texas
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This is newer content than main node
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immigr moms in solitary for hunger strike, w/ kids; paid 3$/day, ice cream is 350, color bedspread syndrome kpfa 4/17
For the second time this spring, mothers held in a southern Texas privately-run immigrant detention center with their children have staged a hunger strike and work stoppage to protest their inhumane conditions of confinement and demand immediate release for themselves and their families.
Ten mothers detained at Karnes Detention Camp began the peaceful protest on Tuesday, vowing to eat only one meal per day until their demands are met, Mohammad Abdollahi, advocacy director for the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (Raices), told Common Dreams Wednesday morning.
The women's demands echo those issued by dozens of mothers who staged a similar peaceful protest at the facility in late March and early April to coincide with the Easter holiday.
The hunger strike launched on Tuesday aims high in the chain of command, calling forImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Sarah Saldaña to reverse course from the Obama administration's controversial policy of detaining families seeking asylum, and instead, grant the strikers parole and release.
The women say the situation is urgent.
They report harrowing conditions at the prison, which has a capacity of 532 but is slated to expand to more than double its current beds. People held there are compensated just $3 a day for working to run the facility, denied their rights to meet with legal aid workers, forced to drink water contaminated by fracking waste, and their children are suffering ill health and psychological effects related to their incarceration, according to a letter sent toColorlines.
Women have alleged sexual abuse and assault from prison guards and staff, prompting community protests outside the facility.
Abdollahi, who is involved in direct support, compared the facility to an internment camp: "The conditions are absolutely horrendous. Parents are not allowed to be parents, to decide what their kids eat, how many times their diapers have changed. They have to ask permission for milk to nurse their children with."
These conditions are "very harmful and detrimental," Abdollahi added, because a majority of people in the prison are fleeing violence.
Delmi Cruz is a 37-year-old mother and asylum-seeker from Honduras who has been detained at the facility with her 11-year-old son for over six months. "It’s very hard here, the food isn’t adequate, it’s awful, horrible...the children who eat it become sick," Cruz toldthe Guardian, according to an article published Tuesday. "My son has horrible stomach pain and is still very sick."
Cruz is participating in the hunger strike despite what she described as retaliation from guards for her part in the earlier protest, when she was placed in the medical unit's solitary confinement along with her son.
Abdollahi said there are signs this punishment is beginning again: "Cruz called us frightened on Tuesday, saying that women are being called to medical and there has been retaliation."
Bob Libal, executive director of the advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership, toldCommon Dreams that the women on hunger strike are victims of the Obama administration's harsh policies towards people who seek asylum in the United States.
"Between 2009 and 2014, the policy was not to detain asylum-seeking families," said Libal. "This was after a very controversial policy during the Bush administration of locking up families. Many groups were involved in organizing and legislative efforts to end the practice of detaining families, and in 2009, the Obama administration said it was ending this practice."
"However," Libal added, "last summer after the increase in the number of refugee kids made the news, the administration reversed course."
Amid this political climate, theKarnes facility was opened by ICE last summer under orders from the Department of Homeland Security to detain asylum-seekers at the border, rather than grant them bond.
GEO Group, the private company that runs the prison, has faced numerous accusations of abuse, medical neglect, violence, and civil rights violations, including hundreds of lawsuits, at its prisons and mental health facilities around the world. A report released on Wednesday by Grassroots Leadership reveals that GEO Group, along with other private prison corporations, has aggressively lobbied for harsher immigration policies.
Outside the Karnes prison, people across the country are mobilizing to defend the people impacted by these policies.
Supporters of the hunger strike are making phone calls to ICE, signing petitions, and even planning solidarity vigils and fasts, said Abdollahi, adding, "These women are desperate to get out."
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3/15 Dilley and __Karns
AMY GOODMAN: But last month a federal judge ordered immigration authorities to begin releasing the women and children. He found the Obama administration’s policy of detaining them in order to deter others from coming was illegal. Since then more families have been granted bond and released, while others who are unable to afford the bonds remain locked up. They’re held at one of two new family detention centers run by private prison companies in South Texas. Democracy Now!’s Renée Feltz went there to find out more, she filed this report.
