Local News
Wellborn Residents Launch Petition
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, a group of Wellborn residents fighting to preserve their community began a petition drive in College Station on Wednesday aimed at persuading city leaders to allow the community to vote on incorporation. Members of Citizens for the Wellborn hung a banner at the intersection of Wellborn and Barron Roads that reads "Keep Wellborn as Wellborn, Texas." Because Wellborn is within College Station's extraterritorial jurisdiction -- an area designated to cities by the state to provide room for future growth -- the decision to incorporate the area has to be approved by College Station officials. After receiving a request from residents in favor of incorporating Wellborn, College Station City Council members decided to seek alternatives instead. Members of the Wellborn group said they launched a petition to gain the support of College Station residents for incorporation.
Local Politics
Congressional Candidate Rob Curnock Sued by Former Campaign Manager
The manager of Republican Congressional candidate Rob Curnock’s 2008 campaign sued the campaign this week, seeking $16,000 he says he is owed for work during the 2008 election cycle. The Waco Herald-Tribune reports the suit was filed Thursday afternoon in a McLennan County court-at-law on behalf of Larry Hunter. He took over campaign manager duties for Curnock’s campaign against Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards in summer 2008. As evidence of the alleged debt, the suit cites an e-mail exchange between Curnock and Hunter shortly before Hunter, who lives in Buffalo, N.Y., came to Waco for the campaign. Curnock, a Waco small-business man, is competing in an April 13 Republican primary runoff with retired Bryan businessman Bill Flores.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M Picks New Leaders
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, the chief of staff for Texas A&M University's president will be the new senior vice president for administration, and a Washington University philosophy professor will be dean of the College of Liberal Arts, under appointments approved Friday. Chief of Staff Alex Kemos will fill the high-level post that a search committee began looking for earlier this month. The $300,000-a-year position will oversee non-academic operations such as facilities and be a senior adviser to the president. José Luis Bermúdez, director of the St. Louis university's philosophy, neuroscience and psychology program and its Center for Programs in Arts and Sciences begins as head of the liberal arts college in July. The appointments, which were approved unanimously, came near the end of a two-day Board of Regents meeting Friday Kemos began at Texas A&M last March as associate executive vice president for operations for Texas A&M University, working for H. Russell Cross, the executive vice president who resigned the same time as former Texas A&M President Elsa Murano.
Texas News
Texas Jobless Rate Holds Steady at 8.2 Percent
Texas' unemployment rate held steady at 8.2 percent for the third consecutive month despite the loss of 13,000 jobs in February. The Austin American-Statesman reports that the Texas Workforce Commission said the job losses offset a revised January gain of 12,600 jobs. The civilian work force in Texas grew by 40,200 and now stands at 12.1 million workers, according to commission figures. The state's jobless rate remained below the national figure of 9.7 percent. Initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped 21 percent, from 108,752 in January to 86,282 in February, according to commission figures. Unemployment rates are adjusted for seasonal trends in hiring and firing, which most economists believe gives a better picture of the job market. Without seasonal adjustments, the state's jobless rate was 8.3 percent in February, down from 8.6 percent in January.
Texas Politics
Texas Attorney General Attacks Health Care Reform
According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, before Congress even passed the health care overhaul, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had announced his determination to take it down. It is not the first time Abbott, a Republican, has sought out the political hot button on a federal issue. He recently chimed in on climate change, water rights and the auto industry bailout. But the lawsuit filed Tuesday with 12 other states, charging that the federal government lacks the power to compel citizens to buy health insurance, is the biggest yet – and his opponent is accusing him of chasing publicity at the expense of state issues. Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee to take on Abbott in November as he seeks a third term, described Abbott's actions as "headline-seeking behavior to establish his right-wing bona fides as he seeks higher office." Abbott rejected that characterization, saying his advocacy has become central to his job as the state's lawyer and chief law enforcement official. Political analysts say Abbott's involvement in national issues reflects a movement by state GOP leaders to position Texas as a foil to Congress – a message that resonates with conservative voters.
Media
Journalists Increasingly at Risk Says UN Report
A record 77 journalists were killed last year, making 2009 one of the most dangerous years for media workers, according to a report published Thursday by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency. The organisation denounced the slayings, saying that governments need to do more to protect journalists and to bring their killers to justice. The report, prepared by UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), says that "impunity" is one of the main problems in attacks against the media, and that this represents a "severe threat" to freedom of expression. The report comes as the IPDC’s 39-member intergovernmental council holds a three-day meeting here. On Friday, when the meeting ends, officials are expected to adopt a draft decision recommending that the IPDC "continue monitoring the follow-up of killings condemned by UNESCO’s director-general".
Environment
EPA proposes Blocking West Virginia Mountaintop Mine
According to the McClatchy News Service, The Environmental Protection Agency this week proposed to halt the largest mountaintop mine in Central Appalachia, saying the project would pollute drinking water and harm wildlife in mountain streams, and that the damage to the mountains would be irreversible. Despite the strong language, however, the EPA's action only begins another lengthy process about the controversial mine. In the end, the agency could prohibit the mine altogether or allow it to continue with restrictions.The EPA found that mining the coal at Spruce No. 1 in Logan County, West Virginia, would fill six valleys, bury more than seven miles of streams, destroy 2,278 acres of forest and pollute water in adjacent streams. The proposed veto of the mine's permit is a rare step in three decades of mountaintop mining in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. This is the first time the EPA has proposed to veto a mine that already had received a permit. It's the 12th time it used the veto power for any project since the Clean Water Act of 1972 became law. In January, the EPA approved a permit for another mountaintop mine in West Virginia, Hobet 45.
Immigration
During March a Call for Urgency on Immigration Reform
Tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied here on Sunday, calling for legislation this year to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and seeking to pressure President Obama to keep working on the contentious issue once the health care debate is behind him. The New York Times reports d emonstrators filled five lengthy blocks of the Washington Mall, down the hill from the Capitol where last-minute negotiations were under way on the health care bill. The immigrant activists, chanting Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes we can” in Spanish and English, tried to compete with their numbers for public and media attention which were mainly focused on the climactic health care events in the House of Representatives. The rally brought the return to major street action by immigration activists, who turned out hundreds of thousands of protesters in marches and rallies in 2006. After an immigration overhaul measure was defeated in Congress in 2007, the pace of enforcement raids picked up and many immigrants, especially those without legal status, preferred to lay low.
Human Rights
Suit Filed for Mentally Disabled Immigrants
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should end immediately the indefinite detention of two mentally disabled immigrants held for over four years, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Lawsuits were filed this week on behalf of the two men with US federal district courts in California. The lawsuits allege that the two men, Jose Antonio Franco, 29, and Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez, 48, have been held for more than four years in immigration detention in violation of the right to freedom from indefinite detention and the right to a fair hearing to contest the basis for their detention. Gomez-Sanchez is a legal permanent resident, and Franco is the son of two legal permanent residents. The absence of safeguards and procedures has resulted in prolonged indefinite detention and denied both men a fair hearing, said the men's lawyers, who are with California affiliates of the ACLU, the Public Counsel Law Center in Los Angeles, and the Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego. The lawsuits were filed in the districts where Franco and Gomez-Sanchez are currently held in detention facilities; Franco's case was filed in federal court in the Central District of California and Gomez-Sanchez's case was filed in the Southern District of California.
Civil Rights
U.S. Supreme Court Delays Texas Execution
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday halted the execution of Henry Skinner just one hour before he was to be put to death for the 1993 murders of his Pampa girlfriend and her two adult sons. The stay will remain in effect until the high court rules on a second petition filed by Skinner's attorneys asking for a review of an appellate court decision denying a request for DNA testing of bloody knives, material beneath the dead woman's fingernails, rape kit samples and other items found at the murder scene. Skinner's request for testing was denied because it was filed as a civil rights claim. Lead attorney Rob Owen of the University of Texas' Capital Punishment Center said in his petition for a writ of certioari that seven of the nation's nine federal circuit courts of appeal would have accepted a civil rights claim. Only two, including the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth District, which turned Skinner down, would not. Skinner's case gained international notoriety after journalism students from Chicago's Northwestern University reviewed the case, locating potential witnesses who hadn't been interrogated and drawing attention to the fact that seemingly important items never had been subjected to DNA testing.
Reproductive Rights
New White House Initiative Overhauls US Teen Pregnancy Prevention Efforts
The $114.5 million teen pregnancy prevention initiative signed into law by President Obama in December 2009 marks a major turning point in U.S. sex education policy, according to a new analysis published in the Winter 2010 issue of the Guttmacher Policy Review. The initiative replaces many of the most rigid and ineffective abstinence-only programs, which by law were required to have nonmarital abstinence promotion as their “exclusive purpose” and were prohibited from discussing the benefits of contraception. However, this welcome course correction is tempered somewhat by the late-breaking news that congressional leaders appear to have agreed—per a provision in the final version of the health care reform legislation moving through Congress—to resuscitate the Title V abstinence-only program for five years (see below for more information on this program). In sharp contrast to the failed abstinence-only policies of the past, the new approach championed by the White House will focus on programs that have demonstrated their effectiveness, and all funded programs will be required to be age-appropriate and medically accurate.
Women’s Issues
US District Judge Rules in Favor of Women's Softball Team in Title IX Suit
Feminist Daily News reports that a US District Judge in Hawaii ruled in favor of a women's high school softball team's Title IX claim in Maui County, HI, late last week. Several members of the Baldwin High School softball team, their parents, and their coach sued Maui County and the Department of Education (DOE) for discrimination under Title IX. The basis for their claim was the condition of the women's practice field, which Judge David Ezra ruled was disparate in quality compared to the men's team's field, according to The Maui News. The women's team was moved from its usual practice field at the start of the 2010 softball season to make room for a Little League team, a private organization, reported the Honolulu Advertiser. The lawsuit stated that the new field is smaller than regulation size and lacks proper field markings or a regulation-size fence. The field is also located a mile away from the school grounds and there have been reports of sexual assaults on the wooded path that leads to the field, reported the Star Bulletin. Practice time was also cut short because the women's team was required to share the field with another team.
GLBT Issues
District Court Judge Rules School Board Violated Lesbian Student's Rights
According to an article in the Clarion Ledger, a federal judge has ruled that the Itawamba County school board in Mississippi violated the rights of a lesbian student by canceling the prom when the student challenged a ban on same-sex dates. However, U.S. District Court Judge Glen Davidson said he would not reinstate the April 2 dance, as requested. Constance McMillen, 18, sued the Itawamba County school district over the school’s policy barring same-sex dates. McMillen had asked to bring her girlfriend to the dance and also had requested to wear a tuxedo to the event. On March 10, the school board reacted to the demands submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union on McMillen’s behalf by canceling the prom. Both sides pled their case in court Monday, with McMillen’s legal team accusing the district of violating her constitutional right to free expression. School district attorneys countered that the board was attempting to restore order to the school by withdrawing sponsorship of the event. Davidson said the school board violated McMillen’s rights by denying her requests.
Race and Racism
Report Details Hike in Racism on Canadian Campuses
Many students in Ontario post-secondary institutions reported encountering racist behavior from professors and students alike, according to a new report. The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario (CFS-O) released its Report of the Task Force on Campus Racism on Monday. The report is the product of 17 public campus hearings and individual submissions from students at Ontario colleges and universities in 2009. The process garnered testimonials from students claiming to have experienced racist attitudes, racist behavior and discrimination at school. For example, a student at the University of Western Ontario alleged his peers sported blackface for Halloween costumes. Also, a student at the University of Windsor alleges a fellow student did an offensive impression during a class presentation of a person's experience being deported.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our guest via phone is Andrea Nill, an immigration researcher and blogger with the Center for American Progress, and our studio guest is Greisa Martínez, a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens at Texas A&M University. Our topics of conversation will include the current state of American immigration policies, the grassroots movement that has surrounded immigration reform, possible ways forward to reform the immigration system, and the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.
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, March 21, 2010
Political and Social Thought to the Left of College Station
As the vote on health care reform nears, I looked back at the arguments I made for health care reform at the beginning of this debate. I think it is important that as politics have completely enveloped this debate that we step back and remember why we are arguing for reforming health care in this country in the first place. What it comes down to is rather simple, that while the economic and political arguments are the strongest on the side of supporting reforming health care the most important argument is the moral argument. The following is the argument I made for health care reform in September of 2008:
The mostly controversial and significant public policy debate today is about health care reform, and what the best way is to provide access to health care for all people in America. However, this debate is not new, but in fact has been debated for over a century. Much of this debate centers around one fundamental question: what is the role of the government? On one side of the issue you have those that argue that the government does not have a role in providing or ensuring that all people have access to health care. While the other side holds the position that the federal government has a role in providing for the general welfare which would include ensuring access to health care.
The government has played an active role in ensuring that the least privileged of Americans receive assistance and through many different programs the government promotes the general welfare of all Americans. Our government is a government of people, and whatever its failures in the past or future it can serve everyone. No one should be left behind. Universal health care should be the goal.
It is often asserted that America has the best health care in the world; however, it would be more accurate to state that America has the best health care in the world for those that are able to afford health care. The reality is that the United States spends more on health care and less people have access to health care. The United States is expected to spend $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, which is 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, health insurance premiums have increased 119 percent for employers since 1999 and employee spending for health insurance coverage has increased 117 percent during the same time period. Also, according to the United States Census Bureau, 46 million Americans, or 18 percent of the population, are uninsured. Also, due to the economic downturn millions of Americans who are losing their employment will also lose their insurance.
The high cost of health care does not only affect those that do not have health insurance, those that have coverage also must deal with escalating cost. A clinical research study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007 medical cost contributed to over 60% of all bankruptcies, and between 2001 and 2007 the portion of bankruptcies caused by medical cost rose 50%. Over three quarters of bankruptcies caused by medical expenses happened to people that had health insurance.
One solution that opponents of universal health care suggest is malpractice lawsuit reforms. However, Texas lawmakers have passed dramatic malpractice lawsuit reforms legislation, and yet there are a larger percentage of uninsured people in Texas than in any other state. Malpractice lawsuit reforms where passed with the reasoning that it would increase the number of doctors in Texas, and therefore increase access to health care. However, 114 of the 254 counties are designated primary-care shortage areas, and twenty-seven counties in Texas have no doctors at all.
The health care crisis affects a broad spectrum of Americans, but creating a public option is the most significant way to bring down the cost of health care and to provide universal access to health care. A public option would simply be another way of providing health insurance, and it would compete with the other insurance companies. By providing people this option it will lower the high cost of the uninsured raise the cost of health care for everyone.
Perhaps the most compelling argument for universal health care is an ethical and moral argument. In the not too distant past many people in Bryan-College Station remember when Hurricane Ike devastated the Gulf Coast of Texas, and left many people, through no fault of their own, without the resources to continue providing for their own needs. Likewise the economic downtown has affected many Americans, and has left many people, through no fault of their own, without employment and unable to afford health insurance. The reasons that we should provide government assistance to the people whose lives were affected by Hurricane are the same reasons we should provide government assistant to the people whose lives have been affected by the economic downturn. The ethical thing to do is to provide assistance to those among us that need assistance.
This debate is about the idea that we all have a fundamental right to health care and that for too long many of us have been denied this right. No one should be denied the right to health care because of a genetic condition that they were born with, and no one should face financial ruin because of the medical cost of treating cancer. Every American, no matter their socioeconomic status, should be able to walk into their doctor’s office without having to ask themselves whether or not they can afford to be sick in America.
The mostly controversial and significant public policy debate today is about health care reform, and what the best way is to provide access to health care for all people in America. However, this debate is not new, but in fact has been debated for over a century. Much of this debate centers around one fundamental question: what is the role of the government? On one side of the issue you have those that argue that the government does not have a role in providing or ensuring that all people have access to health care. While the other side holds the position that the federal government has a role in providing for the general welfare which would include ensuring access to health care.
The government has played an active role in ensuring that the least privileged of Americans receive assistance and through many different programs the government promotes the general welfare of all Americans. Our government is a government of people, and whatever its failures in the past or future it can serve everyone. No one should be left behind. Universal health care should be the goal.
It is often asserted that America has the best health care in the world; however, it would be more accurate to state that America has the best health care in the world for those that are able to afford health care. The reality is that the United States spends more on health care and less people have access to health care. The United States is expected to spend $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, which is 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, health insurance premiums have increased 119 percent for employers since 1999 and employee spending for health insurance coverage has increased 117 percent during the same time period. Also, according to the United States Census Bureau, 46 million Americans, or 18 percent of the population, are uninsured. Also, due to the economic downturn millions of Americans who are losing their employment will also lose their insurance.
The high cost of health care does not only affect those that do not have health insurance, those that have coverage also must deal with escalating cost. A clinical research study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007 medical cost contributed to over 60% of all bankruptcies, and between 2001 and 2007 the portion of bankruptcies caused by medical cost rose 50%. Over three quarters of bankruptcies caused by medical expenses happened to people that had health insurance.
One solution that opponents of universal health care suggest is malpractice lawsuit reforms. However, Texas lawmakers have passed dramatic malpractice lawsuit reforms legislation, and yet there are a larger percentage of uninsured people in Texas than in any other state. Malpractice lawsuit reforms where passed with the reasoning that it would increase the number of doctors in Texas, and therefore increase access to health care. However, 114 of the 254 counties are designated primary-care shortage areas, and twenty-seven counties in Texas have no doctors at all.
The health care crisis affects a broad spectrum of Americans, but creating a public option is the most significant way to bring down the cost of health care and to provide universal access to health care. A public option would simply be another way of providing health insurance, and it would compete with the other insurance companies. By providing people this option it will lower the high cost of the uninsured raise the cost of health care for everyone.
Perhaps the most compelling argument for universal health care is an ethical and moral argument. In the not too distant past many people in Bryan-College Station remember when Hurricane Ike devastated the Gulf Coast of Texas, and left many people, through no fault of their own, without the resources to continue providing for their own needs. Likewise the economic downtown has affected many Americans, and has left many people, through no fault of their own, without employment and unable to afford health insurance. The reasons that we should provide government assistance to the people whose lives were affected by Hurricane are the same reasons we should provide government assistant to the people whose lives have been affected by the economic downturn. The ethical thing to do is to provide assistance to those among us that need assistance.
This debate is about the idea that we all have a fundamental right to health care and that for too long many of us have been denied this right. No one should be denied the right to health care because of a genetic condition that they were born with, and no one should face financial ruin because of the medical cost of treating cancer. Every American, no matter their socioeconomic status, should be able to walk into their doctor’s office without having to ask themselves whether or not they can afford to be sick in America.
Headlines
Local News
For Some Area Patients Wait for Government's Hand in Health Care Comes Too Late
According to an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, A significant portion of those who make it through get sicker during the wait period because of a lack of coverage, experts said. Some people’s conditions deteriorate past the point of no return, leaving them with handicaps that could have been prevented. Those lucky enough to be able to pay for treatment often deplete their savings. Some are forced to declare bankruptcy because of the medical bills. Advocates had hoped the wait period would be eliminated as part of national health care reform. That idea was backed by a coalition of more than 100 groups that includes organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association, the Arthritis Foundation and the National Alliance on Mental Health. But the provision was dropped from reform bills early in the process, largely because of the price tag. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated eliminating the wait period would cost $113 billion through 10 years. The coalition then focused on supporting reform measures that could help make coverage more accessible to people during the wait period.
Local Politics
Edwards to Vote Against Health Care Reform
U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards has heard from both sides of the health care debate as Congress mulls a comprehensive reform bill this month. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that he said he received a phone call from President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One urging him to vote for the bill. His offices have also been inundated with phone calls and letters from constituents urging him to vote one way or the other -- though he said the majority of the calls have expressed opposition to the bill. This week, Edwards made his choice clear. He will vote against the bill, like he did in November when it first passed through the House. The decision comes as political prognosticators are predicting a tough re-election campaign for the Democrat. His district, which runs from Brazos County north through Waco to near Fort Worth, is heavily Republican. A poll released this week by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a conservative group that opposes the health care reform, indicated that 60 percent of voters in Edwards' district oppose the bill. The poll estimated that 30 percent of voters in the district support it.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M University’s Chief Financial Officer Resigns
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Ealge, top financial officer of Texas A&M University has resigned to become vice chancellor for finance for the University of North Texas System. Terry Pankratz, vice president and chief financial officer, has worked at the 49,000-student university and within the A&M System that governs it for nearly 22 years. Administrative changes announced in January appeared to lessen Pankratz' role. In a series of moves that more closely aligned the flagship College Station campus with the A&M System, he was made to report directly to B.J. Crain, who is now the chief business officer for both the university and the A&M System. She reports both to Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin and A&M System Chancellor Mike McKinney.
National News
Report Faults U.S.’s Efforts at Transparency
A new report released this week by a private research group, the National Security Archive, suggests that the results of the Obama Administration push for transparency have been decidedly mixed across the federal government, with progress slow and erratic. The New York Times reports that the report found that despite the Obama Administration’s directive for agencies to take “affirmative steps” to make more information public through the Freedom of Information Act, many agencies do not appear to have made any concrete changes. It also found little indication that most federal agencies were releasing information any more frequently or rejecting public requests for information any less often. The White House, however, took issue with the group’s methodology and said that the administration had made clear progress in turning around an executive branch that is often averse to public disclosures. The federal government receives some 600,000 formal Freedom of Information requests a year from people seeking access to government records on a variety of issues, like terrorism interrogation policies and water quality levels on federal land.
Foreign Policy
$6 Billion Later, Afghanistan Cops Are Not Ready to Serve
According to a report by ProPublica, America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force, buying weapons, building police academies, and hiring defense contractors to train the recruits—but the program has been a disaster. More than $322 million worth of invoices for police training were approved even though the funds were poorly accounted for, according to a government audit, and fewer than 12 percent of the country's police units are capable of operating on their own. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption."
War and Peace
ACLU Seeks Government Disclosures on Drone Attacks
The ACLU announced this week that it was filing a lawsuit aimed at enforcing a previous FOIA request about information pertaining to the massive US drone program, including how many civilians have been killed in the attacks and what the legal basis is for the government killing people with unmanned attack vehicles. AntiWar.com reports that The lawsuit stems from FOIA requests filed in January, and according to the ACLU the Defense Department, the State Department and the Justice Department have all ignored the request. The CIA acknowledged the request but declined to send any information, claiming they couldn’t even confirm or deny if such data existed at all. The US has been using drones for such attacks for years, but the rate and severity of the attacks have escalated enormously since President Obama took office last year. The attacks have killed a massive number of civilians in recent months.
Economy
I.M.F. Warns Wealthiest Nations About Their Debt
According to an article in the New York Times, the global economic crisis has left “deep scars” in the fiscal balances of the world’s advanced economies, which should begin to rein in spending next year as the recovery continues, the No.2 official at the International Monetary Fund said Sunday in Beijing. In a speech at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the I.M.F. official, John Lipsky, who is the deputy managing director, offered a grim prognosis for the world’s wealthiest countries, which are at a level of indebtedness not seen since the aftermath of World War II. The I.M.F.’s staff concluded in a report last summer that the renminbi was “substantially undervalued,” and that this was contributing to China’s large trade surpluses in recent years. But China has blocked the release of that report, a prerogative of the I.M.F.’s member countries, although most allow the release of the I.M.F. staff’s reports on their economies.
Education
Bill Proposes Increased Aid to the Needy for College
The federal government would provide $36 billion in new financing for Pell grants to needy students over the next 10 years under legislation announced Thursday by Congressional Democrats. The New York Times reports the maximum annual Pell grant would rise to $5,975 by 2017, from $5,350 this year. The new Pell initiative includes $13.5 billion to cover a shortfall caused by the sharp increase in the number of Americans enrolling in college during the recession. Congress would pay for the larger grants by ending subsidies to private banks that make student loans and shifting to direct federal lending. But the amount going to education spending and aid for college students is far less than the Obama administration had hoped, largely because the savings from the switch to direct federal lending is now estimated to be $61 billion, rather than $87 billion.
Environment
Governors' Wind Energy Coalition Urges National Renewable Energy Standard
According to the Environment News Service, for the first time, a group of state governors is jointly requesting that Congress and the President adopt a national renewable energy standard - a minimum requirement for the use of renewable electricity. Organized as the Governors' Wind Energy Coalition, the bipartisan group of 29 governors from across the country today presented this request as the lead recommendation in a package that includes streamlined permitting for both onshore and offshore wind power projects and an upgraded interstate electric transmission system. The coalition recommends a renewable electricity standard requiring the nation's utilities to provide a minimum 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and biopower, by 2012. Over half of the states in the nation already have enacted some form of renewable electricity standard.
Civil Rights
Families Sue Over Guantanamo Deaths
The families of two prisoners who died at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are asking a federal court to reconsider its ruling dismissing their lawsuit, which seeks to hold federal officials and the U.S. government accountable for their sons' torture, arbitrary detention, and ultimate deaths. The Inter Press Service reports that according to their lawyers, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the families' request is based on newly discovered evidence from four soldiers who describe a cover-up by the authorities and say they were ordered not to speak out. The soldiers' accounts were reported in Harper's Magazine in January. The Pentagon maintains that the two men, along with a third prisoner, committed suicide in their cells in 2006. But their lawyers say the soldiers' firsthand accounts "raise serious questions about the actual cause and circumstances of the deaths."
Human Rights
Afghanistan Enacts Law That Gives War Criminals Blanket Immunity
According to TruthOut.org, a law that provides blanket immunity and pardons former members of Afghanistan’s armed factions for war crimes and human rights abuses committed prior to December 2001 was quietly enacted three years ago by parliament, despite previous assurances by President Hamid Karzai that he would not sign it or allow it to take effect. According to Waheed Omer, Karzai’s spokesman, the amnesty law was enacted because it was approved by two-thirds of parliament and therefore did not need Karzai’s signature. Parliament is made up largely of former warlords who were accused by Afghans and human rights groups of war crimes. The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), an organization founded in 2001 that assists countries in their pursuit of accountability for mass atrocities or human rights abuses, said "blanket amnesties promote impunity and are currently deemed unlawful under international law." Human rights groups learned that the law was enacted after it was published in Afghanistan’s official gazette.
Reproductive Rights
Alaskan Voter Initiative on Abortion Survives Legal Challenge
A Superior Court judge has ruled against Planned Parenthood of Alaska in its efforts to block a voter initiative that would create a requirement that doctors notify a parent if a girl under 18 wants an abortion. The McClatchy News Service reports that Judge Frank Pfiffner wrote that while language in the initiative needs to be tweaked, it is essentially valid to be taken to voters. Pfiffner has sent it back to the lieutenant governor's office for drafting of a better summary for voters, according to his opinion issued today. Currently, no laws restrict anyone of any age from receiving an abortion in Alaska. The initiative wants to ask voters for restrictions. Specifically, initiative sponsors want the doctor performing the abortion to inform a parent. The proposal does not go so far as to ask for consent of a parent, just notification.
Women’s Issues
Pregnant Women in United States at Greater Risk of Dying From Pregnancy
According to a report by RHRealityCheck.org, pregnant women in the United States have a greater risk of dying from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications than women in 40 other countries around the world - and this risk is increasing. If you're African-American - regardless of income level - your risk of dying from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications is nearly four times higher than for white women in this country. According to a new report from Amnesty International, Deadly Delivery, the state of maternal health in the United States is nothing short of a violation of women's basic human rights. Two women die every day "from pregnancy-related causes" but as the report notes this statistic doesn't begin to address the 68,433 women in 2004 and 2005 who experienced "near misses" - the women who skirted death during pregnancy or childbirth. Or the 1.7 million women from 1998 - 2005 who experienced "adverse effects" on their health from a complication arising from pregnancy or childbirth.
