This week an Information Underground special report: Gay in Aggieland.
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Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Political and Social Thought to the Left of College Station
First Look: District 14 Republican Primary
State Representative Fred Brown is facing his first primary opponents since 2002, and is facing a challenge in the Republican primary for only the third time since being elected to the Texas State House of Representatives in 1998. This year Representative Brown is facing three primary opponents, and at least two of the candidates, if not all three, pose a serious challenge. Brown faces Rick Davis, a former district judge; Buddy Winn, a former tax assessor-collector; and Blanche Brick, the social sciences division chair and a professor at Blinn College. This year the Republican primary will decide who will be the District 14th representative, since no candidates from the Democrat or Libertarian parties have filed.
Gerald “Buddy” Winn was the Brazos County tax assessor-collector for nearly thirty years. According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Winn said in the press release that he not running on a “personal agenda other than being able to serve the citizens of Brazos County.” Representative Brown said in the same article that Winn was not so much running against the incumbent, but rather running for the position. Winn was recently vindicated after being forced to pay more than $10,000 to cover money reported missing from his office's accounts in 1992, county officials admitted that Winn’s account was correct and returned $10,035 to the former tax assessor-collector. Winn’s campaign appears to be centered around his extensive experience in public office, and around a central issue of taxes. According to Winn’s campaign site, he will “fight for tax reform in the Texas Legislature and will file legislation to help reduce tax rates if appraisals go up.”
Former District Judge Rick Davis served on the 272nd District Court for seven years, but was reprimanded by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct twice for actions related to a dispute with the district attorney’s office. In 2003 Judge Davis was reprimanded by the State Judicial Oversight Agency after filing a court of inquiry in 2003 that accused fellow candidate Buddy Winn of being involved in a time-card scam, which was later dismissed. Davis was a candidate against the incumbent District Attorney, Democrat Bill Tuner, during the 2008 election, and lost after a bitter campaign filled with accusations. Davis’s campaign appears to be centered his experience as a judge, and his connections to the local community through Texas A&M and Blinn College. According to Davis’s campaign site, he is campaigning as a fiscally conservative, pro-life, pro-gun rights “committed Republican.”
Blanche Brick is the social sciences division chair and a professor at Blinn College. According to an article in The Ealge, Brick is campaigning in part because she “can ask many of the questions we all have as these policies are addressed at the state level.” Brick has never served in public office. According to Brick’s campaign site, her priorities are fiscal responsibility, education, community protection and development, and transportation.
It remains to be seen what kind of campaign this will be, but Davis has already stirred up some allegations against Brown. According to an article in The Eagle, Davis suggested that Brown may not be fully committed to being a State Representative because of an online resume in which Brown was seeking a “senior executive position in the auto industry.” The resume noted that Brown “carried legislation for car dealers and blocked proposed legislation that would hurt the Texas body of car dealers," and that he would be willing to relocated. Davis characterized it as a “lack of genuineness and a motivation by self-interest,” while Brown said that Davis should be more “concerned about being admonished by the State Judicial Conduct Commission.”
While Winn and Davis have never lost a Republican primary, history and statistics are on the side of Brown. During the last three election cycles in Texas, fifty Republican incumbents from the Texas House of Representatives have been challenged in primaries. Only ten challengers have defeated incumbent Republicans, although this number is trending in the challengers’ favor. In the 2004 Republican primary 12 incumbents where challenged and none were defeated, while in the 2006 primary 21 were challenged and five where defeated, and in the 2008 primary 17 where challenged and five were defeated. It appears that the challengers have about a 20% chance of defeating the incumbent. However, Brown should feel lucky that he is not the Representative of either House District 73 or 101; in the last two election cycles not only has the incumbent Republican faced a primary challenge but they have also lost to the challenger.
State Representative Fred Brown is facing his first primary opponents since 2002, and is facing a challenge in the Republican primary for only the third time since being elected to the Texas State House of Representatives in 1998. This year Representative Brown is facing three primary opponents, and at least two of the candidates, if not all three, pose a serious challenge. Brown faces Rick Davis, a former district judge; Buddy Winn, a former tax assessor-collector; and Blanche Brick, the social sciences division chair and a professor at Blinn College. This year the Republican primary will decide who will be the District 14th representative, since no candidates from the Democrat or Libertarian parties have filed.
Gerald “Buddy” Winn was the Brazos County tax assessor-collector for nearly thirty years. According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Winn said in the press release that he not running on a “personal agenda other than being able to serve the citizens of Brazos County.” Representative Brown said in the same article that Winn was not so much running against the incumbent, but rather running for the position. Winn was recently vindicated after being forced to pay more than $10,000 to cover money reported missing from his office's accounts in 1992, county officials admitted that Winn’s account was correct and returned $10,035 to the former tax assessor-collector. Winn’s campaign appears to be centered around his extensive experience in public office, and around a central issue of taxes. According to Winn’s campaign site, he will “fight for tax reform in the Texas Legislature and will file legislation to help reduce tax rates if appraisals go up.”
Former District Judge Rick Davis served on the 272nd District Court for seven years, but was reprimanded by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct twice for actions related to a dispute with the district attorney’s office. In 2003 Judge Davis was reprimanded by the State Judicial Oversight Agency after filing a court of inquiry in 2003 that accused fellow candidate Buddy Winn of being involved in a time-card scam, which was later dismissed. Davis was a candidate against the incumbent District Attorney, Democrat Bill Tuner, during the 2008 election, and lost after a bitter campaign filled with accusations. Davis’s campaign appears to be centered his experience as a judge, and his connections to the local community through Texas A&M and Blinn College. According to Davis’s campaign site, he is campaigning as a fiscally conservative, pro-life, pro-gun rights “committed Republican.”
Blanche Brick is the social sciences division chair and a professor at Blinn College. According to an article in The Ealge, Brick is campaigning in part because she “can ask many of the questions we all have as these policies are addressed at the state level.” Brick has never served in public office. According to Brick’s campaign site, her priorities are fiscal responsibility, education, community protection and development, and transportation.
It remains to be seen what kind of campaign this will be, but Davis has already stirred up some allegations against Brown. According to an article in The Eagle, Davis suggested that Brown may not be fully committed to being a State Representative because of an online resume in which Brown was seeking a “senior executive position in the auto industry.” The resume noted that Brown “carried legislation for car dealers and blocked proposed legislation that would hurt the Texas body of car dealers," and that he would be willing to relocated. Davis characterized it as a “lack of genuineness and a motivation by self-interest,” while Brown said that Davis should be more “concerned about being admonished by the State Judicial Conduct Commission.”
While Winn and Davis have never lost a Republican primary, history and statistics are on the side of Brown. During the last three election cycles in Texas, fifty Republican incumbents from the Texas House of Representatives have been challenged in primaries. Only ten challengers have defeated incumbent Republicans, although this number is trending in the challengers’ favor. In the 2004 Republican primary 12 incumbents where challenged and none were defeated, while in the 2006 primary 21 were challenged and five where defeated, and in the 2008 primary 17 where challenged and five were defeated. It appears that the challengers have about a 20% chance of defeating the incumbent. However, Brown should feel lucky that he is not the Representative of either House District 73 or 101; in the last two election cycles not only has the incumbent Republican faced a primary challenge but they have also lost to the challenger.
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.
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.
Friday, January 22, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our studio guest is Maggie Charleton, the Brazos County Democratic Party Chairwoman. Our topics of conversation will include the upcoming local Democratic and Republican primary elections, the politics of the Texas gubernatorial campaign, and the approaching midterm elections.
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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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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Sunday, January 17, 2010
Political and Social Thought to the Left of College Station
The Conversation We Are Not Having About Race
The focus of the current conversation about the statements made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) suggesting that then Senator Obama could become the first black President because he was “light-skinned” and because he did not speak with a “Negro dialect” has been entirely on whether or not that statement was racist or just insensitive. Of course the focus of the conversation in the politic discourse is preventing us from having a meaningful conversation about the actual content of the statement. That is because if you want to have a meaningful conversation about this statement and race and racism in American then we have to talk about it in the context of white racism.
First let’s take a look at the context statement. This statement is insensitive and it is racists, actually not necessarily because of the content but because of the context. Senator Reid made this statement from the white racial frame. The first problem is that Reid is saying that then Senator Obama could become President because of his blackness, when in fact President Obama was elected despite of his blackness. Then there is the idea that President Obama is “light-skinned” and therefore more appealing that a black person that is dark-skinned. In this frame white skin is the standard of aesthetic appeal, and the less white a person is the less appealing they are. There is also the notion that President Obama does not speak with a “Negro dialect.” Put aside the debate about the word Negro, this suggest the notion that the vernacular that some blacks use is not as intelligent sounding as the vernacular that some whites use. Once again this reinforces the idea that the way some whites speak is the norm in society.
What about the content of the statement that then Senator Obama could become President because he was “light-skinned”? In reality it is true. Sociological research shows that people of color with light skin are overrepresented in public office, that it is more likely that light-skinned people of color are more likely to receive votes from whites. So, why is this particular content not the subject of the discussion? Because it shows the deep racism that still exist in the white electorate. In fact this racism manifests itself in how an individual views people of color. Another study found that when shown photos of President Obama that had been altered to be either darker, lighter, or unaltered those you did not support Obama identified the darker image as the correct image of the President, while those that did support Obama identified the lighter image as the correct image. As much as commentators like to quote Martin Luther King, in America that color of your skin still matters, not just the content of your character.
What about the content of the statement about then Senator Obama not speaking with a “Negro dialect”? Once again, putting aside the debate about the word Negro, it reality this is also true. Sociological research also shows that when lease applicants where perceived as speaking with a black vernacular they were less likely to secure an appointment than those who were perceived as speaking with a white vernacular. This again is not the content that is the subject of the discussion because it also shows the racism that exists in the white electorate. In fact it is not only evident in how whites perceive the speech of people of color, but even in how whites perceive the names of people of color. Another study found that job applicants that had names that where perceived as being black where 50% less likely to receive a call for an interview than applicants whose names where perceived as being white.
