looking up to the dome at Harrison County Historic Courthouse

I attended last night’s local Political Forum in the Old Renovated Harrison County Courthouse! This was my first Political Forum to attend here in Harrison County and I enjoyed hearing from candidates from 3 contested races.

District Clerk
Sherry Griffis
Mellinda Craig

County Court at Law
Jim Ammerman
Rick Hurlburt

District Attorney
Joe Black
Coke Solomon

(BTW if you wondered I listed the Incumbent first and all are Democrats the Challengers are Republicans)

Overview:
My impression of the venue, the setting and the hosts. My sincere appreciation to the League of Women Voters, while I was apprehensive from seeing the information online regarding their strong support of the Universal Health Care law and the Climate Change legislation that was pending in Congress and in general about the League, I can say with a certainty that the our Marshall/Harrison County League conducted themselves in a fine fashion in hosting a fair, balanced and productive Forum for the Candidates and the public to hear the candidates first hand and meet them in person.

The venue in the Renovated Harrison County Courthouse was wonderful and had room for about 150 guests I would estimate possibly a little more counting the second floor, I didn’t gaze up there but believe the main floor was more than 90% full during the opening of the Forum, in fact several late comers started by standing at the back, although later everyone found an available seat! I have to say the Dome and Interior have been well done, not that I’m surprised the renovations completed by Sloan construction that I have seen, including ETBU’s Marshall Hall, ETBU’s Scarborough Hall and now the County Courthouse doesn’t lead me to doubt that they do fine renovation work.

Now to the Candidates and the Forum:
The procedure was set with an Opening from each candidate as determined by numbers drawn from a hat, the lowest number went first. The First Speakers were Candidate Rick Hurlburt, Candidate Coke Solomon and District Clerk Kathy Griffis. After the opening remarks were completed, the Candidates received pre-selected questions that had already been sent to the Candidates from the League of Women Voters. After this the Candidates received several questions from note cards in the Audience.

To the Races:
County Court at Law

Incumbent Judge Jim Ammerman was polished and judicial in his speech and opening remarks, although some of the remarks from Candidate Hurlburt did cause defensiveness in the Judge.

From my observations I saw Judge Ammerman clearly present his desire to continue serving Harrison County for the good he has done in the Juvenile Courts. He mentioned several achievements including re-starting a Juvenile Boot Camp, Teen Mentoring, Partnerships with the local Police and Schools to encourage Juvenile offenders to not repeat their past mistakes and get help. In addition to this he portrayed his strong support of involving all Custodians and Parents of Juvenile defenders to attend and complete mandatory Parenting classes and improvement steps as set by his Court. He pointed out that Juvenile Crime has dropped 56 percent since he took office. The points that he mentioned about his opponent seemed to center on Candidate’s Rick Hurlburt’s career as a Criminal Defense Attorney, especially in defending criminals accused of drug offenses. I didn’t find this remark particularly helpful or pertinent to his case to Re-Elect him. I particularly believe that the Defense Attorney has the obligation and requirement of providing the best possible defense in all cases no matter how heinous, the facts I believe will come out and if Attorney Hurlburt did not argue the accused criminal’s past suffered abuses then he would have been negligent in his duties. In addition to this the most defensive Judge Ammerman seemed was about the “Case Backlog” that Candidate Hurlburt mentioned of 1200 or so cases. Judge Ammerman did a fair job in assessing the cases and explaining the fact that 87 defendants had not been apprehended and therefore the cases were inactive and impossible to move. There were an additional 800 cases that were “inactive” however, Judge Ammerman didn’t explain how he came to that conclusion on those files outside of the “State has changed reporting requirements” From the reduction in Juvenile crime and the implementation or re-activation of several Youth oriented programs it would seem Judge Ammerman has not only been an Advocate for Justice but for an improved Juvenile system overall.

Candidate Rick Hurlburt
Candidate Hurlburt came across with 3 central points to his message. The first overall theme was that he had the experience and desire to serve Harrison County. He had been a Court Judge in Longview until recently when the City Charter was reviewed and it was discovered that He as a Resident of Harrison County was in-eligible to serve as Judge in that Court.

In addition to his experience on the bench Attorney Hurlburt has many years as a practicing Criminal Defense Attorney, a Prosecutor and 4 years experience in Law Enforcement as a Kilgore Police officer. Candidate Hurlburt made his main premise the Part time manner in which the County Court at Law Judge currently services Harrison County is inadequate and has lead to backlogs. Candidate Hurlburt indicated that the ability to have a continuing law practice by a sitting judge is an only exception for Harrison County that Judge Ammerman uses to continue his personnel practice here in Marshall. To accentuate this point he then brought up the backlog of cases before Judge Ammerman’s court and mentioned the Clerk had reported to him about 1200 cases currently in back log. As I mentioned above you can see Judge Ammerman’s responses to that charge. The third leg of Candidate’s premise for his Candidacy for County Court at Law was the Zero Tolerance Issue at MISD. Attorney Hurlburt believes a True Zero tolerance policy is a travesty for the young people in Marshall and places the blame upon the victim in an altercation. Judge Ammerman says that MISD doesn’t have a Zero Tolerance policy. I plan on asking Marshall High School’s Principal Sunday as long as he’s there at my Sunday School class. I’m sure I’ll be informed correctly then and I’ll let you know what I find out.

