Texas could become the 27th state to allow online voter registration, if two bills on the House Elections Committee's schedule for this week, HB
76 and HB
953, receive favorable consideration.
These bills propose allowing voters who have an unexpired Texas driver's license or personal identification card to
register online and have that application automatically authenticated
rather than having to hand print a paper registration application form and wait on local election officials to data-enter the information into their systems and verify it.
Those Texans who do not have a Texas driver's license or personal identification card would still have to mail in the old paper registration form.
The process of gathering and reporting news has changed significantly due to the advent of the Web, which has enabled the increasing involvement of citizens in news production. This trend has been given many names, including Citizen Journalism, participatory journalism, and crowd-sourced journalism.
Citizen Journalism describes the different kinds of journalism people can do on their own, without media companies or professional salaried journalists necessarily involved.
This can be as simple as regularly commenting on news story in the Dallas Morning News that adds information or perspective the reporter left out, writing letters to the editor or as demanding as self-publishing a news and editorial blog on the Internet.
Citizen journalists are members of the public who play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, fact checking and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.
A strong public school system is not only good for our children, it also promotes business growth and keeps our residential property values strong. Early Voting for the May 9, 2015 election starts on Monday, April 27th.
Geographical school districts in Texas are completely independent from city or county jurisdiction, and are governed by a board of trustees. Texas school district boundaries are not always aligned with county or city boundaries; a district can occupy several counties and cities, while a single city (especially larger ones such as Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio) may be split between several districts. Almost all Texas school districts use the title "Independent School District", or ISD.
Plano's public school system is among the largest in Texas and is nationally rated as one of the best school systems in the nation. The quality of Plano schools is among the major factors convincing companies like Toyota to locate their national corporate headquarters to Plano.
Early Voting for the May 9, 2015 election starts on Monday, April 27th. Information about candidates can be found in the League of Women Voters of Collin County Voter's Guide www.lwvcollin.org/:
If you are thinking about running for election in 2016, it's time for you to map out your digital campaign strategy. A full mobile friendly campaign website is a must have, plus, Facebook and Twitter are essential social media sites (SMS) to drive your message across, sign up supporters, gather online
donations, recruit volunteers and more. How do you get a beautiful new
site that meets your needs, on time and on budget? It’s challenging,
even for well funded campaigns.
Before you get started, there are pitfalls to watch out for. Let’s start with what the three deadly sins of campaign websites:
Political strategists and candidates will be well-served to keep their eyes on an important demographic shift while thinking about how to connect with Millennial generation voters.
In 2015, the Millennial generation
— those ages 18 to 34, and born between 1981 and 1997 — is set to
become larger than the Baby Boom generation. (This will be true, even as
the country’s median age continues to rise.)
Over the next three decades or so, the cohort of Baby Boomers will
decline in size steadily, and by mid-century only about 1 in 5 will be
living, as the Pew Research Center points out.
The Supreme Court struck down section 4 of the Voting Rights Act in June 2013 say that section of the VRA is outdated. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion saying, "discrimination against minority voters may have been pervasive in the 1960s when [section 4 of] the law was passed, but nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically.”
Under Justice Roberts reasoning, the law was still punishing states and local governments covered under section 4 for discriminatory practices the majority of Justices argued ended years ago. Section 4 of the VRA specified all or parts of 16 states and local jurisdictions, with long histories of overt racial discrimination in voting, mostly in the South, that were required to get approval from the federal government for any proposed change to their voting laws, as specified under VRA section 5.
The section 5 process, known as preclearance, stopped hundreds of discriminatory new laws from taking effect, and deterred lawmakers from introducing countless more. Without section 4, the section 5 is useless. Chief Justice Roberts, writing the 5-4 majority opinion, invalidated section 4 arguing, “today’s statistics tell an entirely different story.” In fact, today’s statistics tell a story little changed from the 1960s.
A comprehensive new study by a historian of the Voting Rights Act provides a fresh trove of empirical evidence that refutes Chief Justice Roberts' assertion. The study by J. Morgan Kousser, a professor of history and social science at the California Institute of Technology, examines more than 4,100 voting-rights cases, Justice Department inquiries, settlements and changes to laws in response to the threat of lawsuits around the country where the final result favored minority voters.
It found that from 1957 until 2013, more than 90 percent of these legal “events” occurred in jurisdictions that were required to preclear their voting changes. The study also provides evidence that the number of successful voting-rights suits has gone down in recent years, not because there is less discrimination, but because several Supreme Court decisions have made them harder to win.
A Texas House bill supported by energy companies that prevents cities and counties from regulating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other oil and gas drilling on their land was passed by the House legislators on Friday.
House Bill 40 by Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) passed on a 122-18 bipartisan House vote. The bill is widely seen as a response to a fracking ban passed by Denton voters last November. The Texas Oil and Gas Association, representing major energy companies, has sued Denton and has been lobbying lawmakers. Denton sits on a gas-rich shale formation that stretches across 24 counties in north Texas.
The Senate approved the bill and Gov. Abbott signed the bill into law, overturning Denton’s fracking ban, Dallas’ drilling ordinance, and nullifies city ordinances around the state.
