July 30, 2016

State health department fines Blue Bell $850,000 following Listeria outbreak

Blue Bell Creameries has been fined $850,000 by Texas health officials as a penalty for a Listeria outbreak announced last year, that sickened 10 people, was linked to three deaths and led to a total shut down of company operations. But the company may only end up paying a fraction of that amount.

Under an enforcement agreement announced Friday between Brenham-based Blue Bell and the Texas Department of State Health Services, $175,000 must be paid within 30 days. The remaining $675,000 will be paid only if the company violates the terms of the agreement during an 18-month period.

Assuming all goes well with monitoring and testing, "upon successful completion of the eighteen-month term, the remaining balance of funds held in abeyance will be forgiven by" the state, the agreement said.

Officials with Blue Bell could not be reached for comment.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/20160729-state-health-department-fines-blue-bell-850000-following-listeria-outbreak.ece

July 30, 2016

Only One Private Texas University Adopting Campus Carry

Thanks to a new state law, properly licensed college students, faculty and visitors across Texas will be allowed to carry their concealed guns into campus buildings beginning Monday. But that right will be mostly limited to public schools. All but one private university have opted out of the state's controversial campus carry law.

Over the past few months, 37 private universities — ranging from major research institutions like Rice University to small religious schools like Lubbock Christian University — chose to continue banning guns, which they are allowed to do under the new law. The lone school to opt in is Amberton University, a small, nonprofit school based in Garland.

Amberton officials didn't return repeated calls and e-mails seeking comment this week. But on the school's website, the school cited the nontraditional nature of the university, which has small campuses in Frisco and Garland.

"Amberton University’s enrollment is limited to the mature, working adult seeking to finish a bachelor’s degree or to begin or complete graduate studies," the site says.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/07/29/all-one-private-university-texas-are-opting-out-ca/

July 30, 2016

Irving mayor deletes 'Hillaryous' Facebook post with lewd Lewinsky jab

Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne is stirring the pot again.

Thursday night, she shared a lewd Facebook post about Monica Lewinsky moments after Hillary Clinton made history as the first female presidential nominee of a major political party.

The meme had Lewinsky’s face and said Hillary “outsourced” her “meaningful” job to Lewinsky. Van Duyne added "Hillaryous!!"

The mayor has a personal Facebook page and also what she described as a “fan page,” and she publicly shared the jab on both.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20160729-irving-mayor-deletes-hillaryous-facebook-post-with-lewd-lewinsky-jab.ece

[font color=330099]I enjoyed living in Irving a few years ago, but the mayor is an embarrassment.[/font]

July 30, 2016

Cornyn denounces Cruz's 'mistake' of not endorsing Trump at convention

WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn admonished Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday for not endorsing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in his convention speech, adding his voice to the other prominent Texas politicians who have spoken out against the state's junior senator.

"I think it was a mistake,” Cornyn said in an interview on Fox News Radio’s Kilmeade & Friends. “You don’t come to the convention after you have lost the nomination and not support the nominee. I think the right thing to do would be to stay home. So I think it was a mistake and I don’t know what it means in terms of his future, but I think he miscalculated.”

Cornyn added that he has not talked to Cruz since he saw him in Cleveland, but he said other members of the Texas delegation shared a similar view.

The comments again expose the long-festering disconnect between the Lone Star state’s two senators, widely viewed on Capitol Hill as the same-state senators who least like each other.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20160729-cornyn-denounces-cruz-s-mistake-of-not-endorsing-trump-at-convention.ece

July 30, 2016

Does Capitalism No Longer Work?

By OREN M. LEVIN-WALDMAN, Ph.D.
Professor at the Graduate School for Public Affairs and Administration at Metropolitan College of New York, Research Scholar at the Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, as well as faculty member in the Milano School for International Affairs,

In this most unusual election the Democratic party appears to be moving leftward with a call for a $15 an hour minimum wage, free college for in state residents in families earning less than $125,000 a year, and a variety of other programs to assist those at the bottom and in the middle of the income distribution. Meanwhile, the Republican nominee is calling for greater protection of American industries to protect American jobs from the ravages of globalization. In essence, both sides are rejecting the fundamental tenets of free markets, which have been at the heart of America’s core philosophy of individualism for more than two centuries.

Of course, free markets since the New Deal in the 1930s have not meant the same thing they did during the era of laissez-faire and robber-baron capitalism of the late Nineteenth Century. But adherence to free markets has surely been the defining characteristic of Republican party politics since its inception in the 1850s. Moreover, the regulations sought by Democrats beginning in the 1930s were always with the intent of preserving the foundations of free markets. What we see in this election year raises an interesting question: Have we reached a point where capitalism no longer works?

Clearly those on the Left do not believe that the economy is working for them. Middle class wages have been stagnant for more than four decades now, and inequality has risen. A strict adherence to free market ideology would mean that government does not intervene when the marketplace fails to provide sufficient opportunity for individuals to support themselves and live independent lives. It also means that it does not provide social supports to those who cannot make it on their own, and it does not regulate working conditions or consumer product safety.