The final premises for Rick Hurlburt’s candidacy focused on the detention of Juvenile offenders without a ruling, I didn’t follow all of the legal areas that Attorney Hurlburt was making but it seemed to be summed up that Judge Ammerman had not been fully ruling according to Texas Statues in regards to Juvenile detention which allowed them to be detained for up to 2 weeks until a determination regarding the case could be made and a ruling as to a finding of fault. Candidate Hurlburt also mentioned that there several hundred cases that Judge Ammerman had issued “Abatement” orders upon which disposes of them when they are inactive without a finding or completion from the Court.

Well for the first Forum candidates I though Candidate Hurlburt came off a little ahead of Judge Ammerman, but I really think he would have carried the forum by continuing to focus on the 56% reduction in Juvenile crime and the strong Community and Young Offender mentoring and re-education support he has given Harrison County over the past 12 or so years. In all it was a great exchange and I plan on finishing the other races in the next couple of days.

Thanks for reading! Oh for more information you may goto

Judge Ammerman’s Re-Election Website at http://www.jimammerman.com/

Candidate Attorney Rick Hurlburt at http://voterick2010.com/

Marshall News Messenger’s Story of the debate: marshallnewsmessenger.com

Apparently the IRS messed up that $800 bucks you get to keep or $13 a pay period might bite you next year. . .

From the article . . .
– A single college student with a part-time job making $10,000 would get a $400 boost in pay. However, if that student is claimed as a dependent on a parent’s tax return,

she doesn’t qualify for the credit and would have to repay it when she files next year.

OUCH . . .
Be Careful and get that Deduction right. . . Uncle Sam may get you in the end!
Tax Rebate in 09 could bite you in 2010 look out

Tax Rebate in 09 could bite you in 2010 look out

Yep that’s right 3.27 trillion dollars. . . .

Debt incurred as result of Stimulus

Did you know you can stack a column of pennies 720,750 Kilometers with that many pennies.

You could also travel to the moon and back if you could walk on a penny road there.

And you could traverse the Earth 18 times on that same penny road it goes so far. . .

” As I testified before the Congress both this year and in 2004, the GSEs need a regulator with authority on par with that of banking regulators, with a free hand to set appropriate capital standards, and with a clear and credible process sanctioned by the Congress for placing a GSE in receivership, where the conditions under which debt holders take losses are made clear. However, if legislation takes only these actions and does not limit GSE portfolios, we run the risk of solidifying investors’ perceptions that the GSEs are instruments of the government and that their debt is equivalent to government debt. ”

Alan Greenspan Again Warns: Sept 2nd 2005: http://prudentinvestor.blogspot.com/2005/09/wsj-greenspan-sternly-warns-of-gse.html

” Today, the US financial system is highly dependent on the risk-managers at Fannie and Freddie to do everything right, rather than depending on a market-based system supported by the risk assessments and management capabilities of many market participants who have different views and different strategies for hedging risk. The concentration of mortgage-backed securities at Fannie and Freddie are well beyond what market forces would normally allow because there are no meaningful limits to the expansions of the GSE’s portfolios, . . . ”

George W. Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury Paul Snow: January 2, 2005 http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={852359E2-8F4A-4C69-8F2F-7DE699044B08}&print=1&siteid=mktw

“. . .and government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae must come under a tougher regulator.”

Fannie’s own CEO should have known according to a July 2003 Audit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/12/AR2006031200799.htm

“On July 9, 2003, another warning came in a report by Fannie Mae’s internal audit unit, the distribution list for which included Raines, Mudd and other managers.

The document said inconsistencies among various accounting systems at the company required that they be periodically “realigned,” resulting in “adjustments” of as much as $45 million, and that certain assets were being misclassified, leading to a $155 million mistake.

“Controls need strengthening,” the document said. It concluded that management “demonstrated a good level of awareness about control issues and has initiated timely actions to resolve these issues.”

Three weeks after the internal report, Raines held a news conference to address fallout from Freddie Mac’s accounting scandal and gave assurances that Fannie Mae had invested in its systems. “We have centralized our accounting, so we don’t have to go all over the company to find out what the facts are,” Raines said, according to a transcript.”

Senator Obama’s campaign had some conversations via the telephone according to the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/15/AR2008071502827.html

“In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae’s chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case’s D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters. ”

Who called for Reform of GSE’s Fannie and Freddie?

Senator John McCain:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190

“Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.”

. . . (From the article)
Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.
Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”
He spelt out how American troops, spies and anti-terrorist officials could learn key lessons by understanding the desire of terrorists to emulate superheroes like Luke Skywalker, and the lust for violence of violent football fans.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2139573/Barack-Obama-aide-Why-Winnie-the-Pooh-should-shape-US-foreign-policy.html

Amazing words from a man, a father, a President who had just been shot.
**Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.(NIV) *Colossians 3:13 *
C

Baby Chase! He’s due on the 21st and is weighing in at about 6 1/2 pounds at the last sonogram. He should gain about a half pound a week till the due date so that will push him to around 8lbs at birth. Everything is looking good!

