Education cuts may energize angry Texas parents Deep cuts in school funding approved by the Texas Legislature last summer could energize angry parents in a way similar to how the tea party movement mobilized conservatives in 2010. In the 150-seat state House alone, at least 29 candidates who are current or former school board members, or have other education experience, are challenging incumbents or vying for open seats in the May 29 primary.
Seventeen are Republicans and 12 are Democrats - and most are pledging to fix Texas' broken school finance system and dial back the importance of high-stakes standardized tests.
And this time lying about it won't work, although they are still trying. You know the claims that there was NO cut in educational fund, but an increase! Which is true if you lump together all funds for education - building, maintenance, salaries, etc AND ignore growth in enrollment and inflation.
Lies, Damned Lies, and State Budgets: The Fictional World of Texas Lawmakers Texas lawmakers are living in a fictional world. A fictional world of balanced budgets, increased funding to education, and a belief that cuts without increasing revenue will solve all of our state's problems. In the "real world," though, parents, educators, and community members are concerned about the impact of the $5.6 billion in cuts to education during the last legislative session. The collective delusions of lawmakers leads to the typical reply that, "we gave more money to education this session than in the last in terms of real dollars."
Rep. Myra Crownover (R-Denton) recently joined in chorusing the rhetoric of this fictional world. Crownover's campaign website stated in January 2012: "Most importantly, we balanced the state's budget with the first overall decrease in state spending in 50 years. We also were able to increase state spending on Education by $1.6 Billion even in the face of the worst recession in decades."
However, in a recent article by the Lewisville Texan that challenged Representative Crownover on her claims, the Texan was unable to find any fiscal evidence of an increase.
"The only increase we were able to find was a $1.6 billion increase in non-stimulus FEDERAL funding for education. We looked at total education, public education, federal funding, federal stimulus funding, and state funding. We compared current to past appropriations, and current to past budget and estimated. In no way that we saw, did state funding for education increase at all."
Another source explains what really happened:
Spending per student drops sharply in Texas public schools Spending on public school students in Texas has dropped sharply this year and the already large gap between the state and the national average has widened, according to new comparisons by the National Education Association . Texas schools are spending $8,908 per student in the current school year, well under the national average of $11,463 and also below the estimate cited by Gov. Rick Perry - $10,000 - in an interview with The Dallas Morning News this week.
Preliminary NEA figures show that per pupil spending in the state actually dropped $538 from the 2010-11 school year, when Texas ranked 41st among the states with an average expenditure of $9,446. It is one of the few times in recent history that average spending on students has declined in the state. Nationwide, the average went up slightly, about $158 per pupil, as other states also dealt with tough economic circumstances. The decrease in Texas follows unprecedented funding cuts approved by the Legislature last year to balance the state budget. Funding for schools was slashed by $5.4 billion in the current biennium, with many North Texas districts facing their biggest reductions in the 2012-13 school year.
Average teacher salaries in Texas actually went up slightly this year to $49,017, an increase of $379 over last year, when the state ranked 31st in the NEA comparisons. But the Texas average is still $7,626 below the national average and the difference between Texas teachers and their counterparts across the country is growing. "We continue to fall further behind the national averages for both spending per student and teacher salaries because of the refusal of the governor and the legislative majority to adequately fund public schools," said Clay Robison of the NEA-affiliated Texas State Teachers Association. The NEA comparisons - based on data furnished by state education agencies - are among the most reliable in the nation and are frequently cited officials in Texas and other states.
The Republican Party and its super pac sugar daddies know no shame. But don't take it from me. The Washington Post wrote as much about a recent blatantly mendacious smear ad launched against President Obama by the Koch brother's Americans for Prosperity pac. (Translation: American's for Prosperity for the 1%).
The Obama campaign will not take such untrue and vicious bullsh*t lying down.
Abe Lincoln must be rolling in his grave. When his party members are not spewing loony tunes rhetoric about social issues from the far right of the twilight zone, the Republican fringe party will lie through its teeth when all else fails. After all, most of the GOP's politicians have permanently indentured their lips to the derrieres of the 1% on Wall St.,the oil and gas industry, big insurance and the pharma industry to name a few. All of them will predictably rail against the big bad government and yet all of the ranters sure seem to love their jobs in government.
Tragically for us, when they are in power the GOP is obviously incapable of actually governing as we painfully learned during the dark days of the W. administration. Indeed, the Republican Party is far more obsessed with imposing restrictions on women's rights and certain others from their legal right to vote.
When it is not doing either of the above we can always count on Republican lawmakers to rubber stamp legislation written by ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Commission), a right wing conservative group that is pro-powerful interests and anti-middle class.
This is what the Republican Party has come to over the years.
Maybe the Party is getting crazier by the minute because no one except for a handful of the old Republican guard really likes Mitt Romney. Books can be written as to why the tea party possessed GOP ended up with a former liberal moderate Governor who signed Romneycare into law, and now a converted severely conservative, as its Presidential candidate.
