Wednesday Morning Reading: Trayvon Bombshell

Good morning. For those who asked, yes you did see me on the TV in Houston last night. It was my first appearance on Fox 26 and I hope there will be many more. Producers there tell me they’ll post the video later today on their site.  When it’s up, I’ll link it here.

As I sip my Community Coffee, the networks are leading with the fact that court documents show Trayvon Martin’s killer was treated for a broken nose, two black eyes and other injuries. This, of course, supports George Zimmerman’s claim all along that he was defending himself from an aggressive Trayvon Martin.  Hmmm…   I wonder what CNN Contributor Roland Martin, who has been crusading on this case, will say about this latest development.  As of about 8:30 Texas time, his usually very active twitter feed says nothing about it.

Speaking of law and order, Brandi Grissom over at the Texas Tribune scored an interview with the law professor who wrote the report that says Texas executed an innocent man while the real killer was bragging about the crime. Columbia University Law Professor James Liebman told Grissom “I’m convinced that no jury could possibly have convicted Carlos DeLuna beyond a reasonable doubt on the evidence here. That’s absolutely clear.”

One other note about crime: The Statesman’s Mike Ward reports today that the parole rate in Texas has surged to 40% (!) after hovering around 20% for years.

The new boss in the Dallas ISD means business! A lot of employees, including some bosses, have to reapply for their jobs, the DMN reports.

This one’s in the Wall Street Journal via Joshua Treviño at the Texas Public Policy Foundation: “We at the Texas Public Policy Foundation are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, otherwise known as ALEC, and we’re proud of it.” ALEC’s been under fire in recent months and actually retreated from social issues just as several of its big time corporate backers announced they were leaving the group.

Matt Glazer heads up a liberal group called Progress Texas and emailed me this morning:

“The most controversial legislation in a generation has been written by this national bill factory and lobbied by TPPF. They are setting up Texas to fail because it is in TPPF donors and multi-national corporations best interest. Texas can do better and TPPF and every state legislator should denounce ALEC and join the 14 corporations and 34 elected official across the country who are putting people first.”

Oh, and Governor Perry isn’t saying whether the approves of how University of Texas President Bill Powers is doing his job. A controversy’s been brewing over this since Paul Burka over at Texas Monthly reported a rumor that Powers was about to be shown the door. When Perry was asked about it in San Antonio yesterday, he said “I got a state to run” and said he isn’t focused on one campus. But, Dallas Morning News Senior Political Writer Wayne Slater this morning tweeted “First rule of TX: Everything is run out of the gov’s office.” We’ll see how this develops…

What else should I be covering? Let me know.

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