07.07.09
Posted in Adminisphere, Blogging, Good Stuff at 9:33 pm by profsteed
Brian (aka dembones) mentioned in a post a while back that I would be joining EOW, so I figured it would be a good idea to introduce myself.
My name is Jason Steed. (That’s me in the pic on the right.) I did a lot of political blogging as “PJ” on a blog I ran during the two years leading up to the 2004 elections, called PoliticalJuice (no link anymore — it’s gone). Then I sort of quit for a while. Then I started up again because I was pretty fed up with Rep. John Carter’s shenanigans. I created John Carter Watch and posted regularly for a few months.
When I signaled my intent to shut down JCW because I was too busy to keep posting regularly, though, Brian asked if I wanted to join EOW. Here, I wouldn’t have to post so frequently because others would be helping to pull the weight. That sounded like a pretty good idea to me…so here I am.
I grew up in Oregon; I have a PhD in English and was an English professor for a few years. Then I gave it up to go to law school. That’s what brought me to Round Rock three years ago. I graduated from UT Law in May, and now I’m studying for the Texas Bar Exam. (Remember how I mentioned I was too busy to blog regularly?)
My wife and I — and our four kids — absolutely love it here. We’ve lived in five different states throughout the West, and it’s dang hard to beat Central Texas. (The Willamette Valley in Oregon is the only serious competitor I know of.) I’ll be practicing law here in the Austin area, starting this fall, so we’re here to stay.
The only hitch? We need to turn Texas blue so that all will finally be right with my world. I’m happy to be part of EOW now, where hopefully I can help to do just that.
I’ll be covering the John Carter beat, and maybe posting on other issues now and then — but you might not see much from me here, for a little while. (Ahem. Bar exam, remember?) In the meantime, though, you can follow me on Twitter here. (I always make time for Tweets.)
Oh, and one more thing: I’m a proud and practicing Mormon. Yes, that’s right: a proud and practicing, progressive Mormon. We do exist. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
More later.
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04.25.08
Posted in Adminisphere, Blogging, Uncategorized at 2:09 pm by wcnews
Thank you for you patience, see here for details.
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04.11.08
Posted in Adminisphere at 8:43 am by wcnews
The bad weather in Dallas Wednesday night caused EOW’s down time yesterday. We are back online and will have new posts up today.
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03.26.07
Posted in Adminisphere, Around The Nation, Public Schools, Uncategorized, Vouchers, Williamson County at 4:11 pm by wcnews
Both Harvey Kronberg at News 8 and Jason Embry at the AAS are reporting that CHIP and the System Benefit Fund (SBF) will be held up until, of course, the GOP’s number one budget priotity is secure. But Kronberg knows that the Craddick D’s need a win or they’re in deep trouble, no matter when the primary is.
News 8 on CHIP:
As he promised, Craddick gave the CHIP restoration bill a shot lost week but consideration was delayed by a point of order. The bill is ready to return to the floor this week, but it did not make it on the calendar. Some believe that the CHIP bill is being held hostage until Democrats vote for a budget that reserves billions of dollars for future property tax cuts at the continued expense of social safety net and public education dollars.
It’s a fascinating political game. The Craddick Democrats need a significant win or some won’t be coming back in two years. As go their fortunes, so go those of Craddick.
AAS on the SBF:
The fund comes from a 65-cent fee on electric bills in areas that are open to electric competition. In other words, not places like Austin, where we get electricity from the city. The money is supposed to provide an electric-bill discount for low-income residents, but the state has used it instead over the last couple of years to justify other areas of the state budget.
The House was scheduled to vote Monday to use the money for those discounts and a couple of other programs, such as electricity help for nonprofit nursing homes and for consumer education programs. But the vote has been postponed until next week, which will be Thursday’s vote on the full House budget. For that matter, a vote on loosening requirements of the Children’s Health Insurance Program also has been delayed past the budget vote.