Romney, a vulture capitalist, at least according to Rick Perry and other Republican Presidential candidates, acquired a lot of his wealth by busting up companies and firing people. And he hides a lot of his wealth in offshore banks in the Grand Cayman Islands and Switzerland.
It seems to me that Mitt Romney is the perfect Republican candidate. Just like Rick Perry. He looks out for himself and the 1%. That and he will cave in to the extremists on the far right Check out the video below the fold.
This piece by Ricardo Pimentel deserves wider awareness.
The short story: we have a shoot first law in Texas that dates to 2007. The blinkered fools who help give us the Trayvon Martin tragedy have been quietly pushing this exremist gun crap for years.
Even the bill's sponsor was unaware of this fact. You see there are two kinds of self-defense laws in question. The one is called the "castle doctrine" and goes back centuries in Anglo-Saxon law. Essentailly, it means you can use deadly force to protect yourself inside of your home and have no obligation to retreat if you feel " reasonably fears imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm to himself or another".
The other is the infamous "stand your ground" version which has been catapulted into the news by the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin. The specific change is the removal of the obligation to retreat first in the face of an imminent threat and only use deadly force as a last resort.
Pimentel spoke with Jeff Wentworth, the Texas bill's sponsor:
There was genuine surprise that we have a nearly identical law. Folks who actually studied or have to decide whether to prosecute in such cases were aware. But others told me, no, Texas has a "castle doctrine" law, not a stand-your-ground law.
To determine why this was, I called the sponsor of the 2007 legislation. But it took three conversations with state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, before he acknowledged "that detail" - that the bill removed the duty to retreat from attacks even outside the home. It's clear, though, that Wentworth was aware of this when the legislation passed.
This isn't about a gotcha on Wentworth. I think he's plenty sharp, but there's likely a reason he remembered it that way.
You see even if Wentworth and others knew that the castle doctrine extended outside a person's castle - even if it's spelled out in every version of the legislation and analysis I saw - that's not what the narrative of the day was emphasizing. Much of it focused on those words "castle doctrine."
Here's how an Associated Press story described the legislation at the time: "A sort of shoot-first, retreat-later approach to defending hearth, home, truck and business (my emphasis)."
Wentworth stressed homes, businesses and vehicles, then and now, though back in 2007, he also added an "anywhere else" in that AP story.
[snip]
Talking that third time, after his own research and after talking with his "general counsel," he said, "I don't recall that detail but do recall that we wanted to remove that duty to retreat." This week, after I talked to him, Wentworth issued a press release explaining the law in its entirety.
Step right up into Texas, folks. For this is a place where money can buy the absolute worst crony capitalists and self-serving politicians in the country. This is also a state in which the crony capitalists don't even try to pretend they are not crony capitalists anymore. And where sleazy Tom Delay styled pay to play politics is considered a proud achievement. Texas has also been possessed by anti tax devils who consider any form of revenue increases as the worst kind of evil. Any Republican politician who should utter a mere suggestion of perhaps raising taxes by one penny would be summarily purged from the Texas Republican Taliban Party. Texas is also a place in which business ranks top dog. The Republican mantra is "If its good for business, it is good for Texas." This might be true for some of Texas, but certainly not all. God help those who are poor. As the late Houston TV personality, Marvin Zindler would say on his weekly news segment:
It's hell to be poor.
This is especially true when one lives in Texas where social services have been cut down to the bone.
In her article for the Houston Chronicle this week Patti Kilday Hart writes about a vacuum in leadership in both the business and political communities in Texas.
Last Friday, I wrote a column questioning why no Texas business leaders are challenging Gov. Rick Perry's recent "no new taxes" compact - even though it means the state will delay badly needed investment in infrastructure like roads and water, or in educating a sufficient health care workforce.
I was surprised when even the Greater Houston Partnership's CEO, Jeff Moseley, "endorsed" Perry's plan, though it contradicted many public positions taken by the GHP board. Moseley, who used to work for Perry, acknowledged he hadn't seen the details of the governor's "compact" when he gave his broad-brush support of Perry's fiscal conservatism.
Ms. Hart notes that past state and federal lawmakers wanted to leave legacies not only for themselves but for the state as well. But this current crop of legislators and business leaders seem more concerned about holding on to irrational ideological agendas (i.e. no taxes, EVER, no matter WHAT) and the accumulation of wealth.
For themselves.
Former Houston Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Bill White said as much about his opponent in 2010, Governor Oops.
Without a vision, the people perish - Proverbs 29:18
My son is in the coast guard and he is serving in Massachusetts now. He plans on returing to Texas to serve out his time. I talked to him today and his only reservation was coming back to Rick Perry's Texas, a Texas where the rich get fatter and the poor only get screwed - over public education, healthcare , transportation, food for poor kids - the list goes on. The only vision Rick has is how to continue Rick's scam game as governor of Texas.
