Election Law Bills Passed By The 2015 Texas Legislature

Updated Monday 06/22/15 at 10:00 p.m. The 2015 84th Texas Legislature regular session ended on Monday, June 1, 2015, the 140th day of the session. The following election related bills were passed and sent to Gov. Abbott to sign into law or veto. The governor had 20 days from June 1 to sign or veto bills passed by the legislature during the last 10 days of the session. Bills not already signed or vetoed by June 21, 2015 have become law with an effected date as noted by Last Action note.  Click the more jump.

Pope Francis Issues Encyclical On Climate Change

Pope Francis today issued his anticipated 'Laudato Si' Encyclical (authoritative teaching document) on the environment and climate change, calling on Catholics worldwide to make safeguarding the environment and battling climate change an urgent and top priority of the 21st century.

Pope Francis says most climate change is caused by human activity and calls it one of the most important moral issues facing society. The Pope has repeated over recent months, "Creation is a gift from God, and we have a moral responsibility to be responsible stewards of that gift for all of humanity and all life our planet."

In his encyclical message to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis makes clear, unlike previous encyclicals, his message is directed to everyone, regardless of religion.

"Faced with the global deterioration of the environment, I want to address every person who inhabits this planet," the pontif writes. "In this Encyclical, I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home."

The pontiff calls for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality. The pontiff lays out his case that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural carrying boundaries, and the world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds of humanity:

The National Gold Depository of Texas

In a move that harkens back to the Civil War Era "Confederate Dollar" monetary system created by rebellious confederate southern states, just before the shooting started, Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week signed House Bill 483 to establish a state gold bullion depository.  The gold depository will be administered by the Office of the Comptroller.

The gold bullion depository created by HB483 will serve as the custodian, guardian and administrator of bullion that may be transferred to or otherwise acquired by the State of Texas.

Governor Abbott issued the following statement about the bill he signed:

“Today I signed HB 483 to provide a secure facility for the State of Texas, state agencies and Texas citizens to store gold bullion and other precious metals. With the passage of this bill, the Texas Bullion Depository will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state."

Sponsors intend for Texas to repatriate $1 billion of gold bullion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s vault in lower Manhattan to Texas, preparing for the U.S. currency collapse and financial Armageddon (or secessionist revolution) conservatives are convinced is just around the corner. (One of the problems with this, of course, is that Texas has no gold on deposit in any federal reserve, nor in Fort Knox. There is also the inconvient fact that Texas falls under the Federal Reserve of Dallas, not New York, so any such request would be filed with their local Reserve branch.)

The Secret

Political awareness
Will at times to you bestow
A sense of purpose, bold and bright
And with it you must show
That working with each other
We can watch our nation grow
That all our lives are sacred
And as such it's apropos
To organize and make allies
So we can overthrow
Those small of heart who make an art
Of selling status quo
When we stand up all together
We will end their puppet show

Behind the Mask: North Texans for Natural Gas

It's another beautiful day here in North Texas. The skies are a soft baby blue. Tufts of puffy, white clouds hang innocent against the haze of the Dallas skyline. Moments like this, a man might forget the recent and malicious deluge and the upcoming week of predicted thunderstorms. The lakes are full and glistening, and an abundance of storks search for fish in newly formed ponds. Joggers and their dogs move slow and sure through nearby trails, taking in the verdant foliage. The air is...

(cough... hack... wheeze...)

Delightful.

You see, here in North Texas we live on what is known as the Barnett Shale. Underneath us is an incredibly large amount of fossil fuels in the form of oil and gas. Corporations have been drilling here as far back as 1981, and they aren't too keen on stopping anytime soon.

The recent decision by Denton's voters to restrict the possibility of future leases caught the industry off guard, mostly because it had spent a great deal of money bribing, fooling, and outright threatening the city. After the fracking ban was passed, Big O&G didn't waste more than a day before suing the city and lining the pockets of our state legislators to pass HB 40, which "gave exclusive jurisdiction over the oil and gas industry to the state government, prohibiting local oil and gas-related ordinances, initiatives and regulations."

So the story pretty much goes like this: Big O&G discovers a wealth of oil and gas under North Texans' feet and start drilling. After decades, scientists discover that the drilling is bad for the environment. The people decide they value breathing more than the pittance Big O&G gives them in royalties. Big O&G buys the legislature and the people are silenced.

But wait. There's more.

The Koch Bros and GOP At War Over Voter Data

The Republican National Committee’s data arm last year called it a “historic” occasion when it struck a deal to share voter information with the Koch brothers’ rapidly expanding political empire. Oops... Read the story at Yahoo

Salon.com:

What was once a staid, mainstream political party full of Rotary Club businessmen, hard-scrabble farmers and pillars of America’s communities has become a boisterous bunch of rebellious revolutionaries. The origin story of how this came to pass is well documented in histories like Rick Perlstein’s “Before the Storm” “Nixonland” and “The Invisible Bridge,” which (among other things) trace the spirit that rose out of the rubble of the 1964 debacle of the Goldwater campaign and grew into the movement that has dominated American politics for over 30 years.

Its ideology became a matter of faith-based adherence to abstract principles about “freedom” and “small government” even as the Republican Party made a devil’s bargain with both the religious right, which sought to enforce “family values,” and the military industrial complex, which grew to gargantuan proportions under both parties. These alliances were strategic moves by the Party elders seeking a winning governing coalition and it worked beautifully for decades. They formed a strong “conservative” identity out of this coalition, while demonizing the identity of liberalism to such an extent that liberals were forced to abandon it altogether and adopt another name to describe themselves.

Meanwhile, the party banked on overweening victimization among its mainly white, resentful voters in the wake of the revolution in law and culture that began in the 1960s with civil rights for minorities and the economic and social changes that sent women pouring into the workplace and changing the traditional organization of family and home. This too worked very well for quite some time. Fear, anger and resentment of everything from racial integration to middle class stagnation to imaginary foreign threats became intrinsic to the Republican identity.

All of this was of great benefit to the Republican party’s electoral success and the message discipline within the echo chamber of their partisan media ensured that the ideology among the various strands of the Republican coalition held together in what sounded like a coherent program. But it never really was coherent.

Freedom and small government are often in conflict with social conservatism which seeks to enshrine its religious values into law. Small government and low taxes are in conflict with an imperial foreign policy and national security establishment that demands vast sums of money and requires that much of it be spent in secret. Essentially the three legs of the GOP bar stool have always been in tension.

