TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalIn Israel, Ted Cruz blasts Palestinians and Obama administration
Source: Jerusalem Post
WASHINGTON – Visiting Israel, Sen. Ted Cruz placed blame Monday for the recent failure of peace talks squarely on Palestinians, and their refusal to renounce terror and to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
That, he said, is the “principal impediment to peace,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
He also was deeply critical of President Obama and his administration, asserting that his main approach in the region is “to criticize and harangue and pressure the Israeli government,” the Post reported.
He criticized the U.S. administration for pressuring Israel on the issue of settlements in the Palestinian territory. Those, Cruz said, are “a question for the government of Israel,” adding that it’s not America’s role “to try to impose a policy about where Israeli settlements are located and where they’re not.”
Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/in-israel-ted-cruz-blasts-palestinians-and-obama-administration.html/
Mexico City's Campaign To Encourage Breast-Feeding Backfires
Mexico City health official launched a new campaign this month to boost the image of nursing mothers. But posters of topless toned actresses weren't exactly the message women's groups and health advocates had hoped for.
"We were very surprised once the campaign was launched," says Regina Tames, of the reproductive rights group GIRE.
She was taken aback by pictures of topless actresses and one of the female boxer known as "La Barbie." She was shirtless, too — although she did have on her boxing gloves.
The stars aren't totally bare: a strategically placed banner crosses their chests. Written on the banner is the campaign's slogan in Spanish: "Don't turn your back on them ... Give them your breast."
More at http://kut.org/post/mexico-citys-campaign-encourage-breast-feeding-backfires .
A Mysterious Mailer Closes the Heated Runoff for Texas Lieutenant Governor (Offensive Faces Warning)
A political mailer was sent to hundreds of thousands of Republican voters recently, calling on them to elect what it called “Tea Party Champions” in tomorrow’s Republican runoff elections. But many Tea Party leaders in the state have never heard of the group that put out the glossy ad.
The previously unheard of "United Texas Tea Party" isn't the only fishy thing about this mailer, according to Tea Party activist Katrina Pierson. It shows Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst alongside Tea Party-backed candidates like Attorney General candidate Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner candidate Sid Miller. That’s despite the fact that most Tea Party groups back Dewhurst's opponent, State Sen. Dan Patrick.
"And the reason why we started looking at this closely is because it gave the illusion that the United Texas Tea Party mailer was a collaboration of several tea parties in Texas," Pierson says. "And it turns out that that is not the case."
The mailer doesn't include a website, email, phone number, or even the usual political disclaimer stating who paid for it. And it arrived just days before the election. Shocking right? Not really says Quorum Report editor Harvey Kronberg.
More at http://kut.org/post/mysterious-mailer-closes-heated-runoff-texas-lieutenant-governor .
Texas Teen Faces Life in Prison For Pot Brownies: The Stupid Flows in Williamson County
While many states have already legalized medical use of cannabis and 2 have moved to legalize it for recreational purposes, the supposedly small government loving state of Texas is still firmly under the spell of "reefer madness."
A Williamson County teenager now faces a sentence of 5 years to life for hash brownies. Even though 19 year old Jacob Lavoro is a first time offender the fact that his recipe included hash oil instead of plant matter raises the level of offense from a misdemeanor to a first degree felony.
That is because when weighing the substance authorities don't just include the weight of the hash oil but the entire weight of the brownies including: flower, chocolate, eggs, etc. That means Lavoro is being charged with having 1.4lbs of hash brownies instead of the mere few grams of hash oil he used.
Brunner seems to be OK with that explanation saying later in an official statement that, "unless the law changes, we will continue to prosecute such cases."
More at http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/15267/texas-teen-facing-up-to-life-in-prison-for-pot-brownies .
[font color=green]I'll have to warn my friend not to take the "green" apple muffins to Homecoming in Georgetown this fall.[/font]
Walter Williams: Liberty is under attack by elitists on college campuses
[font color=green]I usually refrain from posting columns by conservative hacks, but since it is a relatively slow news day and we have discussed the Eliott Rodgers shooting to death (I know, bad pun too soon), I thought I would post a thread that should unite nearly all DUers.
Have at it ladies and gentlemen![/font]
From the Nazis to the Stalinists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, and why is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation.
Basic to their agenda are the tools of indoctrination, propagandizing, proselytization. Once they gain power, as leftists have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses.
Back in 1964, it was Mario Savio, a campus leftist, who led the free speech movement at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, a movement that played a vital role in placing American universities center stage in the flow of political ideas, no matter how controversial, unpatriotic and vulgar.
The free speech movement gave birth to the hippie movement of the ’60s and ’70s. The longhaired, unkempt hippies of that era have grown up and now often find themselves being college professors, deans, provosts and presidents. Their intolerance of free speech and other ideas has become policy and practice on many college campuses.
More at http://lubbockonline.com/editorial-columnists/2014-05-25/williams-liberty-under-attack-elitists-college-campuses#comment-334706 .
Oklahoma state senator arrested for DWI in Texas
OKLAHOMA CITY —
Law enforcement officials in Texas say Oklahoma state Sen. Harry Coates has been arrested on a drunken driving complaint.
Lt. Rickey Wheeler of the Grayson County Sheriff's Department said Saturday Coates was arrested Thursday night in northeastern Texas on a complaint of driving while intoxicated.
Wheeler says Coates, a Republican from Seminole, was arrested at 10:55 p.m. by police officers in Howe, Texas, located about 20 miles south of the Texas-Oklahoma border.
Wheeler says the 63-year-old Coates was booked into the Grayson County Jail at 12:30 a.m. Friday and released at 4 a.m. on $1,500 bail. Howe Police Chief Carl Hudman did not immediately return a telephone call.