Witness his Texas Budget Compact. Let the Dallas Morning News, no liberal rag by anybody's jaded definition, point out the key principles:
Austin American-Statesman on the Texas Budget Compact Streamline agencies and eliminate unnecessary ones. You bet. That's why this newspaper regularly outlines where state legislators can cut. But what does he have in mind? The real savings come in big departments. Which would he reduce or eliminate?
Don't create new taxes or raise existing ones. Nice principle, but does he mean the state shouldn't create a fee to pay for needed water projects? If so, how should Texas finance them? What if the courts throw out Texas' method of financing schools? Should we not create a new tax to replace the current business tax that funds schools?
Permanently exempt some small businesses from state franchise taxes. We needed a new franchise tax a few years ago because we had too many exemptions. How will we avoid repeating that problem?
Stop shifting funds designated for one purpose to another function. Absolutely. The sleight of hand should stop, and that extends to us. We're guilty of supporting last-minute budget deals that shift some payments around to balance the budget.
Limit spending increases to the demands placed upon the budget by population growth and inflation hikes. Legislators would lose the flexibility required to meet needs. For example, they must make up for some of its recent education cuts. Legislators couldn't do that if the extra spending blew past the caps.
Maintain the rainy day fund. Keep a good balance in the surplus account? Yes. But if he means don't touch it, which was his view in 2011, then no way. The fund was created to help in emergencies and we should use it during such, as numerous business leaders said last year.
Let's grant each of the compliants made by the News. They, of course , miss the larger issue. Perry's thread bare principles are not really a vision for Texas's future , they are signals to this cronies and his sponsors that he is still the same old fraud he was before he bombed on the national stage.
While on the Presidential campaign trail this year candidate Rick Perry self-righteously told his Republican opponents that they were heartless when they criticized the Governor for granting in state tuition for college students whose parents are undocumented workers.
But when one reviews Rick Perry and the Texas Republican legislation passed recently, one can learn a lot about the true meaning of both heartless and the downright mean.
The lies we've been told for the last 40 years are simply not true. We can't have it all and low taxes. WCNews at Eye On Williamson points out that Taxes are the solution.
The Harris County Democratic Party's dirty laundry spilled out of the basket and blew all over the neighborhood this past week. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs spent some time wrangling it, but finally... uh... tossed in the towel.
As we should all know by now the Texas Republican Taliban's" war on women and voter's rights have been ongoing and relentless. From the state mandated sonogram law that has been imposed on women seeking abortions, unnecessary voter ID laws that make it more difficult for minorities, students and the poor to vote to banning Planned Parenthood as a health care provider for low income women, the Texas Taliban's assaults against women's and voter's rights has been unyielding. One can only wonder what other hardship, misery and suffering will the Texas Republican Taliban dream up next?
We have learned through recent news reports how a right wing organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), sometimes in concert with the NRA, have been writing conservative cookie cutter legislation that favors corporate interests over those of the public. This anti-people group has been in action since 2005. Republican lawmakers on the federal and state levels have obediently clicked their heels together and rubber stamped ALEC's agenda. This has led to terrible outcomes in states like Florida and Texas that have stand your ground laws. This reckless and unnecessary law has resulted in the recent tragic murder of Trayvon Martin. A heavy set gun yielding 28 year old man felt "threatened" by a skinny seventeen year old teen who carried a can of iced tea and a bag of candy. Insane legislation like this should rightfully be called kill at will laws.
ALEC has also had a hand in pushing through the voter Id laws. One can safely assume that any law passed that is pro corporate and anti-people's rights or standards of living, has been written by ALEC and voted on in lockstep by the Republican Party. Volumes can and will be written about ALEC alone. Stay tuned.
Planned Parenthood Pushes Back.
Fortunately the party's ruthlessly heartless efforts have been noticed on at least two fronts. For one, Planned Parenthood has sued the state of Texas for banning the organization as a health care provider for low income women.
Keith Olbermann and Sarah Tressler were just two of many journalists who parted company with their employers last week, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggsnoted the transitions without commenting on the similarities of their circumstances.
Neil at Texas Liberal posted a letter he co-wrote to Amnesty International asking for Amnesty to come to Texas to consider the forced sonogram law. This law is state-mandated rape. Neil has been posting on this issue in recent weeks, and will continue this focus in the days ahead.
Our url has changed to texaskaos.net. This was an administrative change only.
Thanks to our excellent hosts at Soapblox, our archived stories redirect to the .net address. However, if you keep us on a blogroll, (first of all, thank you very much), please update our url to the new address.
I'm hoping this might make us less tasty to SEO spammers, but we'll have to see. I'll keep the whackamole mallet handy.