So, let’s look at the part of Senator Reid’s statements that has really made the most amount of people uncomfortable; the Senator’s use of the word Negro. Why is it that words like this made so many people uncomfortable? Mainly because whites are uncomfortable discussing the different words that people of color use to self-identify with, in fact many whites are uncomfortable with the term “people of color” because they identify too closely with the term “colored people.” Why are white so uncomfortable with these term? Why do people like Glenn Beck ask why someone would identify as black or think that African-American is a “bogus term”? Because whites don’t have to come to terms with what to self-identify as racial, in the white racial frame white is neutral.
Republicans have called for Senator Reid to resign and have claimed a double standard, although neither political party has dealt with race and racism in a real way. The reason that Democrats do not have to deal with race and racism in an effective way is because the Republicans are so far behind in dealing with race and racism. When Republicans actually progress in dealing with race and racism then the Democrats might be forced to actually deal with it as an issue. However, for now the Republican Party will continue to use race, gender, and sexual identity as a way to divide Americans and attempt to win elections. In fact the Republicans brought up disgraced former Senator Trent Lott as a comparison to Senator Reid’s remarks, as if saying that then Senator Obama could be elected because of his blackness and not in spite of it was at all similar to Senator Lott saying that American would be better off if a segregationists had been elected President. Several prominent black leaders have accepted Senator Reid’s apology, including the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA). Republicans would suggest that if a Republican Senator would have said similar remarks that not only would the media be critical but that Democratic lawmakers would be asking for their resignation. So why the double standard? Reid has actually worked to improve the lives of the working class and people of color. When you have positive effects on peoples’ lives they can be much more forgiving.
What this incident illustrates is much less about Senator Reid, or President Obama, or the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party, and much more about America’s inability to engage in a meaningful dialog about race and racism. It is going to take more than forty years to repair four hundred years or racial oppression.
The focus of the current conversation about the statements made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) suggesting that then Senator Obama could become the first black President because he was “light-skinned” and because he did not speak with a “Negro dialect” has been entirely on whether or not that statement was racist or just insensitive. Of course the focus of the conversation in the politic discourse is preventing us from having a meaningful conversation about the actual content of the statement. That is because if you want to have a meaningful conversation about this statement and race and racism in American then we have to talk about it in the context of white racism.
First let’s take a look at the context statement. This statement is insensitive and it is racists, actually not necessarily because of the content but because of the context. Senator Reid made this statement from the white racial frame. The first problem is that Reid is saying that then Senator Obama could become President because of his blackness, when in fact President Obama was elected despite of his blackness. Then there is the idea that President Obama is “light-skinned” and therefore more appealing that a black person that is dark-skinned. In this frame white skin is the standard of aesthetic appeal, and the less white a person is the less appealing they are. There is also the notion that President Obama does not speak with a “Negro dialect.” Put aside the debate about the word Negro, this suggest the notion that the vernacular that some blacks use is not as intelligent sounding as the vernacular that some whites use. Once again this reinforces the idea that the way some whites speak is the norm in society.
What about the content of the statement that then Senator Obama could become President because he was “light-skinned”? In reality it is true. Sociological research shows that people of color with light skin are overrepresented in public office, that it is more likely that light-skinned people of color are more likely to receive votes from whites. So, why is this particular content not the subject of the discussion? Because it shows the deep racism that still exist in the white electorate. In fact this racism manifests itself in how an individual views people of color. Another study found that when shown photos of President Obama that had been altered to be either darker, lighter, or unaltered those you did not support Obama identified the darker image as the correct image of the President, while those that did support Obama identified the lighter image as the correct image. As much as commentators like to quote Martin Luther King, in America that color of your skin still matters, not just the content of your character.
What about the content of the statement about then Senator Obama not speaking with a “Negro dialect”? Once again, putting aside the debate about the word Negro, it reality this is also true. Sociological research also shows that when lease applicants where perceived as speaking with a black vernacular they were less likely to secure an appointment than those who were perceived as speaking with a white vernacular. This again is not the content that is the subject of the discussion because it also shows the racism that exists in the white electorate. In fact it is not only evident in how whites perceive the speech of people of color, but even in how whites perceive the names of people of color. Another study found that job applicants that had names that where perceived as being black where 50% less likely to receive a call for an interview than applicants whose names where perceived as being white.
So, let’s look at the part of Senator Reid’s statements that has really made the most amount of people uncomfortable; the Senator’s use of the word Negro. Why is it that words like this made so many people uncomfortable? Mainly because whites are uncomfortable discussing the different words that people of color use to self-identify with, in fact many whites are uncomfortable with the term “people of color” because they identify too closely with the term “colored people.” Why are white so uncomfortable with these term? Why do people like Glenn Beck ask why someone would identify as black or think that African-American is a “bogus term”? Because whites don’t have to come to terms with what to self-identify as racial, in the white racial frame white is neutral.
Republicans have called for Senator Reid to resign and have claimed a double standard, although neither political party has dealt with race and racism in a real way. The reason that Democrats do not have to deal with race and racism in an effective way is because the Republicans are so far behind in dealing with race and racism. When Republicans actually progress in dealing with race and racism then the Democrats might be forced to actually deal with it as an issue. However, for now the Republican Party will continue to use race, gender, and sexual identity as a way to divide Americans and attempt to win elections. In fact the Republicans brought up disgraced former Senator Trent Lott as a comparison to Senator Reid’s remarks, as if saying that then Senator Obama could be elected because of his blackness and not in spite of it was at all similar to Senator Lott saying that American would be better off if a segregationists had been elected President. Several prominent black leaders have accepted Senator Reid’s apology, including the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA). Republicans would suggest that if a Republican Senator would have said similar remarks that not only would the media be critical but that Democratic lawmakers would be asking for their resignation. So why the double standard? Reid has actually worked to improve the lives of the working class and people of color. When you have positive effects on peoples’ lives they can be much more forgiving.
What this incident illustrates is much less about Senator Reid, or President Obama, or the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party, and much more about America’s inability to engage in a meaningful dialog about race and racism. It is going to take more than forty years to repair four hundred years or racial oppression.
Headlines
Local News
Bryan and College Station Landfill Lawsuit Closer to Resolution
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, a lawsuit between Bryan and College Station is one step closer to being dropped after both cities agreed to form a new agency to operate their landfills. College Station City Councilman Dennis Maloney was the only person to vote against the plan at this week’s meeting. Bryan sued College Station in 2008, arguing that it had been left out of the process surrounding the construction of the Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency's new 610-acre landfill in Grimes County, which is scheduled to open this summer. Bryan and College Station are partners in BVSWMA, which operates the cities' solid waste operations, but College Station has the lead administrative role in the partnership. Bryan spent nearly $200,000 on legal fees related to the lawsuit, and College Station spent more than $425,000 to counter the suit. The Bryan City Council signed off this week on the agreement to create a new landfill partnership.
Local Politics
Brazos County Precinct 4 Holds Candidate Forum
This week several Democratic primary candidates in Brazos County Precinct 4 participated in a forum at West Side Barbeque. About twenty-five community members crowded into the local restaurant and listened to the candidates present their platforms and answer questions. Both candidates for County Commissioner for Precinct 4 participated in the forum. Current Commissioner Irma Cauley touted her experience as a commissioner, and challenger Bryan City Council Member Paul Madison agued for his experience on many committees and as a City Council member. Several candidates presented their case for Justice of the Peace, including Rose Jones, Marth Garcia Opersteny, Manuel Aguilar, and Richard Cortez.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M Looking for Funds to Cut After State Mandate
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Texas A&M may have to cut $28 million out of its budget over two years. University officials had expected budget instructions from state officials for several weeks. They came this week, as state leaders directed all agencies and higher-education institutions to plan for a 5 percent reduction in spending. The reduction averages $14 million a year over the two years -- or biennium -- that began Sept. 1. The university has flexibility in deciding how much to reduce each year. Since more than four months have passed in fiscal year 2010, one option would be a smaller cut this year and having fiscal year 2011 shoulder the rest.
Texas News
Chevron Kicks Out Activists From Its Marathon Expo
A group of marathon runners were kicked out and banned from the Chevron Marathon Expo for displaying material that was critical of the oil company, but one of the runners reported to the alternative newspaper Houston Press that the group is continuing as planned. The runners from Rainforest Action Network -- the main office is in San Francisco -- are participating in the marathon on behalf of Emergildo Crillo, an Ecuadorean man who they believe is dying, along with his family, from the billions of gallons of toxic sludge that has been allegedly dumped in the rainforest during the last three decades. Chevron is involved in a court battle in Ecuador because of the sludge.
Texas Politics
Vote on Social Studies Curriculum Delayed Until March
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the conservative rallying points like the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and National Rifle Association made it into a preliminary set of new curriculum standards for Texas public school students, but an effort to include other groups in the political arena — like ones that fight discrimination — failed this week, causing some to question the effect of the partisan balance on the State Board of Education. After two days of wrestling over what to teach lower grades, the board postponed a first-round vote until March because it could not finish a review of proposed social studies standards for high school students. The March vote will produce curriculum standards for a public hearing in May, when final action is expected. Postponement will mean controversial votes on the standards covering history, government, geography and economics will occur after the March primaries. Four of the board members, who are elected, are fighting challenges in their own parties. So far, conservative groups are generally pleased with the early look at the new standards that will influence a decade of school textbooks for more than 4.7 million Texas public school children.
War and Peace
20 Killed in US Drone Attack in Waziristan
A US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed at least 20 today in the tribal belt in North Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold. The Times of India reports that the drone fired two missiles during the strike in Shaktoi region that straddles North and South Waziristan, officials were quoted as saying by TV news channels. Twenty bodies were pulled out of the rubble of the compound, which was destroyed, and the toll could rise further, officials said. The US stepped up drone attacks in North Waziristan after a suicide bomber linked to the Pakistani Taliban killed seven CIA operatives at a forward base in neighbouring Khost province of Afghanistan.
