EXCLUSIVE (...we think?!?): Paxton teases FINAL LAWSUIT(S?!?) AGAINST OBAMA ADMINISTRATION!!! :D

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
2 Timothy 4:7

We suppose we need to start this post with a confession/disclosure: Both of the events to which we will shortly refer are over 24 hours old.  To be honest, when we first heard General Paxton mention this, we missed it's full significance.  That being said, we can't find any other news reports discussing this...so we suppose it's a de facto exclusive.

We attended two events this week where Attorney General Ken Paxton spoke.  On Monday, Wayne Christian was sworn in to his new seat on the Texas Railroad (ie. Oil and Gas) Commission.  Yesterday, TPPF hosted a panel related to various acts of intimidation by global warming activists.

At both events, Paxton recounted various legal actions his office has taken against the federal government related to maintaining abundant and affordable energy.  We didn't take detailed notes in either event, but we recall him saying that his office has sued the EPA 10 times in the past two years.  Several of those lawsuits have been successful and others are working their way through the process.

But here's the most interesting line he used both times: "As Attorney General, my office has sued the Obama administration 21 times...and there's still a few days left."

Like we said, we didn't record his remarks or take detailed notes in either event, but there were at least 200 people in the room the first time and 25 the second time.

We don't know what it means, but there will be three and a half business days next week before the presidential handover.

Bottom Line: Next week could be fun.

Does Freedom have a place in Education?!?

"Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go;
Keep her, for she is your life."
Proverbs 4:13

TPPF Policy Orientation: Education Savings Accounts: The Solution Texas Needs?!?

Stephanie Matthews, TPPF:

• Too many families don't have educational options.

• Education Savings Accounts can be used for virtual learning, which is fantastic for rural areas.

Thomas Ratliff, Texas Association of School Administrators (formerly of the State Board of Education):

• Blah, blah, "local control."

• If you want school choice, move.
• Note: He recently moved into Grand Prarie ISD, which has a school choice program within its district; we don't begrudge Mr. Ratliff making the decision to educate his children in the best way he sees fit, but we will simply wish that every family in Texas had the same options while noting the hypocrisy.

• Something, something, transportation to school for poor kids.

• "With tax dollars comes transparency and accountability."
• Author's Note: This is bureaucrat-speak for saddling a program with so many regulations as to render it ineffective.

• Something, something "protections."

• Something, something "your neighbors tax money."

• Author's Note: For those who are new to Texas' state level politics, you can learn more about the older history of our good friend Thomas Ratliff here.

Marty Lueken, EdChoice:

• School choice programs take up less than 2% of the education budget in every state where they exists; less than 1% of all education spending nationally.
• Author's Note: That sounds like a bug, not a feature.

• School choice saves school districts money.

• Districts deal with enrollment fluctuations all the time.

Patrick Wolf, University of Arkansas:

• Research evidence on school choice is clear about how it benefits students academically.

• Competition also benefits children who stay in government schools by forcing them to get their act together.

• States who have tried school choice have liked it and want more.

Senator Larry Taylor (Likely Education Committee Chairman):

• There are always going to be kids whose needs aren't met by the current socialized education model.

• At least 25 other states already have some sort of school choice program and most of the states who initially implemented a program have expanded it further.

• You don't need that many kids to participate in a school choice program to benefit the rest of the system.

• Rural Republicans like to argue parental choice will "destroy public education" in their community then say there just isn't the demand in their community for school choice to make a difference; they can't have it both ways.

How should Texas restrict higher education Tuition?!?

"Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord."
Colossians 3:20

This afternoon at TPPF's policy orientation, we attended a panel on university tuition.  The full title was Tuition Set-Asides for Low Income Students: Who should Foot the Bill, but the discussion dealt with tuition in a much broader sense.  For more about tuition "set asides," see more from Lt. Governor Patrick's press conference on the topic last April.

Senator Kel Seliger, (likely chairman of the Higher Ed. Committee):

• Set-asides just "part of the discussion" re: tuition.

• Set asides "sort of an accounting device."

• "Does little or nothing."

John Colyandro, Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute:

• 85k students currently recieve assistance from set asides.

• Government subsidies drive tuition increases.