Apparently the Lt. Governor believes he can run around the state and tell whooper after whooper about school budgets and get away with it. This is the problem with politicians who reside outside of the mainstream of society. And those who live in the bubbles of the 1% have no clue what life is like for hard working ordinary people whose children attend the state's public schools.
In Houston recently to campaign for the U.S. Senate, Dewhurst claimed the state of Texas this year appropriated more money for public education than ever before in its history. It's technically true, in the way that Enron was technically a viable company. So here's the real bottom line, summing up the entire financial picture: Texas public schools now have less money than ever to educate our schoolchildren. Saying otherwise is just "balderdash," says Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston.
"When I read that he said that, I thought, 'There he goes again,' " said Coleman, expressing the collective exasperation of Texas' education community. Like an improbable urban myth that just won't die, the claim that schools didn't really take a financial hit this budget cycle keeps circulating.
David Dewhurst can hope he can fool his 1% base and the public with his urban myth but the parents and teachers of public school children know the truth. The hard reality is Rick Perry and David Dewhurst cut the school budget by $4 billion over two years. Over 12,000 teachers and staff have been laid off.
Speaking to the Houston Republican Jewish Coalition last week, Dewhurst assured his audience that our schools were flush with cash. "We appropriated more money for public education than we have ever appropriated in the state of Texas," he asserted. People complaining about public school funding "have a problem with math. The facts are the facts."
But, as any Houstonian can tell you, there's math, and then there's Enron Math. Here, Dewhurst is engaging in Enron Math, spotlighting one number from the state appropriations bill that doesn't tell the whole story - just as Enron looked profitable if you didn't know about those pesky off-balance-sheet losses.
Smoke and mirrors accounting practices.
Which might make sense, if it weren't for the little trick the Legislature played with federal stimulus dollars in the previous budget. That session, lawmakers put $3.3 billion in federal money toward public education, then diverted an equal amount in General Revenue dollars to pay for other things. To compare the General Revenue spent on education in the two budgets amounts to a massive case of amnesia about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
David Dewhurst and Governor Oops Rick Perry appropriated bail out money from the feds, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill which most Republicans claim to hate but find that their states can't get buy (oops! Freudian slip. I meant by) without a little welfare from Uncle Sam. Even though Rick Perry and David Dewhurst railed against the federal stimulus funding the two finance challenged stooges covered 97% of their budget deficit with federal stimulus funds in 2010.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that David Dewhurst has issues in the pants on fire department.
Rick Perry and his War on Women goon squad already have disgusted even the women of their own party with their creepy and intrusive sonogram law, generally recognized as the most oppressive anti-choice statute currently being enforced anywhere in the country. They backed up that roaring victory with the defunding of family planning services for hundreds of thousands of low-income women, merely because their lifesaving cancer screenings and desperately needed birth control pills were provided by The Great Satan, AKA Planned Parenthood.
And now they look to be coming after what tattered shreds of dignity and medical privacy that women in Texas have left.
The Dallal Morning News has discovered that the plague of incivility in our political discourse this week. In other news, water is wet, and the sun rises in the East.
But, let them tell their story
CIVIL SOCIETY REQUIRES OPEN MINDS So here is David Dewhurst's crime, according to Ted Cruz: Dewhurst talked - yes, talked - to a Houston doctor who favors requiring individuals to purchase health insurance. The transgression was so great that Cruz decided recently that GOP primary voters should know what sort of dastardly deed his leading opponent in the Republican race to succeed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was doing. The tar and feathers came out, and Cruz and his supporters blasted Dewhurst for talking to Dr. Guy Clifton. That same doctor happens to have a lot of knowledge about how health care can be delivered more efficiently. As part of his duties as lieutenant governor, Dewhurst talked to Clifton about rethinking how medicine is practiced in Texas so that costs don't swamp consumers, medical providers and the state government.
Here is the bottom line. Once you have uleashed the Stupid, once you have summoned the darker angels of our nature, the fear of the other, the hatred that this engenders, you cant't call them back. In fact, you may think you aret the master of these dark forces. You in fact become their prisioner. You can't be a little bit evil in this case and you can't tell the Devil you have changed your mind and want your soul back.
Maybe they haven't been following the Republican primaries, if they think this is unprecedented or the exception to some kind of civil peace that normally reigns among rightwing Republicans. Well, its not. Incivility is typically how one fires up the red-meat grassroots and all the rightwing allies that compose the very active base of the Republican party. Faux News, the rightwing talkers (Limbaugh etc.) have turned lying, extreme distortion and hate talk into a business model that has made them very rich indeed.
If they haven't yet, the DMN might want to check out this report:
Cecile Richards, daughter of the late Texas Governor Ann Richards, stands up for Texas women. Ann Richards, by the way, was the last Governor to have actually served the people of Texas. She was a Governor for the 99% while both W. and Perry merely serve as lackeys for themselves and their cronies and campaign donors.
