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Who’s Behind Unpaid Prison Labor In Texas?

May 20, 2016 Aaron Cantú, www.littlesis.org , ,
By Aaron Cantú for Little Sis News - Several of the officials charged with regulating Texas’s prison labor program, wherein thousands of workers behind bars are compelled to produce goods and provide services for free, are connected to some of the richest and most powerful institutions and people in the state. The Texas Board of Criminal Justice, which oversees Texas Correctional Industries (TCI), the prison industry division within the state’s Department of Criminal Justice, has authority over how much compensation inmates working for the state receive for their labor.

Alabama & Texas Take Side Of ExxonMobil In Climate Investigation

May 18, 2016 David Hasemyer, www.insideclimatenews.org , , , ,
By David Hasemyer for Inside Climate News - The top law enforcement officials of Texas and Alabama are jumping in on the side of ExxonMobil, objecting to a racketeering investigation of the oil giant by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The attorneys general of Texas and Alabama filed notice that they intend to intervene in the case, contending that Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker is abusing his authority. According to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, Walker overstepped his bounds in opening the investigation that has no legal basis.

Who’s Behind Unpaid Prison Labor In Texas?

May 5, 2016 Aaron Miguel Cantú, www.truth-out.org ,
By Aaron Miguel Cantú for LittleSis News - Several of the officials charged with regulating Texas’s prison labor program, wherein thousands of workers behind bars are compelled to produce goods and provide services for free, are connected to some of the richest and most powerful institutions and people in the state. The Texas Board of Criminal Justice, which oversees Texas Correctional Industries (TCI), the prison industry division within the state’s Department of Criminal Justice, has authority over how much compensation inmates working for the state receive for their labor.

Austin Police Officer Caught On Video Pepper-Spraying Handcuffed Man

March 22, 2016 Ed Mazza, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
By Ed Mazza for The Huffington Post - The Austin Police Department has launched an investigation following the release of a video that shows an officer apparently pepper-spraying a handcuffed suspect. The video, posted on YouTube by local police watchdog group Peaceful Streets Project, shows an officer opening the door to the back of a police van last week during the South by Southwest Festival. “What’d I tell you about kicking the door?” the officer says to the subject inside.

What’s At Stake In Texas Abortion Case?

March 3, 2016 Dorothy Samuels, www.brennancenter.org , ,
By Dorothy Samuels for Brennan Center for Justice - "Read the small print" is sound advice before buying car insurance or signing for a reverse mortgage touted in a late-night infomercial. It is also the right approach for making sense of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the momentous abortion rights case from Texas now before the Supreme Court. The outcome will help determine whether safe and legal abortion care will be available to poor and disadvantaged women in large swathes of the country and could shape the real world contours of women's reproductive freedom for years to come.

Bland: Suspicions Mount, Fight To Expose Death Evidence

February 19, 2016 Michael McLaughlin, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
By Michael McLaughlin for The Huffington Post - Relatives of Sandra Bland, the jailed motorist who authorities say hanged herself in a Texas cell seven months ago, said they're still unable to get basic information about her death from authorities. Police files contain discrepancies, they said, and a videotape that investigators promised would show the hanging never materialized. Further, authorities haven't returned personal items confiscated from Bland when she was booked. A medical examiner ruled that Bland, 28, committed suicide on July 13, but her family is unconvinced, their lawyer said.

Massive Gas Pipeline Project Endures In Texas

February 17, 2016 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org , ,
By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - The oil and gas industry is in a state of free fall. With prices for both commodities lower then they have been in years, oil companies are cutting jobs and many major drilling projects across the United States have ground to a virtual standstill. Unlike the US, countries around the globe whose political apparatuses are not heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry are actively moving away from fossil fuels.

Armed Protesters Stalk Peaceful Muslims At Texas Mosque

November 27, 2015 Bethania Palma Markus, www.rawstory.com ,
Bethania Palma Markus for Raw Story - A group of armed protesters who wanted to “show force” gathered outside a Texas mosque Saturday in response to rumors about Syrian refugees and Sharia law. The group, calling itself the Bureau of American Islamic Relations, stationed itself outside the Islamic Center of Irving carrying signs with messages like, “Stop the Islamization of America,” according to the Dallas Morning News. A video taken at the mosque shows a man dressed in black with his face masked carrying a rifle.

Texas Rejects Allowing Academics To Fact-Check Public School Textbooks

November 26, 2015 Will Weissert, www.csmonitor.com , ,
By Will Weissert for The Christian Science Monitor - AUSTIN, TEXAS — Top Texas education officials rejected Wednesday letting university experts fact-check textbooks approved for use in public-school classrooms statewide, instead reaffirming a vetting system that has helped spark years of ideological battles over how potentially thorny lessons in history and science are taught. The Board of Education approves textbooks in the nation's second-largest state and stood by its vetting process — despite a Houston-area mother recently complaining that a world geography book used by her son's ninth grade class referred to African slaves as "workers." The publisher, McGraw-Hill Education, apologized and moved to make immediate edits.

