Rep. Gohmert on SCHIP: Separate the Media from the Facts
It is easy for someone to make a legislator look good or bad over a vote on any legislation depending upon which facts the writer chooses to include and chooses to omit. This is especially true with the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill which passed out of the U.S. House last week.

Texas' TAKS Tests Relatively Easy, National Study Says
Texas' standardized tests are not as difficult to pass as assessments in other states, a phenomenon that has created a false sense of success in the state that served as the model for President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, according to a national study being released today.

Some Room for Disagreement
They all want to cut taxes and slow the use of eminent domain. But the Republican candidates to replace retired District 97 state Rep. Anna Mowery could still find things to disagree on: support for House Speaker Tom Craddick, school vouchers and illegal immigration.

Texas Constitutional Amendments Election, November 6, 2007
Get information on the upcoming election on proposed constitutional amendments.

Giuliani Nomination Could Split the Right
Five months ago, Deal Hudson, a leading Catholic conservative, sat in a Washington restaurant and made a prediction. He said that if Rudy Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee for president, there will be a third-party challenge by an anti-abortion candidate.

Rival's Backers Not Ceding to Hillary
Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama remain encouraged about how well he is doing in the presidential-nomination race against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who seems to be strengthening her front-runner status with each passing day.

He Can Act, but Can He Debate? Untested Thompson Faces Rivals for First Time
In an unusual political season that seems to offer up a presidential debate every week or so, the Republican debate tomorrow is expected to offer something new: Fred D. Thompson.

How Clinton Has Built Her Lead
Carol Levesque, a retired New Hampshire social worker, used to think Hillary Rodham Clinton was not cut out for the White House. Levesque looked askance at Clinton's decision to run for the U.S. Senate. She was lukewarm about how Clinton conducted herself as first lady to an unfaithful husband.

Rudy Giuliani's Attacks on Hillary Clinton Hit Home
Rudy Giuliani has found his groove in attacking Hillary Clinton. Whether his barbs will help him beat her in the general election, we don't know yet. But they will help him to win the Republican primary.

GOP Hits Hillary's 'Baby Bonds'
Republican strategists say Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for giving every newborn $5,000 for education is the first major mistake in her front- running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

For Thompson, It's Showtime
In his month-old quest for the White House, Fred D. Thompson has already endured withering criticism from evangelical leader James Dobson, who observed that the former "Law & Order" star and onetime senator from Tennessee "has no passion, no zeal and no apparent 'want-to.' "

A Shot in the Foot
Late last week, evangelical leader James Dobson upped the ante in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. In a New York Times editorial, he confirmed that he and other pro-family leaders will vote for a third-party candidate if the Republican nominee is not pro-life. The threat is aimed directly at Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-choice.

Petraeus Steps Up Accusations Against Iran
The U.S. military commander in Iraq stepped up accusations over the weekend that Iran was inciting violence there and said Tehran's ambassador to Baghdad was a member of the Revolutionary Guards Qods force.

Democrats Positioned to Widen Majority in Senate
Democrats are positioned to bolster their Senate majority in next year's elections, which would give them more clout regardless who succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House.

Law on Lies by Politicians Is Found Unconstitutional
Not that they need encouragement, but politicians were given the green light to lie about their opponents by the Washington Supreme Court the other day.

Democrats See Wedge Issue in Health Bill
Representative John R. Kuhl Jr. of New York received just his second telephone call ever from his state's Democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, last week and was not surprised at the topic: children's health insurance.

Cornyn's No Vote on Kids' Insurance Could Haunt Him
Get ready, Texans: Sen. John Cornyn's vote against the $35 billion expansion of government health insurance for children looks to be shaping up as a top issue in the 2008 Senate race.

Texas Fights at Supreme Court in Death Row Case
In spirited arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, an attorney  for Texas said Wednesday that neither a presidential order nor a ruling by the International Court of Justice should be allowed to trump state law and interfere with the cases of Mexican inmates on U.S. death row.