Economy
Foreclosure Filings Rose 21 Percent in 2009
According to an article in the Washington Post, the number of households that received a foreclosure filing -- from a delinquency notice to an auction date -- rose 21 percent last year compared with 2008, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosure activity throughout the country. The pace of foreclosure filings fell during the last months of the year, as lenders implemented a government foreclosure prevention program to modify the mortgages of delinquent borrowers. But as more borrowers become unemployed and fail to qualify for the federal program, foreclosures are expected to peak this year, economists said. Foreclosures remain concentrated in a few states, including Nevada, Arizona and Florida, but also worsened in the Washington region last year. Bank repossessions of homes in the District were stable in 2008, but they increased in Maryland and Virginia.
Health Care
Death Exposes Holes in Texas' Mental Health Care System
The Texas Observer reports that a woman suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare but severe form of postpartum depression, brutally murdered her infant. The woman, who had history of depression and had been institutionalized a year earlier with paranoid schizophrenia, was not admitted for inpatient care after a mental breakdown only days after giving birth to the child. Texas may have the most beleaguered public mental-health system in the country. The state ranks 49th nationally in per-capita spending on mental health; only New Mexico is worse, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. State lawmakers have shorted the system for years. The result of this miserly approach is that hundreds of thousands of Texans with severe mental illnesses must fend for themselves.
GLBT Issues
Judge Rules D.C. Gay-Marriage Vote Would Violate Human Rights Act
According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, thirty-one states have held referendums on whether or not to ban gay marriage, but a Washington, D.C., judge ruled this week that such a vote would violate the District’s Human Rights Act. The ruling upholds a decision by the city's board of elections, which has twice rejected plans by an anti-gay marriage group to hold a referendum on the subject. City council passed an ordinance in December that allowed gay marriage in the District. Opponents of gay marriage say they will appeal the decision to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The decision fits a pattern of judicial activism, which has interfered with the people’s will to ban gay marriage, they say. For gay-marriage advocates, however, the decision is a significant victory. In all 31 states where gay marriage has been put before voters in a referendum, it has lost. If the judge’s decision stands, it removes this hurdle for the District.
Race and Racism
Judge Cites Discrimination in N.Y. Fire Department
A federal judge ruled this week that New York City intentionally discriminated against black applicants to the Fire Department by continuing to use an exam that it had been told put them at a disadvantage. The New York Times reports that in his decision, the judge highlighted how “black and other minority firefighters have been severely underrepresented,” characterizing that as a “persistent stain on the Fire Department’s record.” City officials said that they intended to appeal the decision, but could not do so until the judge had determined what damages the city might face. Legal experts, as well as lawyers for the plaintiffs and city officials, said the decision was the first in recent memory in which a court had found that the city had intentionally discriminated against a large group of people — racial minorities or women, for instance — in the workplace.
Support the Earthquake Recovery Efforts in Haiti
On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense. At the request of President Obama, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are partnering to help the Haitian people reclaim their country and rebuild their lives. The immediate priority is to save lives. The critical needs in Haiti are great, but they are also simple: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. The best way concerned citizens can help is to donate funds that will go directly to supplying these material needs.
To donate to the American Red Cross, text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross Haiti relief fund.
Bryan and College Station Landfill Lawsuit Closer to Resolution
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, a lawsuit between Bryan and College Station is one step closer to being dropped after both cities agreed to form a new agency to operate their landfills. College Station City Councilman Dennis Maloney was the only person to vote against the plan at this week’s meeting. Bryan sued College Station in 2008, arguing that it had been left out of the process surrounding the construction of the Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency's new 610-acre landfill in Grimes County, which is scheduled to open this summer. Bryan and College Station are partners in BVSWMA, which operates the cities' solid waste operations, but College Station has the lead administrative role in the partnership. Bryan spent nearly $200,000 on legal fees related to the lawsuit, and College Station spent more than $425,000 to counter the suit. The Bryan City Council signed off this week on the agreement to create a new landfill partnership.
Local Politics
Brazos County Precinct 4 Holds Candidate Forum
This week several Democratic primary candidates in Brazos County Precinct 4 participated in a forum at West Side Barbeque. About twenty-five community members crowded into the local restaurant and listened to the candidates present their platforms and answer questions. Both candidates for County Commissioner for Precinct 4 participated in the forum. Current Commissioner Irma Cauley touted her experience as a commissioner, and challenger Bryan City Council Member Paul Madison agued for his experience on many committees and as a City Council member. Several candidates presented their case for Justice of the Peace, including Rose Jones, Marth Garcia Opersteny, Manuel Aguilar, and Richard Cortez.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M Looking for Funds to Cut After State Mandate
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Texas A&M may have to cut $28 million out of its budget over two years. University officials had expected budget instructions from state officials for several weeks. They came this week, as state leaders directed all agencies and higher-education institutions to plan for a 5 percent reduction in spending. The reduction averages $14 million a year over the two years -- or biennium -- that began Sept. 1. The university has flexibility in deciding how much to reduce each year. Since more than four months have passed in fiscal year 2010, one option would be a smaller cut this year and having fiscal year 2011 shoulder the rest.
Texas News
Chevron Kicks Out Activists From Its Marathon Expo
A group of marathon runners were kicked out and banned from the Chevron Marathon Expo for displaying material that was critical of the oil company, but one of the runners reported to the alternative newspaper Houston Press that the group is continuing as planned. The runners from Rainforest Action Network -- the main office is in San Francisco -- are participating in the marathon on behalf of Emergildo Crillo, an Ecuadorean man who they believe is dying, along with his family, from the billions of gallons of toxic sludge that has been allegedly dumped in the rainforest during the last three decades. Chevron is involved in a court battle in Ecuador because of the sludge.
Texas Politics
Vote on Social Studies Curriculum Delayed Until March
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the conservative rallying points like the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and National Rifle Association made it into a preliminary set of new curriculum standards for Texas public school students, but an effort to include other groups in the political arena — like ones that fight discrimination — failed this week, causing some to question the effect of the partisan balance on the State Board of Education. After two days of wrestling over what to teach lower grades, the board postponed a first-round vote until March because it could not finish a review of proposed social studies standards for high school students. The March vote will produce curriculum standards for a public hearing in May, when final action is expected. Postponement will mean controversial votes on the standards covering history, government, geography and economics will occur after the March primaries. Four of the board members, who are elected, are fighting challenges in their own parties. So far, conservative groups are generally pleased with the early look at the new standards that will influence a decade of school textbooks for more than 4.7 million Texas public school children.
War and Peace
20 Killed in US Drone Attack in Waziristan
A US drone strike targeting a militant compound killed at least 20 today in the tribal belt in North Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold. The Times of India reports that the drone fired two missiles during the strike in Shaktoi region that straddles North and South Waziristan, officials were quoted as saying by TV news channels. Twenty bodies were pulled out of the rubble of the compound, which was destroyed, and the toll could rise further, officials said. The US stepped up drone attacks in North Waziristan after a suicide bomber linked to the Pakistani Taliban killed seven CIA operatives at a forward base in neighbouring Khost province of Afghanistan.
Economy
Foreclosure Filings Rose 21 Percent in 2009
According to an article in the Washington Post, the number of households that received a foreclosure filing -- from a delinquency notice to an auction date -- rose 21 percent last year compared with 2008, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosure activity throughout the country. The pace of foreclosure filings fell during the last months of the year, as lenders implemented a government foreclosure prevention program to modify the mortgages of delinquent borrowers. But as more borrowers become unemployed and fail to qualify for the federal program, foreclosures are expected to peak this year, economists said. Foreclosures remain concentrated in a few states, including Nevada, Arizona and Florida, but also worsened in the Washington region last year. Bank repossessions of homes in the District were stable in 2008, but they increased in Maryland and Virginia.
Health Care
Death Exposes Holes in Texas' Mental Health Care System
The Texas Observer reports that a woman suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare but severe form of postpartum depression, brutally murdered her infant. The woman, who had history of depression and had been institutionalized a year earlier with paranoid schizophrenia, was not admitted for inpatient care after a mental breakdown only days after giving birth to the child. Texas may have the most beleaguered public mental-health system in the country. The state ranks 49th nationally in per-capita spending on mental health; only New Mexico is worse, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. State lawmakers have shorted the system for years. The result of this miserly approach is that hundreds of thousands of Texans with severe mental illnesses must fend for themselves.
GLBT Issues
Judge Rules D.C. Gay-Marriage Vote Would Violate Human Rights Act
According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, thirty-one states have held referendums on whether or not to ban gay marriage, but a Washington, D.C., judge ruled this week that such a vote would violate the District’s Human Rights Act. The ruling upholds a decision by the city's board of elections, which has twice rejected plans by an anti-gay marriage group to hold a referendum on the subject. City council passed an ordinance in December that allowed gay marriage in the District. Opponents of gay marriage say they will appeal the decision to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The decision fits a pattern of judicial activism, which has interfered with the people’s will to ban gay marriage, they say. For gay-marriage advocates, however, the decision is a significant victory. In all 31 states where gay marriage has been put before voters in a referendum, it has lost. If the judge’s decision stands, it removes this hurdle for the District.
Race and Racism
Judge Cites Discrimination in N.Y. Fire Department
A federal judge ruled this week that New York City intentionally discriminated against black applicants to the Fire Department by continuing to use an exam that it had been told put them at a disadvantage. The New York Times reports that in his decision, the judge highlighted how “black and other minority firefighters have been severely underrepresented,” characterizing that as a “persistent stain on the Fire Department’s record.” City officials said that they intended to appeal the decision, but could not do so until the judge had determined what damages the city might face. Legal experts, as well as lawyers for the plaintiffs and city officials, said the decision was the first in recent memory in which a court had found that the city had intentionally discriminated against a large group of people — racial minorities or women, for instance — in the workplace.
