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For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts;
- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]: Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
POSSIBLE TOPICS: The HISD Prop 1 Question: Yes or no? IT’S A TRAP!, NCGOP Bombing, GOP Fracking, Assange Cut Off by Ecuador, more.
- TEXAS: REGISTER TO VOTE FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION
- To vote in November 8th’s presidential elections, you had to be registered by TUESDAY, October 11th!
- Go to HarrisVotes.com or VoteTexas.gov.
- To vote in November 8th’s presidential elections, you had to be registered by TUESDAY, October 11th!
- Houston board agrees to rename arts high school after donors – By Ericka Mellon, October 13, 2016 [Houston Chronicle]
- The HISD Prop 1 Question: Yes or no? IT’S A TRAP!
- Budget Basics / Proposition 1: What you need to know about recapture: $162 million “Robin Hood” payment is on the November ballot, by HISD
- “Do you feel lucky?”
- This is a ONE-TIME, NO GOING-BACK referendum choice.
- “No” on Proposition 1 is a “Yes” for a Tax Increase, by Dale Craymer (Contact: Kirsten Voinis (kvoinis@kvoinis.com) 512-922-7141)
- Houston Independent School District (ISD) voters face an unhappy choice this November – vote “YES” on Proposition 1 to authorize the state to recapture roughly $160 million of the school district’s property taxes or just vote “NO.” It seems like a no brainer. School board members, several other local officials and the Houston Chronicle editorial board are urging a “NO” vote, as a way to protest a state school finance system commonly referred to as “Robin Hood.”
- What folks aren’t being told, though, is that a “NO” vote is a “YES” vote for higher taxes.
- The election is required because the value of property relative to the number of its students has grown so rapidly that Houston ISD is now considered a “wealthy district” under the state’s school funding mechanism. For Texas’ school finance system to meet constitutional muster, revenues must be equalized – a system commonly referred to as “Robin Hood.” Wealthy districts have to share a portion of their taxes with poorer districts. The simplest way to do that is for Houston ISD to write a check to the state – something that must be authorized by local voters,
- and what Proposition 1 would allow.
- Nobody wants their local tax dollars to leave the district, so “NO” seems like an easy vote. Unfortunately if “NO” prevails, the Commissioner of Education by law MUST detach approximately $20 billion of high – value business
- properties from Houston ISD and assign them to a less wealthy district.
- That equates to approximately 40 percent of all business property and 12 percent of the total taxable value of the district. This is not a one-time process. The Commissioner will have to continue to detach more property each year as Houston’s values rise.
- What Prop 1 Does: Don’t let state bureaucrats take a billion dollars from Houston schools and deny our kids a quality education.
- A vote for HISD Proposition 1 will transfer more than $1 billion from HISD to state bureaucrats in the next four years, close neighborhood schools, lay off thousands of teachers – more than 1,400 in the first year – and drastically curtail other resources critical to health and learning that keep students in school, off the streets and on track to graduate.
- The closure of schools and rapid decline of our local education system will also decimate neighborhoods, hurt our economy and make Houston unattractive to businesses and people looking to relocate here.
- Yet, if voters vote against the proposition, state law allows the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to take the funds by detaching commercial properties such as office buildings or large shopping centers from the HISD tax rolls—and assigning them to the tax rolls of other school districts (where they are likely to be taxed at higher rates).
- So why vote AGAINST the HISD proposition?
- A consensus has emerged that the only way to force the legislature to pass comprehensive school finance reform is to fight back—by refusing to authorize this massive transfer of our school funds to other districts.
- State law required HISD to put this proposition on the ballot, yet every HISD trustee and the superintendent oppose it. A vote against recapture by the largest school district in Texas will throw a wrench into the current, unfair system.
- No school district has voted against a recapture measure and the TEA has never before tried to enforce its authority to detach properties from a school district’s tax rolls. HISD is certain to challenge the TEA in court and that in turn will create a crisis for state legislators and force them to deal with this issue in the upcoming session.
- It’s a novel approach but the alternative for HISD is much worse. This election is the only chance that voters will have to intervene. Once a district votes to authorize recapture payments, it can never go back.