The party started to lose its bearings as long ago, as in the ’90s when it took on the self-righteousness of a religious crusade with its unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of a Democratic president.

Read the rest of the story at Salon.com

Decline of US House Elections Incumbency Advantage

Republicans enjoy a long-standing structural advantage in the distribution of partisans across districts, so this trend has strengthened their grip on the House even as they have become less competitive in contests for the presidency.

With little fanfare, the electoral advantage enjoyed by US representatives has fallen over the past several elections to levels not seen since the 1950s. The incumbency advantage has diminished in conjunction with an increase in party loyalty, straight-ticket voting, and president-centered electoral nationalization, products of the widening and increasingly coherent partisan divisions in the American electorate.

Consequently, House incumbents now have a much harder time retaining districts that lean toward the rival party. Democrats had been the main beneficiaries of the denationalization of electoral politics that had enabled the incumbency advantage to grow, and they have thus been the main victims of the reemergence of a more party-centered electoral process.

Gary Jacobson in the Journal of Politics: Here is the abstract:

Right To Use Birth Control Turns 50

Today, June 7th, is the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Supreme Court decision in the Griswold .v Connecticut case that made obtaining birth control no longer a crime for married couples. Single women still had to wait another seven years for their Supreme Court decision on contraceptive access for the right to buy contraceptives. Ninety-eight percent of all American women report using birth control during their lifetime.

Many people do not remember the purchase and use of birth control products, and even literature about birth control options, even by married couples, was against the law in many states until 1965. There are those who have worked for the last 50 years to reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court finding that American women have a fundamental right of privacy in their reproductive decisions. That right includes making family planning decisions and the right to learn about and use birth control contraceptives.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says that the pivotal decision which reversed a law that prohibited women from using contraception is not supported under his interpretation of the Constitution. During a July 2012 interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Scalia why he believed that women have no a Constitutional right of privacy to choose to use contraception. “There’s no right to privacy in the Constitution — no generalized right to privacy,” Scalia insisted. “Well, in the Griswold case, the court said there was,” Wallace pointed out. “Yeah, it did,” Scalia agreed. “And that was wrong.”

Republicans in the U.S. Congress and Senate want to amend to the U.S. Constitution to criminalize common birth control methods, including birth control pills and IUD's.

Sixty-three U.S. House Republicans, or over a quarter of the GOP conference in 2012, cosponsor a so called Personhood bill titled the "Sanctity of Human Life," bill to amend the U.S. constitution to outlaw birth control pills and IUD's. In the U.S. Senate, a companion Sanctity of Human Life bill was supported by more than a quarter of the Republicans in the Senate.

Personhood legislation has been regularly introduced in state legislatures around the U.S. over the past few years. The intent of the legislation is to classify fertilized eggs, zygotes, embryos, and fetuses as people in order to grant them full legal protection, including the right to life from the moment of conception. The law would criminalize abortion with no exceptions, and effectively ban many forms of contraception, in vitro fertilization and other reproductive health-care measures.

Personhood legislation and ballot initiatives to amend state constitutions have failed to pass in states around the country. Ballot measures to amend the state constitutions to include personhood language in both Colorado and North Dakota failed to pass by wide margins during the November 2014 elections. Personhood ballot measures and legislation have also failed to pass multiple times in Mississippi.

Most of the Republican field of 2016 presidential candidates are already on record supporting Personhood legislation and amendments to both the U.S. Constitutional and state constitutions around the nation to outlaw birth control. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is also on record saying women have no constitutionally protected right to use their choice of birth control.

While efforts to ban birth control use have failed, conservative Republicans who want to outlaw birth control use keep trying.  Should they gain enough legislative control in the U.S. Congress or individual states, they would outlaw birth control use. 

Read more:

• Texas Republican War On Birth Control

---

PBS.org

In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state's ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control. The 1879 law provided that "any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purposes of preventing conception shall be fined not less than forty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days." The law further provided that "any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principle offender."

Estelle Griswold, the executive director of Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, doctor and professor at Yale Medical School, were arrested and found guilty as accessories to providing illegal contraception. They were fined $100 each. Griswold and Buxton appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, claiming that the law violated the U.S. Constitution. The Connecticut court upheld the conviction, and Griswold and Buxton appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in 1965.

The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision written by Justice William O. Douglas, ruled that the law violated the "right to marital privacy" and could not be enforced against married people. Justice Douglas contended that the Bill of Right's specific guarantees have "penumbras," created by "emanations from these guarantees that help give them life and opinion." In other words, the "spirit" of the First Amendment (free speech), Third Amendment(prohibition on the forced quartering of troops), Fourth Amendment (freedom from searches and seizures), Fifth Amendment (freedom from self-incrimination), and Ninth Amendment (other rights), as applied against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, creates a general "right to privacy" that cannot be unduly infringed.

Further, this right to privacy is "fundamental" when it concerns the actions of married couples, because it "is of such a character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of our civil and political institutions." Because a married couple's use of contraception constitutes a "fundamental" right, Connecticut must prove to the Court that its law is "compelling" and "absolutely necessary" to overcome that right (i.e., the "strict scrutiny test"). Because Connecticut failed to prove this, the law was struck down as applied.

Other justices, while agreeing that marital privacy is a "fundamental right" and that the Connecticut law should be struck down, disagreed with Justice Douglas as to where in the Constitution such a "fundamental right" exists. In his concurrence, Justice Arthur Goldberg argued that the Ninth Amendment, which states that the Bill of Rights does not exhaust all the rights contained by the people, allows the Court to find the "fundamental right to marital privacy" without having to ground it in a specific constitutional amendment. In another concurrence, Justice John Marshall Harlan IImaintained that a "fundamental right to marital privacy" exists only because marital privacy has traditionally been protected by American society. Finally, in yet another concurrence, Justice Byron White argued that a fundamental right to marital privacy constitutes a liberty under the Due Process Clause, and is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against the states.

Yet, for all their differences, the majority in Griswold v. Connecticut agreed that the "right to privacy," in addition to being "fundamental," was "substantive." In West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), the Court had rejected the idea that the Constitution protects "substantive rights," i.e., protects certain activities from government interference that are not explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights. In Griswold, however, it ruled that "substantive rights" do exist in non-economic areas like "the right to privacy," even if they do not in economic activities like the right to contract. Over the next 10 years, the Court expanded this fundamental, substantive "right to privacy" beyond the marital bedroom, ruling that the state could not ban the use of contraceptives by anyone (Eisenstadt v. Baird [1972]), and that the state could not ban most abortions (Roe v. Wade [1973]).

