http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57032.html

Lawmakers sue Obama over Libya
By: Reid J. Epstein
June 15, 2011 12:06 PM EDT

A bipartisan group of House members announced on Wednesday that it is filing a
lawsuit charging that President Obama made an illegal end-run around Congress
when he approved U.S military action against Libya.

“With regard to the war in Libya, we believe that the law was violated. We
have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of
these illegal policies,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who led the
10-member anti-war coalition with Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.).

The White House is expected on Wednesday to deliver to Congress a
much-anticipated report detailing military activity in Libya.

According to Kucinich, the suit will challenge the Obama administration’s
“circumvention of Congress and its use of international organizations such as
the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to authorize the
use of military force abroad.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney said at his daily press briefing that he is
aware of the lawsuit and said the forthcoming report to Congress would resolve
questions in it.

“We feel very confident that we will be able to answer the questions that
Congress has,” he said.

A senior Obama administration official, speaking on background, dismissed the
Kucinich lawsuit, but declined to address it directly.

“I don’t think we should comment specifically about lawsuit,” the official
said.

But former Rep. David Skaggs (D-Colo.), the co-chairman of the Constitution
Project’s War Powers Committee, called the Kucinich suit “right on the
merits” but certain to be dismissed on procedural grounds because courts have
determined members of Congress do not have standing to file such suits.

The suit comes a day after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sent Obama a
letter claiming that military action in Libya will violate the 1973 War Powers
Resolution if it does not end by Friday, 90 days after it began.

The Kucinich-Jones group also includes Democrats John Conyers of Michigan and
Michael Capuano of Massachusetts and Republicans Howard Coble of North Carolina,
John Duncan of Tennessee, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Ron Paul of Texas, Tim
Johnson of Illinois and Dan Burton of Indiana.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18385482

Report: US weapons enrich cartels' power
by Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
Posted: 07/01/2011 12:00:00 AM MDT