- That’s why a growing coalition of people and organizations that typically disagree—Democrats, Republicans, business and labor leaders—are coming together to oppose HISD Proposition 1, protect our public schools and keep our city from falling into economic decline.
- Man who shot at George Zimmerman gets 20-year prison term, by Charles Ventura , [USA TODAY] 2:30 p.m. EDT October 17, 2016
- A Florida man who fired at George Zimmerman during a road-rage altercation was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday, authorities said.
- Matthew Apperson, 38, was convicted by a Seminole County jury last month of attempted second-degree murder, armed aggravated assault and shooting into a vehicle during a confrontation in Lake Mary, Fla., in May 2015.
- Democrats Raise $13,000 for Firebombed GOP Office in North Carolina, by Tessa Berenson (@tcberenson) 2:23 PM ET, Oct 17, 2016 [TIME.com]
- A Democrat-run GoFundMe page has raised more than $13,000 to help the GOP office in North Carolina that was firebombed, and it all began with a single tweet.
- Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, took to Twitter Sunday night after the bombing to channel her outrage and propose something constructive: she suggested Hillary Clinton’s campaign lend the Republicans some office space.
- Ecuador cut off Julian Assange’s internet access, WikiLeaks says: Group says access was shut down soon after the publication of Hillary Clinton’s speeches and it has ‘activated appropriate contingency plans’, by Nicola Slawson and agencies (@nicola_slawson) Monday 17 October 2016 [theguardian.com]
- Julian Assange’s internet was cut off by Ecuador, WikiLeaks has said, deflecting blame from the US and British governments, which have sparred with Assange for releasing sensitive material.
- Ecuador has reiterated its determination to protect Assange despite the internet link of the WikiLeaks founder being “intentionally severed”, as WikiLeaks said.
- McCain Vows Supreme Court Blockade Will Continue Through Clinton’s Presidency, By Jonathan Chait [nymag.com]
- The new rule is that a president needs 50 senators to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
- If Clinton wins and Democrats pull enough Senate seats, Republicans will oppose her nominee, and then, eventually, Democrats will change the rules to abolish filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. (Republicans will decry this foul measure and justify any subsequent actions of their own as justified revenge.) If Clinton wins and Republicans hold on to 51 seats, they will simply refuse to let any nominee through. The fact that it is McCain, a personal friend of Clinton and as strong an institutionalist as can be found in the Senate, … is proposing to extend the blockade indefinitely shows just how deep the commitment runs through the party.
- The implication of this claim, though, is that if Hillary Clinton wins the election, Republicans will give her latitude to appoint a reasonably well-qualified, non-extreme jurist to the vacant spot. I have long been skeptical that Republicans would actually go along with this if it comes to pass. And now John McCain confirms it. In an interview touting fellow Republican Senator Pat Toomey, McCain pledges that he and his party will continue the Supreme Court blockade throughout Clinton’s term. “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up,” McCain said. …
- Senate Republicans have formed a united front around the principle Barack Obama should not be able to appoint a replacement for Antonin Scalia, and that the seat should instead be selected by the winner of the 2016 election. This “principle” rests on a wildly selective reading of senatorial history, according to which it is somehow improper for a president to fill a Supreme Court seat in his final year. In reality, this principle has never existed before and was concocted on the fly in order to justify the simple exertion of power.
- Extreme weather:
- Not all climate change is global warming, but global warming is driving all climate change.
- Progressives settled on the term “climate change” after the Right began using the term and confusing the issue with cold ‘weather’ as a contradiction to “Global Warming.”
- ‘Extreme Weather’ Film Connects Nature’s Fury to Climate Change, Brian Clark Howard
- Yawn: China’s Space Program Is Making Advances Look Routine: Since 2003, manned space flights have become almost routine in China, [Blogs.WSJ.com] Oct 17, 2016 7:38 pm HKT
- What will it take for the US to take China’s competition in space seriously?
- Will it be Taikonauts say, “Ni hao,” from the moon?
- It’s happened before: Are we seeing the breakup and re-formation – whatever it will call itself – of a major political party in our lifetime?
- Is there room in the GOP for an “Ana Navarro Wing” of the party?
