How much bailing out does one company need? After receiving some $50 billion in tax dollars from us courtesy of Obama’s “cash stash,” GM is claiming success with a “big profit” with last year’s third quarter report, and in his recent State of the Union Speech, President Obama claimed that GM was “back on top as the world’s number one automaker.” But true or not, if all is coming up roses for GM, why is the company now lobbying the individual states for mini bailouts?

That is exactly what is happening. The new “big success” automaker is spending millions hiring lobbyists to squeeze more millions out of state legislatures. As Justin Owen notes, GM has “turned to another, smaller government teat” by putting its hand out to the states. GM, Owen says, “has received another $1.7 billion in taxpayer-funded grants and tax abatements.”

This is no accident of timing, either. GM admitted to the Tennessee Watchdog that begging to the states for tax dollars is a concerted effort.

“We are increasing our activity with the states obviously, in the communities in which we operate. In doing this, we’ve invested more than $6 billion (throughout the states) during the last five years and brought 15,000 people back to work. So, the activity at the state level is important to us. Our lobbying is comparable to what our competitors are doing throughout the states,” said GM spokesman Greg Martin.

For the Watchdog, Christopher Butler found that GM has received more than $1.5 billion from Michigan, $7.5 million in tax incentives from Kentucky, over $10 million from Texas, and over $2 million from Indiana. Ohio and Maryland have given to the GM bailout fund, too, with tax incentives and other giveaways. (more…)

After a disappointing fifth place finish, Perry said he was going back to Texas to “reassess” his campaign. Some have suggested he is all but certain to drop out after having spent some $4 million in Iowa, only to get 10% of the vote. He spent upwards of $300 per vote, compared to just 73 cents for Santorum. To be sure, that’s bad, but perhaps it isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be when there were only a few thousand votes separating the first from last.

It isn’t over yet. After all, Governor Rick Perry likes to run. He tweeted a picture of himself running, wearing his Texas A&M running shorts and giving a thumbs-up, with the caption “the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State. … Here we come South Carolina!!!”

Perry likes running so much that, on one occasion in 2010, with his laser-sighted pistol in hand, he killed a coyote while running, sending it “to where coyotes go.”  He believes that jogging can help him get his mojo back and win the Iowa caucus after suffering spinal surgery this summer.

Now he’s running in his eleventh straight election–the first out of Texas–for the presidency. So how’s Perry doing in his first national bid?

Not well. Indeed, if you believe the conventional political narrative, his campaign ended when he said “oops” during a November debate. Political commentary was unforgiving. Larry J. Sabato spoke for many when he said, ”To my memory, Perry’s forgetfulness is the most devastating moment of any modern primary debate.”

But as so often is the case, the conventional narrative is wrong–or, at least, exaggerated. Governor Perry is actually doing quite well. Does this sound like a moribund campaign? (more…)

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he would head home “to determine whether there is a path forward” for his White House bid after he finished a distant fifth in the Iowa caucuses.

At times pausing to collect his emotions, Perry told supporters that he appreciated their work but that he needed to consider whether there was a viable strategy for him to restart his campaign in South Carolina.

(more…)

Today, PJ Media breaks a bombshell that an employee in the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) Voting Section, where I used to work, has admitted to lying three times under penalty of perjury during a DOJ Inspector General’s investigation.

The revelation may well affect congressional redistricting, because of the key role Voting Section staff play in approving state legislative plans, including the staffer in question.

For example, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott might use these allegations of perjury involving Texas redistricting to fight the ongoing redistricting litigation. Impeachment of a different sort–that of a testifying witness–is his for the taking.

The wide ranging DOJ Inspector General investigation is examining the harassment of conservative leaning DOJ employees who were willing to enforce civil rights laws equally against all wrongdoers, such as the New Black Panther party.  You read that right–the harassment of employees who were willing to enforce the law against the New Black Panther Party.

