It would be easy to dismiss a proposal by U.S. Rep. John Culberson to create a border militia as ill-advised and irresponsible. It would be easy, but dismissing Culberson's bill out of hand would be a mistake. The idea is just lousy enough to take hold in the current atmosphere of inaction, emotion and frustration.Give him a call and let him know what you think, (512) 246-1600.
As bad an idea as it is, the fact that Culberson has attracted 46 co-sponsors, including Central Texas Republicans Michael McCaul, Lamar Smith and John Carter, is a symptom of the frustration over a seemingly endless stream of illegal immigrants coming across the Texas-Mexico border. Add to that the well-publicized violence gripping Nuevo Laredo, and the atmosphere is perfect for this kind of simplistic approach to a complex problem.
After yesterday's stories of Speaker Craddick blaming the Republicans failure on local school officials, David Dewhurst says it's the oil and gas industries fault. Craddick, Dewhurst take potshots at each other over school finance
House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, emphatically disagrees with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's assertion the oil and gas industry is to blame for the legislature's failure to approve a new school funding plan.This one, Fingers pointing as special session ends, is pretty interesting as well. It makes the casee that the Republican leadership's plan was too right-wing:
"The leadership wanted to take [lawmakers] where they didn't want to go -- and the leadership didn't want to take 'no' for an answer," said Kronberg, editor of the online Quorum Report. "[And] they started from the hard right and crawfished a little back to the center. It's hard to be ideological about schools and taxes when, for the most part, schools are fairly well regarded back home."It's a good quote when the work "crawfished" is used.
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