The WAWG Blog

Only 3 Out of 27 Republican Candidates for Texas Board of Education Affirm the Importance of Public Education – At least 10 out of 27 Republicans who were seeking election to the State Board of Education (SBOE), which oversees public education across Texas, said they don’t agree that “it is the government’s responsibility to be sure children are properly educated.”

Just three Republican candidates affirmed the importance of public education in Texas. The religious-right groups that sponsored the survey (all of which are nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations) didn’t question Democratic candidates.

Here’s what Article 7 of the Texas Constitution says about government’s role in education:

“A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

Romney Thinks Young People Can’t Comprehend Economy – Last week, hundreds of peaceful protesters demonstrated outside of Bank of America’s shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, a move presidential candidate Mitt Romney summarily dismissed as ignorant and youthful, reports the NationalJournal.

“Unfortunately, a lot of young folks haven’t had the opportunity to really understand how the economy works,” Romney said in response to the protesters.

Romney’s comments bring up some important questions: how old does someone have to be before they can confidently condemn banks for illegally foreclosing on American families? At what age can you begin to criticize an institution that makes record profits yet pays no taxes? And would a teenager be incorrect for thinking something’s wrong with a bank that needed a federal bailout almost immediately rewarding its executives with multimillion bonuses?

Besides, although Occupy has largely been credited as a movement spurred by a younger generation, attendees of this Bank of America protest represented a wide range of ages from children to the elderly. Does Maria Reyes (who Care2 reporter Aaron Krager interviewed at this protest) seem too young to know what she’s talking about? One thing is for sure: almost all of the protesters are not too young to vote, and most are bound to remember Romney’s condescending attitude come Election Day.

ALEC Posing as Charity While Pushing Bad Laws – The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) convened today one of its three annual meetings, this one in Charlotte, NC, to discuss and vote on model legislation that it will then promote in all 50 states. Common Cause has obtained thousands of pages of documents, that show for the first time what’s really going on behind closed doors. These materials, including the agenda for today’s meetings, feature the new bills that corporate lobbyists and state legislators will vote on as equals, including legislation that will roll back environmental protections and labor rights.

There has been a growing uproar around ALEC recently, as increased scrutiny shines a light on their role promoting controversial legislation, including the “Stand your Ground” legislation that became a national issue after the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida. ALEC is also behind model legislation to roll back environmental protections, disenfranchise voters, challenge the Affordable Care Act and reduce corporate taxes.

On Sunday April 22, the New York Times ran a major expose about ALEC on its front page (‘ALEC, a Tax-Exempt Group, Mixes Legislators and Lobbyists’.) This story was based on thousands of pages of unreleased ALEC documents obtained by Common Cause and shared with the Times. The next day Common Cause, working with one of the US’s most renowned whistleblower law firms Philips & Cohen, filed a 4,000 page IRS Whistleblower complaint against ALEC. Since then, we have asked 29 state Attorneys General to investigate ALEC, including in New York, New Jersey, Kentucky and North Carolina, with more states to follow in the coming weeks.

The documents provided to the IRS clearly show ALEC has been improperly acting as a charity for almost 40 years, providing a tax exemption on corporate contributions, while at the same time telling the IRS that it doesn’t spend a dollar on influencing legislation. We are now also asking that state Attorneys General investigate whether ALEC has broken state tax laws, lobbying disclosure rules and gift regulations.

A Major Oil Speculator Is Bankrolling The Latest Karl Rove Attack Ad Accusing Obama Of Raising Prices At The Pump – Paul Singer is a wealthy hedge fund manager. His firm, Elliott Management Corporation, speculates in a number of areas. In the past, Singer has been called a “vulture capitalist” for buying the debt of Third World countries for pennies on the dollar, then using his political and legal connections to extract massive judgments to force collection — even from nations suffering from starvation and violent conflicts. A blockbuster Wall Street Journal story in 2006 revealed that Singer’s firm was among several hedge funds that paid lobbyists to gain political intelligence on an asbestos bill working its way through Congress — with the hope of using inside information to profit off of asbestos-related companies. But what makes Singer interesting in the context of this latest attack ad is how his business interests conflict with the message about Obama causing high gas prices.

If anything, Singer should be blamed for high gas prices. He is a major oil speculator.

Safeway Executive Makes Joke About Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Being Worth Less Than Pigs – Bob Gordon, senior vice president and general counsel for Safeway Inc., kicked off a shareholder meeting earlier this week with a “joke” about former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being worth less than pigs. Tell Gordon that his remarks are unacceptable.

Greene County, Virginia GOP Group’s Newsletter Calls For ‘Armed Revolution’ If Obama Is Reelected – A monthly newsletter published by the Greene County Republican Committee in Virginia is raising eyebrows for including a column in its March edition that calls for an “armed revolution” if President Barack Obama is elected to a second term in November.

Pastor Calls for Concentration Camps for Gays – Pastor Charles Worley heads up Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina — and he has a plan to “get rid of all the lesbians and queers.”

“Build a great big large fence, a hundred, fifty, hundred miles long… Feed them and you know what in a few years they’ll all die out. Do you know why — they can’t reproduce.”

