Huh? Why is it that this didn't surprise me? Texas lawmakers, judges, attorneys owe $1.3 million in unpaid ethics fines by Jody Barr at KXAN-TV in Austin, Texas.
The Texas Ethics Commission is now complying with a state law that requires the agency to tell prosecutors when someone fails to file campaign finance records. Our analysis of years worth of candidate filings shows the commission can't provide records to show it's held hundreds of candidates accountable. . . .
In Texas, lawmakers and lobbyists can face criminal charges for not timely filing Personal Financial Statements and campaign finance records. The forms are the only way the public knows how a candidate earns his money, who is funding their campaigns and how that campaign cash is being spent.
According to state records, 263 candidates failed to file campaign finance reports since 2005. They also failed to pay the fines associated with the violations. In total, those debtors owe the state $1,145,487 in unpaid fines. Another 174 candidates failed to timely file a Personal Financial Statement (PFS), and then failed to pay the fine for that violation leaving an additional $114,500 in unpaid fines. Lobbyists who've broken the law owe another $74,500 in unpaid ethics fines.
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Amid Calls for a U.S. Uranium Mining Renewal, Recalling Its Toxic Past by Stephanie Malin at UnDark. The lede: There is little evidence that new production would be more reliably regulated, leaving the poorest communities bearing the brunt yet again.
Today most of the uranium that powers U.S. nuclear reactors is imported. But many communities still suffer impacts of uranium mining and milling that occurred for decades to fuel the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race. These include environmental contamination, toxic spills, abandoned mines, under-addressed cancer and disease clusters and illnesses that citizens link to uranium exposure despite federal denials.
As World War II phased into the Cold War, U.S. officials rapidly increased uranium production from the 1940s to the 1960s. Regulations were minimal to nonexistent and largely unenforced, even though the U.S. Public Health Service knew that exposure to uranium had caused potentially fatal health effects in Europe, and was monitoring uranium miners and millers for health problems.
Today the industry is subject to regulations that address worker health and safety, environmental protection, treatment of contaminated sites and other considerations. But these regulations lack uniformity, and enforcement responsibilities are spread across multiple agencies.
Recommended.
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You darn Democrats! Where's the disarray? We NEED disarray! In Dallas, Democrats keep it clean in crowded congressional race to take on Pete Sessions by Abby Livingston at the Texas Tribune.
A Democratic congressional primary in Dallas and its eastern suburbs has a collegial tone — for now.
Dut dut daahh!
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And, over at Axios Caitlin Owens writes The fallout from the wild White House gun-control meeting. About what you'd expect . . .
No one really thinks Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Speaker Paul Ryan will ever bring the kind of legislation Trump endorsed up for a vote.
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And just a little side note for anyone else who may also be a fan . . .
Last week, Amazon announced it will be adapting Consider Phlebas, the first book in Iain Banks’s acclaimed space opera Culture novels.
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