Brains and Eggs

My guess is Kay quits

2009-07-10T07:20:00.000-05:00

The race for governor, not her Senate seat. Harvey Kronberg, yelling again:

PERRY LEADS HUTCHISON BY 12 POINTS IN NEW TEXAS POLITICS PROJECT POLL

For second time in as many weeks, a survey of Texans shows Perry with double-digit lead.

A new horse race poll out today has Gov. Rick Perry with a double-digit lead over U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for the GOP nomination for Governor next year. Perry leads Hutchison by a 38 percent to 26 percent margin in the survey conducted by UT’s Texas Politics project.

Perhaps more notable is that this is the second survey in as many weeks to show Perry with a significant lead over his Republican rival. In late June, the Texas Lyceum released a poll showing Perry leading Hutchison, 33 percent to 21 percent.

But if the Hutchison camp can find something heartening, it’s the high level of Texans who have yet to pay attention to the horse race. The Texas Lyceum poll found 45 percent of those surveyed undecided about their choice for Governor. That number was down significantly in the UT poll but 34 percent still said they either would vote for someone else or were undecided.

If I'm wrong, and she quits the Senate soon to focus on this ill-fated attempt to be governor, then I believe that Rick Perry will take John Cornyn's advice and appoint Greg Abbott to fill the unexpired term. I don't think the governor likes Dewhurst as much; his good buddy Roger Williams (despite the love from Paul Burka and Roger Staubach) probably doesn't have enough name recognition to close the deal, and I think Perry is too afraid of his base to nominate a black man to the post.

And if I'm wrong again and Dewhurst does get the seat, then Abbott runs for lieutenant governor. We're not going to rid ourselves of that guy no matter what.

Don't hate the G8 playas, hate the game

2009-07-09T21:23:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Julie Mason of the Washington Examiner for the caption.

Update: Yes, the video reveals a different truth:

The Marfa Lights "Shimmer"

2009-07-09T06:53:00.000-05:00

(Note: Author David Morrell -- whose sponsorship of this blog appears at right -- will be signing copies of "The Shimmer" at Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet, on Tuesday, July 14 at 6:30 p.m.)

Football-sized lights hover over the dark horizon outside Marfa, Texas, bouncing, shimmering, even changing colors. Some can see them, others can't. Theories abound as to what they are, but no one seems to know for sure.
A newspaper article about this real-life mystery inspired David Morrell to give it his own, very creative spin. The result is "The Shimmer," a high-caliber, one-of-a-kind action thriller only the creator of "Rambo" could have conceived and executed to perfection.

In the novel, Marfa becomes Rostov, but otherwise, the two towns are almost identical. Like the real town, Rostov is located in grassland near the Mexican border. Standing a short distance away are a radio observatory, an abandoned World War II airfield, and an observation platform to view the lights. As the author says in the afterword, the novel contains a "surprising amount of 'reality.'"

The story begins as Dan Page, a sheriff's deputy in Santa Fe, N.M, receives a phone call from the Rostov police chief: His wife Tori, missing for two days, has been found there. Page, a private pilot, hops on his Cessna and flies to the small town. He finds Tori on the observation platform, but before he can have any significant conversation with her, a man appears with an AK-47 and begins shooting toward the lights, shouting "Don't you see how evil they are?" He then turns the gun on a crowd gathered around the platform, killing a dozen.

More here.

Post-Fourth Wrangle

2009-07-07T06:52:00.003-05:00

Now that we've celebrated another birthday for America, it's time for the weekly Texas Progressive Alliance blog roundup. Here are your highlights from the holiday week.

Neil at Texas Liberal says that while people went on about Michael Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court was making it more difficult for black folks to get promoted at work.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks Manuel Banales should recuse himself from all things Mauricio Celis.

Off the Kuff takes a look at what happened during the blink-and-you-missed-it special session.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson has more on the impending statewide campaign of former Travis County as the draftronnie.com site goes live: Ronnie Earle is causing a stir.

