Despite the state Board of Pardons and Parole voting to spare Robert Lee Thompson's life, Bush Jr's successor, Rick 'Hair Club of Men' Perry voted to kill him anyway. Why have a board when you have a dictator?

In 2005, homophobic lawmakers in Texas inserted this clause into the state constitution: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” Their intent was prevent same-sex civil unions, but instead their incompetence may have opened the door to costly lawsuits and expense to the state.

The appeals court today rejected Soffar's argument that the trial judge erred by refusing to admit evidence that another man confessed to committing the murders, and that this man committed a series of highly similar robbery-murders in Tennessee. The man, Paul Reid, formerly of Houston, now awaits execution on Tennessee's death row. A photograph of Reid, taken in Houston nine days after the crime, strongly resembles the composite sketch the police prepared based on the description of the sole witness to the crime.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state. The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that 'marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.' But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: 'This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.' Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively 'eliminates marriage in Texas,' including common-law marriages."

Guy Fawkes Day attack: Gunman Kills at Least 7, Wounds 30 at Ft. Hood 05 Nov 2009 (Texas) Third Gunman has opened up on SWAT team - Fort Hood, the largest military base in the US, is under lockdown --Shooters were wearing military uniforms, armed with military-style weapons. At least one suspect is in custody. At least different shooting areas and three different shooters participated in the attack. The assault was pre-mediated and well-planned. Injuries stand at thirty. Nine schools on Ft. Hood are under lockdown. Shooting began at 1:30 Central Time.

"Cathie Adams, head of the far-right Texas Eagle Forum, is the new chair of the Republican Party of Texas. The State Republican Executive Committee announced Ms. Adams’s election to that post today. (The previous chair took a position in Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign.) So now we get to see how even more extreme the Texas GOP will get."

On October 13, we lost a resolute champion of the law, a man who left his impact on the lives of untold numbers of Americans. His very name made his life's work almost inevitable, a matter of destiny. William Wayne Justice was a Federal judge for the Eastern District of Texas. That's right, he was "Justice Justice." And he spent a distinguished legal career making sure that everyone -- no matter their color or income or class -- got a fair shake. As a former Texas lieutenant governor put it last week, "Judge Justice dragged Texas into the 20th century, God bless him." Dragged it kicking and screaming, for it was Justice who ordered Texas to integrate its public schools in 1971 -- 17 years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision made separate schools for blacks and whites unconstitutional. Texas resisted doing the right thing for as long as it could. Many of its segregated schools for African-American children were so poor they still had outhouses instead of indoor plumbing. This small town lawyer appointed to the federal bench by President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered Texas to open its public housing to everyone, regardless of their skin color.---The late, great Molly Ivins said, "He brought the United States Constitution to Texas."

“The county rejected 70,000 voter applications last year for technical reasons,” he said. “The most in any other county in Texas was 3,000, and we think this resolution will ensure that problem won't occur.”Garry Birnberg, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, said the deal will ensure the registrar's office does not exceed the seven days that state law allows it to process a voter registration application or send the applicant a letter explaining why he or she was not registered.The settlement also precludes employees in the voter registration office from working for or having a financial interest in any company providing voter information to any candidate, political party or any other person or entity.

Dallas police wrongly ticketed at least 39 drivers for not speaking English over the last three years, Police Chief David Kunkle announced Friday while promising to investigate all officers involved in the cases for dereliction of duty.Pending cases will be dismissed, and those who paid the $204 fine for the charge, which does not exist in the city, will be reimbursed, Kunkle said. The case that led to the discovery of all the others occurred Oct. 2, when Ernestina Mondragon was stopped for making an illegal U-turn in the White Rock area. Rookie Officer Gary Bromley cited Mondragon for three violations: disregarding a traffic control device, failure to present a driver's license and "non-English speaking driver."In that case and perhaps the others, officials said, the officer was confused by a pull-down menu on his in-car computer that listed the charge as an option. But the law the computer referred to is a federal statute regarding commercial drivers that Kunkle said his department does not enforce.

Texas oil man T. Boone Pickets claims the US is 'entitled' to Iraqi oil. How convenient for the oil barons who conspired with Dick Cheney to carve up the oil fields of Iraq before 911 would give Bush the pretext he would need to attack and invade Iraq, a nation that had nothing whatsoever to do with 911.

A Dallas judge rules that Texas' ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

Texas Republicans are such an upstanding bunch. It must be the religious environment that keeps them honest and moral. Russell is accused of participating in a scheme in which authorities pull over mostly African-American motorists driving along a state highway in Tenaha, TX without cause, ask if they are carrying cash and, if so, order them to sign over the cash to the town or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

Based on this history, I wasn't totally shocked to learn that President Bush's abstinence-only program led to a 57 percent rise in student pregnancy in the Lone Star state. What was truly shocking were the recent headlines that some Texas schools are abandoning abstinence-only education! No kidding, guys, what tipped you off that it wasn't working? Abstinence-only programs were big in Texas. The state received more program funding than any other state in the nation. But the biggest experiment of this idea demonstrated the biggest failures. Classic Texas.

"In a first for Texas, a judge ruled Thursday that two men married in another state can divorce here and that the state's ban on gay marriage violates the U.S. Constitution. Both a voter-approved state constitutional amendment and the Texas Family Code prohibit same-sex marriages or civil unions. Although the case is far from settled, and the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage is a long way from being thrown out, Dallas state District Judge Tena Callahan's ruling says the state prohibition of same-sex marriage violates the federal constitutional right to equal protection."

A Texas court affirms the right of a judge and a prosecutor who slept together to condemn a man to death.

"If anyone had any doubt that the Texas justice system operates in a parallel universe, look no further than the latest decision by the state's highest court in the case of death-row inmate Charles Dean Hood. On Wednesday the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) said it wasn't interested in examining whether there was a conflict of interest in Hood's 1990 trial simply because District Attorney Thomas S. O'Connell Jr., Hood's prosecutor, had had a long-term sexual relationship with presiding Judge Verla Sue Holland, an affair the two tried to hide for 20 years."

An innocent man has been executed in the Gulag State of Texas. This man, whose innocence is now proven, is the ultimate price that is paid for endemic, state-sponsored idiocy and less excuable psychopathy. Educational standards have declined under fascist GOP regimes --prominently Bush Jr and his successor Rick Perry, incarceration rates have risen and justice is applied inequitably. The death of innocents at the hands of a psychopathic, GOP dominated state is the price we pay for allowing the GOP any influence, any power.

With the help of George W. Bush and billions of tax dollars spent on Abstinence Only programs in American Schools - especially in Texas and other less than cold states - has been a complete failure.

"Jews and Hindus have urged the Texas State Board of Education to treat all the major religions and denominations evenly in its Social Studies curriculum, which is currently under revision." NOTE: Why am I thinking about blizzards in hell (non-Dantean) right about now?

"President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening. The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear."