Vigilante Horror

I cannot help but read this editorial in a state of shock. I simply cannot believe Mr. Horn behaved the way he did. Texas is a law and order state. The key words in that sentence were law and order and the word state. Nowhere in that sentence were the words,” shoot someone yourself if they are stealing your neighbors things”. I am sorry but there is no way to justify Mr. Horn walking out of his house and shooting someone after specifically being told by the 911 operator TO STAY IN HIS HOUSE. If someone was invading Mr. Horn’s house, by all means he should have defended his house and property. However it wasn’t HIS house. Our state has a police force to deal with this kind of thing. If everyone were to take the law into his or her own hands we would have anarchy. If Mr. Horn does not serve jail time for this act it will send a message across the state saying that vigilantism is ok. It was not Mr. Horn’s place to be “seeking justice” on anyone. It is repugnant that anyone should applaud his decision to confront and shoot a man over someone else’s property. Furthermore, if he had stayed in his house, (as he was told to) I highly doubt the thugs would have approached him, leaving him no excuse for self-defense! Mr. Horn disobeyed the 911 operator, he antagonized two thieves, and then shot them in “self defense”. Texas is no longer a redneck country western where John Wayne comes and shoots the outlaws preying on the innocent towns person. This is the 21rst century and we need to behave accordingly. We have laws for a reason. there were other ways M> Horn could have helped his neighbors out, but he chose to shoot another human instead. this is unacceptable in todays society and should not be rewarded.

SalesTax or Income Tax?

Texas was designed to be a low tax, low service state on purpose. Texas uses this to lure more people to move to Texas. Texas has NO state income tax what so ever. In fact, the only real tax that the Texas State government actually imposes on the people is the sales tax. Oh yes, that wonderful sales tax. Texas’ sales tax is one of the highest in the country at 6.25% per item bought. You might think,” cool I only have to pay 6.25% of an items price to the government, I can pick and choose what I want to be taxed on.” This is a double-edged sword, however, because you get what you pay for and this doesn’t affect all people fairly.
If you happen to make a good bit of money, the sales tax won’t hurt you too badly. After all, what is another 6.25% to you! But most of Texas gets the middle finger from their bank account every time they buy something. I recently bought a car, and low and behold I paid an additional 1,500 dollars to cover the sales tax. 1500 dollars! You could have bought a flat screen TV for this amount. The tax on the car was a bit more than I make in 1 month! People without a lot of money feel the impact of this much more than anyone else. This hurts the economy, hurts you, and helps to further our poverty level in Texas.
Secondly, If you have ever needed Medicaid, disability, help with a handicapped family member, help because of poverty, medical insurance, etc and more, than you are better off moving to a new state. Texas does not provide much in the way of programs to help the needy at ALL. If you want low taxes you get LOW SERVICE. How to fix this? Switch to an income tax based taxation system and get rid of the sales tax system. Tax people based upon the amount of income they receive to create equality between everybody. Create programs that will benefit the poor and needy using the extra money the government receives. Plus you won’t have to pay that nasty tax the next time you buy a car, eliminating some of the interest on your loan. Lastly, you get some of the money back every year like your federal tax returns! I have not heard of that happening with the sales tax. You might pay a bit more, but you will get much more back to the benefit of everyone.

My Response to Fat Tutu

This proposition is a magnet for controversy. I understand the need for cancer research and I understand the need for funding for this research. My grandma had colon cancer and they caught it JUST in time before it would have become incurable. However, I do not understand why Texas is going to pour 3 Billion dollars into this over the next ten years. Why not take some of surplus we already have and apply it to the federal cancer research, pooling the resources of our state with that of the federal government. For that matter, why not put money towards research to cure crohns disease (auto-immune disease that attacks the digestive system, rotting it form the inside out), rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS (though I believe there is a great deal of funding already in this) and many other painful and deadly diseases. Cancer is not the only big bad wolf of a disease out there to put money towards. Furthermore, It is inevitable that the Texas Government will eventually tax us for this money in some shape or form. It will probably appear on some bill a couple of years from now obscured in political lingo proposing a new tax for such and such to pay for the money going to the new cancer development. I mean, for God’s sake, we complained about the roads and they built us new roads. Toll roads, to be exact. One way or the other we WILL pay for this money and not all of us are spending 10 grand a month in rent. Now that I think about it, I am not sure that the majority of people out there make 10 grand a month. I know I don’t.

Is Your representative the One Voting?

