So Far Right They Are Wrong For Texas

On April 3, Governor Perry addressed the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in San Antonio.

According to the Governors press release, he "promoted Texas as the premier state for biomedical research, development and manufacturing because of the state's strong business climate and investments through the Emerging Technology Fund (ETF)." http://governor.state.tx.us/ne...

Gov. Perry failed to mention that in hopes of securing the endorsement of evangelical right-wing Republicans for the 2010 primary election against Kay Bailey Hutchison he opposes the critical cornerstones of biomedical research in Texas. Hutchison has upset evangelical right-wingers with her votes in the U.S. Sentate in favor of stem cell research funding.

Stem cell research was exposed as a central political issue for the 2010 Republican primary for the governor's office when Hutchison called on Governor Perry to put in place a plan to aggressively pursue Texas state taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Governor Perry, a leading general in the Republican Party's War On Science, reappointed Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education to press teachers to openly question established scientific principles and he promises to prevent stem cell related research and business in Texas as he touts his record for passing more restrictions on stem cell research than any previous governor.

Biomedical research requires a well-educated and knowledgeable scientists and technicians. The Chair of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), an appointee of Mr. Perry, is on a crusade to drag our children into the 15th Century. The SBOE is currently creating a Science Curriculum that is an echo chamber for conservative talking points that teach the basic principles of science are wrong. If we teach our Children science that has been diluted by religious dogma and littered with junk, then they will lack the skills essential to the Bio-Tech Industry.

In addition, at Gov. Perry's urging the Republican controlled Texas legislature is considering a bill that could effectively end stem cell research within Texas. http://www.chron.com/disp/stor...

Republicans like Perry are so far right they are wrong for Texas.

Right Wing Talking Revolution - As In Armed Insurrection

While the 70 or so Department of Homeland Security All Threat Fusion Centers across the U.S. surveil American citizens for terrorist threats, these domestic spy centers completely overlook the right-wing media and blogger threat as they gin up fear against President Obama and Democrats in congress to the level of armed insurrection.

Read, "What's wrong with the North Texas Fusion Center?" in the Collin County Observer, then read

So Now They Want a Revolution? from the BurntOrangeReport.com:

Lately we have been hearing a lot of squawking and screeching emanating from the conservative right wing about a revolution.

This is rather perplexing given that we recently had an election in which the elected President won rather substantially. . .

. . .And despite all of the problems we face in these dire and stressful times the President's approval ratings remain in the 60's. Today it is at 67%. Today an ABC/Washington Post poll also reveals 65% trust President Obama to handle relations with Muslim nations.

So, what is the problem? Why is a revolution necessary now?

In an editorial in the The New York Times Charles Blow expressed his concern for conservative hate talk. Blow asserts conservative chatter and hate talk is far from harmless.

"Lately I've been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right.

My read: They're apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their "leaders" seem to be trying to mold them into militias." [reminiscent of the 1930's era German-American Bundist Movement fostered by Hitler's Nazi Germany]

Mr. Blow said he was initially amused by the twisted logic, garbled and veiled hate speech. After spending substantial time listening to conservative media, however, Mr. Blow changed his tune. He realized all is not harmless talk.

But, it's not all just harmless talk. For some, their disaffection has hardened into something more dark and dangerous. They're talking about a revolution.

Mr. Blow's article certainly gave me pause because I too had the tendency to dismiss the ravings of the right wing as just that. The events of this past week should certainly make us rethink some of our impressions of right wing hate talk.Read the rest of the story at burntorangereport.com.

And then read Fearmongering at the DailyKos

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Public Speaks On Voter ID Before TX House Committee

Hunderds gathered to speak out on Voter ID
Originally Posted at KXAN Austin, TX
By Jenny Hoff - KXAN AUSTIN
Tuesday, 07 Apr 2009, 6:44 PM CDT

KXAN AUSTIN - Voter ID day at the Capitol started out with a rally of pro-Voter ID supporters.
Hundreds, dressed in red, gathered on the South steps to push House members to make the same decision as the Senate: Approve SB 362, which would require voters bring a photo ID to the polls.

"I have to provide a valid photo ID and my social security number just to get a fishing license, and I have to provide neither in order to vote," said Voter ID supporter, Liz Tate. "That makes absolutely no sense to me."

Tate is part of SafeTexas , a group that has been at the forefront of pushing Voter ID legislation.

Members of SafeTexas joined opponents of the bill to publicly testify before the House Elections Committee Tuesday afternoon. Every seat in the hearing room was filled, as speakers prepared themselves for a long night.

"I plan to wait 24 hours if I have to in order to testify in favor of this bill," said Rusty Hicks, who waited almost that long to testify during the Senate debate on Voter ID

The first person to testify before the House committee spoke out against the bill. Randall Buck Wood, an attorney, said he has investigated voter fraud and found nothing this bill would solve.

"I've never found a person impersonating another voter," said Wood. "I've never found illegal immigrants trying to vote."

That comment was met with grumblings from some of the pro-Voter ID members of the audience who believe voter fraud is alive and well in Texas.

An All-Night Affair

Rep. Todd Smith, Chair of the Elections Committee, said he will give everyone who wants to testify a chance to do so. Each speakers gets three minutes and then a chance to answer questions posed by committee members. When the Senate Committee of the Whole had its hearing on the issue, the debate and testimony lasted almost 24 hours.

Smith does not expect the committee to vote on the bill this week. However, once it does approve the bill, SB 362 will then move to the House floor for debate.

Stipulations of the Bill

Under current law, to vote a regular ballot, voters are only required to present a voter registration certificate to a poll worker.

SB 362 would require all voters present a valid form of photo identification to the polls. If a person does not have a state ID or driver's license or other form of photo identification, they could be bring in two other forms of approved identification instead (utility bill, cable bill, etc).

The bill mandates the Secretary of State educate the public on the new voting law by posting a notice on the website and on the websites of local polling locations. The bill also mandates the Texas Department of Public Safety not charge people who want to obtain a state issued ID solely for the purpose of voting.