Mr. The Plumber took some time out recently to talk about much the Founding Fathers hated those Godless Communists. McBlogger, obviously, thinks he's kind of a dummy.

Over at Texas Kaos, Libby Shaw catches Cornyn in yet another big bad whopper: John Cornyn Out to Kill Health Care Reform: Misleads Houston Doctors.

WhosPlayin wondered what could be the real reason for Sarah Palin quitting her post, and decided to post a little poll.

Sunday Funnies

2009-07-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Fourth

2009-07-05T07:25:00.000-05:00

Eleanor Tinsley Park, last night.

Ariza for Artest is a bad deal

2009-07-04T06:50:00.001-05:00

Kobe Bryant always admired that Ron Artest never acted like he wanted an autograph when duty demanded that he defend him. He loved that Artest was combustible and crazy and always left people wondering: Is this the moment when Ron-Ron loses his mind again, when all hell breaks loose?

Deep down, Bryant wanted Artest on his side. Artest gives a thirtysomething Kobe what Dennis Rodman gave a thirtysomething Michael Jordan: A belligerent, tough guy bearing the burden of protecting the superstar’s back.

This is a final insult to the Rockets from LA, worse than getting your nose rubbed in the ground after a bad beating by the neighborhood bully. Ron Artest was the only reason the Rockets made it out of the first round in years, and the only reason they made it to the seventh game. Trevor Ariza isn't half the defensive player, and while he may blossom at some point, will likely also leave after suffering ignominy in H-Town.

(Y)ou can be a star without being a star with the Lakers. When L.A. is winning championships, the role players become commodities. They get endorsements. They get television careers. Ask Rick Fox. Or Derek Fisher. Ariza was an L.A. kid living a dream, 24 years old, a gifted, young talent on the defending champion, and his agent’s bluff backfired.

Now, Artest trades places with Ariza, and the Lakers get a dimension they haven’t had in a long, long time. Perhaps three or four years ago, Artest couldn’t have handled living and playing in L.A. He gives the Lakers sheer nastiness, and as an executive with one of his past teams said Thursday night, “Ronnie will show everyone that he can win. I think he’s matured, and overall, he’ll be on his best behavior. Phil [Jackson] has been through this before with Rodman. He’ll handle this.”

Most here think this is a great trade, but I'm not one of them. And if it also costs them Von Wafer ... Most in the NBA think it's curtains for everybody but the Lakers:

“I hope it’s chaos,” a Western Conference GM texted Thursday night.

And maybe, in some ways, that won’t be the worst thing in the world for the Lakers. Chaos? That’s letting your agent’s agenda and big mouth get your butt shipped from the Los Angeles Lakers for lottery land in Houston. Kobe Bryant had been willing to take back his whole team, but Ariza made the mistake of giving the Lakers what they always wanted, what they always believed was available to them: the combustible and crazy Ron Artest.

Kobe Bryant gets his Rodman now, and yes, this is how all hell breaks loose in Hollywood.

All hell is probably going to be a lot more fun than whatever next fall holds for the Rockets.

Bible Spice steps down to pack for the 2012 GOP Clown Car Caravan

2009-07-04T06:30:00.002-05:00

Or maybe not:

"If she is thinking that leaving her term 16 months early is going to help her prepare to maybe go on to bigger and better things on the political stage, I think she's sadly mistaken. You just can't quit," said Andrew Halcro, a Palin critic who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to her.

Palin's abrupt announcement Friday rattled the Republican Party but left open the possibility of a presidential run. She and her staff are keeping mum on her future plans.

Palin's spokesman, David Murrow, said the governor didn't say anything to him about this being her "political finale."

"She's looking forward to serving the public outside the governor's chair," he said.

As what exactly? Continuing nightly entertainment courtesy of every comedian in the world?

"Many just accept that lame duck status, and they hit that road," Palin said. "They draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I'm not going to put Alaskans through that."

