Category: Politics

In Despite state mythology, Texas lacks right to secede (Dallas Morning News,  April 18, 2009), political consultant Bill Miller intimated that Republicans are nut jobs.

Bill, a partner in HillCo Partners LLC and supporter of discredited former House Speaker Tom Craddick, said the following in response to Governor Rick Perry’s moral support of secessionist nuts:

Clearly, he’s playing their song. And he was tone-perfect actually, for that group.

[When it comes to the GOP base] there’s no downside for him [using the secession argument]. He can ride that horse all day long.

Um, Bill, most Republicans aren’t insane. The vast majority of us laugh (or cry?) at this secession talk.

It’s unfortunate that this kind of view gets any press. But maybe it’s accurate when the party platform has provisions that would:

• Criminalize use of oral contraceptives.
• Eliminate use of Presidential executive orders.
• Allow religious organizations to break current 501(c)(3) restrictions on political activism.
• Allow party bosses to effectively disqualify candidates because of their adherence to certain platform issues.
• Punish certain forms of free speech.
• Require teaching of religious viewpoints in science classes.
• Enforce values of certain religious sects on all Texans.
• Ban termination of unnatural life support measures (e.g., feeding tubes on brain dead patients who cannot possibly recover).
• Withdraw from the United Nations.
• Etc.

To be clear: I am a Republican. I am a Christian (and an unusual one since I attend church!). But as long as extremist views like these are in our platform, how can we be taken seriously?

I support the calls for a new generation of Republicans, ones who see beyond the last generation’s radicalism. If we don’t, we’ll get the failure we deserve.

I ran across a bizarre article: a La Marque, TX woman was arrested and ticketed for dropping an F-bomb in a Wal Mart by–get this–a city fire marshal! Help me: what does swearing have to do with fires?

Texas has many overlapping types of law enforcement agencies. Here’s a sampling from the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, organized roughly by agency type:

1. County sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, and reserve sheriffs
2. County precinct constables, deputy constables, and reserve constables
3. City marshals (presumably the process serving kind)
4. City police and reserve police
5. Texas Department of Public Safety, including Texas Rangers
6. Investigators for county district attorneys, criminal DAs, and and county attorneys
7. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s officers
8. Texas school district police officers (jurisdiction is entire district boundary and any property outside district boundaries that is owned, leased, or rented by or otherwise under the control of the school district) (source)
9. Public university and college police officers (full jurisdiction within entire counties that contain property owned, leased, rented, or otherwise under the control of the university or college) (source)
10. Private university and college police officers (jurisdiction is on property owned by the school or anywhere within a county in which the school owns property as long as the officer is performing duties assigned by the university and which are consistent with the school’s educational mission) (source)
11. General Services Commission officers
12. Parks and Wildlife Commission officers
13. Airport police officers for airports exclusively operated by Houston, San Antonio, or Dallas or any political subdivision of the state.
14. City park and recreational department officers
15. State comptroller’s security officers and investigators
16. Water control and improvement district’s police officers (jurisdiction appears to be limited to any land, water, or easement owned or controlled by the district) (source)
17. Municipally-owned harbor or port police officer (source)
18. Texas Medical Board investigators
19. Dallas County Hospital District, Tarrant County Hospital District, or Bexar County Hospital District officers (jurisdiction limited to district property or adjacent roads) (source)
20. County park rangers in Harris County or any county bordering the Gulf of Mexico (jurisdiction limited to county parks and unincorporated parts of islands or isthmuses) (source)
21. Texas Racing Commission investigators
22. Texas State Board of Pharmacy officers (may not carry a firearm or make an arrest) (source)
23. Metropolitan rapid transit authority or regional transportation authority officers
24. Texas Attorney General investigators
25. Texas Lottery Commission security officers or investigators
26. Texas Department of Health officer (limited to enforcement of food and drug portions of Health and Safety Code) (source)
27. Supreme court, the court of criminal appeals, and each of the courts of appeals can appoint a police officer “to protect the court” (source)
28. State fire marshal’s fire and arson investigators (source)
29. Texas Department of Insurance investigators (source)
30. Texas Youth Commission inspectors general (source)
31. Texas Youth Commission apprehension specialists (source)
32. Texas Department of Criminal Justice inspectors (source)
33. Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education investigators (source)
34. Texas Commission on Private Security investigators (source)
35. Emergency Services District police officer (source)
36. Emergency Services District fire hazards investigator (source)
37. State Board of Dental Examiners officer (only to enforce relevant portions of the Dentistry subtitle of the occupations Code) (source)
38. Texas Juvenile Probation Commission investigator (for the purpose of investigating allegations of abuse, neglect, and exploitation in juvenile justice programs and facilities) (source)

Do we need thirty eight types of state law enforcement?

The AIG bonus revolt is political buffoonery.

The Obama administration should have said:

Yes, the bonuses are bad, but they were contractual obligations that were reinforced by my administration and my democrat friends in the House and Senate (link). We’re not changing the rules of civil contracts; that would destroy the confidence in American economic system, which is still quite sound.

This is not time to make political hay. AIG has to pay this round of bonuses. But since the US now owns AIG, we’ll stop this from happening in the future.

Instead, the Obama administration and Congressional democrat fiends friends acted like spoiled children caught with their hands in the cookie jar–excuses, whining, and threats.

That’s not leadership. That’s liberalism.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

-H.L. Mencken

Texas Watchdog has a short piece about how former Texas Rep. Fred Hill suddenly switched from legislator to lobbyist. In it, the Watchdog blames Hill for a state HR screw up.

Legislative terms ended on Jan. 13, when the new guy is sworn in. Hill resigned early, on Jan. 2 (link), and solicited lobbying work on Jan. 3 (link).

Even though Hill resigned on Jan. 2, the state kept him on payroll through Jan. 13. So let’s see, $600 per month legislative pay, 11 days of January, that comes out to $212.90 more pay.

The Watchdog wouldn’t have posted this if they didn’t think it’s Hill’s fault. Pish posh! Hill did all he needed to do by filing his resignation. State HR screw ups aren’t his fault!

The real controversy is the rapid switch from legislative service to (lucrative) lobbying gigs. Indeed, the Watchdog waxed about this in the prior article. But they got lost in irrelevant details with this follow up post.

I haven’t made up my mind on the revolving issue, but I prefer preserving rights of people in good standing, so I lean against banning the practice.