Related Posts:

• Take Action - Photo Voter ID Bill Up For House Committee
• Voter Photo ID: A Flawed Solution To A Made-Up Problem

Related Links:

• Few voter ID fraud cases found in Texas LINK
• House Elections Committee begins 2-day Voter ID debate LINK

Appalling Lack Of Oversight At Homeland Security Fusion Centers

The Texas Observer, The Collin County Observer and this blog has been posting about the Collin County and Department Of Homeland Security funded The North Central Texas Fusion System located in Collin County. The Collin County Observer posted another good story about this domestic intelligence gathering operation in the Texas Observer:

Collin County's fusion center, the NCTFS, came under national criticism last month when its newsletter, the Preventive Awareness Bulletin, used ultra-right websites as a basis for declaring that "mainstream Muslim" organizations were gaining success in endeavors such as establishing a sharia law in the US. The newsletter used inflammatory internet rumors to call for law enforcement to report on legal lobbying and protest activities by Muslin and anti-war groups, prompting a response from the national office of the ACLU. The controversial PAB was written by Dr. Robert Johnson, the son of U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson and the prime contractor to the fusion center. [Sam Johnson (R) represents the 3rd Congressional District of Texas, which includes the southwestern portion of Collin County and the Northeastern corner of Dallas County.] The PAB, stamped "For Official Use Only", is published weekly and is distributed to several hundred law enforcement and other first responder agencies in the North Texas region. This week's edition, acknowledges what I've been hearing from several sources - which is that most of the recipients of the newsletter consider it a waste of time and toss it in the trash without reading it. This latest PAB leads with a statement that, "In prioritizing our resources, we also understand that you must prioritize your limited time. Therefore, we will no longer be sending weekly bulletins. However, we will continue to send periodic updates, resources, information and analysis that we believe to be of value to you."

Collin County's fusion center, the NCTFS, is not the only fusion center under fire for distributing such spurious and inflammatory warnings to law enforcement agencies.

A newly leaked terrorism assessment from a fusion center in Virginia shows that police and feds are targeting "historically black colleges" as "radicalization nodes" for terrorists. RAW STORY has published the entirety of the 215 page report, available here in PDF format, From RAW STORY:

From page 17 of the report:

While most of these universities are considered urban, two are designated as a Historically Black Colleges and Universities, while Regent University is a private, evangelical Christian institution. While the majority of individuals associated with educational institutions do not engage in activities of interest to the VFC, it is important to note that University-based students groups are recognized as a radicalization node for almost every type of extremist group.

Though the report singles out "historically black colleges" early on, it also contains an extensive list of peaceful American and International activist groups from nearly all cross-sections of political engagement, placing them side-by-side with groups that have long been known for resorting to violence.

. . ."If we are to believe this exaggerated threat assessment, Virginia's learning and religious institutions must be hotbeds of terrorist activity,' said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in an advisory. "This document and its authors have displayed a fundamental disregard for our constitutional rights of free expression and association. Unfortunately, it's not the first time we've seen such an indifference to these basic rights from local fusion centers. Congress must take the necessary steps to institute real and thorough oversight mechanisms at fusion centers before we reach a point where we are all considered potential suspects."

"There is an appalling lack of oversight at these fusion centers and they are becoming – as the ACLU has repeatedly warned – a breeding ground for overzealous police intelligence activities," said Michael German, ACLU Policy Counsel and former FBI Agent, in a release. "The Virginia threat assessment isn’t just disturbing for encouraging police to treat education and religious practices with suspicion, it's bad law enforcement. Lawmakers from all levels of government need to enact legislation to protect against these spying activities that threaten our democracy while doing nothing to improve security."

Recently, a Department of Homeland Security-funded fusion center in Missouri was accused of blatant disregard for the United States Constitution after one of its memos encouraged the surveillance of third party activists, Christians and supporters of Congressman Ron Paul, for their alleged potential status as illegal militia.

The Department of Homeland Security has paid out more than $327 million in funding to local authorities during fiscal years 2004 to 2008 to form 70 centers across the country. The federal government also provides start up personnel and technical support along with the funding. The 70 fusion centers around the U.S., including the one in Collin County gather, compile, store, interpret and then distribute to other government agencies huge amounts of information on the "activities" of local citizens.

(What is a "fusion center?")

Take Action - Photo Voter ID Bill Up For House Committee Testimony

Video: Texas Senator Kirk Watson's speech against the Photo Voter ID bill (SB362)

On April 6th-7th, the Texas House Committee on Elections will hear testimony on the Photo Voter ID bill, which already passed in the Texas Senate in March.

While proponents of Texas voter ID legislation argue that it's needed to combat voter fraud, there is no evidence that the type of fraud this legislation addresses has occurred at any point since records have been kept.

Republicans have been unable to provide any actual evidence on their claim that large groups of people knowingly and willingly give false information to establish voter eligibility, and knowingly and willingly vote illegally or participate in a conspiracy to encourage illegal voting by others.

In fact, according to an article in the Dallas Morning News:

County election officials said voter fraud was difficult to carry out in Texas because each applicant must submit a driver's license number or Social Security number, which is entered into a statewide electronic database and checked by the secretary of state's office. Applicants are sent a voting card and officially added to the rolls only if there are no discrepancies and the secretary of state's office approves the application.

...elections administrators said there's no proof that county officials are registering a significant number of non-citizens to vote. "I don't think we are, and I have no evidence that we have people over registered to vote," said Dallas County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet.

...Steve Raborn, elections administrator for Tarrant County, said a two-year investigation by his office of questionable voter registrations in 2004 and 2005 found only three non-citizens on the county voter rolls, and they were later removed.

A Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law study found that as many as 11 percent of citizens, mostly the elderly, poor and minority American citizens, do not have a current, government-issued photo ID. Voting rights advocates say that requiring photo identification threatens to disenfranchise many older Americans, a growing segment of the population in Collin County as retirees increasingly move to the county.
Senior citizens are less likely to have unexpired driver’s licenses or other government photo id and they are less likely to have their birth certificates, which are often needed to obtain a government photo ID.

This has proven to be the case in Arizona, Indiana and the other eight states that required government issued photo identification to vote in the 2008 election.

(actually, in Collin County this would turn out to benefit Democrats and suppress Republican votes since it would tend to reduce the vote from the solidly Republican block of retirees in the county.)

The Texas photo Voter ID bill is part the Republican agenda to keep Republicans in office by suppressing the vote of groups that tend to vote Democratic. In the 10 states that have already passed picture ID laws, voter participation is down about 3 percent. However, black and Hispanic voter participation is down more than 10 percent in those states. The success of Democratic voter registration drives among these Texas groups in 2008 threatens to tip the balance of power away from Republican candidates in future elections. As the tide of Democratic voters continues to grow across Texas, voter ID legislation would be an effective way for Republicans to hold back the tide.

