This week on Information Underground: the Spring Break Call-In! This week is your chance as listeners to join in on the conversation and voice your opinions on the issues. To join in on the conversation call the KEOS Bell Studios during the show at (979) 779-5367. You can also leave comments or questions on the Information Underground Facebook page during the show.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
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Friday, March 12, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Headlines
Local Politics
Flores and Curnock Advance to Runoff in Republican Congressional Primary
According to an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, Rob Curnock and Bill Flores are advancing to the primary runoff that will decide the Republican nominee for Texas Congressional District 17.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M and University of Texas Share Budget Ideas
Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin are archrivals, but faculty members of the Texas’s two research giants united this week. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that both schools are Texas' only top-tier research universities and have fall student populations hovering near 50,000 and are the flagships for their systems. The two colleges have even more similarities this year: both, along with all of the state's public higher-education institutions, are bracing for a planned 5 percent state reduction. The schools are preparing for roughly the same amount of cuts -- about $28 million for A&M and $29 million for UT. The Texas A&M athletics department has not been asked to make reductions, while UT athletics would shoulder $5 million through trademark licensing, sponsorships, revenues and cash reserves. UT-Austin will place the burden on fiscal year 2011 and leave fiscal year 2010 -- the current year that began Sept. 1 -- untouched. At Texas A&M, the planned cuts would be roughly split between the two years.
Texas News
State Investigating Alleged Leak of TAKS Test
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Education Agency is investigating allegations that staff at a Houston ISD elementary school had access to a secure TAKS test and perhaps shared an essay topic with students before the writing exam, which is scheduled for today. The investigation centers on Jefferson Elementary, but in case the test question got shared with other HISD campuses, the TEA has issued a new secret essay topic for all elementary schools in the district. Agency officials do not suspect the test information was shared with other school districts, so the test change only involved the Houston Independent School District. The affected exam is the fourth-grade writing section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Scores on the high-stakes exams factor into a school's state accountability rating — low marks can lead to public embarrassment and sanctions. HISD also awards performance bonuses — often worth thousands of dollars — to employees based on the scores, though the writing exam plays only a small part in the calculation.
National Politics
Majority of Americans Think Washington is Broken
An overwhelming majority of Americans think that their federal government is gridlocked by partisan infighting and turf battles and can't accomplish anything, according to a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll. Yet the anger and frustration with Washington aren't directed solely at either party and don't automatically add up to a tidal wave against the governing Democrats in this year's elections for control of Congress, the poll suggested. Four out of five Americans, 80 percent, said that Washington couldn't accomplish anything because of fighting between the political parties and branches of the government, the poll found. Only 17 percent disagreed. The sentiment is deeply held: Fifty-one percent strongly agree that gridlock renders the government impotent. It's also felt across the political spectrum, with 81 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents agreeing that the government is bogged down.
War and Peace
Airstrikes Kill Fewer Afghans Civilians But More Dying on Ground
According to an article by McClatchy News Service, even as U.S. forces take steps to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed by aerial attacks, other civilian casualties remain stubbornly high — deaths in so-called escalation of force incidents in which edgy American troops fire on civilians who've come too close to their convoys or roadblocks. The number of Afghans killed in such incidents rose 43 percent in 2009 to 113, from 79 in 2008, while the total number of NATO coalition-caused civilian deaths and injuries declined 15.5 percent, to 535 from 633. How to avoid killing civilians has been a persistent problem for American troops since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when several well publicized incidents of U.S. soldiers killing friendly civilians soured many Iraqis on the American presence.
Economy
Federal Government Plans New Measure for Poverty
The federal government announced on this week that it would begin producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed nearly a half-century ago by an obscure civil servant in the Social Security Administration. The New York Times reports that advocates for the poor and technical experts have argued for years that the original standard, developed in conjunction with the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, was anachronistic. The civil servant who created it, Mollie Orshansky, based it on the Agriculture Department’s cheapest meal plan, on the assumption that the average family spent a third of its income on food at the time. Her formula has largely remained the same except for inflation adjustments. The new supplemental measure will be released for the first time in the fall of next year. It adapts National Academy of Sciences recommendations issued in 1995 and later embraced by, among others, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to formulate antipoverty policies.
Environment
Weedkiller in Waterways Change Frogs' Sex Traits
According to an article in the Washington Post, a new study has found that male frogs exposed to the herbicide atrazine -- one of the most common man-made chemicals found in U.S. waters -- can make a startling developmental U-turn, becoming so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seems likely to add to the attention focused on a weedkiller that is widely used on cornfields. The Environmental Protection Agency, which re-approved the use of atrazine in 2006, has already begun a new evaluation of its potential health effects. In recent years, a series of scientific studies have seemed to show atrazine interfering with the hormone systems that guide development in fish, birds, rats and frogs. In many cases, the result has been "feminized" males, with behaviors or body parts more like those of females. The new study appeared to show an even more drastic transformation: Some male frogs became female, in everything but their genes.
Health Care
Anthem Blue Cross Manipulated Data to Justify Massive Rate Hike
Internal documents show one of the country's largest for-profit health insurers, in an effort to maintain profits, manipulated data to justify a rate increase on individual premiums in California this year by as much as 39 percent. TruthOut.org reports that last month, it was revealed that Anthem Blue Cross notified thousands of its 800,000 customers in California who hold individual plans that they would be affected by a rate hike as of March 1. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report, Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System, that identified how other for-profit health insurance companies were planning massive rate increases in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Human Rights
Apple Admits Using Child Labor
According to an article in the London Telegraph, at least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China. Apple also has factories working for it in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States. Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. Apple has been repeatedly criticized for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight.
Civil Rights
Texas Governor Grants State's First Posthumous Pardon
Texas Governor Rick Perry pardoned a man this week who died in prison after serving more than 13 years for a wrongful rape conviction. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Perry granted the state's first posthumous pardon to Tim Cole in Austin after receiving a recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Cole was convicted of a 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock. The Army veteran was cleared by DNA evidence in 2008, nine years after he died in prison of complications from asthma at age 39. The family had sought a pardon from Perry, who was sympathetic but maintained he could not legally grant a posthumous pardon. The state attorney general clarified the law in January, clearing the way for the pardon. Cole is the first Texas man to be posthumously cleared by DNA testing. The 2008 test cleared Cole and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who confessed in several letters to court officials that date back to 1995.
Women’s Issues
Military to Review Ban on Women in Combat
According to an article in the Associated Press, US commanders are taking a second look at policies that bar women from ground combat, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have thrust female soldiers into the thick of the fight. Despite a policy designed to keep women away from units engaged in ground combat, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed women in battle with insurgents who do not operate along defined front lines.
As a result, women have earned medals for valor and praise for their mettle. Advocates of women in combat say such cases are rare, and that the military requires all parents to have firm plans in place for their children before they deploy -- or else leave the force.
More than 220,000 women have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 120 of them have been killed in the conflicts, according to the Pentagon.
GLBT Issues
Lieberman Introduces Bill to Repeal DADT
Independent senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut introduced the Senate’s first “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal bill along with 11 Democratic cosponsors including Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, but no Republicans. The Advocate reports that the legislation, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2010, would repeal the 1993 law that banned lesbian and gay soldiers from serving openly in the military and replace it with a policy that prohibits discrimination against service members on the basis of their sexual orientation. Lieberman explained that the nondiscrimination provision would make the change “more permanent legislatively,” so a future administration couldn’t revert back to something akin to “don’t ask, don’t tell” by executive action. Lieberman, who has opposed the ’93 law since its inception, said ending the policy has significant support and that he would push for passing the bill this year, although he wasn’t sure he had the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.
