SIDE NOTE: From Janet Levy- I’m not sure where the candidates stand on ethanol production and its blending with gasoline but there are some SERIOUS negatives involved:
1) Per gallon, ethanol contains about 30% less energy than gasoline.
2) Ethanol production results in higher food prices as land used for food production produces corn for transportation fuel.
3) Ethanol mixtures increase gas prices as oil companies are forced to blend specified amounts of ethanol into their products.
4) Ethanol damages engines – cars, boats, lawn mowers, etc.
5) Burning ethanol increases air pollution adding 22% more hydrocarbons to the atmosphere than burning gasoline.
“In all fairness, we Texans have had a sizeable advantage over the rest of the country because we have followed Ted Cruz’s life and career for many years. What makes many of us Texans value Ted Cruz so highly is because of his proven record to stand for the Constitution even if it means alienating other people.
We Texans well remember the horrible crime committed by illegal immigrant José Ernesto Medellín in 1993. Two innocent girls, 14-year old Jennifer Ertman and 16 year-old Elizabeth Peña, were walking home in Houston and decided they would take a shortcut through a secluded area. José and members of his “Black and White” street gang captured and repeatedly raped and murdered both girls. At José’s trial, the details of his handwritten confession indicated that after the girls were raped, he stomped on the neck of one girl and strangled her with a belt. The other girl was strangled with a shoelace: José held one end of the shoelace while another boy held the other end, watching while it cut into the girl’s throat.
José was convicted and sentenced to death, but that is not the end of the story.
In 2004 while President George W. Bush was in the White House and Condoleezza Rice was the Secretary of State, the judicial arm of the United Nations (a.k.a., International Court of Justice, World Court) decided that José’s case should be reopened because he had not been informed by the police of his right to contact his consulate even though José had lived as an illegal immigrant in the U. S. almost all of his life!
Gov. Greg Abbott was the Texas Attorney General at the time, and Ted Cruz was his Solicitor General whose job as lawyer for the state of Texas was to defend the laws and the Constitution of the State of Texas and represent Texas in litigation. Both Gov. Abbott and Ted Cruz agreed that the World Court had no right to subject state and federal courts to the authority of the United Nations.
Unfortunately, because of particular political circumstances at the time, President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and the U. S. Solicitor General Paul Clement (all Republicans and all people Ted Cruz respected highly) decided that Texas should obey the World Court’s decision. This would have meant that José Ernesto Medellín, a rapist, torturer, and murderer of two young girls, could have been set free.