This shocking level of hate is unacceptable from anybody — especially a member of the clergy. Tell Pastor Worley that you won’t stand for this kind of hate speech.

Billionaire Super PAC Funders Back Romney For Self-Interests – The biggest donors to Republican Super PACs Restore Our Future and American Crossroads have their reasons for putting out so much money.

Harold Simmons likes Romney’s pledge to rollback the EPA and environmental regulations so he can dump nuclear waste in West Texas. Bob Perry, a Texas homebuilder, likes Romney’s willingness to support a cap on jury awards so he can avoid paying settlements for his shoddy home building. Sheldon Adelson likes Romney’s promise to bust unions so he can keep the workers in his Las Vegas casino from organizing. Video at the link above.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Plato

Regards,
Jim

Do Like Mitt Said. If You Don’t Have $20,000 to Start Your Business, Borrow It From Your Dad – By: Juanita Jean

I want you to meet Diane Tran. She’s 17 years old and lives with one of her employers in Montgomery, Texas, a cabal of Republicanism where they even want a proper drape on Michelangelo’s David because his wee-wee shows. Seriously.

Dianne is an honors student taking dual credit U.S. History, dual credit English Literacy, College Algebra, Spanish Language AP. She also works part time and full time jobs at a dry cleaners and a wedding venue. Her parents divorced and disappeared. She lives with her employer’s family. The money she earns goes to an older brother at Texas A&M and a younger sister living with relatives in Houston.

She spent the night in jail.

What heinous crime did she commit? She missed too much school. She often stays up until 7:00 am doing homework and falls asleep in class. This community of Super DeLux Brand Christians were apparently so distracted that a statue of David had an actual weenus showing that they did not notice a 17 year old honors student supporting her entire family while making the honor roll.

So, they put her lazy butt in jail.

The Honorable Republican Judge Lanny Moriarty wanted to make an example of Diane.

“If you let one run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em?,” said Judge Lanny Moriarty. “Let them go too? A little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence.”

Lanny, Dude, she is not running loose. Lanny, Dude, this baby girl needs help, not punishment. Open your damn Republican wallet with a sledgehammer, Lanny, and give this child a couple bucks. Hold one of those golf tournaments you Republicans love and let this baby girl sleep in the locker room while you Christian boys drink some beer and slap each others hineys.

The wise Judge Moriarty also gave Diane a $100 fine. Lanny, Dude, that’s not helping the situation.

Republicans just don’t get it. They really don’t.

He made her an example, okay. He did. He made her an example of the cruelty and meanness the Republican Party brings to the American arena.

You can contact the good Republican Judge on Tuesday being your usual kind selves and ask if you can send a couple of bucks to him to help pay Diane’s fine. But you want some kind of proof that it went toward her fine and not his wallet with the chain and double lock around it.

Lanny better pray he can take his money with him and that Sweet Jesus takes bribes because that’s the only way he’s gonna get to heaven.

Regards,

Jim

The American Warfare State Is Bringing an End to American Democracy …

In my post, Authoritarian Control Requires War, a War Mentality, Enemies, and a Vivid Imagination, I listed the various, mostly real, and a few imaginary wars started by a minority of authoritarian leaders (The ONE%) and implemented by their minority base (The Tea Party) to wrest control of America from the majority of its citizens.

This right-wing warfare state was started by Richard Nixon with the war on drugs in 1971. Since then, the authoritarians have advanced the current warfare state and used the attack in 2001, under GWB, the Shrub, to accelerate the it. We now sanction torture and show little outrage over either recent war crimes by our troops or the incarceration instead of education of the children of the poor.

In Violence, USA: The Warfare State and the Brutalizing of Everyday Life, Henry Giroux wrote about these wars. Here is what he said about some of the elements of the American Warfare State:

The rhetoric of war is now used by politicians not only to appeal to a solitary warrior mentality in which responsibility is individualized, but also to attack women’s reproductive rights, limit the voting rights of minorities and justify the most ruthless cutting of social protections and benefits for public servants and the poor, unemployed and sick.

As seen around the world with other fundamentalist, authoritarian societies, the constraint of women is paramount to the strict father family model. To maintain male dominance, women are kept uneducated, covered head to toe, isolated from others, and kept pregnant or caring for the family – care especially for the dominant male. Women are viewed by authoritarians as property for their pleasure, personal use, and abuse. These constraints on women go back centuries and are fundamental to authoritarian control.

In America, many of these constraints on women were removed during the last century. This became a threat to the right-wing authoritarians and their need to control/abuse both their property and the property and lives of others. They declared war and have been passing laws to reinstate their control over women, and others, ever since.

Frank Schaeffer attributes some of these wars to religious fundamentalism.

Fundamentalist religion of all kinds fears women and gays.

It’s going to take some men, a lot of women, and years of struggle to save our American Democracy.

Joe Brewer, recently stated:

It is time to call out the bullies who shroud patriarchal domination of women under the guise of religious dogma and partisan politics. Nothing less than the heart of our democracy is at stake.

We need women to not only stop the war on women, we need them to end the American Warfare State.