Flores and Curnock Advance to Runoff in Republican Congressional Primary
According to an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, Rob Curnock and Bill Flores are advancing to the primary runoff that will decide the Republican nominee for Texas Congressional District 17.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M and University of Texas Share Budget Ideas
Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin are archrivals, but faculty members of the Texas’s two research giants united this week. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that both schools are Texas' only top-tier research universities and have fall student populations hovering near 50,000 and are the flagships for their systems. The two colleges have even more similarities this year: both, along with all of the state's public higher-education institutions, are bracing for a planned 5 percent state reduction. The schools are preparing for roughly the same amount of cuts -- about $28 million for A&M and $29 million for UT. The Texas A&M athletics department has not been asked to make reductions, while UT athletics would shoulder $5 million through trademark licensing, sponsorships, revenues and cash reserves. UT-Austin will place the burden on fiscal year 2011 and leave fiscal year 2010 -- the current year that began Sept. 1 -- untouched. At Texas A&M, the planned cuts would be roughly split between the two years.
Texas News
State Investigating Alleged Leak of TAKS Test
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Education Agency is investigating allegations that staff at a Houston ISD elementary school had access to a secure TAKS test and perhaps shared an essay topic with students before the writing exam, which is scheduled for today. The investigation centers on Jefferson Elementary, but in case the test question got shared with other HISD campuses, the TEA has issued a new secret essay topic for all elementary schools in the district. Agency officials do not suspect the test information was shared with other school districts, so the test change only involved the Houston Independent School District. The affected exam is the fourth-grade writing section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Scores on the high-stakes exams factor into a school's state accountability rating — low marks can lead to public embarrassment and sanctions. HISD also awards performance bonuses — often worth thousands of dollars — to employees based on the scores, though the writing exam plays only a small part in the calculation.
National Politics
Majority of Americans Think Washington is Broken
An overwhelming majority of Americans think that their federal government is gridlocked by partisan infighting and turf battles and can't accomplish anything, according to a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll. Yet the anger and frustration with Washington aren't directed solely at either party and don't automatically add up to a tidal wave against the governing Democrats in this year's elections for control of Congress, the poll suggested. Four out of five Americans, 80 percent, said that Washington couldn't accomplish anything because of fighting between the political parties and branches of the government, the poll found. Only 17 percent disagreed. The sentiment is deeply held: Fifty-one percent strongly agree that gridlock renders the government impotent. It's also felt across the political spectrum, with 81 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents agreeing that the government is bogged down.
War and Peace
Airstrikes Kill Fewer Afghans Civilians But More Dying on Ground
According to an article by McClatchy News Service, even as U.S. forces take steps to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed by aerial attacks, other civilian casualties remain stubbornly high — deaths in so-called escalation of force incidents in which edgy American troops fire on civilians who've come too close to their convoys or roadblocks. The number of Afghans killed in such incidents rose 43 percent in 2009 to 113, from 79 in 2008, while the total number of NATO coalition-caused civilian deaths and injuries declined 15.5 percent, to 535 from 633. How to avoid killing civilians has been a persistent problem for American troops since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when several well publicized incidents of U.S. soldiers killing friendly civilians soured many Iraqis on the American presence.
Economy
Federal Government Plans New Measure for Poverty
The federal government announced on this week that it would begin producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed nearly a half-century ago by an obscure civil servant in the Social Security Administration. The New York Times reports that advocates for the poor and technical experts have argued for years that the original standard, developed in conjunction with the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, was anachronistic. The civil servant who created it, Mollie Orshansky, based it on the Agriculture Department’s cheapest meal plan, on the assumption that the average family spent a third of its income on food at the time. Her formula has largely remained the same except for inflation adjustments. The new supplemental measure will be released for the first time in the fall of next year. It adapts National Academy of Sciences recommendations issued in 1995 and later embraced by, among others, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to formulate antipoverty policies.
Environment
Weedkiller in Waterways Change Frogs' Sex Traits
According to an article in the Washington Post, a new study has found that male frogs exposed to the herbicide atrazine -- one of the most common man-made chemicals found in U.S. waters -- can make a startling developmental U-turn, becoming so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seems likely to add to the attention focused on a weedkiller that is widely used on cornfields. The Environmental Protection Agency, which re-approved the use of atrazine in 2006, has already begun a new evaluation of its potential health effects. In recent years, a series of scientific studies have seemed to show atrazine interfering with the hormone systems that guide development in fish, birds, rats and frogs. In many cases, the result has been "feminized" males, with behaviors or body parts more like those of females. The new study appeared to show an even more drastic transformation: Some male frogs became female, in everything but their genes.