More at http://www.statesman.com/news/ap/texas/oklahoma-state-senator-arrested-for-dwi-in-texas/nfyff/ .
[font color=green]Dear Oklahoma,
You can have him back.
Sincerely,
Texas[/font]
Look out Katy and NW Houston--strong storm heading your direction
I was taking a nap when I heard a loud thunk against the apartment rails outside the apartment. The wind was howling and when I opened the door I could hear the police sirens blaring. We got a deluge in the storm. It stopped raining about 15 minutes later, but the radar showed red and purple areas and looked like it was developing a hook. This cell is heading in a northeasterly direction while the front passing through the state is heading to the southeast and is beginning to break apart.
Southwestern Pirates Beat Stuttgart Scorpions 48-7
The Southwestern University Pirates triumphed 48-7 over German Football League side the Stuttgart Scorpions on Sunday.
The highlight of an overseas spring tour from their home base in Georgetown, Texas to Germany with Global Football saw the Pirates take on a Scorpions team that has opened the new 2014 GFL season with three wins and currently tops the GFL South Division in a domestic league that is considered the most competitive on the continent.
The game was part of a unique ‘Super Global Sunday’ double-header as for the first time in 19 years of exporting American football around the world to 21 nations, Global Football had two teams playing simultaneously in two different European countries. While Southwestern met the Scorpions, in Vienna, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps faced the Austrian national team in the annual spectacle, the Turkish Airlines Charity Bowl.
The Pirates opened the scoring when Bryan Hicks went on a 36-yard touchdown run behind block of Will Irving and Laith Tucker tagged on the extra point. Hicks then went 31 yards through the air with a scoring pass to Hunter Hazen, capitalizing on an earlier fumble recovery by Taylor Fann.
More at http://globalfootball.com/southwestern-pirates-beat-stuttgart-scorpions-48-7/ .
My alma mater's first win since 1950! We started playing football (NCAA Div. III) again in 2013 after a hiatus of 63 years, but went 0-10
Brakin Mews: Meowmorial Dai – Speshul Edishun!
Cats may not fit the traditional definition of "hero," but their actions on the home front definitely earn them the right to that title … well, sort of.
Dogs are almost always portrayed as the four-legged heroes of the armed services. But what a lot of people don’t know is that the humble feline has its own vital role in the soldiering world. Although a Google search for pictures of cats and soldiers produces more than 4.5 million results, the truth is that Kitty tends to be happier serving his tour of duty on the home front.
For example, on Meowmorial Day weekend, the first long weekend of the summer in the U.S., the noble cat begins his day with the difficult job of helping the children stay in bed until their parents are ready to wake up.
If there’s a parade in town, the humble cat won’t bother you by begging to go with you. It’s not that cats don’t like parades, mind you; it’s just that — well, okay, cats don’t like parades. Parades are entirely too noisy and there are way too many feet waiting to step on carelessly placed tails.
After a busy morning of hiding from lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners, and other instruments of torture, the cat once again resumes battle stations, this time offering to sacrifice himself for the good of the family by taste-testing any meat that’s destined for the afternoon barbecue.
Because your heroic cat doesn’t want you to have to suffer the indignity of cleaning the grill after your Meowmorial Day barbecue, he’ll humbly step forward and offer to clean it for you. He might not even wait until the charcoal is completely extinguished!
All kidding aside, there is one way in which cats truly are heroes: They remind us that we’re human and allow us to reopen our wounded hearts. This is the most important, and probably the most heroic, thing that our cats do for our troops while they’re on active duty and once they return home and work to readjust to life as civilians.
Meowmorial Day is about a lot more than beer, ball games, and barbecue: It’s a day to honor the sacrifices made by our armed forces and their families, both human and animal. Loyalty is not easily given by cats, and trust me when I say that cats most assuredly do grieve the loss of those men and women who earned that loyalty.
http://www.catster.com/the-scoop/what-memorial-day-means-to-cats
Accountability And Justice Are Not Bloodlust But Billionaires Should Be Treated Like Everyone Else
Recently 48 Hours tried to persuade me to do a live interview about a friend of mine who was murdered. I've been resisting for a simple reason. Although the murderer, from one of the wealthiest families in New York, has killed several times and is demonstrably psychotic and was even caught with body parts of one of his victims, he was rich enough to get off. He's happily, walking the streets today, a free man. I'm going to go on national TV and talk about someone who murders with impunity and gets off because he's from a billionaire family? Nah… I don't think so.
A billionaire in America would have to be uncannily unlucky to get punished for his crimes, although its pretty much impossible to become a billionaire-- an existentially dangerous anti-social construct-- without a very serious criminal career. The entire ethos of greed, avarice and egoism that defines American capitalistic excess made it entirely predictable that none of the culprits in the on-going destruction of the American economy and middle class-- not the banksters and not the bribed and cowed political elites who enable them-- would ever face justice. The wasn't the kind of "change" Obama was talking about. Nor the kind of "hope."
Damon Silvers is Special Counnsel for the AFL-CIO and their Director of Policy. He served with Elizabeth Warren on COP, the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP. Yesterday, as part of a conversation about Tim Geithner's Stress Test, he told me that "the issue is not pragmatism versus punishment. Its about bad economic decisions in the service of plutocracy." Generously, he continued:
Geithner should have to address this economic catastrophe and its disastrous political consequences? for the President he advised and the country he served before the discussion of morality begins. Instead he stands amid the ruins hawking books saying there was no alternative. Of course the alternative of restructuring both the banks and the mortgage loans was what everyone from Paul Krugman to the IMF to the American Enterprise Institute was urging at the time, because that was what had been done in every other modern US banking crisis, and done successfully.
- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/05/accountability-and-justice-are-not.html
Profile Information
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: 112,058