Mexican drug cartels are having no trouble stocking up on military-grade weapons
trafficked illegally from the United States to continue waging their bloody turf
battles, according to a recent congressional report titled "Outgunned."
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating arms
trafficking in the wake of revelations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives' "Fast and Furious" operation resulted in the slaying of
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.
Operation Fast and Furious would allow a person to buy a weapon on behalf of
someone who could not and then trace where the weapon went, but many weapons
were lost during tracking and wound up in the hands of organized criminals to
kill or kidnap people. Two of those weapons were found at the scene of Terry's
slaying.
"This is an issue of particular concern to me and my constituents who have
witnessed, and in many circumstances been directly impacted by, the incessant
violence in our sister-city Ciudad Ju�rez," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes,
D-Texas. He went to Mexico on June 24-25 to speak with Mexican and U.S.
officials about what can be done to stem the flow of arms into Mexico.
"As the owner of multiple firearms myself, I value my Second Amendment rights,
but we must strike a balance between the need to respect gun ownership rights
and the need for sensible measures to meet the current security challenges
confronting the United States and Mexico," said Reyes, a former Border Patrol
chief.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the House committee's ranking member, convened a forum
Thursday in Washington, D.C., to continue gathering information on the issue.
According to Cummings' committee's "Outgunned" report, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was murdered Feb. 15 in Mexico, allegedly with a
Romarm-Cugir Draco weapon that was traced back to a dealer in Texas.
The weapon "has the same firing capacity as the AK-47, can hold a 75-round drum
magazine, and can penetrate protective vests," the report said.
Closer to El Paso, several officials of Columbus, N.M., including the former
mayor, a village trustee and the former police chief, and a firearms dealer in
Chaparral, N.M., are accused of illegally providing or facilitating the
smuggling of weapons to people in Mexico.
According to court records, weapons trafficked by the suspects in the New Mexico
case were found at crime scenes in Ju�rez and in Palomas, Chihuahua. One of the
suspects allegedly took some of his orders from an inmate of Cereso prison in
Ju�rez.
Mexican President Felipe Calder�n told a joint session of Congress in May that
80 percent of the 75,000 guns and assault weapons that officials seized in his
country in the past three years came from the United States.
According to another report released June 13 by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
D-Calif., "Military weapons are readily available for civilian purchase. ...
Many of these are imported from former Eastern bloc countries and then can be
bought by straw purchasers and transported to Mexico.
"Some importers bring rifle parts into the United States and reassemble them
into military-style firearms using a small number of domestically manufactured
components." Dr. Arturo Cervantes, an official in Mexico's Ministry of Health,
told the House committee headed by Cummings that Mexico had 34,550 homicides
from 2006 to 2010, and that drug-related killings also increased during that
time, from 2,773 in 2007, to 5,661 in 2008, then to 8,281 in 2009.
The homicide rate in Mexico has also increased, to 18.4 from 8.4 per 100,000
people since 2007. Nationally, homicide is the leading cause of death for
Mexicans between the ages of 15 and 44. Most of the victims were killed by
gunfire.
"In Ciudad Ju�rez," Cervantes said, "the (homicide) rate has increased from 14.1
to 170.4 per 100,000 people."
Guns from the United States were used to kill 111 U.S. citizens in Mexico last
year, a 70 percent increase from four years before that, the House report said.
ATF Agent Peter Forcelli, who testified for the House committee, said that
current U.S. gun laws are toothless, but "some people view this as no more
consequential than doing 65 in a 55 (mph zone)."
For example, the report said, U.S. federally licensed dealers are required to
report multiple purchases of handguns, not long guns, including .50-caliber
semiautomatic rifles and multiple AK-47 variants that are favored by
international drug cartels.
Reyes testified, "As a result of legislation favored by the (National Rifle
Association) and passed by Congress, our agents are prohibited from inputting
gun ownership information into a computerized database that would find records
quickly and efficiently when tracing a firearm.
"Clearly, we are relying on antiquated methods to fight an evasive enemy. But,
sadly, the greatest obstacles hindering our ability to confront these challenges
are the result of our own creation," Reyes said.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a national
gun-rights advocacy group, issued a statement and accused the Cummings forum of
playing politics.
"It's a Capitol Hill kangaroo court with the singular goal of deflecting public
attention away from the Justice Department's horrible mishandling of a
gunrunning sting that has flooded Mexico with guns," said Alan Gottlieb, the
organization's chairman. " 'Operation Fast and Furious' is a product of the
Obama administration, and Cummings is running interference for the White House
and Attorney General Eric Holder.
"The real culprits here are the ATF officials and people in the Justice
Department who either approved this operation or knew about it and allowed it to
happen, and everybody knows it."
Cummings plans to offer recommendations that will give U.S. law enforcement the
tools they need to effectively confront arms trafficking.
Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@...; 546-6140.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Preferred guns
Mexican drug cartels prefer these weapons to carry out their activities:
Bushmaster XM15 rifle
Romarm-Cugir 7.62 x 39mm rifle
FN 5.7 x 28mm pistol
50-caliber Barrett or Beowulf rifle
DPMS .223 rifle
Beretta Model 92 pistol
Taurus PT 9mm pistol
Colt .38 Super pistol
Source: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

http://news.yahoo.com/thaksin-sister-prepares-lead-thailand-stunning-win-0154287\
12.html

