1. HARRISVOTES.COM: Early Voting Hours of Operation

LAST DAY FOR EARLY VOTING, TUESDAY MAY 2:  7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.

ELECTION DAY: MAY 6 – BRING PROPER VOTER ID

2. Depending on where you live, there may be multiple items on the ballot aside from recapture.
3. HOUSTON ELECTIONS — AGAIN: “Reintroducing recapture”, by Charles Kuffner(Apr 2nd, 2017)
   1. Recapture on May 6 ballot: How do you want HISD to pay?
   2. A vote FOR means Purchasing Attendance Credits by writing a check to the state for local property taxes. It also means:
   3. The district will continue to make annual recapture payments for the foreseeable future.
   4. If our total tax collections continue to grow, they will help to offset these payments.
   5. The district will have more capacity in the future to fund schools.
   6. A vote AGAINST Purchasing Attendance Credits means Detachment of the most valuable non-residential, commercial properties from the district’s tax roll. The properties will be reassigned to other school districts for taxing purposes. It also means:
   7. Under current law, those commercial properties will be permanently detached, and the district will permanently lose those tax collections for district operations.
   8. The district will lose debt service tax collections used to pay back bonds, which is debt used to build schools.
   9. The district will face budget cuts and have less capacity to fund schools.
   10. Recapture re-vote will happen, Feb 11th, 2017 by Charles Kuffner.
   11. HISD Board to discuss recapture re-vote today, Feb 9th, 2017 by Charles Kuffner
   12. HISD offers explanation of new ‘recapture’ referendum: Support urgedfor paying state after amount reduced, By Shelby Webb [Chron.com) Updated: March 29, 2017 9:41pm
   13. Board President Wanda Adams, who hosted the town hall, thanked those present for voting against recapture in November. But she asked them to vote in favor of writing a recapture check. “Because of your no vote, you actually won. We were the first district ever to tell the state no, the first to say we will not write a check until you fund public education,” Adams said.
   14. The Houston ISD Board of Education voted in February to hold a second referendum on the issue May 6 after the state lessened the amount HISD would pay in recapture fee and threatened to “detach” commercial properties. 
       1. Glenn Reed, general manager of HISD’s Budgeting and Financial Planning, said this referendum is different than the one that appeared in on the November ballot. 
       2. “This is not a vote on recapture; it’s a vote on how you want us to pay it,” Reed said.  
4. President Trump said Monday he would be “honored” to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “under the right circumstances, By Ashley Parker and Anne Gearan [WASHINGTON POST] May 1 at 5:32 PM
   1. QUESTION: Is Trump doing the right thing, the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way?
      1. May 1 at 2:53 PM President Trump said Monday he would be “honored” to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “under the right circumstances.”
      2. Trump’s comments came amid heightened tensions with North Korea, whose nuclear weapons program has sparked deep concerns in the international community, and just a day after Trump said he would not rule out military action against North Korea.
      3. [Trump is not ruling out military action against North Korea]
      4. “If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg News in a Monday interview. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”
      5. On Saturday, Trump invited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to visit the White House, despite the leader’s controversial war on drugs that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Filipinos. And Spicer also tried to explain that visit in the broader context of the situation with North Korea.
      6. Asked about the extrajudicial killings of drug users, many of them poor, on Duterte’s watch, Spicer said, “There’s a human rights component that goes into all of this,” but added, “This isn’t a simple yes-or-no kind of situation.”
5. MIKE: Even before Nov. 8, I was calling Duterte the Philippines’ Trump. How close was I?
6. What’s in the spending agreement? We read it so you don’t have to. By Kelsey Snell and Ed O’Keefe [WASHINGTON POST] May 1 at 2:53 PM
7. From generation to generation, the poor tend to stay poor. Why?
   1. Poor early nutrition:
      1. Stunting of growth and immune system development
      2. Poor dentition in both childhood and at maturity
      3. Insufficient nutrients for proper brain and neurological development
      4. Physiologically and educationally unprepared for a workplace where they can raise themselves and their families out of poverty and break the cycle.
   2. SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM: The new spending agreement ends a program championed by the former first lady to combat childhood obesity that forced changes in school lunches served to about 31 million children. Republicans say the legislation “stops an Obama-era school meal regulation” and that doing so provides “flexibility for whole grains and milk and preventing changes to sodium standards that have not been fully scientifically vetted.”
      1. The changes caused schools to begin serving more milk, whole grain-rich foods, and a variety of fruits and vegetables, plus limit the amounts of calories, trans-fats and salt that kids get in cafeterias. But a powerful school lunch industry group withdrew its support for the program, saying the new standards were expensive and unpopular with students.
      2. Democrats noted that the bill allows school districts to continue the Obama-era regulations if they choose to do so. The bill also bars the use of poultry from China in USDA-backed school lunch programs.
   3. Yields:
      1. A lifetime of poor or fragile health;
      2.   Neurological deficiencies leading to behavior and/or educability issues
   4. SEARCH CRITERIA: Early childhood nutrition: Is hunger setting up the poor for failure?
8. PUBLIC BROADCASTING: Elmo and Peter Sagal, breathe easy: Congress didn’t make any cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the agency that helps fund programming on NPR and PBS.
9. New Orleans removes first of four Confederate statues, From the section US & Canada, 4/24/2017
   1. 6. Masked New Orleans workers in bullet-proof vests have removed a Confederate monument that officials said was a symbol of the US South’s racist past.
      7. Watched by police snipers, the statue was gone before dawn in a stealthy operation designed to foil protests.
      8. The statues will be relocated to “a place where they can be put in historical context”, the city said.
      9. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said workers had faced “intense” intimidation and threats.
10. Republican students sue to allow Ann Coulter’s speech this week at UC Berkeley, by Paige St. John [LA TIMES] 4/24/2017
    1. UC Berkeley student group on Monday filed a lawsuit demanding that the university allow conservative pundit Ann Coulter to speak on campus Thursday as originally planned.