Support the Earthquake Recovery Efforts in Haiti
On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense. At the request of President Obama, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are partnering to help the Haitian people reclaim their country and rebuild their lives. The immediate priority is to save lives. The critical needs in Haiti are great, but they are also simple: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. The best way concerned citizens can help is to donate funds that will go directly to supplying these material needs.
To donate to the American Red Cross, text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross Haiti relief fund.
Friday, January 15, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our guest is Boadicea, the Managing Editor of progressive blog the Texas Kaos. Our topics of conversation will include include the progressive blogosphere in Texas and the upcoming 2010 political campaigns and elections.
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, January 10, 2010
Political and Social Thought to the Left of College Station
One of the most significant places in which human trafficking takes place is only a drive away from Bryan-College Station; Houston has become the largest hub for modern-day slavery in the United States. According to a Free Speech Radio News report, the city’s large sea port, international airport, and geographic position on Interstate 10, which has identified by the Department of Justice as one of the main human trafficking routes in the United States, have contributed to Houston a center of the modern day slave trade.
The Houston Rescue & Restore Coalition organizes bus tours to raise awareness of the human trafficking problem in Houston, a FSFN correspondent took a ride on one the bus tours and reported on how the HRRC points out how to identify areas where human trafficking is taking place:
Although largely a hidden crime, it is possible to detect the red flags of human trafficking from a distance. Traveling down main roads, Houston Rescue and Restore staffers point out street prostitution tracks, parks frequented by teenage runaways, and a day labor site where workers have been tricked out of their pay. But most of the sites flagged on the tour advertise as “spas” or “modeling studios” and have blacked-out windows, barred doors, security cameras, and neon signs stating they're open 24 hours a day. Many are concentrated in one area
While many of the victims of human trafficking are brought to the United States slaves, some of those who become victims are undocumented immigrants. According to the report there are undocumented immigrants who may be forced into prostitution or forced into other work to pay off a debt from being smuggled across the border. Also, teenage runaways are susceptible to falling victim to human trafficking; traffickers will recruit young women by providing security, affection, and generosity before they commercializing their victims.
How bad is the human trafficking problem in Houston? The largest human trafficking case in the history of the continental United States took place in Houston: US vs. Mondragon, over 100 women rescued after being forced into labor. The alternative newspaper Houston Press recently reported on the prosecution of human traffickers for including sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force and the transportation and coercion of minors.
According to statistics compiled by the Polaris Project, throughout the world 27 million people are affected by the modern day slavery that is human trafficking and 800,000 are trafficked across international borders every year. Of the victims approximately 80% are female, 50% are children, and 70% are forced into prostitution. The total yearly profits generated from human trafficking are $32 billion.
Human trafficking is going to remain a significant problem because despite the startling statistics the problem of modern day slavery has not received significant media coverage. Because the victims are so often immigrants, and many times undocumented immigrants, it is easy for people to remain ambivalent about the problem. Over 140 years after slavery was ended in Texas on June 19th a modern day slaver continues.
The Houston Rescue & Restore Coalition organizes bus tours to raise awareness of the human trafficking problem in Houston, a FSFN correspondent took a ride on one the bus tours and reported on how the HRRC points out how to identify areas where human trafficking is taking place:
Although largely a hidden crime, it is possible to detect the red flags of human trafficking from a distance. Traveling down main roads, Houston Rescue and Restore staffers point out street prostitution tracks, parks frequented by teenage runaways, and a day labor site where workers have been tricked out of their pay. But most of the sites flagged on the tour advertise as “spas” or “modeling studios” and have blacked-out windows, barred doors, security cameras, and neon signs stating they're open 24 hours a day. Many are concentrated in one area
While many of the victims of human trafficking are brought to the United States slaves, some of those who become victims are undocumented immigrants. According to the report there are undocumented immigrants who may be forced into prostitution or forced into other work to pay off a debt from being smuggled across the border. Also, teenage runaways are susceptible to falling victim to human trafficking; traffickers will recruit young women by providing security, affection, and generosity before they commercializing their victims.
How bad is the human trafficking problem in Houston? The largest human trafficking case in the history of the continental United States took place in Houston: US vs. Mondragon, over 100 women rescued after being forced into labor. The alternative newspaper Houston Press recently reported on the prosecution of human traffickers for including sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force and the transportation and coercion of minors.
According to statistics compiled by the Polaris Project, throughout the world 27 million people are affected by the modern day slavery that is human trafficking and 800,000 are trafficked across international borders every year. Of the victims approximately 80% are female, 50% are children, and 70% are forced into prostitution. The total yearly profits generated from human trafficking are $32 billion.
Human trafficking is going to remain a significant problem because despite the startling statistics the problem of modern day slavery has not received significant media coverage. Because the victims are so often immigrants, and many times undocumented immigrants, it is easy for people to remain ambivalent about the problem. Over 140 years after slavery was ended in Texas on June 19th a modern day slaver continues.
Headlines
Local News
Veterans Affairs Program Uses Housing Vouchers to Get Homeless Veterans Off Streets
According to an article in the Waco Herald-Tribune, since 2008, Veterans Affairs has reserved 35 rental vouchers for Waco’s homeless veterans, and local officials are hoping to secure that many more in the future once the current allotment is used up. The vouchers typically require a veteran to pay 30 percent of his or her income for rent. That goes a long way toward fulfilling the city of Waco’s 2005 plan for ending chronic homelessness in 10 years, a plan that has support from a coalition of nonprofit and public agencies in Waco. The plan calls for 60 units of “permanent, supportive housing” for the chronically homeless, a population that includes the mentally ill and others who have been on the streets for multiple years. In addition to the VA vouchers, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation has provided four housing vouchers for the chronically homeless and 11 for transitionally homeless. The city is applying for more 12 MHMR vouchers.
Local Politics
Filing Period for County and State Public Office Ends
Monday was the filing deadline for all state and county elections. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that Precinct 2 County Commissioner Duane Peters filed paperwork to run for Brazos County Judge, bringing the number of Republican candidates in the primary to four, including Bryan Mayor Mark Conlee, former Bryan Mayor Ernie Wentrcek and economic consultant Brian Alg. The Brazos County judge earns a base salary of $86,335, and incumbent Randy Sims will not seek re-election. Bryan dentist Don McLeroy also filed to run. He is seeking re-election to the State Board of Education. He was chairman of the board when it gained national attention last year for his advocacy of a more critical approach to evolution in school curriculum. He lost that position in May when the Texas Senate failed to confirm his appointment. Lobbyist and legislative consultant Thomas Ratliff has filed to run for McLeroy's seat, selling himself as a more moderate Republican.
Texas Politics
Texas Lawmakers Face Penalty Over Campaign Expenses
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, State Senator John Whitmire D-Houston, was one of two Houston-area lawmakers accused of converting political contributions to personal use. The other was Ed Chance, Montgomery County Precinct 3 commissioner. The panel dismissed the most serious complaints against both officials, but found they had improperly reported political contributions and expenditures. Whitmire agreed to pay a $3,400 civil penalty and Chance a $500 civil penalty. State law prohibits the conversions of campaign funds to personal use “that primarily furthers individual or family purposes not connected with the performance of duties or activities as a candidate or officeholder.”
National News
Stimulus Funds for Special Education Bypass Special Education
The federal stimulus package set aside $11.3 billion for special-needs education in this school year and the next, but school districts across the country are using those funds for other purposes, reports The Wall Street Journal. A provision in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a version of a statute originally enacted in 1975, makes the move perfectly legal, but it has left special-needs advocates feeling shortchanged. When the federal government amps up funding for special-needs students, the provision allows certain school districts to divert as much as half of the increase to other uses. In this school year, districts in Florida, Nevada and Connecticut have used special-needs funds to save jobs and add math programs. According to a poll conducted by the Government Accountability Office, more districts plan to follow suit. Adding insult to injury, schools must meet certain standards, like special-education graduation rates, to be eligible to divert the funds, so some states are "ignoring or lowering the standards," the Journal reports. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged states not to do this, but school administrators tell the Journal that stretched budgets have left them with little choice but to shift special-needs funding to other uses.
Foreign Policy
Multiple Deployments Leads to Major Increase in PTSD Cases
According to a report by TruthOut.org, soldiers with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are more than three times as likely as soldiers with no previous deployments to screen positive for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression, according to a new study published by the American Journal for Public Health. Additionally, soldiers with multiple deployments are more than twice as likely to report chronic pain and more than 90 percent more likely to score below the general population norm on physical functioning. For the study, researchers assessed the effects of prior military service in Iraq or Afghanistan on the health of New Jersey Army National Guard members preparing for deployment to Iraq. Researchers analyzed anonymous, self-administered pre-deployment surveys from 2,543 National Guard members deployed to Iraq in 2008. They assessed the effects of prior service in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) or Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) on mental and physical health.
War and Peace
Surge in Casualties Predicted in Afghanistan
Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces. The Army Times reports that General Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, made the prediction in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003. As of Dec. 20, there had been 305 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the large majority of those due to hostile action. The number of wounded as of the same date for 2009 was 2,102, with more than half of those unable to return to duty. A month-by-month breakdown using data compiled by Army Times shows that in 2009, the highest number of wounded and dead in Afghanistan occurred from June, with 210 wounded and killed through October, when 318 were listed as wounded or killed. October was the deadliest month for U.S. troops, with 50 killed in hostile action; but September saw the most wounded with 457 taken out of the fight. McCaffrey predicts those numbers will go higher, up to 500 casualties per month, as the winter thaw permits enemy and coalition forces to launch their respective offensives.