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BARBARA HINES: Well, you know, first of all, these are run by — the facility in Karnes is run by the GEO Group, the facility in Dilley is run by the Corrections Corporation of America, the Corrections Corporation of America is same facility that ran Hutto the last iteration of family detention that I actually did litigate, where children were held in — babies in prison uniforms, and these corporations thought that was acceptable. The women and the children have no control over their lives. Everything is regimented. What time they get up. What they eat. The food is very bad. The medical care is substandard. Guards, just like when we litigated at Hutto, as I said, which was the last version of family detention, women have told us that they have been threatened that if their children misbehave they will be reported to the immigration judge, that it can negatively affect their case. Children who get out of line — and of course, these are young children. How can you have children running around that do not stay in line? We had a mother with a baby that was learning to crawl, and that baby was not allowed on the ground because the guards at GEO said that that was unsafe. She was forced to carry the baby around, which, of course, has terrible developmental affects for a child who is trying to learn to crawl and walk.
AMY GOODMAN: Barbara Hines, we have to leave that here, but we are going to do part two of the conversation and post at online at democracy.org especially what happens in the courtroom when the women see the judge through video screen from prison. Barbara Hines, Former Director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas Law School. And Renée Feltz. And thanks to Tish Stringer for her video.
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SEVEN THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT UPRISING AT TEXAS PRIVATE PRISON FOR IMMIGRANTS: Last weekend, a private prison incarcerating immigrant prisoners in Willacy County, Texas erupted into a major uprising. Incarcerated immigrants and advocates have for years been warning that these prisons are tinderboxes of horrendous conditions waiting to explode. (2/23/2015)
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After 18 Years, Swan Song for the Deep Blue Democrat of the Texas Legislature
During his 18 years in office, Texas state representative Lon Burnam has been the odd man out in a legislature that overwhelmingly believes in business, development and the unbridled support of oil and gas.
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A top Texas official denounced school districts that have scaled back on serving meat one day a week, accusing them of succumbing to a "carefully orchestrated campaign" to force Americans to become vegetarians.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples this week criticized districts that have adopted "meatless Monday" policies in an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman. He specifically attacked Dripping Springs Independent School District, near Austin.
“Restricting children’s meal choice to not include meat is irresponsible and has no place in our schools," Staples wrote. "This activist movement called ‘Meatless Monday’ is a carefully orchestrated campaign that seeks to eliminate meat from Americans’ diets seven days a week -- starting with Mondays.”...
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According to a draft party platform obtained by the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Republican Party is ready to support a sweeping right-wing agenda with planks related to the “Benghazi cover up,” the elimination of the minimum wage and “the myth of separation of church and state.”
Voting
Not only does the draft platform advocate for the abolition of the Federal Reserve, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the Departments of Education and Energy, but it also calls for an end to the direct election of U.S. Senators:
Full Repeal of the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: Return the appointment of U.S. Senators by the State Legislatures.
While the state GOP wants Texas voters to lose their right to elect their U.S. senators, the party does on the other hand “support our right to select our judges by direct vote.”
The party also wants to make it more difficult to register to vote and urges Congress to repeal the Voting Rights Act:
Voter registration: We support restoring integrity to the voter registration rolls and Registration reducing voter fraud. We support repeal of all Motor Voter laws; re-registering voters every four years; requiring photo ID of all registrants; proof of residency and citizenship, along with voter registration application; retention of the 30-day registration deadline; and requiring that a list of certified deaths be provided to the election administrator in order that the names of deceased voters be removed from the list of registered voters.
VRA: We urge that the Voter [sic] Rights Act of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed and not reauthorized.
Science And Education
The draft platform also targets schools, calling evolution a “controversial theory” that should be challenged in the classroom, demanding that schools restrict access to “community organizers” and encouraging schools to embrace “subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems.”
