Agosto will not run again for SBOE State Board of Education member Rick Agosto will not seek re-election next year, he said. Trinity University literature professor Michael Soto, 39, announced Thursday that he will seek the Democratic Party nomination for District 3, which stretches from San Antonio south to the border. And several top Democratic Party leaders from San Antonio, including state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and former State Board of Education member Joe Bernal, are backing Soto. ...

Seven killed in shootings at Fort Hood Seven people were killed and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood today, officials confirmed. Ford Hood spokesman Sgt. Tim Volkert told the Express-News that seven people were killed in a shooting at about 1:30 p.m. in the area near the Howze theater and the base’s readiness center. Both buildings are next to each other. “I don’t know if it was inside or outside but I do know it was in that area,” Volkert said. It was not known if the victims are soldi...

Dropout problem drags Texas down (snip) The story of Reyes’ six children — that a third of them dropped out — plays out all across Texas, many experts believe. The U.S. Department of Education puts the Texas graduation rate at 71.9 percent — ranking the state 36th nationally. That would put the dropout population for each year’s graduating class at roughly 130,000 — or about the size of McAllen. Another estimate, using a formula called the Cumulative Promotion Index, indicates only 64.5 percent...

Elections system pulled from IBM data center contract IBM Corp.’s failure to protect state information under an $863 million data center consolidation contract has prompted the Texas Secretary of State to pull its elections system from the project. In August, the Secretary of State got a "wake-up call" when a server crash led to a 13-day outage of the agency’s business records filing system. It exposed serious weaknesses in IBM’s ability to recover lost data, said Secretary of State spokesman...

Legal Center & CREW Urge DOJ to Investigate Allegations of Public Corruption Against Texas Legislator/Political Consultant and Election Official Today the Campaign Legal Center and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) requested a full investigation of a series of allegations of public corruption and possible violations of the Voting Rights Act by a Texas State Representative and a local election official. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, J. Gerald Hebert of t...

Cronkite legacy enters UT archives By Lena Price Daily Texan Staff October 21, 2009 Walter Cronkite was no stranger to the University of Texas at Austin, and now most of his personal papers and photographs will be permanently filed in the archives of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History on campus. Three months after his death, the will of the legendary broadcaster and former student has been finalized, and the papers are now being transferred to UT. "These are some of the most infl...

is creating a series of posts to evaluate the amendments and linking to various other organizations and people on the pros/cons of each. Early voting started on Monday and BOR will issue a summary and their endorsements on some this Friday. Right now all the amendments are individual posts so you will have to hunt around on their site to research them all. Or wait for Friday when they do the summary/endorsement post. Texas Constitutional Amendments Proposition 1: Authorizing Local Financin...

Ex-contractor pleads guilty to sex assault in Iraq HOUSTON — A former civilian defense contractor accused of sexually assaulting a female co-worker at an Iraqi air base pleaded guilty Friday to abusive sexual contact. David Charles Breda Jr., 34, of Pearland, was ordered to remain in federal custody pending sentencing Jan. 15. The guilty plea could mean up to two years in prison and lifetime status as a registered sexual offender for Breda. Prosecutors alleged Breda jumped and fondled the wo...

Texas Man Plans To Camp On GOP Rep's Lawn If Congress Fails To Extend Unemployment Benefits If Congress fails to pass an extension of unemployment benefits, Ricky Macoy of Quinlan, Texas plans to take it out on the Republican Party by camping on his congressman's lawn. "Ralph Hall is a good man," said Macoy of his Republican representative, whom he said he has always supported. It's the larger GOP Macoy has a problem with: "They're not willing to help. They're just playing political games." ...

Obama, Bush to hold forum at Texas A&M University COLLEGE STATION, Texas — President Obama and former President George H.W. Bush will visit Texas A&M University to tout community service. Obama is coming to the campus Friday after being invited by Bush to speak at a presidential forum on community service. The event also honors the 20th anniversary of Bush's "thousand points of light" volunteer service movement he first mentioned in his 1989 inaugural address. The program also builds on Obama...

