Media silent as State of Texas defends constitutionality of racial discrimination

11 August 2013 | NewsCorpse.com

Excerpt:

The argument by the state of Texas is that they are deliberately discriminating against Democratic voters, not minorities or other protected classes of citizens, and they regard that as permissible. The first problem with their argument is that it is questionable to assert that it is constitutional to “make partisan districting decisions.” Any overt attempt to suppress the voting rights of any citizen is challengeable and potentially in violation of civil liberties.

More to the point, the claim that they are only aiming their discriminatory activities at Democrats is disingenuous and unsupportable. The redistricting maps proposed by the Republican-controlled Texas legislature cut obviously across racial boundaries. The clear intent is to segregate blacks and Latinos into the fewest number of districts possible, denying them equal representation. These maps were struck down by federal courts as blatantly discriminatory, but now the state can re-introduce them with the blessing of an atrociously reasoned Supreme Court decision.

There is simply no way to pretend that the statement made in the filing defending the constitutionality of discrimination against Democrats is anything other than a defense of discrimination against minority communities in Texas. Given the demographic breakdown of the district mapping, it is absurd and grossly dishonest to assert that the “effects on minority voters” are “incidental.” What the state of Texas is doing is racism, pure and simple.

So where is the media coverage of this outrageous admission made in an official court document? None of the television news networks has reported on it. None of the major national newspapers has published a story about it. A few Internet news outlets have done some commendable reporting on it, but their reach is minimal at this point.

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Health coalition swipes family-planning funds from State of Texas

Federal government bypasses state agency, awards Title X grant to Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas.

Carolyn Jones 
25 March 2013

Some family-planning funding in Texas will soon be under new management.

The federal government announced today that it would no longer give a large slice of federal family-planning funds to the state of Texas. Instead, the feds will award the $6.5 million grant to the Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, a coalition of providers led by Fran Hagerty, to distribute to clinics for birth control, wellness exams,  STD screenings and other family-planning services.

The Observer reported in November that the coalition would apply directly to the federal government for the grant—called Title X (Title 10)—one of three federal funding streams that pay for family-planning services in the state.

Before today, the sole grantee for Texas’ Title X funds had been the Texas Department of State Health Services. The health department had in turn distributed the grant money to family planning providers statewide.

But the 2011 Legislature slashed the $111-million family-planning budget by two thirds, causing more than 60 clinics to close. The loss of clinics resulted in the number of Texans receiving services through Title X to drop by 50 percent, according to an annual review by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The collateral damage wrought by the budget cuts has been widespread. Many of the providers in Hagerty’s coalition had lost state family-planning funds and are struggling to stay open.

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Ross Perot in 1992 on NAFTA and the "Giant Sucking Sound"

Statement by Gov. Perry on President Obama’s Executive Actions

Rick Perry phones it in from Xanax-and-booze-land:

"There is evil prowling in the world - it shows up in our movies, video games and online fascinations, and finds its way into vulnerable hearts and minds. As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children.

"In fact, the piling on by the political left, and their cohorts in the media, to use the massacre of little children to advance a pre-existing political agenda that would not have saved those children, disgusts me, personally. The second amendment to the Constitution is a basic right of free people and cannot be nor will it be abridged by the executive power of this or any other president."

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Wendy Davis for Texas Senate

Lone Star Project Director Matt Angle:
"The Senate District 10 race has boiled down to an interesting choice – It’s Wendy Davis and a coalition of Democrats, independents and fair-minded Republicans in SD10 versus Mark Shelton propped up by Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, the Tea Party and other harsh Austin-based partisans."

Texas' starving school districts lawyer up for (another) epic battle for survival

We're Not Gonna Take It
Patrick Michels |1 Feb 2012
www.texasobserver.org

Last spring, parents and neighbors from school districts statewide converged on the Capitol in matching T-shirts to plead with the Legislature to fix the system once and for all.

The Legislature not only didn’t fix the system, it made it worse. Lawmakers trimmed $5.3 billion from public education—a record cut.

For the first time in 60 years, the state isn’t budgeting for growing enrollment. This year 80,000 new students have entered the system, but there’s no new money to pay for their schooling. The Legislature also eliminated funding for full-day pre-kindergarten and saddled districts with expensive new testing requirements. As the state’s public education budget winnows away, disparities between rich and poor districts grow deeper.

Beaten and cash-starved, schools have turned now to their last, best hope: the courts.

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Rick Perry's incoherent foreign policy ramble

Ex-Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, failed banker-turned Senate candidate, funds ‘End the Occupation’ site

Stephen C. Webster | rawstory.com
17 Oct 2011

In what appears to be an effort to garner email addresses for his U.S. Senate campaign, a Texas Republican who formerly served on Washington Mutual’s board of directors has launched a website called “End Occupy,” which blames young Americans and their “false sense of entitlement” for the country’s current economic status.

“The Occupy Wall Street crowd represents the same flawed values that got our country into this economic mess,” Tom Leppert’s “EndOccupy.com” claims. “They possess a false sense of entitlement and think they should be receiving government handouts and run up the debt on an imaginary credit card by making hard-working Americans and future generations pay for the bill.” It goes on to ask for petition signatures, which will be sent to President Barack Obama.

But for Leppert, who’s running to replace Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), that allegation may just produce a round of laughter from the occupied streets of New York all the way to his home in Dallas, Texas, given his history. Leppert was one of the last chairmen of Washington Mutual’s audit committee, right before the company earned the title of largest bank failure in U.S. history, fleecing shareholders of $63 billion.

Before it went down, WaMu was cited as one of the worst offenders in offering the junk loans that inflated the housing bubble. When that bubble popped, WaMu was seized by government regulators, then sold to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Chase shortly thereafter received a $25 billion bailout financed by U.S. taxpayers, which it has since paid back.

Luckily for Leppert, he didn’t have to manage that morass, finding himself in a new job just before the crisis hit: Mayor of Dallas, an office he held from 2007-2011.

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