GOPWEBTX new diary
Action items — to do list:
OUTLINE:
[1] The Pols He Bought by Robert Bryce - Austin Chronicle
[2] Texas Public Policy Foundation [TPPF]
[3] Appreciation - Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. [CNI]
[4] ENRON Relations Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm, Fairfax, Virginia
[5] Governor Rick Perry
[6] State Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander - -- Scott McClellan's mom
- e-Texas Commission
- e-Education & Technology Commission
- Calls for Resignation CTRMA Board Members
- Snubbed on GOP Invitation last month
[7] APPENDIX:
- ANSER | ANSER Homeland Security | John C. GANNON | INTELLIBRIDGE |
- EDS Electronic Data Systems - founder Ross Perot
- NCPA National Center for Policy Analysis
- DEMOCRATS.COM - UNITY posts Sept. 9, 2004: The False Forgery Diversion
- BIO VP Dick Cheney
- BIO Advisor Karl Rove [2x]
- The New Stealth PACs
FUN and ENJOY further reading ...
OUTLINE:
[1] The Pols He Bought by Robert Bryce - Austin Chronicle
Meet the man who elected the Bush Administration
John Sharp didn't lose to Rick Perry. Nor did Paul Hobby lose to Carole Keeton Rylander. Instead, the two Democrats lost their races to James Leininger's money. Leininger helped guarantee two loans - a $1.1 million loan to Perry on October 25 and a $950,000 loan to Rylander on October 1 - that likely made the difference in the races for lieutenant governor and comptroller, the closest races on the statewide ballot. Perry beat Sharp by 68,700 votes. Rylander beat Hobby by 20,223 votes, in one of the closest statewide races in Texas history. In each race, about 3.7 million votes were cast. Sharp lost by 1.8 percent of the vote, Hobby by 0.55 percent.
[...]
Leininger's money certainly provided critical ammunition to both Perry and Rylander:
- More than 10 percent of the $10.3 million that Perry raised before the election came from the loan guaranteed by Leininger and two other businessmen.
- Nearly 25 percent of the $3.85 million that Rylander raised in the year prior to the election came from the loan guaranteed by Leininger and four others.
- On the same day Leininger's loan to Rylander was approved, her campaign wrote a check for $850,000 to National Media in Alexandria, Virginia, for media buys.
- Within five days of getting the money from Leininger, the Perry campaign spent slightly more than $1 million on media, with the bulk of that money ($966,000) going to David Weeks, Perry's Austin-based media consultant.
- Leininger's money came at critical times for both campaigns. When Rylander got the money from Leininger, she was trailing Hobby in the polls and was being outspent more than two to one. From July through September, Hobby had spent $3.7 million. Rylander had spent almost $1.7 million.
- In late October, when Perry got his loan, he was in a dead heat with Sharp, with polls showing both candidates with 37 percent of the vote. Perry was being outspent by a margin of almost three to one. From July to September, Perry spent $2.3 million. Sharp spent $6.8 million.
Weeks, who made the media buys for the Perry campaign, discounts the notion that Leininger's money catapulted Perry to victory. "We stayed competitive all the way through," said Weeks. "Even without the loan, we would have been competitive."
Reggie Bashur, a political consultant to Rylander (and paid lobbyist for the city of Austin) refused to comment, saying he is not authorized to speak for the Rylander campaign. Messages left for Scott McClellan, Rylander's campaign manager, were not returned.
Kathy Miller, deputy director of the Texas Freedom Network, has no doubt that Leininger's loan made the difference. "When you have a race as close as the Sharp-Perry race, one or two million dollars can make one, two, or three percentage points difference," she said. And Miller argues that Leininger's activities "undermine the power of the electorate to see what they want done. It weakens Texas' democracy."
Miller's group is one of several working to counter Leininger's influence. Recently, much has been written about the reclusive San Antonio hospital bed magnate, whose net worth has been estimated at $340 million. And to be fair, he did not provide the loans to Perry and Rylander by himself.