Health Care
Anthem Blue Cross Manipulated Data to Justify Massive Rate Hike
Internal documents show one of the country's largest for-profit health insurers, in an effort to maintain profits, manipulated data to justify a rate increase on individual premiums in California this year by as much as 39 percent. TruthOut.org reports that last month, it was revealed that Anthem Blue Cross notified thousands of its 800,000 customers in California who hold individual plans that they would be affected by a rate hike as of March 1. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report, Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System, that identified how other for-profit health insurance companies were planning massive rate increases in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Human Rights
Apple Admits Using Child Labor
According to an article in the London Telegraph, at least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China. Apple also has factories working for it in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States. Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. Apple has been repeatedly criticized for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight.
Civil Rights
Texas Governor Grants State's First Posthumous Pardon
Texas Governor Rick Perry pardoned a man this week who died in prison after serving more than 13 years for a wrongful rape conviction. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Perry granted the state's first posthumous pardon to Tim Cole in Austin after receiving a recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Cole was convicted of a 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock. The Army veteran was cleared by DNA evidence in 2008, nine years after he died in prison of complications from asthma at age 39. The family had sought a pardon from Perry, who was sympathetic but maintained he could not legally grant a posthumous pardon. The state attorney general clarified the law in January, clearing the way for the pardon. Cole is the first Texas man to be posthumously cleared by DNA testing. The 2008 test cleared Cole and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who confessed in several letters to court officials that date back to 1995.
Women’s Issues
Military to Review Ban on Women in Combat
According to an article in the Associated Press, US commanders are taking a second look at policies that bar women from ground combat, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have thrust female soldiers into the thick of the fight. Despite a policy designed to keep women away from units engaged in ground combat, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed women in battle with insurgents who do not operate along defined front lines.
As a result, women have earned medals for valor and praise for their mettle. Advocates of women in combat say such cases are rare, and that the military requires all parents to have firm plans in place for their children before they deploy -- or else leave the force.
More than 220,000 women have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 120 of them have been killed in the conflicts, according to the Pentagon.
GLBT Issues
Lieberman Introduces Bill to Repeal DADT
Independent senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut introduced the Senate’s first “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal bill along with 11 Democratic cosponsors including Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, but no Republicans. The Advocate reports that the legislation, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2010, would repeal the 1993 law that banned lesbian and gay soldiers from serving openly in the military and replace it with a policy that prohibits discrimination against service members on the basis of their sexual orientation. Lieberman explained that the nondiscrimination provision would make the change “more permanent legislatively,” so a future administration couldn’t revert back to something akin to “don’t ask, don’t tell” by executive action. Lieberman, who has opposed the ’93 law since its inception, said ending the policy has significant support and that he would push for passing the bill this year, although he wasn’t sure he had the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our studio guest is Karl-Thomas Musselman, publisher of the Burnt Orange Report. Musselman has been the Tech Director for the Travis County Democratic Party, Online Coordinator of the Rick Noriega for US Senate campaign, and Campaign Manager for the Mark Strama for State Representative campaign. Our topics of conversation will include the progressive blogosphere in Texas and the 2010 political campaigns and elections. Liberal Library: The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
Friday, February 26, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our studio guest is Dr. Jennifer Mercieca, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University, and Dr. Justin Vaughn. Our topic of conversation will be the conference hosted by Texas A&M University, Rhetoric, Politics, and the Obama Phenomenon.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
Information Underground on Facebook
Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
Information Underground on Facebook
Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Headlines
Local News
Wellborn Special Election Request Denied
According to a report by KBTX Channel 3, Wellborn residents are considering their next move after plans to have a special election where postponed. The College Station City Council has declined to address the Citizens for Wellborn's request to have a special election in May which would let residents decide if they would like to incorporate their area. More than 400 residents signed a petition in favor of calling an election earlier this year. Instead the City Council is waiting to have a workshop on March 11th when all council members can be present. At the workshop they will discuss ways the city can assist Wellborn residents in their efforts and see if other avenues are available other than incorporation or annexation. The College Station Comprehensive Plan calls for annexing Wellborn in three years to ten years time.