Environmental
E.P.A. Seeks Stricter Rules to Curb Smog
According to an article in the New York Times, The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a stricter standard for smog-causing pollutants that would bring substantial health benefits to millions of Americans while imposing large costs on industry and local governments. The standard would replace one set by the Bush administration in March 2008, which has been challenged in court by state officials and environmental advocates as too weak to adequately protect human health and the environment. The Obama administration’s proposal sets a primary standard for ground-level ozone of no more than 0.060 to 0.070 parts per million, to be phased in over two decades. Regions with the worst smog pollution, including much of the Northeast, Southern and Central California and the Chicago and Houston areas, would have more time than other areas to come into compliance.
Immigration
Study Find Immigration Reform Would Boost Economy
Legalizing the status of the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants living in America would create jobs, increase wages and boost the sagging U.S. economy. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the study found that citizenship and flexible limits on legal immigration would serve future labor demands and boost wages for native-born workers. The study released by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center, found legalizing undocumented immigrants already in the United States could add $1.5 trillion to the gross domestic product over the next 10 years. President Obama has urged Congress to pass immigration reform legislation this year that provides a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Republicans have opposed citizenship as an amnesty for those who broke the law and entered the country illegally.
Human Rights
Somali Militants Force UN Agency to Suspend Food Distribution
According to an article in the Environmental News Service, attacks on humanitarian operations and a string of threats and unacceptable demands from armed groups have made it impossible for the world's largest food aid agency to continue feeding up to one million hungry people in southern Somalia. This choking of the humanitarian food lifeline raises the risk of greater instability in the entire Horn of Africa region, parched by the failure of the November rains after years of drought. The UN's World Food Programme said because its humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, the agency will suspend food distributions in much of southern Somalia. Two UN civilian staff members lost their lives in Somalia in 2009, the United Nations said today in a statement announcing the deaths of 28 civilian staff members and seven peacekeeping troops around the world last year. The killings of four World Food Programme staff between August 2008 and January 2009 prompted WFP officials to seek security commitments from local administrations and armed groups in much of southern and central Somalia.
Civil Rights
Washington State to Appeal Felon Voting Decision
Washington State will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that the state's ban on voting by prison inmates is unconstitutional. United Press International reports that Attorney General Rob McKenna announced his plans late Wednesday in a news conference and the state will ask the appeals court to delay enforcement of this week’s ruling. The court ruled this week in a suit originally brought in 1996 by black, Hispanic and American Indian inmates. The court found the justice system in Washington is so infected with racial discrimination that a ban on voting by inmates and felons on supervised release violates civil rights legislation. More than one-third of the state's inmates are from the three minority groups, although they make up only 12 percent of the population. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision contradicts opinions in similar cases by three other circuits.
Reproductive Rights
Curious Spending of Republicans for Choice
A new report by the Center for Public Integrity has revealed that one of the largest organizations working towards getting pro-choice GOP candidates elected to Congress has spent less than 5% of its budget on political campaigns in the last decade. In the last five years, just half of one percent of the one million dollars Republicans for Choice has spent was toward a political candidate, committees or expenditures. y comparison, Federal Election Commission data show the average federal PAC in the recent 2007-2008 cycle dedicated about 35 percent of spending to contributions aiding federal candidates. A comparison to other PACs on both sides of the abortion debate shows that similar groups spend a much greater portion of their funds on candidates and campaigns. Much of the group's spending has been for consulting companies owned by the PAC's chairwoman, Ann E. W. Stone. Those firms -- along with payments to reimburse Stone's expenses for travel, entertainment, and automobile repairs -- comprise more than two-thirds of RFC PAC's expenditures since 2006. And hundreds of dollars more went to pay for Stone's parking tickets.
Women’s Issues
Military Drops Iraq Soldier Pregnancy Policy
Major General Anthony Cucolo clarified his order allowing court-martial for soldiers who become pregnant or who impregnate a colleague in a war zone this week saying that any punishment is unlikely to come to that. The Christian Science Monitor reports that General Cucolo, who commands US forces in the northern sector of Iraq, issued a general order last month in which he stated that getting someone pregnant or becoming pregnant as a way to get out of a deployment could be punishable under the military court system, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, to include court-martial. But after an angry response from women’s rights groups and others, Cucolo on this week appeared to retreat from that stance. While he retains the authority to court-martial a soldier under those circumstances, he said, the punishment would be unlikely to go that far. The policy, which caught the White House off guard, was meant to prevent young families from breaking up under the pressures of frequent deployment for young marines. After an uproar, the service ended the policy. The active-duty force of 1.4 million includes more than 201,000 women at any one time. Of the 2.2 million service members who have deployed to a war zone since 2001, 231,000 are women.
GLBT Issues
N.J. Senate Rejects Bill Legalizing Gay Marriage
According to an article in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the state Senate rejected a same-sex marriage bill this week, a major victory for opponents who contend the measure would infringe on religious freedom and is not needed because the state already permits civil unions. The 20-14 vote defeating the measure followed an hour and a half of public debate inside the packed Senate chamber. The nearly thousand supporters and opponents of the bill held rallies on the Statehouse steps. The measure fell seven votes short of the 21 needed for passage. Last month, the legislation cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee after hours of emotional debate and testimony, which set the stage for today’s full Senate showdown. New Jersey passed a domestic partnership law in 2002 and legalized civil unions in 2006, but supporters say there are major flaws, like problems with pension benefits and hospitals denying visits to partners. They say gay couples do not have equal rights without being allowed to marry. Just four state have legalized gay marriage, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont, while 30 states have banned it through constitutional amendments.
Race and Racism
Data Shows Racial Gaps in Colorado Public-School Suspensions
Black public-school students in Colorado are nearly three times as likely to face serious discipline as their white peers, a disparity that is persistently growing despite efforts to curb it. The Denver Post reports that in the 2008-09 school year, about 70,000, or 8.5 percent, of the state's 818,000 students were suspended, expelled or disciplined for being disruptive, according to a Denver Post analysis of newly released data. Reasons ranged from drug, weapon and alcohol infractions to disobedient and detrimental behavior, the most common — and subjective — reasons. But while black students make up just 5.9 percent of the student population, they were the subject of 12.7 percent of the discipline cases, up from 11.7 percent five years ago. White students, who were about 61 percent of the population, were the subject of 46.8 percent of discipline cases. Latino students make up 28.4 percent of the population and were involved in 37 percent of discipline cases, another persistent gap.
Veterans Affairs Program Uses Housing Vouchers to Get Homeless Veterans Off Streets
According to an article in the Waco Herald-Tribune, since 2008, Veterans Affairs has reserved 35 rental vouchers for Waco’s homeless veterans, and local officials are hoping to secure that many more in the future once the current allotment is used up. The vouchers typically require a veteran to pay 30 percent of his or her income for rent. That goes a long way toward fulfilling the city of Waco’s 2005 plan for ending chronic homelessness in 10 years, a plan that has support from a coalition of nonprofit and public agencies in Waco. The plan calls for 60 units of “permanent, supportive housing” for the chronically homeless, a population that includes the mentally ill and others who have been on the streets for multiple years. In addition to the VA vouchers, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation has provided four housing vouchers for the chronically homeless and 11 for transitionally homeless. The city is applying for more 12 MHMR vouchers.
Local Politics
Filing Period for County and State Public Office Ends
Monday was the filing deadline for all state and county elections. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that Precinct 2 County Commissioner Duane Peters filed paperwork to run for Brazos County Judge, bringing the number of Republican candidates in the primary to four, including Bryan Mayor Mark Conlee, former Bryan Mayor Ernie Wentrcek and economic consultant Brian Alg. The Brazos County judge earns a base salary of $86,335, and incumbent Randy Sims will not seek re-election. Bryan dentist Don McLeroy also filed to run. He is seeking re-election to the State Board of Education. He was chairman of the board when it gained national attention last year for his advocacy of a more critical approach to evolution in school curriculum. He lost that position in May when the Texas Senate failed to confirm his appointment. Lobbyist and legislative consultant Thomas Ratliff has filed to run for McLeroy's seat, selling himself as a more moderate Republican.
Texas Politics
Texas Lawmakers Face Penalty Over Campaign Expenses
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, State Senator John Whitmire D-Houston, was one of two Houston-area lawmakers accused of converting political contributions to personal use. The other was Ed Chance, Montgomery County Precinct 3 commissioner. The panel dismissed the most serious complaints against both officials, but found they had improperly reported political contributions and expenditures. Whitmire agreed to pay a $3,400 civil penalty and Chance a $500 civil penalty. State law prohibits the conversions of campaign funds to personal use “that primarily furthers individual or family purposes not connected with the performance of duties or activities as a candidate or officeholder.”
National News
Stimulus Funds for Special Education Bypass Special Education
The federal stimulus package set aside $11.3 billion for special-needs education in this school year and the next, but school districts across the country are using those funds for other purposes, reports The Wall Street Journal. A provision in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a version of a statute originally enacted in 1975, makes the move perfectly legal, but it has left special-needs advocates feeling shortchanged. When the federal government amps up funding for special-needs students, the provision allows certain school districts to divert as much as half of the increase to other uses. In this school year, districts in Florida, Nevada and Connecticut have used special-needs funds to save jobs and add math programs. According to a poll conducted by the Government Accountability Office, more districts plan to follow suit. Adding insult to injury, schools must meet certain standards, like special-education graduation rates, to be eligible to divert the funds, so some states are "ignoring or lowering the standards," the Journal reports. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has urged states not to do this, but school administrators tell the Journal that stretched budgets have left them with little choice but to shift special-needs funding to other uses.
Foreign Policy
Multiple Deployments Leads to Major Increase in PTSD Cases
According to a report by TruthOut.org, soldiers with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are more than three times as likely as soldiers with no previous deployments to screen positive for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression, according to a new study published by the American Journal for Public Health. Additionally, soldiers with multiple deployments are more than twice as likely to report chronic pain and more than 90 percent more likely to score below the general population norm on physical functioning. For the study, researchers assessed the effects of prior military service in Iraq or Afghanistan on the health of New Jersey Army National Guard members preparing for deployment to Iraq. Researchers analyzed anonymous, self-administered pre-deployment surveys from 2,543 National Guard members deployed to Iraq in 2008. They assessed the effects of prior service in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) or Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) on mental and physical health.
