The Weekly TexProgBlog Wrangle

Time for this week's Texas Progressive Alliance's Texas Blog Round-Up, brought to you once again by Vince from Capitol Annex.

TXsharon at Bluedaze sounds an alert about an investigative report exposing the Most Toxic Substance on Earth and the Barnett Shale gas exploration.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is disgusted with UT Southwestern Medical Center's policy of using state funds to give the 'elite' special treatment while the rest of us languish.

McBlogger wants to know why Barney Frank is loving on big banks in Kill The Mortgage Market bill, HR 3915.

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men says be on the lookout for how credit card and home mortgage lenders will screw you by making you pay debts you don't actually owe.

Muse finds herself in the middle of a massive police presence and wonders if she has wandered into a manhunt. Nah, not an escaped convict, just W in town to get slobbered on by his lapdog, John Cornyn, at a fundraiser.

At Half Empty, Hal questions whether Congressmen Lantos' and Smith's excoriation of Yahoo! chiefs for releasing information to the ChiComs is just the pot calling the kettle black.

Burnt Orange Report is all over the runoff for HD-97. Todd Hill gives an analysis of on the ground action and why Democrat Dan Barrett came in first place to secure a spot in the runoff. Phillip Martin breaks down the numbers and price-per-vote, while also looking at some possibly illegal practices by the Republican in the runoff, Mark Shelton.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston writes about state representative John Davis being slapped by the ethics watchdog. Again.

The Texas Cloverleaf's hide is chapped by the abolishment of the hide inspectors and calls for a new Texas Constitutional Convention.

BossKitty at BlueBloggin points out how the Bush administration shows their support for veterans and the troops in US Tax Dollars NOT Spent on Homeless Veterans - Words Are Cheaper.

Texas Toad at North Texas Liberal fills us in on Texas land commissioner Jerry Patterson's announcement of the delay in the sale of the Christmas Mountains, as well as the reaction of Environment Texas.

Lightseeker at Texas Kaos tells that gigantic slurping sound from a few acres of scrub in north Texas was just T. Boone Pickens stealing water rights.

Vince at Capitol Annex has some reservations about the fact that the Bill White 2010 bandwagon is already rolling down the tracks.

WhosPlayin takes a look at an aspiring new "non-partisan" political party - the GOOOH party.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News had one of his (in)famous what I did election day posts.

PDiddie is fed up with Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, and intends to support only members of the Democratic Party such as Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards. He clarifies the distinction in "The Democrat Party vs. the Democratic Party", at Brains and Eggs.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson has video of the TCRP's Scott Medlock discussing Williamson County, T. Don Hutto, & CCA.

Off the Kuff does a little after action review by examining his election day predictions to see how they turned out.

Late Sunday Funnies

Early Sunday Funnies

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

In 1918, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month, after four years of bitter war, an armistice between the Allied powers and Germany went into effect, bringing the fighting of World War I to a close. Today we celebrate the anniversary of that cessation as Veterans Day.



More than 1.5 million men and women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, and every one of them volunteered. As Tom Lynch, a military fellow at the Brookings Institution, said:

"Perhaps never before in American history have so few done so much for so long."

For many newly-returned troops, this is their first Veterans Day spent as veterans. Help welcome them home by attending a local Veterans Day event ...

The Veterans for Peace (VFP) Chapter 12, Houston will be marching in the Veteran’s Day Parade through downtown Houston on Sunday, November 11. The parade will last from approximately 12:30 PM until 1:30 PM. VFP would like a strong turnout behind our flag and banner to show the citizens of Houston that we are pro peace in an unprecedented time of war and turmoil. Please join us today.

Assembly Time: Between 11:00AM to 12:00PM
Assembly Place: Corner of Prairie and Louisiana
Entry Name: Veterans for Peace
Entry Number: 120
Complimentary Parking; In any of the Theatre District Garages

... or if you know a vet personally, take a moment and thank them.

You can write your own message of thanks to our veterans by clicking here.

Norman Mailer 1923 - 2007

Mailer at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He wrote series of articles for Esquire on the 1968 Democratic and Republican conventions which were the basis for his book “Miami and the Siege of Chicago.”

Gore Vidal, with whom he frequently wrangled, once wrote: “Mailer is forever shouting at us that he is about to tell us something we must know or has just told us something revelatory and we failed to hear him or that he will, God grant his poor abused brain and body just one more chance, get through to us so that we will know. Each time he speaks he must become more bold, more loud, put on brighter motley and shake more foolish bells. Yet of all my contemporaries I retain the greatest affection for Norman as a force and as an artist. He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements.”

