"Who Dat?" Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates the city of New Orleans for the Saints' stirring Super Bowl victory, and reminds them that the "hair of the dog" trick doesn't really help with the hangover.

The Texas Cloverleaf highlights the sentencing of GOP Denton County Constable Ken Jannereth. Probation, anger management, laying off the bottle, and maybe more to come for the disgraced lawman.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is watching two Texas Counties fight it out with their district attorneys over legal duties.

Bay Area Houston says Teabaggers claim illiterate Blacks elected Obama.

Is your gas wet or dry? Despite industry spin, it seems to not matter. TCEQ testing shows Barnett Shale "Dry Gas" health hazard. TXsharon thanks state representative Lon Burnam for wading through the recent TCEQ testing report to find the truth, in Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker connects Obama's big picture with our big picture in Obama's Problem is Our Problem In a Nutshell. Is our future Sarah Palin, Tea Baggers, and failure?

This week at Left of College Station, Teddy interviews several members of the GLBTcommunity at Texas A&M while investigating what it is like to be gay in Aggieland. LoCS also takes a look at American's ignorance of current events and the political process and has a report on the local campaign spending and donations. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

McBlogger notes that the Nuge was campaigning for 39% over the weekend. Can't you just feel the greasy, smelly excitement?

WCNews at Eye On Williamson looks at how the legislature is already laying the groundwork for adding sales taxes to items currently excluded like bottled water, basic internet service, and coin operated services in House Ways and Means Committee to look at "Certain Sales Tax Exemptions & Exclusions.

Off the Kuff looks at the effect of the "Citizens United" ruling on judicial elections in Texas.

WhosPlayin is neck-deep in local issues in North Texas, having spent the weekend with the Lewisville City Council at their retreat, and noting that the local school district is discouraging candidates from running for school board.

This week at Texas Vox Citizen Sarah geeked out on the new energy generation plan presented to Austin City Council. May not sound too snazzy but there's enormous potential there to reduce carbon emissions, build up our local economy, and improve public health with this plan, so she thinks it is pretty cool.

Neil at Texas Liberal commented that office building janitors in Houston have set up a Facebook page as they prepare for a new round of contract negotiations in 2010. All work has merit and all people should be paid a living wage.

Yesterday was huge for New Orleans but it was also TeaBagger Rally Day in northwest Harris County, as PDiddie at Brains and Eggs recounted in "Rick and Ted's (and Sarah's) Excellent Super Bowl Sunday Venture".

Bill vs. Farouk

Tonight, live and in person, on your teevee. And lately also in the news and in the blogs.

Here's Red White and Blue's video interview with Shami (it goes 26 minutes plus). And the TexTrib has compiled several links and video in "The More You Know ... About Bill White". Charles Kuffner has audio interviews with both men.

The Texas Observer's The Mayor and The Mogul has some good Q&A. Here's a bit from both fellows ...

TO: Can you elaborate a little on your plans for stimulating the economy? you said you want to start at the bottom. What does that mean?

Shami: I’ve been to El Paso, and I visited the colonias. I understand there are thousands of these. In Houston, I see the Fifth Ward, Third Ward, Sunnyside, Acres Homes. Such poor people. As long as those people are poor and having no jobs ... so my concept is to start with these people and create jobs. Bring factories to these communities.

I’ve been working for the last few months with engineers and experts on solar panels. Soon we will be building the first solar panels in El Paso and hiring hundreds of people and working there with the community for people to do installing of those solar panels. [Shami has been a major investor in a solar panel project in El Paso.] I’m hoping we can do that in all poor communities and create approximately 150,000 jobs in the next couple of years.

So that’s where I say stimulate the economy starting from the bottom. Those people, when they get a check, they spend it the next day. It goes back to the economy. And that keeps the money in the state. That’s how you stimulate the economy.
We need green jobs. They would serve many purposes—working with the solar panels, using the sun, which is the cheapest form of energy and the cleanest form of energy, and it’s creating jobs.

TO: We’re in a time when there’s a lot of anti-Obama backlash and a lot of antigovernment sentiment. Clearly you are running on a good-government message, which hasn’t always worked in Texas, to say the least. How are you going to sell people on competent governance?

White: You know, Texas will be a poorer state without an economic future that’s as much as it can be. We lead the nation in the percentage of adults without a high school diploma. Texas is unusual among American states and countries on Earth of having the younger generations having a lower percentage of college degrees than older Texans. We will not have a solid economic future unless we invest in the people of this state and have people who are productive, that can save and invest in small businesses, that can purchase consumer goods. And I think Texans understand this.

We need to move our state forward. We’ve had too much of the wedge politics issues in the past. And I think that most Texans are ready for somebody just to work for the people of Texas on solutions.

I think what you’re seeing a backlash against is what people consider to be a lot of political theater in Washington. There’s a lot of hype and rhetoric. When you have two wars going on, when you’re in a global and economic recession, and we’re in a state that is last in a lot of things we ought to be first in, then people are ready for some new leadership.

Despite being the house organ for the Texas Democratic establishment, Burnt Orange Report breaks with the party line in their aggregate of the Austin Statesman's reporting. The AAS's PolitiFact breaks down Shami's racism allegations against White. And Dr. Richard Murray of the University of Houston and ABC13 predicts that White will get 60% of the primary vote on March 2 (a contention I dispute in the comments there and in this post as well).

Hal levels a critique on the Shami campaign and specifically campaign manager Vince Leibowitz, who is the president of the Texas Progressive Alliance, in which the three of us of are members. Muse posted about Shami's "beefy aides", and compared statements between White and Kay Bailey (personally, I can't tell the difference).

I posted about the exclusion of the other five candidates for governor from tonight's debate here, an entreaty that fell on completely deaf ears. I also had a compilation of news and blog articles on Shami last month, and my 2007 meeting on e-Slate issues with White, before and after.