The particulars of the DOJ perjury, as reported by Has von Spakovsky at PJ Media, are even more troubling. They involve the leaking of internal memos about Congressional redistricting to the Washington Post by leftist DOJ staff who hoped to hurt the Bush administration. The current Texas redistricting plans are being litigated in both San Antonio and Washington D.C. courtrooms.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Ted Cruz to discuss his race for the US Senate, his ideas for entitlement reform, and how he would fix the economy.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

A Test for the Tea Party in Texas Senate Race
Ted Cruz: on a mission to save the country
Coffee and Markets Archive: Ted Cruz on His Race for the Senate in Texas
TedCruz.org

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Ted on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a speech in Austin, Texas Tuesday in which he invoked the history of the civil rights movement in targeting state voter identification laws. His approach mirrors that of the NAACP, which considers such laws racist, and echoes Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who recently claimed that Republicans want to “literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.”

Holder claimed that the Department of Justice would be “fair” in reviewing such laws, but also quoted a misleading charge made by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who claimed there was a “systematic attempt” to prevent minority voters from exercising their rights. Holder specifically singled out “new photo identification requirements” in Texas and South Carolina, and applauded Maine’s voters for preserving same-day registration.

The fact is that requiring voters to provide photo identification is standard practice in much of the democratic world–even, and especially, in poor countries with a history of struggle against racism and colonialism.

In South Africa, for example, where black people were denied the vote until 1994, the new democratic government requires every registered voter–black or white, rich or poor–to bring official photo ID to the polls.

Indians show photo ID to vote (Photo credit: AP/Biswaranjan Rout)

India’s election commission issues a special photo identification card to voters when they register, which they must present at the polls:

The Election Commission of India has made voter identification mandatory at the time of poll. The electors have to identify themselves with either Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Commission or any other documentary proof as prescribed by the Commission.

In Europe, the official EU Handbook for Election Observation acknowledges that voters are required to show identification in many countries, and suggests that observers verify that all voters are subject to the same ID check (166). Even the Carter Center for Human Rights, which monitors democratic elections all over the world, identifies “a requirement for identification” as a “reasonable limitation” on universal suffrage.

(Update: That’s not to say international practice should govern American practice at the federal, state, or local level, but it certainly undermines the notion that photo identification is somehow motivated by a desire to keep people from exercising their rights. The opposite is true: voter ID laws are intended to protect voters’ rights against fraud and manipulation by those who would subvert their will.)

(more…)

Talk show host Michael Berry alerted us to the upcoming event of the Harris County Democrat Party. One doesn’t have to be a dedicated pro-life activist to find the idea of this event kind of sick. I think even the majority of those who believe abortion services and clinics should be available would agree that an abortion clinic is the wrong venue for a Christmas Party.  (Yes, I realize they say “Holiday Party,” in the invitation below but for the vast majority of Americans, the holiday they celebrate in December is Christmas. Heck, the invitation even used green and red lettering, the traditional colors of Christmas.)

demwomenholidayparty

(more…)

This is a solid campaign move by Perry. Newt Gingrich is coming on strong in the polls as the anti-Romney, but the fact that the former Speaker is an old-school Beltway insider is a vulnerability. If Perry hopes to revitalize his campaign and get back in the race, it’s essential he plays up his outsider status, and he seems to be doing just that.  The anti-establishment outrage has reached a fever pitch since the explosive “60 Minutes” report on Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out, and Perry is the first GOP candidate to try to own that sentiment.

***

BETTENDORF, Iowa (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said Tuesday that if elected he would end lifetime appointments for federal judges and slash the pay for federal lawmakers, effectively turning Congress into a part-time institution.

In a speech laying out how he would “uproot and overhaul” Washington, the Texas governor suggested that his Washington outsider background—unlike some of his GOP rivals—would help him succeed at changing the city’s culture. Changing Washington also was one of President Barack Obama’s goals and he’s had no success on that front since taking office.

“Unique to the Republican field, I have never been an establishment figure, have never served in Congress or part of an administration and have never been a paid lobbyist,” Perry said. “My career has been that of a Washington outsider.”

Until he jumped into the presidential race in August, Perry spent his entire political career in his home state of Texas.

