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Texas Home School Coalition PAC
A statewide political action committee serving home schoolers for more than 20 years
March 7, 2009
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In This Issue
Around Texas
Presidential News
National News
Commentaries
Miscellaneous
Teen Driver Safety - Round II
Around Texas

 

Concealed Carry on College Campuses Is on Texas Lawmakers' Agenda

Jason Bowman would feel safer walking to his night classes at Tarrant County College if he had his concealed handgun.

 

Report - Weaknesses Expelled from Texas Schools

by Terri Leo, State Board of Education

In spite of a reported 6500 constituent emails, three-quarters of the public testifiers, and recommendations of half of the "experts" to keep weaknesses in theories and two-thirds of the "experts" to keep weaknesses of hypotheses, Darwinists succeeded in deceiving eight members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) on most votes -- including a decisive one specifically related to retaining "strengths and weaknesses" in biology standards.  How did YOUR SBOE member vote? (Above was typical vote split--8 votes were required to pass, hence passed items needed abstentions or swing votes from the above 8 NOs to pass.  Note that Craig, Hardy, and Miller are Republicans).

 

Fiscal Restraint Key to Economic Recovery

by Representative Phil King

As a board member of the Texas Conservative Coalition (TCC), the conservative caucus of the Texas Legislature, I am excited to talk to you about our roadmap for a responsible state budget.

 

Texas Independence

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

Texas Independence Day, that is. We should pause to consider not only the blessings of our great state, but the dedication of those who declared our freedom on March 2, 1836.

 

Measure Would Move Sex Ed in Texas Away from Abstinence-Only

Texas' sex education curriculum, which now teaches abstinence as the only form of birth control, would include more medical information about contraception and disease prevention under a bill proposed Monday by Democratic lawmakers.

 

Californication of Texas

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

Just what does an economic disaster look like? California is a good place to start. They have tried to spend and tax their way out of horrible economic times and only made matters mind-numbingly worse. And some Texas lawmakers cannot work fast enough to make us look like California.

 

Democrats in Austin Want Perry to Take More Stimulus Aid for Unemployment

Texas should take a half-billion more federal stimulus dollars that it can tap by allowing more jobless workers to qualify for aid, Democrat legislative leaders said Tuesday.

 

Bill Would Raise License Hurdles for Teen Drivers

Obtaining a license to drive could get tougher for Texas teenagers.

  

Presidential News
 

Obama Offered Deal to Russia in Secret Letter

President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia's president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday.

 

Obama on Education: Right Talk, Wrong Walk

by Star Parker

I share President Obama's concerns about education. We certainly need to do a better job, particularly in our low-income communities. But, from what I see so far, we're on very different pages regarding how to think about the problem.

 

Top Democrats Cross Obama on Earmarks

President Obama's drive to change Washington's free-spending ways is running into a buzz saw of opposition from his party, as another top congressional Democrat on Tuesday bucked the president's plan to curb pork projects.

 

Obama's War On Energy

by Gary Bauer

On Monday, hundreds of global warming protestors came to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against Capitol Hill's coal-fired power plant. The same day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to address the environmental activists at a Capitol Hill rally. Evidently, Mother Nature didn't get the memo. A major snow storm forced the cancellation of Pelosi's flight back to Washington, and temperatures hovered around freezing throughout the day, well below the average for early March.

 
National News
 

Cabinet-Pick Kirk Owes $10,000 in Back Taxes

Ron Kirk's excess deductions for basketball tickets and failure to report speaking fees as income have cost him $10,000 in back taxes, a Senate committee disclosed Monday, in the latest IRS-related embarrassment for an Obama Cabinet pick.

 

R.N.C. Chairman Apologizes to Limbaugh in Flap Over His Role

The new chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, apologized to Rush Limbaugh on Monday after describing him in a television interview over the weekend as an "entertainer" who made incendiary and sometimes ugly remarks, party officials said.

