Public Option "Single-Payer" Health Care

Signup for 'Collin County Health Care Day of Service' - June 27th

Keeping Them Honest
By PAUL KRUGMAN - NYTimes Op-Ed Columnist
June 5, 2009

“I appreciate your efforts, and look forward to working with you so that the Congress can complete health care reform by October.” So declared President Obama in a letter this week to Senators Max Baucus and Edward Kennedy. The big health care push is officially on.

But the devil is in the details. Health reform will fail unless we get serious cost control — and we won’t get that kind of control unless we fundamentally change the way the insurance industry, in particular, behaves. So let me offer Congress two pieces of advice:

1) Don’t trust the insurance industry.
2) Don’t trust the insurance industry.

The Democratic strategy for health reform is based on a political judgment: the belief that the public will be more willing to accept reform, less easily Harry-and-Louised, if those who already have health coverage from private insurers are allowed to keep it.

But how can we have fundamental reform of what Mr. Obama calls a “broken system” if the current players stay in place? --- Click here for REST OF OP-ED COLUMN!... ---

Single-Payer Health Care
By Nicole Gaudiano - Free Press Washington Writer • June 4, 2009
Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) has sponsored the Senate’s only single-payer health-care bill, a plan that would rely on a single source of funding, rather than multiple private insurers, for health care. During a Wednesday news conference, he called it “incomprehensible” that such a proposal isn’t part of the Senate’s discussion on the issue.

Sanders favors a state-administered system funded by the federal government. He said he would continue to seek a hearing in the Senate on the single-payer approach.

Sanders said there’s no question why the current health care system is “so dysfunctional.”

“We have a system dominated by private health insurance companies whose goal is not to provide health care to people,” he said. “In fact, it is to deny health care to people because every dollar they deny ... is a dollar more in profits that they make.”

Sanders arranged a meeting among several single-payer advocates and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a leader on the issue. But the physicians and nurses said they left without assurances that their plan would be considered.

“We will therefore need to continue to press him,” said David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. “It’s what our patients desperately need.”

Himmelstein said the group did secure a promise from Baucus to “use the power of his office” to ensure that charges are dropped against 13 health care providers who were arrested for disrupting Finance Committee hearings last month when they protested the lack of single-payer proponents as witnesses.

“There’s a conspiracy of silence within the Congress in terms of single-payer,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. “It’s been kept off of the agenda.”

A spokesman for Baucus did not return a call for comment.

President Barack Obama is seeking a Senate vote on health-care reform by August. Proposals are being drafted in the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pension committees, of which Sanders is a member.

“It’s going to be a grassroots effort,” Sanders said. “When millions and millions of people say every American is entitled to health care as a right, and it must be comprehensive and it must be cost effective ... we’re going to have a single-payer system.”

Signup for 'Collin County Health Care day of Service' - June 27th

President Barack Obama Pleads For Action On Health Care

Americans spend more on health care every year than we do educating our children, building roads, even feeding ourselves—an estimated $2.6 trillion in 2009, or around $8,300 per person. According to the National Coalition on Healthcare, nearly 266,000 companies dropped their employees' health care coverage from 2000 to 2005 and for those employees that have not yet lost coverage the average employee health insurance premium is rising nearly eight times faster than income.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that, if Congress does nothing about healthcare, our annual health costs will soar to about $13,000 per person in 2017, while the number of uninsured will climb from 48 million this year to over 54 million by 2019. Already more than half of Americans say they have cut back on health care in the past year due to cost concerns. Roughly one in four of us say we put off care we needed, and one in five of us didn't fill a prescription.

Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid.

Medically related bankruptcies have been rising steadily for decades. In 1981, only 8% of families filing for bankruptcy cited a serious medical problem as the reason, while a 2001 study of bankruptcies in five states by the same researchers found that illness or medical bills contributed to 50% of all filings.

This newest, nationwide study, conducted before the start of the current recession by Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard Medical School, Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School, and Deborah Thorne, a sociology professor at Ohio University, found that the filers were for the most part solidly middle class before medical disaster hit. Two-thirds owned their home and three-fifths had gone to college.

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage. One of the major reasons, according to a new study, is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry that has led to near monopoly conditions in many markets.

The report says such conditions warrant a Justice Department investigation and, says Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), provide compelling evidence of the need for a public health insurance plan option as part of the health care reform initiative President Obama and Congress are developing.

Schumer says the report from Health Care for America Now! (HCAN)

the starkest evidence yet that the private health care insurance market is in bad need of some healthy competition. A public health insurance option is critical to ensure the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers.

According to the recently released HCAN report, “Premiums Soaring in Consolidated Health Insurance Market“:

In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries.

These mergers and consolidations have created a marketplace where a small number of larger companies use their power to raise premiums—an average of 87 percent over the past six years—restrict and reduce benefit packages and control and cut provider payments.

These facts are at the heart of the current debate over health care reform.

President Barack Obama pleaded for action on his health care agenda, during his weekly radio and Internet address to focus on his domestic priority even while traveling overseas.

"If we do nothing, everyone's health care will be put in jeopardy," Obama said. "Fixing what's wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve, it's a necessity we cannot postpone any longer," said the president.

Read - How Pharma and the Insurances companies plan to kill the 'public option' in health care reform.

Why Healthcare Needs Reform!

Updated...

The President gives remarks after hosting a healthcare reform meeting. $2 trillion in national savings was committed by the stakeholders in attendance on May 11th.