Of course W. and Karl Rove attacked Ann Richards w/a ruthless and brutal smear campaign that swept in W., the second worst Governor that this Texas transplant has known. W. went on to become the worst U.S. President in recent history, as we all know.
Fortunately for the American people voters woke up and smelled the dog dirt when Rick Perry tried to follow in W.'s footsteps.
But now Rick is back in Texas doing what Rick does. He is working for himself, his cronies and sugar daddy donors at the expense and peril of 99% of Texas taxpayers.
Cecile's message: Don't mess with Texas women.
Ms. Richards happens to be the President of Planned Parenthood.
It is no small wonder why Rick Perry and his Texas Republican Taliban have been on a ruthless crusade against Planned Parenthood. It is all about politics and ideology. Let the needs of women, especially those who can't afford to see a doctor, be damned.
Since Rick Perry has returned to Texas after a humiliating POTUS Republican primary loss he and the Texas GOP have done little other than make lives more miserable for poor women and their children. Rick Perry and his Party have also absolutely ruined a once fine educational system here w/their ruthless budget cuts. All because someone named Grover Norquist made them sign a no taxes ever pledge. Grover must be one mean and powerful guy. It should be clearly obvious that Norquist holds more clout over the GOP than its entire constituency. Hellllooooooo, wake up knee jerk R voters.
To make matters even worse for Texans, the Texas Republican Taliban is trying its best to steal the right to vote from a large segment of the voting population. Thank God for the DOJ.
Otherwise it's like a group of crazed right wing extremists and anti-democracy charlatans have taken over the state.
To add insult to injury the GOP has forced an invasive, government mandated, expensive medical procedure on women. How's that for small government ideologues? Keep government out of everything except for a woman's uterus.
Meanwhile a Texas women who had to tragically opt for an abortion courageously agreed to tell her story. Half way though a pregnancy she joyously anticipated, Carolyn Jones and her husband learned that their baby was profoundly ill.
The right not to know.
But the truth be damned in the Texas right wing anti-freedom Taliban ranch. For a top journalist has been fired for daring to for reveal the truth.
I began with a necessary disclaimer. I am myself Catholic and will be after I finish this posting. Nothing here is sufficient to drive me away from the rich spiritual life I find in the Church, sometimes in spite of the institution itself. The Church, in the end , is bigger than the episcopacy, or the most current occupant of the Vatican. Additionally, I am not so self-righteous or vain as to believe I am always right and the Church always wrong. In the end, though, I must answer to my conscience and my God.
Let Cardinal Dolan [ president of the Catholic bishops' conference]provide the summation of the Great Women's Health care war as the church officially sees it:
Episodes like that occur all over Ethiopia, as well as other impoverished, thirsty countries throughout the third world, because of CRS "fresh water projects." Villagers benefit; crops flourish; livestock fatten; all the people drink; but the girls are the happiest because they're free and can now improve their lives.
When it comes to the health of women, their babies, and their children, the Catholic Church is there, the most effective private provider of such care anywhere around.
[snip]
The marketers advise them that, if they can reduce the issue to one of contraception, stereotyping the Church as opposed to women's rights, they have a chance of clouding the towering issue of the First Freedom.
But the Church should not be the ones on the defensive here. We're on the offensive when it comes to women's health, education, and welfare, here at home, and throughout the world. We hardly need lectures on this issue from senators.
We just want to be left alone to live out the imperatives of our faith to serve, teach, heal, feed, and care for others. We cherish this, our earthly home, America, for its enshrined freedom to do so. Those really concerned about women's health would be better off defending the Church's freedom to continue its work.
He cites chapter and verse of Church good deeds in the Third World to buttress his claim, that the church is on the side of women, always has been , always will be. The examples and the work he cites are exemplary and fully worthy of the best traditions of Catholic social justice in action. But good works do not simply cancel out bad ones, there is no moral balancing equation that lets me do wrong or blindly persist in unwise and even harmful policies and positions jut because I engage in good ones.
And so, I must ask, where was this eternally vigilant regard for women when the Church opposed condom use in Africa, because it promoted immorality so some such. In the name of blind abstraction it helped expose wives , all sexually active African women to the virus ! Well, the Church did catch up eventually. How many died ,in the mean time, because you were in love with your doctrine, and ignored its real world consequences?
What would happen if a Homer Simpson were to govern Texas while a clan of Forrest Gumps controlled the Legislature at the same time?
Tragically, that day has arrived in the once great state of Texas.
Thanks to these Republican clowns Texas will lose all federal Medicaid funding for family planning.
The reason? The doofuses are so obsessed with blocking women's choices and imposing expensive, unnecessary government mandated invasive medical procedure on women, that it lost all common sense by breaking a federal rule.
A federal rule that has been around for a very long time, mind you. The clowns must have thought they could get away with discriminating against a qualified family planning facility when they banned Planned Parenthood as a provider for family planning practices.