Back during WWII, my mother and 1,101 other women flew 60,000,000 miles in military airplanes – 38 lost their lives in service to America, thousands of others became factory workers, and millions lost their husbands and sons. They all did their part to save the world and America from European Fascism.

Today American women must rise up and save America from American Authoritarianism. You can start by supporting Emily’s List – List of progressive female candidates. Then make sure you vote and get all your friends to vote.

Republicans Plan to Fund Higher Military Spending With Cuts to Programs for the Poor and Working Class – House Republicans are set to advance legislation to replace automatic defense spending cuts they agreed to last year with cuts to programs for the poor and working class….The proposal — which is an outgrowth of the budget the House GOP overwhelmingly voted for late March — would cut some $261 billion from health care programs, food stamps, unemployment benefits and child tax credits, among others. It constitutes a violation of the GOP’s end of the debt-limit deal, which included painful sacrifices for both parties if the Congress failed to reach a bipartisan deficit-reduction agreement.”

If the GOP really wanted to avoid defense spending cuts, it wouldn’t be difficult to simply allow the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans to expire — as they were intended to do — in order to pay for them. But Republicans aren’t about to consider hurting the financial firepower of those who contribute the most to funding their campaigns (or voting to increase their own taxes, considering the majority of Congress are millionaires themselves). So once more, they propose that the social safety net be gutted in order to appease every one of their favorite constituents.
The bills drawn up by the House are a stark reminder of what exactly the Republican party would do if they had full control over the legislature, and no checks on their power. It is a reminder of who would benefit, and who is likely to pay the price.

Fox News Tea Party Guest Laments ‘Mistake’ of Letting Women Vote – Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a tea party activist that’s appeared several times on Fox News, and founder of an organization where Sean Hannity serves as an advisory board member, said in a sermon recently published to YouTube that America’s greatest mistake was allowing women the right to vote, adding that back in “the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them.”

In the video, published to YouTube in March, Peterson explains that he believes women simply can’t handle “anything,” and that in his experience, “You walk up to them with a issue, they freak out right away. They go nuts. They get mad. They get upset, just like that. They have no patience because it’s not in their nature. They don’t have love. They don’t have love.”

Despite his statements being online for more than a month, Hannity welcomed Peterson on his show last Tuesday to castigate the Obama administration over “taking credit” for the Osama bin Laden assassination.

Bill to Help Keep Student Loan Interest Rates Low Has No Republican Sponsors – Interest rates for federal student loans to help pay for college are set to double July 1 unless Congress and the White House find a way to avoid another looming political standoff.

The White House is pushing for an extension of the current interest rate of 3.4 percent. Without it, the rate will climb to 6.8 percent for more than 7 million students across the country, and the average loan recipient would be another $1,000 in debt, according to White House spokesman Matt Lehrich.

A bill to maintain the current rate, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, has 126 Democratic co-sponsors but no Republicans.

Three Judges on Texas Supreme Court Using Campaign Funds as a Piggybank for Their Personal Travel – It’s bad enough that a majority of the Texas Supreme Court performs as a wholly owned subsidiary of Texans for Lawsuit Reform. Now it’s apparent that a third of the judges — Nathan Hecht, Paul Green, and David Medina — have no compunction about flouting ethics rules by using campaign funds as a piggybank for their personal travel to and from work. Texas Watch has filed complaints against all three judges with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Republican Who Won Yesterday’s Republican Senate Primary Says Bipartisanship is Democrats Coming to the Republican Point of View – Richard Mourdock says, “They have to come our way.”

Watch the video to see how one-sided and extreme the new batch of Republicans are.

Galveston County Republican Constable Allegedly Sexually Harrassed Deputy – Galveston County Constable Pam Matranga made lewd and suggestive advances to Deputy James Gist, including forcing his head into her breasts on two occasions, according to his complaint.

“[Matranga] lifted her blouse and pulled it down over Plaintiff’s head. [She] pressed her breasts against the head of Plaintiff,” said the lawsuit, which was filed in District Court in Galveston County earlier this month.

Matranga denies the allegations. So, somebody is not telling the truth.

The Dictator: Admiral General Aladeen Endorses Romney 😉 –

Regards,

Jim

Romney and Big Oil Team Up for Shameless Lies in New Ad – A new Romney ad is so blatantly false, the Washington Post said the “erroneous” attacks were made “without any shame.” The Washington Post also said, “There is no excuse for these kinds of ads, which take facts out of context or simply invent them.”

The ad was created by Mitt Romney’s Big Oil allies, “Americans for Prosperity,” and they just launched it in some important battleground states.

Click link above for a video about the lies in Romney’s/BigOil’s ad.

Liberatarian Think Tank Equates Science to the Unabomber – The liberatarian think tank called the Heartland Institute commissioned billboards that compare good, decent Americans who believe in climate disruption to murderous psychopaths like Charles Manson and unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Heartland said has removed the billboard; but, late Friday afternoon said in a statement. “We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the ‘realist’ message on the climate.”

At least 32 recognized scientific academies and societies agree that global warming is happening. Even the Pope agrees! Are they equating scientific academies /societies and the Pope with the unibomber?

It’s not funny. It’s not even controversial. It’s unacceptable. Tell the Heartland Institute to apologize for its hateful ad campaign!