CrooksAndLiars.com: Insurance Companies Suddenly Change Their Version of What They Told Obama - Remember Obama's announcement last Monday that insurance companies were going to cut the rate of health care spending?

It was all over the news: “These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment,” Mr. Obama said. “Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.”

Now they're insisting they never said such a thing! more...

Pro-Family Healthcare Reform

By Glenn Melancon 2008 Democratic candidate U.S. House of Representatives, TX 4th Congressional District

Facing falling poll numbers, the Republican political elites are downplaying their anti-gay and anti-abortion rhetoric. Political consultants had told them to use these “wedge issues” to divide America and win elections. More and more voters, however, want to know what their leaders stand for, not what they oppose. For the first time in thirty years we have an opportunity for real pro-family policies.

When Jackie and I took our traditional wedding vows nearly twenty years ago, they included the phrase “for richer, for poorer; in sickness, and in health.” Our ancestors knew the real threats to marriages. Healthcare and financial crises can easily wreck a relationship.

Politicians in Washington and Austin haven’t learned this lesson. The number of uninsured Americans grows every year. As many as 50 million adults and children lack coverage. The number would be even higher if we didn’t have Medicare—a government-run, single-payer health insurance provider.

Families without insurance are one accident away from bankruptcy. A trip to the emergency room can cost thousands of dollars. Once in financial ruin, families tend to argue more and break apart. Reforming health care insurance is essential to improving our financial well-being and making it easier for families to stay together.

Insurance reform should rest on a simple principle—every American has a right to quality, affordable health care from a doctor of their choice. Big insurance corporations have made affordable health care and patient choice relics of the past. It doesn’t have to be that way. Reforming the health insurance market can restore these basic features of quality American health care.

First, we need “Any Willing Provider Legislation.” Patients, not insurance companies, should choose the right doctor. Once an insurance company or HMO announces the terms of a contract, any qualified healthcare provider who agrees to the terms must be allowed to compete for patients.

“Any Willing Provider Legislation” would be particularly useful in rural Texas. Too often small town doctors are frozen out by big insurance companies. Patients are forced to travel into cities to see doctors who will accept their plan.

Congress should also guarantee equal access to healthcare insurance. Insurance companies must offer basic healthcare packages to all Americans. American families and small businesses should have the same choices and bargaining power as large corporations.

Third, Congress must require full coverage for pregnancy, diabetes and hypertension [high blood pressure]. Early intervention is the key to strong patient-doctor relationships. Patients need to see their doctor before their condition gets worse and the cost of treatment goes up. When doctors know their patients, they can help prevent expensive and possibly life-threatening complications.

Finally, we need public-private competition. All Americans should be allowed to purchase Medicare or something like it. For-profit insurers have to pay advertisers or shareholders. Medicare doesn’t. Medicare can offer the same healthcare coverage at lower costs to the consumer. The market will then determine which is a more cost effective and efficient way to sell insurance. We need real choices.

Health insurance reform will do more than anything else to relieve the financial stress that is destroying our families. Washington politicians who have been talking about protecting marriage are simply diverting your attention away from corporate greed. You know the classic con game. You’ve seen it countless times in movies. One person causes a distraction while another picks your pocket. Every time you hear gay marriage, look at your wallet—it’s lighter; look at your pension—it’s vanishing; look at your medical bills—they’re going through the roof. As Americans we deserve better. We deserve real pro-family health care.

Who's Running For KBH's U.S. Senate Seat Now

Six people are now in the starting gate to run for Kay Bailey Hutchison's U.S. Senate seat - when, and if, she ever decides to resign to run for governor. While Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones (R) has long been planning to run, she actually stepped into the starting gate last week when her campaign put up a new campaign website.

Candidates now in the starting gate pictured below: (Left to right) Houston Mayor Bill White (D), former State Comptroller John Sharp (D), Railroad Commission Chairman Michael Williams (R), State Sen. Florence Shapiro (R), former Secretary of State Roger Williams (R) and Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones (R)

Pictures from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Otherwise, there is only continued speculation and gossip on who else may enter the starting gate for the race to fill KBH's senate seat and when the starting bell will ring to let loose the candidates to run the race. The problem is nobody, with the possible exception of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, knows when, or if, she will vacate her Senate seat to run against incumbent Gov. Rick Perry for the Governor's Mansion.

Tx Sen. John Cornyn, chairperson of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), leaned on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison through the first half of 2009 to delay her resignation to put off as long as possible, the special senate seat election. But the math changed when Specter defected to the Democrats in April, putting the Senate head count at 59 Democrats, 40 Republicans.

The long-festering Minnesota senate seat legal contest will likely now end in June, when the state's highest court orders the governor to sign the election certificate for Democrat Al Franken over GOP rival and former incumbent Norm Coleman.

That would give Democrats the 60th senate seat, and Hutchison a clear opening to resign without the worry that her gubernatorial oppoent could tar her for handing a 60 seat fillibuster-proof senate to the Democrats.

Even so, Hutchinson may have her own reason for holding her senate resignation until at least late 2009. If Hutchinson resigns by September 2009, then Gov. Perry will schedule a special election for her senate seat in November 2009. Five candidates in that special election race will not win and some of that number would then still have time to file to run for governor in the March 2010 primary election. Houston Mayor Bill White (D) or former State Comptroller John Sharp (D) would make more probable and more formidable gubernatorial opponents in November 2010, than any of the other candidates that have so far declared for the March 2010 Democrat primary ballot, should either or both not win a November 2009 special election to fill KBH's senate seat.