Consequently, the use of baseless "voter fraud" allegations to promote voter photo ID legislation has become such an urgent priority for Republicans in the 2009 Texas legislative session that Republicans in the Texas Senate were compelled to change long standing Senate rules to just to bring the photo ID legislation to a vote.

Call Elections Committee Chairman Todd Smith and ask him why Republicans are making photo Voter ID the highest priority when there is no evidence of voter fraud, even after Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott's $1.4 million two year investigation attempting to locate voter fraud failed to identify anything more than 26 cases where people forgot to sign and address the absentee ballot envelope:

Contact Information:

Call Rep. Todd Smith, Chairman of House Committee on Elections, at his capitol phone number (512) 463-0522 or write him an email - link to email form - or do both!

Write a letter to your local newspaper editor

Click here to contact other members of the House Elections Committee.

Click here for more key points on the photo Voter ID bill.

Republican Sen. Troy Fraser answers questions about his Voter ID proposal.

Pres. Obama Town Hall in Strasbourg, France

Following the G20 Economic Summit in London, Pres. Obama headed to Strasbourg, France, for a NATO Summit and memorial events. While in Strasbourg, the president spoke at a town hall meeting to local residents about international issues. Link to c-span for speech

North Central Texas "Terror" Fusion Center

The Texas Observer, The Collin County Observer and this blog has been posting about the Department Of Homeland Security funded North Central Texas Fusion System located in Collin County. (What is a "fusion center?") Forrest Wilder today posted another good story about this domestic intelligence gathering operation in the Texas Observer:

Dr. Bob's Terror Shop

The strange and scary story of the North Central Texas Fusion System.

By Forrest Wilder,
The Texas Observer
April 03, 2009

One morning in February, more than 2,000 cops, fire marshals, and public health officials in the Dallas-Fort Worth area received a memo—stamped “For Official Use Only”—that contained shocking information: Middle Eastern terrorists and “their supporting organizations” had gained a stronghold in America.

The memo warned:

A number of organizations in the U.S. have been lobbying Islamic-based issues for many years. These lobbying efforts have turned public and political support towards radical goals such as Shariah law and support of terrorist military action against Western nations. ... [T]he threats to Texas are significant.

Who were these Osama bin Lobbyists who had convinced Americans to support terrorism? Citing a grab bag of right-wing blogs and news sources, the memo [cites, among several concerns] that a class on Islamic finance taught at the U.S. Treasury Department “indicates the possibility that the [U.S.] government hopes to secure recycled petrodollars in exchange for conforming to [Islamic] Shariah economic doctrine.” The memo ends by calling on law enforcement to “report” the activities of [what it identified and listed as Islamic sympathizer] organizations.

The missive reads like a rant by a paranoid conspiracy nut. In fact, the so-called “Prevention Awareness Bulletin” is a weekly product of the North Central Texas Fusion System, a terrorism and crime-prevention intelligence center run by the Collin County Department of Homeland Security.

. . .The bulletin is written by the architect and operator of the fusion system, Bob Johnson, a former chief scientist for defense contractor Raytheon Co. Johnson has a background in data mining, the controversial, computer-aided practice of trolling massive quantities of data in pursuit of patterns and links.

. . .Among his critics in Texas, Bob Johnson is better known as “Son of Sam”—the son of U.S Rep. Sam Johnson, the conservative Republican congressman who has represented Collin and Dallas Counties [in the 3rd Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives] since 1992. [.The 3rd Congressional District includes the southwestern portion of Collin County and the Northeastern corner of Dallas County.]

. . .Since 2004, [Johnson and his wife Anita] have received $1.1 million in no-bid contracts. At least $80,000 of that money has been passed along, in the form of a subcontract, to Anita’s brother, Elbert Bassham, who runs a one-person consulting firm listed at a Marfa post-office box that he shares with a beauty salon.

“I’m not aware of any other fusion center that has a husband-and-wife team building, running, and managing it,” says James Paat, CEO of Sypherlink Inc., an Ohio-based data integration company that lost the subcontract. In a 2007 letter to Collin County, Mr. Paat accused ADB Consulting of rigging the scoring process and asked that the contract be rescinded.

Funding for the fusion system comes from state and federal Department Of Homeland Security grants as well as Collin County funds.

. . .It’s tempting to dismiss the fusion center as one man’s risible, if expensive, [tax payer funded] computer science project. But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security took [Johnson's] menacing February memo seriously enough that it sent a three-person team to train North Texas fusion personnel on federal rules [in accordance with the December 11, 2008 Department of Homeland Security State, Local, and Regional Fusion Center Initiative Privacy Impact Assessment directive.]

. . .In 2007, a former senior intelligence analyst for the Collin County fusion system described the center to an online trade publication as the “wild west,” a place where analysts could try out new technologies [at tax payer expense] before “politics” caught up with them.

. . . “We’ve built this network, and nobody’s policing it,” says Mike German, a former FBI agent now with the ACLU. “Nobody knows exactly what each fusion center is doing.” Part of the problem, German says, is that fusion centers fall in a “no-man’s-land” between federal and state governments. Such ambiguity can lead fusion centers to pick and choose which rules apply to them. A 2007 study by the Government Accountability Office found that one-third of all fusion centers reported a lack of guidance on the proper handling of information, including privacy and civil-liberties concerns.

Read the full story in the Texas Observer....

Time Warner Cable Introducing Tiered And Metered Internet Pricing

According to new reports today, Time Warner Cable is introducing a new pricing structure for Austin-area Internet users. Under the new plan, consumers would be placed on a tiered and metered billing system, and charged for the amount of bandwidth they use. The DFW area Internet users will likely be next for Time Warner Cable Tiered And Metered Internet Use Pricing!

From BurntOrangeReport.com: Lee Leffingwell released the following statement earlier today:

This approach, and Time Warner’s specific plan, should be of grave concern to Austin. Right now we need to be encouraging, rather than stifling, economic recovery and growth in Austin. This plan moves us in the wrong direction. It potentially puts Austin at a disadvantage as we compete against other communities to attract, retain, and grow prosperous businesses.

I’m obviously concerned about the impact this plan would have on individuals and families, who would have to begin to monitor their Internet use. The new pricing system would have a significant impact on anybody who uses the Internet to watch videos, download music, movies, or television shows.