    2. Citing unspecified threats, administrators had rescheduled Coulter’s appearance for May 2, when they said they could provide adequate security.
    3. … in its free-speech lawsuit, the Berkeley College Republicans — which planned to host Coulter — called that date a “sham” intended to ensure her address was poorly attended.
    4. A February event hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans featuring right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was closed down before it even began due to violent street protests. That and two subsequent political demonstrations at Berkeley have resulted in multiple injuries and arrests.
    5. According to the lawsuit, Berkeley has “permitted the demands of a faceless, rabid, off-campus mob to dictate what speech is permitted at the center of campus during prime time, and which speech may be marginalized, burdened and regulated out of its very existence by this unlawful heckler’s veto.”
    6. …, the administrator suggested organizers either push back Coulter’s appearance to the following week, or reschedule it for next fall to provide “an environment that is secure and prepared for productive dialogue across differences of viewpoint.”
    7. FROM MIKE: Is Coulter’s frequent ‘hate speech’ protected on a public university campus (an issue that, interestingly, the lawsuit did not clain), and if so, should it be?
11. FREE SPEECH: What’s constitutionally guaranteed and what’s culturally expected
    1. 1^st Amendment:  First Amendment | Constitution | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
       1. The Amendment protects us against Government interference in speech, press and religion.
       2. NON-government interference – private businesses, publishers. Etc. – is more culturally entrenched but usually not illegal.
          1. The Amendment protects us against Government interference in speech, press and religion.
          2. NON-government interference – private businesses, publishers. Etc. – is more culturally entrenched but usually not illegal.
          3. A Civics discussion:
          4. Our founders did not design our government to be “efficient”. They designed it to be “safe”.
          5. People who say that they want government to run like a business miss the point: Government is NOT a business.
          6. People who say that they want government to run like a household miss the point: Government is NOT a household.
          7. Government is a Sovereign, which is an entirely different and unique thing, totally unlike a business or a household.
          8. No one branch of government is meant to be ‘supreme’. The 3 branches of government – executive, legislative and judicial – were designed to be co-equal.
          9. The tug-of-war that goes on among them – this inefficient, tug-of-war that goes on among them – is designed to slow things down, and make them “safe” but “inefficient’.
          10. In today’s terminology, the inefficiency designed into our government is not a “bug”. It’s a “feature”.
          11. I’ve said for many years that people who have run big businesses should not be politicians, and certainly should not be president. If there was ever an example of why I believe that, it’s Trump.
          12. We are now experiencing the wisdom of that “feature”, as the Trump regime attempts to establish its Supremacy over the other branches.
12. A Civics discussion:
    1. Our founders did not design our government to be “efficient”. They designed it to be “safe”.
    2. People who say that they want government to run like a business miss the point: Government is NOT a business.
    3. People who say that they want government to run like a household miss the point: Government is NOT a household.
    4. Government is a Sovereign, which is an entirely different and unique thing, totally unlike a business or a household.
    5. No one branch of government is meant to be ‘supreme’. The 3 branches of government – executive, legislative and judicial – were designed to be co-equal.
    6. The tug-of-war that goes on among them – this inefficient, tug-of-war that goes on among them – is designed to slow things down, and make them “safe” but “inefficient’.
    7. In today’s terminology, the inefficiency designed into our government is not a “bug”. It’s a “feature”.
    8. I’ve said for many years that people who have run big businesses should not be politicians, and certainly should not be president. If there was ever an example of why I believe that, it’s Trump.
    9. We are now experiencing the wisdom of that “feature”, as the Trump regime attempts to establish its Supremacy over the other branches.
13. Stressed Out? You Probably Don’t Have it as Bad as People in Alabama, the Most Stressed State, By Janice Williams [NEWSWEEK] 4/3/17 at 4:33 PM
    1. While just about everyone living in America is stressed out about something, whether the political climate, the economy, personal finances or family issues, people in Alabama have it the worst. The Yellowhammer state was found to have the highest level of stress of all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia in WalletHub’s recent study of most- and least-stressed states.
    2. The study used data from the U.S. Census, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate four key dimensions including family-related stress, health/safety-related stress, work-related stress and money-related stress based on factors like cost of childcare, housing affordability, number of hours worked in a day and job security.
    3. Southern states ranked the highest for the most cases of stress; Alabama ranked number one for the overall highest level of stress, followed by Louisiana and then Mississippi.
    4. Alabama had, per capita, the highest number of people with poor health and the fewest psychologists. Alabamans also got the least number of hours of sleep a night and had some of the lowest credit scores.
14. Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):
    1. The Ineligibility Clause, one of the two clauses often called the Emoluments Clause,^[1][2] and sometimes also referred to as the Incompatibility Clause^[3] or the Sinecure Clause,^[4] is found in Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. It places limitations upon the employment of members of Congress and prohibits employees of the Executive Branch from serving in Congress during their terms in office. The name “Ineligibility Clause” is only used by a minority of writers, as compared to the name “Emoluments Clause”.^[1][2][5]
    2. The clause states: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”
15. 11. Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
    1. The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President or Acting President if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency.^[1] The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967.^[2]
       1. Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
       2. Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
       3. Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
       4. Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
       5. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.^[3]