Texas Today

**** UPDATE ****
Due to a federal court order, early voting for District 23 will begin tomorrow, Dec. 2nd. More updates to follow. This is for sure in Bexar County, but it should apply to all of Dist. 23. Contact your Election Administrator for more information.
**** UPDATE ****

If you live in Dist 23, don’t forget about the runoff election between Henry Bonilla and Ciro Rodriguez. Early voting starts on Dec. 4th, and election day is Dec. 12th.

While I haven’t check all the claims, nor do I endorse the Burnt Orange Report, there are some interesting points raised in this comparison article. While it is obviously from a pro-democratic perspective, the article does give rise to some questions on Henry Bonilla’s voting record.

On the opposite side of the equation, it bothers me that Ciro backed down from a scheduled debate for Dec. 1st.

In an email to me from San Antonio radio talk show host, Chris Duel, he wrote:

A debate was agreed upon by the Rodriguez camp and the Bonilla camp. It was to be this Friday December 1st at The Plaza Hotel in downtown San Antonio.

It was sponsored by the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. I was to be the moderator. (SA radio personality Chris Duel.)

At a meeting last week with representatives of each candidate, including Phil Ricks for the Bonilla campaign and Gina Casteneda of the Rodriguez campaign, along with South San Antonio Chamber President Cindy Taylor and other Chamber members, the representatives for Mr. Rodriguez said they weren’t sure they were happy with the date.

Cindy Taylor pointed out that both campaigns had already agreed to December 1st. Phil Ricks made it clear that the Bonilla campaign would honor its commitment to the December 1st debate.

Nonetheless, the Rodriguez campaign pulled out of the debate.

I see this as a huge Politics 101 fumble by the Rodriguez camp. It’s so difficult to get the incumbent to debate, Rodriguez should have maintained his “anytime, anywhere” position on debating.

Now the Bonilla campaign can truthfully say, we honored the date for the debate and you guys backed out.

I was very disappointed in this decision by the Rodriguez campaign.

While the stands Bonilla has taken are quite alarming, so is backing out from a debate. I now have to rethink my vote, as I live in Dist. 23.

From the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce:

November 21, 2006

Dear Members,

The South Chamber had every intention of hosting the 23rd Congressional District Debate. Our committee was moving ahead and finalizing details but unfortunately, we have just been informed by Ciro Rodriguez’ campaign that they will not be able to comply with the December 1, 2006 date. The South Chamber does not want to proceed without both candidates participation, so the debate has been canceled.

Having already voted for Ciro the first time, this only hurts his chances of earning my vote the second time around, although Bonilla also has a lot of ground to make up in my book. Third party candidate where are you?

This is all new to me so I may be redundant. I want to open up the idea of ground rules. If we are to be a forum, we need to establish a basic framework for our communication. The first ground rule I would like to suggest is that we strive at all times to avoid negative campaigning. I define this as pointing fingers and shaking them at or in the face of our critics and/or opponents. That does not mean that we can’t discuss the potential negative impacts of actions or ideas that are proposed by ourselves or by any others but it does require us to refrain from “going negative” in our approach.

Why? To keep the power in our own pocket and not empower the “others.” If we talk about “them” in specific and negative terms, we will give voice to “their” positions. We maximize our voice when we speak only for our own positions and refrain from speaking about the positions of others. If this makes any sense, let me know. If it sounds out-of-bounds let me know that too.

I want us to be successful and productive.

Yummy!!

We’re still working out a few “Kinks” and are about 67% done with construction. What do you think? Cody did most of the work, well…all of it. I was just the guy that said, “Wow, that looks great, but how about if we did this? Or what if we had this feature? Would it be possible to…” We’re really working very well together and are proud to be involved in shaping the future of Texas. This is bigger than the two of us. This is really about you guys, the people of Texas. We are just trying to make it easier for everyone to organize, take action, and stay informed.

Texas Today will strive to be a respectful and quality independent news source covering local and statewide issues facing Texas from the perspective of independent Texans. We will encourage every Texan to pick a few issues that interest them, maybe a couple on the statewide level and a couple on the local level, and educate themselves on those topics. We will provide a journal space for everyone to post write-ups or rants, and commenting will be allowed. We hope the posts will be well thought out, researched, and contain cited sources. We will encourage resourcefulness and creativity like using YouTube for short interviews or documentaries on your topics and using podcast capabilities to broadcast phone interviews. We will also educate our readers and writers on how to use these features; how to research online and utilize great tools and other websites to make your journal entries more interesting; and to show the power of a few sincere phone calls or emails. The title of the most recent journal posts will be posted in the side bar on the main page, and the posts will also be categorized. On the home page we will feature our regular writers and the best journal entries. We will strive to provide quality investigative journalism that goes beyond the headlines and reports all sides of local and statewide stories. We will encourage debate and discussions about the issues facing Texas statewide and perhaps more important, locally. Texas Today will hope to provide a meeting ground for Texans who want change. We will attempt to provide you a means of organizing with other independent thinkers and activists in your area to actually get things accomplished. We will work hard to get independent thinkers elected on the local and statewide levels. We will strive to hold all elected officials accountable for their actions, and we will attempt to praise those that earn it.

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