Obama's Word

First, let us hail the return of PinkDome.

Second, let us talk about something PD brought up earlier this evening. When President Obama gives his opinion, he isn't selling it enough. Your opinion is all we need to hear right now, O-dawg. Every claim you make does not need to be followed up with "but don't take my word for it. I'm not the only one who believes this..."

No shit? We hoped you weren't the only one who believed what you said, which is why we elected you in the first place. If you were in your own little Obama Land of craziness, you'd still be in political oblivion with Grandpa Munster and Governor Winksalot. You are the man! Act like it! Keep your pimp hand strong!

We half expected the press conference to be like an episode of This Is Your Life. "Don't take my word for it Rahm...take it from Lyndon Johnson! LBJ, get on out here you rascal!" Now sadly, LBJ did not make a special guest appearance. He is still in box number 1 behind the curtain. But you never know what is going to happen next. Of course Rahm Emanuel would miss the spectacle since he is too busy texting during the entire hour! Damn dude. Tweet on your own time.

Ok we're starting to ramble now. But you get the point. And we're sorry if this upsets our liberal readers who now hate us for speaking of LBJ's corpse and Rahm Emanuel in the same paragraph. But these are hard time and it is time for hard action. Even if it invokes the dead.

Texas Blog Roundup

With the arrival of Spring, a legislative session in Austin, municipal campaigns revving up around the state and Texas' primaries less than a year away, the blogs of the Texas Progressive Alliance continue to bring you insights from our members around the state. Here's a roundup of what we've been reporting.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is now saying that the recession has landed full-force in Texas. Spared from the worst job losses during the first six months of the current recession, Texas is now shedding jobs at an alarming pace. Wcnews at Eye On Williamson looks at the trends, and offers a sobering assessment of the hard line, let 'em crash, mentality of Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas GOP.

Off the Kuff points to a bill by State Rep. Dwayne Bohac to demonstrate that the push for voter ID really is about vote suppression.

If Republicans really cared about election integrity, then why do we still have non-auditable electronic voting machines? CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know.

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees an opportunity to get a degree in the dark arts If Texas HB2800 Passes, I Want A Masters Degree In VooDoo

In a post that took some work and came out well, Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about what Google searches miss. Also, Neil read the bird sermon of St. Francis to a dancing duck chicken.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says Why Ethics Reform is Needed in Texas.

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at a few local Twits in the GOP. Twittering Republicans, that is.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw tells us that in Hutchinson's world "It's All About Me". So she is going to run for governor, keep her Senate seat and give the people of Texas absentee represenation. Whatever makes her happy, heaven forbid she should put her constituents first.

WhosPlayin examined HB 4441, an attempt by Rep. Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles to solve some problems related to pipelines.

Nytexan at BlueBloggin is stunned that Obama Taps CitiGroup Economist For Treasury Spot. So, how does Washington's logic work? They offer a job, at the Treasury Department, to Lewis Alexander of CitiGroup. The Global Marketing Division, that Alexander heads up, was just fined $2 million by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) for trade-reporting violations, including publishing flawed quotations. Let me know how that works out for you!

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men has some thoughts on the goals of American foreign policy, and is wondering if the war in Afghanistan is winnable, at least as we appear to be defining victory.

Molly Ivins warned us years ago about AIG, "too big to fail", and Phil Gramm. So says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

McBlogger takes a look at the valuations being placed on the evil CDO's. Lots of laughs, of course, follow.

Our Reps Are A Twittering

Tweet tweet. I tawt I taw a puddy tat!

 

No, Tweety. We're in the 21st Century now, and Twitter is all the rage. In an effort to understand how or why baby boomers would use Twitter, you can start following your local Congressmen on the service. Denton County's reps Michael Burgess CD-26 and Kenny Marchant CD-24 both Twitter now. Burgess seems to enjoy his TwitterBerry, while Marchant is new to the service within the past week.

 

In case you can't get enough, some of the more interesting tweets come from Governor 39% Rick Perry. Rather than discussing politics, he has told us about his relay races and WWII bombing runs. Typical of Governor Do Nothing.

 

There's plenty of Democrats on Twitter as well, but we will have to cover them at a later time. We have to go check our updates now in case we miss something from M.C. Hammer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Top o' the mornin' to ya! Happy St. Patrick's Day to all from the Texas Cloverleaf!