War and Peace
Surge in Casualties Predicted in Afghanistan
Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces. The Army Times reports that General Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, made the prediction in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003. As of Dec. 20, there had been 305 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the large majority of those due to hostile action. The number of wounded as of the same date for 2009 was 2,102, with more than half of those unable to return to duty. A month-by-month breakdown using data compiled by Army Times shows that in 2009, the highest number of wounded and dead in Afghanistan occurred from June, with 210 wounded and killed through October, when 318 were listed as wounded or killed. October was the deadliest month for U.S. troops, with 50 killed in hostile action; but September saw the most wounded with 457 taken out of the fight. McCaffrey predicts those numbers will go higher, up to 500 casualties per month, as the winter thaw permits enemy and coalition forces to launch their respective offensives.
Environmental
E.P.A. Seeks Stricter Rules to Curb Smog
According to an article in the New York Times, The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed a stricter standard for smog-causing pollutants that would bring substantial health benefits to millions of Americans while imposing large costs on industry and local governments. The standard would replace one set by the Bush administration in March 2008, which has been challenged in court by state officials and environmental advocates as too weak to adequately protect human health and the environment. The Obama administration’s proposal sets a primary standard for ground-level ozone of no more than 0.060 to 0.070 parts per million, to be phased in over two decades. Regions with the worst smog pollution, including much of the Northeast, Southern and Central California and the Chicago and Houston areas, would have more time than other areas to come into compliance.
Immigration
Study Find Immigration Reform Would Boost Economy
Legalizing the status of the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants living in America would create jobs, increase wages and boost the sagging U.S. economy. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the study found that citizenship and flexible limits on legal immigration would serve future labor demands and boost wages for native-born workers. The study released by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center, found legalizing undocumented immigrants already in the United States could add $1.5 trillion to the gross domestic product over the next 10 years. President Obama has urged Congress to pass immigration reform legislation this year that provides a path to citizenship for the undocumented. Republicans have opposed citizenship as an amnesty for those who broke the law and entered the country illegally.
Human Rights
Somali Militants Force UN Agency to Suspend Food Distribution
According to an article in the Environmental News Service, attacks on humanitarian operations and a string of threats and unacceptable demands from armed groups have made it impossible for the world's largest food aid agency to continue feeding up to one million hungry people in southern Somalia. This choking of the humanitarian food lifeline raises the risk of greater instability in the entire Horn of Africa region, parched by the failure of the November rains after years of drought. The UN's World Food Programme said because its humanitarian operations in southern Somalia have been under escalating attacks from armed groups, the agency will suspend food distributions in much of southern Somalia. Two UN civilian staff members lost their lives in Somalia in 2009, the United Nations said today in a statement announcing the deaths of 28 civilian staff members and seven peacekeeping troops around the world last year. The killings of four World Food Programme staff between August 2008 and January 2009 prompted WFP officials to seek security commitments from local administrations and armed groups in much of southern and central Somalia.
Civil Rights
Washington State to Appeal Felon Voting Decision
Washington State will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that the state's ban on voting by prison inmates is unconstitutional. United Press International reports that Attorney General Rob McKenna announced his plans late Wednesday in a news conference and the state will ask the appeals court to delay enforcement of this week’s ruling. The court ruled this week in a suit originally brought in 1996 by black, Hispanic and American Indian inmates. The court found the justice system in Washington is so infected with racial discrimination that a ban on voting by inmates and felons on supervised release violates civil rights legislation. More than one-third of the state's inmates are from the three minority groups, although they make up only 12 percent of the population. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision contradicts opinions in similar cases by three other circuits.
Reproductive Rights
Curious Spending of Republicans for Choice
A new report by the Center for Public Integrity has revealed that one of the largest organizations working towards getting pro-choice GOP candidates elected to Congress has spent less than 5% of its budget on political campaigns in the last decade. In the last five years, just half of one percent of the one million dollars Republicans for Choice has spent was toward a political candidate, committees or expenditures. y comparison, Federal Election Commission data show the average federal PAC in the recent 2007-2008 cycle dedicated about 35 percent of spending to contributions aiding federal candidates. A comparison to other PACs on both sides of the abortion debate shows that similar groups spend a much greater portion of their funds on candidates and campaigns. Much of the group's spending has been for consulting companies owned by the PAC's chairwoman, Ann E. W. Stone. Those firms -- along with payments to reimburse Stone's expenses for travel, entertainment, and automobile repairs -- comprise more than two-thirds of RFC PAC's expenditures since 2006. And hundreds of dollars more went to pay for Stone's parking tickets.
Women’s Issues
Military Drops Iraq Soldier Pregnancy Policy
Major General Anthony Cucolo clarified his order allowing court-martial for soldiers who become pregnant or who impregnate a colleague in a war zone this week saying that any punishment is unlikely to come to that. The Christian Science Monitor reports that General Cucolo, who commands US forces in the northern sector of Iraq, issued a general order last month in which he stated that getting someone pregnant or becoming pregnant as a way to get out of a deployment could be punishable under the military court system, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, to include court-martial. But after an angry response from women’s rights groups and others, Cucolo on this week appeared to retreat from that stance. While he retains the authority to court-martial a soldier under those circumstances, he said, the punishment would be unlikely to go that far. The policy, which caught the White House off guard, was meant to prevent young families from breaking up under the pressures of frequent deployment for young marines. After an uproar, the service ended the policy. The active-duty force of 1.4 million includes more than 201,000 women at any one time. Of the 2.2 million service members who have deployed to a war zone since 2001, 231,000 are women.
GLBT Issues
N.J. Senate Rejects Bill Legalizing Gay Marriage
According to an article in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the state Senate rejected a same-sex marriage bill this week, a major victory for opponents who contend the measure would infringe on religious freedom and is not needed because the state already permits civil unions. The 20-14 vote defeating the measure followed an hour and a half of public debate inside the packed Senate chamber. The nearly thousand supporters and opponents of the bill held rallies on the Statehouse steps. The measure fell seven votes short of the 21 needed for passage. Last month, the legislation cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee after hours of emotional debate and testimony, which set the stage for today’s full Senate showdown. New Jersey passed a domestic partnership law in 2002 and legalized civil unions in 2006, but supporters say there are major flaws, like problems with pension benefits and hospitals denying visits to partners. They say gay couples do not have equal rights without being allowed to marry. Just four state have legalized gay marriage, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont, while 30 states have banned it through constitutional amendments.
Race and Racism
Data Shows Racial Gaps in Colorado Public-School Suspensions
Black public-school students in Colorado are nearly three times as likely to face serious discipline as their white peers, a disparity that is persistently growing despite efforts to curb it. The Denver Post reports that in the 2008-09 school year, about 70,000, or 8.5 percent, of the state's 818,000 students were suspended, expelled or disciplined for being disruptive, according to a Denver Post analysis of newly released data. Reasons ranged from drug, weapon and alcohol infractions to disobedient and detrimental behavior, the most common — and subjective — reasons. But while black students make up just 5.9 percent of the student population, they were the subject of 12.7 percent of the discipline cases, up from 11.7 percent five years ago. White students, who were about 61 percent of the population, were the subject of 46.8 percent of discipline cases. Latino students make up 28.4 percent of the population and were involved in 37 percent of discipline cases, another persistent gap.
Friday, January 8, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our studio guest is Lucy Miller, a transsexual woman who is a communications graduate student at Texas A&M and publishes a blog about her experience as a transsexual woman. Our topics of conversation will include who are transgender and transsexual people, and her own experiences.
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, January 3, 2010
Headlines
Local News
2009 Meant Tight Funds for Bryan and College Station
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Bryan and College Station budgets and water supplies came in lower than expected this year, and both cities were looking for ways to make up for budget shortfalls. Each city handled the issue differently. College Station addressed its $1 million general fund shortfall by holding vacant positions open, cutting travel and training costs, reducing maintenance at parks and city facilities and holding off on replacing old equipment. Bryan officials decided to lay off eight employees and eliminate two positions in an effort to make up for a $1.3 million budget shortfall. Officials said the rest of the shortfall would be recovered through a change in the way the city offers insurance to retirees and through a reduction in the number of times city parks are mowed each year.
Local Politics
Sen. Hutchison focuses on transportation issues in stops in Waco, across Texas
Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was campaigning in Waco on this week, unveiling transportation policy proposals to unclog Texas’ highways, connect Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston with a high-speed rail system and to “clean up” the Texas Department of Transportation. The Waco Herald-Tribune reported it was the senator’s third event in Waco since kicking off her gubernatorial campaign in August and her second stop at Tejas Logistics, a warehouse company based in East Waco. The event was sandwiched between speeches in Tyler and Dallas, and Hutchison has scheduled events in San Antonio, Austin and Houston today. The state’s senior senator, who hopes to defeat Governor Rick Perry in a March Republican primary, laid out a series of reforms, including new restrictions on toll-road construction and more checks on spending, as well as a plan to connect the state’s roads with its railroads, airports and waterways.
Texas News
Poverty Growing in Texas Schools
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, almost six out of 10 Texas public schoolchildren hail from low-income families, marking a troubling spike in poverty over the last decade, a new state report finds. The increase coincides with a significant jump in the number of Hispanic students, while fewer Anglo students were enrolled last year than 10 years ago, according to the study by the Texas Education Agency. Schools also are educating many more children whose primary language is not English. The rapidly changing makeup of the Texas public school classroom poses growing challenges for the state. Impoverished and disadvantaged children are more likely to falter academically and drop out, and educating struggling students can be costly. The state's school funding system is set up to pay districts more for their impoverished students, but some believe the extra dollars are not enough. This year, the price tag is $2.8 billion, according to the TEA.