But I’m deeply concerned about the impact of the plan on business owners, especially those working in creative industries that require regular access to broadband Internet service. Introducing an economic disincentive for Austin businesses to use the Internet to communicate, collaborate, innovate, and deliver services is very worrisome at best, and catastrophic at worst.

If Time Warner believes that is has no choice but to introduce usage caps, I would call on them to propose caps that are realistic and reasonable. The usage caps proposed in their new plan are neither realistic nor reasonable.

For example, if a consumer downloads Season 1 of “Friday Night Lights” in high definition from iTunes, they will have used 30.86 gigabytes of transfer. This one purchase would put that consumer over the limit of all but the most expensive tier that Time Warner is offering under the new plan. It’s easy to see how the costs associated with the ongoing, high volumes of Internet use that many businesses require be could be astronomical.

Internet access should be expanded, not constrained. Innovation and creativity should be unleashed by the Internet, not shackled by draconian usage caps. This is vital to Austin’s economic recovery. I hope that Time Warner will work with City officials and the community at large to reconsider this bad plan.

Voter Photo ID: A Flawed Solution To A Made-Up Problem

With its requirement that voters present a government-issued photo ID or specified substitutes along with their voter registration card at the polls, the voter photo ID bill’s stated goal is to prevent voter fraud. No one favors voter fraud, but to this day proponents of voter ID have not shown convincing evidence that such fraud is a problem or has even occurred in Texas.

Requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID to vote is a flawed solution to a made-up problem. Republican maneuvering has every appearance of a disparate scheme devised to stack the deck in favor of Republicans in the 2010 legislative elections. Republicans are anxious to maintain control of the Texas House and Senate to give them the upper hand in the federal and state redistricting decisions that the Legislature is scheduled to make in 2011 following the 2010 U.S. census.

The Texas photo Voter ID bill is part of the Republican agenda to keep Republicans in office by suppressing the vote of groups that tend to vote Democratic. In the 10 states that have already passed voter picture ID laws, voter participation is down about 3 percent. However, black and Hispanic voter participation is down more than 10 percent in those states. The success of Democratic voter registration drives among these Texas groups in 2008 threatens to tip the balance of power away from Republican candidates in future elections. As the tide of Democratic voters continues to grow across Texas, voter ID legislation would be an effective way for Republicans to hold back the tide.

Republicans, who hold a 19-12 majority in the Senate, voted on the second day of the current session to change Senate rules to cut Democrats out of the legislative process so they could ram the voter photo ID bill through that legislative body. Then they proceeded to do so when Republicans passed the Senate Voter Photo ID bill (SB362) in a party line 19-12 vote on March 11.

SB362 will be taken up by the House Elections Committee next week where the Republican committee chairman is solidly on the Republican side of the aisle in wanting to pass the bill into law. There is a slim chance to stop the bill in the House given Republicans hold only a slim 76-74 majority in the House and two of those Republicans sided with Democrats on the issue in the last legislative session in 2007.

You can help convince those House Republicans of good conscience to vote no again by testifying and speaking out against the photo id requirement when the House Elections Committee takes public comment on the legislation next Tuesday.

If you are able to travel to Austin next Tuesday, April 7th to speak out during the House Elections Committee afternoon hearing, please sign up by clicking here.

Read more here

All Threat Fusion Centers A Threat To Civil Liberties

Recently, this blog and the Collin County Observer blog posted stories about the Department of Homeland Security All Threat Fusion Center located in Collin County.

DBCC Blog: Free Speech, Privacy And National Security
CCO Blog: Keystone Kounter-Terrorism

All Threat Fusion Centers are domestic intelligence gathering operations spread out across the U.S. that collect and interpreted data on ordinary citizens and synchronize that consolidated intelligence with local and national law enforcement agencies. Formed in the wake of 9/11 as a way to search out domestic terrorist threats, fusion centers today are criticized on all sides for things like improper surveillance of the supporters of third-party presidential candidates and an ambiguous mission directive that has lead to power overreaching.

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment held a public hearing on Wednesday where several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on Islamic-American Relations, spoke against the fusion centers.

“Fusion centers have experienced a mission creep in the last several years, becoming more of a threat than a security device," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office in a statement. "With no overarching guidelines to restrict or direct them, these centers put Americans’ privacy at huge risk. We need our government to take a long, hard look at what’s going into these centers and, frankly, what’s coming out.”

The Department of Homeland Security itself has expressed concern that fusion centers pose a number of privacy risks to American citizens. In a December 2008 report, DHS's Privacy Office detailed seven risks posed by the centers:

1. Justification for fusion centers
2. Ambiguous Lines of Authority, Rules, and Oversight
3. Participation of the Military and the Private Sector
4. Data Mining
5. Excessive Secrecy
6. Inaccurate or Incomplete Information
7. Mission Creep

The ACLU has highlighted known invasions of privacy by fusion center, including surveillance of third-party presidential candidate supporters, various religious groups and anti-war activists. The group is asking the DHS office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to launch independent investigations into the following incidents:

* Inappropriate references "social, religious and political ideologies including support of third party presidential candidates such as Congressman Ron Paul and former Congressman Bob Barr" in a February 2009 report on the "modern militia movement" authored by the Missouri Information Anaysis Center. Report available here.

* A May 2008 report entitled “Universal Adversary Dynamic Threat Assessment” written by a private contractor that labeled environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the Humane Society and the Audubon Society as "organizations with known or possible links to eco-terrorism.” The report, which also criticized the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, among others, is available here.

* The alleged improper monitoring and dissemination of communications of activists with the DC Anti-War Network.

* The labeling of national and state anti-war groups as "extremists in a report entitled a “Protective Intelligence Bulletin” that was issued in March, 2006 by the DHS Intelligence Branch of the Threat Management Division of the Federal Protective Service. The report is available here.

* A February 2009 report authored by the North Central Texas Fusion System called "Prevention Awareness Bulletin." The report described an alleged conspiracy of among the Muslim civil liberties group, CAIR, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, among others to foster an "environment for terrorist groups to flourish." That report can be read here.

The Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) released the following statement regarding a warning distributed to law enforcement agencies by "The North Central Texas Fusion System," operated by the Collin County Department of Homeland Security in the county sheriff's office building, concerning its legitimate political lobbying activities:

"CAIR is deeply troubled that the North Central Texas Fusion System bulletin labels monitoring the legal activities of American Muslims exercising their constitutional privileges as ‘imperative,’" their statement said. The group "believes it is time for Congress to conduct a deeper evaluation of our nation’s new domestic surveillance infrastructure...