Homer and his flock of Forrests had vilified Planned Parenthood as if it were nothing more than an on demand, drive by abortion factory that runs 24/7.
But the fact of the matter is abortion accounts for only three percent of the care Planned Parenthood provides. That and here is the kicker.
No federal money can be used to pay for abortions anyway.
But morons don't do facts, rules and math.
The Big Fat Lie.
According to Rick Perry:
"Why would the Obama Administration take away access to health care for low-income Texas women?" Perry asks on his website. "Because this administration puts funding for abortion providers and affiliates ahead of funding for women's cancer screenings and other preventative health care."
To Avoid Blackouts, Texas Regulators Plan to Artificially Boost Profits for Utilities Ten years into the experiment with electric deregulation in Texas, state regulators have reached an interesting impasse. They've abdicated almost all their responsibilities as public stewards to the marketplace but face enormous pressure not to allow rolling blackouts to darken the grid this summer. With Texas' fully deregulated power market, the Public Utility Commission has few tools to bring new power generation online. Other regions in the U.S. use "capacity markets" to make sure that there's enough power during times of peak demand. But in the magic realm of Texas, no such system exists
Let's check a blast from the past :
High energy bills keeping social services busy [Democratice State Representative Sylvester] Turner aid he fears this year's rate hike is just the beginning of what couldbe many more years of increases residents will have to absorb."I think people need to realize that this is the last year that electricity will beregulated," Turner said. "Come January 2007, utility companies will be able to charge whatever the market will bear."
The year was 2006. We knew, all sane experts knew that this deregulation was long on true believer ideology and short on reality.
In perfect markets,we would not be facing a shortage of supply .
As we have learned since the long and dark days of the G.W. Bush Administration, election outcomes have consequences.
We should also know by now that certain election outcomes will most definitely have devastating consequences, especially when a Party that is focused on the of, by and for the 1% is elected and holds a majority. This is especially true when a Party's only goal is solely focused on making President Obama a one term President.
Let the American people be damned. It is all about politics and winning.
We have been living under these dire and depressing consequences since 2010. Instead of creating jobs the Republican Party has been instead engaged on a crusade to chip away at women's rights, women's health care programs, collective bargaining for workers and the right to vote. In Texas the legislature slashed school budgets while safeguarding the Rainy Day fund.
Most of us should recall the Republican Party's cry to rebuild the economy and create jobs during the 2010 election campaign.
Instead, the Party of the for, by and of the 1% has done little else other than obstruct and undermine President Obama's agenda for rebuilding the devastation wrought by the W. Administration's failed economic policies and its heel clicking enablers in Congress and on Wall and K Streets. Or maybe it was the W. Administration who clicked its heels to obey Wall and K Streets.
The front page New York Times article reveals how Texas GOP policies ruthlessly flog women's health care needs. The GOP attacks are shamefully aimed straight at wallets that contain very little money.
Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care in Abortion Fight
Leticia Parra, a mother of five scraping by on income from her husband's sporadic construction jobs, relied on the Planned Parenthood clinic in San Carlos, an impoverished town in South Texas, for breast cancer screenings, free birth control pills and pap smears for cervical cancer.
But the clinic closed in October, along with more than a dozen others in the state, after financing for women's health was slashed by two-thirds by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The cuts, which left many low-income women with inconvenient or costly options, grew out of the effort to eliminate state support for Planned Parenthood. Although the cuts also forced clinics that were not affiliated with the agency to close - and none of them, even the ones run by Planned Parenthood, performed abortions - supporters of the cutbacks said they were motivated by the fight against abortion.
Now, the same sentiment is likely to lead to a shutdown next week of another significant source of reproductive health care: the Medicaid Women's Health Program, which serves 130,000 women with grants to many clinics, including those run by Planned Parenthood. Gov. Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers have said they would forgo the $35 million in federal money that finances the women's health program in order to keep Planned Parenthood from getting any of it.
Texas Republicans and their counterparts across the nation intend to kill off Title X, a federal family planning program that was implemented when there were a few compassionate Republicans around.
Nationally, the newest target is Title X, the main federal family planning program. All four Republican presidential candidates support eliminating Title X, which was created in 1970 with Republican support from President Nixon and the elder George Bush, then a congressman.
Like other federal financing, Title X does not pay for abortions. Only some of it covers birth control. Title X also provides money for cervical and breast cancer screening, testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases, adolescent abstinence counseling, infertility counseling and other services.
Planned Parenthood receives about a quarter of Title X's $300 million budget and sees about a third of Title X patients. The remaining money goes to clinics, community health centers, hospitals and state agencies.
