Roads and development go hand in hand, and Kirk Watson has placed himself at the helm of the most powerful organization in Central Texas, while he sits at all the other chairs at the same table.
Soon after Sen. Kirk Watson became Chair of CAMPO, an organization that directs billions of road dollars in Central Texas, records showWatson was put on the payroll of developers who profit from important transportation decisions.
Additional conflicts are now revealed for the first time.
Records show Sen. Kirk Watson, as partner of law firm Hughes & Luce, bills the City of Austin at a rate of $450 per hour for representation on land deals with developers.Over $420,000 has been paid to Watson's law firm, by the City of Austin in the last two years.
Watson is being paid an undisclosed amount of money as a lobbyist for developers, and billing taxpayers at $450 an hour to oppose developers, while being chair of CAMPO - an organization that controls the purse strings for developers roads. How can Watson fairly represent the people while having so many conflicts?
Watson is now pushing an unpopular plan to shift our freeways to toll ways using $910 million tax dollars. Developers see the double tax tolls as an eternal slush fund to pay for more roads to their cheap land.
The 2006 Austin Chamber of Commerce annual report, reveals that Sen. Kirk Watson individually, and his law firm both contributed money to the pro toll Chamber. (see page 23 - www.austinchamber.com/WhatsNew/2006OAAnnualReport.pdf)
Senator Kirk Watson and others are now seeking to steal $700 million of our tax dollars for a scheme that shifts freeways
to tollways in Austin. The final CAMPO public hearing for this
double tax is Monday, Sept 10th at 6pm at the Capitol.
Be there or pay and pay and pay. TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE ACTION
AND SAY "NO TOLLS ON OUR FREEWAYS"!
10) The State Comptroller's in depth report calls this scheme "Double Taxation without Accountability". The comptroller also found toll road board members giving out NO BID contracts to themselves and their pals!
9) This crucial vote will cost your family $1,000's of dollars a year - and don't forget, convicted criminal Pete Peters is at the heart of the whole scam!
8) This bloated tax and debt scheme is the most expensive solution for our families - it could cost us 30 times more - and it doesn't even address the biggest congestion problem! - which is found on I-35. It's a revenue generation scheme, not a congestion
reduction plan.
7) 93% of the public feedback in 2004 said NO TOLLS, but these sneaky politicos are trying to slip one by us yet again, to help their fat cat contributors profit off our families.
6) These tax funded public highways have already been promised as freeways but politicians seek an unaccountable taxation scheme that doesn't use the "tax" word.
5) You and your family shouldn't be forced to pay a toll, if you want to drive on the express portion of a freeway to get to work, school or shop! Slow service roads with gtrowing congestion and stop lights (that force us to pay a toll) is not an alternative. With freeway tolls, tollers will have a finacial incentive to NEVER fix the free frontage road congestion. 4) We've already stopped the double tax at MoPAC and Wm Cannon - Drivers drive that overpass for free and save Millions of dollars in bureaucratic freeway tolls every year! We've also stopped tolls on loop 360, and parts of 290 and 71! Take action today!
3) NO OTHER CITY IN THE COUNTRY HAS SHIFTED IT'S FREEWAYS TO TOLLWAYS! Over a Billion dollars worth of our tax dollars and right of way we've already paid for will be used to create a monopolistic unaccountable double tax on our freeways.
2) NO ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY HAS BEEN DONE (see #2). All goods and services will cost more, as the additional cost of driving on freeway tolls, will be passed down to the consumer.
1) CAMPO board members like Sen. Kirk Watson don't want you to speak up or come to the Sept 10th "T-Day" hearing. They want you to stay home and watch TV, so they can use $700 million dollars worth of our tax dollars (intended for free roads) for toll roads! Sen. Watson and others ignore the public so they can harvest our families for special interests pals like Take on Traffic (Chamber of Commerce).
T-Day:
The final CAMPO public hearing for freeway tolls: Sept 10th at the Capitol (6pm) please put it on your calendar
Since 2004, our show of force has proven to push back the corrupt politicos who benefit from tolling our freeways. They fear the voters wrath - if enough of us are there watching them.
T-Day stands for Tolls, Taxes & let's "Tar and Feather those Crooks"!
The Texas House and Senate will debate the 2008-2009 Texas budget today. Everyone in the Capitol is aware that the budget contains bribes paid to some lawmakers for their continued support of Tom Craddick. This is beyond pork barrel politics. This is criminal. It is bribery.
The budget process has been corrupted. This is a scandal worse than Sharpstown, and there are plenty of former legislators who lost their jobs in that scandal who were not directly involved. The public paints with a very broad brush.
Members who want to vote aye on the budget are at best ignoring the crime and at worst becoming accessories to the bribery.
Yes, pork is always part of the budget process. So are favors for favors. But this time there are lists of the budget items added to the budget, above either the House or Senate versions, that amount to a handy guide to bribery. Many will wish this wasn't so. There are important items in the budget, they will argue. They must vote for those things.
But that is excuse-making. Like a witness to a crime being paid to leave town for a few days so the authorities can't find them.
It was a beautiful day today in Austin, TX. Ken called a couple of friends together, and we held up signs and protested Craddick's sweetheart real estate deal at Caswell Lofts on Lamar Blvd.
Every single TV station showed up, and it was exciting!
It's time for Craddick's corruption to come to and end. No more special favors for undisclosed lobbyists. In less than 24 hours, Texas will change for the better. We've got the momentum!
Cynthia McKinney just introduced legislation to hold the Bush administration accountable for impeachable offenses. McKinney's resolution talks about President Bush's manufacturing a case for war with Iraq and misinforming Congress and the American people. It also cites the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping of American citizens.