If KBH resigns after September 2009, then Gov. Perry couldn't call a special election to fill her Senate seat until May 2010. That keeps up to four Republican gubernatorial opponents locked up and out of the March 2010 Republican primary and her strongest Democratic opponents out of the November 2010 gubernatorial election all together.

Then again, Hutchison might just wait until after the November 2010 general election to resign her senate seat, assuming she is elected governor. In that case Hutchison could theoretically name her own short term replacement and call a special election for her Senate seat for May 2011. This would deny Gov. Perry any chance of press coverage in naming KBH's short term replacement and calling a special election.

Other that have been rumored potential candidates for either the U.S. Senate race or the gubernatorial race include: (Left to right) Rep. Kay Granger (R), Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R), US Rep. Joe Barton (R), Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R), Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) and TX State Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio)

Pictures from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Research 2000 Texas Poll of 600 likely voters who vote regularly in state elections conducted from April 20 through April 22, 2009 provides a current snapshot of candidates for the U.S. Senate and Texas Governor races:

Favorable / Unfavorable

	RACE	VERY FAV	FAV	UNFAV	VERY UNFAV	NO OPINION
PERRY (R)	GOV	17	34	24	19	6
HUTCHINSON (R)	GOV	27	37	16	13	7
SCHIEFFER (D)	GOV	9	17	6	5	63
ABBOTT (R)	SEN	21	24	13	13	29
DEWHURST (R)	SEN	15	24	17	14	30
WILLIAMS (R)	SEN	13	20	13	12	42
SHAPIRO (R)	SEN	11	17	14	10	48
SHARP (D)	SEN	17	19	14	10	40
WHITE (D)	SEN	16	17	12	11	44

Full poll results available here.


Texas Election Code and Special Elections:

If Sen. Hutchison does step down early, Republican Governor Rick Perry will appoint a temporary replacement to U.S. Senate until a special election can be scheduled. Unlike most other states, Texas only allows the Governor to make a temporary appointment to fill the Senate seat until he can order a special election on the next uniform election date after the office vacancy occurs, on the provision that uniform election date falls at least 36 days after the governor orders the special election. If Hutchison resigns by late September, so that Gov. Perry can order a special election on or before September 28, 2009, the special election will occur on the next uniform (odd numbered year) election date in 2009, November 3rd. If Hutchison resigns after September 28, 2009, but before April 2, 2010, Gov. Perry would order a special election for the spring 2010 uniform election date, May 8th. (While Texas election law does allow a special election day to occur on primary election day, which is March 2nd in 2010, certain odd year vs. even year resignation and election scheduling specifications in the law eliminates that possibility in 2010.) And, if Sen. Huchinson resigns after April 2, 2010 and before September 26, 2010, the special election will occur along with the general election on November 2, 2010. [Texas Election Code Sections 2.025, 3.003, 41.001, 41.007, 201.023, 201.051, 203.004, 203.011, 203.003, 204.003 and 204.005]

Alternatively, the vacancy could be filled by a special "emergency election" called by Governor Perry. Under Section 41.0011 of the Election Code, the Governor has authority to schedule an "emergency election" on a "non-uniform election date" to fill a vacated U.S. Senate seat. For example, if Sen. Huchinson resigns any time between September 28, 2009 and the last primary filing date, the Governor could call an emergency election for an earlier date, such as the March 2, 2010 primary date, rather than wait for the spring uniform election date of May 8, 2010. To call a special "emergency election" the Governor must declare that an emergency exists such that warrants the earlier voting date. The Governor has considerable discretion in deciding whether to call an emergency election, and in the last four years Gov. Perry has ordered at least two emergency elections: the emergency election of February 25, 2006 to fill a vacancy in House District 106, and the emergency election of January 17,2006 to fill a vacancy in House District 48.

Since Texas started selecting its U.S. Senators by popular election in 1916, there have been just four temporary senate appointments and special elections fill a vacancy. The temporary appointee has never won a subsequent special election - twice because the appointee didn't run. Of the two appointees that did run, Democrat William A. Blakley lost to Republican John Tower in 1961, and Democrat Robert Krueger lost to Republican K. B. Hutchison in 1993.

Painted Into Another Corner

Political Cartoon is by Jeff Parker in Florida Today.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn hasn’t ruled out a filibuster of President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee, but he has urged the Senate and public to “calm down” long enough to evaluate whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s is capable of meting out colorblind justice.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has pledged that Senate hearings on Judge Sonia Soto­mayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court would focus on her judicial record and not digress into personal attacks.

Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold hearings on the nomination, met with Sotomayor in his office and told her the proceedings would be civil.

“I promised her that she would have a fair and dignified process,” Cornyn told reporters after the meeting.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has been "lauded" for asking his Republican colleagues to judge Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor on her merits and experience and not her race or ethnicity.

Texas' senior senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, also a Republican, declined to repudiate the "racist" allegation during a Dallas appearance on Friday. On CNN this morning, she said "it troubles me" that a judge would assert that her ethnicity might provide her superior insight or wisdom.

Liberal Media Bias?

Yesterday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) launched the Media Fairness Caucus, made up of about a dozen House Republicans, aiming “to fight liberal media bias.” The group will “point out unfair stories, meet with members of the media, and write op-eds and letters to the editor to highlight media bias,” Newsmax reported. Appearing on Fox News today, Smith declared that “liberal media bias” is a bigger threat to the United States than the recession or terrorism.

But, NYTimes columnist E.J. Dionne writes:

A media environment that tilts to the right is obscuring what President Obama stands for and closing off political options that should be part of the public discussion.

Yes, you read that correctly: If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.