The people of Alaska may now breathe a deep sigh of relief. But the rest of us couldn't be this lucky, could we? Thanks to Pam for the headline.

Pre-Fourth Wrangle

2009-06-29T08:20:00.000-05:00

Time for an extra-patriotic rendition of the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog post roundup.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the latest Lyceum poll on the Governor and Senate races in Texas.

Neil at Texas Liberal suggests that instead of blowing off your fingers lighting fireworks -- during a drought in Harris County no less -- that maybe you would be better off reading a book instead.

With 2010 spinning up, it's funny to watch all the different players already on the field line up to take their first hits. McBlogger, of course, thinks they're all deeply in need of a little advice which he graciously provides (with surprisingly sparse use of profanity)!

WCNews & Dembones at Eye On Williamson post on the latest controversy involving the Williamson County commissioners court: Budget officer not just a good idea, it's the law.

John at Bay Area Houston says turn out the lights, the family values party is over.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks online Texas Republican commentary on Mark Sanford is interesting.

The similarities between Mark Sanford and Ray Bolger (as the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz") are just too weird, notes PDidde at Brains and Eggs.

The Three Wise Men are willing to pay a tax on their favorite junk food to pay for health care reform.

WhosPlayin.com's video bring you EXTREME Congressional Town Hall -- Special "Losing our freedoms" edition, sponsored by Prozac.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw calls our attention to Confessions of a Former Health Insurance Exec: "We Dump the Sick". Who knew? All the posturing , hypocritical , offers of self-reform and insurance relief are just so much bogus cover up for an industry too greedy to ever be trusted to regulate themselves!

The Texas Cloverleaf discusses gay pride, bar raids, and millions of gays marching in DFW this past weekend during the 40th anniversary of Stonewall.

Burnt Orange Report covers TX-10 Congressional candidate Jack McDonald's campaign expansion in the Austin area.

Sunday Funnies (dying for health care edition)

2009-06-28T08:18:00.000-05:00

Farrah Fawcett 1947 - 2009 and Michael Jackson 1958 - 2009

2009-06-26T06:11:00.000-05:00

More to write about these two '70's icons -- they were closer to equal in pop culture influence than my teevee is currently demonstrating -- when I have time to write about it.

For now, there is a definite emptiness I feel when I look at their images and consider all that they were at the apex of my youth. There is a scene in Saturday Night Fever where John Travolta is looking in the mirror, feathering his hair with the blowdryer (I used to be able to do that). Reflected in the mirror is that poster of Farrah. You know the one: all hair and teeth and nipples. My younger brother had one up in the bedroom we shared. The Bee Gees and Michael Jackson and the discos were my generation's Twitter. We social-networked on the dance floor.

Jackson and I were just one month apart, age-wise. Farrah, you know by now, grew up in Corpus and went to UT, where men -- well, boys I suppose -- lined up at her dorm to ask her out.

Respect and links to others and pictures to be posted later.

And starring Mark Sanford as Ray Bolger

2009-06-25T06:27:00.002-05:00

I'm afraid there's no denyin'

I can't say I'm not lyin'
I'm just a hypocrite!

(de-dee, de-dee-dee-dee-dee)

I went to Argentina
To see my señorita,
And I stepped into some shit!

How about a second verse?

There's no need to search that mountain,
I'm not naked in some fountain,
I'm sorry for bein' gone.

I just went south of the border,
Cuz I have a brain disorder,
I just had to get it on.

So I left my wife and children,
because I'm ethic-ally barren
And I had some on the side.

You would think that I would suffer
And the media somewhat rougher.
Good thing I'm Republican.

(Shamelessly ripped off from here)

Hiking the Appalachian Trail in the nude isn't exotic enough?

2009-06-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is telling a newspaper that he was in Argentina during his unexplained 5-day absence, not hiking along the Appalachian Trail as his office previously said.
The Republican told The State newspaper in South Carolina that he arrived at the Atlanta airport today.