Rick Perry and the Texas GOP obviously have nothing but contempt for poor women and their children. I suppose the popular sentiment among the Republican Taliban is that the women deserve to be poor because they made themselves poor because of laziness. Meanwhile Rick Perry and his ilk continue to slash school budgets which does little other than undermine the quality and viability of a public education. How can someone find a decent job or get into any college when one reads at an 8th grade level or comprehends math at a 6th grade level? And people wonder why the school dropout rate in Texas is among the highest in the country? High risk students drop out because they give up. Underfunded schools simply fail to meet the needs of low income and impoverished students. Dropping out of school means far fewer economic opportunities. The outcome? Poverty of course. Until the schools meet the challenges of its high risk students this vicious cycle of an uneducated impoverished underclass will continue unchecked.
The state's public schools have more and more low-income kids and persistently high dropout rates - and unless that changes, the future of Texas will contain more long-term unemployment and poverty - and more folks depending on food stamps, Medicaid and CHIP, Murdock said. Higher incarceration rates also can be expected.
"Clearly, with the dismal levels that we have in terms of education right now, that's clearly where we're headed," Murdock said.
The trend line also is clear: School districts with large numbers of low-income students have higher dropout rates. Large school districts where low-income students make up at least 80 percent of the enrollment have dropout/attrition rates of 50 percent or more.
Murdock, a sociology professor at Rice University who headed the U.S. Census Bureau in the recent Bush administration, said Texas' large, young population would give the state a competitive advantage if educated and trained for the work force. Increasing the college graduation rate of Hispanics and African-Americans to that of whites could mean about $300 billion a year in additional income for Texans, he said.
As long as Rick Perry and the Texas Republican Taliban remain in office no one should expect any changes or remedies to the state's abysmally broken and under funded educational system.
Lissa Squiers is running in the Democratic Primary for US House district 7. Culberson is the Republican incumbent. In the last cycle, she was the only one willing to take him on.
There are now 3 people running for Culberson's seat. I am supporting LIssa Squiers. I don't know the other two candidates at all, but the apparent establishment challenger is James Cargas. Here is how he describes himself:
...he works for Mayor Parker's City Attorney and also advises the City on contract, environmental, real estate and regulatory matters.
James Cargas is a board member of the Houston Chapter of the Energy Bar Association, the North American Energy Standards Board, and Green Door, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to connecting individuals and communities not currently engaged in the green movement to the green economy. He is a founding member of the Oil Patch Democrats, a democratic club that promotes realistic energy policy, a member of the Environmental Law Institute.
Interestingly enough, AFL-CIO gave a joint endorsement for both Lissa Squiers and James Cargas . Additionally, the Tejano Democrats made NO endorsement in this race at all.
For all Mr. Cargas can bring to this race, I am still in Ms.Squires camp.
Ms. Squire has deep roots, local and union ones.
Her grandfather worked at Armco Steel for over 30 years. Her father worked at Champion Paper Mill, while her mother and stepfather are each HDP, for over 20 years.
Mr. Cargill cannot match these local roots. He is not a native Houstonian or Texan and although these are not exactly disqualifying, I perfer Lissa's roots.
Mr. Cargill's linkages to the energy interest are also troubling to me. He has spent a large part of his career inside and outside of government working in this sector.
I have know Lissa for only a short time, but worked with her and was impressed particularly with how she pulled off the Family,Faith and Freedom event in response to Governor Oops' "Day of Partisan Prayer".
I just feel I can trust her to do the right thing on a wide range of issues.
Earth to all women. GOP leader Rush Limbaugh has ruthlessly and cruelly savaged a female third year law student at Georgetown University for having the nerve to speak on behalf of the need for contraception and women's health care initiatives.
Apparently these cynical clowns are incapable of creating the jobs they promised in 2010 and so they must feel the need to bully and demonize women instead.
Good luck with that strategy dudes.
Rush and Fox "News" have apparently declared war on this brave women, Sandra Fluke.
According to right wing Republican misogynist thought those of us who support and seek women's contraceptive health initiatives are defined as sluts and prostitutes. And because we are sluts and prostitutes we should be required to make videos of our sexual encounters so Rush can view them.
Rush Limbaugh repeated his remarks about Sandra Fluke yesterday, "Well, what would you call someone who wants us to pay for her to have sex? What would you call that woman? You'd call 'em a slut, a prostitute or whatever, and turned them into a demand that women who use birth control make porn for him, "So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."
Excuse me while I take a shower with lysol instead of soap.
According to the leader of the Republican Party all women who seek contraceptive health care, also known as birth control are sluts and prostitutes.
As outrageous and as hateful as such disgraceful labeling is, not one, that would be not one Republican lawmaker or GOP Presidential candidate has had the courage or the integrity to disagree with Rush Limbaugh.
Sadly for them, the guys who feel need to subjugate women to Middle or Stone age primitive standards are out of touch with reality as most of us know it.
Just when we think the GOP has reached the very bottom of the cesspool of scorched earth politics and pathological mendacity, the Party manages to find yet a newer and even sicker low in the sewer of hate talk.
