Bad Deeds for 6-11-2011

 

Dwyane Wade, LeBron James Mock Dirk Nowitzki’s Fever Before Game 5 of NBA Finals – After Miami’s pregame shootaround, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James mocked the fever Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki had during Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Nowitzki played Game 4 with a 101-degree fever.

 

Texas House Conservatives Attempt to Remove Measure to Allow Use of Rainy Day Fund Growth – The Texas House today stood by an amendment allowing the use of $2.3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund — contingent upon its growth by at least that amount this budget cycle — to fund enrollment increases, despite attempts by conservatives to strip it from a school finance bill.

The amendment’s sponsor, State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, urged lawmakers to stand by her plan to provide school districts with funding for enrollment growth if the Rainy Day Fund expands as expected because of high oil prices and a rebounding economy.

 

Will Texas Be the First State to Eliminate Public Education? – Slightly more than 10 years ago, Texas provided up to 70 percent of the total budget for public education. Local government, mostly via home property taxes, provided the remaining 30 percent. Currently, those percentages are reversed and now the state is looking to provide even less to public schools in the Special Legislative Session under proposed Senate Bill 1 that seeks to cut public education financing down another 6 percent.

Few Texans should be surprised that their state wants to remove more financing from public education, since it has been doing so almost every year for the past decade. However, it is a sad commentary of a state that is almost last on the list of states providing quality public education. Currently, it is quite clear that there has been an active push by Texas legislators to develop private education and to eliminate its responsibility for public education. In fact, many legislators already sit on the boards of private, charter and religious schools. Special interests continue to push for a voucher program to enable parents to take their children out of public schools and use the vouchers for private enrollment.

If the majority of voters sit back and do nothing, Texas may succeed as the first state in the US to eliminate public education.

 

Republican Hero Had Cruel Beliefs – Disciples of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness now dominate the thinking of the leadership of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Republican budget leader Rep. Paul Ryan says Rand is his guide. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is his “foundation book.” Clarence Thomas requires his law clerks to watch The Fountainhead. Fox News promotes Rand. Conservative blogs promote Rand. Glenn Beck has been promoting Rand for years. So has Rush.

Rand’s books were fictional novels rather than science and history. She believed that altruism, democracy and Christianity are “evil.” She said the public are “parasites” while people with tons of cash are “producers” who should govern. She believed that greed is good and that the weak do not deserve love. She said that helping others is immoral. She is the hero of the right-wing.

 

Right-Wing Group Backed by Koch Brothers Scares Detroit Residents With Fake Eviction Notices – Residents in a Detroit neighborhood received a scare this week when they found what appeared to be eviction notices on their doors. The flyers, however, turned out to be political pamphlets in opposition to the construction of a controversial new bridge.

The fake eviction notices were posted by a local chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative political advocacy group backed by Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who run Koch Industries and are longtime libertarians. Local political leaders and columnists are condemning the group for scaring residents — whose homes sit in the epicenter of the nation’s foreclosure crisis — while refusing to disclose which of its corporate backers are funding the flyers. It’s impossible to know who is behind the Americans for Prosperity campaign since recent developments in campaign finance, including the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, allow such groups to keep its donors private.

 

Republicans Attempting to Cut Food Safety – The Republican-crafted 2012 agriculture appropriations bill comes to a vote in the U.S. House next week. The bill passed by the Appropriations Committee includes unacceptable cuts to vital food safety programs at FDA and USDA, and derails long-overdue rules to make meat companies treat farmers and ranchers more fairly. And the bill slashes critical programs for conservation, local foods, and food access we need to develop a healthy, sustainable and fair food system. The bill would also go beyond the issue of appropriations and do the bidding of the meat industry by stalling the long overdue livestock marketing rule being develop by USDA’s Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration. Another provision of the bill would make it impossible for food safety regulators to act to prevent food safety problems before they happen.

Regards,

Jim