The power of the Limbaugh-Gingrich axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum. He's the guy who nominates a "racist" to the Supreme Court (though Gingrich retreated from the word yesterday), wants to weaken America's defenses against terrorism and is proposing a massive government takeover of the private economy. Steve Forbes, writing for his magazine, recently went so far as to compare Obama's economic policies to those of Juan Peron's Argentina.

Democrats are complicit in building up Gingrich and Limbaugh as the main spokesmen for the Republican Party, since Obama polls so much better than either of them. But the media play an independent role by regularly treating far-right views as mainstream positions and by largely ignoring critiques of Obama that come from elected officials on the left.

This was brought home at this week's annual conference of the Campaign for America's Future, a progressive group that supports Obama but worries about how close his economic advisers are to Wall Street, how long our troops will have to stay in Afghanistan and how much he will be willing to compromise to secure health-care reform.

Read the rest of the E.J. Dionne column

Gov. Rick Perry Names Rush Limbaugh "An Honorary Texan"

Last Friday, Texas Governor Rick Perry bestowed the title of "honorary Texan" on Rush Limbaugh, during an event in Houston. "You said something on your radio station that you thought you ought to pack up and move to Texas," said Perry. "Well when you get here brother you're an honorary Texan... God bless Rush Limbaugh!"

Rush is now officially the titular head of the Texas Republican Party as well as the national Republican party!

Texas Republicans Neglect To Renew Critical State Agencies

Republicans Representing Collin Co.

Florence Shapiro State Senator (TX 8th Senate Dist.)

Craig Estes State Senator (TX 30th Senate Dist.)

Brian McCall State Rep. (TX 66th House Dist.)

Jerry Madden State Rep. (TX 67th House Dist.)

Ken Paxton Texas State Rep. (TX 70th House Dist.)

Jodie Laubenberg State Rep. (TX 70th House Dist.)

Your Collin Co. Senate and House Dist. numbers can be found on your 2008 Orange Voter's Registration Card

Texas Republicans, who control the Texas legislative calendar, placed Voter Photo ID legislation ahead of critical legislation in a ploy to generate political talking points against Democrats in the 2010 election cycle. So much legislative time was spent on Voter Photo ID legislation that other critical state business did not come up for consideration before the legislature adjourned on June 1st.

Republicans placed "voter impersonation legislation" ahead of other critical legislation even though Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott failed to find a single case of voter fraud in his $1.4 million two year investigation. According to an article in the Dallas Morning News county election officials across Texas say voter fraud is nearly impossible to carry out in Texas because of the voter validation checks already implemented by every Texas county election office.

Given the factual evidence that voter impersonation fraud does not occur in Texas, Republicans frequently justify pushing the voter photo ID legislation by citing a poll that says 90 percent of Texans demand it. The poll, conducted by Austin-based polling firm Baselice & Associates in April 2007 for an anonymous client, indicates 95 percent of Republicans, 91 percent of independents and 87 percent of Democrats support using photo IDs. Baselice & Associates, run by Mike Baselice who is Gov. Rick Perry's pollster, isn't exactly independent given the firm serves Republican clients. [Houston Chronicle]

Rank and file Republicans support voter photo ID legislation as an "article of religious faith that Democratic voter fraud is causing Republicans to lose elections," given their belief America is a "center right" nation and Texas is even further right of center? Reality is that America is already "center left" and Texas is rapidly shifting left.

Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas, revealed the actual political calculation that requiring photo IDs could suppress enough legitimate Democratic voters, who lack photo ID, that it would add 3 percent to the Republican vote. [Houston Chronicle]

Voter photo ID legislation would be an effective way for Republicans to hold onto Texas, maybe one or two additional election cycles. If Republicans can hold legislative control through the 2010 election cycle, they will control "redistricting" in 2011. This puts the Republican Party in a position to redraw district election maps to advantage Republican candidates as they did in 2003.

“Texans demanded results, and the Republican leadership was unwilling or unable to deliver. Our citizens deserve better than this,” said State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, Senate Democratic Caucus Chair, after the legislature adjourned on June 1st leaving critical legislation to die. [Senator Van de Putte considering a gubernatorial run in 2010]

The Texas Department of Insurance, the Office of Public Insurance Counsel, the Department of Transportation, the Racing Commission and the Texas State Affordable Housing Corp. were due for "sunset review," during the 2009 legislative session.

"Sunset review" is the process by which state agencies are reviewed every 12 years. If lawmakers do not pass bills to renew charters to keep agencies operating over the next 12 year period, they are automatically ordered to close down over the next year.

The Republican controlled legislature did not manage to get to the business of "state agency sunset review," and so, did not renew the charter on these 5 agencies. These agencies are now automatically ordered to close down by Sept. 1, 2010, under the Texas "sunset law."

DMN: Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he will work with agency administrators of the to look for some solution, short of calling a special session of the legislature, to keep the 5 agencies from closing. While calling lawmakers to Austin for a special session is always an option, Perry said, there could be other ways to save the agencies, which the House and Senate couldn't agree on before their 2009 regular session ended Monday night.

Other than neglecting to renew the charter of 5 critical state agencies, what else did, and did not, happen during the 140 day 2009 regular legislative session: (Summary of the Legislative Study Group's detailed report - PDF)

BECOMES LAW (with or without the governor Perry's signature)

• Booster seats — Requires children younger than 8 riding in passenger vehicles to sit secured in a booster seat or car seat.
• Tejano monument — Allows for construction on the Capitol grounds of a monument honoring Texas' Hispanic history.
• State Board of Education — Requires that meetings be webcast.
• Shield law — Protects journalists from having to reveal confidential sources to authorities, with exceptions.