Based on this and other recent incidents and initiatives targeting the Muslim community nationwide, we are concerned that the rights of American Muslims to participate fully in our country’s political process and practice their faith free of government intrusion is under assault.”

Note: In reporting on the Collin County Fusion Center this blog and the Collin County Observer blog will likely appear in future warnings distributed to law enforcement agencies by "The North Central Texas Fusion System."

Texans for Life Press For Continued Abstinence-Only Sex Education In Texas Schools

Legislation that would end the requirement that Texas public schools devote attention to abstinence-only sex education was before the House Public Education Committee on Tuesday for public comment. The bill, HB 741 by State Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio), would remove much of the controversial and unsound language from the Texas Education Code that places abstinence education above responsible instruction about sex education and sexually transmitted diseases.

Texas receives more federal abstinence-only education funding than any other state in the country, yet Texas has the nation’s third-highest teen pregnancy rate. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) a Texas teen gets pregnant every 10 minutes.

According to a report (PDF Full/Summary) released in February by the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) a majority of Texas schools use scare tactics and teach false information in their sex education classes. TFN's two-year study of education materials from 990 Texas school districts showed that about 94 percent of public schools use abstinence-only programs that usually pass moral judgments while giving inaccurate information on contraception and health screenings or ignoring the subjects altogether.

A recent, a large federal 2008 study, again confirms previous studies in its finding that abstinence eduction that tell teens to "just say no to sex" is not as effective as comprehensive sex education. "Taking a [abstinence] pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior, but it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking," according to Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Ms. Rosenbaum's report, that appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics, highlights that:

Teenagers who receive abstinence-only sex education and pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a large federal survey released last month.

Ignoring all facts and evidence that the "just say no" abstinence-only sex education approach does not stop or even reduce the numbers of teens who have sex, Texans for Life Coalition representative Kyleen Wright gave testimony before the House Public Education Committee on Tuesday making a "full court press" for the ideologue position that "abstinence-only" should be taught in Texas schools. It was Wright who successful lead the fight to keep any medically accurate information about contraception and disease prevention out of new Texas high school health textbooks in 2004.

The fact that abstinence-only sex education translates to a higher tax payer burden to support teen mothers and their babies was all but ignored. Texas Medicaid paid for 17,322 deliveries to teen mothers aged-13-17 last year at a cost of $41 million. That $41 million is on top of the many millions of dollars tax payers are spending on a government sponsored abstinence-only public school sex education program that is a proven failure!!

To read a live blog of the Texas House Public Education Committee meeting click here.

Kathy Miller's news conference announcing the report

Kathy Miller, president of the Freedom Network’s Education Fund, said in a late February news conference announcing the groups Texas education report that, "we must stop burying our heads in the sand about high teen birth and STD rates and make sure young people get the medically accurate information they need to protect their health. . ." Texas continues to have one of the nation's highest teen pregnancy rates despite receiving more federal abstinence funding than any other state. (Watch TFN's "Sex Ed...Texas Style" videos)

Texas Gov. Perry: No Stem Cell Science In Texas

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who strongly supports teaching only "abstinence" sex education in Texas schools and who reappointed young earth (earth age only 6,000 years) creationist Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education to oppose teaching evolution in public schools, also promises to prevent stem cell research in Texas as he touts his record for passing more restrictions on stem cell research than any previous governor.

[Apparently, Gov. Perry does not think Texas needs the high tech stem cell business dollars flowing into Texas to replace the crumbling telecommunication industry that is rapidly disappearing from Texas' "silicon prairie" corridor.]

Governor Perry, a leading general in the Republican Party's War On Science, promises that a story like this will never come out of Texas:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2009) — In a genetic engineering breakthrough that could help everyone from bed-ridden patients with failing heart muscles to people afflicted with muscular dystroph, a team of American researchers—including 2007 Nobel Prize winner Mario R. Capecchi—have created a "switch" that allows mutations to be turned on in muscle stem cells to monitor muscle regeneration in a living mammal.

"This is basic science at its best," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "This study has not only shown us how stem cells turn into muscle in the living body, but brought us closer to the day when we can use stem cells to repair wounded flesh or a maimed physique."

Read the complete story at ScienceDaily.com

Democrats Can Win In Republican Strongholds

A special election to fill a vacant U.S. House seat in the heavily Republican Upstate New York 20th Congressional District demonstrates that Democrats can win in heavily Republican areas, even Collin County, Texas, with a focused campaign and coordinated help from the Democratic Party.

With all precincts reporting from Tuesday's special election voting, Democrat Scott Murphy, a venture capitalist, had 77,344 votes and Jim Tedisco, the Republican leader in NY's State Assembly, had 77,285. The Democrat leads by 65 25 vote in the Congressional District that has approximately 400,000 total registered voters and 70,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats, and where former President George W. Bush carried the district twice.

Election officials and outside observers said that about 5,900 absentee ballots had been received as of Monday. But about 10,000 absentee ballots were mailed, and those still out have another week to return -- 13 days for ballots from overseas and from members of the military -- as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.

Tedisco and Murphy were vying to replace Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand in the House; Gillibrand was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Clinton in January when she became Secretary of State.

Murphy ran an campaign focused on his record as a successful businessman and his strong support for President Obama's economic recovery programs. Tedisco, the Republican, ran on his opposition to President Obama's economic recovery programs and the Republican platform of tax cuts and deregulation. Murphy also had strong active support from both the local and national Democratic Party organizations. Murphy's website, that his campaign kept active and current with issues, news and videos, no doubt, also gave him an advantage. Tedisco's campaign website was more a old "billboard" type of site, other than a campaign Twitter feed on his main page.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele had made recapturing this traditionally GOP seat a priority. He heavily invested here and personally visited twice to campaign. Murphy's campaign success against a Republican candidate that started with a 20 point advantage, will like cause concern in the ranks of House Republicans, like Texas 3rd District Representative Sam Johnson and Texas 4rd District Representative Ralph Hall, who continue to vote as a block against President Obama's economic recovery programs. The Texas 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts meet in Collin County.

The 3rd Congressional District, shaded in yellow on the map includes the southwestern portion of Collin County and the Northeastern corner of Dallas County. The 4th Congressional District, shaded in pink on the map includes the remaining portions of Collin County and four counties of north east Texas.