Republican Ted Poe Doesn’t Want the Poor Defended in Court – In a recent appearance on PBS’s Red White and Blue, Texas Republican Congressman Ted Poe gave his take on the Public Defender system:

“The Public Defender system is just another bureaucracy set up and paid for by the taxpayers to make us feel good, but doesn’t make much difference at all. I am not so sure they are that good and I have received information from attorneys and some defendant’s families that it is not a good system. It costs too much and allows the Judges to push their responsibility for quality representation off on a government bureaucracy. I am not a big fan of the Public Defender system for Harris County.”

More about Ted Poe and the courts – (Ted Poe is the bully with the booming voice)

Texas Cuts 7,000 Workers Over Past Year – A state auditor’s report showed that state agencies have cut their employment ranks by 5 percent since this time last year. Higher education, which went through sizeable staff cuts a few years ago, also has shrunk, but at a lesser rate.

State agencies, currently at 147,100 full-time equivalent positions, were pared by 7,322, with some of the biggest downsizing coming with prison correctional and probation officers at the Department of Criminal Justice, which lost 2,000 employee positions. Also slashed were the Juvenile Justice Department, Texas Education Agency, the Department of Aging and Disability Services and Family Protective Services, whose primary responsibility is investigating the abuse of children.

(And we wonder why the economy is not doing better?)

Texas Puts Ideology Above Women’s Health – In its admitted zeal to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood, the state of Texas is making it perfectly, chillingly clear that it is willing to wreak havoc with the lives and health of low-income Texas women to achieve that goal. On Monday, it fired its latest salvo, securing a stay of an order, granted earlier that day, that would have allowed the organization to temporarily provide family planning services to tens of thousands of Texas women.

Planned Parenthood serves almost 50 percent of the 130,000 or so low-income women served by the Medicaid Women’s Health Program in Texas. The state enforced new rules this year that would exclude funding to Planned Parenthood clinics because the organization provides abortions as well as basic women’s health services.

Texas Thinks it’s OK to Deny Healthcare Access to Tens of Thousands of Women – Here is what the state of Texas considers “irreparable harm”: Continuing to provide Planned Parenthood with federal funds for the Texas Women’s Health program, which it has done for several years. Here is what it does not find harmful: immediately denying healthcare access to tens of thousands of women who have been going to Planned Parenthood affiliates for basic health services that aren’t abortions.

Rand Paul Contradicts Himself – Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday’s MSNBC show said Paul Ryan was loves notorious author Ayn Rand. But Paul Ryan dismissed that charge as an “urban legend.” After all, Ayn Rand made clear that she was an atheist and Rand Paul is a Catholic. But O’Donnell then played a speech that Ryan had given in honor of Ayn Rand’s 100th birthday.

Then Stephen Colbert weighed in on the subject. You’ll get to hear what Paul Ryan had to say on the occasion of Ayn Rand’s 100th birthday in the first video. And then you’ll get to hear Colbert’s fascinating interview with Father Thomas Reese in the second video.

Colbert’s interview with Father Thomas Reese of Georgetown University – (If there is an urban legend about Rand Paul’s love of Ayn Rand, then Paul is the father of that legend. – JLV)

Republican Party Tells States: Stop Looking For Poor Children To Insure – In the latest budget reconciliation package is a proposal to cut $400 million in bonus money used by states to find and enroll children who are likely to qualify for and benefit from CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program). Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, told Politico, “The whole purpose of the funds is to make sure that children who are eligible based on state-determined standards have an easier time — rather than a harder time — getting enrolled.”

But Republicans want to gut the funds, claiming they lead to potential enrollment fraud. Who are these children who might be “fraudulently” added to the program when they don’t belong? Children of parents who are on public assistance. By delaying their entry into the program, Republicans are declaring that they would rather put children’s long term health in jeopardy in order to score political points and say they are allegedly “battling waste and fraud.”

Mitt Romney Tells Ohio Students: Just Borrow Money From Your Parents to Get Your Business Started – Mitt Romney continues to show that he’s not in touch with most working Americans when he says things like this. At a “lecture” for students at Otterbein University in Ohio, Mitt Romney told students, “Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.” Most students don’t have parents with $20,000 in disposable capital sitting around to give to their kids to start a business.” Most Americans are not fortunate enough to be able to sell off part of the stock portfolio given to them by their father to get by either.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Congresswoman Says She Has Very Little Tolerance for People With Student Debt – Republican congresswoman Virginia Foxx told a radio interviewer last week that she has “very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt, because there’s no reason for that.”1

Oh really? So it’s your fault if you have student debt?

But Foxx isn’t just any member of Congress. She’s the CHAIR of the Higher Education & Workforce Training Subcommittee in the House. That’s right, she controls policy on the issue of student debt, and she thinks you’re a loser and a whiner if you have student loans.