The Perry loan was co-signed by
- chemical company executive William McMinn of Houston and
- telecommunications executive James Mansour of Austin, who chairs Putting Children First, the pro-school-voucher group that Leininger funds.
Leininger and McMinn also co-signed the note for Rylander, along with
- Harlan Crow of Dallas,
- Kenneth Banks of Schulenberg, and
- J. Virgil Waggoner of Houston.
Waggoner and McMinn have also worked with Leininger in a successful tort reform campaign that involved funding elections and hiring lobbyists.
In 1996, according to figures compiled by the Houston Chronicle, Leininger's political contributions topped $550,000. His political donations and loans in 1998 may well exceed that amount. One member of the Sharp campaign estimated that Leininger, along with other advocates of school vouchers, contributed some $700,000 to Perry's campaign. As an individual, Leininger gave Perry $56,908. In addition, three of Leininger's brothers and his mother all gave money to Perry, with contributions ranging from $1,000 to $25,000.
Perry's connections to Leininger also include stock and airplane deals. Perry made $38,000 trading stock in Leininger's hospital bed company, San Antonio-based Kinetic Concepts. In 1996, Perry's campaign bought a 10 percent interest in a 1980 Piper Cheyenne I turbo prop airplane; Leininger and his brother Peter bought the other 90 percent of the plane.
The Leiningers also financed Perry's purchase of the plane. According to Perry's latest expense report, on December 1 the campaign paid Covenant Aircraft Investment Inc., a company run by Daniel Leininger, $3,040 for "airplane expenses."
[...]
The citizens may find reason to doubt Perry's reassurances, as Perry and Rylander are already working to stay in the good graces of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative, pro-school-voucher think tank that gets most of its financial backing from Leininger. On January 26, all the statewide elected officials including Governor Bush attended the TPPF's tenth anniversary dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin. And on February 3, perhaps as a payback to Leininger, Rylander will deliver the keynote speech at the foundation's "1999 Legislative Conference," also at the Four Seasons. Topics for discussion at the conference include "government downsizing" and "school choice."
TPPF is working hard to shape this year's legislative agenda. It is also hoping to get conservative operatives into state jobs. The Foundation recently formed a "job bank placement service." Its agenda, according to its web site, is "to help place conservatives with public policy oriented employers." Toward that end, TPPF has posted a long questionnaire on its web site (www.tppf.org), asking applicants, among other things, to indicate how much they agree or disagree with a list of statements including: "Communism has been sent to the trash can of history. There is no chance it will resurface as a serious threat to world peace." And, "Busing of school children to achieve racial balance is wrong." The application also asks applicants to rank their feelings toward individuals from a wide political spectrum, including Austin Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett, former Democratic Governor Ann Richards, and Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Others listed - presumably those more appealing to TPPF - include Governor George W. Bush, Senator Jesse Helms, Rush Limbaugh - and surprise! - Rick Perry and Carole Keeton Rylander.
In a January 8 column in the San Antonio Express-News, political columnist Rick Casey quoted TPPF president Jeff Judson saying that Rylander had given the group "strong encouragement" for its job-bank effort. Speaking of the comptroller's office, Judson told Casey: "That is the one institution that will probably use this more than anybody. Over time, there will be a shift of the focus of that agency. They'll need the people who are consistent with that policy."
Two weeks after Casey's column appeared, Rylander's spokesman, Keith Elkins, wrote a letter to the paper, saying that Rylander was "informed in passing of the job-bank, but at no time did she support, endorse, or make any commitments about the service."
After the election, several lobbyists who had supported Sharp were contacted by Perry's campaign and told that they were expected to help retire Perry's campaign debt. In some cases, they were given specific amounts of money to raise and/or contribute, with amounts ranging up to $50,000. Republican Party political director Royal Masset even circulated a memo, advising Republican statewide elected officials to tell lobbyists who supported Democratic candidates that it was now going to cost them a premium to get on the "late train" with the Republican winners.
Sullivan insists no fundraising quotas were given and dismisses the complaints as "sour grapes from lobbyists whose guy lost the election." Perhaps so. But questions about Leininger's influence over Perry and Rylander will undoubtedly continue, particularly as the issue of school vouchers becomes more prominent.