Free Speech, Privacy And National Security With, Maybe, A Dash Of Cronyism

Have you ever heard of the Department of Homeland Security "all hazards fusion centers" that sprung up during the Bush Administration? We have one in Collin County called "The North Central Texas Fusion System" operated by the Collin County Department of Homeland Security in the county sheriff's office building. The Collin County Observer reports that James Johnson, son of U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson, and James Johnson's wife, Anita Miller, have received at least $1 million in no-bid contracts from Collin County since 2004 to design and run the "The North Central Texas Fusion System." Four other such fusion centers, designed to gather intelligence on Texans and share it with law-enforcement agencies, have been created in Texas since 2002.

The Collin County Observer has been posting about the "all hazards fusion center" in Collin County. A blogger colleague suggested we should post something to highlight this important reporting by our friend Bill Baumbach at the Observer blog.

The Collin County Observer has been reporting that a February 19. 2009 North Central Texas Fusion System "Prevention Awareness" bulletin distributed to law enforcement organizations warned that mainstream Muslim organizations were infiltrating American institutions, with the goal of gaining support for Islamic-based issues:

A bizarre, conspiracy-laden memo sent to almost 3,000 cops, fire marshals and public-health officials in North Texas links mainstream Muslim-rights organizations and anti-war groups to Middle Eastern terrorists, and calls on law enforcement to “report these types of activities.”

The leaked memo, dated Feb. 19 and labeled “For Official Use Only,” is one in a weekly series of “Prevention Awareness Bulletins” put out by the North Central Texas Fusion System, a regional intelligence-gathering center run by the Collin County Department of Homeland Security. Five such fusion centers, designed to consolidate and share intelligence with law-enforcement agencies, have been created in Texas since 9/11.

The bulletin has increased fears among civil libertarians and Metroplex Muslims that the North Central Texas Fusion System has edged into spying.

The author of the weekly Prevention Awareness Bulletin is James Johnson, son of U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson, a Republican who represents Collin County [in the 3rd Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. The 3rd Congressional District includes the southwestern portion of Collin County and the Northeastern corner of Dallas County.]

So, what is a Department of Homeland Security "all Hazards Fusion Center" and what does it do, you may be asking yourself. The Department of Homeland Security was authorized to fund local Homeland Security operations around the country as a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission Report. This far-reaching, yet little known or scrutinized, 9/11 Commission recommendation on "domestic" intelligence gathering breaks down the walls between local, state, and federal law enforcement and disaster response.

The thinking went that in terms of both prevention and response, effectively fighting terror would require a much higher level of centralized coordination among federal, state and local law enforcement and emergency services than had ever been previously contemplated. Though local fusion centers vary from state to state, most contain similar elements, including members of state and local law enforcement, public health, social services, public safety, and public works organizations. Increasingly, federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms are stationing their agents in the local fusion centers too.

(Department of Homeland Security also promotes and funds local "Urban Search and Rescue" (US&R) task forces to provide specialized assistance after disasters to stabilize damaged structures, locate and extricate victims, identify risks of additional collapses, and meet other needs at disaster sites. The US&R task forces are separate from "all hazards fusion centers," but the two efforts are related.)

Fusion centers are low-profile, highly secure sites where federal and state officials with top secret clearance meet in order to collect, analyze, and redistribute information on "all hazards and all threats." The Department of Homeland Security has paid out more than $327 million in funding to local authorities during fiscal years 2004 to 2008 to form 70 centers across the country. The federal government also provides start up personnel and technical support along with the funding.

The list of hazards and threats covered by these centers initially started with terrorism, but soon expanded to include local crime, gangs, "political activists" and weather-related natural disasters. (During the Bush administration Iraq anti-war protesters were identified as "political activists.") Fusion center databases are initialized with a broad spectrum of information, including the location and capabilities of area hospitals, available emergency response resources, and names from federal terrorism and law enforcement watch lists. Local, state and federal representatives now continually update fusion center databases with details of 911 emergency hot-line calls and other information gathered from law enforcement agencies, commercial sources, internet sources, blogs and websites, club and group memberships and, apparently, even religious affiliation.

Bush Administration Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, pressed fusion centers to "fuse" local firefighters with the "intelligence gathering" functions of local Fusion Centers. Chertoff reasoned that because firefighters, as emergency first responders, were in a position to report suspicious observations as they gain entrance to buildings in response to emergency calls.

The 70 local all hazards fusion centers around the U.S., including the one in Collin County, then, generally gather, compile, store, interpret and then distribute to other government agencies huge amounts of information on the "activities" of local citizens.

This data pool is intended to help local, state and federal law enforcement form a clearer picture of threats facing each state. In addition, it helps inform law enforcement investigations, contingency planning, and emergency response. This is what The North Central Texas Fusion System (NCTFS) does - it gathers and interprets information on the "activities" of Collin County residents and sends "reports" to local, state and national law enforcement organizations on what local groups or individual persons might pose a threat.

While Fusion Centers sprang to life and grew to 70 centers under the Bush Administration they seem to have continuing strong support from the Obama administration. "At the Department of Homeland Security, information and intelligence sharing is a top priority and fusion centers play an important role in helping to make that happen... In the world we live in today, it’s critical for federal, state, local and tribal entities to know what the others are doing so each can operate effectively and efficiently," said Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano at the the third annual National Fusion Center Conference in Kansas City on March 11 this year.

"Protecting our country requires a partnership of federal, state and local resources that are fully integrated to not only gather and analyze information, but then to swiftly share that information with appropriate agencies...Fusion centers represent the honing of these protective efforts, while strongly protecting individual rights and civil liberties. They are a vital part of keeping our nation strong, safe and free," Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said in remarks at the same conference.

The National Fusion Center Coordination Group (NFCCG), the 2009 National Fusion Center conference organizer, promoted a conference agenda focused on strengthening the integrated national network of state and major urban area fusion centers that share information and intelligence with the federal government and each other. Close to 1,000 state, local, tribal, territorial and federal partners involved in the 70+ fusion centers across the country attended the March 2009 conference.

Some worry that the information gathered by Fusion Centers might be used to violate civil liberties. This seems to be the implication of the February 19, 2009 North Central Texas Fusion System "Prevention Awareness" bulletin warning about the political activities of Americans who attend Mosque rather than Church.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says pooling information on U.S. citizens who aren't suspected of a crime runs afoul of the Federal Privacy Act of 1974. Some states have even applied for exemptions from constraints on the kind of information they can collect, which Rotenberg calls “a purposeful attempt to suspend federal privacy laws.”