 

T minus 6 hours to hitting the bars.

Texas Blog Roundup

It's Monday, so that must mean it's time to take a look at some of the best posts from last week by members of the Texas Progressive Alliance. Here are the submissions:

Vince of Capitol Annex took a new look at the latest creationist attack on science in Texas classrooms in Bill Would Make "Strengths and Weaknesses" Teaching Of Evolution State Law.

Bay Area Houston says State Representative Wayne Christian has filed a bill that would scare Texas citizens from filing ethics complaints against elected officials.

Off the Kuff takes a look at who would be affected by the voter ID legislation that is being pushed in the Lege by Republicans.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the turmoil facing some inside Texas GOP regarding Gov. Perry's decision to turn down$555 million dollars of unemployment insurance from the stimulus money, UI debate must be maddening for the GOP supporters of Hutchison.

Neil at Texas Liberal reads Malcolm X in a cemetery and says that Rick Perry has found his schoolhouse door to stand in and block.

The Texas Cloverleaf expands upon Capitol Annex's look at Garnet Coleman's proposed repeal of the anti-gay marriage amendment in Texas.

BossKitty at TruthHugger truly believes there is profit for everyone when wasteful and costly opposition to Medical Marijuana is brought in to the economy instead of keeping it out. The War on "Illegal Activities" should focus on smuggling Heroin and Human Trafficking. Can Marijuana Rescue The Economy In 2010 Like Booze Did In 1933

At Texas Kaos, Lightseeker highlights the Texas Shakedown for those who make the mistake of driving in Tenaha, Texas while not white.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme notes thuggery isn't the first choice for governing Democrats addressing drug cartel violence. Analysis and coordinated effort is.

Governor "Good Hair, Bad Policy" Perry starts his primary campaign against Hutchinson by piling on the unemployed. Libby Shaw over at TexasKaos has the details and the outrage.Pendejos Perry Says YES to Roads, NO to the Jobless

Mayor McSleaze of McBlogger returns from his holiday to post his thoughts on developments in the Wall Street infotainment industry.

nytexan at BlueBloggin is disgusted, but not surprised, by the new Republican strategy; >GOP: Divide and Conquer The Democrats, Then Do Nothing For The Country. As tent cities pop up in Sacramento, unemployment is at 10% in may states and the Wall Street continues a downward slide; the GOP response, to the past 8 year Bush disaster, is to lower approval numbers for Pelosi and House Democrats.

WhosPlayin is focused on local races for Mayor and City Council in Lewisville. This week he interviewed Shelley Kaehr and David Thornhill, who are running for Place 2.

There was harmonic convergence in the left and right Texblogosphere last week. See PDiddie's Brains and Eggs for what happened.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men takes down the right-wing handwringing and disingenuous criticism over Obama's stem cell decision.

Rep. Garnet Coleman Files Marriage Amendment Repeal Bill

Vince at Capitol Annex tips us off that Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston has filed a bill HJR 131 proposing an amendment to repeal Article 1 Section 32 of the TX Constitution, otherwise known as the anti-gay marriage amendment.

Not only do amendments that ban gay marriage, such as the one in Texas, violate the US Constitution's Full Faith & Credit Clause in Article IV, the Leaf is of the opinion it also violates a previous section of Article I of the TX Constitution itself. Section 3 states "All free men, when they form a social compact, have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments, or privileges, but in consideration of public services." The privelege in this case is marriage and civil partnerships given exclusively to a set of people: heterosexual men and women who enter into a civil contract aka marriage.

Democratic allies in the state house are now faced with trying to pass no less than 12 bills in attempts to protect homosexual couples under the law in Texas, mainly due to this amendment's existence.

The Failure & The Coward

BOR has a good post on Perry & Hutchison: The Failure & The Coward.

Texas Blog Roundup

It's Sunday night, we've sprung foward, and that means it is time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's Weekly Round-Up.

jobsanger knows that more money needs to be raised to pay for needed improvements and repairs to America's infrastructure, but he remains convinced that the Mileage Tax Is A Terrible Idea.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson gets readers ready for hte upcoming Voter ID debate, or as the the Texas GOP calls it The single most important issue facing Texas today.

The new video at Texas Liberal is called Reading About The Panic Of 1873 In Front Of The Enron Building.

