TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalDavis agrees to Sept. 30 debate
AUSTIN—Sen. Wendy Davis, the Democratic nominee for governor, agreed to join GOP nominee Greg Abbott for a Sept. 30 televised statewide debate in Dallas hosted by KERA, The Dallas Morning News, Telemundo 39/KXTX-TV,and NBC (Channel 5). It is the second of two debates scheduled.
The announcement comes days after a prickly debate over debates erupted between the governor candidates. Last Friday, Abbott, the state’s attorney general, withdrew from a different debate scheduled on Sept. 30 hosted by WFAA-TV and the Texas Tribune citing an inability to agree on debate format, his campaign said. Later, the attorney general accepted an invitation for the KERA debate on the same day, which his campaign said provided for a more “thoughtful and substantive policy discussion.”
Davis did not immediately accept the invitation, stating then that she would meet with WFAA-TV, a host of the originally scheduled debate, on Tuesday before making a decision.
“After a conversation with KERA this morning, we have agreed to a debate format that should give Greg Abbott the confidence he needs after his multiple losses in the courtroom over the past week,” Davis’ spokesman Zac Petkanas said Wednesday, referring to a school finance case and HB 2 ruling in which the attorney general’s office represented the state.
Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/davis-agrees-to-sept-30-debate.html/
Abortion provider soon to reopen on Texas border
AUSTIN, Texas —
An abortion provider says the Rio Grande Valley this week will again have an abortion clinic for the first time in six months.
Whole Women's Health chief executive Amy Hagstrom Miller said Wednesday that her McAllen clinic is already scheduling weekend appointments. It had closed in March under sweeping new Texas abortion restrictions that also shuttered other facilities statewide.
The McAllen clinic is reopening after a federal judge Friday blocked part of the law from being enforced in the underserved Rio Grande Valley and El Paso areas.
But questions are also being raised about whether the wording of that ruling applies to all clinics in Texas. That uncertainty has led state health officials to stop definitively citing clinics that violate a new admitting-privileges mandate for doctors who perform abortions.
http://www.statesman.com/news/ap/texas/abortion-provider-soon-to-reopen-on-texas-border/nhFKt/
Border surge boon to local hotels
RIO GRANDE CITY — After Gov. Rick Perry mobilized the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety to the Rio Grande Valley, some local hotels are seeing a jump in occupancy resulting in more tax revenue for cities.
Perry and his supporters said the heightened security presence would support inundated U.S. Border Patrol agents trying to catch human smugglers and drug traffickers hiding among the influx of Central American immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The move has also benefited lodging establishments where soldiers and state troopers have been staying.
In Rio Grande City, National Guardsmen and DPS troopers snapped up rooms not already occupied by oil pipeline or wind farm workers. Meaning that, for many, it’s a good time to be in the hotel business.
Read more: http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/border-surge-boon-to-local-hotels/article_7726df76-3316-11e4-b8b8-001a4bcf6878.html
Abbott defends raid on Houston voter registration group
Attorney General Greg Abbott said Tuesday that his office’s investigation of a Houston voter registration group that netted no prosecutions but left the organization in tatters was justified.
The 2010 investigation, which included an aggressive raid, targeted a group called Houston Votes, which was accused of voter fraud.
“We have a division that focuses on issues like this, and they operate very professional,” he said. “They undertook an investigation of allegations that were made.”
Abbott, the Republican nominee for governor, unveiled the final piece of his education proposals at the University of Texas at Dallas on Tuesday. Afterward, he told The Dallas Morning News that allegations of wrongdoing by the group started with the Harris County tax assessor-collector’s office, were given to the secretary of state and were forwarded to his office.
Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20140902-abbott-defends-raid-on-houston-voter-registration-group.ece
Related thread:
Abbott’s Houston raid didn’t end with arrests, but shut down voter drive
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107820475
Legal challenge of Texas voter ID law kicks off in federal court
CORPUS CHRISTI - A challenge of the Texas voter ID kicked off in federal court Tuesday in Corpus Christi with opening statements and a first round of evidentiary testimony.
The trial comes about two months before the November midterm elections, and opponents of the voter photo ID law are hoping for a quick resolution so the higher standard of voter identification is thrown out before election day.
“We’ve made it no secret that this case is important and needs to be ruled on before the next election,” Chad Dunn, an attorney for the plaintiffs opposing the bill, told the Caller-Times after the first day of hearings. “Evidence out there shows that hundreds of thousands in this state don’t have the photo ID they need.”
Dunn and the other plaintiffs cite a Harvard professor’s analysis that estimates about 787,000 registered voters in Texas are ineligible to vote because they lack necessary identification.
Read more: http://www.caller.com/news/local-news/legal-challenge-of-texas-voter-id-law-kicks-off-in-federal-court_44303123
Wendy Davis stopping by Texas A&M during 5-day college tour
COLLEGE STATION -- Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis will visit Texas A&M today as part of a five-college tour to kick off the last few months before the November election.
A rally for Davis will be held at 5 p.m. at Rudder Tower.
Davis visited the University of Houston and Prairie View A&M University on Tuesday. Also included in the tour are the University of Texas-San Antonio and University of North Texas.
