Headlines

Local News
Bryan Attempting to Eliminate $1.4 Million From Budget

According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Bryan officials are attempting to eliminate $1.4 million from the city's budget. City Manager David Watkins told the City Council at a meeting this week that the cuts would come from a variety of areas, including holding vacant positions open, delaying the Texas Avenue redevelopment project and the opening of a downtown health clinic for city employees, and upgrading traffic signals to LED lights, which could save up to $50,000 a year. The cutbacks come in addition to the $1.9 million that was cut from the budget last year. The city is projecting more than $41.2 million in revenues and more than $42.6 million in expenditures in 2010.

Local Politics
Republican Candidates Discuss Issues at Forum

Local republicans are hoping to capitalize on the momentum from a this week’s victory in a special senate election in Massachusetts, and unseat democrat Chet Edwards. Candidates for Edwards's District 17 seat in the House, debated this week in College Station. KBTX Channel 3 reports that in 2008, Edwards beat republican challenger Rob Curnock by just 53%. Curnock is back again, along with four other republicans who hope the election swings the other way this November. Bill Flores, of Bryan, said his 20 years of executive experience in energy companies meant he had balanced more budgets and created more jobs than the other candidates. Other candidates touted their national security experience. Chuck Wilson played up his business experience, along with his work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Dave McIntyre spent the last few years as the director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University. Timothy Delasandro also spent time working for the government, although a nurse now, he served as a Russian language specialist in the Navy and soviet naval analyst for the National Security Agency (NSA).

Texas News
Collision Causes Crude Oil Spill In Port Arthur

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, a collision between an oil tanker bound for Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Beaumont refinery and an outbound vessel towing barges resulted in a major crude-oil spill in the port of Port Arthur, Texas on Saturday. The U.S. Coast Guard says about 450,000 gallons of crude oil has spilled into the Port of Port Arthur area in southeast Texas after two vessels collided. The U.S. Coast Guard says about 450,000 gallons of crude oil has spilled in the port of Port Arthur in southeast Texas after two vessels collided. The U.S. Coast Guard said that the towing vessel and the two barges it was pushing tore a hole on the side of the 807-foot tanker Eagle Otome, spilling an estimated 450,000 gallons of crude oil, or about 11,000 barrels. The Sabine Neches Waterway is closed to all vessel traffic along Port Arthur's river front.

Texas Politics
Perry Voter Turnout Project Signs Up Felons

Governor Rick Perry's campaign has unknowingly paid convicted felons as part-time workers under its incentive program to turn out voters for the Republican primary. The Dallas Morning News reports that the campaign lists about 300 part-time workers on the financial disclosure forms it filed with the state, recruits under the "Perry Home Headquarters" program that pays people to get others to sign up as a Perry supporter and pledge to vote. A handful have criminal histories, a Dallas Morning News review shows.
Beyond that, the program has become a money-making opportunity, especially for those with extensive social networking profiles. Some may be in it more for the cash than the candidate. For instance, one lists herself as a Facebook fan of President Barack Obama, an unlikely political pairing. Campaign officials don't screen those who sign up to be part-timers. They say that both the re-election effort and the workers benefit from the Home Headquarters program. Perry has described the campaign as a grass-roots effort that would help sweep him past Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in the primary. But the voter turnout program has been problematic, requiring campaign staffers to spend crucial time verifying the voters who are recruited, campaign e-mails show.

War and Peace
Number Of Private Security Contractors In Afghanistan Doubles In Just Four Months

According to a report by Talking Points Memo, the military is increasingly relying on private security contractors as President Obama ramps up the war in Afghanistan, with contractors now making up as much as 30% of the armed force in the country, a just-released congressional report shows. In the period roughly tracking with President Obama's first nine months in office, the number of Defense Department armed security contractors soared 236% -- from 3,184 to 10,712 between December 2008 to September 2009. The number roughly doubled between June and September 2009 alone. The new Congressional Research Service report also calculates that contractors in Afghanistan make up between 22% and 30% of the armed U.S. force in Afghanistan. The news of the surge in private security contractors comes as the total number of contractors -- including those who do construction, cook meals, etc -- is also soaring, with over 100,000 already in Afghanistan.