In December of 2008, the DHS issued a "Privacy Impact Statement" giving "civil liberties" oversight guidance to fusion center directors and personnel. The DHS Statement called for the establishment of community oversight committees and the prominent public disclosure of privacy policies, information collected and how the information will be used. The North Central Texas Fusion System in Collin County has not subscribed to nor adhered to these DHS "privacy and civil liberties"guidelines.

Science Takes Hits in Texas

After a year of fierce debate about how evolution should be taught (or not taught) in Texas public schools, the State Board of Education (SBOE) voted on and passed a final version of new science education standards that will guide the content of science textbooks and classroom curriculum for the next decade.

Just to review yesterday’s action, a reference to the “weaknesses” of evolution was removed from the education standard during the morning, but in the afternoon creationists on the board passed several other amendments to the standard that again opens the door for Texas teachers to effectively still have a "critical discussion" on the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" with public school students. The amendment phrases ask teachers to prompt students to “examine all sides of scientific evidence and scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking.”

Today, in its final vote on the new eduction standard the entire standard as written, including those fuzzy and open to interpretation 'examine all sides' amendments, were adopted. Those teachers and school districts who want to criticize evolution and discuss the 'scientific theory of intelligent design' will no doubt interpret the amendment language as their license to do so.

The SBOE's decision has a large impact across the U.S. given Texas' ability, because of its size, to influence what is printed in textbooks. The just adopted standard, with the last minute amendments, allows Don McLeroy, young earth creationist chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, to pressure textbook publishers to write the “strengths and weaknesses of evolution discussion" into textbooks used nationwide.

The Texas Freedom Network has released the following statement on the final adoption of science curriculum standards by the State Board of Education today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 27, 2000

TFN President Kathy Miller: Texas State Board of Education Adopts Flawed Science Standards

The word “weaknesses” no longer appears in the science standards. But the document still has plenty of potential footholds for creationist attacks on evolution to make their way into Texas classrooms.

Through a series of contradictory and convoluted amendments, the board crafted a road map that creationists will use to pressure publishers into putting phony arguments attacking established science into textbooks.

We appreciate that the politicians on the board seek compromise, but don’t agree that compromises can be made on established mainstream science or on honest education policy.

What’s truly unfortunate is that we now have to revisit this entire debate in two years when new science textbooks are adopted. Perhaps the Texas legislature can do something to prevent that.

###

The Texas Freedom Network is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization of religious and community leaders who advance a mainstream agenda supporting public education, religious freedom and individual liberties.

The Texas Freedom Network live-blogged today's meeting and has a good play-by-play of the amendments and maneuverings on their blog. The Texas Observer blog has several posts worth reading and here is The Austin American-Statesman's story link.

Capitol Annex: “Analyze, Evaluate And Critique” Becomes New “Strenghts & Weaknesses” For Science Educators In Texas

Related Posts:

• Young Earth Creationists Win The Day On Questioning Evolution In Texas Classrooms
• Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution

Seven experts briefly describe the essence of science and how it differs from religion.

"Only a Theory" 2:19	Barbara Forrest, Professor of Philosophy Southeastern Louisiana University - "When creationists try to dismiss evolution as 'only a theory,' they are misusing the word theory."
Avoiding the Supernatural 1:41	Nick Matzke, Public Information Project Director National Center for Science Education - "A conservative judge isn't going to just redefine science."
Science and Religion 2:29	Ken Miller, Biologist Brown University - "What science isn't very good at is answering questions [on] the meaning and purpose of things."
On Isaac Newton 1:34
A Solid Theory 1:18	Kevin Padian, Paleontologist UC Berkeley - "I don't know where people get the idea that evolution is a theory in crisis."
Natural Explanations 1:33	Robert T. Pennock, Philosopher and Evolutionary Scientist Michigan State University - "You can't have gaps that you fill in by appeal to miracles."
Science Is Not Dogmatic 2:02
Science Tests Its Claims 1:12	Eugenie Scott, Executive Director National Center for Science Education - "If you teach intelligent design as a science, you are confusing students about the nature of science."
The Power of Science 1:23	Neil Shubin, Paleontologist University of Chicago and the Field Museum - "Not every idea, no matter how beautiful, qualifies as science."

Young Earth Creationists Win The Day On Questioning Evolution In Texas Classrooms

Pro-evolution advocates felt like they had carried the day Thursday morning when the State Board of Education voted against adding language to the education standard requiring Texas educators to have a "critical discussion" on the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" with public school students.

However, by the end of board proceedings late Thursday afternoon it was actually young earth creationist Don McLeroy, Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, and the creation social conservative members of the board that won the day on teaching the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" in Texas schools.

The Texas Observer:

McLeroy and the six other social conservatives on the 15-member board mostly got their way this afternoon. They passed a series of minor amendments that, with a slight word change here and there, diluted the state’s science standards and the teaching of evolutionary theory. Critics say these proposals open loopholes in the standards for the teaching of unscientific theories espoused by religious conservatives. (The same approach was tried, quite successfully, at the board’s meeting in January.}

“We’re opening the conversation and broadening it to alternative theories,” said Barbara Cargill, a socially conservative board member from The Woodlands. “We know there are a lot of questions about the fossil record.” [There is NO scientific evidence that is non-supportive of evolution. Evolution is settled science for all but ideologues who oppose it for religious reasons.]

Terri Leo, an ardent social conservative, passed an amendment requiring biology students to “analyze and evaluate the evidence regarding the formation of simple organic molecules.”

Board Chair Don McLeroy passed an amendment that will require science curriculum and textbooks to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell.”

Cargill snuck through an amendment that struck a reference to the Universe being 14 billion years old. “It clarifies this for our teachers to let students know that there are differing theories for the age of the Universe,” Cargill said, adding that she was simply trying to add a sense of “humility” to the science standards.

Pro-evolution members offered several amendments themselves, many from Lubbock’s Bob Craig, to undo the social conservatives’ victories from January. Nearly all of those amendments failed.

The change in fortunes occurred largely because of Rick Agosto of San Antonio, who voted against the social conservatives in the morning and mostly with them in the afternoon. Agosto is viewed as the key swing vote on the board. He voted against the “strengths and weaknesses” language in January and again this morning, despite fierce lobbying from religious groups in his district.