Denton and other cities around Texas have been trying to literally keep fracking gas drillers out of homeowners' backyards and public school playgrounds.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process used in nine out of 10 natural gas wells in the United States, where millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground to break apart the rock and release the gas. Scientists are worried that the chemicals used in fracturing may pose a threat either to underground aquifers or when waste fluids seep into lakes and public water supplies.
The rise in earthquakes as a result of fracking poses a massive problem for the oil and gas industry. The primary hydraulic fracturing drilling process does not foster earthquakes. Rather, the injection of waste water back into the ground that contributes to fault lines “slipping,” which results in heightened seismic activity.
Oklahoma has become the earthquake capital of the United States, surpassing even tremor-prone California. Oklahoma has averaged less than two earthquakes of a magnitude 3.0 or greater over the last 30 years. Shockingly, however, that rate has skyrocketed in recent years. In 2013, the state experienced 585 earthquakes with at least a 3.0 magnitude. If the current rate of earthquakes continues, Oklahoma could have 875 by the end of 2015.
House Republicans voted Thursday to repeal the estate tax, a longtime priority of Republicans. Not wanting Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton to get too far ahead of them talking about policies that benefit working people, not the wealthy, Republicans talk like champions of the middle class, complaining bitterly about the wealthy benefiting almost exclusively from the recent economic recovery.
Not walking the walk of the talk they talk, House Republicans, en masse, voted for a $269 billion tax giveaway to the wealthiest 0.2% Americans. The House bill now moves to the Senate, where the Republican majority is eager to support it.
Under the plan, GOP lawmakers, who occasionally pretend to care about “fiscal responsibility,” would simply add the entire $269 billion cost to the deficit, leaving future generations to pay for a massive tax break for the hyper-wealthy.
At a time of rising economic inequality, House Republicans have prioritized a bill to make economic inequality worse on purpose. At a time in which much of Congress wants to make the deficit smaller, House Republicans have prioritized a bill to make the deficit much larger. At a time when prosperity is concentrated too heavily at the very top, House Republicans have prioritized a bill to deliver enormous benefits to multi-millionaires and billionaires – and no one else.
Asked to defend this, Republican House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters, confusing the facts, “The estate tax’s repeal is long overdue. Remember, all of this money that families have saved has all been taxed, much of it multiple times. Conservatives claim that the estate tax is a “death tax,” wrongly implying that the tax is paid when every American dies. In fact, the tax primarily is paid by estates of multi-millionaires and billionaires. The vast majority of deaths — 99.9% — do not trigger estate taxes today.
Meet the 21st-Century Political Alchemist Who’s Been Data-Mining for Hillary for the Past Two Years. The Bloomberg article gives a deep dive into the modern data-driven campaign with Obama veteran and Ready for Hillary senior strategist Mitch Stewart.
The 39-year-old Stewart has risen to the highest rank of Democratic
operatives by thinking holistically about how those pieces of a modern
campaign fit together, and how strategies and budgets need to change
accordingly.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has set Tuesday, April 28th, as the date to hear oral arguments for the State of Texas' appeal of U.S. Southern District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos' decision to block Texas' photo I.D. law. The law remains in effect, pending the Fifth Circuit's decision on the appeal.
After a two-week trial hearing on the constitutionality of Texas' photo I.D. law conducted in September 2014, Judge Ramos struck down Texas' voter photo I.D. law with a 147-page opinion issued on October 9, 2014.
Judge Ramos found the law had been adopted “with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose,” created “an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote” and amounted to a poll tax. Two days later, and less than two weeks before the start of early voting for the November 2014 gubernatorial election, Judge Ramos entered an injunction blocking the law.
This social media activist seminar, on Saturday, April 18th, at 9:00 a.m., Collin College, Frisco, will provide an introduction on how to effectively use social media
to communicate with voters.
The seminar will include a general overview on using social media for voter outreach and activation and focus specifically on how to use Facebook.
We will cover tips and tricks on using social media for outreach and to welcome people to help spread the word about Democratic candidates and issue positions!
All activists, volunteers, precinct chairs, and anyone interested in helping elect democrats in 2016 and beyond are encouraged to attend!
A conservative video blogger with over a million views on YouTube said this week that he would likely vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton because he was terrified that a Republican president would take away his affordable health insurance.
James Webb, a 51-year-old YouTube Tea Party celebrity who devotes his “Hot Lead” channel to rightwing rants, revealed he is torn over which party to vote for in the 2016 election.
“And I’m serious because I asked myself, ‘Which party has helped me out
the most in the last, I don’t know, 15 years, 20?’ And it was the
Democrat [SIC] Party,” Webb lamented. “If it wasn’t for Obama and that
Obamacare, I would still be working.”
“With Obamacare, I got to retire at age 50 because if it wasn’t for Obamacare, I would have had to work until I was 65 and get on Medicare because health insurance is expensive when you’ve got medical problems,” he continued.
“But you know, the Republican Party, they haven’t done nothing for
me, man. Nothing,” he remarked. “So, I’m leaning toward voting for
Hillary unless something major comes up.”