Shapleigh will not seek re-election By Mike Ward | Friday, October 16, 2009, 11:09 AM State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, an outspoken El Paso Democrat who championed health care, education and border programs as a constant legislative voice for average working Texans, is set to announce later today he will not seek re-election. According to a statement just released from his office, Shapleigh — who has held the District 29 seat since 1997 — will announce his decision at a noon press conference in E...

Texas man to feds: Take my missile launcher, please Jarrette Schule was cutting down trees on his rural property Tuesday in Comal County north of San Antonio when he noticed a green metallic tube on the muddy ground. "I had never seen it before," said Schule, a 34-year-old Web developer. "I looked at it, and it kind of looked like a missile launcher." Schule took a closer look. It was a long, forest-green metal tube. A decal on it read: "Guided Missile and Launcher, Surface Attack." (snip) B...

Judge Justice dies at 89 William Wayne Justice was a giant in Texas history, the foreman of an audacious legal assembly line that churned out bulging packages of civil rights, equal justice and opportunities for the least among us. (snip) But today, most agree that William Wayne Justice shoved Texas, against its will, into the mainstream of society. His legal compassion forever changed the lives of millions of schoolchildren, prisoners, minorities, immigrants and people with disabilities in ...

Perry appoints first Latina to high court HOUSTON — Appeals court Judge Eva Guzman, the child of an immigrant welder and cleaning lady, became the first Hispanic woman to serve on the Texas Supreme Court when Gov. Rick Perry appointed her at a ceremony here Thursday. "I will continue to prepare and serve the people of Texas to the best of my ability," Guzman said. "I will work as hard or harder, though that could be tough to do since I throw myself into my work — work and family." Some of he...

Top Ten Rick Perry Failures Rick "Tax and Toll" Perry has proposed some rotten pay to play schemes in his 25 years as a career politician, but the Trans-Texas Corridor proposal may be the worst. Although the "tax and toll" funded Trans-Texas Corridor concept has been retired, Texans have already paid $59.4 million for a bad idea, and there may not be an off ramp for Texas taxpayers who will be footing the bill for this massive failure for years to come. The first decade of the 21st Century ha...

From an ACLU newsletter on their latest report. Read Our Report: The Gideons In Public Schools Dear Fellow Texan, Earlier this year the ACLU of Texas received information that the Gideons International were allowed access to public school campuses in an effort to distribute Bibles in some Texas school districts, and we initiated an investigation. Today, we’re publishing a report on our findings. We encourage you to read it -- you may be surprised by what is going on in your local school distri...

Debating Hate Crimes, Gohmert Rambles On About Bestiality, Sex With Corpses, Voting For A Black Man See it to believe it - here's Rep. Louie Gohmert, on the House floor yesterday, offering his assessment of the "wide open" definition of sexual orientation. Gohmert (R-TX) rambles about being "oriented toward animals, bestiality" ... "oriented toward corpses, toward children." "There are all kinds of perversions, what most of us would call perversions, some would say it sounds like fun, but mo...

A Rick Perry Stunner The exercise of raw power is truly stunning to behold. Gov. Rick Perry today has replaced three members of the Forensic Science Commission, which is investigating whether Texas -- under Perry's administration -- executed an innocent man in 2004. The Statesman and the AP are reporting that one of three deposed commissioners is chairman Sam Bassett, an Austin defense attorney. Perry has installed as chairman John Bradley, the district attorney of Williamson County and one...

Perry campaign recruiters getting paid per head Gov. Rick Perry woos campaign volunteers by talking about fiscal restraint, limited government and states' rights. And if all that fails, he offers them cash. The Republican governor's re-election campaign is paying volunteers to sign up other volunteers, and it promises more cash for those turning out voters in the March primary. The campaign hopes for big dividends from the Amway-style program, known as Perry Home Headquarters. (snip) It's n...

