Eight of the current 10 district representatives are rookies.
DALLAS ISD ETHICS PANEL RECOMMENDS NEW DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS
Companies with financial ties to Dallas school trustees could continue to do business with the district as long as they meet new disclosure requirements under policy changes recommended Wednesday.
The three trustees on the board's ethics committee said the changes they put on the table Wednesday would significantly improve existing policies. Trustees now must disclose conflicts of interest and abstain from voting on those items.
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Committee members said the proposals would force the Dallas Independent School District to do a better job of tracking trustees' disclosure reports, which would be posted on the district's Web site. The proposed changes could lead to the exclusion of a vendor for a year if a trustee failed to disclose a conflict.
LUBBOCK CHAMBER EYES CONSULTANT FOR ALCOHOL PETITION DRIVE
The Lubbock Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday its political action committee may use a professional consulting firm to organize and operate a petition drive aimed at placing on a ballot legalized packaged alcohol sales within the city and/or county.
The Let Lubbock Vote PAC will consider hiring the consulting firm, which was not identified, when its committee is fully seated and ready to operate.
"We're looking at it. The purpose of this PAC is to raise funds for a petition (drive) and figure out how we'll make it a success," said David George, who is chairing the group.
When an Austin appeals court recently issued a ruling that appears to absolve former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and two co-defendants of money laundering charges, it cited a law passed eight months after the original indictments in support of its ruling.
So what are we to make of the fact that the law cited by the court was authored by one of the recipients of the allegedly laundered money?
....Finally, state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., who co-sponsored the bill with Taylor, says he is appalled at the Third Court's decision.
"There's no small irony that the appeals court has performed legal gymnastics to interpret this enhancement of the money laundering statute as a loophole," he said.
"The point was to clarify. This was designed to close loopholes not to open one."
So was Taylor, the recipient of allegedly laundered money, a party to undermining the prosecution?
Or was it just a $20,000 coincidence that he authored a bill the appellate judges used to do just that?
We report. You decide.
MORE THAN 100 TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO ASK VOTERS TO INCREASE TAXES
Austin is not alone in asking voters for a tax rate increase this fall. It joins more than 100 of the state's school districts whose officials say a tax rate increase is the only viable option to cover rising prices and to help their employees' paychecks keep pace with inflation.
"It is about increasing funding to meet inflation, performance standards and community expectations," said Lynn Moak, a school finance expert who works with school districts.
Last fall, 119 of the state's more than 1,000 school districts held tax rate elections. Most were successful, but it is still a risky endeavor that could leave a district with disaffected taxpayers and big holes in its budget.
ROVE TELLS TEXAS DELEGATES TO REBUILD THE PARTY'S MOJO
Karl Rove, the architect behind the GOP's rise to power in Texas, told state delegates Monday that the party was losing ground and that they need to "re-energize our grass roots."
"Let's admit it, we've lost a little bit of our mojo," he said at a luncheon. "We got behind in the Legislature and then we fell back a little bit."
He reminded them that, when he was a precinct chair in the late 1970s, he and other Republicans took a "systematic" approach to winning down-ballot races, not just the top of the ticket.
State Rep. Kino Flores, D-Palmview, will likely not be sanctioned for hiring an undocumented immigrant.
In the wake of a violent slaying on Flores' ranch property north of Mission, local and Mexican law enforcement agencies are tracking a 24-year-old Honduran man who had been living and working there. But federal law enforcement agencies have expressed little interest in pursuing Flores for hiring Froilan Caseres, who authorities said was in the country illegally when he allegedly beat another man to death.
Millions fled the Gulf Coast in fear of Hurricane Gustav, billed as the apocalyptic "mother of all storms." Fortunately, it was no Katrina.
Now, with three other storms lining up in the Atlantic, some fear people might not listen next time.
As the first of the 2 million people who fled Gustav began to trickle home Tuesday from shelters, many grumbled about the food, the heat, the overcrowding, the uncertainty and the frustrating wait for the all-clear. Some evacuees, particularly in Texas, on the far fringes of the storm's path, suggested authorities overreacted in demanding that they leave their homes.
GROWING LIST OF REVELATIONS ABOUT PALIN'S PAST MAY SPELL TROUBLE FOR REPUBLICANS
With the speech of her life looming tonight, a burst of new revelations has raised more questions about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and how carefully the McCain campaign scrutinized her.
For one thing, it was reported that she accepted at least $4,500 in campaign contributions in the same fundraising scheme at the center of a public corruption scandal that led to the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens. The contributions, made during Palin’s failed 2002 bid to become Alaska’s lieutenant governor, were not illegal for her to accept. But they show how Palin, a self-proclaimed champion for clean government, has been part of a political system in Alaska that now is under the cloud of an ongoing FBI investigation.
Life is a giant classroom, and the harsher the lesson, the easier it should be to absorb.
Three years after Hurricane Katrina, everyone seemed to learn from the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history — and that included government officials, emergency responders and ordinary citizens.
New Orleans residents — and the government officials responsible for protecting them — reacted swiftly and decisively to the blustery threat of Hurricane Gustav.
The threat turned out to be just that, a threat, with the hurricane hitting shore 70 miles southwest of New Orleans; it spared the city from its worst nightmare — a repeat of the devastation it had suffered three years earlier.
President Bush proclaimed Senator John McCain “ready to lead this nation” in a farewell speech to the Republican convention here on Tuesday night. But far from being the kind of unifying send-off and baton pass engineered for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, the evening only highlighted Mr. McCain’s eagerness to get the president off the stage.