Texas Politics
Finger-Pointing Grows on State Education Board
A feud on the State Board of Education has spun off a new round of conflict-of-interest questions, this time regarding senior member Geraldine Miller, Republican from Dallas, from two colleagues who doubt she can stay clear of $1.2 billion the board plans to invest in real estate projects. The San Antonio Express-News reports that Miller's family runs the state's largest independent real estate brokerage firm, Henry S. Miller Realty Services. She has been critical of the board's decision to invest part of the $22 billion Public School Fund in real estate, and the fact that her opposition was public is likely to create conflicts of interest for her when some of those real estate deals begin next year, say board members David Bradley, R-Beaumont, and Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio. A Texas Education Agency lawyer downplayed those concerns, and a spokesman for Miller said they were manufactured because of how she votes on curriculum and other non-financial issues.
National News
Report Says ACORN Didn't Commit Voter Fraud or Misuse Federal Funding
According to an article at TruthOut.org, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) did not commit voter fraud, and it didn't misuse federal funding in the last five years, according to a recently released report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan investigational arm of Congress. Among its findings, CRS also reported that recently enacted federal legislation to prohibit funding to ACORN raises significant constitutional concerns. The report said courts "may have a sufficient basis" to conclude that the legislation "violates the prohibition against bills of attainder." Also, concerning recent "sting" operations related to ACORN, although state laws vary, two states, Maryland and California, "appear to ban private recording of face to face conversations absent the consent of all the participants," the report said. The CRS report was requested by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank in September.
National Politics
Allen Stanford Helped Pete Sessions Score Big Political Victory
Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) offered aid and comfort to disgraced financier Allen Stanford, who's accused of bilking investors of $7 billion. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that Sessions wrote Stanford "I love you and believe in you," in a February 17, 2009 e-mail, according to the Miami Herald in an exclusive report this week. A Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates that employees of Allen Stanford-led Stanford Financial ranked No. 2 among Sessions' donors during the 2004 election cycle, accounting for $24,275. The Stanford donation total ranked ahead of massive firms such as SBC Communications, Ernst & Young and Crow Holdings, all of which have notable presences in Sessions' Texas District 32, situated in Dallas and its suburbs.
Foreign Policy
U.S. Looks to Intensify Yemen Campaign
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration is likely to intensify pressure on Yemen's president to focus his security forces against al Qaeda militants, following claims that the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing originated there. The U.S. also is discussing increasing its counterterrorism support to Yemen from $70 million this year to as much as $190 million in 2010, according to a senior military official. U.S. security policy toward Yemen had been increasingly focused on President Ali Abdullah Saleh even before the botched attack, officials said. His government in recent months has shown willingness to coordinate with the Obama administration in counterterrorism operations within his country.
War and Peace
Afghanistan Civilian Casualties Rise Ten Percent in 2009
Civilian deaths in Afghanistan rose more than 10 percent in the first 10 months of 2009, UN figures showed, amid anger over the alleged killing of children in a Western military operation. AFP reports that figures released to AFP by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) put civilian deaths in the Afghan war at 2,038 for the first 10 months of 2009, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008 -- an increase of 10.8 percent. The figures were released a day after President Hamid Karzai launched an investigation into reports that 10 people, most of them school children, were killed in a raid by foreign troops near the Pakistan border. The UN calculations show the vast majority, or 1,404 civilians, were killed by insurgents fighting for the overthrow of Karzai's government and to eject Western troops. UNAMA said 468 deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and US-led forces, and 166 by "other actors".
Economy
State-Level Data Show Recovery Act Protecting Millions From Poverty
According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while the recession is expected to drive states’ poverty rates up for 2009, new analysis based on Census data shows that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is keeping large numbers of Americans out of poverty in states across the country. In addition to boosting economic activity and preserving or creating jobs, the recovery act is softening the recession’s impact on poverty by directly lifting family incomes. The Center’s analysis, which covers 36 states and the District of Columbia, examines the effect on poverty of seven ARRA provisions: the expansion of three tax credits for working families, two provisions that strengthen unemployment insurance assistance, a provision that boosts food stamp benefits, and a one-time payment for retirees, veterans, and people with disabilities. Nationally, these provisions are keeping more than 6 million Americans out of poverty and reducing the severity of poverty for 33 million more.
Environmental
Sea-Level Rise Quickening Along East Coast
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have learned that along the Atlantic Coast, including New Jersey, sea level rose three times faster during the 20th century than it did during the previous 4,000 years. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that at one location in North Carolina, they fixed the date of the rapid acceleration to between 1879 and 1915, after the Industrial Revolution had taken deep hold, lending credence to the connection between the rising temperatures that occurred then and rising sea levels. Scientists predict sea levels will rise as a result of global warming, but by how much, when, and where it will have the most effect is unclear. The studies suggested a strong acceleration in overall sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, including in New Jersey and Delaware. Levels there are rising not only because of higher water - due to melting polar ice and expansion of a warmer ocean - but because the land is sinking. In two papers published recently in the journal Geology, the researchers and collaborators teased out details of the complex relationship between the land and sea on the East Coast, mapping an epic geologic history that could help scientists predict what might happen under various climate-change scenarios.
Human Rights
Thailand Deports Hmong Asylum Seekers to Laos
According to an article by Inter Press Service, in a move that places greater weight on growing regional solidarity over historical ties with a western superpower, Thailand ordered its military to forcibly return over 4,000 men, women and children from the Hmong ethnic community to Laos, the country they had fled in search of political asylum. This week the first batch of 440 Hmong—an ethnic tribe living in the mountains of northern and central Laos—from an isolated camp in the Petchabun province in north-eastern Thailand was removed under the watchful eye of over 4,500 soldiers and police. Bangkok’s decision to send the Hmong back to communist-ruled Laos has prompted protests from a range of international actors, notably the United States. Washington has been equally troubled by Thai authorities justifying the deportation after characterising the majority of Hmong as "economic migrants," not refugees. The U.S. government, the United Nations and concerned human rights groups state that at least 158 of the Hmong asylum seekers had been recognised as refugees by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). And a further 80 had "bullet wounds," suggesting that they had fled violence in Laos.
Civil Rights
Disabled Workers Paid Cents Per Hour at State-Run Homes
More than 300 mentally retarded people are being paid less than the minimum wage to work at the state-run Woodward and Glenwood homes for the disabled. State records obtained by The Des Moines Register under the Iowa open-records law show that 74 of the mentally retarded workers are paid an average wage of about 60 cents an hour. One averages 11 cents an hour working for a company owned by one of the world's richest private equity firms, the Carlyle Group. Those wages are legal under a 71-year-old federal law that enables employers to pay the disabled less than the minimum wage. The law has always been controversial, but the alleged exploitation of mentally retarded employees by Henry's Turkey Service in Atalissa has rekindled the national debate on subminimum wages. The federal law is intended to ensure that jobs are available for people who cannot perform at the same level as people without disabilities. It has proved divisive even among the disabled, their families and mental health advocates. Citing the situation in Atalissa, the Association for Persons in Supported Employment is calling for a gradual phaseout of the minimum wage exemption. The organization says the exemption leads to a segregated work force and advances the notion that a disabled worker is not as deserving of base-line, minimum wage protections.
Reproductive Rights
Utah to Introduce Law Requiring Abortion Clinics to Display Ultrasound Images
According to an article by United Press International, a Utah lawmaker plans to introduce a law that would require abortion clinics to display ultrasound images so pregnant women can see them. Representative Carl Wimmer, a Republican, told The Salt Lake Tribune he believes the three abortion clinics in the state do not want patients to see the images of their fetuses before the procedure. Current state law requires the clinics to offer ultrasounds but says nothing about how the images are displayed. Wimmer's proposed bill would also require clinics to offer a detailed description of what is on the screen. Wimmer, who drafted his bill with the national organization Americans United For Life, would like ultrasounds to be mandatory. But he plans to wait for the outcome of litigation over mandatory ultrasound laws in other states.
Race and Racism
Neo-Nazis Use Deceptive Music Downloads to Attract Young People to White Supremacy
In an effort to lure young people into the white supremacist movement, neo-Nazis are using deceptive new tactics to appeal directly to high school and college students through advertisements in their school newspapers, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which actively monitors neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. One scheme hatched by neo-Nazi Kevin McGuire of Bozeman, Montana involves placing advertisements in school newspapers offering "free music downloads." As a result of the scheme, last month unsuspecting students at high schools in San Francisco and Carmel, Indiana were apparently tricked into running ads promoting the racist "Victory Forever" site operated by McGuire. In an apparent attempt to be misleading, the Victory Forever site initially displayed a page of music by independent artists, including at least one African-American artist. However, between the time when the ads were purchased and when they actually ran, the site was changed to its present, explicitly white supremacist form.
2009 Meant Tight Funds for Bryan and College Station
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Bryan and College Station budgets and water supplies came in lower than expected this year, and both cities were looking for ways to make up for budget shortfalls. Each city handled the issue differently. College Station addressed its $1 million general fund shortfall by holding vacant positions open, cutting travel and training costs, reducing maintenance at parks and city facilities and holding off on replacing old equipment. Bryan officials decided to lay off eight employees and eliminate two positions in an effort to make up for a $1.3 million budget shortfall. Officials said the rest of the shortfall would be recovered through a change in the way the city offers insurance to retirees and through a reduction in the number of times city parks are mowed each year.
Local Politics
Sen. Hutchison focuses on transportation issues in stops in Waco, across Texas
Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was campaigning in Waco on this week, unveiling transportation policy proposals to unclog Texas’ highways, connect Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston with a high-speed rail system and to “clean up” the Texas Department of Transportation. The Waco Herald-Tribune reported it was the senator’s third event in Waco since kicking off her gubernatorial campaign in August and her second stop at Tejas Logistics, a warehouse company based in East Waco. The event was sandwiched between speeches in Tyler and Dallas, and Hutchison has scheduled events in San Antonio, Austin and Houston today. The state’s senior senator, who hopes to defeat Governor Rick Perry in a March Republican primary, laid out a series of reforms, including new restrictions on toll-road construction and more checks on spending, as well as a plan to connect the state’s roads with its railroads, airports and waterways.