Stunning Thai election win brings hope of stability
By Michael Perry
10 mins ago

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's powerful military accepted Monday a stunning
election victory by the party of fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra, adding to a new sense of stability in a country plagued by unrest
since his ouster in a 2006 coup.
A day after the decisive win by Puea Thai Party headed by Thaksin's youngest
sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, the military agreed not to intervene or stop her
from forming a government, according to the outgoing defense minister.
"I can assure that the military has no desire to stray out of its assigned
role," said General Prawit Wongsuwan, a former army chief close to military
leaders involved in the 2006 coup that removed Thaksin.
"The army accepts the election results," he told Reuters.
Puea Thai's absolute majority of 264 seats in the 500-seat parliament makes it
hard for Thaksin's rivals to stop the 44-year-old businesswoman becoming
Thailand's prime minister, which would have ignited protests by her red-shirted
supporters who clashed with the army last year in Bangkok.
"Winning by a big margin eases the problem of the military intervening and makes
it easier for them to form a government and implement all their policies," said
Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive of Asia Plus Securities.
Yingluck, who will be Thailand's first woman prime minister, said she would form
a five-party coalition controlling 299 seats, or about 60 percent of parliament,
giving her a strong hand to fulfill her election promises.
Under the Thai constitution, the first sitting of the lower House of
Representatives to choose the next successor as prime minister must be convened
30 days after the election.
Yingluck plans to roll out a long list of Thaksin-style populist programs that
could fuel spending and inflation in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy -
from subway extensions to big wage increases and various giveaways aimed at
boosting spending power, especially in rural areas.
Thai stocks jumped more than 4 percent as the scale of her victory persuaded
some investors that Thailand could be more stable after the six-year crisis
marked by a blockade of Bangkok's two airports, the occupation of Government
House by protesters, an assassination attempt and bloody street rallies.
Thailand's baht currency rose 1 percent to a one-week high against the dollar on
hopes foreign investors would return following $1.4 billion of outflows of
global capital since the election season revved up in May.
REBUKE OF ELITE
The vote is an unexpectedly strong rebuke to the traditional establishment of
generals, old-money families and royal advisers who backed Prime Minister
Abhisit Vejjajiva. It suggests broad support for policies championed by Thaksin,
a divisive figure elected prime minister twice, in 2001 and 2005.
Supporters say Thaksin revolutionized Thai politics with pro-business reforms
and populist policies aimed at eradicating poverty. Critics accuse him of
authoritarianism, crony capitalism and of undermining Thailand's revered
monarchy.
"Puea Thai's big victory eases tensions for now but Thailand is still
vulnerable," said Kan Yuanyong, director of the Siam Intelligence Unit, a
consultancy. "They will wait for Puea Thai and Thaksin to slip up, then we'll
see them strike back."
Kan predicted anti-Thaksin yellow-shirt protesters would once again flood the
streets if Yingluck seeks an amnesty clearing her brother of corruption charges
and bringing him back to Thailand from self-imposed exile in Dubai.
The yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy, a motley collection of
businessmen, academics and royalists, emerged in 2005 to help topple Thaksin and
two pro-Thaksin governments.
Thaksin told reporters he no longer desired to be prime minister and wasn't
trying to reclaim $1.4 billion of assets seized when a Thai court convicted him
of tailoring government policies to benefit his family business interests.
"Don't worry about it. I'm not starving," he said of his frozen assets when
asked by journalists at his villa in Dubai, where he lives to avoid a two-year
jail term for graft charges he says was politically motivated.
"I want to retire," he added. He has said he will "wait for the right moment" to
come home. "Going back is not necessarily going to be going back into politics.
I may turn pro in golf," he said with a laugh.
INFLATIONARY BACKLASH
Thaksin brushed aside concerns of an inflationary backlash from his younger
sister's campaign promises, including a roughly 40 percent rise in the minimum
wage due to take effect in January. Higher inflation would be offset by growth,
he said.
Yingluck dismissed criticisms over the cost of her policies such as free tablet
PCs for nearly a million children.
"We know what to do. We'll reduce costs for people and we know how to generate
the income that we'll give back to them," she told Reuters.
Economists said the policies may force the Bank of Thailand to raise interest
rates for a longer period than had been expected to control any increase in
inflation.
But they said billions of extra dollars pumped into Thailand's rural economy
will stimulate consumption. Under Thaksin, money funneled into villages through
a debt moratorium for farmers and cheap loans had a knock-on effect on the whole
economy, fuelling a boom in household spending.
A burst of spending could weaken Thailand's fiscal position depending on how it
is implemented, Takahira Ogawa, analyst at credit-ratings agency Standard &
Poor's Corp, told Reuters.
Under Thaksin, Thailand's economy grew on average by 5.7 percent a year between
2002 and 2006, compared with growth of 2.2 percent in 2001 and the economic
turmoil of the late 1990s. But his policies also drove up household debt and did
little to fundamentally alter income gaps between rich and poor.
The stridently anti-Thaksin Nation newspaper accepted the result but pulled no
punches on the challenge ahead.
"The election is over but the hatred remains," it headlined its leader column.
"It's time for ordinary Thais to take reconciliation into their own hands."
Yingluck's red-shirted supporters accuse the rich, the establishment and army
top brass of breaking laws with impunity -- grievances that have simmered since
the 2006 coup -- and have clamored for the return of Thaksin.
Her critics say she is a simple proxy for Thaksin, who they accused of abusing
his electoral mandate to dismantle constitutional checks and balances while
cementing his own authoritarian rule while in power from 2001 to 2006.
Abhisit announced Monday his resignation as party leader.
His legacy is unclear. Backed by the army, he put down a protest movement by the
red shirts sin Bangkok last year and 91 people lost their lives. Nearly 2,000
were injured. But he was also lauded by economists for steering Thailand out of
the financial crisis.
(Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Martin Petty in Bangkok and;
Praveen Menon in Dubai; Editing by Michael Perry)

