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Local News
Jobless Rate Shows First Decline in Three Months

According to an article in the Brenham Banner-Press, the jobless rate in Washington County dropped slightly last month, figures from the Texas Workforce Commission show. The county’s unemployment rate for November was 6.7 percent, the first decrease in three months. The jobless mark was 6.9 percent in August, September and October. The jobless rate decline came even as the labor force grew to 16,901, the highest for the year. A total of 1,137 people were unemployed. The state unemployment rate dropped to 8 percent in November, the first decrease in Texas in 16 months. The jobless rate fell from 8.3 percent in October and Texas added 17,300 nonagricultural jobs for a total of 70,000 jobs added over two months, according to figures released by TWC. The last monthly decrease came in June 2008, when the rate fell to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent the previous month.

Local Politics
New Republican Candidate Enters District 17 Primary

Wealthy Bryan businessman Bill Flores announced that he is seeking the Republican nomination for the District 17 U.S. House seat that represents Brazos County. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that Flores filed his application with the Republican Party of Texas this week. Flores has spent his career involved in energy and oil and gas exploration and is chief executive officer of Phoenix Exploration in Houston. He also is a major donor to Texas A&M and served as the chair of the school’s Association of Former Students. Two College Station Republicans, nurse Timothy Delasandro and terrorism expert Dave McIntyre, have also filed to run. Waco businessman Chuck Wilson plans to file Friday, his campaign said. Several other Republicans have announced that they plan to get in the race, including 2008 candidate Rob Curnock, Granbury resident Eric Finley and Fort Worth resident J.W. Autem. Incumbent Democrat Chet Edwards, who has held the seat since 1990, filed to run for re-election last week.

Texas A&M News
Third Female Student Assaulted on the Texas A&M Campus

According to a report from KRHD Channel 40, Texas A&M students are being told to stay aware of their surroundings after another female student was assaulted on campus. There have now been three assaults in just over a week. University police say they're determined to find the suspect, who in all three cases was described as wearing dark baggy pants and a black hoody. In the meantime, campus police say the best thing students can do is be aware of their surroundings and walk with confidence and purpose to wherever they're going. If you have information about any of these incidents call University Police at 979-845-2345.

National News
CEOs Received $28.9 Million Average Annual Salary

The CEOs of 10 Wall Street firms that either failed or received taxpayer bailouts were paid an average of $28.9 million per year in the years leading up to the Wall Street meltdown, according to a Public Citizen report released today. Their average pay this decade, calculated through 2007, equaled 575 times the median American family’s 2007 income. The report recounts that former Countrywide CEO Angelo R. Mozilo was paid $244.8 million in the two years leading up to his firm’s demise; former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld received $246.3 million in the three years preceding his firm’s bankruptcy; and former Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O’Neal received a $161.5 million golden parachute when he was removed in 2007.

National Politics
Lawsuit Is Threatened Over Councilman’s Lack of Belief in God

According to an article in the New York Times, City Councilman Cecil Bothwell of Ashville, North Carolina does not believe in God, and his political opponents say that is a sin that makes him unworthy of office, and they have the North Carolina Constitution on their side. Detractors of Mr. Bothwell, who was elected in November, are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in last week, even though the state’s antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the United States Constitution. Mr. Bothwell cannot be forced out of office over his atheist views because the North Carolina provision is unenforceable, according to the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Six other states have similar provisions barring atheist officeholders. In 1961, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed that federal law prohibits states from requiring any kind of religious test for officeholders when it ruled in favor of a Maryland atheist seeking to be a notary public.

Foreign Policy
U.S. House Passes Iran Sanctions Act

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure by a vote of 412 to 12 that will sanction companies that sell gasoline to Iran. United Press International reports that U.S. lawmakers passed the Iran Refined Sanctions Act this week that adds additional measures to the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act. The 1996 measure forbids companies from investing more than $20 million in the Iranian energy sector. The measure was met with bipartisan praise. California's Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, said Washington must have the means to persuade Iran to step in line with the international community.

