The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance sends its congratulations to Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky on the occasion of their wedding, and to Mrs. PDiddie on her 50th birthday today, as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy reports on a Texas-size failure that finds our state's children are among the nation's most disadvantaged. Also this week: why justice is not color blind and the week in headlines.

Off the Kuff kicked off his 2010 candidate interview series by talking to three Democratic SBOE hopefuls: Michael Soto, Rebecca Bell-Metereau, and Judy Jennings.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why the Catholic church is so preoccupied with teh gay when people are going hungry and war is all around.

WhosPlayin was out on business all week, but had to update his post on the history and status of gas drilling in Lewisville, since more permits continued to be filed in light of the failed moratorium.

It's rare that anyone on the pages of McBlogger has something nice to say about Joe Lieberman. So you should take special note and check it out when it does happen.

Contrary to everything else you've been hearing, there are at least ten signs that the Republicans will get blown out in the midterm elections. And they're now playing at PDiddie's Brains and Eggs.

Liberaltexan  over at TexasKaos brings us up to date on the plight of Texas children under the Repug administration of Dear Leader Perry, and it ain't pretty. Check it out here: Texas Size Failure: Children in Texas Among the Nation's Most Disadvantaged.

Despite the recent court ruling against some aspects of the Arizona immigration law, Texans can expect that harsh immigration measures will be proposed when the legislature meets again in 2011. Neil at Texas Liberal asks if liberal and progressive forces in Texas will mobilize in advance of this attack.

Suing Wall Street for negligence

Two weeks ago, Goldman Sachs settled fraud allegations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission by agreeing to pay over half a billion dollars in fines regarding their role in the meltdown of the mortgage market that triggered the financial collapse of 2008.  But they also managed to avoid the stain of a confession of fraud. Instead, GS made the extraordinary admission that it made "a mistake" by not disclosing that the securities it sold were secretly designed by Paulsen and Co. to fail; indeed, the products -- known as Abacus 2007-AC1 -- were never to make money for the purchasers.

These admissions did not relieve Goldman of all of their potential punitive burden, however. While there has been a paucity of investor lawsuits to date, the states -- on behalf of injured parties such as their pension and retirement systems for teachers and public employees -- are taking matters into their own hands.

While at least one state's attorney general has gone after a Wall Street outfit on behalf of her residents -- Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, and Morgan Stanley -- so far the attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbott, is unable to respond in similar fashion for Texans, despite the fact that the legal brief and complaint has been prepared for and delivered to him. Along with an offer on behalf of several attorneys to pursue the case for no fee.

Of course since it is his Democratic challenger, Barbara Radnofsky, who has done the legwork in this matter, Abbott must think that pretending not to notice her efforts is the best course of action ... for his re-election prospects.

But even former Texas Governor Mark White -- who also served as Texas attorney general -- called on Abbott to file suit, explaining: "Radnofsky's proposed suit versus Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms is greatly aided by Goldman's concessions announced (July 16). The State of Texas has suffered as a result of Wall Street negligence and fraud. And the harm to the State we love is physical as well as economic."

Sign the petition calling on Greg Abbott to go after the Wall Street crooks. Since we bailed them out with taxpayer money (which they then spent on executive bonuses), isn't this the very least he can do?

Sunday Funnies: Declaration of Incoherence edition

Apparently now we not only hold SOME truths to be self-evident, but also just about ANY POSITION we happen to prefer. It's pretty self-evident that Obama is not a U.S. citizen because we don't like him. It's clear that he wants to take everybody's guns away because that's what a president who isn't a real citizen would do.

He's somehow against white people because he just MUST be. The economic rescue package didn't do any good because it was Democrats spending money. It's Democrats who are the worse deficit offenders because Republicans keep saying so. Tax cuts pay for themselves because we don't like taxes. Climate change is a hoax because we don't like the implications.

Even the most cursory examination of evidence is now too much to ask. Climate change deniers continue to send me their strange little clutch of misleading factoids and sly questions as if I had never seen that stuff before. But it's pretty clear that they have not themselves read the overwhelming case for climate change, or simply are unable to evaluate or even grasp the concept of PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE.

It's not that the political spectrum drifts left or right, it's that's it is cascading into absolute fantasy. It is impossible to engage in debate with these strange fevers, because they emanate from HOT HEADS. Excuse the cold water, but all opinions are NOT created equal. -Tom Toles