This past summer one of the news stations went into the Texas House of Representatives to observe a session. What they found was not only astonishing but also absolutely disgusting. When you elect your House Representative, you expect them to vote in your interests. However, in the House, they are not always voting. In the house they can vote on many bills each minute. In order for a Representative to vote he must put his key into his desk and turn it … and then press the appropriate button. There is a rule that no Representative can vote for another. However, this is exactly what the news crew caught on tape. Representatives would vote, then vote for any absent Congressmen (women) around them. There was even a case where someone voted for a congressman who was there voting for another congressmen at the time! The fun gets even better. Sometimes they even vote across party lines. Democrats vote for Republicans and vice versa! This is obscene behavior from our legislature. Each House Representative should only have ONE vote and ONE vote ONLY!! I never voted for another district’s Representative to make the decisions for MINE. There are rules of conduct for the Legislatures of the House. It seems that this Particular rule is not being enforced. I think that anytime a Representative leaves his or her desk they should take their key out and take it with them. No exceptions. I think that the Sergeant at Arms should enforce this rule. Every Member of the House should be checked for their key when they leave the room. This would help to eradicate the fraudulent voting happening in the Texas House.

Cheap Student Loans? Voter's Choice.

Our legislature has proposed two constitutional amendments. One of them will grant students $500 million dollars in very low interest student loans, and the other will move Angelo State from under Texas State’s system to Texas tech’s system. The only thing complicating this transition is the fact that Angelo State has unpaid bonds they owe to the Texas State system. While I am quite certain they will iron out the kinks in this deal (in the matters of money it will always get worked out in the end) I think this is just a change in school jurisdiction. Critics of this claim the switch is “too hasty and ill considered”. All it is a switch in which school system the college is under. There isn’t much to be “ill considered”.
The $500 million dollars being proposed for low interest student loan money is an excellent idea. Many students need loans for college, and having a student loan that won’t break their bank when they graduate is something ANYONE would want. The best part is how the state is going to provide the funds. They want to issue $500 million dollars in bonds with low interest to come up with the money. The beautiful part about this deal is, when it comes time to redeem you bonds, the tax payers are not paying for ANY of it. The state is going to use the money the students pay back to pay for the issued bonds. Everyone, taxpayers, students, and the people redeeming the bonds, win in this deal. The only people crying about this bill are the banks. Opposition to this bill was solely about the banks need to make money like any other business. I understand why they would complain. This would cut into their cash flow. However, most banks have ramped up interest rates. I, for one, won’t mind getting a student loan with an interest rate that won’t require me to sell everything but the dog to pay back once I graduate.
This proposition is an excellent one in my opinion. I strongly urge everyone to vote in support of the proposition.

Student loans or no?

Death's Hand stayed? Right now in Texas, yes.

Texas is infamous for havign the highest execution rate in the country. Howevver, Texas' death chamber has been suspended from active duty temporarily for the next several months. On Tuesday, September 25th, Michael Richard was put to death at 6:00 PM for the rape and murder of Harris County mother. Why is this such a big deal? His lawyers had tried to file a key appeal with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Richards laywers could not file the motion before the courts closing time of 5 PM due to computer problems. When Richard's Lawyers called the court asking them to stay open later to hear the appeal, the court refused, citing that the courts close at 5. This decision was made by Presiding Judge Sharon Keller (she later claimed no one told her about the computer problems) without consultation of any other judges ( a few of which were working late that day) in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, including the judge assigned to handle any late motions for Richard's case, Judge Cheryl Johnson, who claimed had she known she would have happily stayed late to review the appeal. Normally, if the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had denied the motion, Richard's layers would have then appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied to even hear the motion at all, the appeal was routed through other procedural routes, which killed the effort to appeal the execution. This incident has sent shockwaves of dismay through the state, country and world.


This is the ultimate case of beaurocratic nonsense, and in this case it was a life or death situation. In the case of a death penalty case, EVERY measure possible should be taken to give the defendent the means to appeal. ABSOLUTELY NO court should ever refuse to stay open late to hear a motion of such importance. The Texas Court system needs to slow down, especially in a death case. Communication lines between courts, judges, and lawyers need to be broadened, refined, and put into standard practice.




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Hispanics: The Future of Texas Politics?

Is the hispanic vote going to be the election breaker in future elections? The studies show YES! In fact they already are. Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in Texas. In fact they are the fastest growing minority group in the country. The studies show that with the massive growth of Hispanic voters, Texas politics could swing to whichever party can catch the most latino votes thus breaking the Republicans stranglehold on texas. The business world has already been caught in this latino storm. Businesses are changing their marketing tactics in order to get a slice of the latino's estimated 1 trillion dollar money pie. In order to do this, they must appeal to latino interests. Politics are no different. From the polls taken, the latino population view education, employment. and health care as their primary issues. If either political party decides to ignore the latino vote, it will be political suicide for them in Texas. Latino's are the second largest minority right now, but it may not be long before they are the top minority in texas. The latino influence will only grow larger in politics with time.

This post is based off of the Article
from the Austin-American