Economy
FDIC Chief Got Bank of America Loans While Working On Its Rescue

Sheila Bair, one of the chief regulators overseeing Bank of America’s federal rescue, took out two mortgages worth more than $1 million from the banking giant last summer during ongoing negotiations about the bank’s bailout and its repayment. The Huffington Post Investigative Fund reports that in the weeks between the closings on her two mortgage loans, Bair met with Bank of America’s chief negotiator in the bailout talks. To avoid conflicts of interest, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which Bair heads, prohibits employees from participating in “any particular matter” involving a bank from which they are seeking a loan. Bair did not seek or receive an exemption until last week, when her agency gave her a retroactive waiver from the rules after an inquiry by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. FDIC officials said there was no link between Bair’s duties and her mortgages.

Environment
NASA Data Shows Past Decade Warmest Ever

According to an article in the New York Times, the decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show. The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said. A separate preliminary analysis from the National Climatic Data Center, a unit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that 2009 tied with 2006 as the fifth warmest year on record, based on measurements taken on land and at sea. The data center report, published earlier this week, also cited the years 2000 to 2009 as the warmest decade ever measured. The new temperature figures provide evidence in the scientific discussion of global warming but are not likely to be the last word on whether the planet’s temperature is on a consistent upward path.

Immigration
Arizona Law Would Criminalize Undocumented Immigrants

Arizona could become the first state in the country to criminalize undocumented immigrants. New America Media reports a bill moving fast through the Arizona Senate would allow local police to arrest and incarcerate someone for “trespassing” into the territory of the state. The trespassing bill would make it a misdemeanor to be in the state illegally. A person arrested twice under the law would be charged with a felony. The Arizona bill includes a number of provisions, including one proscribing “sanctuary polices,” and restricting any government agency or city from limiting immigration enforcement. Similar bills have been unsuccessful in the past. Another version of this law didn’t get sufficient votes during the past Legislative session. In 2006, former governor Janet Napolitano vetoed it and said in a letter that this was an unfunded mandate for local law-enforcement. This time around a new provision in the bill is drawing the attention of religious leaders. It would impose penalties on those who transport, harbor or conceal undocumented immigrants. It also would punish those who encourage an undocumented immigrant to move into the state with a misdemeanor and a $1,000 fine.

Civil Rights
FBI Broke Law for Years in Phone Record Searches

According to an article in the Washington Post, the FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions. E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats. A Justice Department inspector general's report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests.

Reproductive Rights
Questions Raised About Anti-Abortion Groups Getting Virginia License Plate Fee

When a Virginia driver purchases a specialty "Choose Life" anti-abortion license plate, $15 of the $25 processing fee goes to Heartbeat International, a Christian group that distributes the money to pregnancy resource centers located across the state. The Washington Post reports that critics say the license plate program doesn't do enough to determine whether a clinic is qualified for the money. In its 39-page report, titled "Crisis Pregnancy Centers Revealed," NARAL Pro-Choice volunteers and workers said they spent a year investigating 52 anti-abortion pregnancy centers in Virginia, finding that 38 do not have medically trained or supervised personnel on staff, and that two-thirds of the centers provided "some degree of medically erroneous information." The report says 16 trained volunteers went undercover to more than two dozen pregnancy centers and posed as women who were worried they were pregnant.

Women’s Issues
Senate Health Deal Readmits Gender Bias by Insurers

According to an article in Women’s E-News, Women's rights leaders already embittered by lawmakers' compromises on abortion coverage in health reform say Senate negotiators have further hurt women by allowing gender bias--or the practice of charging women more than men--to continue in their version. Larger employers with predominantly female work forces--such as child care providers, visiting nurse associations and even some smaller school districts--would continue to be charged higher premiums "simply because of the demographics of their work force. The Senate bill eliminates gender rating for companies with fewer than 100 employees. Spurred by this further disappointment with the Senate's Reid-Nelson health reform bill--which joins the House version in restricting abortion coverage--the new president of the National Organization for Women is threatening to join those opposing passage of health care legislation in its current form.

GLBT Issues
Florida Gay Adoption Ruling Imminent

Any Wednesday now, the Court of Appeals will release its ruling on whether Florida's ban on gay adoption is constitutional. Any Wednesday now, Martin Gill will learn whether he gets to keep the two foster children he and his partner have been raising for the past five years, and want to adopt. The ACLU of Florida, which is representing Gill in the case, has made the elimination of the adoption ban passed by the Florida Legislature in 1977 a priority. Today Gill will speak at a town-hall meeting sponsored by the ACLU to build public support for ending the prohibition on gay adoption. Florida is the only state that outright bans adoptions by gay people, although it allows gays and lesbians to be foster parents. In November 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman ruled that the law was unconstitutional after Gill and his partner applied to adopt the two boys who are now 4 and 9. The Florida Attorney General's Office, on behalf of the state Department of Children and Families, appealed the ruling.