This firestorm of irrational hate was brought about by the Obama Administration's mandate for employers, including religious organizations,to make contraception medications available to women.
The right wing has gone ape shit, to say the least.
This is a threat to our religious freedom! This is imposing the government on employers! This violates our First Amendment rights!
The present self-serving hysteria, mind you, is coming from the same Republicans who passed government invading laws that can require physically invasive, costly and unnecessary medical procedures for women who seek abortions.
The Republican politicians for the 1% have voted to jump in and insert themselves between a doctor and his or her patients. Middle Eastern Taliban religious mullahs must be high fiving their Western counterparts as I write.
How's that for a big brother invasion into the private lives of citizens? How is that for keeping the government out of women's uteruses and vaginas? How about a woman's right to affordable health care? How about a woman's liberty to make decisions about her healthcare needs and financial stability by having control over the size of her family?
In Virginia some consider the trans vaginal ultrasound procedure as evil as state mandated rape. So, a woman has to drink large amounts of fluids, lay on a table and get her vagina probed with a wand for oh, maybe as long as 30 minutes, while trying to not pee.
This procedure may be necessary in some cases but forcing it onto to women who do not need it and for solely ideological reasons is nothing short of a form of torture in my opinion.
But don't tell that to Republican Vice Presidential hopeful wannabe Governor McDonnell who has pretty much burned his credibility alive at the stake by pimping himself out as a patronizing apologist for state mandated rape and torture.
The Misogynists don't get it.
Naturally the panicked and out of touch hysterics on the right decided that it must abolish the mandate for contraceptive care.
Senators Blunt (R-Mo.) and Rubio (R-FL.) "bravely" stepped up to block Obama's mandate. Together, both Senators wrote an amendment that would allow for employers to refuse to provide health care coverage for any treatment for which a corporation or company has any "moral" objections.
One can always depend upon the GOP to go to the mattresses in order to give corporate interests a loop hole to throw some basic care for the American people under the bus. Providing health care benefits for profit driven corporations could be considered morally objectionable on the part of CEOs (that means less for me!) and boards of directors (that means less for me, too!).
The Catholic bishops most unfortunately entered the anti contraception fray and this is the point at which both the GOP and the Catholic church lost the fight.
Fortunately the Blunt/Rubio amendment did not pass the Senate. But the vote was a squeaker and too close for comfort. Every Republican Senator voted for the amendment except for Olympia Snowe. Three Blue Dog Democrats were dumb enough to vote in favor of it too: Senators Bob Casey (Pa.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.).
While we scratch our heads trying to figure out why the Republicans think they can win by bullying and demonizing women, an article I read in the New York Times today gave me a hint as to why the GOP has gone mad enough to wage a war on women. In 2012.
It comes down to this. The Republican Party wants to repeal the 1960's. You know, the 1960s when birth control pills became a reality. Yes, women were sexually liberated during this time because a woman could take control over the size of her family. Men could no longer joke about keeping one's wife home barefoot and pregnant. Or God forbid, a woman could have sex if she wanted, out of marriage, without fearing an unintended pregnancy. In other words, women finally realized the same kind of sexual freedom as men have had all along. Needless to say, this was the kind of change that many women and men as well, could believe in.
But some men have not come to terms with such tumultuous change. They would be Republican politicians like most of them and Rush Limbaugh, the GOP's ideological enforcer.
This was also a time in which there were anti-establishment beatniks, peaceniks, hippies and love children all of whom protested the Vietnam War. There was Woodstock, the Beatles the Rolling Stones, among many other rock musicians. But among the most turbulent change at the time was the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Those of us who grew up and came of age during this era are who we have become in no small part due to this time in history. Some saw it as a time of great liberation for women and minorities while others feared the change that shook their long held beliefs and ideological comfort zones. Some obviously still have not gotten over the changes that rocked boats nearly 50 years ago.
According to Rick Santorum:
"Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. They prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that's sex. And the whole abortion culture, it's not about life. It's about sexual freedom. That's what it's about. Homosexuality. It's about sexual freedom. All of the things are about sexual freedom, and they hate to be called on them. They try to somehow or other tie this to the founding fathers' vision of liberty, which is bizarre. It's ridiculous. That's at the core of why you are attacked."
Resentment rocks. Blame it all on sex, Rick.
"What changed was the '60s. What changed was sex. What changed was the social and cultural issues that have huge amounts of money because if you look - I haven't seen numbers on this, but I'm sure it's true - if you go socioeconomic scale, the higher the income, the more socially liberal you are. The more you know you can buy your way out of the problems that sexual libertinism causes you. You have an abortion, well, I have the money to take care of it. If I want to live an extravagant life and get diseases, I can. ... You can always take care of everything. If you have money, you can get away with things that if you're poor you can't."
What an uplifting statement on behalf of job creation initiatives.
The President stands up for women's rights and health care needs.
