The Weekly Wrangle

Time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly blog round-up.

TXsharon made another video this week and it's gross! Watch it on Bluedaze then answer this question and this question if you can and know that HELP IS ON THE WAY!

And speaking of Oil and Gas, WhosPlayin analyzed a contract his city of Lewisville made, leasing its mineral rights cheap to purposely bring in oil and gas development to the suburban Texas city of 92,000.

The Texas Cloverleaf brings you the Trinity Toll Road Boondoggle, soon to be funded by your tax dollars.

There are four US Attorneys in Texas. Off the Kuff takes a look at the people who want one of those jobs.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is concerned about the changing mental state in America. Are people becoming meaner? What do you think about our Mean Economy Spotlights Mean Spirits ?

Violence in Mexico and on the US border can't be ignored any longer. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants Hillary Clinton, not Glenn Beck, to provide solutions.

Adam at Three Wise Men explores the possibility of Howard Dean as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Neil at Texas Liberal writes about President Obama's policies for rural America. Our cities and rural areas have more in common than we realize. It would be good if urban and rural office holders in the Texas Legislature would think about and talk about how they could help each other.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the fireworks over UTIMCO this week in Oh, the outrage!.

Over at Texas Kaos, lightseeker asks How Long Will We Have to Put Up With these Arrogant Tools? What has set him off is deposed Czar Craddick's last corrupt act: destroying potential evidence of big a tool he is and was.

jobsanger tells us A Tale Of Two Coaches. Both are winning high school coaches, but one is a real teacher and the other is an embarrassment.

Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the fact that state rep. Sid Miller (R-Stepehenville) is spending campaign cash to buy stocks in companies like AIG, Halliburton, and more.

Worth repeating

"Honey, you know the difference between the Taliban and Texas Republicans? One is opposed to science, equal rights for women, religious freedom, peaceful resolution of disagreements, and democracy. The other is the Taliban."

-- Susan "Kiss My Big Blue Butt" Bankston

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I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of what's wrong with the Middle East, and seemed to have the only coherent strategic answer to the savagery of 9/11. I now realize that the answer - the permanent occupation of Iraq - was absurdly utopian and only made feasible by exploiting the psychic trauma of that dreadful day. The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That's the conclusion I've been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into. Cheney saw America as Netanyahu sees Israel: a country built for permanent war and the "tough, mean, dirty, nasty business" of waging it (with a few war crimes to keep the enemy on their toes).

But America is not Israel. America might support Israel, might have a special relationship with Israel. But America is not Israel. And once that distinction is made, much of the neoconservative ideology collapses.

-- Andrew Sullivan

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Bradley, a US military attorney for 20 years, will reveal that Mohamed, 31, is dying in his Guantánamo cell and that conditions inside the Cuban prison camp have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of its 260 detainees are on hunger strike and, say witnesses, are being strapped to chairs and force-fed, with those who resist being beaten. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy they are on a "critical list", according to Bradley.

Mohamed, who is suffering dramatic weight loss after a month-long hunger strike, has told Bradley, 45, that he is "very scared" of being attacked by guards, after witnessing a savage beating for a detainee who refused to be strapped down and have a feeding tube forced into his mouth. It is the first account Bradley has personally received of a detainee being physically assaulted in Guantánamo.

Bradley recently met Mohamed in Camp Delta's sparse visiting room and was shaken by his account of the state of affairs inside the notorious prison.

She said: "At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF [the Joint Task Force running Guantánamo] are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.

-- The Guardian, advancing the story of British outrage over the development that UK armed service members have participated in the atrocities at Guantanamo