Local Politics
Waco VA Regional Office Adds 100 Jobs to Speed up Claims Process
The Waco Veterans Affairs Regional Office will soon add 100 new employees to expedite benefits claims processing to reduce back-logged claims. The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that the jobs were announced at a press conference Thursday with U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, and U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. The positions, which are being funded from the $787 billion stimulus package passed last year, are scheduled to begin March 1. The regional office services veterans in 156 North Texas counties and processed 126,000 claims in the 2009 fiscal year. Pending claims totaled 18,647 at the end of the 2009 fiscal year. A backlog of 3,731 — 20 percent — had been pending for 125 days or longer. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funded 91 new claims positions at the office last year, including 80 temporary posts that were scheduled to end this September.
Texas News
Study Finds Katrina's Impact on Crime Nonexistent
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, a huge crime wave blamed on thousands of Katrina evacuees in Houston and other Southwest cities never happened, and criminologists warned public officials and the media to be careful in attributing crime to the former New Orleans residents. Five criminologists who reviewed crime statistics published a study in the current issue of the Journal of Criminal Justice, and found only a “modest” increase in the murder rates of Houston and Phoenix, and none in San Antonio, three cities that took in thousands of evacuees from storm-ravaged New Orleans. The researchers did not find an accompanying rise in auto theft and assaults and other crimes, which they said would have been expected if dispossessed evacuees were responsible for a crime hike.
Texas Politics
Texas Sues EPA Over Limits on Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Texas filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over a declaration that could broaden government enforcement of carbon dioxide emissions. The McClatchy Newspaper Service reports that Governor Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples announced the lawsuit at a joint news conference to declare that the two-month-old declaration is based on bogus conclusions and could cause billions of dollars of economic damage in Texas. The suit was filed in Washington in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The state will also file a "petition for reconsideration" with the Environmental Protection Agency calling on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to review her declaration. The EPA declared in December that carbon dioxide emissions constitute a threat to public health, opening the door to further regulation to control greenhouse gases. The policy could have a far-reaching impact on Texas, which produces more carbon dioxide than any other state and many countries.
National Politics
Record $3.5 Billion Spent on Lobbying in 2009
Lobbying appears to be recession-proof, according to a report out by the Center for Responsive Politics. Companies and interest groups spent a record $3.47 billion on federal lobbying in 2009, a 5% increase over the year before, according to the watchdog group, which tracks money in U.S. politics at its site OpenSecrets.org. The pharmaceutical and health industry dominated lobbyist spending in D.C. at an estimated $266.8 million -- the greatest amount ever spent by a single industry in one year, according to OpenSecrets. Other big spenders included business associations ($183 million), oil and gas ($168.4 million) and insurance ($164.2 million). Each of those sectors spent more in 2009 than in 2008. The biggest lobbying powerhouse was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The association, which represents more than 3 million businesses in various industries, has held the top-spender spot for nine consecutive years. In 2009, the Chamber shelled out about $145 million -- the largest sum spent by a single interest group in one year. That figure marks a 6% increase from last year's lobbying expenses.