Civ IV – Very cool game. . . I’ve enjoyed playing it, of course now that time is over! . . .

AT&T Res DSL order? Did I get my refund from the “nice lady” NO. . . I recieved a $4.64 cent check from AT&T so I’ve had to wait a month to get my money back from a company that promised they could deliver a service but couldn’t and took my money upfront immediately and I’ve had to wait nearly 3 weeks to get anything back and then it was only 1/10th of what I paid.

But I have a written promise from AT&T to resolve this issue and pay the remaining $46.46. I’m not holding my breath. But I already wrote my congressman and the Texas Attorney General.

So that’s the latest. . .

Of course our nursery still isn’t completed . . .ugh. . what a major series of unfortunate events.
1. Planned to paint at Christmas (Delayed, no urgency)
2. Planned to paint in Jan (Unexpected Houseguest for a month)
3. Planned to paint in Feb ( 3 times our water went out on the w/e we planned to paint)
4. Planned to paint in Mar (whew hoo . . . its done and it looks really nice!)
5. Planned to put up chair rail in Mar ( Changed mind decided Wall Border would be Easier)
6. Purchased Wall Border (Baby Martex In Flight is Defective, numerous bad reviews on Amazon, border does the same lousy thing for us. . . now the nursery looks bad. . . )
7. Rethinking which Wall Border to put up. Gonna request a refund from Babies R Us today.

I never imagined having to examine and read reviews on Wall border, I really thought it was stupid proof. We completed our entire kitchen which is about 65 foot with 7 corners in about 2 to 3 hours. So far I’ve spent 10 on the nursery which has 4 corners and is a whole whopping 45ft and it looks horrible.

So there we are. . . I’m gonna let all that go and I feel better after venting. . .I guess the rule is check out everything even supposedly stupid proof items like Wall Border.

C

What is right anymore? It seems that what is right in todays world isn’t based on any set standard. It seems that your right may be wrong to the next person. And that seems okay and even acceptable and a likeable solution to many. After all lets just let live and let live, right?

So that begs the current question facing Texans? Is Prop 2 right for Texas? Is it in the State’s interest and the People of Texas’ interest to define marriage as “in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman” Well, it seems we have as many answers as we have people in Texas. . . many see it from differing perspectives. Isn’t that the way of it?

So my thought begins what is it that makes right Right? Where do the boundry lines get drawn between what is simply irritating and what is criminally or morally abject filth?

What is our compass and or plumb line to discern the depths or the measuring stick to ascertain what is right in our society?

How flexible should the plumb line, compass or measuring stick be?

As I see it we have 3 choices on where we get our measuring stick:
A. Our Family, Mom, Dad, Step Parents, Grand parents, Aunts Uncles, Mom and Mom etc
B. Societies Laws: Texas and the United States have multitude thousands of laws and they have arisen from particular concerns and needs all their own along with the changing tides these have been modfied or re-interpreted through time, but they do Govern current legitimacy.
C. Our Faith.

Thoughts on each:
A. Parents and Family seem like a good start? I mean what better place to get the guidelines of Right and Wrong, after all they are the first arbitrators of such decisions?
B. Laws, well we all have to live by these so that seems like a good place to continue, I mean you gotta live within the law right?
C. Our Faith, well that seems like a reasonable thing to do your faith and beliefs must be based on something right? What does your faith teach, what are the foundation stones and principles, surely you can get good guidance here.

I think all three places are good to get your plumb line from to begin principles for living and move foward with a well balanced and meaningful life. I guess the question then becomes where does the plumb line come from that your family, our state and civil laws and our faith base the rules on?

Each one would be different? I mean surely. . . My family would depend on their parents and their faith to steer and guide them along with advice from friends and associates.

The Law is based on local and state needs along with our State and US Constitution then English Common Law and finally based upon Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments.

Faith:
The boundry line for my faith is the Word of God and the Spirit of the Living Lord guiding my heart from within.

So what does my faith, my family and civil law indicate about Prop 2 . . .Yes

Prop 2 doesn’t exist in a vacumn, it exists because things that are fundamental to the procreation of our species, and our nation are dependent upon certain fundamentals being established to protect the smallest and most innocent of new lives.

When Judges reinterpret law to grant rights and privelges never before granted, and usurp the common constrainst placed upon them by the people and the Legislature, then reactive measures must be taken, the Constitutional Amendments defining Marriage as what it already is the Union of a man and a woman for the protection and procreation of the nation and the species. This is the reaction to protect every state, which is necessary because our Constitution provides Equal Access under the law to every citizen of the United States no matter if they are from California, Washington, Texas or Massachussets. Without defining the and drafting Amendments, each State would be forced by Judicial fiat of one state to accept a new and destructive definition of marriage that is harmful and incremental to continuing the devastation and degradation of the Nuclear family.