GLBT Issues
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Protesters Arrested at White House
The U.S. Park Police arrested two protesters who handcuffed themselves to a portion of the White House fence Thursday afternoon. The Washington Post reports that the Park Police came upon two men who had chained themselves to a section of the iron fence on the north side. Officers told the men they did not have a permit for their demonstration and gave them three warnings about the violation, Schlosser said. The men refused to leave, so officers arrested them on the charge of "failure to obey a lawful order." James Pietrangelo, 44, of Sandusky, Ohio, and Daniel W. Choi, 29, of New York are scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on Friday. Choi is an openly gay Iraq war veteran who has been a vocal critic of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals. Pietrangelo is a former U.S. Army captain and also openly gay. Choi said in a statement that he and Pietrangelo went to the White House to take their message directly to President Obama.
Race and Racism
Racial Disparities in Sentencing Rise After Guidelines Loosened
According to an article in McClatchy News Service, Black and Hispanic men are more likely to receive longer prison sentences than their white counterparts since the Supreme Court loosened federal sentencing rules, a government study has concluded. The study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission reignited a long-running debate about whether federal judges need to be held to mandatory guidelines in order to stamp out what might appear to be inherent biases and dramatically disparate sentences. The report analyzed sentences meted out since the January 2005 U.S. v. Booker decision gave federal judges much more sentencing discretion. For years, legal experts have argued over the disparity in sentencing between black and white men. The commission found that the difference peaked in 1999 with blacks receiving 14 percent longer sentences. By 2002, however, the commission found no statistical difference.
For Some Area Patients Wait for Government's Hand in Health Care Comes Too Late
According to an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, A significant portion of those who make it through get sicker during the wait period because of a lack of coverage, experts said. Some people’s conditions deteriorate past the point of no return, leaving them with handicaps that could have been prevented. Those lucky enough to be able to pay for treatment often deplete their savings. Some are forced to declare bankruptcy because of the medical bills. Advocates had hoped the wait period would be eliminated as part of national health care reform. That idea was backed by a coalition of more than 100 groups that includes organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association, the Arthritis Foundation and the National Alliance on Mental Health. But the provision was dropped from reform bills early in the process, largely because of the price tag. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated eliminating the wait period would cost $113 billion through 10 years. The coalition then focused on supporting reform measures that could help make coverage more accessible to people during the wait period.
Local Politics
Edwards to Vote Against Health Care Reform
U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards has heard from both sides of the health care debate as Congress mulls a comprehensive reform bill this month. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that he said he received a phone call from President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One urging him to vote for the bill. His offices have also been inundated with phone calls and letters from constituents urging him to vote one way or the other -- though he said the majority of the calls have expressed opposition to the bill. This week, Edwards made his choice clear. He will vote against the bill, like he did in November when it first passed through the House. The decision comes as political prognosticators are predicting a tough re-election campaign for the Democrat. His district, which runs from Brazos County north through Waco to near Fort Worth, is heavily Republican. A poll released this week by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a conservative group that opposes the health care reform, indicated that 60 percent of voters in Edwards' district oppose the bill. The poll estimated that 30 percent of voters in the district support it.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M University’s Chief Financial Officer Resigns
According to an article in the Bryan-College Station Ealge, top financial officer of Texas A&M University has resigned to become vice chancellor for finance for the University of North Texas System. Terry Pankratz, vice president and chief financial officer, has worked at the 49,000-student university and within the A&M System that governs it for nearly 22 years. Administrative changes announced in January appeared to lessen Pankratz' role. In a series of moves that more closely aligned the flagship College Station campus with the A&M System, he was made to report directly to B.J. Crain, who is now the chief business officer for both the university and the A&M System. She reports both to Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin and A&M System Chancellor Mike McKinney.
National News
Report Faults U.S.’s Efforts at Transparency
A new report released this week by a private research group, the National Security Archive, suggests that the results of the Obama Administration push for transparency have been decidedly mixed across the federal government, with progress slow and erratic. The New York Times reports that the report found that despite the Obama Administration’s directive for agencies to take “affirmative steps” to make more information public through the Freedom of Information Act, many agencies do not appear to have made any concrete changes. It also found little indication that most federal agencies were releasing information any more frequently or rejecting public requests for information any less often. The White House, however, took issue with the group’s methodology and said that the administration had made clear progress in turning around an executive branch that is often averse to public disclosures. The federal government receives some 600,000 formal Freedom of Information requests a year from people seeking access to government records on a variety of issues, like terrorism interrogation policies and water quality levels on federal land.
Foreign Policy
$6 Billion Later, Afghanistan Cops Are Not Ready to Serve
According to a report by ProPublica, America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force, buying weapons, building police academies, and hiring defense contractors to train the recruits—but the program has been a disaster. More than $322 million worth of invoices for police training were approved even though the funds were poorly accounted for, according to a government audit, and fewer than 12 percent of the country's police units are capable of operating on their own. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption."
War and Peace
ACLU Seeks Government Disclosures on Drone Attacks
The ACLU announced this week that it was filing a lawsuit aimed at enforcing a previous FOIA request about information pertaining to the massive US drone program, including how many civilians have been killed in the attacks and what the legal basis is for the government killing people with unmanned attack vehicles. AntiWar.com reports that The lawsuit stems from FOIA requests filed in January, and according to the ACLU the Defense Department, the State Department and the Justice Department have all ignored the request. The CIA acknowledged the request but declined to send any information, claiming they couldn’t even confirm or deny if such data existed at all. The US has been using drones for such attacks for years, but the rate and severity of the attacks have escalated enormously since President Obama took office last year. The attacks have killed a massive number of civilians in recent months.
Economy
I.M.F. Warns Wealthiest Nations About Their Debt
According to an article in the New York Times, the global economic crisis has left “deep scars” in the fiscal balances of the world’s advanced economies, which should begin to rein in spending next year as the recovery continues, the No.2 official at the International Monetary Fund said Sunday in Beijing. In a speech at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the I.M.F. official, John Lipsky, who is the deputy managing director, offered a grim prognosis for the world’s wealthiest countries, which are at a level of indebtedness not seen since the aftermath of World War II. The I.M.F.’s staff concluded in a report last summer that the renminbi was “substantially undervalued,” and that this was contributing to China’s large trade surpluses in recent years. But China has blocked the release of that report, a prerogative of the I.M.F.’s member countries, although most allow the release of the I.M.F. staff’s reports on their economies.
Education
Bill Proposes Increased Aid to the Needy for College
The federal government would provide $36 billion in new financing for Pell grants to needy students over the next 10 years under legislation announced Thursday by Congressional Democrats. The New York Times reports the maximum annual Pell grant would rise to $5,975 by 2017, from $5,350 this year. The new Pell initiative includes $13.5 billion to cover a shortfall caused by the sharp increase in the number of Americans enrolling in college during the recession. Congress would pay for the larger grants by ending subsidies to private banks that make student loans and shifting to direct federal lending. But the amount going to education spending and aid for college students is far less than the Obama administration had hoped, largely because the savings from the switch to direct federal lending is now estimated to be $61 billion, rather than $87 billion.
