The Weekly Wrangle

Here's this week's Texas Progressive Alliance blog post round-up.

Barfly at McBlogger takes a moment to remind all of us that we better not fu*k with Barbie.

Ruth Jones McClendon gets the Speaker's race dangerously wrong says CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme.

Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the race for Speaker of the Texas House and provides answers to two important questions: is a secret ballot legal and will a secret ballot doom Tom Craddick?

Phillip at BOR counts heads for the Speaker votes, and finds that Craddick's ceiling of support is lower than most people realize.

The Texas Cloverleaf attempts to stop the H8 in Denton, with over 120 people and explains why the marriage amendment in Texas, and other states, is not valid.

TxSharon at Texas Kaos warns of the unthinkable, but is a real danger in too many Texas towns and cities: Imagine If This Pipeline Explosion Happened In Your Front Yard.

Dembones at Eye On Williamson maps the Democratic resurgence in Williamson County in The Color Purple.

jobsanger looks at a change coming to the Democratic Party in Dean To Resign as DNC Head, and another change that is needed when he has his First Disagreement With Obama over kicking Lieberman out of the Senate Democratic caucus.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted this week on the subject of Ass-Headed Demons. An upcoming feature on Texas Liberal is going to be the Ass-Headed Demon List. Stay tuned and see who makes the list. It might someday even be you!

Off the Kuff analyzes where and when the vote was in Harris County.

Donna at Texas Education ponders her future as a Catholic in these days of Eucharastic litmus tests.

BossKitty at TruthHugger recognizes that Disasters Increase Biohazards - Global Health Is Personal and sees the media flashing more stories about "green living", "low carbon footprint" and "fuel economy". But underlying all that is the unspoken reality that floods, fires, earthquakes, etc, unearth buried hazards from past irresponsible behavior, and are seeping back into our lives.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston says Stephanie Simmons was a candidate for state senator in SD-17 running as a so-called "Democrat", but her campaign donations say otherwise. See Raising Campaign Cash 2008: Stephanie Simmons.

The week-long drama of Paul Bettencourt's continuing attempts to suppress the last of the Harris County votes, the Texas Democratic Party's legal action against him, and the anticlimactic outcome was dutifully chronicled by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Looks like the neocon flamethrowers in the media barely waited for the ink to dry on Election Day results to commence with their right-wing fabrications. The Texas Blue takes a look at the first salvo.

Over 300 protests took place over the weekend against California's Proposition 8, which reversed marriage equality in that state. North Texas Liberal has stories and photos from the protest march that took place in Washington, D.C.