More:

How Contraception Transformed the American Family

The Unfinished Fight Over Contraception

84th Texas Ledgislature 2016-17 Biennium Budget

The Texas House and Senate approved a $209.4 billion compromise 2016-17 biennium state budget on the last Friday of the 84th Texas Legislature, before adjourning on Monday, June 1, 2015, the 140th day of the session.

The House approved the House Bill 1 joint conference committee compromise budget on a 115-33 vote, after the Senate earlier on Friday had approved HB1 on a 30-1 vote. The budget doubles spending to $800 million for border security and gives businesses and homeowners a $3.8 billion in tax cut.

HB1 is currently on Gov. Greg Abbott's desk awaiting his action. Under Texas law, the governor can sign HB1 as is, veto it entirely, single out any line-item expenditures he doesn't like and veto them, or let it become law after 20 days without his signature. The governor has 20 days from June 1 to act on any bills that pass in the last 10 days of the session.

Most Republican lawmakers are congratulating themselves for passing a "conservative 2016-17 budget" that leaves billions of dollars on the table, spending only $106.6 billion of $113 billion in available state revenue and leaves untouched about $11.1 billion in the state’s rainy day fund.

Racial Tension At McKinney Community Pool Party

Updated Thursday, June 11, 2015

A McKinney Texas police officer resigned three days after a mobile phone video was posted on YouTube showing him cursing, assaulting and threatening to shoot a group of black teenagers, who live in the predominately white northern section of the massive Craig Ranch subdivision of McKinney. The teens were attending an end of school year pool party at the Craig Ranch community pool.

The Craig Ranch subdivision in the City of McKinney has a neighborhood park, and a gated pool and clubhouse for residents. The pool and clubhouse area is gated and a scan card is needed to gain access. Scan cards are issued to all Craig Ranch residents.

The subdivision has a Homeowners Association (HOA) which regulates and controls the activities in/around the HOA swimming pool and clubhouse, and has rules for use thereof.

Residents of Craig Ranch are permitted to host parties with a maximum of 20 invited guests in the pool and clubhouse areas. Recreation areas remain open to all residents, so it may be difficult to distinguish party groups from other residents using those facilities.

The day of the incident was the last day of school. Reports indicate a number of young teen residents of Craig Ranch knew about the pool party by reading their friend's tweets and went to pool, even though they were not specifically invited guests of the pool party host.

Some residents complain, the teens who congregated at the community pool didn't belong there, suggesting they were not residents. But those making that complaint can not factually substantiate their allegation. No one asked the teens their address to know whether their parents are or are not Craig Ranch residents. Most of the teens in the pool area entered with either a resident access scan card or a guest invitation. Without question they belonged there. There are reports a few teens jumped over the pool area fence. Those teens broke a HOA rule by jumping the fence - imagine, a teenager broke a rule. Even so, that is not proof they weren't community residents who just didn't take time to go home for their scan card.

The only evidence anyone has offered to date that non-residents - who didn't belong - crashed the pool area is that a noticeable percentage of teens did not have white skin. The only significant disturbance anyone can specifically reference was allegedly instigated by white adult residents who verbally and physically assaulted a very young black teen resident and her white friend, Grace Stone, who came to her defense. (picture right)

Some who saw that disturbance blame the teens - because what two responsible adults would attack two teenage girls. And if two teenagers, one African-American, are seen assaulting white adults, and a few other teens are seen jumping the fence into the pool area, and there are a noticeable number of black teens around, who obviously don't belong because black people don't (or shouldn't be allowed to) live here, then the teen crowd is out of control rowdy - CALL 911!

911 calls to police reported "a disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave." Who made at least some of those 911 calls?

Legislature Restricts Judicial Bypass For Minors Seeking Abortions

Republican lawmakers limit a legal process that allowed some minors to obtain abortions without their parents’ permission. In Texas, a person under the age of 18 cannot access a legal abortion without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

The vast majority of teens who seek abortion care in Texas do so with the knowledge and consent of their parents. A small number — between 200 and 300 per year — that parental permission is not available. Under Texas current law, when an orphaned, abused, abandoned, or neglected teen doesn't have a parent they could turn to for consent, they can go to court to get judicial bypass authorization for an abortion from a judge. The process allowed a minor to obtain legal abortion care if a judge failed to rule on their bypass application, and allowed minors who live in small or rural counties to maintain some confidentiality by avoiding filing petitions in their home counties, where they might be recognized at the courthouse.

House Bill 3994, passed by Republican party line votes in both legislative chambers, drastically restricts this rarely used, judicial bypass process. Judicial bypass a crucial safety net that has worked well to protect the interests of Texas’ most vulnerable teens for the last 15 years.   Described by legal experts as “rife with constitutional problems,” HB3994 is designed to put this process out of reach of teens in need and further endanger the lives of teens living in desperate circumstances.

Texas House Republicans passed HB3994 on a 102-43 party line vote, on the last Friday of the session passed, after  Senate Republicans had passed the bill on a 21-10 party line vote. 

The bill restricts the judicial bypass process by requiring more proof that a minor is at risk for abuse by their parents, limiting the venues where a minor can seek judicial bypass and extending the time period judges have to rule on a judicial bypass request. As passed, HB 3994:

• limits the location and type of court in which a minor can seek an abortion
• forces the minor to reveal her home address and telephone number to a judge
• prevents the minor from removing her application for a judicial bypass after she has filed it with the court
• mandates that a physician who provides abortion care to a minor who says they have been sexually assaulted or abused report that sexual assault, and the identity of the suspected abuser, to law enforcement regardless of whether the minor wants to report their assault or feels it is safe to do so
• mandates that a judge who hears a judicial bypass case in which a minor says they are being abused must report that abuse to law enforcement, along with the identity of the suspected abuser, regardless of whether the minor wants to report their abuse or feels it is safe to do so
• gives a judge five business days, rather than two days, before they must rule on the judicial bypass application
• presumes that if a judge does not rule on the judicial bypass, that permission for the minor’s abortion is denied

Identification Documents Required

A broad provision of HB 3994 requires doctors to ask every woman who enters an abortion clinic for an ID to verify that she is not under 18. The list of approved documents includes driver’s licenses issued by Texas or another state and passports, among others. If a patient doesn’t have an approved ID, her doctor must give her instructions on where to get one. If she can’t obtain ID, for financial reasons or because she does not have her official state stamped birth certificate, for example, the doctor can still perform the abortion, but must report to the state that the procedure was performed without age verification.