The plan Perry rolled out at a heating and cooling company in Iowa also calls for requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress for any tax increases, halting all proposed federal regulations and criminalizing insider trading by Washington lawmakers. (more…)

The illegal immigration debate could not be any hotter. While JW was protecting the rights of Maryland citizens to stop tuition breaks for illegal aliens in Maryland, on October 14, a federal court blocked provisions of Alabama’s new tough illegal immigration enforcement law from taking effect — at the urging of the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) — while allowing other provisions to be enforced. At the same time, Arizona’s illegal immigration enforcement law, SB 1070, is expected to go before the U.S. Supreme Court soon (Judicial Watch currently represents the Arizona State Legislature in court and recently filed an amicus curiae brief with the High Court, which began its current term on October 3).

In the midst of this firestorm, Judicial Watch took aggressive action, launching a national television advertising campaign to combat illegal immigration. The purpose of the campaign is to collect petitions from the American people to send to the governors of all 50 states, urging them to obey and enforce all laws against illegal immigration. This campaign to encourage our nation’s governors to stand strong on illegal immigration law enforcement has become more urgent now that the Obama DOJ has decided to sue states for merely trying to protect their citizens from the scourge of illegal immigration.

But it’s not just the federal government that is to blame. Some states have decided to side with the illegal aliens, rolling out the welcome mat for illegal aliens through costly and unlawful sanctuary policies. That’s why we’re going national with this petition campaign. The petition campaign is being driven by a series of television advertisements that began broadcasting this week in California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, as well as nationwide on Fox Business News (FBN) and the Military Channel.

In this new national campaign, Judicial Watch asks Americans take a stand on this illegal immigration crisis:

The cost of illegal immigration is a burden on every taxpaying citizen. That’s why Judicial Watch fights hard to hold politicians accountable when they violate and undermine immigration law. Take a stand. Sign this petition and tell your state governor to enforce our federal immigration laws.

The objective of our television campaign is to educate the public and encourage citizens to petition their government in support of the rule of law. Here’s what our petition states (If you’d like to sign off on these principles, then please click here and join our cause!):

(more…)

It’s déjà vu all over again. For the second time, the entire Texas Congressional Delegation, with the exception of one member, wrote a letter last week urging the EPA to reevaluate and delay implementation of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). The new letter was inspired by the fact that while the agency has offered a few corrections to the original error-ridden rule, they’ve done nothing to address the egregious timeline for compliance that continues to threaten jobs and communities here in Texas. EPA’s minor modifications to the rule may be good public relations, but as we say in Texas, it’s all hat and no cattle.

Donna Nelson, Chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission, expressed her concerns last week that the EPA’s adjustments to CSAPR have failed to move the January 1 date of implementation and the Agency still has not corrected obvious errors and flawed assumptions. Commissioner Nelson noted that “the EPA overstated the amount of Texas generation available in future years by more than 10,000 megawatts by including plants that are already retired and failing to adjust the state’s wind generating fleet to account for wind’s intermittent nature.” (more…)

The EPA just revealed revisions to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) that they say will give more flexibility to states for implementation of the rule. I applaud the EPA for finally admitting its errors in calculations and flawed methodology, but I am not sure about the motives behind this move. The EPA’s admission that they have to go back and make “technical corrections” to CSAPR highlights that the original rule was based on flawed math.

The EPA was in a rush to implement these rules and failed to consider the sweeping job loss that would result. There was a complete lack of consideration for the possibility that the information upon which the rule was based may have, in fact, been inaccurate. Now the EPA is citing incorrect assumptions for the “technical corrections.” Well, these “technical corrections” will do little to put to rest the fears of Texans who will potentially be out of work as a result of this rule.

The changes are very minimal, and they have only happened because the EPA was repeatedly called out for faulty calculations. But what is most troubling is that the changes do nothing to reduce the time crunch that Texas is under in order to attempt to comply with the rule by January 2012. With such an unrealistic timeframe to comply, jobs will likely still be lost. Donna Nelson, the Chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission remarked that she “would be thrilled if they were to change their position or to give Texas the due process they were required to do under law, [but] it looks like they are tinkering around the edges, not making big changes.” (more…)

As it turns out, the Cross-State Air Pollution rule’s devastating effects will extend beyond my hometown of Fairfield and the borders of Texas. On September 22nd, seven state’s attorneys general joined together to file an official petition for review of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Cross-State Air Pollution rule. It’s reassuring to see that State Attorney Generals have noticed the consequences of this rule that will affect so many working families in Texas and elsewhere. The other filing states include Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. Clearly this is a significant issue and the EPA must no longer snub the growing number of state and local government officials’ demands for a review of the rule.