Foxx went on to say: “I went through school, I worked my way through, it took me seven years, I never borrowed a dime of money.” This was in 1968 at UNC Chapel Hill, when seven years of college cost about $46,100 TOTAL (adjusted for inflation). How much would her education cost now? $141,820. An in-state student at UNC Chapel Hill now pays triple what it cost when Foxx went to school. And, by the way, the minimum wage was 38% higher in 1968 than it is now, in inflation-adjusted dollars.2

What’s even worse is that Foxx sponsored the “Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act,” a bill to strip away federal regulation of for-profit colleges — colleges that notoriously prey on lower-income students, have disturbingly low graduation rates, and leave their students with higher-than-average levels of debt.3 And no wonder: Foxx’s top campaign contributors are the for-profit colleges themselves.4

Sources:
1. Youtube: Virginia Foxx on student loans
2. National Center for Education Statistics: Average undergraduate tuition and fees, 1964-2007
3. National Bureau of Economic Research: The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector
4. OpenSecrets: Virginia Foxx’s Top 20 Campaign Contributors

Rick Perry’s Plan to Take Away Health Care Coverage From More Texans – Currently, 1-in-4 Texans lack health care coverage, the highest rate of uninsured in the nation. Rick Perry isn’t trying to make it any better – he is planning on making it worse. Perry and his fellow conservatives in the Texas Legislature are pushing a health care plan that would end health care coverage for more than 2.5 million Texans. Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act – signed into law by President Obama two years ago this Friday – would expand health care coverage to nearly 4 million more Texans.

Pastor Says Parents Should Punch ‘Girly’ 4 Year Olds – Sean Harris, pastor of a North Carolina Baptist Church, has been captured on audio urging parents to punch 4 year old boys if they ‘act girly’ and to ‘break their limp wrists’. Harris said:

“So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, ‘Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,’ you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.”

“Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male.”

In His Own Words: Romney Would Not Have Pursued Osama bin Laden in Pakistan – Romney’s own statements in 2007 make it plain and clear that he would not have pursued bin Laden or ordered the military operation that finally brought him to justice., When asked about bin Laden, Romney said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just to capture one person.” He said the country would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” because another terrorist would rise to power.

Romney opposed taking action against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan, dismissing then-Senator Barack Obama’s promise to strike terrorist targets inside Pakistan if necessary. “I do not concur, ” he said, adding “I don’t think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort.”, Romney added that the President’s pledge to strike at al-Qaeda was “ill-considered. ”

Romney’s Record: Outsourcing American Jobs and investing Overseas – Mitt Romney’s record does not match his rhetoric when it comes to creating American jobs. The map at the link above shows where Romney outsourced jobs and where he opted to invest his own money.

Regards,

Jim

Tea Party Activists Guilty of Voter Fraud – More than a year since a state district judge ruled 10 Montgomery County residents voted fraudulently in a Woodlands election, a grand jury last week indicted seven of those individuals for illegal voting., The indictments stem from the May 8, 2010, election of The Woodlands Road Utility District No. 1. Ten individuals listed their voter registration address as that of a hotel in order to take control of the RUD board., Former Montgomery County Judge candidate Adrian Heath heads the list of people charged with the third-degree felony. Heath is also a tea party activist, and (this is perfect) judicial candidate. The group decided that they were afraid that someday the Woodlands Road Utility District would decide to start taxing residents of the area, instead of just commercial businesses, so he engineered an electoral coup, and a conspiracy to commit voter fraud.

Kossack rm1948 says that the same crew of fraudsters was behind a local controversy to have a fig leaf placed strategically on a replica of the Statue of David that was on top of a sporting good store, where it could only be seen with binoculars. Oh, and putting plaques reading “In God We Trust” in county libraries, too.

Republicans Block Debate on Buffett Rule – Senate Republicans defeated a motion to take up Buffett Rule legislation the day before taxes are due. Democrats fell short of the 60 votes … 51 in favor, 45 against, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) breaking ranks with their leadership.”

Republicans Push Tax Cut for the Wealthy – A Republican House bill would offer a tax cut to small businesses, but it is drawn so broadly that it would benefit anyone with income through partnerships and other ‘pass-through entities.’ Almost half the benefit would accrue to the households with income over $1 million…”

After Protecting Rich, Republicans Target The Poor – Republicans propose new cuts in food aid for the poor. Driving the latest cuts is a newer narrative, voiced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), that the social safety net is at risk of becoming a ‘hammock.’ … An average family of four would face an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits after Sept. 1 and, even more important, tighter enforcement of rules would require that households exhaust most of their liquid assets before qualifying for help. This hits hardest among the long-term unemployed, who would be forced off the rolls until they have spent down their savings to less than $2,000 in many cases.”

ROMNEY LIES: Claims John Kerry Released 2 Years Of Tax Returns But Kerry Actually Released 20 – In a CNBC interview with Larry Kudlow on April 17, Mitt Romney defends his decision to release only two years of tax returns — both filed after he decided to run for President — by claiming that 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry also released two years. In fact, John Kerry released not two years of returns, but 20 years of returns.

Thus far, Mitt Romney has only released one year of returns. Romney’s father, George Romney, released 12 years of returns, stating “one year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.”

Regards,

Jim

Wisconsin Equal Pay Law Repealed Because “Money Is More Important For Men” – The Republican Governor of Wisconsin, with little notice or discussion, repealed the state’s Equal Pay law. For Scott Walker, it was no doubt the most logical step in his ongoing war on women and the working class, as the Equal Pay Law protected not just women but any protected class.