• It makes no sense to increase one student's tuition to benefit another.

Rich Vedder, Center for College Affordability and Productivity:

• Price signals matter.

• Government attempts to manipulate prices beget unintended consequences.

• Regulation and subsidies distort prices.

• This guy is AWESOME!!!

• Set-asides "absolutely a bizarre policy."

• Mandate that half of UT's endowment should go for tuition reduction.

• UT and A&M have large endowmens because of the Grace of God (because they own a whole bunch of land with A LOT of oil on it)!!!

• UT and A&M have bigger endowments than public universities in other states but are middle of the pack, at best, in national academic ranking.
• Author's Note: AND Football.

• Federal tax preferences on endowments benefit wealthy schools.

Ron Trowbridge, Lone Star College System:

• Government = coerced charity.

• We need to do "some" redistribution.

• Told two anecdotes.

• Current subsidies tend to benefit affluent students.

Q&A:

• We shouldn't use loans to fund scholarships.
• Author's Note: We hadn't thought about it in those terms before, but that is a DAMN good point.

• Senate WILL address set-asides.

• UT "can play dirty at times."
• Vedder teased, but didn't share, some sleaze from Bill Powers of which he was on the receiving end.

• UT Austin has more bureaucrats than professors.

• Seliger spoke surprisingly favorably about Vedder's tuition idea.

#HookEm: Team Hall asked complicated lawyer questions while team McRaven tells BALD-FACED LIES....

"and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:7

"The right to be informed is an individual right"; that sentence, delivered by Wallace Hall's attorney at this morning's Texas Supreme Court hearing on the UT Admissions cover-up, is the best one line description we've ever heard about the core issue of this case.

Hall's attorney argued that the way the legislature has defined a Regent's fiduciary duty to the University requires individual autonomy for each regent.  As he explained, a regent has "a duty to be informed on the issues."  We might not be a lawyer, but we believe this is covered by the principle of "duh."

Most of the questions from the Justices dealt with the legal doctrine of ultra vires.  To be honest, this discussion got into legal weeds we didn't understand.  That being said, the macro-level takeaway was that this was a discussion of the finer points of the law.

Chancellor McRaven's team opened with an irrelevant ode to his "37 year military career" and how it taught him to "respect the chain of command."  Did you know that Chancellor McRaven had previously served in the military?!?  Neither did we!  Don't get us wrong, we seem to remember reading somewhere about some Admiral who acted as the Obama administration's point man in covering up the death of Seal Team 6, but we'd never heard that Chancellor McRaven once spent time in the military.  That being said, we were entertained by the Chancellor's phalanx of somewhere between 7 and 12 lawyers and it's similarity to a certain pop culture reference:

As to substance, Chancellor McRaven's team came up with an innovative new legal approach called "the doctrine of bald-faced lies."  They actually had the nerve to claim that McRaven implemented a "fundamental overhaul" of the admissions process which rendered Regent Hall's suit moot.  No, he didn't.  They changed the rules to explicitly allow what they've already been doing.  That's it.  But the UT politburo actually claimed in open court that this represented "fundamental overhaul."  Sheesh.

Then they tried to claim that the names of all the legislators of sent letters were already known to the public.  That claim is a farce and we can personally prove it.  If the names of all the legislators who sought preferential admissions treatment were already well known, then how were we able to exclusively break the news that Charlie Geren has sent one of those letters nearly two years after the first round of names broke?!?

Bottom Line: It's out of our hands, but we're content that everything has been left on the field.

Dan Patrick, Constitutional Carry, and the "Law Enforcement" industrial complex....

"For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life."
Galatians 6:8

There's a post we've been procrastinating about writing for a month, thankfully Lt. Governor Patrick forced the issue yesterday:

"On constitutional carry, I’ll say the same thing: I don’t know if the votes are there," Patrick told San Antonio host Trey Ware.

....

"I think with all the police violence today we have in our state ... law enforcement does not like the idea of anyone being able to walk down the street with a gun and they don’t know if they have a permit or not," Patrick said.

Let's unpack the phrase "law enforcement does not like" in the context of "I don't know if the votes are there."

Obviously, policing is an emotionally charged topic.  That was true before Dallas.  And it's even truer now.