Yao v. Yi

The photographers pressed against each other, two rows deep, nearly 20 in all. The Chinese dignitaries also had taken their places about 30 feet away, flanking the man of the evening, the Houston Rockets' towering center, Yao Ming.

Together, they waited. This was supposed to be the standard NBA photo op: grip, grin, get out. But as a few minutes passed and the group continued to stand at midcourt, it became evident something was missing.

Yao's co-star.

Yi Jianlian, the Milwaukee Bucks' rookie forward and China's second-best basketball player, still was in the locker room. As a Bucks official hurried to fetch Yi, Yao continued to wait patiently.

"A rookie," Yao would later say, a smile beginning to stretch across his face, "should not do that."

The game was broadcast live on 19 networks and two web sites in China with a total audience expected to surpass 200 million viewers. In comparison, the Super Bowl is estimated to draw about 150 million watchers worldwide. The average audience during Sunday's much-hyped NFL battle between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts drew an audience of about 33.8 million.

"The Fall of the House of Bush"

Craig Unger's excellent book reminds us what we have come through regarding the soon-to-concluded neoconservative period. Salon has the third excerpt, with links to the two previous (short ad viewing required as always). Here's a snip of it:

Much as he loathed Colin Powell, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney realized that the immensely popular general -- the most trusted man in America -- was essential to the political perception of the incoming Bush administration's foreign policy decisions. As former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich put it, "If you're George Bush, and the biggest weakness you have is foreign policy, and you can have Cheney on one flank and Powell on the other, it virtually eliminated the competence issue."

As a result, on December 16, 2000, three days after Al Gore conceded defeat, Colin Powell was flown to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where the president-elect announced his first cabinet appointment: Colin Powell as secretary of state. "He is a tower of strength and common sense," said Bush. "You find somebody like that, you have to hang on to them. I have found such a man."

Tears filled Bush's eyes. "I so admire Colin Powell," he later explained. "I love his story."

Unlike other designated cabinet appointees, Powell had not been vetted by Cheney or other campaign officials. Nor, according to "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell," Karen DeYoung's comprehensive biography of him, was Powell even asked any serious foreign policy questions. Such discussions were not necessary. According to a former Pentagon official who had worked with Cheney during the first Gulf War, "Cheney's distrust and dislike for Mr. Powell were unbounded." In other words, Powell was only there for show. Cheney immediately took measures to undermine him. The chess game began.

At the Crawford press conference on December 16, Powell was dazzling -- too dazzling for his own good. As he proceeded with his lengthy discourse about the state of the world, Bush's admiring expression gradually turned to one of sour irritation. Afterward, Richard Armitage, Powell's close friend and longtime colleague, told the secretary of state-designate that he had been so comfortable in front of the cameras compared to the president-elect, that it was somewhat disturbing. "It's about domination," Armitage advised Powell. "Be careful in appearances with the president."

Armitage wasn't the only one to notice. "Powell seemed to dominate the President-elect ... both physically and in the confidence he projected," reported the Washington Post. New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman concluded that Powell "so towered over the president-elect, who let him answer every question on foreign policy, that it was impossible to imagine Mr. Bush ever challenging or overruling Mr. Powell on any issue."

None of this was lost on Cheney. Initially, Bush and he had decided that the new secretary of defense would be former Indiana senator Dan Coats, a Christian fundamentalist on the Senate Armed Services Committee who had won over the Christian Right thanks to his undiluted antipathy toward gays in the military. But now it was abundantly clear to Cheney that Coats would be no match for Powell. When Coats added that he did not consider missile defense an urgent priority, Bush and Cheney dumped him immediately.

Meanwhile, Bush proceeded to pick other key cabinet officials. On December 22, he announced that his attorney general would be John Ashcroft, who had just been defeated in a bid for reelection as senator from Missouri. Ashcroft, who had preached at Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church, was a member of the Assemblies of God church, the denomination of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Elvis Presley, which was known for charismatic practices such as faith healing and speaking in tongues.

As secretary of commerce, Bush picked Don Evans, an evangelical oil man friend from Texas who had introduced Bush to the Community Bible Studies program in Midland. As chief White House speechwriter, Bush picked Michael Gerson, a graduate of Wheaton College, the so-called Harvard of evangelical colleges. These were the very people whom Neil Bush had scorned as "cockroaches" issuing "from the baseboards of the Bible-belt," and whom Bush 41 had derided as the "extra-chromosome set."

As the cabinet began to take shape in late December, Colin Powell still presented the biggest potential obstacle to the ambitions of Cheney and the neocons. There was less than a month before the inauguration. Time was running out. They had to find a way to neutralize him.

There's more great reading ahead. Craig Unger's website will give you information on where to buy his book.