See Perry’s latest campaign fundraising report:

http://www2.mysanantonio.com/news/includes/sidebars/2006CampaignContributions/Perry.htm

None of us is surprised to see H.B. Zachry listed among Perry’s top campaign contributors. Also of note are an aggregate and concrete political action committee called, TACPAC – Texas Aggregates & Concrete Assoc (remember Perry’s quote recently: “No state is laying more asphalt than Texas” http://satollparty.com/post/?p=295), NSF Railpac (Cintra-Zachry awarded the bid to expand TX rail http://satollparty.com/post/?p=196, rail also tied to Trans Texas Corridor toll road network), as well as a host of real estate and oil companies or PACs (who also benefit greatly from more highways).

This quote sure seems to codify what our movement is about:

“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue.These amiable passions, are the ‘latent spark’… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?”

— John Adams (the Novanglus, 1775)

Sorry, Mr. Krier, it’s the other way around.

Here’s who he says they represent: “Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation aims to build a broad-based coalition of Texas commuters, civic leaders and businesses – those in the transportation sector and those who rely on a world-class transportation infrastructure to get their product to market and their employees to work.”
Who’s using hyperbole?
“Much of the recent transportation debate has been dominated by anti-road, anti-growth, and anti-commuter activists working to misinform, mislead and scare people,” said TSRT Chairman Joe Krier. “Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation aims to bring greater reason and rationality to the debate, and highlight the disaster response, job creation, and quality of life benefits of better transportation.”

“In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Texans need to know that better roads and highways – including toll roads – really can mean the difference between life and death. Better roads and rail also mean better Texas jobs and less traffic gridlock.”

TSRT is raising funds to build a pro-transportation coalition and conduct grassroots and paid media efforts. The group’s board of directors includes Joe Krier, the president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, Lawrence Olsen of the Texas Good Roads Association, and Donna Williams, vice president of Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Inc.”

_____________________________

There you have it, when citizens redress their government for grievances, when citizens band together to stop DOUBLE TAXATION, highway robbery, and the giving of our public infrastructure to foreign companies in 50 year monopolies, we’re hysterical, irrational, and misleading. Rather, we’re EDUCATING and INFORMING the public with the TRUTH!

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/14/news/economy/oil_lookahead/index.htm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As bombs fall in Beirut, pipelines explode in Nigeria and Iran shakes its fist at the West, energy traders and motorists alike are wondering one thing: How high can oil prices go?”If another major event takes place, it’s not at all unrealistic for oil to spike to $100,” said Bruce Lanni, an oil analyst at A.G. Edwards. “And there’s no fundamental reason in this current climate to see oil prices retreat below $70 in the next few months.”

The debate, or speculation, focuses on the type and likelihood of another “major event” in the next few months.Oil jumped to record highs Thursday and Friday, breaking the $78 mark, on fears that fighting between Israel and Lebanon will spread to the broader Middle East, which accounts for 30 percent of the world’s oil output and holds 60 percent of its proven reserves.

For now, all eyes are on Iran. The country, the world’s fifth-largest producer, could very well be referred to the United Nations Security Council after if failed to respond earlier this week to a package of Western incentives intended to get it to curb its nuclear program.

It could also get dragged into the Israeli-Lebanon conflict, as the country is widely believed to support the Hezbollah fighters that Israel is currently chasing in southern Lebanon, and may be supplying the rockets now hitting Israeli cities.

The ultimate fear is that either way, Iran may cut off its oil exports or, worse, attempt to disrupt tanker traffic through the narrow Strait of Hormuz just off its coast. About a quarter of the world’s oil passes through the strait on its way to market.

But experts say the latter scenario isn’t likely.

“Markets tend to over-react,” said Steven Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Iran doesn’t need to be sinking ships in the Gulf, they have other cards to play,” like increasing support for fighters in Iraq or Lebanon.

James Phillips, a research fellow at the think tank Heritage Foundation, said Iran has only limited military capability to disrupt shipping. He also said Iran, unlike Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which can export oil via pipeline, is completely dependent on the Gulf to export its product.

“It would truly have to be an act of desperation on Iran’s part,” said Phillips, saying it would take a U.S. strike on its oil facilities to push the country that far.