If we're serious about demanding accountability from our government, ordinary citizens need to speak up and stand with McKinney. 87% of those responding to an MSNBC poll said that if Bush lied to the American people, he deserves to be impeached. Congresswoman McKinney has done her part to change the course that the Bush administration is taking, and now it's up to the American people to decide if they will stand with her.
She just gave a press conference at the House. Here's a link to a story about it, including where there'll be a video link posted soon: http://www.gnn.tv/ar...
I'm covering two topics in this diary, because there is big news - Ted Ankrum has been endorsed by General Wesley Clark! I'm going to paste the official press release below, but this is very impressive to me - that a fromer serious contender for the White House has taken notice of this race. I've said a thousand times that this seat is one we can take away from the Republicans, and for someone like General Clark to take the time to endorse in this race shows that I'm not alone in thinking so.
I'm also continuing my presentation of Mr. Ankrum's views, with his paper on corruption. In this entry, he talks about the culture of cronyism that has developed in this administration. Given his history of standing up to people like Tom DeLay, shown in videos linked in this diary, http://www.dailykos.com/... I trust him to stand up to the corruption we see in Washington right now.
As Republicans brag about how aggressively and swiftly they took care of Mark Foley, supposedly "forcing" him to resign (ya, sure); news from other sources tells a tragically different and surprising story about those controlling our government, for far too long now.
With every day that passes, more evidence comes to light proving that too many Republican lawmakers, including its leaders, knew about Foley wooing our below-the-age-of-consent pages, the young wards entrusted-fully to Congress' care and protection, by equally-innocent parents.
On Tuesday, October 10, Democratic candidate Rick Bolaños, who received almost twice as many votes in the Texas 23rd congressional district March primary as his opponent Henry Bonilla, will hold a press conference at Veronica's Nachitos Restaurant, 8783 Wurzbach Rd., San Antonio at 10:00 AM (210-691-0815).
The conference will expose Henry Bonilla and other Republicans for their cynical ploy of running their Republican supporters in the 23rd congressional district Democratic Primary.
The Path to Hysteria
My sin was to write a screenplay accurately depicting Bill Clinton's record on terrorism.
BY CYRUS NOWRASTEH
Monday, September 18, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal--to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood. Like all Americans, I wish it were not so. I wish there were no terrorists. I wish there had been no 9/11. I wish we could squabble among ourselves in assured security. But wishes avail nothing.
David Harris, a Democratic candidate for a North Texas congressional seat, is under investigation by the military amid allegations that he carried on a three-year affair with an enlisted soldier under his command in the Army Reserve.
Harris, an Iraqi war veteran challenging 11-term Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Arlington, is accused of "conduct unbecoming an officer" for maintaining a "close and continuing relationship" with a female Army sergeant from 2003 though 2005, a military investigator said.
Military regulations forbid such relationships.
Maj. Frank Torres, the Army Reserve officer who investigated the allegations, said military officials are still deciding whether to proceed with a court-martial against Harris, who is a major. The complaint that sparked the investigation was filed by Jennifer Vaughan, 33, of Arlington, who was demoted by her commander after she acknowledged that she had an affair.
Harris, a former ROTC instructor at the University of Texas at Arlington, declined to discuss the matter. But when reports of the inquiry surfaced on several political Web logs, Harris and his campaign suggested that they were being spread by the Barton campaign.
"While I have made mistakes in my marriage and personal life, I remain committed to my relationship, my family and moving forward together," Harris, a 35-year-old father of two, wrote on his campaign Web page. "These personal attacks against me are an all-time low for the persons responsible for them. ...
"I will not engage in a campaign of negativity and I will not tolerate attacks against my family," he added. "Everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect. I believe that the voters understand that."
A spokesman for Barton said the Republican lawmaker's campaign has made no attempt to publicize the matter.
"We're just not going to go there," said Craig Murphy, the congressman's political consultant. Barton's 6th District includes Arlington and south Tarrant County and extends southeast to Trinity County.
Vaughan transferred from the Army Reserve to the Air Force Reserve after returning from Iraq. She said she lodged a complaint because she was demoted in her new assignment from staff sergeant to senior airman while no action was being contemplated against Harris.
Her supervisors in the Air Force Reserve had already been alerted to the affair, but they had no authority over Harris.
"Why do I, as an enlisted person, have to lose a stripe over this while nothing happens to the officer?" Vaughan, who served as Harris' driver in Iraq, told the Star-Telegram. "I'm doing it because I have been treated so bad as an enlisted [person]. And as an officer, he's getting away with it, and now he's running for Congress."
Vaughan said that she and Harris ended their relationship in 2005. She turned over e-mail correspondence between her and Harris to Army investigators. She also provided copies to the Star-Telegram.
Vaughan has also sent a letter to Barton seeking his office's help to transfer to another Air Force Reserve unit. Murphy said Barton's office forwarded the letter to U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to avoid any appearance of partisan politics. Hutchison's spokeswoman said the senator typically does not discuss correspondence with constituents.
Torres, the Army investigator, said he interviewed Harris and "a dozen or so witnesses" during his six-week inquiry and found nothing to contradict Vaughan's assertions about her relationship with Harris. Torres declined to discuss the specifics, saying only that his report has been turned over to his superiors.
"All I can say is that I did a thorough investigation into the allegations," Torres said. "This is something the military takes very seriously. The military has very specific guidelines as it relates to relationships between officers and enlisted personnel."
Harris, who enlisted in the Army in 1992 and became an officer two years later, became active in the veterans-for-peace movement after returning from Iraq in 2005.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice leaves punishment for conduct unbecoming an officer up to the court-martial.