The platform also includes climate change denial: “While we all strive to be good stewards of the earth, 'climate change' is a political agenda which attempts to control every aspect of our lives. We urge government at all levels to ignore any plea for money to fund global climate change or ‘climate justice’ initiatives.”
The draft describes Agenda 21, a nonbinding United Nations agreement on sustainable development, as a threat to America and calls for “the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations and the removal of U.N. headquarters from United States soil.”
Social Issues
Along with supporting “reparative therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle,” the state party also wants to repeal Texas’ hate-crimes statute (or at least its “sexual orientation category”), block non-discrimination laws and seeks a “prohibition of the manufacturing and sale of abortifacients (e.g. morning after pill).”
The draft also calls for bans on “any form of reparation” and Sharia law, and limits to data gathering by the U.S. Census. It opposes “the use of Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFID) on humans,” while reaffirming opposition to “any direct financial support of special interest organizations, such as ACORN and the ACLU, by any level of government.” ACORN, of course, hasn’t existed since 2010.
Guns
Unsurprisingly, the Texas GOP believes the state should be able to ignore federal gun laws:
All federal acts, laws, executive orders, and court orders which restrict or infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall be invalid in Texas, not be recognized by Texas, shall be specifically rejected by Texas, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in Texas.
Just to clarify that they mean business, the party supports “the establishment and maintenance of a volunteer Constitutional State Militia with assistance from County Sheriffs.”
Vaccinations
To cap it off, Texas Republicans also have an anti-vaccination stance:
Immunizations: All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves, or their minor children, without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.
See more here.
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2014 primary
Texas Republicans aligned with conservative tea party favorite U.S. Senator Ted Cruz won primary runoffs on Tuesday for two of the state's most powerful posts, while U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, 91, was ousted by a challenger about half his age.
Conservative talk radio host Dan Patrick, the tea party caucus founder in the Texas Legislature, ousted long-time incumbent David Dewhurst to claim the Republican nomination for the powerful office of lieutenant governor.
State Senator Ken Paxton, also aligned with Cruz, defeated Dan Branch, a state representative since 2002, in the race for attorney general.
The tea party victories over established politicians boosts the stature of Cruz, a possible 2016 Republican presidential contender, and returns some luster to the tea party movement. Establishment-backed conservatives have turned back tea party challengers in Republican primaries in Kentucky, North Carolina and other states as GOP party leaders have made it a priority to avoid the presence of candidates on the ballot this fall who are seen as too conservative or unsteady —- or both — to prevail in winnable races.
But there were few such fears in Texas where Republicans have dominated statewide races for more than two decades. Tea party challengers kept winning as the polls closed in Tuesday's primary election runoffs, signaling a further move to the right in the largest conservative U.S. state. It wasn't a total sweep for anti-establishment Republicans, but they won enough key races to put Texas on track to veer even further right on abortion, gun rights and spending come 2015.
The Texas runoffs were for races where no single candidate crossed the 50 percent threshold in the March 4 primary. In the race for governor in the state with a $1.4 trillion annual economy, current attorney general, Greg Abbott, easily won the March Republican primary and will face Democrat Wendy Davis, who also won in March.
Hall, the oldest serving member of the House of Representatives, lost in a Republican primary runoff election to tea party-backed challenger, John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney. Ratcliffe painted Hall as too cozy with the Republican establishment after 34 years in office
Hall, a World War Two veteran, was first elected to the U.S. House in 1980 from congressional District 4, an area to the northeast of Dallas. He was seeking his 18th term. No Democrat is running in the district that stretches from suburban Dallas east to Louisiana and north to Oklahoma — meaning Ratcliffe will be headed to Washington after the November general election.