SENT TO GOVERNOR

• Windstorm insurance plan — Issue declared emergency by Gov. Rick Perry.
• Teacher raises — Provides an $800 pay increase for teachers.
• Prison security — Beefs up security at about a dozen state prisons where contraband smuggling has been rampant.
• Disabled veterans — Provides homestead property tax exemptions for disabled veterans.
• Top-tier universities — Seeks to lift some of the state's public universities to national stature.
• State budget — $182.3 billion for 2010-11, including $1.9 billion increase for public education, $1.2 billion increase for higher education, $2 billion in bonds for new roads, $450 million in bonds for cancer research and a $208 million increase to help people with mental disabilities live in community settings rather than in institutions.
• State workers — The budget and another measure include a 7 percent to 8 percent pay raise for correctional workers and law enforcement officers and a one-time $800 payment for other state employees.
• Top 10 percent— Scales back the number of students the University of Texas at Austin would have to admit under the law guaranteeing a spot to those graduating in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class.
• Small-business tax cut — Exempts more small businesses from the state's business tax.
• Doctor loan repayment— Repays medical school loans of doctors who agree to practice in under served areas. Pays for this by changing the way the state taxes smokeless tobacco.
• Governor's Mansion restoration — The budget and another bill include $22 million to fix the arson-damaged mansion.
• School accountability — Reduces the reliance on high-stakes testing in lower grades.
• School supplies tax break — Expands the August sales tax holiday on school supplies to include 25 additional items, from backpacks to scissors.
• Seat belts — Requires that seat belts be worn in the back seats of vehicles.
• Tanning — Bans children younger than
• 16½ from using a tanning bed.
• State schools — More oversight and security for institutions for Texans with mental disabilities and community homes that serve a similar population.
• Cell phones — Bans use by drivers in active school zones, unless the driver has a hands-free device.
• Capital murder — Requires that juveniles convicted of the offense be sentenced to life in prison rather than death.
• Prekindergarten — Expands half-day prekindergarten programs to full day.
• Laser hair removal—Requires training and certification for laser hair-removal technicians.
• Employee Retirement System —
• Increases retirement contribution rate for members.
• Department of Public Safety — Reauthorizes the state's primary law enforcement agency, with provisions to modernize and streamline management and operations that have been criticized as antiquated.

DEAD

• 'Choose Life' license plates — Gives residents the option of buying a license plate that says 'Choose Life.'
• Cockfighting — Expands laws to allow prosecution of people who raise roosters to fight or own a cockfighting arena.
• Unemployment insurance — Expands eligibility for unemployment benefits to qualify for $555 million in federal stimulus money.
• Voter ID — Expands voter identification requirements at polls.
• Smoking ban — Prohibits smoking at indoor workplaces, including restaurants and bars.
• Guns on campus — Allows students with state handgun licenses to carry guns on campus.
• Children's Medicaid — Expands the program by allowing families to enroll once a year instead of every six months.
• Tuition controls — Restricts tuition increases at public universities.
• University of Texas Investment Management Co. oversight — Alters the makeup of its board and puts the Permanent University Fund under the oversight of a pension and investment board.
• Local-option gas tax— Allows metro voters to decide on levies to pay for roads and other transportation projects.
• Electric cooperatives— Requires member-owned utilities, such as the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, to abide by new rules on open records and meetings.
• Abortion ultrasound— Women seeking an abortion must be offered an ultrasound.
• Stem cells — A budget provision prohibiting the use of state dollars for embryonic stem cell research.
• Veto override — Asks voters to allow the Legislature to convene for a limited time after the biennial legislative session to override gubernatorial vetoes.
• Trans fats — Bans trans fats from food served at restaurants.
• Take-home cars — Requires employees who drive state cars on personal errands to reimburse agencies for that personal use.
• Incumbents on ballots — Designates incumbents on primary ballots.
• Strip club fee — Lowers a $5-per-patron strip club fee that's being challenged in court to $3 and directs the money only toward programs helping victims of sexual assault, not to health insurance. Another measure repeals the $5 fee and imposes a new tax on sexually oriented businesses.
• Mezuzas — Prevents homeowners associations from banning mezuzas and other religious objects from home entrances.
• State Board of Education — Strips curriculum and textbook authority from state board.
• Solar panels — Starts loan program to help homeowners pay for installing solar panels.
• Wine corkage —Allows restaurant patrons to bring their own wine and take home what's left in the bottle.
• Gambling — Constitutional amendment for casinos and slot machines at horse and dog racetracks.
• Workplace injuries — Clarifies state law to allow injured contract workers to sue work-site owners.
• Development — Gives Hill Country counties more development authority.
• Electricity — Allows cities to negotiate power prices for their residents.
• Power generators — Puts new market share limits on power generators.
• Utilities — New restrictions on when utilities may disconnect power service for certain disadvantaged customers./li>

Dan Dodd, Collin County Democratic Party Chairperson Hospitalized

Daniel Dodd, Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Collin County, was admitted to the hospital Friday to treat a blood clot in his leg.

Often termed "deep venous thrombosis" such blood clots can quickly kill if it moves up to the lungs, where can form a pulmonary embolism. This condition make headlines every few years when seemingly healthy people collapse after long airplane flights or being in similarly cramped quarters. Vice President Cheney suffered one after a long trip in 2006. NBC correspondent David Bloom died of one in 2003 after spending days inside a tank while covering the invasion of Iraq. The surgeon General estimates that every year, between 350,000 and 600,000 Americans get one of these clots — and at least 100,000 of them die.

