Paxton makes UT pay for Hall's Lawyer!!!

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."
Galatians 6:9

Nice:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has approved a request by University of Texas System Regent Wallace Hall to hire a lawyer in his quest for access to confidential student information, setting the stage for Hall to sue the system he oversees.

If Hall sues, or otherwise uses the services of a lawyer, the UT System should pay that lawyer's fees, Paxton said in the letter.

But, Paxton said, the system should instead consider just giving Hall what he wants. Paxton has already said he believes Hall has a right to see the information he seeks.

"If the System and regents complied with the requirements of state law," Paxton wrote, "this litigation would be unnecessary."

....

In most situations related to a regent's duties in office, a regent would be represented by the university system's general counsel. In this case, since Hall and the system are adversaries in the dispute, that would represent a conflict of interest. State officials who seek outside counsel need approval from the attorney general's office before they can make a hire.

Read the whole thing here.

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Update: The Dallas Morning News has a lot more:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sharply rebuked the administration and board of regents of the University of Texas Tuesday, granting a sweeping ruling in favor of UT Regent Wallace Hall and stating that a recent board decision limiting regents’ access to records violates state law.

In a stinging letter to UT Chancellor William McRaven Tuesday, AG Ken Paxton ruled that not only can UT Regent Wallace Hall hire an outside lawyer to fight for access to admissions records but that UT will have to pay the lawyer’s bill.

Paxton goes on to note that while Hall’s request for the legal help is being granted, it is “our belief that if the System complies with its obligations under state law, a significant portion of this litigation would not be needed.”

Paxton’s opinion is the latest development in an ongoing and increasingly entrenched fight between UT Chancellor William McRaven, his loyalists on the board and Hall, who has worked for years to uncover the role of political favoritism in the UT admissions process.

....

Paxton not only said yes, he concluded that the board’s reaction to Hall’s request violates the law.

....

“We believe this rule violates state law by imposing a substantive barrier to a regent’s right to access information he believes necessary to fulfill his regental duties,” Paxton wrote.

None of this is any surprise. Or it shouldn’t be. A long body of opinion from past attorneys general confirms this is the law.

 Read the whole thing here.

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Paxton's full letter:

Paxton Opinion Re Outside Council 6-15-15 by cityhallblog

Voice and Exit: 9 Megatrends Next Century's Historians will use to describe this one

"And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins."
Mark 2:22

Corporate consultant Nancy Giordino examines trends that will shape the next couple decades.



Highlights:

• Bi-Polar economy
• "Top 1%" keeps doing better.

• The internet will be in everything.

• 3D printers, robotics, biotechnology.

• Constant change, disruption, and adaptation.

• Permanent ambiguity.

• Constantly having access to other people.\

• New structure being created for sharing.
• eg. Uber or Air B'N'B

• Radical solutions require openness to radical ideas.

• It's ok to say "I don't know."

• Growth is only possible with suffering.

• "What would it have been like to stand at the front end of the renaissance?!?"

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Voice and Exit comes to Austin this Saturday; learn more and register here.

Sid Miller discusses his first few months

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan."
Proverbs 29:2

Waco -- Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller discussed his first six months in the new job at the Texas Republican Assembly convention last Saturday:



Highlights:

• 2500 dealers selling precious metals without a license.

• Rolled back "healthy foods" mandates.
• Cupcake amnesty
• "Instead of healthy children we have healthy trash cans."

• Texas Dept. of Agriculure has a bank
• Author's Note: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?

• Texas didn't need shelters during recent flooding.

• No studies on "GMO's" show negative effects.
• Cuts pesticide use by 80%

"Trey Martinez" Fischer: The Original Rachel Dolezal

"A prudent man conceals knowledge,
But the heart of fools proclaims foolishness."
Proverbs 12:23

Last week, it was reported that an NAACP leader in Washington State who had claimed to be black was actually a narcissistic white chick; Cahnman's Musings wonders if she's been watching the Texas Legislature.

Ferdinand Frank Fischer III is an aggressively pro-Abortion Democrat state representative from San Antonio.   Since 2000, he's represented a supermajority Hispanic district.  In the racialist world of #HAILSATANTX Democrat identity politics, that required him to re-invent himself as "Trey Martinez" Fischer.

As Watchdog explained in 2013:

Ferdinand Frank Fischer III would be a great name for a Mexican monarchist trying to reclaim the crown of Emperor Maximilian, but it’s a lousy name for an ambitious American politician from a Latino district of San Antonio.

That’s why Fischer ditched it years ago, trying on a couple of monikers before building a name for himself as Trey Martinez Fischer, politician on the rise.

....