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asgoestx
Saturday, January 5, 2013
gail collins 2012
perry named his boots Freedom and liberty
28
2007 traveling law skd having hidden gun in car, or on the way to ca, so pretty
much anytime
2010 368 guns used in crimes in CA from TX; 93 in NY and 15K Mex [vs F&F?] 29
Ala legis pays 10$/day; Tx 7200/yr but lobbyists spent $344mil, to 2mil each for
150 guys 31
1874 ej davis refused ro leave after losing gov; coke's gutys attacked singing
yel rose of tx, about a mixed race woman indent servant who supposedly seduced a
mx general at right moment 42
2003 2nd redistrict in 2 yrs; demos fled to holiday Inn in Okl
dick armey helped newt write Contract; Delay oversaw K str and held mtgs closed
to demos then rammed bills thru 52
rove recruited rick perry to run agaist highgtower then neg ad blitz said he
burned a flag and shook hands w/ jesse j 52-3
gov bush wanted to pvtize U of T 53
PHIL GRAMM ran prez, got 10 delegates cost 2.1 mil ea. 59
TX eased rules on S&L, eg comm'l prop; but then wild spculation lux trip to
france to research fancy restaurants; same time fed S&L ot ding well b/c of 2x
digit inflation, so RR looking for model; tx looked good b/c of fraud; so race to
bottoom, CA 1st to loosen regs; Vernon/vermin argued using s&l $ to hire a hooker
to service a bak regulator was not bribery if he cd not rise to the occassiob 62
spkr wright boosted sl, but got busted or having an aid help write book; newt
later up in front of same ethics comm; 1st spker to be sanctioned. 2x s7L faied
compared to #2 CA
phil doing bad in school so mom sent to mil school on fed dime (his dad dead
servicemenn); phd econ.
5th in iowa caucus, said we shd cut stamps b/c poor ppl are fat; i have a heart,
in a jar in my office.
pred loan led to foreclosure uptick 2001, PG fought reforms; helps write Commod
Futs Mos Act 2000 led to default swaps 66
sponsor Gramm-Leach-Bliley to ended dep era refs, wall between comm'l and invest
baks [glass-stegal?] tho he almost bailed b/c he did not like the part about
havingto lend to poor ppl tho hos mom got ur-sub-prime loan; lots of loopholes,
but phil voted down $ to police by SEC 67
enron big funder; they decided they cd make more $ spec in electricity than
actually making it ; wendy told enron she was hated on cftc b/c too free mkt; 6
days before clinton swoern in,she pushed thru rule enron wanted; 2 of 5 seats
empty, so she won 2-1. resigned then hired by enron for the AUDIT comm! 69 got
900-1.95mil$ 1993-2001
end of 2000 budget stuck, so PG inserted 262 pg amendment to dereg fut trading;
led directly to 2008 collapse; claimed it was not his "enron loophole"; enron
"wholesale services eg CA 12b$ 1st qtr 2000 to 48.4b yr later 70; summer 2001
FERC put price controls in 11 states, enron tanked so Sarbanes-Oxley on stricter
acc't, denounced by gop prez cands 2012 as onerous 71.
PG VP of USB investent banking arm made possible by hos dereg; after crash he
blamed PREDATORY BORROWERS and was mccain advisor 71
NCLB RAND said success then not; sandy Kress pushed in TX as consult to gov biz
council, then agan white house aid, then lobbyist for Pearson 85
Ravitch 180 at AEI mtg showed only 1% of CA kids choose to leave neighborhood
scho; CO 2% senate voted nclb right after 911 wen wanting bipartisan
as houston school cf head dept of ed b2 found 1/2 students said to move to
another district were actually dropping out 88
Tx miracle actually took 30 yrs and had more to do w/ =ize $
30 hrs? field experience cd be field trip (online tcher cert?)
