Rick Perry vs World

01 September 2007

Hutchison: Don't toll freeways

Hutchison, joining objections of bipartisan lawmakers in Austin and Washington, said she will "vigorously" block the Texas Department of Transportation from ever levying tolls on federal highways.

"I intend to immediately introduce as free-standing legislation my amendment that the Senate passed in 2005 to specifically prohibit states from tolling existing interstate highways," the Republican said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this year, Texas transportation officials sent a letter to Congress seeking a change in federal law to let states "buy back" interstate highways and levy tolls on them.

Such a tolling plan, under a state law passed in 2005, would require a vote of county commissioners and local voters.

I've got an even better idea for Senator Hutchison. Currently Texas gets 87 cents back for every dollar we send to DC. That's billions of dollars each year. How about doing something about that?

I'd fully support filibustering every bill in the Senate until Texas gets something closer to a fair deal (especially considering that the sales tax deducation isn't permanent yet, if I recall correctly). If we were getting a fair deal, we probably wouldn't have to choose between difficult answers to the problem.

Posted by Evan @ 09/01/07 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

Governor's mansion closed

Jay Root:

the Republican governor and his family soon will have to move out of the historic building to accommodate a team of workers and architects embarking on a $10 million renovation project.

"The house will essentially be stripped down," said Perry spokesman Robert Black. "They have problems with plumbing right now to where the upstairs toilets overflow once every two weeks at this point."

Gaps around the original window frames, made of longleaf pine that in some areas has begun to rot, are contributing to a mind-boggling loss of energy from an overworked air-conditioning unit. The house is leaking some 4,000 cubic feet of air each minute, about 10 times what building managers would expect in a modern home of equal size.

The project is expected to take about 18 months to complete.

It's almost surprising that Texas let the governor keep the Mansion when Reconstruction ended.

Posted by Evan @ 09/01/07 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

Want to make money?

Tradesports says Fred Thompson has less than a 22% chance to be the GOP nominee.

That's a great value. He's definitely over 22%.

Update: I had assumed that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act [the one Bill Frist attached in the middle of the night to the Safe Ports Act to burnish his presidential hopes] makes the Tradesports information markets illegal, but a friend claims this is not the case.

Posted by Evan @ 09/01/07 06:40 PM | Comments (0)

Longshot wins straw poll

The results are in from today's Texas GOP straw poll:

Duncan Hunter: 534
Fred Thompson: 266
Ron Paul: 217
Mike Huckabee: 83
Rudy Giuliani: 78
Mitt Romney: 61
Ray McKinney: 28
John Cox: 10
John McCain: 8
Sam Brownback: 6
Tom Tancredo: 6
Hugh Cort: 3

These results indicate why the straw poll was never a good idea. Duncan Hunter? Longshot is probably a little too kind for the former Pat Buchanan supporter.

Yeah, I could've gone and voted. But why?

Posted by Evan @ 09/01/07 06:24 PM | Comments (3)

27 August 2007

Steady, watch me navigate, hahaha.

Michelle Middle City in today's Chron:

[Congressman Ron] Paul's advocates offer several explanations for the gap between Web support and the polls. Among them: Many Paul supporters won't be picked up on standard polling because of their youth or lack of participation in previous GOP contests.

You mean the ones who powered Kinky Friedman to victory? [Well, Kinky still hasn't conceded. --ed]

Posted by Evan @ 08/27/07 04:51 AM | Comments (1)

20 August 2007

Christy Hoppe, DMN:

But she is still drawn to a governor's race. She played with the idea for months last time around but ultimately decided to avoid an anticipated bitter primary race against Gov. Rick Perry.

"Running for governor is certainly an option," Ms. Hutchison said. If she decides the timing is right for the 2010 race, nothing and no other candidate – even if Mr. Perry decides to run for a third full term – would hold her back, she said.

"Whoever else is in the race is really not a factor," Ms. Hutchison said.

I think she said that pre-2006, didn't she?

Posted by Evan @ 08/20/07 06:30 AM | Comments (2)

17 August 2007

my new favorite disclaimer

As I write this, I'm in the middle of a 7 hour wait for a plane. Because of the delay, the airline is offering us peanuts. On the wrapper for the peanuts:

produced in a facility that processes peanuts and other nuts.

. Thank you, trial lawyers!

Posted by Evan @ 08/17/07 10:52 PM | Comments (2)

John Moritz, FWST:

Republican state Rep. Robert Talton of Pasadena, who was in the thick of several battles during the recent legislative session, has filed the paperwork necessary to raise money for the federal race. And on Thursday, former Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula Gibbs, who briefly held the seat before losing to Lampson as a write-in candidate in 2006, formally launched her candidacy to win it back.

"Regaining that district hovers around the top of our list of priorities for 2008," said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, which will not take sides in the GOP primary.

That's the National Republican Congressional Committee, there is no "Republican Congressional Campaign Commitee". Moritz is conflating the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with the NRCC. In my experience, it is Democratic partisans who make that mistake.

Talton, a firebrand conservative who has served in the state House since 1993, completed a high-profile legislative session in May that was marked by his uncanny ability to derail measures he opposed by finding technical flaws in bill language or in the procedure by which the bill had wended its way through the process.

And he allied himself with a solid bloc of Democrats and a handful of Republicans who unsuccessfully maneuvered to oust Republican Speaker Tom Craddick during the waning days of the 2007 session.

"I thought I had a pretty good session," Talton told the Houston Chronicle. "I'm not sure I can improve on that."

Yeah, angering Republicans across the state is always a great way to kickoff your campaign for Congress. Maybe he's running for Congess because Republicans and Democrats are both ready for him to leave Austin.

Posted by Evan @ 08/17/07 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

Fake

There are two Americas...the one where people lose their houses to foreclosure. And the one where John Edwards profits from foreclosures.

By the way, anyone remember the time when John Edwards had positioned himself as an optimistic moderate? Now he's the angry liberal populist.

Posted by Evan @ 08/17/07 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

11 August 2007

AP:

A desalination plant that officials say is the world's largest outside a coastal area and is expected to supply this desert city with water for 50 years opened for business Wednesday.

The opening of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant, named for Texas' senior U.S. senator, marked the end of a 15-year project to design, fund and build the plant that eventually will be capable of supplying 27.5 million gallons of drinking water daily.

Whoa. When did we become West Virginia? At the least, how about we try to name infastructure after people who aren't currently serving? But at least we're not naming things after KKK members like Robert Byrd.

Personally, I like Fred Thompson's stance better:

I read where the naming of a segment of U.S. Highway 43 in Lawrenceburg after me is under consideration. I cannot blame anybody if there is hesitation to name another thing for another politician or former politician. But I must say that I am very appreciative of my friends in Lawrenceburg and Lawrence County who originally had this idea. The fact that they would want to do this is more important to me than the naming itself. My daddy's car lot was on that stretch of road, so it's special to me, but the fact is that I didn’t build it and I didn’t pay for it. The taxpayers did.

Posted by Evan @ 08/11/07 11:35 PM | Comments (3)

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