There’s no mystery why Fischer would want to pretend to be named Martinez. Sixty percent of the voting-age population in his district is Hispanic, and the percentage is even higher among Democrats. Six of the seven Democratic state representatives from Bexar County use Hispanic last names; the other five, as far as we know, have every right to do so.

....

Ferdinand Frank Fischer, III is the name on his children’s birth records and his attorney’s license. It’s the name on multiple deeds of property, including one from his own mother, and it’s the name on properties he owns in Bexar County. It’s the name under which he was convicted of driving while intoxicated as a young man in the late ’80s, and it’s that name on a lien against him released last year.

It gets better:

State law dictates that a “candidate’s name shall be printed on the ballot with the given name or initials first, followed by a nickname, if any, followed by the surname.” It forbids two nicknames, allowing just one “nickname of one unhyphenated word of not more than 10 letters.”

For fifteen years, Ferdinand Fischer has lied on the ballot in violation of state law.

From Spokane, WA to the Texas House of Representatives, one trait of leftism is the rejection of obvious truth for fashionable absurdity.  Nowhere is this truer than with race.  Lying to become the 'oppressed' victim du jour epitomizes this mentality.  By contrast, we assess people as individuals.  These incidents reveal that the content of both Rachel Dolezal's and Ferdinand Frank Fischer III's character as that of a pendejo....

Birdwell Discusses the 84th #TXLEGE

"So then each of us shall give account of himself to God."
Romans 14:12

Senator Brian Birdwell spoke to the Texas Republican Assembly's convention this afternoon:







Highlights:

• His district extends into Tarrant County.

• Lege produced a decent budget.

• 40-50% of the businesses that used to pay the margins tax will no longer be liable.

• Long talk about the border

• "Transportation" as a smokescreen for trains instead of roads.

• TxDOT needs to be on a tighter leash.

• Transportation used to be 30% of the budget but it's been crowded out by Medicaid.

• Caught a lot of flack over pre-K

• Senate deferred to the Governor on UT nominations.
• No bad enough smoking gun to justify going against Gov.
• Abbott's nominees: "Wouldn't have been my choice."

• 10th amendment is the Feds job.

Grade Inflation at Texas' Universities

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

Tom Lindsay of TPPF discusses the pernicious effect of grade inflation:

Highlights:

• In 1960, 16% of all grades were A's

• Today, it's 43%.

• 73% are now A's and B's.

• This effect produces "compression at the top."

• Employers now consider transcripts to be meaningless.

Birdwell endorses Cruz for POTUS

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan."
Proverbs 29:2

Wasn't expecting this:

WACO—Texas State Senator Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) today announced his endorsement of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz for President.

Birdwell, one of the leading conservative voices in the Texas State Senate, stated, “Ted Cruz articulates and demonstrates the core conservative principles upon which our country was founded. He understands what it means to fight for those principles at this critical time in our nation’s history. We desperately need that kind of leadership to defend liberty and return us to greatness, and that’s why I’m supporting Ted Cruz.”

Birdwell continued, “From the first time I met Ted Cruz, I have known him to be a steadfast conservative and a tireless defender of liberty. It has been my honor to work with Senator Cruz on a number of issues impacting our shared constituents, and time after time, I have witnessed firsthand his effective leadership and genuine care for the citizens he was elected to serve.”

Birdwell was a staff officer at the Pentagon on 9/11 when American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed just yards away from his second floor Pentagon office. Birdwell was critically wounded and severely burned; of the burns that covered more than 60 percent of his body, nearly half were third degree in severity. Today, following 39 operations, months of hospitalization and numerous skin grafts, Birdwell has made a miraculous recovery. Despite physical limitations, he testifies not only to his physical healing, but the ultimate miracle of grace through Christ. He was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds received that day. Upon retirement in July 2004, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.

In June 2010, Birdwell won a special election to the Texas State Senate. He currently serves as Chairman of both the Senate Committee on Nominations and the Subcommittee on Border Security, and is a member of the Senate Committees on Natural Resources & Economic Development, State Affairs, and Veteran Affairs & Military Installations. He also served a 2011-2015 term on the Sunset Advisory Commission, a 12-member legislative body focused on identifying and eliminating waste, duplication and inefficiency within state government agencies. In his first three sessions in the Texas Legislature, Birdwell has been consistently heralded as an effective conservative leader, earning recognition from business, family, Second Amendment and other conservative groups throughout Texas.

Brian and his wife, Mel, have been married for 28 years and they have one son, Matt, a graduate of Texas Tech University. The Birdwells attend Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury.

 Learn more about Brian Birdwell's 9/11 story here.