The Executive Department in Texas controls several major state agencies such as the Land Commission, the Comptroller of Public Accounts, and the State Department. It also controls a number of additional state agencies such as the Insurance Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, and the Texas Education Agency. Examine the roles and budgets of one of the agencies listed below:
1. The Insurance Commission: https://www.tdi.texas.gov/ – $120 million budget
2. The Public Utilities Commission: http://www.puc.texas.gov/ – approximately $100 million budget
3. The Texas Education Agency: https://tea.texas.gov/sboe/ – approximately $200 million budget to operate the oversight and administrative functions; the overall budget is significantly higher, but this includes the funds to operate the public school system and provide child nutrition programs.
Your assignment is to review the duties of one of the three agencies listed above. After you have researched its duties, prepare a two-page analysis. You will want to summarize the duties of the agency in one or two paragraphs, then spend the remainder of the paper making a brief argument concerning whether or not you believe that the agency should continue or whether you believe that the agency’s duties should be taken over by another executive agency or eliminated entirely. In other words, either argue that the agency deserves its budget and should continue operating (and explain why), or argue that the agency’s budget would be better spent elsewhere and the agency should not continue to exist (in which case, you will need to tell me who will take over its duties). A well-written summary will earn 3% bonus points toward your final grade. Less well-written summaries may earn 2%, 1%, or, for particularly poor summaries, 0 points.
Submit your two page assignment via DropBox. If you have any difficulties submitting via DropBox, feel free to e-mail me. This assignment must be submitted no later than Thursday, October 21 at 11:59 PM. No late submissions will be accepted.
Bonus assignment 2
Assignment
Over the past year, levels of violent crime, particularly homicide, have risen substantially in our state capital, Austin. The homicide rate in Austin has doubled since last year, breaking a sixty-year record (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-looking-into-citys-78th-homicide-of-2021-man-found-in-north-austin-apartment-stairwell/ar-AAQkjtf)
Despite this, Austin residents rejected an anti-crime bill that required the mayor and city council to hire more police officers, a move many senior Austin police officers say is necessary after the city cut the police budget by over 30% last year (https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Austin-Prop-A-police-department-murder-rate-16588263.php)
According to numerous reports, police morale is at an all-time low, many officers have been laid off or simply quit over the past year, and the city’s leaders (and a majority of its voters) do not have any plans to remedy this situation by further funding of the Austin police department. In your own words, do you believe that this is a correct policy or not? If so, why? If not, why not? You may cite either of the two articles if you want (it is not necessary), but if you do, please be sure to use proper citation rules, either MLA or Chicago Style.
Please submit your assignment using this DropBox. Your submission should be between 500 and 750 words. Well-written submissions will receive 3% points toward your final grade for the semester, while less well-written submissions will receive 2, 1, or, for particularly poor submissions, 0 points. All submissions should be turned in Thursday, November 18 at 11:59 PM. Please be sure your submissions are in .DOC, .DOCX, or .PDF format.
Bonus assignment 3
Assignment
The United States media has increasingly lost the confidence and trust of the American people over the past twenty years, in part as a result of major journalistic scandals such as the debunked Rolling Stone magazine gang rape story at the University of Virginia, the support for war with Iraq in 2003 over non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and legendary journalist Dan Rather’s “fake but accurate” reporting on President Bush’s military service that ended Mr. Rather’s multi-decade career at CBS. Certainly, the media environment in 2020 and 2021 has become increasingly toxic, with even prominent senior journalists reflexively (and somewhat hysterically) responding to any criticism of the media as “attacks on democracy.” Consider three interesting and controversial articles by independent left-liberal journalists:
Glenn Greenwald: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored
Matt Taibbi: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/temporary-coronavirus-censorship
Glenn Greenwald (with a linked follow-up by Leighton Akio Woodhouse): https://greenwald.substack.com/p/to-protect-fauci-the-washington-post
All three reporters (Greenwald, Taibbi, and Woodhouse) are independent, non-corporate journalists whose work over the past two decades has been praised by the legacy media (major newspapers, CBS/NBC/ABC/CNN/MSNBC). Despite their award-winning records, all three are now banned from appearances on legacy media platforms, save for Fox News. Over the past year, Greenwald, Taibbi, and Woodhouse have been lambasted as right-wing reactionaries, white supremacists, and homophobes, despite the fact that all three are life-long supporters of the American Left, two of the three are not white, and the third, Greenwald, is openly gay. Further, each has lost significant career opportunities for daring to question the legacy media, as Greenwald’s reporting on the Hunter Biden story led to his firing from The Intercept newsmagazine (which he co-founded) and both Taibbi and Woodhouse have been “disassociated” from their former employers, The Atlantic newsmagazine and The Nation newsmagazine. These obviously untrue attacks on all three journalists by powerful media figures such as Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow points to a serious problem in our media (and social media) system that has enormous ramifications for the future of American democracy. Specifically, the attempt by legacy media to spin a web of lies to protect individuals favored by the corporate elite and attack those disfavored by the corporate elite leads to a direct manipulation of the American political system by that media.
For this bonus assignment, please read these three articles, then, in your own words, offer your viewpoint on the arguments being made. Are these three journalists correct or incorrect about the existence and causes of legacy media censorship and why? Please avoid direct quotes, as I want you to explain your viewpoint in your own words.
Your submission should be at least 750 words (roughly 3 pages) and should be submitted to this DropBox using .DOC, .DOCX, or .PDF file format. Well written submissions will receive 4 bonus percentage points, while less well written submissions will receive 3, 2, or, for particularly poor submissions, 1 or even 0 percentage points. You must submit your bonus assignment no later than Friday, December 17 at 11:59 PM. No late submissions will be accepted.
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