Sharp, an opponent of vouchers, says he has no choice but to admire Leininger's effectiveness. "I congratulate Leininger," he said. "He wanted to buy the reins of state government. And by God, he got them."
[2] Texas Public Policy Foundation [TPPF]
See also information at the PropaGannon site:
James Leininger & the Texas Public Policy Foundation - TPPF
by sawcielackey at 03/08/2005
[3] Appreciation - Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. [CNI]
BUSINESS NEWS OF THE WEEK
October 8, 2001
Nanotube Firm Building Pilot Plant
Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. (CNI) has signed an engineering services contract with engineering firm Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), part of Halliburton, to build a pilot plant for producing single-walled carbon nanotubes. Houston-based CNI was founded early last year by Rice University professor and Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley, former Lyondell Petrochemical CEO Bob Gower, and others from Rice University to commercialize carbon nanotubes.
[...]
The company has also found a new home, moving off the Rice campus and now leasing office and laboratory space at KBR's technology center. In April, it received funding of $15 million from chemical industry and high-technology entrepreneurs Gordon Cain and William McMinn.
[4] ENRON Relations Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm, Fairfax, Virginia
Enron Board Members
First row, from left, Ken L. Harrison, John A. Urquhart, Robert A. Belfer, Norman P. Blake, Jr., Robert K. Jaedicke, Ronnie C. Chan, Jeffrey K. Skilling, Kenneth L. Lay and Wendy L. Gramm. Second Row, from left, Bruce G. Willison, John H. Duncan, Joe H. Foy, Charls E. Walker, John Wakeham, Jerome J. Meyer, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr. and Charles A LeMaistre.
Wendy L. Gramm, director and audit committee member:
Sold 10,256 shares for $276,912.
ENRON: Wendy L. Gramm:
Washington, D.C.
Former Chairman,
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Wendy Gramm and Bush officials to Enron fiasco, Ca crisis
Sat Jan 26, 2002 - After ENRON Corp. used its vast web of political connections to win December 2000 passage of commodities trading legislation that helped the company shield its energy trading activities from government scrutiny, California's energy crisis suddenly took a
dramatic turn for the worse as artificial supply shortages led to frequent rolling blackouts, according to a Public Citizen report.
The legislation reducing government oversight of energy trading was muscled through Congress -- without a Senate committee hearing -- with the aid of U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over the legislation he co-sponsored, but he chose to bypass his committee, and the bill was quietly tacked onto a "must-pass" appropriations bill late in the session.
Gramm's wife, Wendy Gramm, also aided Enron's rise to power. As chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she pushed through a key regulatory exemption on Jan. 14, 1993, just as she was about to leave office. Five weeks later, she joined Enron's board of directors, where she served on the board's audit committee and had access to key financial information about the company.
Read the entire press release.
Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm
Director, Regulatory Studies Program &
Distinguished Senior Fellow
Called "the Margaret Thatcher of financial regulation" by the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 12, 1999 editorial), Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm holds a B.A. degree from Wellesley College (1966) and a Ph. D. (1971) from Northwestern University, both in Economics. She has an extensive publication record including articles in the American Economic Review and the Journal of Law and Economics.
Before joining the Mercatus Center, Gramm served as Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988-1993. She was Administrator for Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget from 1985-1988, the Executive Director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, and Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Economics. Gramm was on the research staff of the Institute for Defense Analyses. She started her economics career at Texas A&M University, where she taught economics for over 8 years.
[The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is a research, education, and outreach organization that works with scholars, policy experts, and government officials to connect academic learning and real world practice. Ed.]
Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm
She did all right in Texas politics, functioning on the Executive board of State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for oversight
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As an aside - EDS, the software company of its founder Ross Perot sat in the hot seat according to a CBS news article:
Companies were shown several different ways to push up prices. For example, companies were told they could "have a 'sudden' outage of a big plant," so other plants could "make more money.