Environment
Governors' Wind Energy Coalition Urges National Renewable Energy Standard
According to the Environment News Service, for the first time, a group of state governors is jointly requesting that Congress and the President adopt a national renewable energy standard - a minimum requirement for the use of renewable electricity. Organized as the Governors' Wind Energy Coalition, the bipartisan group of 29 governors from across the country today presented this request as the lead recommendation in a package that includes streamlined permitting for both onshore and offshore wind power projects and an upgraded interstate electric transmission system. The coalition recommends a renewable electricity standard requiring the nation's utilities to provide a minimum 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and biopower, by 2012. Over half of the states in the nation already have enacted some form of renewable electricity standard.
Civil Rights
Families Sue Over Guantanamo Deaths
The families of two prisoners who died at the U.S. Navy Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are asking a federal court to reconsider its ruling dismissing their lawsuit, which seeks to hold federal officials and the U.S. government accountable for their sons' torture, arbitrary detention, and ultimate deaths. The Inter Press Service reports that according to their lawyers, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the families' request is based on newly discovered evidence from four soldiers who describe a cover-up by the authorities and say they were ordered not to speak out. The soldiers' accounts were reported in Harper's Magazine in January. The Pentagon maintains that the two men, along with a third prisoner, committed suicide in their cells in 2006. But their lawyers say the soldiers' firsthand accounts "raise serious questions about the actual cause and circumstances of the deaths."
Human Rights
Afghanistan Enacts Law That Gives War Criminals Blanket Immunity
According to TruthOut.org, a law that provides blanket immunity and pardons former members of Afghanistan’s armed factions for war crimes and human rights abuses committed prior to December 2001 was quietly enacted three years ago by parliament, despite previous assurances by President Hamid Karzai that he would not sign it or allow it to take effect. According to Waheed Omer, Karzai’s spokesman, the amnesty law was enacted because it was approved by two-thirds of parliament and therefore did not need Karzai’s signature. Parliament is made up largely of former warlords who were accused by Afghans and human rights groups of war crimes. The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), an organization founded in 2001 that assists countries in their pursuit of accountability for mass atrocities or human rights abuses, said "blanket amnesties promote impunity and are currently deemed unlawful under international law." Human rights groups learned that the law was enacted after it was published in Afghanistan’s official gazette.
Reproductive Rights
Alaskan Voter Initiative on Abortion Survives Legal Challenge
A Superior Court judge has ruled against Planned Parenthood of Alaska in its efforts to block a voter initiative that would create a requirement that doctors notify a parent if a girl under 18 wants an abortion. The McClatchy News Service reports that Judge Frank Pfiffner wrote that while language in the initiative needs to be tweaked, it is essentially valid to be taken to voters. Pfiffner has sent it back to the lieutenant governor's office for drafting of a better summary for voters, according to his opinion issued today. Currently, no laws restrict anyone of any age from receiving an abortion in Alaska. The initiative wants to ask voters for restrictions. Specifically, initiative sponsors want the doctor performing the abortion to inform a parent. The proposal does not go so far as to ask for consent of a parent, just notification.
Women’s Issues
Pregnant Women in United States at Greater Risk of Dying From Pregnancy
According to a report by RHRealityCheck.org, pregnant women in the United States have a greater risk of dying from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications than women in 40 other countries around the world - and this risk is increasing. If you're African-American - regardless of income level - your risk of dying from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications is nearly four times higher than for white women in this country. According to a new report from Amnesty International, Deadly Delivery, the state of maternal health in the United States is nothing short of a violation of women's basic human rights. Two women die every day "from pregnancy-related causes" but as the report notes this statistic doesn't begin to address the 68,433 women in 2004 and 2005 who experienced "near misses" - the women who skirted death during pregnancy or childbirth. Or the 1.7 million women from 1998 - 2005 who experienced "adverse effects" on their health from a complication arising from pregnancy or childbirth.
GLBT Issues
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Protesters Arrested at White House
The U.S. Park Police arrested two protesters who handcuffed themselves to a portion of the White House fence Thursday afternoon. The Washington Post reports that the Park Police came upon two men who had chained themselves to a section of the iron fence on the north side. Officers told the men they did not have a permit for their demonstration and gave them three warnings about the violation, Schlosser said. The men refused to leave, so officers arrested them on the charge of "failure to obey a lawful order." James Pietrangelo, 44, of Sandusky, Ohio, and Daniel W. Choi, 29, of New York are scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on Friday. Choi is an openly gay Iraq war veteran who has been a vocal critic of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals. Pietrangelo is a former U.S. Army captain and also openly gay. Choi said in a statement that he and Pietrangelo went to the White House to take their message directly to President Obama.
Race and Racism
Racial Disparities in Sentencing Rise After Guidelines Loosened
According to an article in McClatchy News Service, Black and Hispanic men are more likely to receive longer prison sentences than their white counterparts since the Supreme Court loosened federal sentencing rules, a government study has concluded. The study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission reignited a long-running debate about whether federal judges need to be held to mandatory guidelines in order to stamp out what might appear to be inherent biases and dramatically disparate sentences. The report analyzed sentences meted out since the January 2005 U.S. v. Booker decision gave federal judges much more sentencing discretion. For years, legal experts have argued over the disparity in sentencing between black and white men. The commission found that the difference peaked in 1999 with blacks receiving 14 percent longer sentences. By 2002, however, the commission found no statistical difference.
Friday, March 19, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our studio guest is Lowell Kane, the Program Coordinator of the Texas A&M University GLBT Resource Center. Our topics of conversation will include GLBT Awareness Week, the proposed GLBT Community Center, the “It’s Time” LGBT Conference to be held on the Texas A&M University Campus.
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
Friday, March 12, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground: the Spring Break Call-In! This week is your chance as listeners to join in on the conversation and voice your opinions on the issues. To join in on the conversation call the KEOS Bell Studios during the show at (979) 779-5367. You can also leave comments or questions on the Information Underground Facebook page during the show.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
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, March 7, 2010
Headlines
Local Politics
Flores and Curnock Advance to Runoff in Republican Congressional Primary
According to an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, Rob Curnock and Bill Flores are advancing to the primary runoff that will decide the Republican nominee for Texas Congressional District 17.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M and University of Texas Share Budget Ideas
Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin are archrivals, but faculty members of the Texas’s two research giants united this week. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that both schools are Texas' only top-tier research universities and have fall student populations hovering near 50,000 and are the flagships for their systems. The two colleges have even more similarities this year: both, along with all of the state's public higher-education institutions, are bracing for a planned 5 percent state reduction. The schools are preparing for roughly the same amount of cuts -- about $28 million for A&M and $29 million for UT. The Texas A&M athletics department has not been asked to make reductions, while UT athletics would shoulder $5 million through trademark licensing, sponsorships, revenues and cash reserves. UT-Austin will place the burden on fiscal year 2011 and leave fiscal year 2010 -- the current year that began Sept. 1 -- untouched. At Texas A&M, the planned cuts would be roughly split between the two years.