Foreign Policy
United States Steps Up Sanctions Diplomacy Against Iran
According to a report by IPS, faced with an increasingly impatient Congress and a defiant government in Tehran, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is currently stepping up its diplomatic efforts in the Middle East as it seeks to prepare the ground for tougher sanctions on Iran. A main goal, if not the main, is to persuade Sunni Arab states in the region to supply China's energy needs so that Beijing gets on board Western plans for more sanctions on the Islamic Republic. As senior administration officials have ratcheted up their sanctions rhetoric, the White House has dispatched four envoys to the Middle East. Top of the list is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is currently on a tour of the Gulf countries, where she has visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
War and Peace
NATO Troops Die in Afghan Fighting
Nato forces in Afghanistan say that six of their soldiers have been killed in a single day during their major offensive against the Taliban in the south. The BBC News reports two of those who died on Thursday were British; the nationalities of the other four have not been given. Nato says it is investigating an air strike which killed seven Afghan policemen in the Kunduz province. The officers were mistakenly hit after a joint Nato-Afghan patrol was ambushed by Taliban insurgents, officials said. On Thursday, Isaf said four Nato soldiers had died and Britain's Ministry of Defence confirmed that two Britons were among them. Then, in a brief statement, Isaf said two further service members had died during Operation Moshtarak on Thursday.
Environment
New Study Says Seas Acidifying Faster Today Than 55 Million Years Ago
According to a report by Yale Environment 360, a study published in the journal Natural Geoscience, compares what happened in the oceans 55 million years ago to what the oceans are experiencing today. The research supports what other researchers have long suspected: the acidification of the ocean today is bigger and faster than anything geologists can find in the fossil record over the past 65 million years. Indeed, its speed and strength — it is estimated that current ocean acidification is taking place at ten times the rate that preceded the mass extinction 55 million years ago — may spell doom for many marine species, particularly ones that live in the deep ocean. While the saturation horizon rose to 1,500 meters 55 million years ago, it will lurch up to 550 meters on average by 2150, according to the model.
Health Care
Report Warns of Rising Health-Insurance Premiums
WellPoint Inc., the country's largest insurer by members, is instating a 39% premium increase for individual plans by Wellpoint's Anthem Blue Cross unit in the individual market in California. The Wall Street Journal reports that at a news conference Thursday, Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius cited more "extreme premium increases," including requests that insurers made to state regulators to raise rates by 56% in Michigan, 24% in Connecticut, 23% in Maine and 20% in Oregon. WellPoint and other insurers say they are raising prices to keep up with rising medical costs and sicker customer pools. WellPoint runs the Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in Maine and Connecticut, where state insurance regulators denied the company's request to raise prices last year, according to the HHS report.
Human Rights
Iranians Protest Bill Limiting Rights of Women
According to an article in the New York Times, in the first burst of activism in months not related to the disputed presidential election, about 1,200 Iranians signed a statement against a bill that would further curb women’s rights, the feminist Web site Change for Gender Equality reported. The statement calls for other groups to protest the bill, which would give men the right to take additional wives without having to tell the current wives under certain conditions and would impose restrictions on alimony for women. The bill was approved last month by Parliament’s legal committee. In Iran, men can have several wives, but they are generally supposed to get permission from their current ones. Women have played a major role in the protests since the election in June, which the opposition claims the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole. Many women have been jailed and at least several were killed in the government crackdown on street protests that followed the vote.
GLBT Issues
Virginia Governor Strips Non-Discrimination Protections For Gay State Workers
Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made by new Republican Governor Bob McDonnell. Talking Points Memo reports that McDonnell on signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination "on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities," as well as veterans. It rescinds the order that former Democratic Governor Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a "fair and inclusive" administration in his inaugural address, Kaine added veterans to the non-discrimination policy - and sexual orientation.
Race and Racism
Utah Legislature Proposes Ending Affirmative Action in Higher Education
According to an article in the Salt Lake City Deseret News, Utah lawmakers are considering a resolution that would call for a constitutional amendment that could effectively end affirmative action and "preferential treatment" in state agencies and higher education. Republican Representative Curtis Oda is proposing legislation that would forbid state agencies, contractors, universities and colleges from providing preference based on race or sex. Under the proposed HJR24, state entities "may not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin with respect to public employment, public education, or public contracting." Federal law, such as Title IX, would still trump any state amendment, and the law would not apply to private businesses or schools, except those that contract with the state.
