The Weekly Wrangle

Still difficult finding time to post. Here again is the Texas Progressive Alliance weekly blog roundup.

Off the Kuff takes closer look at that story about Texas turnout in last year's election.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson adds some context to what's being said in Texas about unemployment insurance, the stimulus, and Gov. Perry.

This week at McBlogger, Krispy Kreme takes a moment to tell of her personal experiences with folks desperately in need of adequate health care.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston thinks Clear Lake Hospital has a heart of cold.

No matter what Governor Rick Perry says or hopes for, Texas is part of the federal union. Neil at Texas Liberal offers a video this week of him reading Federalist Paper #9 on the site of the San Jacinto battlefield. Federalist #9 talks about the need for a strong union (and San Jacinto is where Texas won independence from Mexico,of course).

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that John Cornyn chooses to be an a**hole over Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation.

TXsharon is combining Principles of Community Organizing (POCO) training with a vacation in Colorado so several of her posting this week contained pictures of the Durango & Silverton train ride, clean air, huge deer and breathtaking beauty. But be sure to check out the progress made from working on the Railroad in regards to land farming toxic drilling waste.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker explains why the language we use in defending health care reform matters more than we may think. Hint: They want to have a discussion of government takeover of health care. We should want to discuss the necessity and fundamental fairness of publicly assisted health care for all. We can win one of these debates, but probably not the other. Check it out...

Miss Hypocrisy, meet Mr. Ignorant. Kay Bailey pricked Rick Perry for snubbing stimulus money she voted against. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs serves.

WhosPlayin was on vacation all week, but still ended up spending some time reading the health care bill and has written a summary of the 'Public Option' part of the bill, noting that it looks an awful lot like a PPO.

This week Teddy from Left of College Station covers the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce resolution to oppose any national health care, and reviews what the resolution says and what the resolution means. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

After Citizen Sarah at Texas Vox read the Austin American-Statesman's report on how poorly the Green Choice power program was selling, she felt motivated to write a rebuttal on how Austin Energy's pricing of wind energy left something to be desired. And this week, the Statesman reports that Austin Energy may re-evaluate the price of their latest batch of clean energy When folks start asking questions, the powers that be (get it?) pay attention. Ya gotta agitate to get the dirt out!

Sunday Funnies (Sick of it edition)

Kay pricks Rick for not taking stimulus $$$ that she voted against

How about another cup of our steaming GOP hypocrisy, Texas Special Blend?

Back in February, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in part because she said the bill “doesn’t actually stimulate.” Today, however, in an early move in the 2010 Republican primary for Texas governor, Hutchison attacked incumbent Gov. Rick Perry for turning down the very stimulus money she believed would do nothing for the economy:

“Governor Perry recklessly turned down the federal unemployment insurance money,” Hutchison said. “He never even looked at cutting the ridiculous federal strings attached to that money like I would have done. He didn’t even attempt to negotiate a way to relieve employers from a tax increase while helping Texans affected by the economic downturn.

“But now, because of a purely political decision to turn down UI funding, Texas has to go into debt and beg the federal government for a $650 million loan,” she said. “And like all loans, this one has to be paid back. And who will pay it back? Texas businesses and hard-working taxpayers already facing enormous hardships.

“It’s not conservative. It’s irresponsible.”

Perry, of course, originally opposed the stimulus, but was recently forced to ask the federal government for a $170 million loan to cover unemployment insurance.

Heh-heh. She said "reckless".

So to be fair, there is a difference between a senator and a governor saying (or voting) no on this matter. When a senator votes no to the stimulus plan, they were voting to kill it before it even got out of the gate.

When a governor says no to stimulus money that has already been approved for distribution, he's just being an idiot for refusing free federal grant dollars which the state and their taxpayers will have to pay back anyway as part of the national debt, regardless of whether they took the money or not.

So the difference is that what Governor MoFo is doing -- besides acting ignorantly -- is worse for Texas then what Hutchison did (hypocrisy notwithstanding).

I am confident, however, that the morons who vote regularly in the Texas Republican primary will not understand this, and instead reward Perry for "bein' true to conservative principles".

You're still not making up any ground, Kay.

Update: Eye on Williamson links to Rachel Maddow's takedown, points out the embarrassment, and suggests that it still might be OK for Kay to get to Austin. I don't agree with that part, but I sure like the way he makes his point.