If the result of globalization is that the living standard of workers falls because wages also have to fall in order to compete, then so be it. After all, this is the essence of a free market, which also creates the conditions under which individuals can achieve the ultimate in human agency and individual freedom. But those who challenge this free market ideology are really saying that human agency and individual freedom are unattainable under these conditions.

Read more: http://www.yonkerstribune.com/2016/07/does-capitalism-no-longer-work-by-oren-m-levin-waldman-ph-d

July 30, 2016

Florida man arrested for meth that turned out to be Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze

What would Walter White say?

A Florida man has been cleared after being arrested for crystal meth that turned out to Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze.

An Orlando police report says Daniel Frederick Rushing, 64, was pulled over for speeding in December. An officer saw a "rock like substance" on the floor of his car and "recognized" it as "some sort of narcotic."

According to the Orlando Sentinel, cops were suspicious after seeing him go into a 7-Eleven twice without buying anything. Rushing told the newspaper he had just dropped off a neighbor at a hospital for a chemotherapy session and was giving another friend who worked at the convenience store a ride home.

Read more: http://www.syracuse.com/us-news/index.ssf/2016/07/florida_meth_krispy_kreme_doughnuts_arrest.html

July 30, 2016

Brooklyn Hospital’s Sale, Backed by de Blasio and Cuomo, Is Drawing Federal Scrutiny

The governor’s office said it had not received a subpoena related to the deal. “This administration had no say or role in the sale of LICH but supported resolving this issue and the court fight,” said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, adding that SUNY had been “losing hundreds of millions of dollars operating the hospital.”

City Hall said it had not gotten one either. “We will of course share whatever appropriate information is requested of us during any review of this matter,” said Eric F. Phillips, the mayor’s press secretary.

A spokesman for the Campaign for One New York declined to comment on whether it had received a subpoena.

The precise focus of the federal subpoenas related to the hospital and Mr. de Blasio’s involvement was unclear, but prosecutors’ attention to 1199 S.E.I.U. could shed light on the overlapping interests at play in the hospital’s closing and eventual sale to the developer.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/nyregion/brooklyn-hospitals-sale-backed-by-de-blasio-and-cuomo-is-drawing-federal-scrutiny.html

July 30, 2016

Clinton’s Portrayal of Trump as Dictator Aims at the Left and Right

Mrs. Clinton returned to that theme on Thursday, and said Mr. Trump’s proclamation should “set off alarm bells for all of us.”

“Remember,” she said, “our founders fought a revolution and wrote a Constitution so America would never be a nation where one person had all the power.”

Mr. Trump and his campaign have batted away suggestions that he holds antidemocratic views. Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, said on Thursday that the Democrats’ new attempts to label Mr. Trump a dictator-in-waiting signaled desperation and were an effort to counter his rousing convention speech last week in Cleveland.

In that address, Mr. Trump offered himself to the country as a “law-and-order candidate” and a champion of working people in a nation under siege. Democrats, Mr. Manafort said, were trying to attack Mr. Trump to skirt responsibility for the conditions he is now campaigning against.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/us/politics/democrats-donald-trump.html

July 29, 2016

Florida-based NextEra agrees to $18.4 billion deal to buy Texas electricity giant Oncor

t looks like Texas' largest electric utility may be about to get a new owner. And the name is not really a shocker. Florida-based NextEra has been pursuing Oncor for several years. This would mean the Dallas-based Hunts have lost their star-crossed battle to make a deal.

Here are five key takeaways from Friday's announcement:

If it goes through, the $18.4 billion plan is the biggest step in ending bankruptcy proceedings that enmeshed Oncor, the power-plant company Luminant and the retail electricity company TXU Energy for a couple of years. Getting this settled matters to people who don't own stock in or work for these companies because it will stabilize the businesses that produce and transmit most of the electricity in Texas.

It's not official yet. Because the Energy Future Holdings, the parent corporation of those three power-related companies, filed for Chapter 11 in 2014, a bankruptcy judge in Delaware needs to bless the deal for it to happen. (Oncor was not part of the bankruptcy and in fact has continued to turn a significant profit.) NextEra will also need to get the approval of the Texas Public Utility Commission. The Delaware court could issue a ruling in a few weeks. The PUC has six months to chew over the proposal.

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/20160729-florida-based-nextera-agrees-to-18.4-billion-deal-to-buy-texas-electricity-giant-oncor.ece

July 29, 2016

Blunt force: Don Trump Jr. raises nearly $2M in 37 hours in Texas for dad

Don Trump Jr. swept through Texas last week, spending 37 hours speed-dating potential heavy-hitter business donors in Dallas and Houston.

It was the first time the presidential candidate's 38-year-old namesake had ever done any fundraising on his own.

Donald Trump's first apprentice is no longer an understudy — in business or politics.

Don and siblings Ivanka, 34, and Eric, 32, are commanding their father's multibillion-dollar real estate empire while Trump campaigns for president.

Read more: http://beta.dallasnews.com/business/business/2016/07/29/dad-taught-don-trump-jr-raises-nearly-2m-37-hours-texas?_ga=1.195575020.197607932.1469819779