Sanford says he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country. The governor says he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail but wanted to do something “exotic.”

Let's just hope, for the sake of saving what may remain of conservative Republican face, that it was a woman he was with and not a man. Still, even the Republicans in South Carolina may not get over it any time soon:

"Lies. Lies. Lies. That's all we get from his staff. That's all we get from his people. That's all we get from him," said state Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia. "Why all the big cover-up?"

Why indeed.

The (still hot) Weekly Wrangle

2009-06-24T08:30:00.001-05:00

Your grass turned brown? Water rationing keeping you from saving it? Is your air conditioning unit in its last throes, if you will? Well sit back and relax; you'll always have the best of the Texas Progressive Alliance to keep you cool.

President Obama, Bill White, and John Sharp are all in the same sinking DOMA boat. The Texas Cloverleaf comes off of hiatus to tell you why.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme cheers the impeachment of Judge Kent. Four articles passed without a single nay. Let's hope the Senate is through with him by August.

BossKitty at TruthHugger finally signed up for Twitter to get updates on the Iran protests. What a day of drama and emotion it brought: Icons and Martyrs: All Day On Twitter Watching Iran. But he was really meaning to highlight the regressive influences causing upheaval in personal lives, especially in Texas: Immigration Policies and Gay Rights Contradictions.

Unlike Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign, Neil at Texas Liberal makes a promise he'll keep -- He'll never cheat on his wife! Also, Neil sings the Damned's Wait For The Blackout at the Houston Ship Channel.

Off the Kuff takes a look, then a second look, at the bills Governor Perry vetoed.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson knows in order to solve big problems it takes leadership. Who is willing to lead, who has enough LBJ in them?

Castle Hills Democrats heard candidates Tom Schieffer, John Sharp, Bill White, and Neil Durrance speak at the two-county Fish Fry in north Texas. The blogger reviews their messages -- and reports on feedback from the Dems in the audience.

WhosPlayin investigated the claim by a former Lewisville mayoral candidate that the city is hiring illegal aliens for its road projects because one of its contractors doesn't yet use the E-Verify program.

Teddy at Left of College Station writes about escorting at Planned Parenthood and how what happens in Kansas doesn't stay in Kansas. Also a report from the T. Don Hutto Residential Detention Facility and the protest on Saturday (including exclusive photographs).

Big Gas wants you to believe that regulating hydraulic fracturing is a state's rights issue. The truth: Only one state in the US regulates hydraulic fracturing. TXsharon busts the Big Gas bubble again on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Citizen groups opposed to new coal plants being built in Robertson County and near Victoria were given a chance to intervene last week when two of the 12 newly proposed coal plants in Texas had preliminary hearings for their waste water permits. Check out the video over at Public Citizen's Texas Vox.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw tells us that Dumb, Self-serving Politicians Make Dumb, Self-serving Decisions. What a surprise that Governor Goodhair takes the starring role in this little drama. Check out the details.

Do you love the Real Housewives on Bravo? Were you a little less than impressed by the NJ version? So was Barfly over at McBlogger.

Sunday Funnies (yes, on Wednesday)

2009-06-24T08:15:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed my time away, did you? As always, click on the toon for a bigger, more readable view:

The (hot) Weekly Wrangle

2009-06-15T05:45:00.001-05:00

That would be the temperature as well as the quality of information contained in the best of the Texas Progressive Alliance blog posts for the week.

TXsharon can't choose one post this week! It's a toss up between the aerial video view of Barnett Shale Industrial Wasteland Texas or the Barnett Shale drilling-induced earthquakes or Erin Brockovich does Midland or the governmental warnings about defective pipeline materials on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men blogs about how utterly ridiculous it is for us to pay a tiny South Pacific nation to take Guantanamo Bay detainees because we are a nation of bed-wetting, pearl-clutching morons.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson analyzes what might possibly happen in the upcoming special session in Perry calls a special -- what gets done is up to him.