Texas News
Poverty Growing in Texas Schools
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, almost six out of 10 Texas public schoolchildren hail from low-income families, marking a troubling spike in poverty over the last decade, a new state report finds. The increase coincides with a significant jump in the number of Hispanic students, while fewer Anglo students were enrolled last year than 10 years ago, according to the study by the Texas Education Agency. Schools also are educating many more children whose primary language is not English. The rapidly changing makeup of the Texas public school classroom poses growing challenges for the state. Impoverished and disadvantaged children are more likely to falter academically and drop out, and educating struggling students can be costly. The state's school funding system is set up to pay districts more for their impoverished students, but some believe the extra dollars are not enough. This year, the price tag is $2.8 billion, according to the TEA.
Texas Politics
Finger-Pointing Grows on State Education Board
A feud on the State Board of Education has spun off a new round of conflict-of-interest questions, this time regarding senior member Geraldine Miller, Republican from Dallas, from two colleagues who doubt she can stay clear of $1.2 billion the board plans to invest in real estate projects. The San Antonio Express-News reports that Miller's family runs the state's largest independent real estate brokerage firm, Henry S. Miller Realty Services. She has been critical of the board's decision to invest part of the $22 billion Public School Fund in real estate, and the fact that her opposition was public is likely to create conflicts of interest for her when some of those real estate deals begin next year, say board members David Bradley, R-Beaumont, and Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio. A Texas Education Agency lawyer downplayed those concerns, and a spokesman for Miller said they were manufactured because of how she votes on curriculum and other non-financial issues.
National News
Report Says ACORN Didn't Commit Voter Fraud or Misuse Federal Funding
According to an article at TruthOut.org, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) did not commit voter fraud, and it didn't misuse federal funding in the last five years, according to a recently released report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan investigational arm of Congress. Among its findings, CRS also reported that recently enacted federal legislation to prohibit funding to ACORN raises significant constitutional concerns. The report said courts "may have a sufficient basis" to conclude that the legislation "violates the prohibition against bills of attainder." Also, concerning recent "sting" operations related to ACORN, although state laws vary, two states, Maryland and California, "appear to ban private recording of face to face conversations absent the consent of all the participants," the report said. The CRS report was requested by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank in September.
National Politics
Allen Stanford Helped Pete Sessions Score Big Political Victory
Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) offered aid and comfort to disgraced financier Allen Stanford, who's accused of bilking investors of $7 billion. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that Sessions wrote Stanford "I love you and believe in you," in a February 17, 2009 e-mail, according to the Miami Herald in an exclusive report this week. A Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates that employees of Allen Stanford-led Stanford Financial ranked No. 2 among Sessions' donors during the 2004 election cycle, accounting for $24,275. The Stanford donation total ranked ahead of massive firms such as SBC Communications, Ernst & Young and Crow Holdings, all of which have notable presences in Sessions' Texas District 32, situated in Dallas and its suburbs.
Foreign Policy
U.S. Looks to Intensify Yemen Campaign
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration is likely to intensify pressure on Yemen's president to focus his security forces against al Qaeda militants, following claims that the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing originated there. The U.S. also is discussing increasing its counterterrorism support to Yemen from $70 million this year to as much as $190 million in 2010, according to a senior military official. U.S. security policy toward Yemen had been increasingly focused on President Ali Abdullah Saleh even before the botched attack, officials said. His government in recent months has shown willingness to coordinate with the Obama administration in counterterrorism operations within his country.
War and Peace
Afghanistan Civilian Casualties Rise Ten Percent in 2009
Civilian deaths in Afghanistan rose more than 10 percent in the first 10 months of 2009, UN figures showed, amid anger over the alleged killing of children in a Western military operation. AFP reports that figures released to AFP by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) put civilian deaths in the Afghan war at 2,038 for the first 10 months of 2009, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008 -- an increase of 10.8 percent. The figures were released a day after President Hamid Karzai launched an investigation into reports that 10 people, most of them school children, were killed in a raid by foreign troops near the Pakistan border. The UN calculations show the vast majority, or 1,404 civilians, were killed by insurgents fighting for the overthrow of Karzai's government and to eject Western troops. UNAMA said 468 deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and US-led forces, and 166 by "other actors".
Economy
State-Level Data Show Recovery Act Protecting Millions From Poverty
According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while the recession is expected to drive states’ poverty rates up for 2009, new analysis based on Census data shows that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is keeping large numbers of Americans out of poverty in states across the country. In addition to boosting economic activity and preserving or creating jobs, the recovery act is softening the recession’s impact on poverty by directly lifting family incomes. The Center’s analysis, which covers 36 states and the District of Columbia, examines the effect on poverty of seven ARRA provisions: the expansion of three tax credits for working families, two provisions that strengthen unemployment insurance assistance, a provision that boosts food stamp benefits, and a one-time payment for retirees, veterans, and people with disabilities. Nationally, these provisions are keeping more than 6 million Americans out of poverty and reducing the severity of poverty for 33 million more.
Environmental
Sea-Level Rise Quickening Along East Coast
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have learned that along the Atlantic Coast, including New Jersey, sea level rose three times faster during the 20th century than it did during the previous 4,000 years. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that at one location in North Carolina, they fixed the date of the rapid acceleration to between 1879 and 1915, after the Industrial Revolution had taken deep hold, lending credence to the connection between the rising temperatures that occurred then and rising sea levels. Scientists predict sea levels will rise as a result of global warming, but by how much, when, and where it will have the most effect is unclear. The studies suggested a strong acceleration in overall sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, including in New Jersey and Delaware. Levels there are rising not only because of higher water - due to melting polar ice and expansion of a warmer ocean - but because the land is sinking. In two papers published recently in the journal Geology, the researchers and collaborators teased out details of the complex relationship between the land and sea on the East Coast, mapping an epic geologic history that could help scientists predict what might happen under various climate-change scenarios.
Human Rights
Thailand Deports Hmong Asylum Seekers to Laos
According to an article by Inter Press Service, in a move that places greater weight on growing regional solidarity over historical ties with a western superpower, Thailand ordered its military to forcibly return over 4,000 men, women and children from the Hmong ethnic community to Laos, the country they had fled in search of political asylum. This week the first batch of 440 Hmong—an ethnic tribe living in the mountains of northern and central Laos—from an isolated camp in the Petchabun province in north-eastern Thailand was removed under the watchful eye of over 4,500 soldiers and police. Bangkok’s decision to send the Hmong back to communist-ruled Laos has prompted protests from a range of international actors, notably the United States. Washington has been equally troubled by Thai authorities justifying the deportation after characterising the majority of Hmong as "economic migrants," not refugees. The U.S. government, the United Nations and concerned human rights groups state that at least 158 of the Hmong asylum seekers had been recognised as refugees by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). And a further 80 had "bullet wounds," suggesting that they had fled violence in Laos.
Civil Rights
Disabled Workers Paid Cents Per Hour at State-Run Homes
More than 300 mentally retarded people are being paid less than the minimum wage to work at the state-run Woodward and Glenwood homes for the disabled. State records obtained by The Des Moines Register under the Iowa open-records law show that 74 of the mentally retarded workers are paid an average wage of about 60 cents an hour. One averages 11 cents an hour working for a company owned by one of the world's richest private equity firms, the Carlyle Group. Those wages are legal under a 71-year-old federal law that enables employers to pay the disabled less than the minimum wage. The law has always been controversial, but the alleged exploitation of mentally retarded employees by Henry's Turkey Service in Atalissa has rekindled the national debate on subminimum wages. The federal law is intended to ensure that jobs are available for people who cannot perform at the same level as people without disabilities. It has proved divisive even among the disabled, their families and mental health advocates. Citing the situation in Atalissa, the Association for Persons in Supported Employment is calling for a gradual phaseout of the minimum wage exemption. The organization says the exemption leads to a segregated work force and advances the notion that a disabled worker is not as deserving of base-line, minimum wage protections.
Reproductive Rights
Utah to Introduce Law Requiring Abortion Clinics to Display Ultrasound Images
According to an article by United Press International, a Utah lawmaker plans to introduce a law that would require abortion clinics to display ultrasound images so pregnant women can see them. Representative Carl Wimmer, a Republican, told The Salt Lake Tribune he believes the three abortion clinics in the state do not want patients to see the images of their fetuses before the procedure. Current state law requires the clinics to offer ultrasounds but says nothing about how the images are displayed. Wimmer's proposed bill would also require clinics to offer a detailed description of what is on the screen. Wimmer, who drafted his bill with the national organization Americans United For Life, would like ultrasounds to be mandatory. But he plans to wait for the outcome of litigation over mandatory ultrasound laws in other states.
Race and Racism
Neo-Nazis Use Deceptive Music Downloads to Attract Young People to White Supremacy
In an effort to lure young people into the white supremacist movement, neo-Nazis are using deceptive new tactics to appeal directly to high school and college students through advertisements in their school newspapers, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which actively monitors neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. One scheme hatched by neo-Nazi Kevin McGuire of Bozeman, Montana involves placing advertisements in school newspapers offering "free music downloads." As a result of the scheme, last month unsuspecting students at high schools in San Francisco and Carmel, Indiana were apparently tricked into running ads promoting the racist "Victory Forever" site operated by McGuire. In an apparent attempt to be misleading, the Victory Forever site initially displayed a page of music by independent artists, including at least one African-American artist. However, between the time when the ads were purchased and when they actually ran, the site was changed to its present, explicitly white supremacist form.
Friday, January 1, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our 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 upcoming 2010 political campaigns and elections.
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.
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