"Ken Paxton is a tireless conservative warrior. Ken Paxton stands and fights, whether its against Obamacare, whether its fighting for voter ID, or whether its fighting to defend our religious liberty. And I'm proud to say Ken Paxton is my friend."
Stockman was a pro-gun, pro-school prayer sometime house painter and occasional accountant. The most effective element of his platform was simply not being 21 term Congressman Jack Brooks who, if he had been re-elected, would have been the most senior member of the House.
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Stockman, 37, didn't earn a college degree until 1990 and worked sporadically while raising money in the conservative Churches of east Texas for a campaign that would spend little more than $100,000. But his limitations were a virtue because his target was so big -- and so maculate. Jack Brooks, an ex-Marine who chomped on a cigar in his seat as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee long after the ashtrays were removed, could be a poster child for term limits. More liberal than his east Texas constituents...he had hung tenaciously to office, power, perks and pork by fiercely protecting his constituents love of guns, rice subsidies, and the death penalty.
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But Brooks' last grab for a slab of bacon proved too much for his sated constituency. After he managed to get $10 million for the Jack Brooks Criminal Justice Center at Brooks' alma mater Lamar College slipped into the crime bill, voters saw pork for the bad financial bargain it is -- two dollars in federal taxes for every one that might come back to the district in the form of pork. Stockman, who had been trounced by Brooks in 1992, saw his chance and tried again. Some Republicans in Texas ignored him as a wild man [Author's Note: History Repeats itself.]. (Stockman unfurled posters that said FIGHT CRIME, SHOOT BACK.) But he found ardent support among the pro-lifers, term-limit advocates, and gun owners, angry at Brooks' vote for the crime bill. And the giant fell: Brooks won only 46% of the vote.We apologize for not including a link to the full article, but we were referring to an old paper copy.
San Antonio, TX (Eastside Neighborhood)
The City of San Antonio’s key strategies include:
- Focusing on job creation and training, including through a partnership with St. Philip’s College, in key growth areas including energy, health care, business support, aerospace/advanced manufacturing, and construction.
- Empowering every child with the skills they need by increasing enrollment in high quality pre-K programs; installing a STEM focus in the local school district; expanding enrollment in Early College Programs; and improving adult education opportunities.
San Antonio's mayor reacted predictably:
- Expanding public safety activities to facilitate neighborhood revitalization; improved street lighting and demolishing abandoned buildings; and integrated public safety activities with social resources.
San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro said “this is a promising investment in creating more job opportunities and revitalizing neighborhoods on the East Side.”
Castro said the federal application process can be “labyrinthine” and difficult to complete correctly.
“So to have the technical assistance and have the red tape cut will make a difference in the likelihood of having success at getting funding in the future,” Castro said.Obama's 'promise zones,' are an ass-backwards economic development strategy. But Obama's 'promise zones' aren't about economic development. Obama's 'promise zone' is a smokescreen for Battleground Texas.
Texas Republican John Cornyn supplemented his Senate salary with a trio of public pensions last year from his days as a Texas judge and elected official—a practice some fiscal watchdog groups have attacked as “double dipping.”Read the whole thing here.
Cornyn, who is the minority whip and the No. 2 ranking Republican in the Senate, reported collecting $65,383 in public retirement benefits in 2012 in addition to his $174,000 salary as a U.S. senator.
Cornyn’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Elected to the Senate in 2002, Cornyn is a former district judge, Texas Supreme Court justice, and state attorney general. In 2012, he collected pensions from three separate state retirement programs.
The biggest of Cornyn’s pensions—$48,807— is from the Judicial Retirement System of Texas. He served on the state Supreme Court from 1991 to 1997.
He reported another $10,132 in retirement benefits last year from the Employees Retirement System of Texas—the pension fund for state elected officials and workers. Cornyn served as Texas attorney general from 1999 to 2002.
In a series of financial-disclosure amendments that he began filing last July, Cornyn disclosed that he had actually been collecting that $10,132 annual pension as far back as 2006. He had not listed it on his original disclosure reports from 2006 to 2010.
Cornyn also reported a $6,444 retirement distribution from the Texas County and District Retirement System. He was a state district judge from 1985 to 1989, according to his official bio, when the governor appointed him presiding judge for the Fourth Administrative Judicial Region of Texas, where he oversaw judicial administration for a 22-county region.
I am excited to announce I have just filed to run for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives for the 84th... http://t.co/roTDbnUn2W
— Scott Turner (@ScottTurnerTX) January 10, 2014
The conservative Republican former NFL star, who is a freshman in the Texas House, will be taking on an entrenched and powerful speaker who has beaten back several past challenges. Straus maintains his seat, ironically given the Republicans’ overwhelming majority in the House, by blending a unified Democrat caucus plus enough Republicans voting together to keep him as speaker.Obviously, our own sentiments towards Joe Straus are known.
Turner will be facing an uphill fight, but his entire life story is about taking on one uphill fight after another.