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-senate/lieutenant-governor/if-dewhurst-isnt-lt\
-governor-who-might-be-next/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=alerts&utm_c\
ampaign=News%20Alert:%20

If Dewhurst Isn't Lt. Governor, Who Might Be Next?
by Ross Ramsey
4 hours ago

The next lieutenant governor of Texas, a state with 25 million residents, could
be chosen by just 16 people.

If Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst moves into another job — and he’s got two ways to
do that — the 31 senators will elect one of their own to serve the rest of his
four-year term.

They did it before, when George W. Bush was elected president in 2000, and
then-Lt. Gov. Rick Perry moved into the Governor’s Mansion. Bill Ratliff, a
Republican state senator from Mount Pleasant, was elected by his colleagues to
preside over the Senate.

Mr. Dewhurst is supposed to be lieutenant governor until January 2015, but
he’s expressed interest in running for the United States Senate and will
announce his intentions this month. He’s widely expected to run. He sent
supporters an e-mail in June hyping the pending announcement, and while he
didn’t come right out and say he’s running for Senate, any other
announcement would leave a reader saying that was a mighty misleading e-mail.

If he doesn’t run, or if he does run and doesn’t win, there’s still a
chance to move up. If the governor decides to run for national office, and if he
wins, the lieutenant governor will succeed him in the state’s top office.

Want to really stretch out the speculation? What if both run, and both win?
Senators would elect a lieutenant governor, who would be acting governor, and
would have to elect another lieutenant governor to preside over the Senate.

Are they thinking about it? Sure. They’re politicians, and they’re
ambitious, and they see great historical figures in their mirrors when they put
on makeup or shave every morning.

Succession was part of the undercurrent in the last days of the special session
that ended last week. The sanctuary cities bill urged by the governor stalled in
the House, and lawmakers made a late attempt to tack it onto a must-pass school
finance and budget bill. Republican senators blocked it, saying the bill was
controversial and risky enough without the added weight of sanctuary cities. In
the aftermath (and partly to save face for House leaders who couldn’t advance
the original bill), Mr. Perry singled out Senator Robert Duncan, Republican of
Lubbock, as the assassin.

“Because of this action, the special session will not provide our peace
officers with the discretion they need to adequately keep Texans safe from those
that would do them harm,” Mr. Perry said in a press release, after pointing
the finger at Mr. Duncan. Others, including Mr. Dewhurst, jumped to Mr.
Duncan’s defense. That was the public play.

To some in the Senate, it was a signal from Mr. Perry to fellow conservatives
that Mr. Duncan isn’t his choice if the Senate has to pick a successor for Mr.
Dewhurst. Outside groups were deeply involved in the race for Speaker of the
Texas House at the beginning of the legislative session, and there’s no reason
to believe they’d stay out of a race for lieutenant governor. The swipe at Mr.
Duncan, in that interpretation, was a signal for those groups.

Another reading was that Mr. Duncan killed the bill to build support among
Democrats in the event that he does run for the job.

Whatever really happened, the conspiracy theories are evidence that the
political class is thinking about what’s next, and who’s next, in the lineup
of Texas politics.

State senators, often at odds with the lieutenant governor and, in some cases,
given to sniping at him behind his back, gave him a valedictory ovation at the
end of the special legislative session. They know he might not be back in the
chair again, and wanted to give him a warm salute.