Even with that worst-case scenario aside, analysts are still split over how much higher worries about the Middle East might drive oil prices.

“I don’t see the violence quitting anytime soon,” said Neal Dingmann, an energy analyst at the investment firm Pritchard Capital Partners. “I think we continue up and to the right.”

Dingmann predicts prices of $80 to $85 a barrel over the next couple of months barring any new major events, and $90 to $100 if things escalate.

But A.G. Edwards’ Lanni, noting all the other hot spots from Nigeria to North Korea to Venezuela, thinks tensions are near a peak.

“We’re most likely at or near the worst of all scenarios geopolitically,” he said “Common sense tells you that at least some of these situations will get resolved.”

There is one thing lurking just around the corner that Lanni said could cause his projected spike to $100.

“The only other event that I can put my hands on now is hurricane season,” he said.

And while there is some debate over the likelihood of another big event, energy analysts said that even if world peace broke out tomorrow, fundamental supply and demand would still keep oil in the $50 to $60 range.

http://news8austin.com/shared/poll/default.asp?SecID=1&PollID=2924

Read the comments after the poll. It’s the same sentiment we hear EVERY DAY here in San Antonio. We’re gettin’ fleeced, our politicians don’t represent us but special interests, and we’re FED UP!

Read Jaime Castillo’s column about McCombs’ group here:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/jcastillo/stories/MYSA071706.1B.Castillo.1577031.html

Also read his column from this weekend:

(http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/jcastillo/stories/MYSA071506.01B.Castillo.13b0701.html)

It says anti-tollers are using hyperbole. We may be passionate, but we’re TRUTHFUL. We’re not promoting propaganda, nor trying to mislead the public like the other side. Our arguments don’t skew the debate, they inject TRUTH into the debate. Truth is, TxDOT’s figures don’t add up. If you take TxDOT’s numbers (which continue to go up now they’re saying we need $16 billion in the next 20 years as cited by Scott Erickson at an MPO Planning Meeting), they want $10,000 in NEW TAXES from every man, woman, and child in San Antonio alone just for transportation (and that’s in addition to the gas tax, a portion of sales tax, and a slew of other fees and taxes we pay for roads)! That’s $40,000 in the next 20 years from every family of four! It’s insane!

We’re all volunteer citizens versus the toll pushers are politicians (whose campaigns are funded by the highway lobby) and businesses who contract with TxDOT and that have a financial interest in toll roads.

Here was my note to Mr. Castillo after his first column:

Never take the word of a bureaucrat without verifying the info. Julie Brown is not telling you the whole story either. We have the District Engineer for TxDOT, David Casteel (the top dog for San Antonio), ON CAMERA at a Leon Valley debate admitting they have $100 million gas taxes for the 281 corridor. We have TxDOT documents (toll feasibility studies for 281) showing the same. Looking at the cost of the ORIGINAL plan for 281 (10 lanes including frontage roads), the entire 8 miles from Loop 1604 north to the county line, it was $100 million. They DO HAVE EVERY PENNY NEEDED TO FIX 281! Now they want to charge us in excess of $200 million to build it as a 16 lane toll road and turn it over to Cintra-Zachry. That’s not hyperbole, it’s well-documented in stories in your own newspaper. Follow the money, it leads right to Zachry.

If you ever wish to find out the TRUTH behind these toll roads and view the EVIDENCE we have to prove our points, please ask. Nearly all of it is on our web site. See this page in particular: http://www.satollparty.com/proof.php.

Your article doesn’t seem to take a fair look at this debate. You’re comparing it to a totally different debate about flouride which was based on competing science. This is about transportation planning being hi-jacked by special interests and our government refusing to give us congestion relief that’s PAID FOR! We live in a democracy and it’s our right and duty to redress our government for grievances. That’s all we’re doing.

In TxDOT’s own survey by UT Austin in 2003, they found a supermajority of Texans are against tolling existing highways and that most believe we ought to CUT our highway program at least a little. Seems we’re not the minority nor the real opposition here, TxDOT is. I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on why this doesn’t seem believable to you…

“Now it doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism upon a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.” —Ronald Reagan

Check out this scathing letter to the editor from State Representative Joe Pickett in El Paso to the Austin-American Statesman. Link to it here (scroll down to Pickett’s letter): http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/07/15Letters_edit.html.

