Happy Birthday, Political Chicken!

Hard to believe, isn't it?  The Political Chicken is officially a year old.  Seems like just yesterday it was an idea 'hatching' to become a reality.  Then before you know it, the egg cracked open and the blog was born.

The blog has been through a lot in a year's time.  It lived to tell about a postponed primary and endorsed candidates in said primary.  It has survived the passage of Obamacare by the Supreme Court as 'constitutional' and the reelection of Obama himself.  It also shared insight from a biblical worldview on the war on women as well as some personal, emotional moments.

The Political Chicken blog to date has been viewed a little over 4,000 times.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.  The most popular blog post was...drum roll, please...Sex, Lies and Politics with 398 views!  See, I knew I should have started every blog title with the word 'sex'.  Damn!  As Iron Sharpens Iron follows in second place with 256 page views.

One of my personal favorites that I wrote just for fun, is titled I Got Nowhere Else To Go, in which I poke fun at a few of my fellow political activist buddies.  Yeah, that's how I roll.

Someone told me today that I like to throw bombs, and I guess I can't argue with that.  So, as you peruse the site, you'll find some of those as well.  One in particular that I like a lot is A Tale of Two Senators.  Check it out, you might like it, too.

Well, that's all for now.  Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement as I've written and vented and expressed and endorsed.  You've been fabulous, but this is only the beginning!  MUAH!

Why I'm Voting 'No' on the Lone Star College Bond

So, okay.  We're facing an election.  Again.  This time it's not dirty, sexy, national level politics.  It's dirty, sexy local level politics.  Politics is always dirty, ain't it?  This time we're talking bond election for a local community college system, Lone Star College System.

What goes through your mind when you hear the word 'bond'?  I always want to put my hands up in front of my face and shrink back in horror to try to hide from it.  I immediately think, debt, piles of money that the tax payer will owe, bondage and no, not THAT kind of bondage.  Come on, now, this is a family show.  Ahem.

So, in order to avoid such a 'knee jerk' response to this bond, I decided to peel back the layers and find out a little about the bond.  First, let's talk dollars.  How much IS the bond referendum?  It's for $497.7 million dollars.  Second question I usually ask is, WHAT are they going to spend it on?  Here is a broad scope of things to start with:

• New instructional and support buildings – 996,000 sf
• Renovations to existing facilities – 252,000 sf
• Increase parking – 5,630 spaces
• Improve campus safety and security
  
• Expand and upgrade technology infrastructure
• Improve traffic flow and campus access

Okay, so we can go to the next question, WHY?  Here is information taken straight from the Bond Referendum website: The 2013 bond referendum expands capacity to meet unprecedented student population growth. In the five short years since the last bond referendum in 2008, LSCS has added 30,000 students, which is equivalent to adding the combined total enrollment of five medium-sized colleges like Alvin Community College, Lee College, Galveston College, Temple College and Victoria College.  Here are a few videos from a meeting that I helped coordinate in order to find out more information.  Forgive me, they are raw, unedited footage. 

Seems pretty straight forward at this point, right?  Well, not quite.  You see, there are a few more questions I want to have answered, and I haven't heard back from the college in order for me to recommend a 'yes' vote.  The questions I had and still have are:
-What is the graduation rate of students?
-What number of students are transferring to a four year school?
-What has enrollment been?  (I think the current number of students enrolled is 90,000.)
-What is the current debt load of the district?
All of these questions I called and left messages for the head of the accounting department, Diane Novak.  She then passed my information on to Jed Young and he called me and took down my questions and promised to email me the answers to these questions.  I have not heard back from him to date.  Here are the links to the two videos that I recorded the night of the meeting.  Ray Laughter speaking to a group of concerned citizens.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one with questions.  I found this information posted on Google Plus from a Leslie P.  "Carl Joiner, Treasurer - I'll Google that name, see what I find.  Yeah. Carl Joiner, President of Joiner Partnership, they design buildings. Buildings for school districts, colleges, and fire departments (government buildings, paid by tax dollars). His wife is their VP of Interior Designer. His son is their Director of Construction. So they can design the building inside and out, and build it. How helpful.

And all of the advertising investment he's making to ensure that these bonds get passed. Well, golly, he's just being a good public servant."  She also links to Mr. Joiner's website here. 

There's already another blog out going against the bond and they cite the flagging enrollment rate as a reason to vote 'no'.  Here is a quote from that blog: "However, there is good evidence that recent growth in enrollment may be leveling off. LSCS’s 2011-12 Comprehensive Annual Report is introduced with a letter from Chancellor Richard Carpenter that states, “The next several years will prove challenging with anticipated continued restrictions in state funding and flat enrollments” (Emphasis added).

When I read about the information on Google, I cringed a little because we always seem to find ourselves being pushed to support what I call cronyism.  Also, if there is really a flagging enrollment that's a problem as well.  So I'm saying vote 'no' on the Lone Star College Bond.  The End.

Are You There, God? It's us...the Tea Party.

You know, it just occurred to me that this whole idea of government providing a sense of security isn't a new phenomenon. Remember, there is nothing new under the sun. Think for a second about Moses and the Israelites and how he led them to freedom from the Egyptians.  Talk about 'herding cats'.  I can't even begin to imagine how he must have felt.

 The Israelites grumbled and complained against Moses because of the quality of the food! Manna and quail wasn't good enough for them. They used to say things like, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt!  There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." Think about how frustrated Moses must have been with them.  Seriously; die?  They would have rather DIED than to have been led to freedom. 

Now, let's think for a minute about the party of politics that believes in bigger government, bloated government, if you will.  The one who believes that the government is there to provide safety and security as it pertains to a way of life.  How it manages to perpetuate this idea that the government should provide, well, EVERYTHING for you no matter how much freedom or liberty you must give up to obtain the 'goodies'.  Hey, I could be talking about EITHER party at this moment because they have both shown tendencies to overreach for the greater good, haven't they?  

We have all banged our heads up against the wall over the last few years at this very idea.  Yet, the overreach continues, and slowly it becomes more egregious each time.  We've seen tyranny creep into our lives and have, except for recently, stood idly by while it happened

I always go the TSA as probably the most glaring insult to the freedoms of Americans and travelers from everywhere...well, almost everywhere.  First there was the shoe bomber, so the solution to make us feel safer?  Take off all the shoes!  Next, the underwear bomber.  Thankfully, we don't have to take off our underwear...yet, but I'm sure it has come up in conversation.  Nah, instead they just feel up our private parts on the outside of our underwear.  Oh, yeah, I feel SO much safer now.  Yet, people still walk through the 'nudi-scanners' as I so fondly refer to them, because they honestly believe it will make them safer.  

Tea party and conservative activists bemoan the fact that we can't get the American people to 'wake up' and take a look around at the freedoms being forfeited by us on a daily basis.  I'm guilty of this bemoaning, too.  Now, hang with me for a minute while we walk in Moses' shoes.  Seriously, think about it.  He heard grumbling and complaining all. day. long.  The people were hot.  The people were thirsty.  The people were hungry.  What did he do about it?  He talked with God.  He prayed about it.  Moses prayed to God and asked Him for help.  If Moses did that, can't we all do it, too?  It seems like a very simplistic approach, doesn't it?  How much better off would be be, as a country, as a movement, if we just humbled ourselves and prayed? 

A Tale of Two Senators

Look, I know you are all probably sick of hearing about voting records and continuing resolutions and funding this or that.  Deal with it.  It's going to get worse.

So, I wrote a little blog, titled Versions of the Truth, in which I document the tale of two stories, one in which it was reported that Congressman Culberson had in fact voted to fund Obamacare, and the other, in which he had not.  Guess who told the version that he had not voted to fund Obamacare?  If you guessed his office, you guessed correctly.

Fast forward about a week or so.  The same CR came up for a vote in the Senate.  Now, mind you, the line item for the Health and Human Services is listed in the summary of the bill and the story I got from Culberson's office was that therein was the confusion.  The line item only funded WIC and not Obamacare.  Via Redstate.com, I read that Senator Cornyn had voted FOR the continuing resolution and that Senator Cruz voted AGAINST the continuing resolution.  Wow.

So, I thought a call to Cornyn's office was in order to find out what really happened.  According to Claire, Senator Cornyn does oppose Obamacare.  He just didn't want to see a government shut down, and I told her I thought it might be a good thing to have a shut down.  She didn't agree.  It gets more interesting than that, because unbeknownst to me, Big Jolly was writing a blog the same time I was, he just got his out first.  Ha!  According to Big Jolly aka David Jennings and a press release from Senator Cornyn's office, Cornyn was able to accomplish the following:

• The Continuing Resolution denies President Obama the nearly $1 billion dollars in additional funding he requested for implementing the health insurance exchanges;
• It lowers spending levels, something that has not been done in years; and
• Keeps the sequester cuts in place

Now, I'm becoming more of a skeptic these days and I don't always believe what I'm told.  When it refers to spending cuts, I'll borrow a question from one of my good friends Felicia Cravens and ask, "What government agency is getting less funding this year than last?" I am also not sure where he saw the information about denying the President the $1 billion in additional funding. 

Not being well-versed in policy and how it's written coupled with being a skeptic I decided I wanted to compare notes with Senator Cruz's office.  I called Senator Cruz's office to find out why he didn't vote for the resolution.  Guys, I gotta tell ya, you could have knocked me over with a feather when these words came across my phone and I'm paraphrasing, of course: "Because it had Obamacare funding in it.  The Senator voted on principle.  He came to Washington to represent the will of the people of Texas and he's not going to vote to spend money on Obamacare."  Wow.

The staffer whose name I failed to get, then went on to say that Senator Cruz is not afraid of a government shut down.  That if the government did shut down, it was only the non-essentials that wouldn't get funded.  He also recalled the result of the government shut down of 1995; say it with me, a BALANCED BUDGET!  He went on to say that what's going to cause a shut down is if we keep spending money the way we are because we are borrowing $.40 on every dollar.  Wow.

So who are you going to believe?  I'd put my money on Cruz every time.

But wait, there's more.  Oh, yes, just this morning, I received a post on my Facebook wall about this very vote that still has folks disputing via Redstate, so of course I felt the need to finish up this blog and share my knowledge.  Erick Erickson stands by his original story, that yes, John Cornyn did in fact vote to fund Obamacare, and now by saying he didn't, he's simply lying.  All we want as constituents is the truth.  Is that too much to ask?

What If 'Fine' Isn't Good Enough?

Wow.  Just wow.  Now, I know this could be perceived as beating a dead horse, but I thought since I was sharing the voting records of our elected officials, I figured why not share a bit more, right?  We all have a right to know what's going on with OUR government and OUR money, right?  Okay, now that we all agree, let's proceed.

I find it interesting AND fabulous that ever since Ted Cruz was elected to U.S. Senate how much he and Senator Cornyn's votes have matched identically.  Seems to me that the real junior Senator from Texas would be Senator Cornyn.  Just look at all the attention and headlines Cruz has been getting for standing up for his beliefs and convictions and not backing down even when others are saying he should just sit down and shut up.  You have to wonder if Cruz wasn't there, would Senator Cornyn's votes be as 'conservative' as they are.  Well, let's have us a little look-see.

Checking back with my source on the FreedomWorks Scorecard, when Senator Cornyn had Senator Hutchison to pal around with, they were both voting pretty poorly.  Senator Hutchison was by no means a bastion of conservatism, as her votes scored lower than Senator Cornyn did.  If you look at the 2013 scorecard, Senator Cornyn and Senator Cruz both have grades of 100%.  That's a big improvement from last year.  That to me is a testament to what a great leader Senator Cruz has turned out to be.  I know that Senator Cruz isn't perfect, but he's doing a whole lot better than 'fine'.

I know some folks might say that he's doing better now with the addition of Senator Cruz.  Yeah, but there are other reasons, personal reasons I have for not wanting Senator Cornyn to get reelected.  What are they?  Oh, good, I knew you'd ask!  I am an advocate for ParentalRights.org and have been for about four years.  My first political involvement was a visit to Senator Cornyn's Houston office with about twenty other concerned parents about the UNCRC, or the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of a Child.  We went there in an attempt to see if he wouldn't sign on as a co-sponsor to the Parental Rights bill that would keep the UNCRC from being ratified to the US Constitution; to protect parental rights AND US sovereignty for that matter.  Guess what?  He couldn't be bothered because his plate was too full at the moment.  Really?  Too busy to defend the Constitution and parental rights?  That's too bad.

Another one is during a trip to Washington, D.C. to attend a Freedomworks activist boot camp, we paid a visit to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Senator Cornyn chaired at the time.  They often use the money that they raise to put behind incumbent candidates during the primary, thus, giving an unfair advantage to the incumbent over any primary challenger.   The person that they were prepared to support was Orrin Hatch in Utah.  The people that were part of the boot camp from Utah felt that this was wrong, as we all did and I still do.  Our protest took place outside their building in which some chanting ensued.  Heh.  "The people choose, NOT the party," we shouted.  Another one of my favorites was, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Orrin Hatch has got to go!"  Yeah, clever, I know.  Our shouts and protests fell on deaf ears.  I hate to say it folks, but once a statist, always a statist.  To me, that's not 'fine'.


Speaking of fine, I also seem to  remember that at the 2012 State Republican Convention Senator Cornyn had an introduction video set to the tune of "Walk The Line" but instead switched it out with "If Cornyn's mine, we'll do just fine."  REALLY?  What if 'fine' isn't good enough for the people of Texas?  I know his definition of 'fine' hasn't been good enough for me.  Next year he's up for reelection.  Wonder if the people of Texas couldn't do better than just 'fine'?

Versions of the Truth

I don't know about you, but I like for people to tell me the truth; the honest truth.  I don't want your version of the truth.  Ever since my last blog post about Representative John Culberson's voting record on some key spending bills called Just The Facts, Chicken!, my attention has been focused on him to see what he's going to do next; if he's going to reign in his spending habits, or continue to push us over the fiscal cliff.  Unfortunately, I don't have good news.

Earlier in the week, on Thursday, to be exact, there was a continuing resolution that was voted on by the House of Representatives called H.R. 933; a resolution that will fully fund Obamacare.  According to Yvonne Larsen, a contributing blogger for Big Jolly Politics, who states in her blog, All But One! that: "With the exception of Representative Louis Gohmert (TX-01), every single Republican from the Texas delegation of the U. S House of Representatives voted to fund Obamacare. They even broke their own rules to do it."  Huh.  Interesting.

So, I go to Representative Culberson's Facebook page and lo and behold there is a blog post by one of their staffers about that very CR, titled The Truth About Obamacare and Continuing Resolution.  They seemed to have been getting phone calls about why Congressman Culberson would have voted to fund Obamacare.  Heck, according to his legislative staffer, he'd already vote to repeal Obamacare something like thirty-four or thirty-five times!  So why not vote to fund it?  He'd kept one part of the promise to REPEAL it.  He never mentioned not funding it.

My next step in investigating this was to call his office directly.  I felt like there was something I was missing and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.  So here is in short the phone conversation I had with their staffer: She said that there were essentially 12 appropriations bills all combined into one bill. One of the agencies that was to be funded was the Labor and HHS which funds things like WIC and is the agency that funds Obamacare. They voted to fund all of these things together, so that's where the confusion comes in. She assured me that every year, these agencies have been funded at lower levels, therefore only leaving enough money to fund WIC and NOT Obamacare.  Okay, that may make sense, but this reason that they voted for it makes my blood boil.  They voted for it in part, from my understanding is  that if they had voted no that the bill wouldn't have gone anywhere in the Senate anyway.  SO WHAT?!?  Take a stand!  Vote 'no'!   

Yvonne Larsen raised another question after I shared this information with her.  Why were they in such a hurry to pass the bill?  They didn't even allow for the seventy-two hour wait time that they promised.  No, they were in such a hurry, they voted after the bill was only posted for forty-seven hours.  Sounds a little fishy to me.

On a side note, while having a conversation with this staffer, who was very helpful, by the way, I told her some things that I thought she needed to hear.  I let her know, nicely that Republicans are bad at messaging; that this information they posted about the CR was done in reaction to the response of the constituents, not as a proactive measure.  Then again, if we had known about it, we probably would have called and told him to vote no.  She assured me that they are very active on social media and do try to get their message out.  Culberson is known for his 'cut spending and reduce government waste' stance, so I asked her what have they eliminated.  She couldn't name any specific program or agency right off the top of her head.  Go figure.