Davis' Republican challenger, Attorney General Greg Abbott, plans to visit Bryan-College Station in mid-September, but has not scheduled any public appearances, according to Avdiel Huerta, a spokesman for the campaign.
Read more: http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/wendy-davis-stopping-by-texas-a-m-during--day/article_b166ba7a-c74a-5941-9bd3-b481b3b51c94.html
[font color=maroon]This thread is for you Texas Progresive.[/font] 
$1 billion electricity line to run through South Texas
In January, Texans broke a record set in February 2011 for energy use as those used to warmer temperatures cranked up heaters, putting aging electricity infrastructure statewide at risk for rolling blackouts.
The 2011 cold snap prompted the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Public Utility Commission to approve a new $1 billion line for the Rio Grande Valley, where more than 1.3 million people rely on two 20-year-old electricity lines that run down from the Corpus Christi area to North Edinburg and Rio Hondo.
Because the line would theoretically reduce congestion on the state power grid, the $1 billion will be borne out by all electricity users in the state.
The line, which is set to be completed in 2016, is part of the Cross Valley Project, headed by American Electric Power Texas and its affiliate, Electric Transmission Texas.
Read more: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/valley/article_9da6b2de-32b7-11e4-8b01-0017a43b2370.html
Abbott supports prosecutors’ unit (Public Integrity Unit) vetoed by Perry
RICHARDSON — Attorney General Greg Abbott on Tuesday said he supports keeping the state-funded unit of prosecutors investigating public corruption that Gov. Rick Perry vetoed, a move that later led to a felony indictment.
Speaking after a campaign event, the Republican candidate for governor said he believed it was important for state lawmakers to have “a watchdog with prosecutorial authority.”
“And I believe that when the sun sets on the next session, we will still have a Public Integrity Unit,” Abbott said in a brief interview.
-snip-
Abbott declined to support Perry’s call for the indictment to be dismissed. While he did not defend Perry as forcefully as other Republican officials in Texas have, Abbott said it appeared to him that the governor did nothing wrong.
Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/abbott-supports-prosecutors-unit-vetoed-by-perry/nhD22/
Local LGBT Community Holds Gay Pride Event In Lubbock
Kat Cade, a Texas Tech student and lifelong Lubbock resident, organized Lubbock Pride. Photo Credit Joshua Abreo
LUBBOCK, Tex. — The rainbow flag did not fly at Lubbock’s fourth gay pride festival on Aug. 23. Instead it was tied to a chain-link fence behind a community center east of Interstate 27 in a rundown industrial part of town. Despite the humble location, the daylong event with speakers and live music attracted about 400 people and was a milestone for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in this mostly conservative and religious Panhandle city.
For the last three years, Lubbock Pride has been organized by Kat Cade, a 24-year-old Texas Tech University geography major and lifelong Lubbock resident. (The first Pride event, in 2011, was held by a different group.) After coming out as a lesbian in 2010, Ms. Cade started networking with local support groups like the South Plains College Gay Straight Alliance, the Texas Tech University Gay Straight Alliance and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
While she kept running into the same few people at meetings, she suspected there was a larger gay population in the area. She and a friend believed an annual event could help extend support to those people.
Not knowing about available resources, Ms. Cade said, is “such an immensely lonely feeling. And then the minute you realize, ‘Oh, there’s a group of people just like me,’ it’s so uplifting.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/us/community-makes-itself-known-with-discretion.html?_r=4
Additional coverage at http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/15645/local-lgbt-community-holds-gay-pride-event-in-west-texas .
Cross-posted in the Texas Group.
Local LGBT Community Holds Gay Pride Event In Lubbock
Kat Cade, a Texas Tech student and lifelong Lubbock resident, organized Lubbock Pride. Photo Credit Joshua Abreo
LUBBOCK, Tex. — The rainbow flag did not fly at Lubbock’s fourth gay pride festival on Aug. 23. Instead it was tied to a chain-link fence behind a community center east of Interstate 27 in a rundown industrial part of town. Despite the humble location, the daylong event with speakers and live music attracted about 400 people and was a milestone for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in this mostly conservative and religious Panhandle city.
For the last three years, Lubbock Pride has been organized by Kat Cade, a 24-year-old Texas Tech University geography major and lifelong Lubbock resident. (The first Pride event, in 2011, was held by a different group.) After coming out as a lesbian in 2010, Ms. Cade started networking with local support groups like the South Plains College Gay Straight Alliance, the Texas Tech University Gay Straight Alliance and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
While she kept running into the same few people at meetings, she suspected there was a larger gay population in the area. She and a friend believed an annual event could help extend support to those people.
Not knowing about available resources, Ms. Cade said, is “such an immensely lonely feeling. And then the minute you realize, ‘Oh, there’s a group of people just like me,’ it’s so uplifting.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/us/community-makes-itself-known-with-discretion.html?_r=4
Additional coverage at http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/15645/local-lgbt-community-holds-gay-pride-event-in-west-texas .
Cross-posted in the LGBT Group.
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Gender: MaleHometown: South Texas. most of my life I lived in Austin and Dallas
Home country: United States
Current location: Bryan, Texas
Member since: Sun Aug 14, 2011, 03:57 AM
Number of posts: 112,150
