First Wrangle of the New Decade

(...If you happen to be a zero-based indexing sort of person -- thanks to Charles K for the mathematics terminology.) The Texas Progressive Alliance is still somewhat amazed to be living in the year we make contact, and we hope we're all still going strong when Odyssey Three rolls around.

Texas has most drilling and the worst regulation. And the state made national news this week in the ProPublica investigative report and they used pictures provided by TXsharon at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

WhosPlayin reports that the Lewisville city council is once again considering the question of whether to participate in 287(g) and force its vendors to use E-Verify to check for work eligibility.

BossKitty at TruthHugger found a poignant editorial on al-Jazeera: Weary Soldiers At Risk, They Know This. Why do foreign correspondents have more in-depth observations than America's own corporate media which follows the money and toes the line for sponsors' political perks that promise "scoops"?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks all kids should be given free, nutritious school meals. Just do it.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson discusses another worthless GOP plan for transportation in Texas: Kay's transportation plan is a clunker.

The Texas Cloverleaf questions whether or not a Houston city councilman-elect knows the difference between a campaign website and city resources.

Off the Kuff called out some political gamesmanship over the murder rate in Harris County.

Last week Teddy reviewed the best of the Left of College Station, and looks at the year ahead at Left of College Station. This week LoCS will begin coverage of the 2010 campaign season in the Brazos Valley, and report on human trafficking in Houston.

Candidate filings, including Gordon Quan for Harris County Judge and a list of the statewides, appears in PDiddie's post at Brains and Eggs.

Bay Area Houston hopes the next decade will be better than the last.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog covered Gordon Quan's campaign kickoff, including the full video of Quan's speech.

LibbyShaw puts together the latest throw downs exposing GOP hypocrisy and lies. Check it out at Texas Kaos: Rachel Maddow Busts Republicans for Cowardice, Hypocrisy and Lies.

At McBlogger, Mayor McSleaze noted with some interest that Marc Katz filed for Lt. Governor. Some, but not much. More important to him was a really nasty prairie dog attack.

Neil at Texas Liberal selected his wife as person of the decade and named his blog as blog of the decade.

Sunday Funnies

Blaming Obama for eight years of Bush

When G.W.Bush  took office, we had a balanced budget.  When he left -- we didn’t.
When G.W.Bush took office the unemployment rate was 5%.  When he left -- it was 8.7%
The government bailout of Wall Street that has given us trillions of dollars in debt was supported and signed into law by President G.W. Bush.

With a current approval rating of 51%, more Americans support Obama than did President Bush. Yet there is not the same sense of offense for Bush that there seems to be for Obama.

Bush was initially elected under a cloud of controversy without winning the popular vote. He left office with an approval rating of just 22% - among the lowest in history. His citizenship was never questioned. He was not called a socialist, and no member of congress shouted at him during a Joint Session Address -- calling him a liar ...

The Radical Right has become the Raucous, Ranting Right. Their foaming, deranged grumblings continue to take center stage on the Sunday morning Talking Heads. From Dick Cheney and Glenn Beck all the way to Joe Lieberman (who a week ago seemed to suggest that the United States invade or bomb Yemen), conservatives fan the flames of every single fear they can find: from terrorism to racism to socialism to hoarding gold.

They are emboldened by the ever-louder screams of of the TeaBagging fringe even further to their right; wailing about "taking their country back" translates into carrying loaded guns to town hall meetings, which manifests itself in Congressmen making no secret of stalling or stopping legislation in order to take down the president.

I have my own disagreements with the president's policies, but putting Republicans back in charge of anything would be the worst possible outcome -- for the county, for the state, for the country.