Over at McBlogger, Captain Kroc posts an interesting piece about seemingly unrelated issues, Rush Limbaugh and Child Molestation.

The Texas Cloverleaf gives a brief on Equality TX Lobby Day this past Monday.

Off the Kuff looks at the case against voter ID, also known as the single most important issue facing Texas today, as advanced by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

DosCentavos posts about the latest on the Voter ID. Can national Latino political and economic muscle be flexed effectively, as it was for Obama?

Obama sent the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see what our military can do to stop drug cartel activities. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks John Cornyn is shopping border violence as a theme for his 2012 presidential run.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is frustrated at the regression, into childhood, of those who claim to be Republicans. They are NOT Republicans. They are the Neo-Republicans who have hi-jacked the party name to deceive ordinary conservative Americans. They have stolen the GOP cloak to hide their real agenda. Op Ed: Neo-Republicans Are Not The Grand Old Party, scattalogical analogies.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men rounds up opinion on the newly released OLC memos. We knew they'd be bad...but still.

John at says the Harris County GOP's is probably against federal law and smothered with hypocrisy.

As the head of FreeRepublic.com gets visited by the Secret Service, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs finds several GOP pre-post-mortems on the GOP.

TXsharon joined other blogs in areas effected by unconventional natural gas drilling in asking readers to TAKE ACTION and let The View know they were irresponsible to give T.Boone Pickens free advertising for his plan without investigating the full implications. The same drilling practices Pickens promotes recently contaminated water wells in the Marcellus Shale causing one to explode. Manhattan borough president called for drilling moratorium.

Rail On Track In Denton County

DCTA calls it the A-Train. We call it the Money Train. No offense to the horrible movie of the same name.

TxDOT released a payment of $250 million to the Denton County Transportation Authority to help fund the 21 mile rail line being built from Carrollton to Denton alongside the I-35 corridor. The money was obtained from the NTTA purchase of the 121 Toll from TxDOT this past year. DCTA will make a 20% match on the funds.

The DCTA A-Train will be scheduled for completion in December 2010 and will connect to the new DART green line in Carrollton, providing access for Denton County residents to Dallas. We would also like to see the next rail line built in eastern Denton County to connect to DART, but we hear the towns of Little Elm and The Colony are losers and do not want to join these transit authorities. They would rather horde their sales tax money for other projects. So if you want a rail near the Tollway, you might want to call those city governments.

Equality TX Lobby Day A Hit

We're a little late giving our recap on Lobby Day this past Monday, but we're getting back in the swing of things.

Monday March 2, 2009 was a fitting Lobby Day for Equality Texas. Texas Independence Day brought almost 500 LGBT and allies to the Capitol steps. That is more than double the previous turnout in 2007! The 81st Legislative Session is one of the first to not see any anti-LGBT legislation filed by Republicans. Pro equality bills have been filed by several Democrats in the House:

HB 197 by Alonzo , Insurance Non-Discrimination Bill

HB 353 by Rodriguez , Hospital Visitation and Medical Decision Making Bill

HB 538 by Villareal , Freedom from Workplace Discrimination Act

HB 616 by Veasey , Hate Crimes Study

HB 861 by Naishtat , Competitve Insurance Benefits Bill

HB 1323 by Strama , Anti Bullying & Harrassment Bill

HB 1455 by Howard , Right To Decide Act (Medical Decisions)

We were assigned to groups and given House member assignments to visit. The members we were assigned to were not in their offices, but we did leave info packets with the staff of Rep. Harold Dutton Jr, Rep. Senfronia Thompson, Rep. Diane Patrick, Rep. Myra Crownover, Senator Jane Nelson, and Senator Chris Harris. Each office seemed surprised and overwhelmed so many groups stopped in to lobby.

If you were not able to attend in Austin, call your legislators to promote these bills. The Equality TX website is helpful with all of this information. You can also get involved with your local chapter of Stonewall Democrats.

Texas Blog Roundup

It's Sunday night, and that means it's time to look at some of the best posts by TPA members in the last week. Here are this week's submissions:

McBlogger takes a look at possibilities for 2010.

Bay Area Houston is following a bill to abolish the Texas Residential Construction Commission.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is sad to see that some things have not changed in the minds of the loosers - CPAC Fans Fuse of Hatred - Seeks Civil War

jobsanger discussed a couple of Supreme Court cases. The first case discussed in A Good Supreme Court Decision denied anyone convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse the right to own a gun, and the second case discussed in The Right To Know The Penalties, which will be heard this Fall, will settle the matter of whether an immigrant defendant has a right to be informed of all penalties that could be imposed in his case -- including deportation.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the push for expanded gambling in the Lege this session.