 

Rush vs. The Radicals

by Gary Bauer

In yesterday's report, I noted that the dustup between Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party was a "coordinated" effort that clearly benefits the Left. Today, there is proof, and it is more evidence that this White House has embraced "the politics of personal destruction," as best defined by the "godfather" of radical politics, Saul Alinsky.

 

Limbaugh Benefits from Obama's Attacks

By one measure, Rush Limbaugh is a definite winner this week. His ratings have almost doubled since his dispute with the White House exploded into the media limelight.

 

Bush Reversed Wartime Powers

In its final days, the George W. Bush administration issued a Justice Department opinion dramatically reversing most of the legal arguments that governed its war on terrorism - from interrogations to electronic surveillance.

 

For GOP: All Pain, No Gain

by Ben Smith

Four months after John McCain's sweeping defeat, senior Republicans are coming to grips with the fact that the party is still - in stock market terms - looking for the bottom.

 

While Fighting Wasteful Spending, Sen. Hutchison Tops List of Texas' Earmarkers

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison fought against earmarks this week, urging her colleagues to trim wasteful spending from a $410 billion bill and even voting to strip all 8,500 earmarks from the measure. Yet Hutchison also was the state's biggest sponsor of earmarks - more than $150 million for Texas.

 
Commentaries
 

Cube-Steak Americans vs. The Wagyu-Beef White House

by Michelle Malkin

Maybe thrift isn't dead after all. The Year of the Bottomless Bailout has yielded a much needed correction in the lives of ordinary Americans. While fiscal restraint is AWOL in Washington, individual frugality has made a cultural comeback. Better late than never.

 
Miscellaneous
 

The Big 21st Century Children's Book Banning: CPSC Rulings on Lead in Childrens' Books ~ Perspective of One Book Restorer and Conservator

I love (but do not idolize) old books. I have just a few of my Grandfather's old schoolbooks. They would be banned now...

 

Librarians Fight to Get Children's Books Exempted from New Lead Rules

The new federal law designed to protect children from dangerous exposure to lead continues to have repercussions far beyond the toy and paint industries.

 

Carolyn Meadows Nominated for NRA Board

by Tim Lambert

In the late 1990's I had the privilege of serving Texas Republicans on the Republican National Committee.  During that time I met several staunch conservatives from around the country who were willing to take a stand for freedom and conservative causes that were not popular with the Republican leadership.  One of those friends was Carolyn Meadows from Georgia.  She and I served together in several leadership positions from the Southern Region on the RNC and I got to know her quite well.  She is strongly pro-life and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment.  In fact, she has been nominated again to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association (NRA).  If you are a member of the NRA, I would strongly urge you to vote for her as she will be listed in the March NRA magazines. 

 
 
Articles in THSC PAC's weekly E-Newsletter are included because of their potential interest to the home school community of Texas.  Inclusion does not signify an endorsement. We encourage parents to oversee any Internet usage by students.  THSC is not responsible for any material or ads that may be encountered when clicking on links that take the reader away from the THSC PAC web site.
 
Teen Driver Safety - Round II
 

tim06 

Tim Lambert

Home schoolers made themselves heard this week before and during a hearing at the House Public Education Committee. Calls came into the committee in support of HB 339 and testified at the hearing as well. As I mentioned last week, this bill is an effort to impact the high numbers of teen driver accidents in Texas. The bill will reinstate the in car driving test for all new drivers by the DPS as well as extend limits on new teen drivers from six months to a year. A requirement for more hours of experience behind the wheel has also been included, which studies and experts agree should make teens safer drivers, but whether the schools or parents give the added experience remains to be seen. The requirement that all public schools offer driver education classes received some opposition and many observers doubt that the provision will become law. SB 1077 by Carona has been filed in the Texas Senate and is a similar measure.

In an interesting note, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) said that since 1997 when parent-taught driver education was established public school driver ed has fallen to about 12% of those receiving driver education while parent taught has increased to about 32% and commercial driver education numbers have remained steady at about 38%.
 
 
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