Off the Kuff looks at a Lone Star Project report on state rep. Dwayne Bohac and his questionable relationship with an employee of the Harris County tax assessor's office.

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees a growing pandemic of hate that erupts in violence. See the diagnosis: Scapegoat Lessons: Holocaust Museum ‘Act Of Cowardice’.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad that Judge Kent is going to jail. Too bad his sentence wasn't longer. CBT can hardly wait to see his impeachment hearing in the senate.

This week, McBlogger finds out that the 290E tollway will be built using stimulus dollars. Which means Austinites will pay three different taxes to support this road.

John at Bay Area Houston wonders about the lack of diversity at the Nancy Pelosi event in Houston.

Citizen Sarah at Texas Vox wonders if the specter of Texas losing its leadership role creating clean energy jobs is scary enough to address in a special session.

George at The Texas Blue thinks that forced arbitration with credit card and cell phone companies is fundamentally unjust, but forced arbitration in a rape case is just disgusting.

Teddy at Left of College Station reports on whether or not America is actually becoming more “pro-life” and looks deeper into the polls to find that opinions on reproductive rights are much more complicated, and also covers this week in the headlines.

Neil at Texas Liberal writes about Juneteenth. Juneteeth is June 19th and it has a Galveston origin.

Midland's chromium 6 contamination got more linkage from PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Over at TexasKaos, liberaltexan asks, what exactly does the latest abortion survey mean? He answers not much new, since it does a poor job of asking the question and sorting out the nuances of public opinion. See the rest here: Are More Americans Pro-Life?

Justin at AAA-Fund Blog took some time to remember Tim Russert.

Sunday Funnies

2009-06-14T06:40:00.000-05:00

Save our CEOs

2009-06-13T10:07:00.001-05:00

Coming in October:

Closing ranks behind a scandal

2009-06-11T07:11:00.000-05:00

Leo Vasquez, Harris County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, issued a statement that dismissed complaints that Johnson’s job, which can include approving or rejecting voter applications, conflicts with his side business.

“Ed Johnson is an honorable man,” Vasquez said. “It is slanderous and absolutely reprehensible to suggest without evidence that he is involved in inappropriate activity with regard to voter registration in Harris County.”

Bullshit, Leo. You squeal like a stuck pig every single time somebody shows you the dirt under your fingernails. You're a hack. A token Latin hack, at that.

Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos’ campaign paid more than $7,000 last year to CDS. She said late Wednesday her campaign hired CDS for targeted campaign mailers but she did not know about Johnson’s job with the county.

She insisted she saw no compromise of the elections office’s mission.

“I saw no conflict,” Lykos said.

Now that's the kind of hypocrisy Harris County Republicans are more accustomed to: blind injustice.

Gee, ya think there's any chance Attorney General Greg Abbott will investigate?

Huckabee's "mushy middle"

2009-06-11T05:47:00.000-05:00

Great news; the Republicans are still not getting it:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned Republicans Wednesday against moving to the "mushy middle," arguing that only clearly stated conservative policies can bring the party back to power. ...

"I hear people who give advice that the Republicans need to moderate. They need to be a little more to the left," Huckabee said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It sounds like advice that Democrats would give to us so that we'd never win another election ever."

Some argue that Republicans have lost Congress and the White House because they've turned the party over to social and religious conservatives, driving away moderates and independents. Huckabee made precisely the opposite argument.

"It's when they move to the mushy middle and get squishy that they get beat," he said.

Pastor Mike, patron saint of adult onset diabetes, he of the big mushy middle himself -- having lost all that weight -- is readying himself for a run in 2012. He's got to sound as tough as Newt and Dick, though, so he's throwing his own (stir-fried lightly) red meat to the mad-dog base.

You remember the right-wing base; they shoot doctors and museum guards, don't they.

"Historically, the way we've found our way back to winning, having clear convictions that are conservative and then when elected, act like it," he said. "In every election, when Republicans have had clarity of convictions and those convictions were conservative, they win."