Can you read this resolution, posted on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS and find any good reason why Big Oil should get to keep the hydraulic fracturing exemption from our Safe Drinking Water Act? Yeah, TXsharon didn't find one either.

nytexan at BlueBloggin comments on the Hypocritical GOP Fiscally Responsible and with no surprise, the world of the GOP is definitely a parallax view.

The Texas Cloverleaf reviews the TX Stonewall biennial conference in Austin, and notes who was or wasn't there, among elected officials and hopefuls.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the economic changes that are starting to show up locally in The state of the economy in Williamson County.

Neil at Texas Liberal states his intent to make videos for the blog in Big Texas Liberal Blogging Announcement and Innovation. Also, Neil discusses if Ice Age beasts in Massive Fossil Find-Should Ice Age Creatures Be Brought Back From The Dead?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is hopeful that the adults will address the drug cartel violence and figure out how to end the war - the drug war that is.

Rhetoric & Rhythm laments the fact that George W. Bush has become a scapegoat for the conservative movement. Bush did everything they wanted. It's not HIS fault that their ideas don't work.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men, on the mixed bag that is the Obama administration's decision to try captured terrorist suspect al-Marri in the criminal justice system and what this might mean for the future of the "war on terror."

Do you know the real reason John Sharp and Bill White aren't running for governor? Because they're afraid they will get whipped by a girl, just like Rick Perry. So says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Over at Texas Kaos the 2.7 trillion that Duyba forgot to mention as part of his deficit. As Libby tells it the bubble dwellers who should have been on top of this little detail weren't. "...The bubble dwellers don't know what is going on outside of their self-fixated bubble. Now I understand why President Obama leaves that nutty and toxic place when he wants to speak to real people..."

WhosPlayin has video and commentary on Lewisville's first Barnett Shale gas well.

Texas Stonewall Taking Charge With Equality TX Making A Difference

This weekend here at The Leaf, we spent our time in Austin for the 1st biennial Texas Stonewall Caucus Conference. The Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus is celebrating it's 10th anniversary as the LGBT wing of the Texas Democratic Party.

In the shadows of the Longhorns, we descended on the Doubletree Club hotel. Our Friday evening arrival, in Austin's horrific I-35 rush hour traffic, brought us to Austin City Hall for an opening reception in the lobby. Let us just say, Austin's City Hall is a magnificent work of art and also functions as an art gallery itself. We were welcomed by Austin Stonewall President Rich Bailey who then opened the floor to National Stonewall Executive Director Jon Hoadley and Equality TX Executive Director Paul Scott. Both were happy to have so many Democrats coming for the conference. Paul Scott announced more than 400 registrants were signed up for March 2nd's Lobby Day, which is double the previous attendence! (We hear it may be closer to 500 as of today).

The keynote speaker of Saturday's luncheon was Matt Foreman, who is a long time activist and former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. We were also joined by out Austin Councilmember Randi Shade, and the Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Ritchie.

Wonderful breakout classes were in between our eating and drinking. JD Angle spoke on how to work with your elected officials. Jesse Garcia spoke about how to increase chapter memberships. And so on.

Elected officials also spoke to us, most of whom were gay. Houston City Controller, and future Mayor, Annise Parker was there, along with Fort Worth Councilmember Joel Burns, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, Dallas County District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons, and San Antonio candidates Chris Forbich and Elena Guajardo. Our surprise of the forum included Houston Mayor Bill White, who is running for US Senate once KBH is gone! It was refreshing for us to hear yet another Democratic Senate candidate from Texas tell LGBT people how much they matter. Where was John Sharp? Hmm.

We welcomed out Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado to a reception Saturday evening, and he keynoted the Sunday brunch. Congressman Polis is a great example of hard work and overcoming hardship as a 33 year old gay Jewish man winning a Congressional seat in suburban Colorado. He is an inspiration to many in Stonewall Democrats.

Overall the first conference went well. We are sticking around for Lobby Day on Texas Independence Day March 2nd. Equality TX needs your help if you have not already registered. So join us to talk to our legislators in Texas.