Behind those emotional charges, however, lie a lot of politics.

And there's a gigantic difference between the courageous police officers who serve our communities, and the anti-taxpayer bureaucrats and lobbyists who allegedly represent "law enforcement" at the Capitol.

-----

We first noticed this phenomenon last session when we noticed various members of the 'law enforcement community' offered hysterical doomsday in the event various bills we considered rather modest were to pass.

Obviously, the rather inconsequential 'open carry' bill they passed last session was one such occasion.  Former Austin Police chief Art Acevedo (Sidenote: Boy is it satisfying to use the word 'former' in connection with Art Acevedo.) led the charge in over the top fearmongering.  But even more telling was the fact that nobody else in the so-called 'law enforcement community' told Acevedo to knock it off.

Even more telling was the "law enforcement" reaction to efforts to ban red-light cameras, when they argued that we were all totally going to die in car crashes if the state of Texas eliminated a municipal revenue generating swindle.

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The so-called "law enforcement community" can be further subdivided into two categories: The cop lobby [bad] and the district attorney lobby [EVIL].

The cop lobby consists of two major groups: Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas (CLEAT) [obnoxious] and the Texas Municipal Police Association (TMPA) [bad].

The district attorney lobby is led by the Texas District and County Attorney Association.  These guys first creeped us out at a TPPF discussion of civil asset forfeiture in 2014.  We can't get into details on their mendacity without burning sources, but suffice to say that legislators and their staff will occasionally tell stories off the record that would astonish you [hint: ask about the Death Penalty].

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So, what does this long winded discussion have to do with passing Constitutional Carry in the Texas Senate?!?

In the Texas Senate, there are 20 Republicans.  You need 19 votes (60%) to pass a bill.  And Kel Seliger is a RINO.

That brings us down to 19 votes.

Which brings us to Senator Joan Huffman:  On this issue, the only thing you need to know about her is that she's a former prosecutor.

Which brings you down to 18 votes.

Which means Constitutional Carry doesn't pass.

It's that simple.

-----

Bottom Line: Politics is a dirty business and Dan Patrick did us a favor by keying us into one of the subtler aspect of that dirtiness.

Today's Statesman Asks the Million Dollar Question....

"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching."
2 Timothy 4:2

Short Answer: Probably....

Longer Answer: ...but it will be more painful than in the past.

Case in Point: If you are Joe Straus, that is not the headline you want of the front page of the Austin-American Statesman the day before the session begins.

Remember, this is a war of attrition.

Read the whole thing here.

Revelation 20:11-15 -- The Great White Throne JUDGEMENT of GOD!!! :)

The Great White Throne Judgment
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:11-15

Pastor Danny Forshee.  Great Hills Baptist Church.  October 18, 2015:

The Great White Throne Judgment of God - Dr. Danny Forshee - October 18, 2015 from Great Hills Baptist Church on Vimeo.

Outline:

1. The Awesome Scene (v. 11)
   - John 5:26-27
   - Acts 10:42
   - Acts 17:31
   - If you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you ain't gonna be there; if you don't know Christ, you WILL appear there.
   - You CAN'T Hide from God!!!
   
2. The Accurate Sentence (vv. 12-13)
   - Romans 14:12
   - Ecclesiastes 12:14
   - Matthew 12:36-37
   - Matthew 7:21-23
   
3. The AWFUL Second Death (vv. 14-15)
   - Matthew 10:28
   - Matthew 25:41

Highlights:

• I'm preaching on Hell today!!!
• Author's Note: When you ain't gonna be there, this is exciting!!!  And you DON'T have to be there.  But it/s YOUR choice.

• Face to face with our own sinfulness.

• 55% of Americans believe you get into heaven via works.

• "The Doctrine of eternal punishment is probably the most despised doctrine in the entire Bible."
• Like the law of gravity, you defy it to your own detriment.
• "I would rather frighten you into Heaven than lull you into Hell."
• "Some of you would rather look at naked women than go to Heaven."

• For every word Jesus spoke about Heaven, He spoke 3 about Hell.

• It is not unfair because HE told us,

• The Lamb's Book of Life: "This is a time you want to see your name...for this is for keeps."
• "Jesus is either lying or He's telling the truth."