-- CPRIT has been the big issue of the session so far. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee yesterday approved a bill to reform the troubled Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) authored by Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound). “Our laws and rules have been twisted in ways that are disappointing and unacceptable,” Nelson said in a press release. [...] According to the Texas Tribune, SB 149 would completely restructure the leadership staff in the institute, create provisions that would prevent conflicts of interest and remove Greg Abbott and Susan Combs from their positions on the oversight committee. The bill will now go before the full Senate.
-- Yesterday morning Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay), chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, presented SB 4. Fraser seeks $2 billion to aid the state in recovering from its severe drought, the Houston Chronicle reports. He also called for the Texas Water Development Board to upgrade from part-time to full-time and scolded the group for failing to appropriately set and fulfill priorities. The committee heard invited testimony, with the expectation that public testimony will follow in the coming weeks.
The part-time board that oversees Texas water projects has been ineffective and should be replaced by a full-time board with more funding and accountability, a state senator told colleagues Tuesday in asking for $2 billion to pay for future water needs.
Sen. Troy Fraser ... blasted the Texas Water Development Board for failing to set priorities. He said he asked the board more than two years ago to give him a list of the 50 most important water projects in the state and that he's still waiting for an answer.
Often, he said, it's difficult to get the six part-time board members on the phone to discussion the state's water issues.
"Every time you ask them a question, they give you a non-answer and that's part of the frustration I'm having," the Marble Falls Republican told his committee. "Every group believes their project is the most important and the competition between the 16 (water planning groups) at times has been problematic."
"It is my No. 1 point of irritation," Fraser said ... "If you ask the Water Development Board which of the 562 projects are the most important, they say they are all important."
Sen. Glenn Hegar, R- Katy, agreed: "There is a difference between a wish list and a list that actually works. What are our real priorities?"
-- Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa (D-McAllen) filed a measure on Monday to legalize civil unions in Texas by 2014 and partially repeal Texas’ Defense of Marriage Act. SB 480 would require first changing Texas’ 2005 constitutional amendment prohibiting both same-sex marriage and civil unions, the Dallas Voice reports. Sen. Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso) and Reps. Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) and Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) have already filed resolutions to lift the ban. That seems unlikely. The measures would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers before being placed on statewide ballots.
“The creation of civil unions in Texas is critical for same-gender couples so they can be afforded the same benefits and protections that married couples enjoy. Providing legal protections, including property rights, homestead rights, child custody and support, adoption, group insurance for state employees, and worker compensation benefits, would treat same-gender couples with the dignity and respect they deserve as well as allow them the benefits to take care of their families.”
Texas lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a package of bills that would help the state’s growing number of production breweries and the brewpub restaurants that would like to package and sell beer off-site.
- On-site sales for breweries: Production breweries such as Houston’s Saint Arnold, which make no more than 225,000 barrels of beer annually, would be allowed to sell up to 5,000 barrels directly to customers for consumption on site each year. Take-away beer and growler fills to go still would be prohibited.
- Off-site sales for brewpubs: Brewpubs could package beer for off-site retail sales, up to 1,000 barrels on its own and the remainder through licensed distributors. Once a brewpub reaches annual production of 12,500 barrels, it would have to stop growing or switch to a production-brewery license.
- New limits on self-distribution: (Two bills) Breweries that produce up to 125,000 barrels annually would be allowed to self-distribute up to 40,000 barrels. Out-of-state breweries also would be allowed some self-distribution rights as well.
1. The Senate Finance Committee, which meets this morning at 9 a.m., will hear from the Commission on Jail Standards about public safety and criminal justice, and the Department of Agriculture will present on natural resources.
2. The Senate Committee on Transportation will meet this morning at 8 a.m. and will hear testimony from the Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
3. The House Public Health Committee meets today to discuss, among other issues, Obamacare and its effect on Texas.
TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson said the agency needs at least $4 billion more each year to cover road expansion and upkeep. The proposed $20.8 billion budget would set aside just under $2.5 billion to repay debts, but caps the new construction budget at just over $1 billion.
