October 12, 2014

Key questions for Dallas hospital on Ebola patient; where was the air flow?

The Dallas Morning News Tom Huang and Dr. Seema Yasmin react to the news of another Ebola case in Dallas.

See video at link:

http://www.dallasnews.com/ebola/headlines/20141012-yasmin-key-questions-for-dallas-hospital-on-ebola-patient-where-was-the-air-flow.ece

October 11, 2014

Greg Abbott: Texas gay marriage ban reduces out-of-wedlock births

AUSTIN – Attorney General Greg Abbott says Texas’ same-sex marriage ban should remain in place because legalizing it would do nothing to encourage heterosexual couples to get married and have children.

Writing in a brief filed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, Abbott said the state was not obligated to prove why gay marriage might be detrimental to the economic or social well-being of Texans. It was only required to show how opposite sex marriage would be more beneficial for its citizens.

“The State is not required to show that recognizing same-sex marriage will undermine heterosexual marriage,” the brief read. “It is enough if one could rationally speculate that opposite-sex marriages will advance some state interest to a greater extent than same-sex marriages will.”

Marriage among heterosexual partners, Abbott said, is more beneficial to society because it encourages married couples to have children and provides an example for other couples to do the same.

Read more: http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2014/10/abbott-texas-gay-marriage-ban-reduces-out-of-wedlock-births/

October 11, 2014

6-foot-11 high school quarterback towers over competition in West Virginia

Six-foot-11 quarterback Logan Routt towers over one of his receivers - 5-foot-5 Dalton Wood.

In all likelihood, Logan Routt is the world's tallest quarterback — maybe the tallest quarterback of all time.

The senior from Cameron (W. Va.) stands 6-foot-11 and weighs in at 220 pounds.

Routt is 3 inches taller than the tallest quarterback ever to play in the NFL (Dan McGwire) and a full 2 inches taller than Michael Humphrey, who at 6-9 made waves as a high school quarterback last fall before choosing to play basketball for Stanford.

According to Cameron coach Scott Holt, Routt is every bit of his listed height.

"He is a legit 6-11," Holt said of senior signal-caller.

Read more: http://www.maxpreps.com/news/BcvHIeB5TkS5yTD5OuX9GQ/6-foot-11-high-school-quarterback-logan-routt-towers-over-competition-in-west-virginia.htm

October 11, 2014

Wendy Davis campaign to hold “Out for Wendy” events across Texas on National Coming Out Day

Saturday is National Coming Out Day, and the Wendy Davis campaign plans to mark the occasion with “Out for Wendy” day of action events in seven cities across the state. The events will feature surrogates from Davis’ daughter, Amber Davis, to Houston Mayor Annise Parker, to Libby Willis, the Democrat vying to replace Davis in the Texas Senate. According to a release from the Davis campaign, the “Out for Wendy” events are designed “to highlight the stark choice voters have in this election between Wendy Davis, someone who will fight for everyone regardless of who they are or who they love, and Greg Abbott, a political insider who uses his office to make deals at the expense of hardworking Texans.”

“Wendy Davis has been a staunch advocate for the LGBT community,” the release states. “As a member of the Fort Worth City Council Davis coauthored a nondiscrimination work ordinance to protect all same-sex couples in the workplace, which was later use as a blueprint for all nondiscrimination ordinances across the state. Davis also believes that all same-sex couples should have the right to marry in Texas. In contrast, Greg Abbott continues to defend the same-sex marriage ban in court and has yet to denounce the Republican Party of Texas for endorsing ‘reparative therapy’ practices to its platform.”

[font color=green]Events are being held in Austin, Dallas, Edinburg, Fort Worth, Houston, Laredo and San Antonio. For more details: http://www.lonestarq.com/wendy-davis-campaign-plans-wendy-day-action-saturday/ [/font]

October 11, 2014

Cornyn, McCaul want Ebola screening at D/FW and Houston IAH, too

WASHINGTON – Ahead of today’s first congressional hearing on the response to Ebola’s arrival in Texas, top lawmakers are prodding the government to add the state’s busiest airports to the list of those screening passengers arriving from West Africa.

Sen. John Cornyn and House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Austin, issued the demand in a letter to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske. They ask that Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport be included in the new screening procedures.

Those procedures apply only to the five airports that account for 94 percent of passengers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea: John F. Kennedy in New York, Newark, Chicago O’Hare, Atlanta, and Washington Dulles. Dulles is where Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who died in Dallas on Wednesday of Ebola, arrived from Brussels before heading to DFW.

On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security announced fever checks and questioning for travel history for anyone from the Ebola-affected countries. About 150 such people arrive each day in the United States, officials say.

Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/cornyn-mccaul-want-ebola-screening-at-dfw-and-houston-iah-too.html/

[font color=green]Airport envy?[/font]

October 10, 2014

Perry lawyers seek order for grand jury testimony

Lawyers for Gov. Rick Perry asked a judge Friday to order the special prosecutor in the criminal case against the governor to produce transcripts of secret grand jury testimony.

Perry’s attorneys say the transcripts are needed for the judge to properly review their previous requests to dismiss the indictment. In their court filing, they say special prosecutor Michael McCrum has said he’s “too busy” to call the grand jury court reporter to order the transcripts and would only do so if ordered by the judge.

McCrum said he hasn’t reviewed the filing and declined comment in advance of a Monday status hearing on the case. Perry, who had previously scheduled a state business trip to Europe, has been excused from attending that hearing.

Perry was indicted on two felony counts of abuse of power for threatening to veto state funding for the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County district attorney’s office if District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg didn’t resign following her drunken-driving conviction. The governor followed through on the threat.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/perry-lawyers-seek-order-for-grand-jury-testimony/nhgY6/

October 10, 2014

Davis TV ad focuses on Abbott in wheelchair

AUSTIN, Texas — A new television ad by Democrat Wendy Davis goes into territory she hadn't touched until now: Republican Greg Abbott's use of a wheelchair.

A 30-second ad released Friday and titled "Justice" notes the Texas Attorney General recovered millions in a lawsuit after he was injured by a falling tree in 1984, and accuses him of not siding with victims like himself in Texas courts.

It drew a swift rebuke from national conservative groups and the Abbott campaign, which called it "disgusting" and "desperate."

"It's her choice if she wants to attack a guy in a wheelchair," Abbott said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board after the ad's release. "I don't think it's going to sell too well."

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/political/davis-tv-ad-touches-on-abbott-disability/nhgW3/

October 10, 2014

Making the case against Obama's new war

WHEN BARACK Obama strode to the podium of the United Nations in late September and made his case for yet another U.S. war in the Middle East--this time against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its "network of death"--he sounded like no one so much as his despised predecessor and the neocon hawks of the Bush administration.

This throwback to the Bush years is more than just verbal. Obama invoked George W. Bush's legal justification for the Iraq war--the infamous Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed days after September 11, 2001, which Obama and his outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder once thought so suspect that they promised to repeal it.

Just like Bush, Obama has bypassed Congress and the United Nations to create his own "coalition of the willing," comprised of some 40 countries, including several authoritarian Arab states, to prosecute the war.

Barack Obama--who, once upon a time, derided the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a "dumb war," in part because it gave rise to murderous sectarian forces like ISIS--has now launched the third U.S. war in Iraq in less than a quarter century, and now with accompanying air strikes in Syria.

Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2014/10/07/the-case-against-obamas-new-war

[font color=green]An interesting article regarding US imperialism in the Middle East.[/font]

October 9, 2014

Court hands Texas abortion providers another setback

A federal appeals court Thursday declined to reconsider a March decision that allowed Texas to require abortion doctors to gain admitting privileges in a nearby hospital. The ruling included a caustic dissent from three justices who would have overruled the earlier decision.

Abortion providers had asked the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the unanimous decision by a three-judge panel, arguing that some doctors have been unable to comply, forcing clinics to close and placing an undue burden on women seeking an abortion.

That request was denied, without elaboration, 12-3.

However, the order included an unusually long and forceful 62-page dissent by Justice James Dennis, who said the decision to allow the admitting privileges rule was based on reasoning that had been previously rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/court-hands-texas-abortion-providers-another-setba/nhfkT/

October 9, 2014

Dallas Morning News endorses Sam Houston (D) for Texas attorney general over Paxton

Serious legal issues dogging Republican state Sen. Ken Paxton should rule him out for consideration to be the next attorney general of Texas. It’s fortunate for voters that there’s a solid alternative in a Houston attorney whose name isn’t easy to forget.

Career litigator Sam Houston, a Democrat, is making his second run for office, having been on the ballot in 2008 in an unsuccessful run for the Supreme Court of Texas.

-snip-

Paxton’s impaired candidacy stems from his written admission that he broke state law by failing to register with the State Securities Board even though he solicited paying clients for a financial services firm that paid him a 30 percent cut. It wasn’t a one-time slipup on Paxton’s part. The Securities Board’s civil complaint against him cites solicitations from 2004, 2005 and 2012.

As if to make the situation vanish, Paxton, 51, a veteran lawmaker from McKinney, declined to contest the disciplinary order and paid a $1,000 fine in May. But the matter lives on. A complaint has been filed with the Travis County district attorney’s office, which has postponed any decision on taking the matter to a grand jury until after the election. That raises the possibility of felony charges against a sitting attorney general, the state’s chief law enforcement officer. Voters should not invite that kind of embarrassment for Texas.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20141008-editorial-we-recommend-sam-houston-for-texas-attorney-general.ece