The Dallas Morning News recently published an op-ed by David Campbell, President of Luminant. Mr. Campbell represents the 4,400 Luminant employees in Texas whose jobs have been threatened as a result of the Cross-State Air Pollution rule. My father is one of the employees whose position Mr. Campbell is fighting to keep. Luminant must reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 64 percent in the next 3 months in order to comply with the regulation. In order to comply with the rule, the company will lose two power generating units, or 1,300 megawatts of power. Not long ago, Texans, along with many Americans, suffered through an unbearably hot summer. Luminant employees worked around the clock to avoid massive blackouts. Luminant customers cannot afford to lose 1,300 megawatts of power. As a result of the shut downs, Luminant will be forced to cut 500 jobs, in areas where employment remains scarce. Why would we put the jobs of so many neccessary employees on the chopping block when we need them the most? It seems like the EPA should be more thorough in seeking data related to the capacity losses and cost increases during record breaking summers and frigid winters like many parts of the Lonestar state have been facing in the past year.

As Campbell pointed out, this is not simply a case of “industry vs. EPA.” What concerns me, and directly affects my family, is the disproportionate negative effect this rule will have on Texans. Texas was a late addition to the EPA’s rule, yet Texas is still required to comply with the rule by Jan. 1, only six months from the date it was issued. My professors don’t ask students to write a 30-page thesis a week before the semester ends. It takes time to research the topic, make the outline, disseminate the research, convey the findings, and determine the conclusion. It’s not something than can be completed late in the game, as the EPA has asked of Texas energy companies. An agency as large as the EPA should understand the time and resources required to make these drastic changes.

(more…)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

About nine years ago, I sat down for my first class in law school: contracts.  I don’t remember the name of the first case that our professor had us read, but I remember what it was about: remedies.  The case was largely noteworthy for its discussion of the proper measure of “damages”—what us lawyers call the amount of money awarded to the victorious plaintiff.  The professor explained how one casebook author used to start his entire first chapter and the first few weeks of class discussing nothing but the proper measure of damages—that is, how much money the plaintiff gets.  Because in the end, that is how you demonstrate the value of the right in question: by providing an appropriate remedy when it is violated.

It is appropriate tonight to remember what happened thirteen years ago in Jasper, Texas.  It may be hard to read it, but the victim deserves your attention and remembrance.  From an article on one of the related trials:

In his closing argument, another prosecutor, Pat Hardy, described [William] King and his co-defendants as “three robed riders coming straight out of hell.” Noting that [James] Byrd’s dismembered body was left by the gate of an old black cemetery, Hardy said the three wanted “to show their defiance to God and Christianity and everything most people in this county stand for.”

Byrd, who was unemployed and living alone in a subsidized apartment, was walking home from a family gathering after midnight when he was picked up and driven to woods outside the city. There, he was beaten, then chained at the ankles and dragged behind a pickup truck for about three miles. In testimony Monday, a pathologist said Byrd was alive until his head and right arm were torn off by the jagged edge of a roadside culvert.

That testimony was crucial for the prosecution. The underlying felony of kidnapping is what made Byrd’s murder a death-penalty offense. For Byrd to have been kidnapped under Texas’s definition of the crime, he had to have been alive while being dragged.

Which is excellent legal thinking on the part of the prosecutors, but it also highlights a grisly fact: Byrd was alive and certainly aware as much of his body was ground like meat.  This was a cruel and torturous way to die.

Last night in Texas, one of those accomplices, Lawrence Russell Brewer was put to death for his role in this horror.  It is often wondered by death penalty opponents how people professing to believe in the sanctity of life can support the death penalty.  But what greater affirmation of the value of James Byrd’s life could there be, than to say that the price of his murder is the death of those killed them?  The value of the right is determined by the remedy for its violation.  This is as true in a simple breach of contract as it is in murder.