Originally, HB3994 would have required all doctors to require pregnant woman seeking an abortion present a “valid government record of identification” to prove she was 18 or older before scheduling the procedure. The bill was amended to require physicians to use “due diligence” to determine a woman’s identity and age, before scheduling the procedure.

That additional reporting requirement could expose providers to additional liability, abortion rights leaders argue, and deter doctors from performing the procedure at all. Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, said Oklahoma is the only other state with an age verification requirement for abortion. Advocates warn that the bill’s ID provision will most likely hurt poor women and immigrants.

Republican Lawmakers Continue Efforts To Kill Planned Parenthood

Four years after making deep budget cuts specifically targeted to kill Planned Parenthood, and two years after imposing stringent abortion restrictions, also targeted to kill Planned Parenthood, Republicans continued efforts of past legislative sessions to cut Planned Parenthood out of receiving state health care dollars for breast and cervical cancer screenings.

Four years ago, Republicans who controlled the 2011 82nd Legislature made deep cuts to women’s health funding in that year's budget bill. Those cuts resulted in thousands of women losing preventative and contraceptive services and the closure of dozens of clinics.  In the 2011 Texas legislative session, Republican lawmakers blocked funding for the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics, mandating that the organizations in the Texas’ Women’s Health Program shouldn’t receive federal funds because they are “affiliated” with an abortion provider.  Despite the fact that abortion services contribute to just 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s nationwide health services, and federal funding isn’t used to finance that small percentage, Texas slashed the Women’s Health Program’s funds by 90 percent.

In March 2012, the federal government cut off funds to Texas’ Women’s Health Program because the state chose to exclude abortion providers from the program in violation of federal law. Ousting Planned Parenthood from the joint state-federal Medicaid Women’s Health Program cost the state a 9 to 1 dollar match from the federal government. But even without federal funds, which made up 90 percent of the funding, then Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) issued directives for the state to fund the Women’s Health Program on its own.

Lacking federal funding, Perry directed the executive commissioner of the state’s Health and Human Services department to cut another $40.1 million in department services. The $40.1 million spending reduction piled on top of the $73 million 2011 82nd Legislature lawmakers had already stripped from the state’s family planning services budget. Even before Texas decided to ban Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program, women’s clinics around the state were already being forced to greatly reduce services or shut their doors entirely.

The consequences of those deep cuts extended far beyond Republican budget cutting efforts directed toward killing Planned Parenthood itself.  In the fall of 2012, the Texas Observer noted the consequences of those deep cuts included clinics in rural areas being forced to suspend health care services they had provided for low-income women, many of whom can’t otherwise afford contraceptives, pregnancy tests, pap smears, or screening for sexually transmitted diseases:

In time since deep cuts to family planning funding took effect, the impact has become apparent. An Observer review of state records has found that 146 clinics have lost state funds, clumped mainly in the Panhandle, Central Texas and on the border with Mexico. More than 60 of those clinics have closed their doors forever. The number of organizations that help poor women plan pregnancy has shrunk by almost half. As in San Saba, low-income women in many areas of Texas now face a long drive, or worse, lack of access to birth control and health screenings.

In fact, of the more than 60 clinics that have closed across Texas, only 12 were run by Planned Parenthood. Dozens of other clinics unconnected to Planned Parenthood nonetheless lost state funds and have closed, leaving low-income women in wide swaths of the state without access to contraception. […]

Indeed, the bipartisan Legislative Budget Board estimated that last year’s cuts would lead to more than 250,000 women losing services and 20,000 additional births covered by Medicaid. When The Texas Observer asked providers what they thought about the cuts, several mentioned the same phrase. They said in hoping to punish Planned Parenthood, politicians had gone too far, with devastating consequences for women’s health. Lawmakers, they said, had thrown the “baby out with the bath water.”

Among the health clinics that managed to remain open, many have been forced to contract their geographic range, limiting services to a smaller population of Texas women. Regardless of affiliation to Planned Parenthood, limiting health clinics’ ability to provide critical health services to low-income women does not have the intended consequence of targeting just Planned Parenthood. Rather, drastic cuts to the Women’s Health Program are preventing struggling women from getting access to the care they need.

Republicans who controlled the 2013 83rd Legislature passed the most restrictive abortion law in recent history, which forced half the state’s abortion clinics to close. The measure, passed in a special summer legislative session, bans abortions past 20 weeks of gestation, mandates abortion clinics become ambulatory surgical centers, tightens usage guidelines for the drug RU486 and requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic at which they're providing such services. (See Texas Tribune June 9, 2015 stories: 5th Circuit Appeals Court Upholds Texas' Abortion Restrictions, Remaining Abortion Clinic Locations, Texas Abortion Law Up For Supreme Court Review, and UPDATED June 29, 2015 - Supreme Court Stays Texas Abortion Clinic Law Ruling From 5th Circuit.)

Even after the four year long effort to kill Planned Parenthood, some Planned Parenthood affiliates continued to receive funding from the Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program, which is primarily funded by federal money. In fiscal year 2014, funding for the program included $7.8 million in federal funds and $2.4 million in state funds. The legislative agenda for the 2015 84th Legislature was to effectively block Planned Parenthood from receiving those program dollars.

Republicans were successful in edging Planned Parenthood out of receiving Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program funds, which provides cancer screenings for uninsured women. That was the last stream of federal/state funding any Planned Parenthood clinics received, even though the majority of program funding was from federal dollars. House and Senate SB1 budget writers approved a provision in joint committee action to make it more difficult for Planned Parenthood to qualify to share Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program funding.

More background: Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care

Republicans Double State Funding For Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Republicans who controlled the 2015 84th Texas Legislature doubled state funding for the Alternatives to Abortion program, which primarily funds Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Many charge the unregulated and unlicensed Crisis Pregnancy Centers are dangerously manipulative and disseminate bad information to women at an emotionally vulnerable time. To offset Alternatives to Abortion program increased funding, Republicans cut funding to other health care programs, leaving Texas women without access to cancer screenings, birth control, HIV tests, and other preventive care.