According to company e-mails, Perot employees decided to peddle their knowledge, saying, "It should be fun and profitable." Behind the state's back, they made presentations and sent letters to major energy companies. Enron was told, "Many holes in the system exist that could be used to deliver 'unexpected' profits."
Companies were shown several different ways to push up prices. For example, companies were told they could "have a 'sudden' outage of a big plant," so other plants could "make more money."
[5] Recipient Governor Rick Perry ...
Governor Rick Perry of the State of Texas
[6] Recipient State Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander - Scott McClellan's mom
Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn - a BIO
The McClellan Family - Austin TX
Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is the daughter of the late Page Keeton, the revered long-time Dean of the University of Texas Law School. He instilled in her at a very early age the importance of public service. She not only learned that lesson from her dad, she passed it on to her children.
- Her eldest son, Dr. Mark McClellan, is the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He previously served as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
- Her twin sons, Brad McClellan and Dudley McClellan, are both attorneys:
- Brad is an Assistant Attorney General for Texas-Chief of Workers' Compensation Section
- Dudley is Assistant General Counsel for the State Bar of Texas.
- Her youngest son, Scott McClellan, [MM press talk on Jeff Gannon Ed.] is Press Secretary to the President of the United States.
Exquisite reading on PropaGannon:
Media Matters for America
Democracy for Colorado
In 2005 - Be liberal: Support our Allies of Democracy on Human Rights, the Environment, Gay and Minority Rights & EU and UN Third World Development Programs & Our Friends
by creve coeur on Thu Feb 17th, 2005 at 20:08:36 EST
dKOS Posts The McClellan Family
Appendix:
The e-Texas Commission
Carole Keeton Rylander, Comptroller of Public Accounts
Co-chairmen
Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm, Fairfax, Virginia
The Honorable Tom Loeffler, San Antonio
Hector De Leon, Austin
Task Force Commissioners
ASSET & FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Thomas O. Hicks, Dallas
COMPETITIVE GOVERNMENT
The Honorable Bill Hammond, Austin
E-GOVERNMENT
Rosendo Parra, Round Rock
[...]
Received from Jill Lehnert today - Found this while google searching:
Enron En-fluence
Carole Keeton Rylander took $71,500 from Enron and its honchos - including $25,000 on June 15, 2001, the same week Governor Rick Perry appointed Enron executive Max Yzaguirre to chair the Public Utilities Commission in exchange for $25,000 of his own. Uncharacteristically silent since the Enron scandal became public, Rylander has declined to return a dime of her campaign cash to help the ex-Enron employees feed their families.
Now we know why she has kept so quiet -- the state tobacco settlement fund she oversees lost $61 million in Enron investments and other bad financial deals. This was money that should have gone to local hospitals, cities and counties for health care programs. Except that she never told the local officials they won't get as much as they had budgeted for. And when caught with her hand in the empty cookie jar, she sent her spokesman out to answer critics with the argument that she should be absolved of any fiduciary responsibility "in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy."
A GOPUSA Board member - Richard M. Powell - on the Lt. Governor's pay roll.
JPX Interactive Technologies, Inc. reaped some benefits from the pilot projects and implementation of e-technology in the Texas Education Agency. See the other dKos Diaries on this topic!
e-Education & Technology State of Texas
Public Education Integrity Task Force
A Report to the Comptroller
January 2001
Acknowledgements
The Comptroller and the Task Force wish to express their thanks to the following people for their wise counsel and assistance in gathering and assimilating information:
- Education Commissioner Jim Nelson
- Criss Cloudt, Associate Commissioner of Policy Planning and Research, TEA (Commissioner Nelson's appointed liaison to the Task Force)
- Tom Canby, Director of Audits, Texas Education Agency
- Rhonda McCullough, Governmental Relations, Texas Education Agency
- Ann Smisko, Associate Commissioner of Curriculum, Assessment and Technology, TEA
- David Anderson, General Counsel, Texas Education Agency
- Nancy Vaughan, Coordinator for Information Systems, Texas Education Agency
- Joe Wisnoski, Coordinator, School Finance and Fiscal Analysis, Texas Education Agency
- Barbara Walters, Data Standards, PEIMS, Texas Education Agency
- Dan Junell, General Counsel, State Board for Educator Certification
- Joe Lucio, Program Specialist for Student Assessment, Texas Education Agency
- Bill Franz, Director of Professional Discipline, State Board for Educator Certification
- Margaret La Montagne, Governor's Office
- Debbie Esterak, Governor's Office
- Richard Powell, Lt. Governor's Office
- Bobby Gierisch, Speaker's Office
- Trish Conradt, Speaker's Office
- Monty Winn, House Public Education Committee
[...]