(more…)

This summer, the EPA released a new regulation regarding coal-fired power plants in Texas. Called the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), it will devastate mine and other local communities, wreak havoc on already strained power supplies, and cause the loss of hundreds of jobs during a time of economic hardship.

The economy in my hometown, Fairfield, Texas, is all but based on our local plant/mine, Big Brown. The owner of Big Brown, Luminant, has just announced that that the local coal mine that fuels Big Brown will be shut down so the company can try and comply with the new rule. This loss to our community in Fairfield is enough to cause concern, but the issue hits even closer to home for me. My father has worked at Big Brown for 38 years.

In addition to the loss of local jobs, tax revenue to pay for our schools, roads and other necessary infrastructure will be greatly diminished. Luminant also announced the necessary closure of two other power units and the mine that supports them in Northeast Texas. It’s not hard to imagine the negative impact this will have on small local communities that are struggling to stay on their feet in this difficult economy. But the damage doesn’t stop in Fairfield and other communities. It extends to our whole state. Texans as a whole stands to be negatively impacted by sharply climbing electrical prices and rolling blackouts. There were numerous days this summer when our electric grid was a few hundred megawatts from running out of power. The plant closures from Luminant, alone, means that there will be 1,200 less megawatts of power now available.

The outrage I feel isn’t just about economic hardship, higher electricity prices, and rolling blackouts. It’s about fairness and truth. CSAPR did not originally include Texas in its new regulations, but the EPA decided at the last minute to include Texas. As a further slap in the face, they made the compliance date January 2012. This leaves less than 6 months for compliance by Texas power plants.

(more…)

While the KXAN television news video below paints a graphic portrait of the damage wrought by wildfires in the Texas Hill Country east of Austin during the past two weeks, it makes no mention of three blameworthy factors that might have played pivotal roles in reducing the size and scope of this red-hot disaster.

The three factors appear below:

First, there’s the lack of enough firefighting air tankers. One could blame President Barack Obama for this, according to a Human Events report Wednesday, because someone in his administration grounded nearly half of the federal government’s firefighting air tankers after a contract dispute with Aero Union just weeks before wildfires swept through the Lone Star State. That decision, no doubt, left fewer resources available to Gov. Rick Perry and his team to fight the fires.

(more…)

From The Gonzales Cannon:

Firefighting-trained volunteers from around the state converged on Bastrop and Smithville Tuesday to lend a hand to the beleaguered local firefighters battling the Bastrop County Complex Fire — only to be sent away as federal officials arrived at the scene and took command, apparently because local officials never made a formal request for volunteers.

“We were at the station getting set up into strike teams, and this guy came up and said that the U.S. Forest Service had ‘assumed control of the situation, and that ‘If you don’t have a vehicle that squirts water, go home,’” said Gordon Greer of Kirbyville, who drove all night Monday to arrive in the town beset by the worst wildfire in Texas history. “You’ve got guys who had driven all night long from Corpus Christi and Brownsville on their own dime, and they turned them away. He was really a (bleep) about it.

“There was a whole line of beige cars that came in this morning, tinted windows and such,” Greer said.

Read the whole thing here. Texas has a very large base of highly-trained volunteer firefighters. Just the sort of thing that would be really helpful if, say, there were over 100,000 acres ablaze. Also, though, just the sort of thing that makes lots of state and federal employees redundant.

Well, the ‘barbarians’ and ’sons of bitches’ are at it again. As wildfires spread across Texas, covering over 100,000 acres so far, tea partiers are once again organizing and mobilizing, this time to help their fellow citizens.

The group Citizen Patriot Response is coordinating efforts. From its website:

Citizen Patriot Response is preparing to begin delivering cold bottles of water to firefighters in the Bastrop area in an effort to do our part. Many other organizations and individuals in Texas are doing the same. We need support, we need more efforts initiated across the state, and we need communication and collaboration between group leaders to ensure that men and women fighting the Texas wildfires have full support.

The group will also provide a shelter for those families whose homes are threatened by the fires.

(more…)