Wellborn Special Election Request Denied
According to a report by KBTX Channel 3, Wellborn residents are considering their next move after plans to have a special election where postponed. The College Station City Council has declined to address the Citizens for Wellborn's request to have a special election in May which would let residents decide if they would like to incorporate their area. More than 400 residents signed a petition in favor of calling an election earlier this year. Instead the City Council is waiting to have a workshop on March 11th when all council members can be present. At the workshop they will discuss ways the city can assist Wellborn residents in their efforts and see if other avenues are available other than incorporation or annexation. The College Station Comprehensive Plan calls for annexing Wellborn in three years to ten years time.
Local Politics
Waco VA Regional Office Adds 100 Jobs to Speed up Claims Process
The Waco Veterans Affairs Regional Office will soon add 100 new employees to expedite benefits claims processing to reduce back-logged claims. The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that the jobs were announced at a press conference Thursday with U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, and U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. The positions, which are being funded from the $787 billion stimulus package passed last year, are scheduled to begin March 1. The regional office services veterans in 156 North Texas counties and processed 126,000 claims in the 2009 fiscal year. Pending claims totaled 18,647 at the end of the 2009 fiscal year. A backlog of 3,731 — 20 percent — had been pending for 125 days or longer. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funded 91 new claims positions at the office last year, including 80 temporary posts that were scheduled to end this September.
Texas News
Study Finds Katrina's Impact on Crime Nonexistent
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, a huge crime wave blamed on thousands of Katrina evacuees in Houston and other Southwest cities never happened, and criminologists warned public officials and the media to be careful in attributing crime to the former New Orleans residents. Five criminologists who reviewed crime statistics published a study in the current issue of the Journal of Criminal Justice, and found only a “modest” increase in the murder rates of Houston and Phoenix, and none in San Antonio, three cities that took in thousands of evacuees from storm-ravaged New Orleans. The researchers did not find an accompanying rise in auto theft and assaults and other crimes, which they said would have been expected if dispossessed evacuees were responsible for a crime hike.
Texas Politics
Texas Sues EPA Over Limits on Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Texas filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over a declaration that could broaden government enforcement of carbon dioxide emissions. The McClatchy Newspaper Service reports that Governor Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples announced the lawsuit at a joint news conference to declare that the two-month-old declaration is based on bogus conclusions and could cause billions of dollars of economic damage in Texas. The suit was filed in Washington in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The state will also file a "petition for reconsideration" with the Environmental Protection Agency calling on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to review her declaration. The EPA declared in December that carbon dioxide emissions constitute a threat to public health, opening the door to further regulation to control greenhouse gases. The policy could have a far-reaching impact on Texas, which produces more carbon dioxide than any other state and many countries.
National Politics
Record $3.5 Billion Spent on Lobbying in 2009
Lobbying appears to be recession-proof, according to a report out by the Center for Responsive Politics. Companies and interest groups spent a record $3.47 billion on federal lobbying in 2009, a 5% increase over the year before, according to the watchdog group, which tracks money in U.S. politics at its site OpenSecrets.org. The pharmaceutical and health industry dominated lobbyist spending in D.C. at an estimated $266.8 million -- the greatest amount ever spent by a single industry in one year, according to OpenSecrets. Other big spenders included business associations ($183 million), oil and gas ($168.4 million) and insurance ($164.2 million). Each of those sectors spent more in 2009 than in 2008. The biggest lobbying powerhouse was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The association, which represents more than 3 million businesses in various industries, has held the top-spender spot for nine consecutive years. In 2009, the Chamber shelled out about $145 million -- the largest sum spent by a single interest group in one year. That figure marks a 6% increase from last year's lobbying expenses.