They were covering their bets. Politics is a risky enterprise, after all, and
the safest prediction is that the state’s top officeholders in January 2013
will be the two people the voters chose, and not former state senators elevated
by 16 of their colleagues.

http://news.yahoo.com/tanks-surround-syrian-city-hama-protests-014631702.html

Tanks surround Syrian city of Hama after protests
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis | Reuters – Mon, Jul 4, 2011

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian tanks surrounded Hama on Tuesday, residents and
activists said, threatening a large-scale assault on the city after the biggest
protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Hundreds of youths blocked roads leading to the city's main residential
neighborhoods with garbage containers, wood and metal to try to prevent a
possible advance. Inhabitants joined in their shouts of "God is greatest," from
balconies and rooftops, residents said.
Tanks and armored vehicles moved overnight to the edges of the city, including
30 seen near a flyover on a road leading west, they said, a day after hundreds
of troops and security police entered Hama at dawn in buses, killing at least
three people in raids on main neighborhoods.
Hama, scene of a bloody crackdown by Assad's father nearly 30 years ago, has
witnessed some of the biggest demonstrations and highest death tolls in Syria's
14-week uprising, inspired by revolts across the Arab world.
"Assad may wait to see whether large-scale protests in Hama continue. He knows
that using military aggression against peaceful demonstrations in a symbolic
place like Hama would lose him support even from Russia and China," Syrian
activist Mohammad Abdallah told Reuters from exile in Washington.
The two countries have opposed a United Nations Security Council resolution
proposed by the West against Syria, helping Assad withstand mounting
international isolation.
Abdallah said using tanks to attack Hama would "totally discredit" a promise by
Assad to seek dialogue with his opponents. Troops and armor were already
assaulting villages and towns in the Jabal-al-Zawya region, north of Hama, which
had also seen large protests against Assad's 11-year rule, he said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said tanks stormed the town of Kfar
Nubbul early on Tuesday "without meeting a single shot in the town that has seen
peaceful protests since the beginning of the uprising."
One month ago, security forces shot dead at least 60 protesters in Hama,
activists said. The security presence later eased and last Friday a crowd of at
least 150,000 people rallied in a central Hama square demanding Assad go,
according to activists.
The following day, Assad sacked the provincial governor and on Monday residents
said troops and police poured into Hama to carry out arrests.
The three people killed by the security forces included a 13-year-old boy and a
man whose body had been dumped in the Orontes river, a doctor in Hama said.
Residents said some of the soldiers and police opened fire in residential
neighborhoods and carried out arrests across the city.
BURNING TYRES
Young men, some carrying stones, blocked roads leading to central neighborhoods
with burning tires and garbage containers, they added.
Rami Abdelrahman, president of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told
Reuters that at least 250 people were arrested across Hama on Monday.
"The regime could not stand the large, peaceful protests and the fact that the
governor did little to stop them. It has decided to subdue Hama one way or the
other," he said.
The authorities have banned most international media from operating in Syria
since the protests began in March, making it difficult to verify reports from
activists and authorities.
Rights groups say Syrian security forces have shot dead at least 1,300 civilians
across the country since the protests started and arrested over 12,000, with
several troops and police officers killed for refusing to fire at civilians.
Authorities say 500 police and soldiers have been killed by gunmen, who they
blame for most civilian deaths.
Assad has promised a national dialogue with the opposition to discuss political
reform in Syria, which has been under the iron rule of the Baath Party for
nearly 50 years.
Many opposition figures reject dialogue while the killings and arrests continue.
The United States said last week Assad was running out of time to allow a
serious political process, and would otherwise face increasingly organized
resistance.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of Assad who has grown more
critical, said in May: "We do not want to see another Hama massacre" and warned
the Syrian leader that it would be hard to contain the consequences if it were
repeated.
Assad's father Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in
2000, sent troops into Hama in 1982 to crush an Islamist-led uprising in the
city, where the Fighting Vanguard, the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood,
made its last stand.
That attack killed many thousands, possibly up to 30,000, and one slogan
constantly shouted by Hama protesters in the last several weeks was "damn your
soul Hafez," a reminder of the scar still etched in the memory of the city of
650,000 people.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/07/18/uk.phone.hacking.hoare/index.html?hpt\
=hp_t1

