Taxpayer-rights organization “Citizens Lowering Our Unfair Taxes” has won another round in its lawsuit against the state of Texas:

The Texas Supreme Court refused to hear the State of Texas appeal of the CLOUT Lawsuit filed by Edd Hendee as reported by the lead counsel on the case today, Gary Polland. The State of Texas claim, offered by the Attorney Generals office, that Edd Hendee didn’t have “standing” to sue the state over the Constitutional budget spending cap provision has now lost at both the appellate and supreme court levels so the discovery efforts for the trial can proceed in 10 or so days at a minimum. Therefore, Taxpayers once again have the right to go to court to enforce the constitutional provisions voted on by the citizens of Texas in the first place.

For some analysis, we turn now to Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt:

“It’s sad to see taxpayers like Edd Hendee and Bruce Hotze having to sue their own government at the State and local level to make them live up to voter approved Constitutional or Charter provisions limiting the growth of governmental revenues. It’s the Taxpayer’s money, and if they set limits on how much more can be spent each year out of government coffers it shouldn’t take a taxpayer funded lawsuit to bring them back into line.”

Damn skippy, Taxman.

This is where it gets fun. Now CLOUT gets to do discovery — put the Austin fat cats in a chair and make them testify under oath. Stay tuned…

As influential members of the Halliburton/BushCo world-domination cabal, Lone Star Times staffers get a lot of perks:

• hot and cold running crude oil
• access to live torture videos from Gitmo
• unlimited fresh organs

But our favorite perk has got to be the Weather Machine. And now the Red Chinese think they can just build their own?

According to Wang Guanghe, director of the Weather Modification Department under the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, each of China’s more than 30 provinces and province-level municipalities today boast a weather-modification base, employing more than 32,000 people, 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and 30-odd aircraft across the country.

“Ours is the largest artificial weather program in the world in terms of equipment, size and budget,” Wang said, adding that the annual nationwide budget for weather modification is between US$60 million and $90 million.

Who the hell do they think they are? I’m getting Karl on the phone right now. It’s time for a little hailstorm in Beijing.

Liberal Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr., comments on the Vitter scandal today by insisting that we should have a “wall” between the personal and private lives of politicians:

[I]f we are to get out of this habit of destroying the distinctions between public and private lives, liberals need to give the conservative hypocrites a break.

We should acknowledge that the outing process is erratic and leaves many falls from grace safely shielded from public view. We should also admit that we are tougher on the moral flaws of politicians who belong to a party other than our own.

The essential point, however, is that believing in a wall between the public and the private makes you a traditionalist, not a libertine. The traditionalist embraces a strict moral code but sees it as best enforced in the personal realm. We should judge public figures by how they meet their public responsibilities, and leave it to spouses, pastors, children and friends to praise or punish their private behavior.

Dionne never justifies this argument with the historic record, and that’s because he simply cannot. Sex scandals have been harming the reputations of public officials since before the founding of our republic. Alexander Hamilton was brought down by his affair with Maria Reynolds, which left him open to blackmail. He was then accused of corruption, and decided to publish a confession outlining the grisly details of his affair. While he was being investigated, he was forced to resign.

Andrew Jackson’s cabinet was later scandalized by the “Petticoat Affair,” which surrounded the young wife of the secretary of war, Margaret “Peggy” Eaton. She was married only eight months after her prior husband slit his own throat while at sea, leading to rumors that she was an adulteress and her husband had committed suicide over her infidelities. The scandal ultimately led to the resignations of cabinet officials.

Grover Cleveland was chastized during the 1884 presidential campaign for allegedly having fathered a child out-of-wedlock while he was a lawyer in Buffalo in the mid-1870s (he admitted to paying child support).

True, from the 1930’s onward, the press began covering up for the pecadillos of the president and other public officials. That brief tradition was strained by the Watergate Scandal, and dissolved completely by the time of the Lewinsky scandal with President Clinton (as evinced by the Gary Hart scandal). However, the “tradition” is one of having the public judge these things for itself, with political ramifications generally following.

Moreover, this is the way things ought to be. As I mentioned before, we should be able to trust our politicians and public officials. It is impossible to trust them when they are willing to lie to us and betray their own families. There is no point to imagining some artificial wall between their personal lives and their professional lives; it would be comical to believe that they would show such careless disregard for their wives and children while maintaining steadfast fidelity to their constituents. It doesn’t work that way; politicians aren’t schizophrenic, and if they betray their families then it has probably occurred to them to betray us as well.

In truth, I’d already seen it in Vitter. Vitter recently came out in support of Giuliani for the Republican nomination, which was considered to be a major slap in the face to his socially conservative base in Louisiana. I kidded myself by saying that he probably just admired Giuliani’s leadership and honestly believed that his presidency would not have a negative impact on social policy. Now I wonder if, perhaps, Vitter just wanted the VP spot and didn’t give a damn what happened on abortion, gay rights, gun control, et al. After all, he was willing to lie to his family — who is to say that he wasn’t lying to me then?