The House base budget, originally introduced in mid-January, includes about $5.1 million per year, a $1 million increase from the previous budget cycle, to the program. The House Appropriations Committee in March approved a budget rider to add an additional $4 million per year to the Alternatives to Abortion program. The “increasing funds to pregnancy centers and early childhood care” rider, proposed by state Rep. Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood), increases state Alternatives to Abortion program funding to more than $9 million per year.

The nonprofit Texas Pregnancy Care Network contracts with the state to distribute funding through the Alternatives to Abortion program to 61 subcontractors, including crisis pregnancy centers, maternity homes and adoption agencies. The network claims to “help women in crisis pregnancies via free and compassionate, practical and life-affirming services,” but many facilities do not provide medical care, are virtually unregulated by the state and have been found by various investigations to offer inaccurate information designed to dissuade women from having an abortion.

Many charge unregulated and unlicensed Alternatives to Abortion facilities are dangerously manipulative. According to a 2012 Texas Observer investigation, Crisis Pregnancy Centers deliver few, if any, real health services to women, while spending more per client than family planning providers. An investigation into Crisis Pregnancy Centers by NARAL Pro-Choice Texas found these faux medical clinics use deceptive tactics, medical misinformation, and flat out lies to dissuade people with unintended pregnancies from accessing abortion services.

Hillary Clinton Speaks About Voting Rights

2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about voting rights in a speech delivered at Texas Southern University, a historically black college in Houston, Texas on Thursday.

Clinton proposed Americans be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18, unless they opt out, one of a series of voting-law changes she said would expand access to the ballot box. In her remarks to the audience she accused Republicans of making voting harder, particularly for minorities and young people.

Clinton called out Republicans who control the Texas Legislature for enacting a restrictive election law requiring voters to show one of a very limited selection of government photo I.D. cards with the intention of denying ballot access to certain minority voters who do not hold any of those identification cards.

• Texas' Voter Photo I.D. Law On Appeal
• Texas Photo I.D. Law Fifth Circuit Appeal Takes A Step Forward 
• Selma and Texas' Discriminatory Voter I.D. Law
• Texas' Voter I.D. Law Found Discriminatory 
• Texas Voter I.D. Trial
• Texas Voter Photo I.D. Law To Be Immediately Enforced
• The SCOTUS Majority Is Missing Exactly What the VRA Sought to Remedy
• Texas Restrictive Voter Photo ID Law Blocked By Federal Court Aug 30, 2012

Clinton also called on Congress to restore parts of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.


Hillary Clinton at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas Thursday
c-span video

Texas' Wind Energy Industry Survives 84th Legislature

During the 84th Texas Legislature, Senate Republicans passed a bill that would effectively eliminate Texas’ wind power industry.

With a party line 21-10 vote in April, the Senate sent Senator Troy Fraser's Senate Bill 931, killing Texas' renewable energy incentives, to House lawmakers for consideration. SB931 did not advance on the House calendar and died when the 84th Legislature adjourned on Monday.

Election 2016: Facebook More Important Than TV Ads

The odds are good that you are reading this article because you clicked through a link on Facebook. On Sunday, for example, a day you should be spending time with family/reading Post articles, a third of all traffic to The Fix’s top five posts came through the social networking site. The odds of your having gotten to this article from Facebook are much better the younger you are, given that this article deals with politics.

“Among Millennials,” a new report from Pew Research reads, referring to people born between 1981 and 1996, “Facebook is far and away the most common source for news about government and politics.” Far and away meaning that 61 percent of that group got news about politics or government from the site — about the same percentage as that of baby boomers (1946-1964) got from their local news. And vice-versa: Only 37 percent of millennials got political information from local news, compared to 60 percent of boomers.

There are a few things at play here. The first is that more young people use Facebook. In 2014, Pew found, 87 percent of those ages 18 to 29 used the site, compared with 56 percent of those over 65 — though that was up 11 percent from the previous year.

The second is that younger people are more likely to consume news from online sources in general. We took Pew’s graph of the most common sources for news for each age group and highlighted the online-centric ones in yellow. Three of the top 10 for millennials are online, two for Gen X, and one — Facebook — for boomers.

Full Article For millennials, Facebook is poised to dominate politics (also everything else) – The Washington Post.

Private School Vouchers Rob Public Schools

UPDATED June 2, 2015

As the 2015 84th Texas Legislature began, several conservative Tea Party Senators aligned with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick filed bills taking varying approaches to funnel public school tax dollars to private schools.

• HB 279
• HB 1043
• SB 4
• SB 276
• SB 520
• SB 642
• SB 1178

All the bills  failed, including Senate Bill 4, a priority measure for Patrick that passed out of the Senate.

Original Article April 25, 2015

After school voucher defeats over several legislative sessions, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s public school privatization crusade passed the Senate hurtle this week. Senate Bill 4, passed out of the senate on a 18-12 vote along partisan lines after the third reading of the bill. The bill now goes to the Texas House for consideration,

Patrick has championed school voucher legislation since 2007, his first term in the Texas Senate.

Only one Democrat voted for SB4, Sen. Eddie Lucio (R-Brownsville), while two Republicans voted against it, Sen. Konni Burton (R-Colleyville) and Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville).

New Judicial Courts For Collin County

The backlog of cases at the Collin County Courthouse may begin to ease with a bill creating three new courts for the county sent to Gov. Abbotts's desk for his signature, today, the last day of the 84th Texas Legislature.

After months of discussion, Collin County commissioners voted last February to ask that the state Legislature add two new Family District Courts and one new County Court at Law. The last time Collin County added a district judge was in 2009.

SB 1139, passed in the closing days of the 2015 legislative session, newly creates the 469th and 470th Judicial District Courts to hear family law matters for Collin County. SB 1139 also adds County Court at Law No. 7. to the current list of County Court numbers 1-6.  The 469th and 470th District Courts are added to the current list District courts in Collin County:

• 199th District Court, Judge Angela Tucker
• 219th District Court, Judge Scott J. Becker
• 296th District Court, Judge John Roach, Jr.
• 366th District Court, Judge Ray Wheless
• 380th District Court, Judge Benjamin N. Smith
• 401st District Court, Judge Mark Rusch
• 416th District Court, Judge Chris Oldner
• 417th District Court, Judge Cynthia Wheless
• 429th District Court, Judge Jill Willis

The three new courts will be created on September 1, 2015, the start of Texas' fiscal year. Temporary Judges will initially be appointed to the new courts, with judges elected to a full of office during the 2016 election cycles. These ballot positions will be added to the other elected offices that will appear on 2016 Collin County Primary and General Election ballots.