TxDOT trampled on us
On June 29, a group of elected officials from the El Paso area appeared before the Texas Transportation Commission to oppose the creation of a Regional Mobility Authority. Our regional Metropolitan Planning Organization voted against creating a toll authority.

The Congress member in our area opposes creating a mobility authority, as does the county judge-elect. Do you think the Texas Department of Transportation honored the decision of the local planning organization? No way. It is the state’s way or the highway, I mean tollway. It gets worse, 30 minutes after the vote was taken in El Paso against a mobility authority, a TxDOT commissioner called a road contractor and threatened to kill a pending project if they didn’t get the mobility authority in line. Then TxDOT threatened the state of New Mexico by saying it would kill a joint railroad relocation study because some of our planning organization members who voted against the mobility authority are from New Mexico.

STATE REP. JOE C. PICKETT
Chairman El Paso area
Metropolitan Planning Organization
El Paso

Here’s another indication that Americans and our economy have signs of trouble due to high gas prices. Personal debt has soared while income has stayed flat barely inching up at 2% a year, not even close to keeping pace with inflation much less high gas prices. There’s only so much money to shift around to compensate for the higher cost of everything. People can only cut back so much before they dip into savings or go into debt just to live day to day. This doesn’t fare well for toll roads and their investors…
Here’s a snippit of the article to give an idea of what’s happening:

Econ 101: Of prices and profits

By Tom Ramstack
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 16, 2006

The utility bills arrive like clockwork — electricity, phone service, cable — and they seem to keep rising. Then there’s gasoline for the car, a once- or twice-weekly expense.
Meanwhile, salaries are inching up slowly, if at all. Spreading that income to cover the increasing costs is becoming more difficult and sending consumers further into debt.
Average household debt soared nearly 34 percent between 2001 and 2004, while income rose 2 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances, released in February.
As U.S. consumers were trying to pay for record-high gasoline and other energy prices after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, Exxon Mobil reported its 2005 profits — a U.S. record of $36.1 billion.
Some members of Congress were infuriated, accusing Exxon Mobil and other oil companies of profiteering during an energy shortage caused by hurricanes last year. They called executives from the major oil companies to testify twice in recent months about how they can justify such high income and threatened to reinstate a windfall-profits tax.
Not only did the world’s largest oil company earn record profits, but it paid retiring Chief Executive Lee R. Raymond compensation of $98 million in a pension, $32 million in stock futures and $38 million in salary, bonuses and stock options in 2005.
“Obviously, they need to make some kind of profit,” said Chris Bettencourt, 38, a police officer filling up his Ford F-150 pickup at a New York Avenue Exxon station on a recent afternoon. “They’re a company. But when they’re making record profits and gas prices are at all-time highs, there’s a problem there.”
He paid $3.18 a gallon for regular gasoline. “If the price gets to $3.50 a gallon, I’m definitely trading [the F-150] in,” Mr. Bettencourt said.
Although many consumers are screaming about rising prices, rising profits and rising executive compensation, financial analysts say the companies to whom U.S. consumers pay their monthly and daily bills are running healthy business operations.
“We’re a capitalist society and a free market,” said Bob Dobkin, spokesman for Washington utility owner Pepco Holdings. “Are we going to limit what companies make? Hopefully, supply and demand will take care of that.”

Pepco pays, too
Pepco Holdings Inc., which provides power and heat to about 1.8 million customers in the District, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey, knows it always will have a market for its electricity and natural-gas supply business, which it sells through three subsidiaries.
In the District, households pay the utility an average of $1,143.31 per year to keep their home appliances, lights and heaters operating.
Last year, Pepco Holdings made a $371 million profit on total revenue of $8.06 billion, which translates to a 4.6 percent profit margin. The margin so far this year is running about 4 percent.
Meanwhile, utility rates have risen about 40 percent in the past two years.
“Most of what is driving the price of electricity these days is the price of fossil fuel, coal and oil and natural gas,” said Tony Kamerick, Pepco Holdings treasurer. The fuel is used to power the generators that produce electricity.

To read the rest of the article, go here:

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060715-114727-1563r.