That’s my biggest problem with this. Our actions evince our character. What do Vitter’s actions say?

You have heard the calls for moderate Muslims to take a stand against the Islamofascist. How about some “Liberal” Arab Journalists? Did you catch that? Liberal Arab Journalists. I never thought I would ever say those three words in one sentence, much less in a positive connotation. I am going to include some excerpts but please do yourself a favor and read the entire article here.

Arab Liberals on the “Terrorist Doctors” Plot

By MEMRI FrontPageMagazine.com| July 11, 2007

The recent failed terror attacks in London and Glasgow provoked a great deal of commentary among liberals in the Middle East and North African media, in particular due to the alleged involvement of a number of doctors in the plot. Some writers dwelt on the paradox of those trained to save lives becoming terrorists; others pointed to the suspects’ backgrounds in order to argue that poverty and ignorance are not the main cause of terrorism; and a number of writers addressed the issue of Muslim immigration in Europe and the U.S.

’Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed: How Can One Explain the Fact That a Doctor Could Plan to Kill Innocent People?

In a July 5, 2007 article in the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily, Al-Arabiya TV director ’Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote of his shock at learning that doctors were implicated in the attack plot:

“[Al-Qaeda and its sponsors] have not left the Muslims any area where they can be free of them. They have succeeded in presenting Islam as an evil religion that even uses doctors to kill innocent people - despite the fact that they spent years studying and training in order to save people’s lives, without regard to their religion, race, or gender.

Mustapha Hammouche: Misery and Ignorance Are Not the Main Cause of Terrorism; Islamism is a Point of Moral Rupture

On July 4, 2007, Mustapha Hammouche wrote in his column in the liberal Algerian daily Liberte: “That the failed attacks in London and Glasgow were the act of doctors was unsettling, especially to those of the Hippocratic profession… [But] as long as… politicians busy themselves with tracing the reassuring limits of the danger instead of considering the extent of the menace, terrorism will continue to progress and to surprise us.

“The illusion that knowledge should be a sufficient bulwark against terrorism corresponds to that other mistake that manifests itself from time to time: that of believing that misery is the primary catalyst for terrorism. Misfortune certainly does often furnish the cannon fodder required by this ideology, but Islamist terrorism has had no lack of operatives from educated or wealthy backgrounds.

Pick me up off the floor. These next two snippets echo the thoughts of many of us. They are not bound by the political correctness that pervades our media.

Kurdish Journalist Tariq Hemo: The Western Countries Are Reaping the Harvest of Overly Liberal Immigration Policies

In a July 5 article on the liberal Elaph website, Tariq Hemo, a Kurdish journalist living in Germany, criticized Europe’s immigration policies for being too liberal:

“…The Western countries are currently reaping, in these terrorists, what they sowed when they flung their doors open wide to every malevolent fundamentalist and failed in putting in place a mechanism for managing and controlling immigration in an appropriate manner…

“The West’s generosity in allowing the organizations of political Islam to penetrate into Islamic societies [in Europe], spread among their youth, and enlist them in order to achieve their own ends and realize their agendas, was a mistake, and was the prelude that led to the appearance of these disastrous consequences now. He who sows the wind reaps the storm…

Here is the real bomb shell.

Khudayr Taher: Europe and America Should Deport All Muslims - Including Myself

Khudayr Taher, an Iraqi Shi’ite writer living in the U.S. and a regular contributor to the liberal Elaph website, had a quite illiberal suggestion - he asked why Europe and America shouldn’t deport their Muslim populations. He wrote:

“Countries have the right to defend themselves and assure their citizens’ safety from terrorism. Likewise, it is clear that the source of the terrorist crimes in Europe and America is the Muslims who live in these countries.

“The security services cannot know people’s intentions and sort out who is the noble immigrant and who is a terrorist criminal. [But] wherever there are Muslims, their presence has produced crimes of terrorism and murder.

“Among those Muslims in Europe and America who do not practice terrorism, most of them do not have loyalty and sincere attachment to these countries that have offered them all of the means of life in dignity - housing, studies, work, and citizenship…

“The legitimate question is this: Since the security services cannot sort out the good immigrant from the bad terrorist… why don’t these countries deport all Muslims, of all races, from Europe and America, and [thus] find rest from the danger of terrorism, and protect their peoples?

“I, as an Arab Muslim immigrant, sincerely call on the countries of Europe and America to deport all Muslims from their territories - including myself, despite my love and my sincere attachment to the U.S…”

I’m listening. I only wish that my country and her politicians would listen too.

Cross Posted at squawkboxnoise.com

TGIF the 13th

Thinking about traveling soon?  Have you made those hotel reservations? 
You might want to click the pic.  Heh!

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