“John is an independent man who thinks for himself,” Mr. Bush said via satellite from the White House, in an eight-minute speech intended to reinforce the McCain campaign’s theme that the senator is no clone of the president. “He’s not afraid to tell you when he disagrees. Believe me, I know.”
John McCain is not a normal conservative. He has instincts, but few abstract convictions about the proper size of government. He’s a traditionalist, but is not energized by the social conservative agenda. As Rush Limbaugh understands, but the Democrats apparently do not, a McCain administration would not be like a Bush administration.
The main axis in McCain’s worldview is not left-right. It’s public service versus narrow self-interest. Throughout his career, he has been drawn to those crusades that enabled him to launch frontal attacks on the concentrated powers of selfishness — whether it was the big money donors who exploited the loose campaign finance system, the earmark specialists in Congress like Alaska’s Don Young and Ted Stevens, the corrupt Pentagon contractors or Jack Abramoff.
The guilty pleasure I miss most when I’m out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick.
So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime. Instead of going home and watching “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch “Miss Congeniality” with Sarah Palin.
Sheer heaven.
The world arrived here more than a century ago with the gold rush and later the railroad. Yet one aspect of American life did not come to town until 1996, the year Sarah Palin ran for mayor and Wasilla got its first local lesson in wedge politics.
The traditional turning points that had decided municipal elections in this town of less than 7,000 people — Should we pave the dirt roads? Put in sewers? Which candidate is your hunting buddy? — seemed all but obsolete the year Ms. Palin, then 32, challenged the three-term incumbent, John C. Stein.
Time best tells the story of Joe Lieberman, who has watched his political career swiftly rise and sag and settle uneasily into a place of uncertainty.
Just eight years ago, he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee, summoning the ghost of John F. Kennedy at his party's convention and lacerating Republicans on the issues of education, the environment, health care and campaign finance reform. He was interrupted constantly by chants of "Go Joe, go! Go Joe, go!"
REPORT DESCRIBES CARELESS HANDLING OF U.S. SECRETS
Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told investigators that he could not recall whether he took home notes regarding the government's most sensitive national security program and that he did not know they contained classified information, despite his own markings that they were "top secret -- eyes only," according to a Justice Department report released yesterday.
Gonzales improperly carried notes about the warrantless wiretapping program in an unlocked briefcase and failed to keep them in a safe at his Northern Virginia home three years ago because he "could not remember the combination," the department's inspector general reported.
The little lady from the wild has dispatched rafts of butterflies - the big monarchs - to unsettle the tummies of Democrats. Throwing a handful of dirt at a girl and her mama didn't work the way everybody thought it would.
Sarah Palin is the match waiting to ignite a convention eager to get on fire for its own American idol, to rage against the Democrats and the pious arrogance of the insufferable media machine, whose campaign of intimidation of the convention has so far failed. The convention is still crazy about Sarah.
KENT ONE OF FEW U.S. JURISTS INDICTED WHILE ON BENCH
U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent, charged last week with committing sex crimes, is now part of an exclusive but notorious club: federal judges who have been indicted while on the bench.
"It is extremely rare. We've gone (nearly) 20 years now since the last one," said Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
Kent was to make his first court appearance today on federal charges of abusive sexual contact and attempted aggravated sexual abuse. He has been a jurist in Galveston since former President Bush appointed him in 1990.
Thousands of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's supporters on Tuesday shouted their support for their unsuccessful 2008 presidential candidate and gave a raucous welcome to an ex-wrestler who could be their 2012 contender.
Paul, R-Lake Jackson, was the featured speaker at the Rally for the Republic, a counterpoint to the Republican National Convention in nearby St. Paul.
"One thing I have said is that the revolution is a lot more than about me. There is no doubt about it. This revolution will continue," he said at a packed Target Center arena. "But I would like to think that the campaign and our efforts together have done a whole lot to speed up the revolution that was destined to come anyway."
Fresh off his electoral victory in May, Mayor Vicente Garza Jr. has embarked on a quixotic project, betting against long odds that a casino could secure the future of this indebted town of 485 residents.
Founded in 1767, but not incorporated until 1993, Granjeño clings to a sharp curve in the road a mile from the Rio Grande. It has a single city employee, a beer joint is its only business and most residents are kin.
But things are happening.
The border fence that put Granjeño in the spotlight last year when plans had it running through yards and homes is taking shape instead just behind property lines on the south side of town. A new international bridge to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, is under way to the west.
OIL PRICES HIT FIVE-MONTH LOW AS HURRICANE SPARES GULF OPERATIONS
Oil prices dropped to the lowest level in five months Tuesday, falling to within sight of $100 a barrel on signs that Hurricane Gustav only grazed U.S. energy infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell $5.75 to settle at $109.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier dropping as low as $105.46. It was the lowest trading level since April 4, just before oil began an unprecedented climb to more than $147 per barrel.
Almost all oil and natural gas production remained shut down in the Gulf of Mexico as energy companies began assessing damage to offshore platforms, rigs and pipelines, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said.
Hidalgo County Sheriff's deputies are investigating the beating death of illegal immigrant on the ranch of Texas State Rep. Ismael “Kino” Flores (D-Mission).
Invesitagors told Action 4 News the man was found beaten to death on Monday.
“All I can allude to as far as injuries was that he’s got blunt force trauma throughout the body,” said Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño.
Deputies believe the incident started as an argument between the victim an undocumented immigrant from Honduras.
"One beat the other one to death [and] our suspect has fled," Treviño said. "He did call an individual to tell him that he had murdered somebody."