Calls for Resignation CTRMA Board Members
Snubbed on GOP Invitation last month
79th LEGISLATURE
GOP snubs Strayhorn
Gala list includes top state officials, but outspoken comptroller is left out.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF By Mike Ward
Wed. January 19, 2005
As political fund-raisers go, the big GOP bash in Austin next month is a Who's Who gala: Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick are the honorees, and the state's other top Republican elected officials signed the fund-raising invitations.
Conspicuously absent is Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who has made headlines recently by criticizing Perry and hinting that she might run against him next year.
"Comptroller Strayhorn was not invited in any shape, form or fashion to sign this invitation. Furthermore, she was not even invited to attend the event," said her spokesman, Mark Sanders.
[More to read ...]
[7] APPENDIX RECOMMENDED by Créve Coeur:
=John C. GANNON=
- ANSER | ANSER Homeland Security | John C. GANNON | INTELLIBRIDGE CORP. |
ANSER & Homeland Security Institute
2900 South Quincy Street • Suite 800 • Arlington, VA 22206
INTELLIBRIDGE
3307 M Street, NW • Suite 200 • Washington, DC 20007
URL: http://www.intellibridge.com/aboutus/executiveteam.html
- EDS Electronic Data Systems - founder Ross Perot
Polaris Institute
- NCPA National Center for Policy Analysis
~ Ross Perot linked?
- DEMOCRATS.COM - UNITY posts
Sept. 9, 2004: The False Forgery Diversion
- BIO VP Dick Cheney
The New Stealth PACs
Numerous non-profit groups with 501(c) tax status exploit loose regulations and lax oversight to spend millions of dollars influencing elections while keeping secret the identities of their donors. The New Stealth PACs, a publicly accessible database created by Public Citizen, shines a spotlight on the attempts of these groups to influence elections.
RELEVANT AND RECENT DIARIES AT dKOS:
[G] PropaG search GOP Politics Sexy acts CON-X-TION CT-GA-MD-TX-VA-WI
by creve coeur Wed Mar 9th, 2005
[H] PropaG Connection ¶ Webdesign Illuminated ¶ GOPWEBTX
by creve coeur Tue Mar 1st, 2005
[I] GOPWEBTX LOST & FOUND ¶ Richard M POWELL ¶ GOPUSA Board Member
by creve coeur Fri Feb 25th, 2005
[J] Propagannon - All about GOPUSA
by mollyd Wed Feb 16th, 2005
[K] Need to be convinced GOPUSA is a shill?
by georgia10 Mon Feb 21st, 2005
[L] Leads on Richard Powell, FYI
by jbalazs Sat Feb 19th, 2005
[M] "BlogPAC Intelligence Briefing: USA Next
by by Bob Brigham Fri Feb 25th, 2005
[N] "Bedrock" Freudian Speak by Bush
by creve coeur Fri Feb 18th, 2005
[O] Gannon scoop shows White House Forged TANG/CBS memos?!?!
by RegenerationMan Fri Feb 18th, 2005
[P] GOPUSA/Talon - Bedrock or Rocks to Peek under?
by Marie Sun Feb 13th, 2005
[Q] Robert 'Bobby' EBERLE II ¶ -age 36- HISTORY and BIO ¶
GOPUSATX
by creve coeur Mon Jan 31st, 2005
In 2005 - Be liberal: Support our Allies of Democracy on Human Rights, the Environment, Gay and Minority Rights & EU and UN Third World Development Programs & Our Friends