Phone-hacking whistle-blower found dead
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 18, 2011 5:27 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Hoare was recently injured in an accident, The Guardian reported
NEW: Was Coulson unaware of the pinging? "Bollocks," Hoare told The Guardian
The death is "not thought to be suspicious," police say
Hoare told the New York Times the phone hacking included celebrities' phones
London (CNN) -- One of the first journalists to go on the record and allege
phone hacking at News of the World was found dead Monday, the British Press
Association said.
Sean Hoare, a former News of the World employee who said Andy Coulson
"encouraged" phone-hacking, "was discovered at his home in Watford,
Hertfordshire, after concerns were raised about his whereabouts," the press
association said.
"The death is being treated as 'unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious,'
" the report quoted Hertfordshire police as saying.
The Guardian reported that Hoare had recently injured his nose and his foot in
an accident. It was unclear whether those injuries were linked to his death.
Hoare had publicly accused News of the World of phone-hacking and using
"pinging" -- a method of tracking someone's cell phone using technology that
only police and security officials could access -- according to the New York
Times.
Hoare was one of the few sources who allowed his name to be used when speaking
to the Times last year for an investigative report about allegations of
phone-hacking by the British tabloid.
In his remarks, he specifically accused Andy Coulson -- former editor of News of
the World, who went on to become Prime Minister David Cameron's communications
director -- of wrongdoing.
The Times described Hoare as a "onetime close friend of Coulson's."
"The two men first worked together at The Sun, where, Hoare said, he played tape
recordings of hacked messages for Coulson," the Times wrote in its report last
September. "At News of the World, Hoare said he continued to inform Coulson of
his pursuits. Coulson 'actively encouraged me to do it,' Hoare said."
The report added that Hoare said he was "fired during a period when he was
struggling with drugs and alcohol. He said he was now revealing his own use of
the dark arts -- which included breaking into the messages of celebrities like
David and Victoria Beckham -- because it was unfair for the paper to pin the
blame solely on" one reporter who covered the royal family.
"Coulson declined to comment for this article but has maintained that he was
unaware of the hacking," the report said.

Coulson worked for Cameron until the police launched their new phone-hacking
investigation in January, then resigned, still protesting his innocence, but
saying he had become a distraction for the prime minister.
Last week, the Times reported that Hoare, a former show-business reporter for
News of the World, also described "pinging" by the newspaper. "Pinging" is a
term for locating a person using his or her cell phone number -- something that
only law enforcement and security officials are allowed to do, the paper
reported
Hoare "said that when he worked there, pinging cost the paper nearly $500 on
each occasion," the Times reported.
A second former editor at the paper backed Hoare's account, speaking
anonymously, the Times reported.
The Times reported that people on the police payroll were bribed to use the
technology to pinpoint people's locations, according to the two former News of
the World journalists.
The Guardian newspaper also spoke to Hoare last week. He told them the idea that
Coulson wasn't aware of pinging "bollocks," noting that "the chain of command is
one of absolute discipline" at News of the World.
Hoare "repeatedly expressed the hope that the hacking scandal would lead to
journalism in general being cleaned up and said he had decided to blow the
whistle on the activities of some of his former News of the World colleagues
with that aim in mind," the Guardian reported Monday.
"He also said he had been injured at a party the previous weekend while taking
down a marquee erected for a children's party. He said he had broken his nose
and badly injured his foot when a relative accidentally struck him with a heavy
pole from the marquee," the report said.
Hoare emphasized that he was not making money from telling his story, the
Guardian reported.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/07/16/3225809/texas-spending-kept-rising-for.h\
tml

Texas spending kept rising for years with Perry as governor
Posted Monday, Jul. 18, 2011

BY AMAN BATHEJA
abatheja@...

Gov. Rick Perry's political stock has soared in recent months as he has traveled
the country touting a decade of fiscal restraint in Texas under his leadership.

Last month, Perry made Texas history by signing a two-year state budget that
cuts overall spending for the first time in over 40 years.

Perry has long promoted the state's fiscal record as a model for the country and
a key to why Texas has weathered the recession better than most other states. He
has opposed new taxes and been vehemently anti-Washington, and his message is
drawing interest among Republican primary voters nationwide.

Yet before the latest one, the Texas budget had consistently grown during
Perry's time as governor, with total spending rising faster than inflation and
population growth, state data show.

What's more, spending through 2011, adjusted for population and inflation, rose
more on average while Perry has been in charge than it did under his
predecessor, George W. Bush, according to a Star-Telegram analysis.

In the past, Perry has criticized Bush for not controlling spending while
governor.

"Let me tell you something," Perry told a small group of Iowa Republicans in
2007 while campaigning for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was running
for president. "George Bush was never a fiscal conservative. ... I mean, '95,
'97, '99, George Bush was spending money."

When Bush was governor, total state spending rose 13.3 percent every two years
on average. Adjusting the figures for population growth and inflation, that
growth rate was 2.3 percent.