If the blood clot is caught early and treated properly, patients do very well with a mortality risk of less than 5 percent. A major goal of treatment is to prevent further abnormal clotting in the body and to avoid complications such as the development of a blood clot in the lungs. Blood clots are treated by administering blood thinners, like Heparin, Coumadin or others such as Lovenox injections. Treatment can depend on many factors such as the size of the clot, but most of the time patients must be on a blood thinner for several months. Contrary to popular belief, blood thinners do not dissolve a clot. They keep new clots from forming and from the clot getting any bigger, but the body actually dissolves the clot itself.

Dodd was expect to remain in the hospital for up to three days.

Melting Greenland Ice Sheets May Threaten Northeast United States, Canada

ScienceDaily (May 28, 2009) — Melting of the Greenland ice sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax, and other cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The study, which is being published May 29 in Geophysical Research Letters, finds that if Greenland's ice melts at moderate to high rates, ocean circulation by 2100 may shift and cause sea levels off the northeast coast of North America to rise by about 12 to 20 inches (about 30 to 50 centimeters) more than in other coastal areas. The research builds on recent reports that have found that sea level rise associated with global warming could adversely affect North America, and its findings suggest that the situation is more threatening than previously believed.

"If the Greenland melt continues to accelerate, we could see significant impacts this century on the northeast U.S. coast from the resulting sea level rise," says NCAR scientist Aixue Hu, the lead author. "Major northeastern cities are directly in the path of the greatest rise."

Read the full story at ScienceDaily.com

Texans for Better Science Education Push For SBOE Chairman McLeroy's Confirmation

Update May 28, 2009 at 5:10PM - Voting strictly along party lines, the Senate refused to confirm McLeroy on a 19 to 11 vote - two less than the two-thirds majority required for confirmation. (With one Democrat not voting)

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Original Post May 28, 2009 at 12:17PM - Senate confirmation of Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education (SBOE) is expected to come up in the Texas Senate some time Thursday or Friday. McLeroy, a dentist who has no background in science or education, was first appointed SBOE chairman by Republican Governor Rick Perry in the summer of 2007. McLeroy was reappointed as SBOE chairman by Gov. Perry in 2009. Whether he can garner two-thirds approval from senators is an open question. Earlier in the session, many lawmakers believed his nomination wasn't even going to get out of committee.

The right-leaning Texans for Better Science Education, who advocates teaching creationism rather than evolution in Texas science classrooms, has sent "URGENT" messages to its members, asking them to call their senators to support McLeroy's confirmation. The group's argument?

"...He is being attacked NOT for anything done wrong during his two years as chair of the SBOE but primarily because he is Christian!"

Texans for Better Science Education contend that McLeroy is being attacked primarily [just] for being a Christian because;

As chairman of the State Board of Education, McLeroy advocates that Texas public school students should be taught "creation science" rather than biological evolution science. McLeroy is convinced that evolution taught uncritically to Texas students undermines the tenet of Christianity that people were created in the image of God.

McLeroy advocates that the Texas education standard, as set by the SBOE, must require Texas educators to have a "critical discussion" on the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" with public school students.

McLeroy advocates 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 challenged by Texas teachers.

McLeroy advocates that teachers must engage Texas students in a "critical discussion" that archaeological evidence in 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. McLeroy further advocates that the alternative "intelligent design scientific theory" should be offered to Texas students by science teachers.

In March, 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 discussion and textbooks for the next decade.

In March, the State Board of Education removed the “critical discussion of strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" language from the official education standard. McLeroy, supported by other creationists on the board, then effectively restored the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories" intent with alternative language. The amended phrases ask teachers to prompt students to “examine all sides of scientific evidence and scientific explanations so as to encourage critical thinking.”

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 nationwide. The new standard, with McLeroy's new language, allows him to pressure national textbook publishers to write the “strengths and weaknesses of evolution discussion" into textbooks used nationwide.

The Texans for Better Science Education group has focused their lobbying efforts on three socially-moderate Republican Senators, Sens. Seliger, Wentworth and Averitt, who have not yet voiced support for McLeroy.


KERA: Texas Schools Lag Behind in Bioscience Education (May 19, 2009)

"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."

Voter ID Died Quietly At Midnight Last Night

Cartoon from LoneStar Times

Good news: Voter ID died quietly at midnight last night. House rules require at least initial floor action on bills five days before adjournment. Democrats slowed up House business enough that the Voter ID was not introduced on the floor for initial action before last night's deadline.

Bad news: Other legislation behind the Voter ID bill on the calendar was not introduced on the House floor for initial action either.

So, a bill to use $550 million in federal stimulus dollars to extend unemployment benefits for 200,000 unemployed Texans died at midnight last night too. (This was to override Gov. Perry's rejection of the federal stimulus money.)

House Republicans placed partisan politics above not only unemployed Texans, but also insurance reform, energy efficiency, renewable energy initiatives, the Texas Windstorm Insurance program, air quality, expansion of the Child Health Insurance Program and more. Texas Republicans, who control the legislative calendar, placed Voter ID legislation ahead of all this other legislation, which conservative Republicans oppose, so they could blame Democrats for killing it, rather than take the heat themselves.