- Republican strategist, Ana Navarro Flores (born December 28, 1971) is a Nicaraguan-born American Republican strategist and political commentator for various news outlets, including CNN, CNN en Español,[2] ABC News and The View.[3] ~ from WIKIPEDIA
- CNN’s Ana Navarro Demolishes Trump In 2 Languages: ‘He Is A Flat-Out Racist!’; “Es un racista.”, by Rebecca Shapiro Senior Editor, The Huffington Post (10/06/2016 11:26 pm ET | Updated 10/7/2016)
- The Real-Time Crack-Up of the GOP Is Happening Right Now on Twitter, by Marcus Wohlsen [WIRED Business) OCT 16.
- Is there room in the GOP for an “Ana Navarro Wing” of the party?
SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:
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- GROWING STORY –
- Trump Foundation ordered to stop fundraising by NY attorney general’s office, By David A. Fahrenthold October 3, 2016 at 6:11 PM (Washington Post):
- The New York attorney general disclosed Monday that it ordered Donald Trump’s personal charity to cease fundraising immediately after determining that the foundation was violating state law by soliciting donations without proper authorization.
- The message was conveyed in a “notice of violation” sent Friday to the Donald J. Trump Foundation, of which Trump is president.
- The night before, The Washington Post had reported that Trump’s foundation — which had subsisted entirely on other people’s donations since 2008 — had failed to register with the state as a charity soliciting funds.
- `Because of that, Trump’s foundation had avoided rigorous annual audits that New York state requires of charities that seek the public’s money. Those audits would have asked, among other things, if the Trump Foundation’s money had been used to benefit Trump or one of his businesses.
- The most shocking part of Donald Trump’s tax records isn’t the $916 million loss everyone’s talking about, By Allan Sloan October 2 at 4:22 PM
- How Trump could have avoided paying income taxes for 18 years, and that’s NOT the shocking part
- Donald Trump Losing by a Landslide Would Heal the Nation: It would signal that the GOP’s scorched-earth political tactics don’t work, By Cody Cain [TIME.com] Aug. 29, 2016 10:33 AM ET (est.) Cain is a writer
- When our two-party system of Democrats vs. Republicans is functioning properly, there is much to recommend it. …
- In recent years, however, something has gone terribly awry. The Republican Party made the deliberate calculation that its best prospects for success lied not in abiding by the system and offering its superior ideas for governing, but instead in undermining the system by seeking to destroy its opponent.
- This deplorable strategy from our political leaders is hardly the sort of conduct that our great democracy was designed to foster.
- If Trump were to win the election in November, this would send a horrible message. A Trump victory would loudly proclaim that all of these underhanded political strategies of creating gridlock and sowing the seeds of frustration and division are indeed successful strategies…
- If the election turns out to be close—even if Trump were defeated—these vile political strategies would still flourish. The Republican Party would likely conclude that their tactics brought them near to victory, so these tactics are effective and should be pursued more vigorously.
- If, on the other hand, Trump suffered an enormous defeat in an overwhelming landslide, well, then, this would send a very different message. And imagine if this landslide also led to the Democratic Party gaining control of the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and various state and local governments as well.
- Republicans would be forced to face the reality that… their vile strategies of division and destruction incited the worst instincts in their party, led to the rise of the disastrous Trump candidacy and resulted in utter failure. They would be forced to abandon their scorched-earth tactics, and instead return to the good old-fashioned concept of what our system is all about in the first place. Namely, the Republicans would be forced into focusing less on destroying their opponents, and more on offering positive and constructive ideas of their own. They would also be forced to abandon their “my way or the highway” approach, and instead compromise with the Democrats to forge bipartisan solutions to governing.
- Our system would then be returned to balance, and the public trust in our government would be restored. A landslide defeat of Trump would not only dispatch with a dangerous demagogue, but it would also go a long way toward restoring the proper functioning of our democracy.
- Longtime Republican consultant: if black people voted Republican, voter ID laws wouldn’t happen – Vox, Updated by German Lopez on September 2, 2016, 2:40 p.m. ET @germanrlopez lopez@vox.com
- If there was any remaining doubt that North Carolina’s voting restrictions — which require a photo ID to vote and limit early voting days — are about disenfranchising black people, recent comments by a top Republican consultant in the state should put that doubt to rest.