Agosto wasn’t alone. Several other pro-evolution board members voted with the social conservatives’ this afternoon.

The board will take its final vote on the science standards, which will set content of classes and textbooks for years to come, tomorrow. The board can add in or take out language up until final passage.

So one last fight is likely on Friday.

The purpose of the several amendments, as McLeroy states in the video, is to allow teachers to question the validity of the “two key parts of the great claim of evolution, which is common ancestry by unguided natural processes.”

Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution

Updated Thursday March 26 at 1:00PM - Texas State Board of Education votes to not critically challenge evolution in Texas schools and textbooks. See update below.
Young earth creationist Don McLeroy, recently reappointed as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) by Republican Governor Rick Perry, believes the earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old and that modern man and dinosaurs walk the earth together. McLeroy, a Bryon dentist who has no background in science or education, is convinced that evolution taught uncritically undermines the tenet of Christianity that people were created in the image of God.

The video explains the young earth creationist "intelligent design" principles that McLeroy is asking teachers to present to students in Texas schools.

McLeroy believes that the science disciplines of physics, geology, biology and the archaeological study of the fossil record, which all provide evidence the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that biological processes first appeared at least 3.9 billion years ago, must be critically argued by Texas teachers and the text books they use as unreliable.

McLeroy is asking teachers to engage Texas students in a "critical discussion" that the archaeological evidence of the fossil record does not support the idea of natural selection as an explanation of how organisms evolved on earth over millions of years. McLeroy wants teachers to lead students to the believe that cells and the DNA code controlling their function is so complex that intelligent design by a creator and not evolution is the only answer that can be accepted.

Update - CapitolAnnex is reporting:

A motion for the SBOE to reinstate language, advocated by McLeroy, into the education standard requiring Texas educators to have a "critical discussion" on the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" with public school students failed on a 7-7 tied vote of the State Board of Education in Austin on Thursday March 26th.

In spite of the victory, rumors are already running rampant that social conservatives and young-earth creationist groups are looking to challenge the vote. According to a source within the Texas Education Agency, social conservative groups have already raised the idea of challenging today’s vote as violating the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Constitution because Mavis Knight (D-Dallas) cast her vote via teleconference from an Education Service Center in Richardson. Knight is recovering from heart surgery and could not travel to Austin.

While other state agencies and boards–including the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles–conduct their meetings using similar methods, right-wing anti-science advocates are expected to use Knight’s vote as a mechanism to challenge today’s vote.

The vote upholds a tentative vote taken by the board in January to discard the “strengths and weaknesses” language from the education standard. The near-party line vote saw seven ultraconservative Republicans voting for the motion and three more moderate Republicans and four Democrats against.

The SBOE's decision has a large impact across the U.S. given Texas' ability, because of its size, to influence what is printed in textbooks. If the Texas SBOE had voted to require Texas teachers to "critically discuss" evolution, then that “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theory discussion" would have been printed in textbooks used nationwide.

McLeroy's critics, who include many Texas scientists, accuse him of trying to undermine a multitude of scientific evidence that supports evolution and replace it with a discussion of one particular fundamentalist interpretation of religious doctrine in public schools.

The Christian Right has already moved the battle over teaching intelligent design to the floor of the Texas House and Senate with HB 4224. House Bill 4224 would override the SBOE vote just taken by requiring Texas educators to have a "critical discussion" on the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" with public school students. If passed into law the bill would would allow schools to teach whatever they wish, not just on evolution vs. intelligent design, but on any scientific topic from geology to physics to how diseases are transmitted.

WSJ: Texas School Board Set to Vote on Challenge to Evolution
CNN: Education board leader set to challenge evolution
RawStory: Texas House Bill 2800 would allow creationists to grant Masters of Science degrees

Texas Freedom Network Stand Up For Science Initiative:

• Send a letter to your State Board of Education member by clicking here.
• Sign the Stand Up for Science petition here, if you have already signed forward the petition to your friends!
• Read more about young earth creationists on the SBOE.
• Read a TFN report on what Texas scientists think about the battle over evolution and creationism.

Related Posts:

• Texas House Bill End Run To Teach Creation In TX Schools
• Teaching Creationism Has Evolved

Old Media Giving Way To The New Web Media

GOODBYE PRESS CORPS… HELLO WEB CORPS
Obama Holding Online Chat On Economy

Picture from HuffingtonPost

President Brack Obama kicked off a first-of-its-kind Internet era Town Hall at the White House on Thursday, by taking questions posted on WhiteHouse.gov by online readers. In opening remarks to kick off the virtual Town Hall Obama said the precedent-setting online town hall meeting was an "an important step" toward creating a broader avenue for information about his administration.

The AP is reporting on a near avalanche of newspapers that are either closing down their print operations or making severe cuts. Apparently things aren't looking up for old media:

The pall looming over U.S. newspapers grew even darker Monday as Gannett Co. informed most of its employees that they will have to take another week of unpaid leave this spring, while a Michigan daily unveiled plans to close its print edition after 174 years.

And The Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, also ordered pay cuts and 10-day furloughs for nonunion employees Monday to cut costs as advertising revenue drops.

The moves were just the latest sign of the distress afflicting newspapers across the country as they try to cope with a dramatic shift in advertising that is forcing publishers to figure out how to survive with substantially less revenue.

The report is overflowing with newspapers across the country that have been forced to implement more and more drastic cost saving efforts in order to stay afloat. Now, its been clear for quite sometime that the newspaper industry has been hurting but it seems that the situation continues to worsen:

Like most businesses, newspapers have been hard hit by the deepest recession since the early 1980s. But the blow has been especially devastating for newspapers because they were already losing readers and revenue to the Internet, where news can be easily found for free and the advertising rates are substantially lower.

The Internet's allure, coupled with the punishing recession, have caused annual advertising revenue to shrivel by 20 percent to 30 percent at some newspaper publishers since 2006.

Not surprisingly the AP skips over an important factor in these papers' collective downfall. That factor being their obvious and undeniable bias for the conservative message and against the progressive message. While it is certainly true that old media's failure to quickly adapt to a new media world has been one of the main causes of their struggle it is equally true that their bias toward uncritically forwarding the talking points of the far right conservative message machine, which often denigrates any left-of-center message, has left their former readers, who are increasingly turning away from conservative ideology, looking for other information sources. Obama very wisely continues to take advange of that trend.