Republican state senator Glenn Grothman, who was an enthusiastic fan of repealing the law. According to Grothman, not only is there no actual pay gap between the sexes, if there was one it wouldn’t matter anyway. After all, men need money more than women do, since they have families to support. “You could argue that money is more important for men,” he told Goldberg. “I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”

Grothman’s views on women in the workplace is very 1960s sitcom to start with, but his understanding of breadwinning is even more so. Many families have two breadwinners, as both partners either chose to or have to both be in the workplace. And the majority of families lead by just one parent have mothers at the helm.

Then again, when asked about his source for his figures that prove there is no wage gap between the sexes, Grothman stated it was Ann Coulter.

The Top 1% Had a Fantastic 2010 at the Expense of Everyone Else – In 2010, the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery. The bottom 90% of Americans lost $127, the bottom 99% of Americans gained $80, and the top 1% gained $105,637. This chart shows that the very richest Americans have seen the fastest bounce back in terms of income (the blue line is the richest 0.1 percent, while the red is the richest 1 percent):

Texas Schools Having to Make Do On a Shoestring – For public school districts in Texas, this has been the year of doing without. Texas lawmakers cut public education financing by roughly $5.4 billion to balance the state’s two-year budget during the last legislative session, with the cuts taking effect this school year and next.

The budget reductions that districts large and small have had to make have transformed school life in a host of ways — increasing class sizes, reducing services and supplies and thinning the ranks of teachers, custodians, librarians and others, school administrators said.

Superintendents have been cutting back on everything from paper to nurses and have had to become increasingly creative about generating revenue. They are selling advertising space on the sides of buses and on district Web sites, scaling back summer school, charging parents if their children take part in athletics or cheerleading and adding periods in the school day so fewer teachers can accommodate more students.

In suburban Fort Worth, the Keller Independent School District eliminated 100 positions and some sports teams and no longer has uniformed officers providing security after it canceled contracts with local police agencies.

One Central Texas district, Dripping Springs, reduced its custodial staff and has relied on teachers to pick up the slack. Janitors now visit the classrooms every other day, leaving teachers to clean and sweep their rooms on the off days. Off day or on, teachers also must collect their trash and set it in the hallway, part of custodial changes aimed at saving the district $149,000.

In Hutto, a district with 5,600 students and one high school, administrators cut $4 million from this school year’s budget, eliminating 68 positions and taking the unusual step of temporarily shutting one of its elementary schools. The school, Veterans’ Hill Elementary, will stay closed for two years to save the district $1 million annually, and its 500 students, including two of the superintendent’s children, were sent to other schools. The only way to transfer the students was to take another unusual step: all fifth graders were moved out of elementary schools and into middle schools.

The district must trim an additional $1.2 million for next school year, and proposals include charging for bus service, canceling instructional field trips and eliminating music and art teachers in elementary schools.

“It’s almost like slow death,” said the superintendent, Douglas Killian, during a visit to Veterans’ Hill, where the classrooms are now used by adults as part of a higher education center run by Temple College and Texas State Technical College. “We’re being picked apart. It’s made a tremendous morale issue in the district. I’ve noticed that folks are a lot more on edge.”

From the previous school year to the current one, districts across Texas eliminated 25,286 positions through retirements, resignations and layoffs, including 10,717 teaching jobs, according to state data analyzed by Children at Risk, a nonprofit advocacy group in Houston.

However, several lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Legislature have played down the impact of the $5.4 billion in cuts on schools statewide. In an interview in February with The Dallas Morning News, Gov. Rick Perry said he saw no need for a special legislative session to restore some of the education funding that was eliminated last year and said the schools were receiving an adequate amount of money.

More Bad Deeds From State Board of Education Member David Bradley – The Examiner, a Southeast Texas newspaper based in Beaumont, calls the controversy over two State Board of Education campaign fundraisers last weekend “another embarrassment for David Bradley.” The editorial today recounts a list of shenanigans by a ringleader of the state board’s far-right faction over the years, including:

Bradley’s indictment on a charge of violating the state’s Open Meetings Act in 2002
Bradley’s support for new social studies curriculum standards in 2010 that even the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute has said are filled with “political distortions.”

Claims by a former state board member (and fellow Republican) that she felt so threatened by Bradley that her husband asked the Texas Education Agency to post an armed guard at board meetings.

And now someone who publishes instructional materials, David Barton, has been a featured speaker at two campaign fundraisers for Bradley, who sits on a body that approves instructional materials for use in public schools across Texas. The Texas Freedom Network has called on the district attorneys in Jefferson (Beaumont) and Harris (Houston) counties — where the fundraisers were held — to determine whether Barton’s fundraising help violated state law.

Republican primary voters will have a chance to end this embarrassment on May 29 by voting for Rita Ashley, a former teacher, Legislative Director for the Chairman of the House Public Education Committee, and Clerk for the House Public Education Committee.