[..]
It could be that House Speaker Tom Craddick is holding off on the two proposals in order to get Democratic votes for the budget on Thursday. Maybe he’s having a harder time getting support for the budget from Republicans in general than he did in the Appropriations Committee, where all of them voted for it.
Nice, holding children and the elderly hostage to make sure tax cuts for the wealthy get passed. How much more of this are the Craddick D’s going to take?
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12.11.06
Posted in Adminisphere, Uncategorized at 8:29 am by wcnews
We were down most of the day because of some software upgrades at our host. All is good now and hopefully better than ever.
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06.07.06
Posted in Adminisphere at 4:40 am by dembones
We’ve added email alerts to Eye On Williamson. Look for the “Email alerts” block in the sidebar down the right side of the page. Enter your email address to receive a brief email each time a new article is posted to the front page.
“Author pages” link to all the articles written by each author. To navigate there, click one of the links in the “Authors” block in the sidebar.
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04.29.06
Posted in Adminisphere, Uncategorized at 11:21 am by wcnews
There are three opportunities coming up in the next month to help out Karen Felthauser’s campaign. First is for Cinco De Mayo Enchiladas for two. You get a whole bunch of food for $20 and it goes to help out her campaign.
Next if you have those things from spring cleaning that you haven’t been able to get rid of yet “Bring Them On” for the “Trash to Treasure” Yard Sale to benefit Karen’s campaign.
And Last, but by no means least, it’s a Memorial Day Brisket Party.
Click on “Read the rest of his entry” to see all the details.
Read the rest of this entry �
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03.31.06
Posted in Adminisphere, Uncategorized at 3:59 pm by wcnews
This article yesterday from G. Selby at the AAS on one George Shipley, aka, Dr. Dirt was pretty humorous. Mr. Shipley was at one time a pretty hot commodity for the Democrats in Texas, a Karl Rove type shall we say. The article goes on to say that he has changed his ways, and his nickname (Mr. Clean, I guess?), and gone to work for OTG.This leads to the question we all want the answer to, what good is he to OTG’s campaign if he’s cleaned up his act? Are we supposed to believe that a former smear merchant has been hired in the middle of a bloody race to come in and give “nice advice”?
Shipley, 59, insists that this round, he won’t churn gunk on opponents. “I’m past that in my life; I’ve changed,” he said. He adds, “I no longer count myself as an insider,” a statement hard to swallow. Shipley dealing himself out of the loop is like Texans forsaking iced tea and football.
He and OTG go way back and he’s responsible for her becoming Mayor of Austin back in the ’70s and all the pain that caused. The end of the article devolves into petty name calling by Mr. Shipley, the previously renounced Dr. Dirt remember, of former colleagues and current consultants. Mr. Selby does leave Gov. Perry and his campaign out of this article, and above the fray for some reason. But he does add this one little nugget that had slipped my mind. It needs to be put back into the consciousness for all Democrats and Independents out there that are thinking of voting for OTG:
…Bell’s fundraising has improved, and his campaign will give Democratic voters sticky reasons to doubt Strayhorn, such as her 2001 vote for new Texas House districts that helped Republicans capture the House and Tom Craddick become speaker. “We’re going to continue to pull the curtain back on her.”
That right there should be enough to keep any Democrat from voting for her. The Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB) decided redistricting in Texas last time around because the legislature couldn’t. That’s right, when she had a chance to show her independence, and do what was right for Texas, and side with two well respected Texas leaders (Pete Laney and Bill Ratliff), she instead decided to side with the likes of David Dewhurst and John Cornyn.
This is just another stunt by OTG to bring in washed up or washed out Democratic Party people, add him to Ben Barnes and Tony Sanchez, to make her palatable to Democrats.
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02.18.06
Posted in Adminisphere at 3:22 am by dembones
Welcome! You have found the new Eye On Williamson County web log. Feel free to look around and make comments.
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