On the other hand, Republicans who control the House can move to ignore House rules to revive some of the dead legislation for House action. Two-thirds of the House members would have to vote favorably on such a move, but House Democrats have said they will support a two-thirds vote on all but the Voter ID legislation. So, the ball remains in the Republican House leaders' court to act on insurance reform, energy efficiency, renewable energy initiatives, the Texas Windstorm Insurance program, air quality, expansion of the Child Health Insurance Program and more in the remaining days of this session.

So now there's just the wild card - the possibility that Gov. Perry will call a special session of the legislature, after the regular session adjourns. And, if Gov. Perry does call a special session, will Republicans use that session to force another Voter Photo ID showdown.

• Voter ID Chubbed Into Submission: Why The Last Five Days Will Hurt Republicans And Help Democrats In 2010
• Democrats Save Voting Rights; Republicans Steal Unemployment Compensation and Grin
• Logjam of bills forms in House

As Conservatives Firmly Dominate The Federal Judiciary, They Say No Non-Conservatives Allowed

President Obama has just made the first nomination to the Supreme Court by a Democratic President in fifteen years.

Even with just two justices on the Supreme Court that were appointed by a Democratic president (Breyer and Ginsburg), the rationale for Republicans to mount a filibuster against Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee extends back to post election day last November.

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, is quoted on November 7, 2008, that he would filibuster Obama's appointments.

Last December Ceci Connolly, national staff writer for the Washington Post reported that, "Word on the street is that Karl Rove is going to be helping lead the fight against Obama's nominations as part of the Republican Party's strategy.

On Fox News just a couple of Sundays back Mitch McConnell explained why he's open to filibustering President Obama's (then unnamed) Supreme Court nominee. When the Bush administration was making nominations to a Republican controlled Senate before 2007, McConnell vehemently opposed any such filibuster - by Democrats.

The ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, suggested little more than a week ago the "automatic powerful deference" given to the President's Supreme Court nominees in the past is just that - something of the past. As justification Sen. Sessions claimed Democrats filibustered Bush Supreme Court nominees, preventing a him from appointing "conservative judges," therefore Republican Senators are now obligated to filibuster Obama's judicial nominees to restore judicial balance. Sen. Sessions doesn't have that quite right; While Democrats threatened to vote against cloture on ten of Bush's federal lower court nominees during his first term in 2003 and 2004, they did not filibuster Pres. Bush's Supreme Court nominees.

Sen. Kyl, again just a week ago refused to rule out a filibuster or other stall tactics to to delay or derail confirmation of President Barack Obama Supreme Court Justice nominee. Kyl spoke for many conservative Republicans when, in 2005, Republicans threatened the filibuster "nuclear option," against Senate Democrats who were being urged by their constituents to filibuster President Bush's "conservative activist" nominees to the lower federal and supreme courts.

SEN. JOHN KYL on PBS News Hour April 25, 2005: "For 214 years it has been the tradition of the Senate to approve judicial nominees by a majority vote. Many of our judges and, for example, Clarence Thomas, people might recall, was approved by either fifty-one or fifty-two votes as I recall. It has never been the rule that a candidate for judgeship that had majority support was denied the ability to be confirmed once before the Senate. It has never happened before. So we're not changing the rules in the middle of the game. We're restoring the 214-year tradition of the Senate because in the last two years Democrats have begun to use this filibuster."

That Republican threat to eliminate the filibuster rule, of course, was in 2005 after Republicans increased their control of congress in the 2004 election. The threat worked - Senate Democrats did not filibuster Pres. Bushes judicial nominees and no longer voted against cloture, thus allowing Pres. Bush and Senate Republicans to confirm extreme right-wing lower court and supreme court judges, effectively eliminating Democrats from the "advise and consent" process.

In December 2008 the Washington Post reported that George W. Bush has been enormously successful at placing his picks on federal appeals courts and that has led to Republican domination of most of the nation's judicial circuits. The numbers that demonstrate just how solidly Bush has packed the courts with Republican judges are pretty compelling:

After Bush's eight years in office, Republican-appointed majorities firmly control the outcomes in 10 of these courts, compared with seven after President Bill Clinton's tenure. They also now share equal representation with Democratic appointees on two additional courts.

That's out of a total of 13 judicial circuits (12 regular regional circuits plus the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears special national cases). In 2001, the political breakdown of the nation's appeals court was about even, with 77 judges appointed by Democrats, 74 by Republicans and 27 vacancies. The current breakdown is 66 Democrats, 102 Republicans and 11 vacancies.

In his appointments of John Roberts as Chief Justice and Samuel Alito, Jr. to replace the pivotal Sandra O'Connor, President G. W. Bush succeeded in appointing two solid conservatives to the Court, insuring a more likely conservative result in 5-4 court decisions. The pivotal position relinquished by O'Connor passed to Anthony Kennedy, who joined the conservative bloc of justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito 15 out of 20 occasions in the 2006 and 2007 court sessions. The more liberal bloc of justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, and Breyer have been in the minority on 3 out of 4 "split decisions" made by the court since Justice O'Connor's departure. (Click on the Justices link if you wish to see voting data from the Court's 2007-08 term.)

In an article for the New Yorker, legal analyst and former assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Toobin describes Bush appointee Chief Justice John Roberts as “the Supreme Court’s stealth [conservative] hard-liner.” According to Toobin, despite Roberts’ disarming charm, and his insistence he is a strict constructionist with moderate views, [as he described himself in his Senate confirmation testimony,] his actions on the bench have been those of a “doctrinaire conservative.” “Doctrinaire conservative” is just another name for an "activist judge" with conservative ideology.

Toobin writes that although Roberts calls himself as a strict constructionist and a “judicial restraint” conservative, “according to Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, ‘The Chief Justice talks the talk of moderation while walking the walk of extreme conservatism.’”