Wisconsin Republicans Repeal Equal Pay for Women Enforcement Act – Thursday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed a bill repealing a 2009 law that that made enforcing equal pay laws easier, proving that Wisconsin remains among the most combative turfs in the war on women.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act allowed individual victims of wage discrimination to bring their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system rather than only in federal court as is typically the case with wage discrimination claims. Gov. Walker had until 5:00 p.m. Thursday to sign the repeal and he did, with as little hoopla as possible.

State Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) and Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), the authors of the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, criticized Walker on Thursday for not informing the public of his actions on SB 202. “We are finally starting to see progress here in Wisconsin, yet like their counterparts across the country, Legislative Republicans want to turn back the clock on women’s rights in the workplace,” said Hansen.

Sign the DGA petition right now to tell Governor Walker that we will not let this latest assault on women’s rights prevail without a fight.

“Pro-Life” Republican Govornor Prefers Dead Babies Over Health Care For Illegal Immigrants – When Republican Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman signed the country’s first 20 week abortion ban back in 2010, he was eager to prove his stripes as a “pro-life” legislator.

That same session, he also vetoed Medicaid funds that would provide prenatal care for undocumented pregnant women, saying he couldn’t support any taxpayer dollars going to illegal immigrants, despite the fact that their children would in fact be citizens of the country.

When the unicameral legislature originally enacted the ban, they soon tried to find other ways to fund prenatal care for undocumented women rather than through taxpayer funds after learning how dire the consequences could be for the babies if a woman didn’t have access to health care. They were told about a “4 percent death rate during the first year of life for those babies whose mothers had no prenatal care at all. The high death rate has many factors, including that mothers who don’t get prenatal care may be less likely to take their children to doctors after birth. But prenatal care does play a role,” too, the health expert informed them.

Still Heineman’s threat to veto any bill that tried to get funding to these women kept the politicians at bay. This, despite the fact that doctors were reporting women who were choosing to have abortions rather than continue their pregnancies because they couldn’t afford prenatal care.

Koch Brothers, Worth $50 Billion, Sue Widow Over $16.00 of Nonprofit’s Stock – With the Koch brothers, it’s all about control. They reign over the largest private oil company in the U.S. with estimated revenues of $100 billion. They wield power over a sprawling network of nonprofit front groups with unbridled influence over everything from the Tea Party to economics professors at publicly funded universities. Forbes lists their personal wealth as $25 billion each. They own mansions in the toniest towns in America. And last week, in a decidedly Scrooge-esque maneuver, they filed a lawsuit against a widow who lost her husband to a stroke a mere four months ago over stock she inherited in the Cato Institute worth a measly $16.00. It’s part of the Koch brothers plan to take over the Cato Institute.

Millions in Texas State Jobs Program Funds Go to Only a Few Companies for Low-Wage, High Turnover Jobs – Millions of dollars in state subsidies designed to stimulate job creation have gone to a handful of Houston-area employers, mostly in industries where wages are low and employee turnover is high, a Houston Chronicle analysis shows. While 1,150 companies have signed up for the program – which provides up to $2,000 for each qualified worker hired – just 11 firms have claimed more than half of the $6.6 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Leading the list are Wal-Mart, which has collected $704,200 for hiring 404 employees, and ACS, which received $509,600 for bringing on 305 workers, according to data from the Gulf Coast Workforce Board. ACS operates call centers, information technology support, medical billing and human resource consulting services.

Rick Levy, legal director for the Texas AFL-CIO in Austin, questions the logic of subsidizing Wal-Mart. The giant retailer already has received 10 percent of the total funds and potentially can more than double that because it has another 459 employees enrolled in the program.

The second-biggest local user, ACS, a Xerox subsidiary, stands to receive as much as $462,000 more in wage subsidies – on top of the $509,600 it already has received – if another 231 employees who are enrolled in the program stay on the job for at least 120 days. While ACS was receiving wage subsidies in 2011, however, it also was handing out pink slips.

Regards,

Jim

Supreme Court Rules That Routine Strip Searching Is Legal Even If You Haven’t Been Charged With Any Crime – No matter that you’re not actually guilty of anything, or that you haven’t even been charged. All they need to do is hold you. It doesn’t even matter that blanket strip-search policies are considered human rights violations in other, more civilized countries. The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Rick Santorum Falsely Claims California Schools Don’t Teach American History – Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum claimed on Monday that most public universities in the University of California system do not offer American history courses.

That claim is false.

UC spokesperson Brooke Converse pointed out to ThinkProgress that every undergraduate at all 10 UC campuses are required to “study American history and institutions.” According to the UC website, each campus decides how its students may meet the requirement.

The only school in the UC system that does not offer American history courses is the San Francisco campus, which is a medical school.

Romney PAC Gave Money to Race-Baiting Anti-Gay Group – A state political action committee for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave $10,000 to the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay group who it emerged last week had used race-baiting tactics in order to fight marriage equality. The HRC notes that Romney’s PAC did not disclose the contribution in its Federal Election Commission filings.

The Human Rights Campaign secured unsealed documents from a court case into NOM’s campaign funding in Maine. NOM had stridently resisted releasing these documents, and it soon became clear why. Page 13 of the document showed NOM at its race-baiting worst, saying:

The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks–two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots …

Republican House Leadership Wants to Deny Lesbian Veteran With MS Full Disability Benefits – The Republican House leadership has announced it will intervene in a Defense of Marriage Act lawsuit that challenges the federal ban’s denial of full disability benefits for the spouse of a military veteran coping with MS.