Don't Like Coal, Don't Like Nukes; What's Left?
by Bruce Hight
Over the past year or so the biggest public fight for Texas' environmental groups has been to stop construction of 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas. For now, they've mostly won; eight have been cancelled.

Corruption, Bad Grades, and Glimpsing Texas' Future
by Michael Quinn Sullivan
This week's indictment of State Rep. Terri Hodge (D- Dallas) and her Dallas County cronies should be a clarion call to reform the way governments hand out contracts. Sadly, it's only the latest in a string of bribery and corruption cases related to construction bidding. (While the case is pretty complex, it boils down to bribes associated with a developer building low- income housing.)

Prepping the Media Battlefield: Part 3
by Jed Babbin
MoveOn.org has Hillary Clinton and the New York Times cornered. They won't escape: she, because Sen. Clinton has to maintain her allegiance to the hardcore left; the Times because it doesn't want to.

The MoveOn-dot-Democrats
by Jed Babbin
Rush Limbaugh performed an enormously important public service by creating a controversy over the left's phony soldiers. He provided the second data point we needed to identify the new subspecies of Democrat that wants to take the White House in 2008: they are the MoveOn.Democrats.

Democrats: "This is a white man's country. Let white men rule."
by Michael Zak
That was the Democratic Party's national campaign slogan in 1868. The Democrat presidential nominee that year, Horatio Seymour, had previously criticized Republican President Abraham Lincoln for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, calling it "a proposal for the butchery of women and children." In December 1860, he had written to former Democrat President Franklin Pierce: "We have deferred cutting throats long enough. I should like to begin with the abolitionists at once."

Thompson's First Debate Performance a Let- down for Many Conservatives
by Robert Novak
Conservative voters hoping former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) would be a Reaganesque white knight were likely disappointed by Thompson's performance in his first debate. He took the safe route on nearly every answer, including endorsing the Bush Administration's current policies on Iraq and ethanol subsidies. Needing to distinguish himself, he didn't.

Meet the Media
by Gary Bauer
Yesterday, my good friend Tony Perkins and I had breakfast with twenty of the most influential reporters in Washington, D.C. The breakfast was sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor and usually involves "newsmakers" engaging in an on-the-record exchange with key media personalities.

Lying for Kids; More Money, No Relief
by Michael Quinn Sullivan
If it feels like everyone wants to separate you from your cash, it's because they do! School districts, cities, counties and the state are rushing to pass massive new bond projects to grow government, hoping you'll be swayed by emotional promises that going into debt will cure everything from traffic to grandma's breast cancer. Don't be fooled.

Rush Limbaugh, Vindicated
by L. Brent Bozell III
The ruckus over the Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers" statement is dying down. It ought not to. There is a huge story here.

Giuliani and Thompson Win Debate
by Quin Hillyer
On economic matters, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson stand above the rest of the Republican field both on substance and on refusal to pander to populist myths. Of the two, Giuliani is the more engaging, the more memorable, and the more clear -- but Thompson wasn't bad at all.

The Same God?
by Cal Thomas
Whatever else his critics say of him, no one can fault President Bush for failing to go the extra mile in his efforts to show that neither he, nor the United States, is opposed to the Islamic faith, or to Muslim nations.

What Rush Said
The last time we checked, Rush Limbaugh had the greatest reach and frequency of any commentator in the country. He needs no defense from us regarding the contrived controversy over his talk show use last week of the phrase "phony soldiers." In fact, he has been returning fire with both aplomb and delight since the leftists at Media Matters turned on their spigot of disinformation last week.

Coulter's Law
by Donald Devine
Ann Coulter may go over the top sometimes but she understands today's legal morass. "You can make 30 times more money than doctors by becoming a trial lawyer suing doctors. You need no skills, no superior board scores, no decade of training and no sleepless residency. It's only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about medical school and go to law school instead. How long can a society based on suing the productive last?"

Consol CEO Says Coal "Whipping Boy" for Greens
The coal industry has become the "whipping boy" of environmentalists who fail to come up with realistic alternatives for energy, the head of one of America's biggest coal producers said.