After four years as Chief Justice, Roberts’s record is not that of a “judicial restraint” "strict constructionist" conservative with moderate views, but the kind of "authoritarian conservative" that almost always defers to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.”

According to Toobin, Roberts has recently led 5-4 majorities on the Court in far-reaching decisions considered as setbacks for anti-trust and anti-discrimination lawsuits. In a recent opinion on school desegregation efforts Roberts argued that if government-mandated segregation is unconstitutional, then government-mandated integration must be unconstitutional as well — an opinion that “drew an incredulous dissent from Stevens.” (Are activist conservatives advocating a move back to "whites only" signs on drinking fountains under the "separate but equal" doctrine cherished by southern "states rights" advocates? Gov. Perry?)

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for the police and prosecutors to question suspects, lifting some restrictions on when defendants can be interrogated without their lawyers present," David Stout reports in the New York Times:

In a 5-to-4 ruling, the court overturned its 1986 opinion in a Michigan case, which forbade the police from interrogating a defendant once he invoked his right to counsel at an arraignment or a similar proceeding.

That 1986 ruling has not only proved “unworkable,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, but its “marginal benefits are dwarfed by its substantial costs” in that some guilty defendants go free. Justice Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

However, "In an angry dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 1986 decision, said that contrary to the majority’s assertion, that decision protected 'a fundamental right that the court now dishonors.'”

Back when Democrats were expressing skepticism about President Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the supreme court, Republicans, who then controlled both houses of congress as well as the White House, chastised Democrats for "pre-judging" the nomination.

That doesn't appear to have been a principled stance given Republicans have been "pre-judging" Obama's nominee since last November.

And the media itself is rushing to join Republicans in "pre-judging"President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court as too liberal.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, while in Lubbock today, said her initial response to President Obama's appointee was tepid at best. The senator was among 28 Republicans who voted against Judge Sotomayor's appointment to the appeals court in 1998. Hutchison says she voted against Judge Sotomayor a decade ago because of her "judicial activism" as a district court judge.

When you hear Republicans complain about how the federal and supreme courts are "stacked" with activist liberal judges legislating from the bench, just remind them that:

• President Obama has just made the first Democratic nominee to the Supreme Court in fifteen years.
• There are now only two justices on the Supreme Court appointed by a Democratic president (Breyer and Ginsburg)
• Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Scalia have proven track records as Conservative Activist Judges who are legislating conservative law from the bench
  
• 15 out of the last 20 occasions 5-4 split court decisions when the conservative way, legislating conservative law from from the bench
• Republican-appointed majorities firmly control the outcomes in 10 of the 13 federal appelate courts with Conservative Activist Judges legislating conservative law fromthe bench

Continue Reading:

• Rove attacks Obama nominee even before she’s named; ‘Unabashed liberal’
• Conservatives call Sotomayor 'dumb,' 'bully,' Obama's 'Harriet Miers'
• Sotomayor GOP's 'least favorite'
• Sonia Sotomayor: 10 Things You Should Know about her
  

Organizing for America has posted this special message video from the President on its website.

Question: What is the difference between conservative "judicial activism" as practiced by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Scalia and liberal "judicial activism?" Answer: Conservative "judicial activists" believe that the votes of the many outweigh the rights of the few or the one, whereas liberal "judicial activists" believe that the the rights of the few or the one outweigh votes of the many.

Memorial Day

With great respect, this goes out to all that have served in our armed forces, and those that have lost loved ones fighting for everything most Americans take for granted:






Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

"Southern Exposure" For Shrinking Republican Party

"For GOP, A Southern Exposure" - National Journal Details The Shrinking Republican Party. "Republican strength in the South has both compensated for and masked the extent of the GOP's decline elsewhere. By several key measures, the party is now weaker outside the South than at any time since the Depression; in some ways, it is weaker than ever before." Read the full story in the National Journal Magazine (long article, but worth the read)

Democrats Use Stalling Tactics On Voter ID

KERA News (2009-05-22)

[A decision by the Republican controlled Calendars Committee late Thursday night to schedule the Voter ID bill for floor debate for Saturday, ahead of debating the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) Sunset bill, clean air bill and transporting guns to work bill, dares Democrats to run out the clock on those important bills by running out the session clock to stop the Voter ID bill.]

Talkative House Democrats used stalling tactics Friday to stall the voter identification bill that has been scheduled for debate this weekend.

Democrats - who warned they would put up a fight to stop the voter ID measure - began talking at length on non-controversial legislation Friday to use up the clock. The "talking" tactic, known as "chubbing," takes advantage of procedural rules to stall House business. This puts a lot of pressure on the members who have other bills they want to pass. The Legislature adjourns June 1 so there is not much time left on the 2009 legislative session clock.

Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, leader of the House Democrats, said members of his party were willing to compromise on key legislation but would continue to use parliamentary maneuvers to keep the voter ID bill off the House floor. "We're not being obstructionists. We're not killing any bills. We're not breaking quorum," Dunnam said. "We're trying to get the House's priorities back in order."

Dunnam said Democrats would allow important bills to be taken up and passed out of order with a vote of a supermajority of legislators - two-thirds of them. But that would take bipartisan agreement, which so far has been elusive.

More in "Voter Photo ID Bill Up For House Vote, Maybe!"

Texas Legislative Study Group Recommends against Voter Photo Identification (Report PDF)

Here is the Texas House video streams link page, if you want to watch when the House gavels in at 10AM Saturday morning.