- William Wan reported for the Washington Post: Longtime Republican consultant Carter Wrenn, a fixture in North Carolina politics, said the GOP’s voter fraud argument is nothing more than an excuse.
- “Of course it’s political. Why else would you do it?” he said, explaining that Republicans, like any political party, want to protect their majority. While GOP lawmakers might have passed the law to suppress some voters, Wrenn said, that does not mean it was racist.
- “Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was,” Wrenn said. “It wasn’t about discriminating against African Americans. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat.”
- From MIKE: Texas has the same logic, and even presented it in court, when the Texas Voter ID law was challenged. To paraphrase, ‘We’re not discriminating against minorities. We’re discriminating against Democrats.’
- “The Florida Bar says it has no jurisdiction. The state attorney in Leon County has taken a pass. So have the governor’s office and the Legislature, both of which could demand hearings if they wanted.“Imagine you were robbed and the prosecutor gave the suspect a pass after taking $25,000 from him. There would be universal outrage — and rightfully so. This is not the behavior of an ethical prosecutor. If Floridians want action, they should speak up. But it may be up to the U.S. Justice Department.When a prosecutor has been asked to investigate someone — and instead takes $25,000 in campaign cash from him — it’s the prosecutor who most needs probing. That’s why I began digging into this way back in 2013 — long before Trump was even a candidate for the White House.”The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell – who uncovered Trump’s illegal political bribe to Bondi in the first place – was given the honor of publishing an op-ed column [“New records show Bondi needs probing in Trump mess, Maxwell says“] explaining that Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi deserved the bulk of the scrutiny as both a Republican elected official and as a lawyer who betrayed the public trust and that federal prosecution is the only genuine option available for the state’s top law enforcement officer:
- Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.
- The Washington Post and a liberal watchdog group raised new questions about the three-year-old gift. The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint with the IRS — noting that, as a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation was not allowed to make political donations.
- In that year’s tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.
- The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.
- This is from Breitbart. It’s written as an inflammatory piece for their readers, but Progressives will actually read it as a tribute piece!
- Texas Grocery Magnate Forbids ‘Open Carry,’ Opposes School Choice, Supports Sanctuary Cities, by Merrill Hope3 Jan 2016 (BREITBART.COM): Charles Butt, the Texas billionaire magnate behind the H-E-B supermarket chain which forbid the open carry of firearms law that went into effect January 1, 2016, opposes school choice, funds anti-school choice lobbyists, and is even credited for his role in killing a 2011 state bill banning “sanctuary cities.”
- His vested interest in Texas public education includes H-E-B handing out $800,000 a year to public education pursuits through the Excellence in Education Awards. In 2006, he founded Raise Your Hand Texas, which lists Butt as an advisor. The Texas Tribune describes Raise Your Hand Texas as a “seasoned lobbying force on education issues at the Capitol.”
- Think twice, maybe three times, before cosigning loans, and even then, you probably shouldn’t do it.
- In New Jersey Student Loan Program, Even Death May Not Bring a Reprieve, By ANNIE WALDMAN, (NY Times) JULY 3, 2016
- Differences between Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians and neo-Conservatives
- Left–right politics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- History of the terms: The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained, “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.[9]
- Greens and Libertarians: The yin and yang of our political future, by Dan Sullivan (originally appearing in Green Revolution, Volume 49, No. 2, summer, 1992)
- … Libertarians tend to be logical and analytical. They are confident that their principles will create an ideal society, even though they have no consensus of what that society would be like. Greens, on the other hand, tend to be more intuitive and imaginative. They have clear images of what kind of society they want, but are fuzzy about the principles on which that society would be based.
- Ironically, Libertarians tend to be more utopian and uncompromising about their political positions, and are often unable to focus on politically winnable proposals to make the system more consistent with their overall goals. Greens on the other hand, embrace immediate proposals with ease, but are often unable to show how those proposals fit in to their ultimate goals.