Texas News
State Investigating Alleged Leak of TAKS Test
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Education Agency is investigating allegations that staff at a Houston ISD elementary school had access to a secure TAKS test and perhaps shared an essay topic with students before the writing exam, which is scheduled for today. The investigation centers on Jefferson Elementary, but in case the test question got shared with other HISD campuses, the TEA has issued a new secret essay topic for all elementary schools in the district. Agency officials do not suspect the test information was shared with other school districts, so the test change only involved the Houston Independent School District. The affected exam is the fourth-grade writing section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Scores on the high-stakes exams factor into a school's state accountability rating — low marks can lead to public embarrassment and sanctions. HISD also awards performance bonuses — often worth thousands of dollars — to employees based on the scores, though the writing exam plays only a small part in the calculation.
National Politics
Majority of Americans Think Washington is Broken
An overwhelming majority of Americans think that their federal government is gridlocked by partisan infighting and turf battles and can't accomplish anything, according to a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll. Yet the anger and frustration with Washington aren't directed solely at either party and don't automatically add up to a tidal wave against the governing Democrats in this year's elections for control of Congress, the poll suggested. Four out of five Americans, 80 percent, said that Washington couldn't accomplish anything because of fighting between the political parties and branches of the government, the poll found. Only 17 percent disagreed. The sentiment is deeply held: Fifty-one percent strongly agree that gridlock renders the government impotent. It's also felt across the political spectrum, with 81 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents agreeing that the government is bogged down.
War and Peace
Airstrikes Kill Fewer Afghans Civilians But More Dying on Ground
According to an article by McClatchy News Service, even as U.S. forces take steps to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed by aerial attacks, other civilian casualties remain stubbornly high — deaths in so-called escalation of force incidents in which edgy American troops fire on civilians who've come too close to their convoys or roadblocks. The number of Afghans killed in such incidents rose 43 percent in 2009 to 113, from 79 in 2008, while the total number of NATO coalition-caused civilian deaths and injuries declined 15.5 percent, to 535 from 633. How to avoid killing civilians has been a persistent problem for American troops since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when several well publicized incidents of U.S. soldiers killing friendly civilians soured many Iraqis on the American presence.
Economy
Federal Government Plans New Measure for Poverty
The federal government announced on this week that it would begin producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed nearly a half-century ago by an obscure civil servant in the Social Security Administration. The New York Times reports that advocates for the poor and technical experts have argued for years that the original standard, developed in conjunction with the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, was anachronistic. The civil servant who created it, Mollie Orshansky, based it on the Agriculture Department’s cheapest meal plan, on the assumption that the average family spent a third of its income on food at the time. Her formula has largely remained the same except for inflation adjustments. The new supplemental measure will be released for the first time in the fall of next year. It adapts National Academy of Sciences recommendations issued in 1995 and later embraced by, among others, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to formulate antipoverty policies.
Environment
Weedkiller in Waterways Change Frogs' Sex Traits
According to an article in the Washington Post, a new study has found that male frogs exposed to the herbicide atrazine -- one of the most common man-made chemicals found in U.S. waters -- can make a startling developmental U-turn, becoming so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seems likely to add to the attention focused on a weedkiller that is widely used on cornfields. The Environmental Protection Agency, which re-approved the use of atrazine in 2006, has already begun a new evaluation of its potential health effects. In recent years, a series of scientific studies have seemed to show atrazine interfering with the hormone systems that guide development in fish, birds, rats and frogs. In many cases, the result has been "feminized" males, with behaviors or body parts more like those of females. The new study appeared to show an even more drastic transformation: Some male frogs became female, in everything but their genes.
Health Care
Anthem Blue Cross Manipulated Data to Justify Massive Rate Hike
Internal documents show one of the country's largest for-profit health insurers, in an effort to maintain profits, manipulated data to justify a rate increase on individual premiums in California this year by as much as 39 percent. TruthOut.org reports that last month, it was revealed that Anthem Blue Cross notified thousands of its 800,000 customers in California who hold individual plans that they would be affected by a rate hike as of March 1. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report, Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System, that identified how other for-profit health insurance companies were planning massive rate increases in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Human Rights
Apple Admits Using Child Labor
According to an article in the London Telegraph, at least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China. Apple also has factories working for it in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States. Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. Apple has been repeatedly criticized for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight.
Civil Rights
Texas Governor Grants State's First Posthumous Pardon
Texas Governor Rick Perry pardoned a man this week who died in prison after serving more than 13 years for a wrongful rape conviction. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Perry granted the state's first posthumous pardon to Tim Cole in Austin after receiving a recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Cole was convicted of a 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock. The Army veteran was cleared by DNA evidence in 2008, nine years after he died in prison of complications from asthma at age 39. The family had sought a pardon from Perry, who was sympathetic but maintained he could not legally grant a posthumous pardon. The state attorney general clarified the law in January, clearing the way for the pardon. Cole is the first Texas man to be posthumously cleared by DNA testing. The 2008 test cleared Cole and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who confessed in several letters to court officials that date back to 1995.
Women’s Issues
Military to Review Ban on Women in Combat
According to an article in the Associated Press, US commanders are taking a second look at policies that bar women from ground combat, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have thrust female soldiers into the thick of the fight. Despite a policy designed to keep women away from units engaged in ground combat, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed women in battle with insurgents who do not operate along defined front lines.
As a result, women have earned medals for valor and praise for their mettle. Advocates of women in combat say such cases are rare, and that the military requires all parents to have firm plans in place for their children before they deploy -- or else leave the force.
More than 220,000 women have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 120 of them have been killed in the conflicts, according to the Pentagon.
GLBT Issues
Lieberman Introduces Bill to Repeal DADT
Independent senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut introduced the Senate’s first “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal bill along with 11 Democratic cosponsors including Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, but no Republicans. The Advocate reports that the legislation, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2010, would repeal the 1993 law that banned lesbian and gay soldiers from serving openly in the military and replace it with a policy that prohibits discrimination against service members on the basis of their sexual orientation. Lieberman explained that the nondiscrimination provision would make the change “more permanent legislatively,” so a future administration couldn’t revert back to something akin to “don’t ask, don’t tell” by executive action. Lieberman, who has opposed the ’93 law since its inception, said ending the policy has significant support and that he would push for passing the bill this year, although he wasn’t sure he had the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.
Flores and Curnock Advance to Runoff in Republican Congressional Primary
According to an article in the Waco Tribune-Herald, Rob Curnock and Bill Flores are advancing to the primary runoff that will decide the Republican nominee for Texas Congressional District 17.
Texas A&M News
Texas A&M and University of Texas Share Budget Ideas
Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin are archrivals, but faculty members of the Texas’s two research giants united this week. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports that both schools are Texas' only top-tier research universities and have fall student populations hovering near 50,000 and are the flagships for their systems. The two colleges have even more similarities this year: both, along with all of the state's public higher-education institutions, are bracing for a planned 5 percent state reduction. The schools are preparing for roughly the same amount of cuts -- about $28 million for A&M and $29 million for UT. The Texas A&M athletics department has not been asked to make reductions, while UT athletics would shoulder $5 million through trademark licensing, sponsorships, revenues and cash reserves. UT-Austin will place the burden on fiscal year 2011 and leave fiscal year 2010 -- the current year that began Sept. 1 -- untouched. At Texas A&M, the planned cuts would be roughly split between the two years.