Web continues, “I don’t trust the Republicans
anymore because they’re wanting to repeal the Obamacare. And I don’t
want them to do that, man, because then I’ll have to go to work again.
My life’s already planned out.”
“Just a tough decision,” Webb sighed. “I voted for Republicans for 32
years, I’m a charter member of my Tea Party Patriots chapter. I’m also a
veteran of the U.S. Army under Reagan, when Reagan was in. That was
great when Reagan was in there.”
“Things have changed. So unless the Republicans change with it, I’m
probably going to have to swing my vote over toward Hillary.”
Tuesday night, Congress overwhelmingly passed a $214 billion bill to reform the way the Medicare program pays doctors. President Obama congratulated both chambers of Congress on passing the legislation by 392-37 in the House and 92-8 in the Senate, saying in a statement that he will be “proud to sign it into law.”
Passage of this major piece of legislation is regarded by all sides as a “historic move” and the perhaps the “biggest legislative accomplishment of the year” for the 114th Congress, which has so far been crippled by gridlock, mostly with internal factions of the Republican members of Congress.
The 2016 presidential election may become the first election where more campaign advertising dollars are spent for social media and other web ads than for newspaper ads, direct mail, or telemarketing. If predictions are correct, web advertising spending pegged at almost $1 billion will be second after television/cable advertising spending.
In a Reuters report released Tuesday, online political advertising is projected to quadruple by 2016.
Predictions for 2016 show online advertising will consume only 8 percent of media budgets, or $955 million. But the growth is substantially up from $270 million in 2014 and just $14 million in 2010.
The main decision point for social media and other web ads is which voters will see what ads. Candidates have more tools than ever to micro target specific specific type of message specific types of voters.
Web ad targeting works like this: First, partisan data firms, like i360 and Data Trust on the right and Catalist and TargetSmart on the left, compile detailed analytic databases with demographic and geographical information on about 190 million registered voters.
Next, digital targeting firms like DSPolitical, CampaignGrid, and Targeted Victory, relate voter data to commercially available data like Internet tracking histories and real estate and tax records.For example: That, allows a Democratic candidate to display targeted web ads to voters in Dallas who had typed “climate change” into Google or typed “Democrat” in their Facebook profile.
Speaking in the early 2016 primary state of New Hampshire, want-to-be president New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced his intention to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Christie's plan largely follows the Republican Party's standard script to cut and eventually privatize those social programs. Christie's main points include:
Raising full benefit retirement age from 66 to 69 - Christie wants to raise the retirement age to 69. He would gradually implement this change starting in 2022 and increase the retirement age by 2 months each year until it reaches 69. After that it would be indexed to gains in longevity.
Raising early retirement from 62 to 64 - Christie proposes raising the early retirement age at a similar pace - raising it by 2 months per year beginning in 2022 until it reaches 64 from the current level of 62.
Eliminate all Social Security benefits for those with income over $200,000, with a sliding reduction for those who have income between $80,000-$199,999. This would end Social Security as we know it, effectively converting it from a plan of universal social insurance to a welfare program that would be more vulnerable to further cuts. The strength of Social Security rests on a simple principle: Everyone pays in; everyone receives benefits.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially announced her intention to seek the 2016 Democratic nomination for president on Sunday, ending speculation over her plans to pursue the Oval Office.
Clinton announced she is officially seeking the Democratic nomination to become the 45th President of the United States of America, via an email to supporters from top aide John Podesta, as CNBC reported.
The news came via an email to party stalwarts from John Podesta, a top Clinton adviser and a loyalist, who said Clinton would soon embark on a tour in Iowa.
Do not listen to anyone who tells you that partisan gridlock, the rightward-lean of the Democratic party, or Hillary’s centrism add up to there being no difference between political parties or between candidates: it matters very much to the future of this country who the next president will be!
Clinton’s campaign website, HillaryClinton.com, has just gone live with her first campaign ad placed at the top.
As Hillary Clinton prepares to officially announce her Presidential campaign on Sunday, and want-to-be-president Republicans rush to announce their presidential campaigns, roughly two out of every three American adults, or 64 percent, own a smartphone, according to a recent report from Pew Research Center.
In the summer of 2014, smartphones and tablets accounted for 60 percent of Americans’ digital (social) media time, according to comScore. Sixty-eight percent of current smartphone owners use their phone to follow along with breaking news events, according to the Pew report. Just over 40% of voters ages 30-49 used their cell phone to follow 2014 election news, up from 15% in 2010.
Though mobile usage is highest among younger Americans, news consumption is quickly catching on even among older smartphone owners, as "four-in-ten smartphone owners ages 65 and older use their phone at least occasionally to keep up with breaking news.
Last summer, 58 percent of American adults owned a smartphone, up from just 35 percent of adults in the spring of 2011. Given how fast the migration to mobile is trending, it’s a safe bet America's digital (social) media time is even larger today, and will be yet larger by November Election Day 2016.
Texas could become the 27th state to allow online voter registration, if two bills on the House Elections Committee's schedule for this week, HB
76 and HB
953, receive favorable consideration. 
