Bad Deeds for 7-19-2011

 

Republicans Are Cheating Texas Minorities of Representation

• Texas received four new congressional districts only because of Hispanic and African American Population growth.
• The number of Hispanic Texans grew at 10 times the rate of Anglos. African American grew at 5 times the rate of Anglos.
• Anglos make up only 45 percent of the Texas population, but Perry and the Republicans broke up working class neighborhoods across Texas so that Anglo Republicans will hold over 70 percent of all Texas districts.

 

Weakening of Media Consolidation Rules Helped Murdoch Build U.S. Media Empire – The intense scrutiny on Rupert Murdoch and practices by News Corp. employees is also widening the spotlight on its vast media holdings in the United States. News Corp.’s standing in the U.S. received a major boost in the early 1990s when the FCC waived a regulation meant to curb media consolidation.

 

Black Ops Room Exists at Fox News According to Guy Who Says He Designed and Built It – A former Fox News executive has charged that Ailes had outfitted a highly secured “brain room” in Fox’s New York headquarters for “counterintelligence.” Rumors have floated in the press and on the Internet about possible phone hacking in that special-security-clearance-only bunker at Fox HQ for years.

Dan Cooper was one of the people who helped create the Fox News channel with Roger Ailes, and was fired in 1996. In 2008, Cooper wrote on his website that David Brock (now head of Media Matters) had used him as an anonymous, on-background-only source for an Ailes profile he was writing for New York magazine. Before the piece was published, on November 17, 1997, Cooper claims that his talent agent, Richard Leibner, told him he had received a call from Ailes, who identified Cooper as a source, and insisted that Leibner drop him as a client–or any client reels Leibner sent Fox would pile up in a corner and gather dust. Cooper continued:

“I made the connections. Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn’t tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock’s telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation’s New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”

 

New Oil Spill In Montana Wasn’t Reported By Drilling Company. Are We Surprised? – A newly discovered oil spill in northwestern Montana went unreported for a month before a neighboring landowner complained to the Blackfeet Indian Tribe, federal regulators said Monday.

FX Drilling Co. never reported the spill. A neighboring landowner notified the Blackfeet tribe last Tuesday, and the tribe in turn notified the EPA. Officials from the federal agency made the first contact with FX Drilling by calling the company, Vranka said.

 

Republicans Promise to Reject Anyone That the President Nominates to Head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – President Barack Obama has decided to nominate Richard Cordray instead of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doesn’t care. He says Republicans still plan to block the nomination.

“I would remind [President Obama] that Senate Republicans still aren’t interested in approving anyone to the position until the president agrees to make this massive government bureaucracy more accountable and transparent to the American people,” McConnell announced on the Senate floor Monday.

He continued: “Back on May 5 of this year, 44 Republican Senators signed a letter to the president stating — quote — ‘We will not support the consideration of any nominee, regardless of party affiliation, to be the CFPB director until the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is reformed.'”

For the Republicans, “reform” means “made worthless.” They think consumers don’t need no stinkin’ protection. Let the banks and credit card companies rip us off.

 

Rick Perry Speaks of God, Faith and Jesus, but Conveniently Ignores “the Least Amongst Us” – Rick Perry and his politics are determined to protect a child in the womb but they don’t do a hell of a lot for that kid once he or she starts walking in the world. According to the Texas on the Brink report, produced by State Senator Elliot Shapleigh and the Legislative Study Group of the Texas House of Representatives, the land south of the Red River has the highest percentage of children without health insurance of any state in the union. In fact, 6.1 million people, 28 percent of the state’s population, the largest share in the U.S., is uninsured. We are also 4th in the percentage of children living in poverty and 34th when it comes to full immunization.

There is no argument to be made that Rick Perry does not own this grim real estate. He has been governor for more than a decade. The fact that Texas ranks 50th among people over 25 with a high school diploma is his problem as much as it is the electorate’s that put him into office. Texas on the Brink indicates we are 45th in SAT scores and the way we got there is because Texas ranks 47th on the amount of money it spends on each public school student. Things will, however, get worse. To balance the state’s $27 billion dollar budget deficit, (why does that exist if we have made most of America’s new jobs?) Perry and the legislature cut $4 billion dollars from the two- year budget. An additional $1.4 billion was eliminated by ending grants for pre-kindergarten and at risk students while also reducing state contributions to teacher pensions and health care. A teachers’ group called the educational budget cuts a “planned failure” for children.

If you happen to be an ethnic child in Texas, you are in a tough situation living under Perry’s Lone Star. 66 percent of Latino children and 59 percent of black children live in low-income families, compared to 25 percent of white children. Texas offers almost no help to change these circumstances. Parents making even poverty level incomes do not qualify for Medicaid under state standards, if they have two children and earn more than $4,942.70 in one year, (less than $100 bucks a week for those of us slow with math). This is a big problem when 4.26 million people, almost a fifth of the state’s population, lives in poverty.

This, then, is Rick Perry’s theology: by word you can claim to be a man of faith and care for others but by actions your truth is known.

Regards,

Jim