On front page of DailyKos right now. if you have an account on DK go give it a recommend for Libby Shaw. Good Texan blogger. Thousands Show up for Free Medical Treatment in Houston by Libby Shaw Sun Sep 27, 2009 Cross posted at Texas Kaos. Yesterday in Houston nearly 2000 folks came to Reliant Stadium for, in some cases, desperately needed medical treatment. Shamefully, Texas has the highest number of uninsured residents. The story is particularly ugly in Houston where 1 in 3 adults are...

Federal officials: Texas could lose food stamp funds if problems aren’t fixed Federal officials have warned Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs that unless Texas fixes serious problems with its food stamp enrollment system, it could lose federal funds. "The current status of (food stamp) administration in Texas is unacceptable and actions must be taken immediately," says the letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, which administers t...

As Seen On TV! Birthermercial Asks, Where Was Obama Really Born? A new birther infomercial running on a CBS affiliate in Texas and elsewhere around the country tells viewers a "got a birth certificate?" bumper sticker can be theirs for the low price of $30. The 28-minute program -- quite possibly the first ever birthermercial -- features community access production values, heavy use of foreboding strings soundtrack, and standard-issue Birther ideology. For a $30 contribution, viewers also ge...

Don Yarborough Progressive Texas Leader Dec. 15, 1925-Sept. 23, 2009 Don Yarborough, an important progressive politician who fought to modernize Texas in several bids for the governor’s office in the 1960s, died Sept. 23 at his home in Houston following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War and held a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. When Yarborough first announced his campaign for governor in 1962, Willie Morris des...

Retired federal judge Buchmeyer dies at 76 DALLAS — Retired U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, who spent nearly 30 years on the federal bench and presided over a Dallas housing discrimination case, has died. He was 76. (snip) Jerry Buchmeyer was perhaps best-known for his handling of a 1985 lawsuit against the Dallas Housing Authority that many say helped desegregate public housing. The case, brought by seven black women over living conditions at a West Dallas housing project, led to thousa...

Bomb scare in Laredo shuts down 3 city blocks LAREDO, Texas — Authorities say a bomb scare in downtown Laredo shut down three city blocks while a suspicious object was removed from the courthouse. Laredo Fire Department spokesman Eloy Vega said the area was reopened Monday afternoon after being closed for several hours. Vega said the object was found at the Webb County Justice Center and taken away in a bomb container. Vega said he could not immediately provide more details about what was fo...

Rasmussen: Hutchison catches up to Perry By Jason Embry | Thursday, September 17, 2009, 12:51 PM U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has caught up with Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary race for governor, according to a new Rasmussen poll. The telephone poll of 790 likely Republican primary voters shows Hutchison up 40 percent to 38 percent, which is within the margin of error. It also shows 19 percent of respondents undecided and 3 percent supporting Debra Medina, who formally announced ...

Already some interesting gems as expected. Winger "experts" talking out both sides of their mouths. The general web site address for the blog is . Follow along if you can. Blogging from the Social Studies Hearing II September 17, 2009 by TFN 11:49 – Another gem from Rev. Marshall’s testimony earlier: “All men are created equal… this has been the basis of every great social crisis through American history. It was the basis for the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, the wome...

Appeals court sends contractor's case to court By ANABELLE GARAY DALLAS — The case of a Texas woman who alleges she was gang-raped by co-workers while working for a military contractor in Iraq will go to court instead of arbitration, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. A divided three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled Jamie Leigh Jones' federal lawsuit against Halliburton Co., former subsidiary KBR and several affiliates can be tried in open court. The...

Flores won’t seek re-election State Rep. Kino Flores, D-Palmview, said today he will not seek re-election. The announcement comes two months after he was indicted by a Travis County grand jury. He is accused of omitting hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of income from financial statements that elected officials are required to file with the state. The indictments — 16 counts of tampering with a governmental record and three counts of perjury — influenced Flores’ decision to resign, he ...

Wharton woman to take on Perry, Hutchison Small-government advocate says she's disappointed in GOP elected officials. Saturday, September 12, 2009 Debra Medina, who plans to run for Texas governor, says she considers herself like David taking on Goliath. And the battle she's entering has two Goliaths. Medina is scheduled to announce today in Dallas that she's running for governor in the Republican primary — a field that already includes Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. "I...