Fox News Conducted Smear Campaign Against Chevy Volt Electric Car, Says … Fox News – Conservatives, led by Fox News, have been pushing a variety of lies about the Chevy Volt. They’ve falsely asserted that it is unsafe and a creation of the Obama administration, using absurd terms to discourage sales like, “exploding Obamamobiles.”

This relentless partisan campaign against American products and American jobs has been so successful that GM CEO Dan Akerson suggested it contributed to lower than expected demand, “We did not design the Volt to become a political punching bag and that’s what it’s become.”

Yesterday, in an astonishing burst of candor, Fox & Friends has set the record straight with its story, “Can the Chevy Volt help win the War on Terror?”

Their conservative guest, Lee Spieckerman, CEO of Spieckerman Media, a self-described “drill, baby, drill guy,” debunks every single right-wing myth about the Volt, noting:

“I love Fox news, and I feel like I’m kind of attacking my own family here. I love O’Reilly, I love Neil Cavuto, I love Eric Bolling, but like a lot of my fellow conservative, they seem to have kind of a fetish for demonizing the Volt.

They are perpetuating the myth that the Volt was some kind of Obama administration green energy fantasy that as you say was forced on General Motors during the bailout. It’d been in development two years before Obama was elected. And it was championed by … Bob Lutz, who is a conservative and a climate change skeptic. So you know it’s a myth. The tax break for buying the Volt was implemented by the Bush administration. It was not something that was implemented under the Obama administration. So unfortunately, there have been a lot of myths perpetuated.”

Fox debunking itself — now that is must-see TV, something I’m not certain you’re ever going to see again.

Republican Ryan Budget Gives to the Rich and Takes From Everyone Else – The Republican Ryan Budget provides an average cut for those with yearly incomes over $1 million (12.5 percent) six times greater than the cut for middle-income people (1.9 percent). The Ryan budget would also maintain current tax cuts only for high-income families; this plan would allow the tax cuts for working-poor and middle-class households to expire.

This budget imposes trillions of dollars in spending cuts, 62 percent of which would come from low-income programs that women and families rely on, like Medicare, Medicaid, and federal student aid programs.

Regards,

Jim

Galveston clerk’s troubles prompted alert to courthouse officials –

After admitting to beating his wife in December, a DWI charge and threats that forced the lockdown of a school last week, Galveston County’s District Clerk Jason Murray was the subject of a law enforcement bulletin warning Harris County courthouse security to beware.

The fear, apparently, was that the 37-year-old would use a uniform to illegally bring a gun or a crossbow to the courthouse where his estranged wife works as a defense lawyer.

On Tuesday, Murray appeared in a Houston courtroom to turn over law enforcement uniforms he kept from his work with the Harris County sheriff’s office and other agencies.

“Regardless of any credentials he may present, under no circumstances should he be allowed to bypass any screening station,” the bulletin read in bold. While he has credentials as the elected district clerk, the bulletin noted, “He is also a former Harris County Deputy and may also have law enforcement credentials in his possession from Harris County, Galveston County or Caldwell County.”
Carson Joachim, Murray’s attorney, said the alert was issued last week in connection with an arrest warrant for violating his probation.

“My understanding is that it was a precautionary measure prior to him posting bond,” Joachim said. “I don’t consider him a threat to anyone.”

Murray appeared in County Court at Law 12 on Monday and Tuesday, accused of violating his probation by getting a DWI charge on March 27 and by threatening his wife on March 25.

In the DWI case, the car he was driving struck another car stopped at a red light about 4:45 p.m.
League City police officers arrived, cited Murray and released him. Murray then hit a curb and was driving erratically, forcing officers to pull him over again.

School threat
Tamara Spencer, a spokeswoman for the League City police, said Murray did not smell of alcohol or seem intoxicated to the officers on the scene.

During the second stop, Murray began acting differently, told officers he had taken prescription pills and was arrested on a driving while intoxicated charge.

The day before, his estranged wife, Mekisha Jane Murray, had called police because a text from her teenage son indicated he was in fear for his life at school.

Creekside Intermediate School was placed on lockdown at 2 p.m. after Mekisha Murray reported that a threat was made to her child’s life.

Her divorce lawyer, Stephanie Proffitt, said Mekisha Murray reported her son sent her text messages saying that his father intended to kill him and then kill himself.
“He’s a scary guy,” she said.

Looking at removal
In Galveston, Murray’s conduct has so concerned Galveston County officials that judges are researching the process for removing him, said state District Judge Susan Criss.

“The concern has been raised and people are asking us about the process,” she said.

Criss said Murray squared off against her last week about a change in courthouse security that prevented him from carrying a gun into his workplace.

Murray “confronted me and said he thought it was done totally to embarrass him,” Criss said.
Murray, whom she described as furious, told her, “The people entrusted him to handle all the court files and to know where all the wire taps are.” She could not explain his reference to wire taps.