Texas News
State Investigating Alleged Leak of TAKS Test
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Education Agency is investigating allegations that staff at a Houston ISD elementary school had access to a secure TAKS test and perhaps shared an essay topic with students before the writing exam, which is scheduled for today. The investigation centers on Jefferson Elementary, but in case the test question got shared with other HISD campuses, the TEA has issued a new secret essay topic for all elementary schools in the district. Agency officials do not suspect the test information was shared with other school districts, so the test change only involved the Houston Independent School District. The affected exam is the fourth-grade writing section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Scores on the high-stakes exams factor into a school's state accountability rating — low marks can lead to public embarrassment and sanctions. HISD also awards performance bonuses — often worth thousands of dollars — to employees based on the scores, though the writing exam plays only a small part in the calculation.
National Politics
Majority of Americans Think Washington is Broken
An overwhelming majority of Americans think that their federal government is gridlocked by partisan infighting and turf battles and can't accomplish anything, according to a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll. Yet the anger and frustration with Washington aren't directed solely at either party and don't automatically add up to a tidal wave against the governing Democrats in this year's elections for control of Congress, the poll suggested. Four out of five Americans, 80 percent, said that Washington couldn't accomplish anything because of fighting between the political parties and branches of the government, the poll found. Only 17 percent disagreed. The sentiment is deeply held: Fifty-one percent strongly agree that gridlock renders the government impotent. It's also felt across the political spectrum, with 81 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents agreeing that the government is bogged down.
War and Peace
Airstrikes Kill Fewer Afghans Civilians But More Dying on Ground
According to an article by McClatchy News Service, even as U.S. forces take steps to reduce the number of Afghan civilians killed by aerial attacks, other civilian casualties remain stubbornly high — deaths in so-called escalation of force incidents in which edgy American troops fire on civilians who've come too close to their convoys or roadblocks. The number of Afghans killed in such incidents rose 43 percent in 2009 to 113, from 79 in 2008, while the total number of NATO coalition-caused civilian deaths and injuries declined 15.5 percent, to 535 from 633. How to avoid killing civilians has been a persistent problem for American troops since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when several well publicized incidents of U.S. soldiers killing friendly civilians soured many Iraqis on the American presence.
Economy
Federal Government Plans New Measure for Poverty
The federal government announced on this week that it would begin producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year, a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed nearly a half-century ago by an obscure civil servant in the Social Security Administration. The New York Times reports that advocates for the poor and technical experts have argued for years that the original standard, developed in conjunction with the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, was anachronistic. The civil servant who created it, Mollie Orshansky, based it on the Agriculture Department’s cheapest meal plan, on the assumption that the average family spent a third of its income on food at the time. Her formula has largely remained the same except for inflation adjustments. The new supplemental measure will be released for the first time in the fall of next year. It adapts National Academy of Sciences recommendations issued in 1995 and later embraced by, among others, the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to formulate antipoverty policies.
Environment
Weedkiller in Waterways Change Frogs' Sex Traits
According to an article in the Washington Post, a new study has found that male frogs exposed to the herbicide atrazine -- one of the most common man-made chemicals found in U.S. waters -- can make a startling developmental U-turn, becoming so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seems likely to add to the attention focused on a weedkiller that is widely used on cornfields. The Environmental Protection Agency, which re-approved the use of atrazine in 2006, has already begun a new evaluation of its potential health effects. In recent years, a series of scientific studies have seemed to show atrazine interfering with the hormone systems that guide development in fish, birds, rats and frogs. In many cases, the result has been "feminized" males, with behaviors or body parts more like those of females. The new study appeared to show an even more drastic transformation: Some male frogs became female, in everything but their genes.
Health Care
Anthem Blue Cross Manipulated Data to Justify Massive Rate Hike
Internal documents show one of the country's largest for-profit health insurers, in an effort to maintain profits, manipulated data to justify a rate increase on individual premiums in California this year by as much as 39 percent. TruthOut.org reports that last month, it was revealed that Anthem Blue Cross notified thousands of its 800,000 customers in California who hold individual plans that they would be affected by a rate hike as of March 1. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report, Insurance Companies Prosper, Families Suffer: Our Broken Health Insurance System, that identified how other for-profit health insurance companies were planning massive rate increases in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Human Rights
Apple Admits Using Child Labor
According to an article in the London Telegraph, at least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China. Apple also has factories working for it in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States. Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. Apple has been repeatedly criticized for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight.
Civil Rights
Texas Governor Grants State's First Posthumous Pardon
Texas Governor Rick Perry pardoned a man this week who died in prison after serving more than 13 years for a wrongful rape conviction. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Perry granted the state's first posthumous pardon to Tim Cole in Austin after receiving a recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Cole was convicted of a 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock. The Army veteran was cleared by DNA evidence in 2008, nine years after he died in prison of complications from asthma at age 39. The family had sought a pardon from Perry, who was sympathetic but maintained he could not legally grant a posthumous pardon. The state attorney general clarified the law in January, clearing the way for the pardon. Cole is the first Texas man to be posthumously cleared by DNA testing. The 2008 test cleared Cole and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who confessed in several letters to court officials that date back to 1995.
Women’s Issues
Military to Review Ban on Women in Combat
According to an article in the Associated Press, US commanders are taking a second look at policies that bar women from ground combat, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have thrust female soldiers into the thick of the fight. Despite a policy designed to keep women away from units engaged in ground combat, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed women in battle with insurgents who do not operate along defined front lines.
As a result, women have earned medals for valor and praise for their mettle. Advocates of women in combat say such cases are rare, and that the military requires all parents to have firm plans in place for their children before they deploy -- or else leave the force.
More than 220,000 women have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 120 of them have been killed in the conflicts, according to the Pentagon.
GLBT Issues
Lieberman Introduces Bill to Repeal DADT
Independent senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut introduced the Senate’s first “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal bill along with 11 Democratic cosponsors including Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, but no Republicans. The Advocate reports that the legislation, called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2010, would repeal the 1993 law that banned lesbian and gay soldiers from serving openly in the military and replace it with a policy that prohibits discrimination against service members on the basis of their sexual orientation. Lieberman explained that the nondiscrimination provision would make the change “more permanent legislatively,” so a future administration couldn’t revert back to something akin to “don’t ask, don’t tell” by executive action. Lieberman, who has opposed the ’93 law since its inception, said ending the policy has significant support and that he would push for passing the bill this year, although he wasn’t sure he had the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
This Week on Information Underground
This week on Information Underground our studio guest is Karl-Thomas Musselman, publisher of the Burnt Orange Report. Musselman has been the Tech Director for the Travis County Democratic Party, Online Coordinator of the Rick Noriega for US Senate campaign, and Campaign Manager for the Mark Strama for State Representative campaign. Our topics of conversation will include the progressive blogosphere in Texas and the 2010 political campaigns and elections. Liberal Library: The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
Listen to Information Underground on 89.1FM KEOS on Sundays from 5-6pm after Tavis Smiley, for all the alternative news, politics, and commentary that you don’t hear in the mainstream media. To listen to Information Underground online and to listen to past episodes visit Information Underground on BlogTalkRadio. Tune in every week to hear headlines, interviews, and political and social thought to the Left of College Station.
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