Early voting reminder (and two Nick Anderson toons)

Early voting in Texas for party primaries began this morning; check this list (.pdf) for an early voting location near you in Harris County. If you would like to see a sample ballot specific to you then go here, click on "find your election day poll and view voter specific ballot" at the top and enter the necessary personal data.

My recommendations for statewide office include ...

Governor: Alma Ludivina Aguado

Lt. Governor: Ronnie Earle or Linda Chavez-Thompson

Attorney General: Barbara Ann Radnofsky

Commissioner of the General Land Office: Hector Uribe

Agriculture commissioner: Hank Gilbert

Railroad commissioner: Jeff Weems

Justice, Texas Supreme Court: Jim Sharp (Place 3), Bill Moody (Place 5), Blake Bailey (Place 9)

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 6: Keith Hampton

Will provide more of these down the county ballot later. 

Update: Texas House representatives ...

HD-134: Ellen Cohen (my representative)

HD-146: Borris Miles (my former representative)

HD-133:  Kristi Thibaut

HD-47: Valinda Bolton 

Congress ... (contested races only)

CD-18: Sheila Jackson-Lee

CD-22: Doug Blatt

Harris County administration (contested only) ...

County Judge: Gordon Quan

County Clerk: Sue Smith Schechter

I followed the recommendations of a handful of organizations who represent my views and did the heavy lifting of candidate vetting of local judicial candidates. They included the Harris County Democrats, the AFL-CIO, and Democracy for Houston. Charles Kuffner has also interviewed candidates and collected endorsements on a Google spreadsheet.

Update: Stace Medellin at Dos Centavos has his endorsements and the H-Chron published their judicial candidates yesterday also.

Get-your-ashes-on-Wednesday Wrangle

It's also post-Valentine's and pre-Fat Tuesday.  Did they ever stop partying in N'awlins since the Super Bowl?

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes you all a happy Lunar New Year, and brings you the first Year of the Tiger blog roundup.

Update: Oh yeah ... Happy Presidents Day.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog notes that Houston is the first locale President Obama named in his Lunar New Year Greeting. Could there be a political meaning behind it?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme marvels at the jackassery presented to voters on the Republican ballot. No, we're not talking about the candidates. It's the propositions that disenfranchise voters, turn Texas into Colorado Springs or California, and humiliate pregnant women.

Fake Consultant, over at TexasKaos, gives us a tale from the health care frontier. He points out that even in the little things the present system is fundamentally broken. Check it out here.

From TXsharon: How the oil and gas industry bullies turned an ordinary, honest man into a modern day hero. Read it on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

WhosPlayin is watching candidates file for the 2010 Lewisville ISD School board election.

Contrary to what the Star-Telegram keeps repeating, the Texas Cloverleaf reminds everyone that there is a Democrat running in CD-26.

"Why I'm supporting Dr. Alma Aguado for Texas governor" is PDiddie's endorsement in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Read more at Brains and Eggs.

MeanRachel endorses Bill White and Linda Chavez-Thompson in the two top spots on the Democratic primary ticket.

Adam at Three Wise Men lays out the blog's endorsements for the 2010 Texas Democratic Primary.

Off the Kuff says there's a smart way to do budget cuts and a dumb way to do budget cuts, and we need to do it the smart way.

Neil at Texas Liberal endorsed Hank Gilbert in the Democratic Primary for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. The post includes a picture of a Longhorn steer, a watermelon, and a channel catfish.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the coming Texas budget woes and that we can't make it balance on the backs of the poor again in his post entitled 2011 budget cannot be balanced like in 2003, not this time.

This week at McBlogger, Mojito takes a look at a Travis County JP race and finds the challenger lacking.