U of Texas Professor Compares Palestinian Activists To Terrorists

November 23, 2015 Kit O'Connell , www.mintpressnews.com , ,
By Kit O'Connell for Mint Press News - AUSTIN, Texas — A planned walkout at a University of Texas at Austin event earlier this month erupted into a violent confrontation with the college’s professor of Israel Studies and another audience member. Now Palestinian activists say they feel unsafe on campus after the professor accused them of having ties to terrorism. The incident began at a Nov. 13 public lecture on the military culture of the Israeli Defense Forces. Twelve members of UT Austin’s Palestine Solidarity Committee planned to stage a short disruption to voice their objections to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and apartheid policies, then leave the event.

When We Fight: Keystone XL And Delegitimizing Fossil Fuels

November 10, 2015 Scott Parkin, www.counterpunch.org ,
By Scott Parkin for Counter Punch - Near the sprawling Dallas suburb of Garland, TX where I grew up are the east Texas piney woods that are now home to the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. In the blistering summer heat of 2012, I traveled there in support of the coalition of local Texas and Oklahoma landowners and radical environmentalists known as the Tar Sands Blockade that fought to stop the southern leg of the pipeline. A year before, Keystone XL had become a household name when over 1200 people participated in two weeks of sit-ins at the White House demanding that Barack Obama reject the pipeline. A few months after the White House sit-ins, Obama fast-tracked the permit for the southern leg with the stroke of a pen.

Hunger Strike At Texas Detention Center Swells Into The Hundreds

November 4, 2015 Kanya D'Almeida, www.rhrealitycheck.org , ,
By Kanya D'Almeida for RH Reality Check - The number of hunger strikers at a Texas immigrant detention facility has swelled to almost 500 since last Wednesday, an Austin-based advocacy group revealed in a phone call with RH Reality Check. When news of the protest action broke on October 28, about 27 women at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, 35 miles east of Austin, were reportedly refusing their meals. While grievances ranged from abusive treatment by guards to a lack of medical care, the women, hailing primarily from Central America, were unanimous in their one demand: immediate release.

Texas City Councilman Arrested Same Sheriff’s Dept As Sandra Bland

October 12, 2015 Nicole Hensley, www.nydailynews.com , ,
By Nicole Hensley for The Daily News - A Texas city councilman was stunned with a Taser while on his knees and then arrested outside his Prairie View home Thursday night — the same agency whose officer helped arrest Sandra Bland. The arrest involved a Prairie View cop – one of the city's six-officer force – with ties to Bland's arrest alongside Texas Department of Public Safety in July, authorities confirmed. Newly-elected Councilman Jonathan Miller identified himself as an elected official while stepping between Prairie View cops confronting four of his fraternity brothers practicing a step routine, local reports said.

Small Texas Town Banned Fracking, Then Oil Industry Stepped In

September 8, 2015 Adam Briggle, www.salon.com , , ,
By Adam Briggle in Salon - It was 6:30 a.m. on June 1 in Denton, Texas, and we had come to defend our fracking ban. Last November, Denton citizens voted in a landslide to ban hydraulic fracturing (an oil and gas well stimulation technique that can be invasive and toxic). The ban was our last option after years of trying to accommodate an industry that refused to compromise. In January 2013, we passed rules to keep fracking away from residential areas. But in September of that year, they kept on fracking less than 200 feet from homes. Gas well operators and industry representatives claimed they didn’t have to follow local rules, because they held more than 11,000 acres of Denton territory that were grandfathered under old laws written long before the impacts of fracking were understood. Without the ban, we feared our local regulations would be trampled again and again. It would be spell mass neighborhood industrialization across our town.

The American Lawn Is Now The Largest Single ‘Crop’ In The U.S.

August 24, 2015 Rob Wile, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
By Rob Wile in The Huffington Post - Americans’ lawns now cover an area three times larger than any irrigated crop in the U.S. According to a new study from NASA scientists in collaboration with researchers in the Mountain West, there is now an estimated total of 163,812 square kilometers, or more than 63,000 square miles, of lawn in America — about the size of Texas. The study was not about the growth of lawns, however. Instead, it focused on their impact on the environment and water resources. The researchers found that well manicured lawns can act as carbon sinks — meaning they would help mitigate climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, maintaining a well-manicured lawn uses up to 900 liters of water per person per day and reduces sequestration effectiveness by up to 35 percent by adding emissions from fertilization and the operation of mowing equipment.
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