The Weekly Wrangle

Time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's weekly blog round-up, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex, with thanks to Charles from Off The Kuff for assistance.

Off the Kuff looks at the woes of the Harris County GOP and what it may mean in November.

North Texas will have one less class II commercial injection well pumping toxic soup underground, reported by TXsharon on Bluedaze.

TXDOT has dug itself into quite a hole by using your money to lobby for the Trans-Texas Corridor, and to pay for an advertising campaign to sell the wildly unpopular toll road to the citizens of Texas. McBlogger has the details and a great video.

Hal at Half Empty got his TI-83 out and ran the numbers on the presidential primaries. Conclusion? Texas has a chance to crown a king (or queen).

WhosPlayin? looks at the case of a teen brought up on charges for "huffing" hand sanitizer and is frustrated at the lack of discretion caused by "zero-tolerance" policies.

The action plan for Monday's FISA-with-telecom-immunity legislation is contained in PDid's post at Brains and Eggs. Don't strain your dialing finger, and don't forget to call Senators Corndog and Hutch. It's a waste of time, yes, but they still need to hear from us.

NYTexan at BlueBloggin explains who Voters, Pledged Delegates and Super Delegates are and how they influence the Democratic party nomination at the convention.

Are you a MOTO? If not, you will be after reading State Sen. Kirk Watson's guest blog this week at Capitol Annex.

North Texas Liberal reveals which celebrity is destroying the planet... and no, it's not Britney Spears.

Could we be looking at the first upward trend in labor membership since 1983? The Texas Blue thinks we just might be.

Sunday Funnies (nap time edition)

GOP begins to coalesce around ... Romney?!

Donklephant:

Looks like they’re incredibly scared of what a McCain nomination would look like, so they’re rallying around Mitt. It’s puzzling to me, especially when they railed Kerry for being such a flip flopper in 2004, but these are the times we live in and what was wrong then is now, ahem, right.

Personally, I think it’s an incredibly bad move because McCain is really the only Republican who can pull the swing voter into the Republican tent this year, but hey ... they’ve gotta do what they’ve gotta do.

A remarkable and completely unforeseen development by me. More proof that I can no longer even remotely think like a Republican (thank Jeebus).

It's turning on a matter of who-knows-best on the economy versus the Iraq war:

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, casts himself as a business-savvy economic turnaround artist amid recession anxiety, while McCain, the Arizona senator and former Vietnam veteran, portrays himself as a courageous wartime commander in chief in a dangerous world.

"He has an enormous disadvantage when it comes to the topics of changing Washington or fixing our economy," Romney said Sunday, arguing that he is far stronger than McCain on both issues.

Countered McCain: "Even if the economy is the, quote, No. 1 issue, the real issue will remain America's security" — and, unlike him, Romney is deficient in that area.

Florida will be the end of the line for 9iu11ani and Huckababee. But Mittens and Maverick may battle it out all the way to the convention, like their Democratic counterparts.

Sunday Funnies (brunch edition)

Click for bigger and read all the panels, because they're even better than usual this week.