He warned that many Republicans have gone astray by buying into President Barack Obama's big-spending effort to stimulate the economy, a move he called "a big, colossal, utterly disastrous mistake.

"Our Republicans have culpability in that," Huckabee said. "There were some people who questioned whether I was really conservative. I don't want to hear, ever, people ever again talk about how conservative they are if they supported that."

Now that last line there sounds like a shot at Kay Bailey.

Which reminds why Governor MoFo is going to whip her next spring, even with one arm in a sling.

Midland's water contaminated

2009-06-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

Erin Brockovich is on it:

"I never thought I'd see another Hinkley, California," Brockovich told CBS News from Midland, Texas, “but I’m afraid I might be wrong."

Hexavalent chromium, Brockovich said, is now being found in significant amounts in the water of over 40 homes in Midland.

"The only difference between here and Hinkley," Brockovich said, "is that I saw higher levels here than I saw in Hinkley."

Midland resident Kay Saythre knew something was wrong, and asked Brockovich to investigate.

"We didn’t really understand why the water was yellow when we filled the pool," Saythre said.

She also conducted a town hall meeting there last night:

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing — green water,” Brockovich, now president of Brockovich Research and Consulting, told a crowd of concerned homeowners and neighbors at the Midland County Horseshoe Arena.

The water looked like Gatorade coming out of the tap at one home near the most hard-hit area of County Road 112. The levels of hexavalent chromium in the wells is the highest she’s ever seen.

Drilling company Schlumberger is the suspected culprit.

Bob Bowcock, Brockovich’s chief environmental investigator, said in his research he has learned the state tested some wells in the area in February 2006 and found the levels to be at 2,600 parts per billion (ppb), well above the 100 ppb safety threshold. However, an error was made and not one of the homeowners was notified of the problem.

Now three years later, some of those levels measure at 5,000 ppb and higher.

“What people are pulling out of their water today, I wouldn’t give to my dogs. Or rats I wanted to kill in my attic,” he said.

There's a website set up for the area's residents.

Conflict of interest in Harris County's voter registration office

2009-06-09T07:50:00.006-05:00

You actually thought that when Paul Bettencourt suddenly resigned, and the Texas Democratic Party's lawsuit revealed his voter registration shenanigans (recall the Wite-Out Caper?) that they were cleaning up their act over there? Well, you were wrong:

"This is as blatant a case of election corruption that I have seen,” said Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, a Democrat activist group.
The Lone Star Project’s complaint revolves around Ed Johnson.

Johnson is the associate voter registrar at the Harris County Tax Assessor Collectors office, but according to state documents, that's just his day job. Johnson is also a paid director of a small company that provides voter data to Republican candidates for office. That company, Campaign Data Systems, billed at least $140,000 in 2008.

"It gets to the fundamental rights in a democracy and that is the right to participate in an election. You've got an individual who has got a partisan axe to grind and that person is determining who gets to vote and who doesn't," Angle said.

No one from the Assessor-Collector's office would comment on the accusation. According to them, this is because a lawsuit against the office that was filed after last year’s General Election could be affected.

As usual, it's not so much the crime as the cover-up:

"The fact that it has a (negative) appearance could have a chilling effect on voter’s confidence," said 11 News Political Expert Bob Stein

Stein says that there is no sign of any legal ethics violation from the documents he has seen, but they could be viewed negatively.

"I think that these are legitimate activities, partisan activities none the less. But the fact that he is not disclosing them and did not think to disclose them, probably raises questions whether he even thought it might be embarrassing to his employer," Stein said.

Already some political adversaries are speaking out.

"That is corruption by definition. You shouldn't have election officials that moonlight as partisan political hacks,” Angle said.

Stein would not go that far, but did say that “at the very least, it was a very embarrassing and awkward position."