“I think that really puts in perspective the situation that TxDOT finds itself in today, with an extremely large amount on the debt service side and a limited amount on the new construction side,” Davis told Wilson. “In my perspective we’ve really gotten upside-down in terms of providing the support for this agency that’s needed, and for you to conduct what we expect you to do.”
Gov. Rick Perry has proposed spending $3.7 billion from the Rainy Day Fund on Texas transportation, but that would still come up short of Wilson’s request for TxDOT. Perry has suggested spending the money on building new highways and bringing old roads up to code for projects like Interstate 69.
What TxDOT needs, Wilson said today—and wrote in a letter to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst—is a new, sustainable transportation funding source.
Seven hours or more. That's how long some members of Congress sit and wait to claim aisle seats for the State of the Union, all so they can be seen on TV shaking the president's hand as he leaves. Really. It's mystifying, but enough members of Congress care enough about those few seconds of televised presidential hand-shaking that there is a day-long wait for the seats, and rules for getting them...
“It is our generation’s task, then, to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth – a rising, thriving middle class.
It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country – the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love.
It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few; that it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative, and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation of ours.”
[…]
“A growing economy that creates good, middle-class jobs – that must be the North Star that guides our efforts. Every day, we should ask ourselves three questions as a nation: How do we attract more jobs to our shores? How do we equip our people with the skills needed to do those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?”
[…]
“Tonight, I’ll lay out additional proposals that are fully paid for and fully consistent with the budget framework both parties agreed to just 18 months ago. Let me repeat – nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime. It’s not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth.”
...and of course the Republican Party is looking forward to this evening’s many opportunities to ‘refute’ evolutionary theory via political kabuki. Dave Weigel at Slate, among his predictions for tonight, highlights a detail I hadn’t noticed:
…In all of the soft-focus stories on the speech’s invited guests, two names matter: Ted Nugent and Gabrielle Giffords. Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, an embarrassing member of the class of 1994 who lost in 1996 but managed to come back in 2012, has invited Nugent to attend the speech, despite Nugent being (humorously!) on record threatening the president’s life. Giffords, invited by Sen. John McCain, is the most compelling figure in the gun control (sorry, “gun safety”) movement. Democrats know that the mere sight of Giffords, or the sound of her voice, spurs a Pavlovian response: The listener cannot help but hear and think about ammo clips and background checks. Stockman knows … actually, there’s no way to end that sentence.
Fort Bend County, just to the south and west of Harris County, is now the single most ethnically diverse county in the nation. In the 2010 census, Fort Bend was 19 percent Asian, 24 percent Latino, 21 percent black and 36 percent Anglo.
The Houston region as a whole is the most ethnically and culturally diverse large metropolitan area in the country, at the forefront of the new diversity that is radically reconstructing the social and political landscape across all of urban America.
State Reps. Tom Craddick and Eddie Rodriguez are a political odd couple united by their legislation that payday lenders say will put them out of business.
Craddick is a Midland Republican, former speaker of the House and 42-year legislative veteran with a pro-business background. Rodriguez, an Austin Democrat beginning his ninth year in office, is an advocate for the poor with a strong pro-consumer record.
They have filed identical legislation, however, because of reports that lenders making short-term loans are legally sidestepping interest rate caps by charging fees that can push annual interest rates above 500 percent. Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, is carrying legislation in that chamber.
In 2009, the industry blocked legislation being considered by the Legislature before it reached the floor, and its influence at the Capitol continues today.
For example, Gov. Rick Perry appointed William "Bill" White, a Cash America executive, as chairman of the Texas Finance Commission, which writes lending regulations.
Craddick and Rodriguez said their side is better organized this time.
Unlike in 2009, when several solutions were offered, the two have a common approach backed by a broad coalition of church groups, retirees and consumer groups.
Craddick said even an archbishop who delivered the invocation for the House of Representatives lined up a few votes while he was on the House floor.
"I like our odds better this time," Craddick said.
Walter Moreau, executive director of Foundation Communities in Austin, said the support of conservatives such as Craddick will assist in a Legislature dominated by Republicans.
"We're generally bleeding-heart liberals," Moreau said. "But I'm optimistic that there is a broad enough coalition to get something passed."
A few weeks before the start of the 2013 Legislature, incoming GOP Rep. Jonathan Stickland, a Tea Party-backed conservative, placed a phone call to state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat whom Republicans had unsuccessfully targeted for defeat in the November elections.
"I said, 'You know, you're perceived as one of the more liberal senators in the state of Texas and I'm perceived as one of the more conservative members of the Texas House,'" the 29-year-old Bedford lawmaker said last week in recalling his side of the conversation. "'I think it would be a great statement to send back to our constituents that we could put all that aside ... and focus on getting through stuff that helps Texas.'"
The result was bipartisan legislation by the two lawmakers that aims to assist the children of military families. Stickland's House bill already has 80-plus supporters, more than enough to secure passage if it comes to the House floor.
On March 10 (2010), the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican," and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true—including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia." This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanation.
Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing—indeed endless—scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse." He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed."
He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.)
It's your fourth shift in a row at the restaurant, all doubles because you only make $2.65 an hour and need to pay for rent and heat and electricity, and your section is a set of booths and tables - six four-tops, four two-tops, one eight-top - that seat forty-four customers total, and it's been packed from start to finish across your whole rip with couples and clusters of workers from the accounting firm next door and families with children and foreigners who can't read the menu and have never heard of tipping, and twenty different people in your last two shifts have sent their meal back because the cook is new and in the weeds and can't handle the volume and keeps screwing up the orders, and that's not your fault, but the customers take it out on you because you're there.
And your feet are throbbing and your back is a bag of iron rods and your arm is knotted with aching muscles from carrying huge trays of food and drinks as you weave around and through the small sliver of space available after table three joined with table four and their chairs are sprayed out into the lane, and you move through them like smoke balancing six dinners and seven drinks on one hand without spilling a drop or disturbing a soul.
If tips don't bring the actual wage up to the federally required minimum wage for everybody else, which just rose to $7.25 per hour (in July 2009), then the restaurant owner must make up the difference. In practice, experts say this rarely comes into play.
So.
Worry about drones, about lawyers for the president arguing they can kill Americans anywhere and for basically any reason, worry about all of that and everything else besides...but real change comes in small doses, and actual kindness happens within reach of your arm.
Want to help the workers? The economy? The whole country?
Tip your server, don't be a jackass about it, and worry about the rest of the world after you do what is right within reach of your arm. Maybe, if you're really interested in helping your community, work towards establishing higher wages for the people who bring you food when you go out to eat; there are thousands of them right where you live. First things first; if you shaft the person making slave wages who feeds you and then go home to whine on Facebook about the poor, poor people from somewhere else, you're as much a part of the problem as the people in Washington dropping bombs and deploying drones.
All politics is local.
After a few months of intensive market research and focus grouping, Republicans concluded that their message, not their policies, was responsible for the party's losses in the November elections, and decided to undertake a major rebranding campaign.
Leading these efforts are hip-hop savior Marco Rubio, top Jew Eric Cantor, and Karl Rove—whose new scam, the Conservative Victory Project, aims to function like the female body by shutting that whole "rape" thing down.
Although it's too soon to tell whether they will ultimately be successful, the early signs are not exactly encouraging.
Luckily for them, über-pundit Dick Morris is sitting on the sidelines, ready to lend a helping hand (or foot).
It is wrong for the President to have the power to use drones to kill American citizens without accountability to Congress and without judicial review. President Obama is asserting that he has this right.
It will be just a matter of time until the range of Americans we target with drones will expand. We will widen the definition of who poses a threat to American interests.
At the same time here at home, surveillance drones will watch and follow domestic political dissenters and evermore militarized police will be called upon to intimidate and repress lawful protests. Large defense contractors will gain from these actions abroad, and corporate interests will play a big part in defining our domestic “security” objectives.
These things will happen with the support of elected Republicans & Democrats.
These things will happen–as they are already starting to happen– unless we realize and understand the fact that the work of freedom is up to each of us.