War and Peace
Drone Attacks May be Expanded in Pakistan

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, Senior U.S. officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in Quetta. The proposal has opened a contentious new front in the clandestine war. The concern has created tension among Obama administration officials over whether unmanned aircraft strikes in a city of 850,000 are a realistic option. Proponents, including some military leaders, argue that attacking the Taliban in Quetta -- or at least threatening to do so -- is crucial to the success of the revised war strategy President Obama unveiled last week. But others, including high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials, have been more skeptical of employing drone attacks in a place that Pakistanis see as part of their country's core. Pakistani officials have warned that the fallout would be severe.

Economy
Economic Reports Show Slow and Steady Recovery

Evidence that manufacturers are helping the economy slowly recover emerged this week in a report that industrial production rose a better-than-expected 0.8 percent in November. The Associated Press reports that the gain showed that consumers are spending more, causing manufacturers to produce more goods. Eventually, the economic rebound could raise inflationary pressures. One reminder was a separate report this week that wholesale inflation surprisingly surged last month. Still, many analysts said the economy remains so weak that they didn't think the price increases would last. Wholesale prices jumped 1.8 percent in November, the Labor Department said. That's more than double the 0.8 percent gain analysts had expected. Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, rose 0.5 percent, the sharpest increase in more than a year.

Human Rights
Human Rights in Middle East Deteriorated in 2009

This week the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies released its second annual report on the state of human rights in the Arab world for the year 2009. The report, entitled Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform, concludes that the human rights situation in the Arab region has deteriorated throughout the region over the last year. The report observes the grave and ongoing Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, particularly the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip through the ongoing blockade and the brutal invasion of Gaza at the beginning of 2009 which resulted in the killing of more than 1,400 Palestinians, 83 percent of them civilians not taking part in hostilities.

Women’s Issues
Iran Cracks Down on Women's Rights Activists

According to an article in Ms. Magazine, Somayeh Rashidi, an Iranian women's rights activist with the One Million Signatures Campaign, was targeted this week with a search of her home and a summons to court. She told Change for Equality, that she "asked the security officials to provide me with identification, but they refused, claiming instead that [she] will find out in the future what intelligence agency they are working with. [She] also objected to the search and seizure of property belonging to [her] roommates, but the security officials did not pay any attention to [her] protests." Rashidi was also arrested in November in connection to public protests and spent two days in prison. Today's search is just the latest in a series of arrests of or attacks/threats towards Iranian women's rights activists. The One Million Signatures Campaign, which seeks to collect one million signatures against the legal discrimination women face under Iranian law, has been particularly targeted. A number of activists associated with the campaign have been arrested and imprisoned in recent years, including American graduate student and feminist activist Esha Momeni.

GLBT Issues
Houston Elects First Openly Gay Mayor

Annise Parker told voters in November she would be Houston's new mayor, and though low voter turnout made it a tighter race than predicted, she's made good on her promise. The Advocate reports that the city controller beat out former city attorney Gene Locke at the polls Saturday. With all of the precincts reporting, Parker won 53% to Locke's 47%, making Houston the largest city in the United States to elect an openly gay mayor. Parker had been endorsed by both the Victory Fund and the Houston Chronicle and was an early favorite to win. Though antigay fliers attacking her sexual orientation were circulated late last month, they appear to have had little effect of the race.

Race and Racism
Pennsylvania Police Officers Indicted in Cover-Up of Immigrant’s Killing

According to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, indictments were unsealed this week against three police officers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania., including the chief, on obstruction of justice and other charges in connection with the beating death of an undocumented Mexican immigrant there in July 2008. A fourth officer was indicted on unrelated corruption charges, meaning that more than half of the seven officers on the force, including its three highest-ranking, face federal criminal charges. Shenandoah is the racially tense Pennsylvania coal town where three white teens were charged in the fatal beating of Luis Ramirez while shouting racial epithets. In May, an all-white jury acquitted Brandon Piekarsky, then 17, of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, and Derrick Donchak, 19 at the time, of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Each was convicted of a misdemeanor assault charge and sentenced to a maximum of 23 months imprisonment, setting off angry criticism from immigrant rights groups who saw them as having gotten away with murder.