- The most difficult differences to reconcile, however, stem from baggage that members of each party have brought with them from their former political affiliations. Most Libertarians are overly hostile to government and cling to the fiction that virtually all private fortunes are legitimately earned. Most Greens are overly hostile to free enterprise and cling to the fiction that harmony and balance can be achieved through increased government intervention.
- Amongst published researchers, there is agreement that the Left includes anarchists, communists, socialists, progressives, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, anti-racists, democratic socialists, greens, left-libertarians, social democrats, and social liberals.[5][6][7]
- Researchers have also said that the Right includes capitalists, conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries, imperialists, right-libertarians, social authoritarians, religious fundamentalists, and traditionalists.[8]
- Left–right politics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Payday Lenders
- Usury: noun the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest. Archaic interest at unreasonably high rates.
- Interest Caps
- ‘Choice’
- Are the many high-interest payday lenders a direct result of bank deregulation and the attendant fees and penalties that came with them?
- How this Missouri man wound up paying $50K in interest after taking $2,500 in payday loans: ws/20onFHy pic.twitter.com/8krVicitx1
- Time for a return of the 2 ½ contingency war strategy?
- Will we ever see a return of the “Peacetime Army”?
- Threat from Russian and Chinese warplanes mounts – USA Today
o How much do the Saudis own in U.S. Treasuries? After four decades, it’s no longer a secret, by Michael Hiltzik (LA Times) 5-16-2016
- The Treasury Department on Monday opened the curtain on one of our longest-lasting, and strangest, state secrets: how much U.S. debt does Saudi Arabia own?
- The Treasury Department on Monday opened the curtain on one of our longest-lasting, and strangest, state secrets: how much U.S. debt does Saudi Arabia own?
- The answer, as of March, is $116.8 billion. That may sound like a lot, but it places the Saudis only at 13th on the list of major foreign holders of treasuries. Leading the roll among the foreign holders of $6.3 trillion in securities are mainland China ($1.245 trillion) and Japan ($1.137 trillion).
o Government Debt in the United States – Debt Clock: (www.usgovernmentdebt.us/): Total Federal Government Debt in 2016. At the end of FY 2016 the gross US federal government debt is estimated to be $19.3 trillion, according to the FY17 Federal Budget.
o India to ‘divert rivers’ to tackle drought, By Navin Singh Khadka Environment reporter, (BBC World Service) 16 May 2016
- India is set to divert water from its rivers to deal with a severe drought… [affecting] At least 330 million people are … affected by drought in India.
- The drought is taking place as a heat wave extends across much of India, with temperatures in excess of 40C (~104oF).
- The Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) has 30 links planned for water-transfer, 14 of them fed by Himalayan glaciers in the north of the country and 16 in peninsular India.
- Environmentalists have opposed the project, arguing it will invite ecological disaster but the [Indian] Supreme Court has ordered its implementation.
- Of its 29 states, nearly half were reported to have suffered from severe water crisis this dry season.
- The federal government in Delhi has had to send trains carrying water to the worst affected places.
- What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain, By Carrie Arnold [National Geographic] PUBLISHED March 28, 2016
- Nearly all New York State pet owners talk to their pets like they’re fellow humans, according to a recent poll. Many believe their dogs and cats can respond with barks or meows that communicate hunger, fear, or simply the need to pee. But do the animals tawk back in a Brooklyn accent? That’s the sort of thing Swedish cat lover and phonetics researcher Suzanne Schötz is working to find out. After executing this strategy on every government program except the military and corporate welfare, is it now the turn of the Supreme Court?
- The Science of Meow: Study to Look at How Cats Talk: A new project is underway to decode kitty communication—and figure out if cats really like all that baby talk.
- What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain
[National Geographic Society]:
- What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain
- The dos and don’ts of open carry, By Robert Arnold – Investigative Reporter (click2houston.com) Posted: 9:37 AM, December 31, 2015 Updated: 10:04 AM, December 31, 2015
- TERMINOLOGIES: Words Matter
- The term “Conservative” is so inaccurate as currently used by the Media, the Media and all of us really need to rethink their classifications and terminology.
- There are Liberals/Progressives and there are Conservatives. Both of those are fine and serve a useful purpose in civil opposition to each other.
- Today’s “Conservatives” are conservative in name only
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