40% got cred thru for-profit, some totally online
pearson 5 yr contract to write and grade tests 470M$ 99
James LEININGER ~ ESA, last minute 1.1m$ oan put perry over top 1998; bahams
junket to talk w/ Grover; Wendy g served on bd, then chair TPPF; ~ tort reform bs
gov gave it in 1995; gave 2k vouchers in 50mill pilot; bill no pass anf L pulled
$ 103; so gov W went for charters. some no furniture; by 2010 5k w/ 1.5 m
studdents 105
k12 wm benett and milken cyberschools; 2011 116k kids in for profit schools; k12
oursourced papers to India; k12 got 5K/id, made 10 mil 2010
connections educ bought by pearson 400m
TX TEXTBOOKS include phylis schl, contract w/ Am, heritage, NRA (harelm renn
beats, but also cty-w usic 114
cynthia dunbar taught at Lib U law school (obama a terorist sypatizer)
GW: ch 9
Marshall Kuykendeall feds can fine you 100's of K$ for stepping on a snail (also
that freeing slave uncobst taking of prop 127
LBJ many green bills; water and air qual acts solid waste and hwy beut, end sp
and wild rivers 127 1100 treaties.
RR said trees cause more air poll than cars
bush1 gop platform mentined clean air and water but also GW 130; 1990 cl air act,
goal to cut acid rain and smog; talked into RIo but wd not sigh biodiv; approved
GW after weakened ; Clinton gren blls stopped by newt 1994 armey; new chair House
energy and comm comm smokey joe; apologized to BP shakedown; reps cement capital
of tx
gop leaders attached 17 "riders from hell" to appropatiations bill (did not get
any/ all? but changed discourse) 134, gut clean air act, cut epa budget and
forbade using $ to enforce; Delay said we are ideolgues, ..no lobbyists asked to
repeal CCA, we said to lobbyist help us" thus?
200 gop platform said to do envir like tx, but 1st in air carcinogens, 1st ozone,
1st air toxics, houston worst air
tx TNRCC cattle, dept of ag guy pro pesticides, carrer lobbyist for tx chem co
who said ozone relativwely benign ; tried for car smog check but ixed by rw radio
host ; b2 did push for wind
gov bush made old plants exept of they agred to do vol cleanup they did not0 ad
cut $ for inspect plantas still under jurisd; ralph marquez chem guy, TEx chem
council resp for 3/4 toxics, 98 water, 67 air 136
bs tranition guy Hunter Hunt(son of oil ) Griles lobbyist "not since rr 100 yrs
ago one industry put so many foot soldiers at top of a new admin said newsweek
137
VP energy task force Nat'l Energy Pol Dev Gp met w/ enron 6x p2p, then alaso
phone; asked input from API nat'l refiners assoc; energy outspent gren gps on
lobby 7 to 1 138
no consrvastion b/c we have to protect way of life; 2005 tas TX law plus corn;
CBO satys biz in gen' pays 255 tax, oil lease and drill 9%
Delay and armey not pals, but agree puny hu cd not change climate, only God 139
cheney boys said bush did not mean whatever he said about climate in election; bs
dismissed EPA rept on gw "buraucracy"
TP 201o: house had 191 ~ green votes, more than 1 per day,
barton said sci not settled and going the other way 141.
barton chair emeritus? energy comm tx rapph hall took boehlert chair // gov perry
on god role
perry said EPA destroying ability to make own decisions
TX #1 is GHG b/c of production and use; #1 on carbon, 11 or 12 if country? 144
pery siad GW contrived, collapse under own wt
mass vs epa forced eap to act, but it 1st tired to find evidence ghg harless ?!
but made pg; TX only refusal; atty G Greg Abbott said eap info taned by coverups
and suppression of sci evidence" 143 ~ Houst Chronicle & univs
mid 90's what made gops mods was green eg Sherwood Boehlert NY ~ abolish EPA
Tx CEQ edirted all mention of GW from 200 p report on Galv Bay
TORT REF
limited fees, so few lawyers take cases; other side can appeal, def win ony 12%
claimed TR wd save 3B$/yr on insurance but but had some of highest premimens and
deductible
few work comp cases b/c lawyer gets 630$ of 9 wks work; co can have own plan;
some you have to file complaint same day
big # below min wage; hard to union
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