Foreign Policy
United States Steps Up Sanctions Diplomacy Against Iran
According to a report by IPS, faced with an increasingly impatient Congress and a defiant government in Tehran, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is currently stepping up its diplomatic efforts in the Middle East as it seeks to prepare the ground for tougher sanctions on Iran. A main goal, if not the main, is to persuade Sunni Arab states in the region to supply China's energy needs so that Beijing gets on board Western plans for more sanctions on the Islamic Republic. As senior administration officials have ratcheted up their sanctions rhetoric, the White House has dispatched four envoys to the Middle East. Top of the list is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is currently on a tour of the Gulf countries, where she has visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
War and Peace
NATO Troops Die in Afghan Fighting
Nato forces in Afghanistan say that six of their soldiers have been killed in a single day during their major offensive against the Taliban in the south. The BBC News reports two of those who died on Thursday were British; the nationalities of the other four have not been given. Nato says it is investigating an air strike which killed seven Afghan policemen in the Kunduz province. The officers were mistakenly hit after a joint Nato-Afghan patrol was ambushed by Taliban insurgents, officials said. On Thursday, Isaf said four Nato soldiers had died and Britain's Ministry of Defence confirmed that two Britons were among them. Then, in a brief statement, Isaf said two further service members had died during Operation Moshtarak on Thursday.
Environment
New Study Says Seas Acidifying Faster Today Than 55 Million Years Ago
According to a report by Yale Environment 360, a study published in the journal Natural Geoscience, compares what happened in the oceans 55 million years ago to what the oceans are experiencing today. The research supports what other researchers have long suspected: the acidification of the ocean today is bigger and faster than anything geologists can find in the fossil record over the past 65 million years. Indeed, its speed and strength — it is estimated that current ocean acidification is taking place at ten times the rate that preceded the mass extinction 55 million years ago — may spell doom for many marine species, particularly ones that live in the deep ocean. While the saturation horizon rose to 1,500 meters 55 million years ago, it will lurch up to 550 meters on average by 2150, according to the model.
Health Care
Report Warns of Rising Health-Insurance Premiums
WellPoint Inc., the country's largest insurer by members, is instating a 39% premium increase for individual plans by Wellpoint's Anthem Blue Cross unit in the individual market in California. The Wall Street Journal reports that at a news conference Thursday, Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius cited more "extreme premium increases," including requests that insurers made to state regulators to raise rates by 56% in Michigan, 24% in Connecticut, 23% in Maine and 20% in Oregon. WellPoint and other insurers say they are raising prices to keep up with rising medical costs and sicker customer pools. WellPoint runs the Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in Maine and Connecticut, where state insurance regulators denied the company's request to raise prices last year, according to the HHS report.
Human Rights
Iranians Protest Bill Limiting Rights of Women
According to an article in the New York Times, in the first burst of activism in months not related to the disputed presidential election, about 1,200 Iranians signed a statement against a bill that would further curb women’s rights, the feminist Web site Change for Gender Equality reported. The statement calls for other groups to protest the bill, which would give men the right to take additional wives without having to tell the current wives under certain conditions and would impose restrictions on alimony for women. The bill was approved last month by Parliament’s legal committee. In Iran, men can have several wives, but they are generally supposed to get permission from their current ones. Women have played a major role in the protests since the election in June, which the opposition claims the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole. Many women have been jailed and at least several were killed in the government crackdown on street protests that followed the vote.
GLBT Issues
Virginia Governor Strips Non-Discrimination Protections For Gay State Workers
Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made by new Republican Governor Bob McDonnell. Talking Points Memo reports that McDonnell on signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination "on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities," as well as veterans. It rescinds the order that former Democratic Governor Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a "fair and inclusive" administration in his inaugural address, Kaine added veterans to the non-discrimination policy - and sexual orientation.
Race and Racism
Utah Legislature Proposes Ending Affirmative Action in Higher Education
According to an article in the Salt Lake City Deseret News, Utah lawmakers are considering a resolution that would call for a constitutional amendment that could effectively end affirmative action and "preferential treatment" in state agencies and higher education. Republican Representative Curtis Oda is proposing legislation that would forbid state agencies, contractors, universities and colleges from providing preference based on race or sex. Under the proposed HJR24, state entities "may not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin with respect to public employment, public education, or public contracting." Federal law, such as Title IX, would still trump any state amendment, and the law would not apply to private businesses or schools, except those that contract with the state.
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