Ed Johnson -- recall his testimony on Voter ID, and that of his consort George Hammerlein during the last legislative session -- has to be fired immediately by tax assessor-collector Leo Vasquez. And that would be only a necessary first step.

Charles Kuffner elaborates on the incriminating connection: Johnson's moonlight employer is owned by Rep. Dwayne Bohac. Bohac, like most of the rest of the hard-right in the Texas Lege, humped Voter ID to the detriment of thousands of pieces of important legislation.

And that's the latest accomplishment brought to you once again by the alumni of the Tom DeLay School of Advanced Political Corruption.

Update: See the KHOU video report. And read the Lone Star Project's comprehensive report on the entire sordid affair.

The Weekly Wrangle

2009-06-09T07:30:00.001-05:00

The kids are out of school, the temperatures are climbing, the SDEC just met last weekend and accomplished absolutely nothing, and the Texas Progressive Alliance has another blog post round-up. This week's compilation was performed by George Nasser of the Texas Blue.

Neil at Texas Liberal writes about the relocation of the National Cash Register company from Dayton, Ohio to Georgia. Treating people like dirt for 200 years gives Southern states an advantage in creating a so-called "business friendly" low-tax low-wage climate.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is so amazed at the short-sighted policies our state and country continue to pursue. "Buy American" is a path to destruction, as she notes in Isolationist Trends Protect US From Reality.

Lamar Smith wins South Texas Chisme's asshat of the week award. Hyper-partisan Smith thinks all media should be like Fox News.

Who would have thought that an otherwise obscure bill about granting homestead exemptions to folks who lost their house in Hurricane Ike would become the most controversial issue in the first week post-sine die, including a threat by the Land Commissioner to refuse to follow the law if it gets signed by the Governor? Off the Kuff has the details.

Citizen Sarah over at Texas Vox sheds a tear over good environmental bills lost this legislature ... so much for the "solar session".

Burnt Orange Report writer Todd Hill has been selected as an Archer Fellow by UT-Arlington and will be headed to Washington DC in 2010 for a semester.

Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the former Tyler mayor looking to replace state representative Leo Berman.

Over at TexasKaos, liberaltexan argues that even Christians at Liberty University should be able to dissent. What a radical idea!

A Devon official strongly suspects a connection between recent North Texas earthquakes and the widespread hydraulic fracturing. Devon and other operators are leaving their mark on TXsharon's statcounter. She wonders what they are so worried about on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Teddy at Left of College Station reports on the College Station red light camera debate, and covers the week in headlines.

Bay Area Houston has the scoop on Perry calling a special session on Voter ID.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the excellent first session for Williamson County's Democratic state representative: Diana Maldonado -- Freshman of the Year.

Robert Reich describes how Big Pharma and Big Insurance plan to kill the public health care option, excerpted at Brains and Eggs.

WhosPlayin has AARP's call for Michael Burgess to act decisively on health care.

This week, McBlogger takes a look at some fashion advice from Details.

Lastly, The Texas Blue looks at the big winners and losers of this year's legislative session in Sine Die: The Aftermath.

Richard Shelby claims the 'Douchebag of the Week'

2009-06-08T19:43:00.001-05:00

An unbelievable performance from the senior senator from Alabama:

Jed Lewison picks out the highlights if you can't stand to listen to them:

The Obama administration is "obviously" turning America into a socialist nation.
"No doubt we're going to government intervention everywhere, government ownership."
It all started when Obama bailed out the banks last fall. (Yes, that was when Obama was a candidate and Bush was president, a fact Shelby later acknowledged.)
Obama is "destroying the best health care system the world has ever known" by creating an alternative to private health insurance companies.
Obama will "destroy the marketplace for health care" and the "American people better be careful in what they want."

Yes we had, Senator Shelby. And what this American person wants and what you want could not be further removed from each other than if I were you and you were RuPaul.

Update: The "best healthcare system the world has ever known" is in 37th place.

Funnies: Some dare call it terrorism

2009-06-07T21:05:00.001-05:00