Not to get preachy here, but the Bible says something about a person's word, ya know, when you give someone your 'word' that you are or aren't going to do something.  Above all, my brothers, do not swear--not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned-James 5:12.  Unfortunately, it doesn't say anything about the things you didn't mention that you might do or the things you didn't promise.  We usually just get some version of the truth.

Just the Facts, Chicken!

Sometimes the truth is not a popular thing.  Sometimes exposing the truth can get you into trouble with the person whom you are exposing.  Suppose it has something to do with Congress?  Have I peaked your interest?  Good, now stay with me while I explain.

Would you believe me if I told you that Democratic representative Lloyd Doggett and Republican John Culberson have the same voting record?  Probably not, right?  Then let me follow that with this; would you believe that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is more conservative than Republican John Culberson?  Never, you say!  I can prove otherwise.

I am busy like the rest of us and I don't always check my representatives voting record, but the other day I had a few spare moments and decided to check up on Representative Culberson's voting record on the FreedomWorks Scorecard for the 2013 Congressional Session.  Never in a million years would I have imagined what I would find.  Yes, like a 'good' Republican, he's pro-life, pro-family, but lately, it seems, he's pro-spending.  FreedomWorks scored all of the Congressmen and Congresswomen on three key spending votes that have come down during this session and Congressman Culberson voted yes on every single one, thus earning himself a score of zero.

First, there is : Key Vote 1 On the Amendment: H.Amdt.5 - To add $33.677 billion in additional spending.

This amendment, sponsored by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ-11), would add another $33 billion to the Disaster Relief Act, bringing the total spending in the bill to over $50 billion. Although the bill is supposedly to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the better portion of this amendment funds unrelated programs such as community development block grants. The "emergency" spending is also not offset, meaning that it will add to the federal deficit.

"Nay" votes scored.

Key Vote 2: On Passage: H.R. 152 - Disaster Relief Appropriations Act

This bill is an "emergency" appropriations bill that contains $50.1 billion in spending that is supposed to aid those affected by Hurricane Sandy. In reality, however, most of the spending will not provide acute disaster relief, and much of it is not even scheduled to be spent until 2014 or later. Thus, the bill functions more like a stimulus than true disaster relief and its spending should be appropriated through the budget process instead of as emergency spending that adds to the federal deficit.

"Nay" votes scored.

Key Vote 3: On Passage: H.R. 325 - To Increase the Debt Limit until May 19th, 2013

This bill raises the statutory limit on the public debt (the "debt ceiling") by whatever amount is necessary to reach May 19th, 2013. Although the bill theoretically contains a "no budget, no pay" provision conditional upon the Senate passing a budget resolution, in reality the provision has no teeth. FreedomWorks insists that further increases in the debt ceiling by accompanied by proportional decreases in federal spending in order to address the ever-increasing federal debt, which at the time of this bill stood at $16.4 trillion. Instead, this bill amounts to a "clean" debt ceiling hike, accompanied by the unenforceable promise of spending reforms at a later date.

"Nay" votes scored.

Oh, and FYI, Culberson isn't the only Republican representative who has some 'splaining to do.  Congressman Michael McCaul faired better, voting nay on vote 1 and vote 2, but yes on vote 3.  Pete Olson also voted nay on vote 1 and vote 2 but yes on vote 3.  Check this out, even Alan Grayson, the crazy democratic representative from Florida who accused Republicans of wanting Americans to "die and die quickly" because they opposed Obamacare.  Remember him?  Yeah, he voted no on vote 3.  Pelosi and Wasserman-Schultz BOTH voted nay on vote 3.  So, who are the tax and spend representatives again?

I checked Congressman Culberson's website for his voting record and the link doesn't yet show his votes for this year.  Maybe they haven't linked it up yet since it's still the new session, I'm not sure.  I did find something else interesting on his site, though.  A blog post by one of his staffers about a bill he and a few other representatives have introduced is called A Step Toward Fixing Our Spending Problem.  The last line of the blog post says, "Now is the time to take serious action to reduce our spending and national debt. This bill is a step in the right direction."  How about the other THREE that you voted for that INCREASED SPENDING? #headdesk