Perry took the reins in December 2000. From then until 2011, spending increased
an average of 16.8 percent every two years. Once adjusted for population and
inflation, that rate falls to 4.2 percent. Adjusted spending figures in the
just-passed 2012-13 budget are not yet available.

If Perry runs for president, his fiscal record in Texas is sure to draw more
scrutiny, just as it did for Bush.

In the final months of the 2000 presidential election, then-Vice President Al
Gore pointed to the growth of the Texas budget under Bush to argue that he and
President Bill Clinton had more experience at reducing the size of government.

Perry's office and some budget experts say the entire state budget is not a fair
gauge of a governor's fiscal record, since portions such as federal funding are
not under his direct purview.

"Lawmakers and the governor have no control over that," Perry spokeswoman
Catherine Frazier said.

Fed largely by state taxes and fees, general revenue has typically made up
roughly half the Texas budget. It's the part of the budget that lawmakers spend
most of their time arguing over during legislative sessions. Much of the rest of
the budget is tied by provisions in federal law and the Texas Constitution.

When general revenue spending is examined by itself, the trends match better
with the fiscal conservative image that Perry promotes. Though general revenue
spending has grown with nearly every budget since Perry took office, it actually
fell over the last decade an average of 0.6 percent every two years once those
numbers are adjusted for inflation and the state's booming population growth. It
rose during Bush's tenure.

"Obviously fiscal restraint is always something the governor has made a
priority," Frazier said. "He's the only Texas governor since World War II that
has cut general revenue spending."

That distinction is one that Perry has touted repeatedly in recent years, from
campaign commercials to the biography on the governor's office website.

Mike Hailey, who runs the Austin political site Capitol Inside and served as Lt.
Gov. Bob Bullock's press secretary, said that general revenue spending is "a
more telling gauge" of a governor's fiscal record but that the rest of the
budget is relevant as well.

He also noted that the Legislature chose to accept billions in federal stimulus
money in 2009, which temporarily pumped up spending.

Different times

During their periods as governor, Perry and Bush have faced very different
political and economic environments. For the nearly six years that Bush had the
job, Democrats controlled at least one chamber of the Legislature. Since 2003,
Republicans have held majorities in both the House and Senate.

Many Texas Democrats praised Bush's ability to work with both parties.

"If you compare the budgets of both governors based on keeping Texans with
services and doing tax cuts, you'll find that Bush did both, whereas you'll find
all Rick Perry did is cut spending and cut services," said state Rep. Garnett
Coleman, D-Houston, who has served in the House since 1991.

Talmadge Heflin, director of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation's
Center for Fiscal Policy, served in the Texas House from 1983 to 2005 as a
Republican and has been chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

"I don't think it's just Perry has been a Bush 2," Heflin said. "Perry's had a
different approach to government even though both have been more on the
conservative side than the moderate side."

Heflin said Perry has done a better job controlling spending than Bush, but he
criticized lawmakers' use of accounting gimmicks to avoid deeper cuts in recent
years. Like Perry, he has advocated for the Legislature to cap spending at the
rate of population growth plus inflation.

"That does allow for infrastructure growth," Heflin said. "It just doesn't allow
for bringing a bunch of new programs in."

Both governors also worked amid very different economic conditions.

"Gov. Bush enjoyed a time of steady economic growth, even overheated growth if
you include Texas' part of the 1990s tech bubble," said Terry Clower, an
economist at the University of North Texas.

Perry, meanwhile, has been governor during two recessions and major changes in
key federal programs.

"In many ways, these differences make budget performance over these two
governorships a matter of comparing apples to oranges," Clower said.

Federal funding

While the governor clearly has significant sway over the general revenue portion
of the budget, his or her power over the rest of it is less clear. Federal
funding has routinely made up about a third of the budget over the last decade.

Heflin said state officials have chased federal funds too aggressively, ignoring
that they often prompt more state spending and can impede private-sector growth.
He has argued that the state took too much stimulus money in 2009.

Frazier made clear that Perry is aware of the balancing act that comes with
federal funds.

"Texas taxpayers send that money to Washington," Frazier said. "We deserve to
have our fair share back as opposed to seeing that money go to other states. But
there is that separate concern that federal spending has grown out of control
and needs to be reined in."

Aman Batheja, 817-390-7695