PN-G bamatex

  Although I suspect I know what several of the answers to this question will be, I can't speak for anyone but myself, and no, I'm not okay with it. In fact, I think the only reason Rick Perry got behind that bill was to have something on his record that appeals to Hispanic voters in the event of a presidential campaign.   But that's not really the point here, is it? You're trying to make some bogus point about Rick Perry being similar to Barack Obama in how he deals with illegal immigrants, and I suspect that you erroneously believe and would then ignorantly try to point out that the only reason we hold differing views of the two of them is either race or partisan affiliation.   Well, as usual, you're wrong. They don't hold the same views on illegal immigration and border security, and Rick Perry doesn't speak out against Barack Obama's policies regarding those issues in public just to quietly go along with them in private. Don't believe me? Rick Perry deployed 1,000 troops to the border. Barack Obama ordered ICE to turn loose any illegal immigrant they took into custody, including suspected criminals, unless they were being held on felony charges.   I rest my case.

tvc, can they still be prosecuted for lesser crimes without involvement from ICE?

I never received a message about it, so I assume it had nothing to do with my post.

  Thinking more along the lines of a JD at the moment, but that's still a year away. Fine, otherwise. You?

  Not the same thing. President Bush put together a compromise that won bipartisan support in the upper house. The word "compromise" isn't in President Obama's dictionary; he prefers to make demands and then blame Republicans for their inability to pass in Congress.   The funny thing about it is, with the way the political landscape is in Congress right now, if President Obama actually tried a compromise along the lines of President Bush's proposal, he might just be able to get it passed and salvage his dismal legislative record.

  She thinks he could have passed immigration reform as Governor of Texas.

You know, it's funny you should bring up this subject. It was actually the focal point of one of my research projects last year.   Iraq or no Iraq, Bush tried to do something about immigration reform. Look up the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, which was a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced in the Senate in 2006 at the urging of the Bush administration. Its counterpart never passed the House because of partisan bickering.   President Bush talks about that legislation specifically in his memoir, Decision Points. It was modeled in part after the successful Bracero Program implemented by Franklin Roosevelt and killed by Lyndon Johnson. Frankly, it was the best compromise ever proposed in this country on the immigration issue, and it passed the Senate with a strong margin. Had it passed the House, it likely would have quelled the immigration problem before it became a crisis.

Justice.

    And I'm willing to bet those same voters would vote for Romney in the same remorse poll two years later as well.

If there's one benefit to all of the Second Amendment hype we've seen in the last few years, it's that the courts are now further entrenching an already well preserved right. Given the strong opposition to gun rights coming out of certain political circles, this enlarged body of case law supporting and expanding the Second Amendment could, in theory, come in very handy going into the future.

The topic of this thread is a poll showing that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide if the 2012 election were held again today, not which voting base is more intelligent or less informed.   Personally, I think this is evidence that a lot of moderates, independents and swing voters begrudgingly gave Obama their vote in 2012, and now wish they could go back and change it.

[Hidden Content]

  If I remember correctly (don't quote me on this), various energy companies had local projects in the earliest planning stages that were shelved after the 2008 financial collapse. It could be that they're finally getting back to a point of enough confidence to go through with them, although I have no doubt they've paid attention to the BISD situation as well.   There's one more thing that could have also had some influence on it:     [Hidden Content]     [Hidden Content]

Can we keep this Crenshaw guy?