Bills Denying LGBT Rights Fail In Tx 84th Legislature

The Republican dominated Texas 84th Legislature adjourns today without passing any anti-LGBT laws. During the 2015 legislative session, Republican lawmakers introduced over 20 anti-LGBT bills. The proposed legislation followed four recurring legislative themes common to Republican dominated legislatures in other states:

1. “Religious Freedom Restoration Acts” (RFRAs), or “Turn the Gays Away” bills - like the bill passed in Indiana earlier this year. Many Texas business groups opposed these bills, pointing to the backlash over similar bills in Indiana and Arkansas that opponents consider discriminatory;
2. Bills to opt out of recognizing legal same-sex marriages, intended to defy the U.S. Supreme Court, if it rules in favor of same-sex marriage, as expected, sometime this month. Nearly every House Republican sponsored a House bill that would have prohibited government employees from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The bill never reached a vote due to parlimentary procedure employed by House Democrats.
   • House Bill 1745, prohibiting license issuance by government employees, was filed by state Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, after a lesbian couple from Austin obtained a marriage license in February. Under a U.S. District Court Judge's emergency order, the Travis County clerk issued a license to Sarah Goodfriend and Suzanne Bryant, who have been together for 30 years. The Judge allowed the union because of Goodfriend’s ovarian cancer diagnosis and prognosis;
3. “Bathroom Bills” that prevent transgender people from using the appropriately-gendered bathroom; and
4. Bills prohibiting cities from passing local ordinances protecting LGBT rights.

Only one piece of legislation, allowing pastors to refuse to conduct gay marriages, passed during the 84th legislature.

In a symbolic gesture to their religious conservative political base, Senate Republicans did pass a nonbinding resolution affirming the Senate’s view of marriage as being only between a man and a woman.

Guns Now Required On Texas State University Campuses

The Texas House, by a vote of 98-to-47 on Sunday, passed Senate Bill 11, legislation requiring the state’s public universities to allow handguns in dorms, classrooms and campus buildings.  SB 11 is now on its way to desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, who has said he will sign the bill.

The state Senate approved the bill Saturday by a 20-11 vote, with all of the chamber’s Democrats opposing it.

Under the version of the bill passed by both legislative chambers, universities would be able to carve out gun-free zones in locations of their choice — establishing their own rules on where handguns are carried and how they’re stored in dormitory buildings, based on public safety concerns.

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) said the limited the last minute gun-free zones amendment was designed to allow guns to be prohibited in places of heightened security, such as biohazard labs. Common spaces, such as dormitories or libraries can not be designated gun-free zones.

Only concealed handgun license holders would be allowed to carry their firearms on state university campus. Private universities are allowed to opt out of the requirement, all together.

Texas now becomes the ninth U.S. state to allow concealed weapons on college campuses. Ten states have rejected campus carry bills this year, while four more -- Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina -- are still considering them. Twenty states ban concealed weapons from campuses, while 23 allow individual schools to make their own policies, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

University presidents and students warned lawmakers that the policy could lead to accidental shootings, student suicides and violence at alcohol-laced parties, while creating an air of intimidation in classrooms during heated debates.

Texas Hand Gun Open Carry Law

Update (May 31, 2015): On Friday, Texas lawmakers approved legislation that allows citizens who have a concealed handgun license to openly carry handguns in plain view in belt or shoulder holsters. The is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott, who promised to sign it.

In a concession to law enforcement groups, lawmakers removed a provision that would have prohibited police from stopping someone to check for a gun license simply because that person was carrying a handgun openly.

The Texas House of Representatives approved the legislation 102-43, with just five Democrats joining the Republican majority. The bill passed the state Senate with 20 Republican votes in favor and 11 Democratic votes against it.

Why Baltimore Blew Up

Amid anger and protests in Baltimore following the unexplained death of 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray from a spinal injury sustained in a police paddy-wagon after being arrested, Baltimore exploded in protests.  But the American media did not use the that opportunity to talk about the poverty-ridden neighborhood in which Gray grew up.

The media didn't use the opportunity to have a conversation about the economic disadvantages that Gray, his peers, and so many young African American adults, are disadvantaged by the current socio-economic conditions found in minority neighborhoods throughout Baltimore and in other U.S. metro areas from the very beginning of their lives.

Neither did the American media use the opportunity to talk about the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of illegal searches and arrests across decades of discriminatory policing policies, the debate revolved around whether or not the teenagers who set fire to two West Baltimore CVS stores after Gray's death were "thugs," or merely wrongheaded criminals.

From Eric Garner to Michael Brown to Akai Gurley to Tamir Rice to Walter Scott and now Freddie Gray, there have now been so many police killings of African-American men and boys in the past calendar year or so that it's been easy for both the media and the political mainstream to sell us on the idea that the killings are the whole story.

Public Education, Poverty, and Standardized Testing

Thirteen billion dollars and 45 days per year. Those are the two numbers I want you to remember at the end of this post.

Thirteen billion dollars and 45 days per year.

But first, I would like to brag a bit about our public schools. Do you have a child or grandchild in public school? Are you a teacher, or do you have a friend or family member who teaches? Do you pay taxes?

Great! Listen up. You should enjoy this: 

Every few years, students in over 60 countries participate in the Programme for International Student Assessment, also known as the PISA. This study, which began in 2000, compares the performance of students across various nations in the fields of math, science, and reading. When the results from this study are broken into quartiles by poverty, the United States routinely scores first in every subject.

That's right, number one! That's pretty darned good, don't you think? Let's give a round of applause for our hard-working educators. They do an amazing job with the resources they are given, and they deserve a great deal of respect and admiration for their service.

Why do I say they do a great job with the resources they have?

In 2011, the Texas Legislature cut $5.4 billion from the public education budget, and it did quite a number on our schools. Class sizes skyrocketed in every district, support staff was reduced, and many great programs were eliminated. Teachers found themselves paying more in insurance premium hikes than what they received from the highly publicized pay raises (even here in Plano), and larger class sizes mean significantly more homework to grade. Then there are, of course, the resources of the students.

