Travis Precinct 211

There is very little information in the public domain about the candidates for AISD School Board and ACC Trustees. One of the few I’ve found is on the Blue dot blues blog.

My advice during my first mailer still stands pretty much. In ACC Place 5 I’ve heard good things about Vic Villarreal. ACC Place 4 is uncontested, and I’ll probably just skip that race, and for AISD Place 9 I’ve heard the most good things about Julie Cowan. She has been involved in the PTA as her 4 children have attended Austin Schools. She has been active, and I think she will continue to represent parents well on the Board of Trustees.

For ACC Place 6, I’m most likely going to vote for Michael Perrine. Michael does not have much of a campaign presence, but his profession is compliance officer for Sarbanes-Oaxley regulations for a local bank. Sarbanes Oaxely compliance deals with openness and financial integrity, and he has pledged to bring those same skills to the ACC board, and I would find that refreshing.

But please, do your research on this one. It’s hard to find good information.

ACC Tru

Truly amazing mail-pieces are being showered by Marsha Farney on the electorate. There are a couple of responses out there, including a very charitable one from Smart Girl Politics. Brian Russell has also published a resonse on his website.
But neither of the responses dealt with this little zinger:

• Obama-like secrets — Involved in a physical skirmish after crashing a Republican Executive Committee meeting that led to an arrest by Austin Police

Truly amazing. I’m not exactly certain how you can “crash” an open meeting, particularly when you are a candidate for Party Office. Brian had announced his intention to run for State Republican Executive Committeeman, a fact well known to Dr Alan Sager, who is feeding this information to Marsha.
But the most amazing part is that Brian was not the aggressor in the skirmish – he was the one attacked! And the person arrested was not Brian Russell, it was Ty Runyan, a man serving as Alan Sager’s Sergeant at Arms.
Now, I admit that I was not looking at Brian when the altercation began. In fact, I was putting a motion to the floor at that moment on the adoption of Bylaws. No-one has proven whether Dr. Sager was involved in the timing of the attack on Brian Russell, but it was awfully convenient to disrupt the discussion about how the Executive Committee was going to conduct itself. In the end, Ty Runyan was sentenced to about six months of probation and some community service, in addition to covering the medical bills associated with the injuries he caused Brian Russell.
Now, I’m not going to say that Marsha is not a conservative. I’m merely going to state that she lacks the judgment to stop her attack dogs from spreading malicious lies.

Lately, I’ve run across Scott Field’s attack ad against Judge Melissa Goodwin. I got a mailer with it, an e-mail, and I’ve heard it played on the radio.

I’m not going to dispute the facts, but let’s ask a few questions:

1. Should a Judge always give the District Attorney what they ask for?
2. Does Mr. Field have insight into everything that transpired in those courtrooms?
3. Should Mr. Field be commenting on specific cases that might possibly come before the Appeals Court?

I don’t believe the answer to any of these questions is “Yes”. Tough on crime is one thing, but fairness is more important in my book. And these cases were amongst the more problematic ones in the county – The Democrats dumped the really gnarly cases on Judge Goodwin. As the only Republican on the bench in Travis County, her court was the dumping ground for the cases that no-one else wanted to try. That usually means a poorly constructed case by the DA office and subject matter that is painful to hear.

As for Mr. Field, he has no Criminal Law experience – neither as a defense attorney nor prosecutor. And he has never served as a judge. It is easy to be an arm-chair quarterback when you’ve never even played in a Pop-Warner league, it is another thing entirely to apply the law as passed by the Legislature in a just manner.

The first day of early voting was surprisingly heavy. The numbers on the Republican side were slightly higher than the first day of early voting in the 2008 primary. Also interesting was the larger turnout for Republicans than Democrats.
The Democrats had a turnout that, which significantly heavier than 2006, was only 1/8th of 2008. Not certain what to make of that.

The first set of Ballot by Mail voters is also interesting, in that Republican out number Democrats almost 3 to 1. As mail ballots are not terribly interesting going forward, I did not analyze the voter styles. Overseas limited ballots were exactly tied at 28 Republicans and 28 Democrats – the only place where the Dems caught up with us.

I am saddened to report that Dr Rick Martin, candidate for House District 10, died suddenly on Saturday, January 30th.

A memorial service will be held
On Friday, February 5th at 2:00pm at the First United Methodist Church of Austin, 1201 Lavaca.

In lieu of flowers, a trust fund has been established for the college education of his son Blake. For details, contact Travis M Jones at Chase Bank, 512-330-0129.

Thus far I have not made any formal endorsements on this blog. I plan to announce my formal endorsements for statewide and regional candidates on February 6th after the Texas Republican Assembly Endorsement convention, and the balance on February 9th, after the Central Texas Republican Assembly has their endorsement meeting for local candidates. In the interim, I will continue to try to give you “the rest of the story” on these campaigns.

So, Congress has now outlawed “hate”.  But not just any hate – it is specifically hate against certain groups of people that don’t look like you, unless you are in one of those groups, then it isn’t hate, or something like that…  Of course, they have no authority to create such a law.  That authority was not granted to them in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution (yes, that pesky document again) and Amendment 16, Section 1 provides for equal protection under the law.  Since some groups are more protected than others under this law, it fails again.

Furthermore, the law is not necessary.  When famous cases are trotted out of heinous crimes committed against so-called “minority groups,” a look at the results of our current justice system always shows that the perpetrators were found, tried, convicted, and sentenced to suitable terms – often life terms, or, in the case of Texas, to death.

Although this is clearly unconstitutional, and although our platform is clear that Republicans should never support it, our Senators from Texas voted for this monstrosity, tacked onto a military appropriations bill.  The news media didn’t trumpet that our military was funded for another year.  They reveled in the passage of this one unconstitutional provision.

But more heinous to me is that there were some clear amendments proposed for this law that were voted down.  For Justices who look to legislative intent, this will be a clear sign for them.  An amendment was proposed to exempt reading from the Bible, Koran, or Tenach from being considered a hate crime.  This was voted down along party lines.

So, let me quote a little Scripture and see if this sounds like hate to you:

⁹ Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, New King James Version)

Paul is clearly stating that homosexuality is a choice.  It is an activity that can be engaged in, or not, just like adultery, stealing, and coveting.  Yes, wanting what you do not have is a sin equal in stature to homosexuality.  And that word translated “sodomites” is very explicit in Greek: αρσενοκοιται.  It is a compound of two words, ἄρσην which means “male” and  κοίτη which means laying down or sexual intercourse. As a second declension noun, it is clearly describing men in this activity. There is no wiggle room here for people to interpret this word in any way other than we are doing here. But likewise, the word covetous, πλεονέκτης is equally un-ambiguous as greedy, hording, and the like.

After reminding his audience that whether it is sexual sin or property sin, the wages are still separation from God forever, Paul goes on to say that even though some of the Christians in Corinth used to participate in these actions, they are now clean, and free from the burden.  Why would Christians hate people who had not yet accepted the freeing, cleansing redemption that Christ bought for us on the Cross?

To prosecute a man for saying such things, by suggesting that this is inciting hatred, is clearly unjust.

I voted today.  I was the 8th person to vote at Fiesta on 38th and 1/2 and I-35.  That wouldn’t be unusual, except it was after 6:00pm.  Normally, that polling place draws around 100 voters a day, so I expect the turnout to be microscopic.  I’m going to guess 4% early and 7% total.

That means, your vote is worth 14 times as much as when everyone comes out!  So, go exercise your sovereignty and vote!