This is slightly off subject, but it's a memory the topic of this thread brought back to me after some thought that I felt would be of interest to some of the other posters.   I tend to dismiss a lot of the conservative claims about the pervasiveness and abrasiveness of liberal professors on college campuses. There's no doubt in my mind that professors are liberal more often than not - that's just shy of a statistically proven fact. But there are many out there who would have you believe that those professors treat every student who walks into their classrooms as a target for indoctrination. My own observation suggests that this is a gross exaggeration. I've met more than my fair share of liberal professors, only one of whom has ever been dogmatic; the rest have been either reserved with their political opinions or respectful of differing opinions.   The reason this comes to mind is the most glaring example of that one professor's close-mindedness, which was a debate over spanking. It was a communications class, in which each student was expected to give a series of presentations, either informative or persuasive, over subjects they chose to explore themselves. One of the students, who was a mother of three young children and was pregnant with a fourth, chose to give a persuasive presentation in favor of spanking as an effective means of disciplining children.   She gave what was, in my opinion, the best presentation of anyone in the class, myself included. Her presentation was very well researched and discussed a number of studies on the subject. She had anticipated the points in opposition to her platform, and more than adequately countered them with verified data in the actual presentation, before they could be brought up in questions. When the discussion period came after the presentation was finished, she was prepared for every question that was asked. Bottom line, the girl did her job, and did it well.   The professor liked to do his reviews orally in front of the class after each presentation, and then announce the grade to the entire class. I remember looking over to where he was sitting expecting an impressed demeanor and a positive review. What I saw instead was a look of appallment, and everything he said after that was confirmation of what I knew the moment I saw his face. The professor never once critiqued her delivery, her research or her preparation or any of the objective components on which the grade was supposed to be based, and instead focused entirely on the content and the position she took, which was never supposed to have anything to do with the grade at all.   After he had spent several minutes berating her, his focus turned to the class. He asked us to indicate by show of hands how many of us thought spanking was perfectly appropriate. When all but maybe two of the thirty or so students in the class raised their hands, that same appalled look returned. He proceeded to berate us the same way he had berated the presenter, making the same points about spanking essentially being abuse, and how children who are spanked growing up to have psychological problems. He never cited a single study, and several of the studies mentioned in the presentation had preemptively contradicted this, but he nevertheless continued to focus on them.   The most revealing point he harped on, though, wasn't even really about spanking. One of the things he kept saying was how shocked he was that "educated people" could tolerate spanking and not demand an outright ban on the practice. That stood out to me the most because it was outspoken confirmation of a belief he had already implied in previous classes: that all educated or rational people should hold the same or similar opinions on various issues.   That, in itself, is an irrational, and frankly arrogant, belief. Two perfectly rational people are capable of looking at the same information about the same issue and arriving at different opinions or decisions simply because they have different experiences, values and beliefs that result in different perspectives. While not every opinion is rational, to assume that no opinion besides your own is rational is naive, and I was incredibly surprised that a man with a doctorate in his field either hadn't yet grasped that concept, or simply couldn't. I suppose that's why the incident still sticks out in my mind.

[Hidden Content]   Apparently so, according to this study.

They act like it's such a big deal that the kid could have been spanked with a belt. I don't think I ever got spanked without a belt.

[Hidden Content]   Forgive the use of an obviously partisan site to provide the data, but I think it illustrates the point very well.

I guess I have to start rooting for the Longhorns now....  :(

Mat, do you compete?

  If you're looking for a direct connection, I have an aunt who taught in BISD and a cousin who currently teaches in BISD. I have two more cousins who are BISD products and several friends and family members who currently live in BISD or went to school at a BISD facility.   But you could take all of that away, and I would still be cheering this on. I would go into further detail, but the points I would make have already been made in this thread. Whether it's the moral gratification of seeing corrupt leadership finally come down that tvc pointed out, or the economic development issues and statewide embarrassment the BISD issue has created that North brought up, or the fact that the first steps towards justice for the BISD students and taxpayers have finally been taken that virtually everyone has brought up at some point, all of those are perfectly legitimate reasons for us to be very, very happy that this takeover is finally occurring. I know I've personally been saying that this would eventually happen for five years now.

  I suspect that once TEA has taken things over and has full access to the district's records, there will be many things that come forward dating back to long before Timothy Chargois took over as superintendent. However, even if that's the case, Chargois's hands are just as dirty; willful ignorance is tantamount to complicity in this case.

The day of reckoning is upon us.

  Would you like to ask that again now?

I am very happy to see Jimmy Simmons listed in that document.