POVERTY

Studies have proven that poverty accounts for a huge portion of any standardized test results. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which runs the PISA, determined that poverty explains at least 46% of the scores on their tests. Results from the SAT and ACT exams have shown a high correlation between scores and family income.

Closer to home, the STAAR test, administered yearly to Texas students, has also demonstrated the effects of poverty on education. In 2013, only "69 percent of economically disadvantaged students passed all subjects in all grades compared to the state average of 77 percent. Results in individual grades and subjects were the same: The economically disadvantaged student subgroup had a lower passing rate than the state average on every test."

White on White vs Black on Black Murder Rates

When White on White crime occurs, it’s seldom talked about the way Black on Black occurs, especially on the Fox News channel. In fact, White on White crime and murder is seldom talked, period.

But according to the FBI data, there are more White on White murders committed every year than Black on Black murders, with 84 percent of the white murders committed by whites.

Even so, most White people don’t kill anyone. Yet media pundits, like Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, regularly talk about “Black on Black violence,” despite the fact that most Black people don’t kill anyone, and commit few murders than White people.

			Race of Offender
Race of Victim	Total	White	Black or African American	Other	Unknown
White	3,005	2,509	409	49	38
Black or African American	2,491	189	2,245	20	37
Other race2	159	32	27	96	4
Unknown race	68	25	17	3	23
FBI Homicide Data for 2013

These statistics have not led to a media outcry about the problem of White on White crime or the unique pathology of the White community. Nor has the White community stood up to demand change in their community like the Black community does when trying to tackle instances of Black on Black crime.

Time magazine’s Joe Klein wrote an entire column last August in the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo., that focus on the rate of violence and murder in the Black community - calling it a “social disaster.” But there was no mention that more whites are killed by other whites, which was typical of media outlets.

The term ‘black-on-black’ crime is a destructive, 'racialized' colloquialism that perpetuates an idea that blacks are somehow more prone to violence. This is untrue and fully verifiable by FBI, DOJ and census data. Yet the fallacy is so fixed that Black People are prone to violence that even African Americans have come to believe it.

Influential columnists like George Will never examine crime committed by whites, do not use the racialized phrase “white-on-white” crime and give the impression African American citizens ore more dangerous than White citizens and the lives of White citizens are more at risk from of African Americans. It this perception of the dangerous Black man that had at least some bearing on Darren Wilson, white Ferguson, Mo police officer shooting 18-year-old African American Michael Brown Jr., and George Zimmerman fatally shooting 17-year-old African American Trayvon Martin in Florida, Timothy Loehmann, a Cleveland, Ohio, police officer fatally shooting 12-year-old African American Tamir Rice who was holding a toy gun, and so many other fatal shootings.

It this perception of the dangerous Black man that for generations has prompted parents of black boys across the United States to have rehearsed, dreaded and postponed “The Conversation.” But when their boys become teenagers, parents must tell their sons the risk of what it means to be a black man in America. To keep him safe, they may have to tell the child they love that he risks being targeted by the police, simply because of the color of his skin. How should parents impart this information, while maintaining their child’s pride and sense of self? How does one teach a child to face dangerous racism and ask him to emerge unscathed?

Considering Bureau of Justice Statistics, homicidal rates from 1980 to 2008, they show that compared to Blacks, Whites were more likely to kill children, the elderly, family members, and their significant others. Whites commit more sex-related crimes, gang related crimes, and are more likely to kill at their places of employment.

Read more at The Root: It’s Time to Stop Blaming Black-on-Black Crime - The rhetoric around crime is factually wrong and allows some to ignore and pass the blame for systemic misdeeds.

More: A guide to debunking black on black crime and all of its rhetorical cousins

Climate Change Poses A National Security Danger

President Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at the United States Coast Guard Academy commencement last week in New London, Connecticut. In his commencement speech, Obama warned graduates climate change is one of the largest threats they will have to face as they defend the United States and our nation's interests abroad.

For the first time since record keeping began, carbon dioxide levels set a new record high water mark in surpassing 400 parts per million (ppm) at 40 monitoring sites around the globe, according to newly published data for March 2015.

CO₂ emissions, the main green house gas driver of global warming and have risen more than 120 ppm since pre-industrial times, warming the planet 1.6°F over that period. Since record-keeping began in 1880, average global temperatures have risen 1.4^o Fahrenheit.

The last time concentrations of Earth's main greenhouse gas level was at 400 PPM, during the Pliocene era, from 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago, the planet was about 3.6^o to 5.4^o Fahrenheit warmer. The Arctic was 14°F warmer allowing horses and camels to graze in lush savannas that grew at those ancient high latitudes. Mid-Pliocine sea levels were about 82 feet higher than today — levels that today would inundate major cities around the world — because Arctic and West Antarctic ice sheets did not exist to hold that from the ocean!

2014 was the 38th consecutive year with temperatures above the average for the entire 20th century. Fourteen of the past 15 years rank among the 15 warmest of the past 136 years – since record-keeping began. Moreover, nine out of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2000, with 2014 being Earth’s warmest year on record.

A recent survey of peer reviewed articles on climate change showed that only 2 out of 10855 articles believe that humans aren't causing global warming. A mere two articles rejected anthropogenic global warming. For the next 25 to 30 years, climate scientists say we're in for a 1.8^o F warmer climate, there's no way out. That amount of change is inevitable, set by today’s atmospheric conditions.

If we make substantial effort starting now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature increase can be kept to 2^o C or 3.6^o F in the second half of this century. But if nothing is done to greenhouse gas emissions, the world will face 4^o C, or 7.2^o F, increase. (see: A Climate Changed Earth)

A Climate Changed Earth

For the first time since record keeping began, carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels, the main green house gas driver of global warming, set a new record high water mark, surpassing 400 parts per million (ppm) at 40 monitoring sites around the globe, according to newly published data for March 2015.

Latest analysis shows that warming feedback mechanisms, which hasten the effects and pace of global warming, are already speeding the melt of glaciers worldwide and the polar ice caps.

An atmospheric carbon level of 450 ppm has generally been associated with an average global temperature rise of 2^o C or 3.6^o F. If the U.S. and nations of the earth do nothing to curtail CO₂ emissions, that carbon level will be hit within about 20 years.

But under the expected “business as usual” scenario — nations continue to burn fossil fuels as they do now, doing little to curtail fossil fuel use — scientists expect CO₂ levels to reach 560 ppm by about 2060. That level of atmospheric CO₂ has generally been associated with an average global temperature rise of between 2^o C and 4.5^o C  (3.6^o-8.1^oF) higher than pre-industrial times, with a best estimate of about 3^o C (5.4^o F) in temperature rise.

With ice masses worldwide already showing significant melting at 400 ppm, an ice free earth is already probable — it's only a matter of time, unless worldwide CO₂ emission levels are reduced. CO₂ levels of 450 ppm or 560 ppm will only accelerate the ice melt.

Atmospheric CO₂ levels have risen more than 120 ppm since pre-industrial times, warming the planet 1.6°F over that period. Since record-keeping began in 1880, average global temperatures have risen 1.4^oF.

An increase of 10 parts per million might have needed 1,000 years or more to come to pass during ancient climate change events. Now the planet is poised to reach the 1,000 ppm level in only 100 years, if CO₂ emissions trajectories remain at their present level.

The Guardian newspaper reports on a Royal Dutch Shell "New Lens Scenarios" internal planning document defining a business strategy for a potentially catastrophic global temperature rise of 4^o C.

No Need To Sacrifice Liberty For Security

New Jersey Governor and likely 2016 Presidential candidate Chris Christie (R-NJ) said on Monday, he would increased spending to expand the government's “intelligence capabilities” to spy on American citizens. Christie’s comments are in response to the ongoing debate occurring in the Congress, as provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which was passed in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are set to expire at the end of this month.

In a common refrain with most Republican lawmakers, Christie harkened back to that September 2001 attack, stating that, “Everyone will remember 9/11, but have forgotten what 9/11 felt like.” He also stated that “We acted differently, we conducted our lives differently. We were reticent. We were scared to do things as a people. That’s a stealing of our liberty too.”

Christie went on to critique the arguments of opponents of the domestic spying programs saying, “The founders made sure that the first obligation of the American government was to protect the lives of the American people.” Christie concluded his argument by employing a one-liner, explaining that “You can’t enjoy your civil liberties if you’re in a coffin.”

If Governor Christie and the Republican Party as a whole wish to understand the one of the most sacred tenets upon which the United States is founded, he needs only look to two of the most commonly repeated quotes by Patrick Henry and Benjamin Franklin.

In a 1775 speech to the Virginia Convention, Henry stated his most famous quote during a debate concerning whether to send Virginian troops for the Revolutionary War. His exclamation to “Give me liberty, or give me death!” was also featured on the Culpepper Minutemen Flag of 1775, in addition to the iconic “Don’t Tread on Me.”

The quote by Franklin that, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,” was first written for the Pennsylvania Assembly in November 1755 in its Reply to the Governor. Franklin used derivations of the quote throughout his life, including a variant in his famous Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1738.

As Henry's and Franklin's statements make clear, defense should not ever trump our essential liberties, not the least of which are those explained in the Fourth Amendment. If we are to forfeit liberty in the face of fear, that liberty is nearly worthless. When the colonists chose to fight a revolutionary war against the British Crown, they clearly chose liberty over security.

But the attacks of September 11, 2001, did not happen for lack of having a Patriot Act that authorized the government to capture and record every phone call made and received by every American, and record the websites visited and emails sent and received by every American. The attacks of September 11, 2001, happened for lack of leadership in President G.W. Bush's White House.

As chronicled by former acting CIA director Mike Morell in his new book, The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, and former counter terrorism chief Richard Clarke in his book, Against All Enemies, several government security agency experts repeatedly warned President Bush and Bush Administration officials of a pending attack by Al-Qaeda -- from the weeks before Bush took the oath of office until the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. More here...

Bush and Cheney Falsely Presented Iraq WMD Intelligence

Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush's Iraq war fumble freshly lays bare the truth that President George W. Bush intentionally misrepresented the intelligence related to Iraq's supposed WMD program and Saddam's alleged links to Al Qaeda to talk the nation into a war of his choice.

Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball on Tuesday night, former acting CIA director Mike Morell, author of a new book, The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, made clear the Bush-Cheney administration publicly misrepresented the intelligence related to Iraq's supposed WMD program and Saddam's alleged links to Al Qaeda.

Host Chris Matthews asked Morell about a statement Cheney made in 2003: "We know he [Saddam Hussein] has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Here's the conversation that followed:

GOP Can't Be Trusted To Keep America Secure

Jeb Bush and other Republican presidential contenders have a new and bogus spin on how the Iraq War began. They say Jeb's brother, Pres. G.W. Bush was misled into war by faulty intelligence. That's Not What Happened!

But here's the truth Jeb and the Republicans are evading: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, & Co. were not misled by lousy intelligence; they intentionally cherry-picked lousy intelligence to mislead the public into war.

Throughout the run-up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and their lieutenants repeatedly stated assertions about Iraq to justify war that were not supported by the professional the intelligence analysts.

An article published at New York Magazine and another published at Mother Jones are excellent refreshers on the history of the Bush administration trumping up reasons for America to invade Iraq, even though U.S. intelligence agency professionals could not find any factually convincing evidence Saddam Hussein had any connection to the Sept. 11, 2001 al Qa‘ida attack.

But that was not the first instance of a disastrous outcome from Bush administration officials dismissing intelligence agency reports. According to The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, a new book by former acting CIA director Mike Morell, Vice President Dick Cheney thought al Qaeda was bluffing on its plan plan to fly commercial aircraft into high value buildings:

Republicans Troubled By Clinton Donors See No Conflict With Own Dark Money

Paul Blumenthal reports for HuffPo.

For four months, the Republican Party and its many presidential hopefuls have laid into likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over donations to a family foundation. That these attacks contradict the GOP's broader stand on campaign finance -- and call into question their own weighty burden of donor conflicts -- hasn't troubled them at all.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called contributions to the nonprofit Clinton Foundation “thinly veiled bribes.” The nation can’t afford the “drama” represented by those donations, according to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina asked Clinton to explain why contributions to the foundation “don’t represent a conflict of interest.” And the Republican National Committee has made the donations a central part of its campaign against Clinton.

Republicans, including those now running for president, defend dark money groups as a means to protect what they argue is the First Amendment right of donors to engage in political activity without "retaliation." Perhaps, that retaliation would come in the form of stories informing the public about how those donors are seeking to influence public policy.

Full story at HuffPo.