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

Friday Postpourri

-- "This Week in Rick Perry's Lies" may have to become a DAILY feature. Did you know the governor called Texas' 46th-ranked health care system "the best in the United States"?

-- Look for weekend postings on Barbara Radnofsky's efforts to wake up Greg Abbott with SueWallStreet.com, as well as the incompetence and willful negligence associated with the attorney general's signature issue, child support collection.

-- I also attended a luncheon sponsored by Houston Votes, which has ambitious plans again this election cycle to register 100,000 disaffected Houstonians in time for them to vote in November. Long post due on their efforts.

-- No sooner did I call Rick Perry a cartoon character than we learned that the Bill White campaign was putting out a casting call for a "clueless" Perry look-alike for some comical campaign ads. I think Josh Brolin -- he also played W in Oliver Stone's movie -- would have been perfect for the role.

--  BP will take a $10 billion tax credit for costs associated with the Gulf oil disaster. Even Goldman Sachs gasped when they heard the news. (Ten billion dollars was the amount of the taxpayer bailout they received.)

-- Time once again to remind our Washington representation to preserve net neutrality. As Al Franken put it:

If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before four or five mega-corporations effectively control the flow of information in America, not only on television but online. If we don't protect net neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast/NBC Universal -- or Verizon/CBS Viacom, or AT&T/ABC/DirectTV, or BP/Halliburton/WalMart/Fox/Domino's Pizza -- start favoring its content over everyone else's? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News Web site loads five times faster than Daily Kos?

Top ten signs Republicans will lose the midterms

Though the GOP can rub their flat hooves with glee over Charlie Rangel's ethical troubles (he's no Duke Cunningham or Tom Foley; certainly no Tom DeLay, but FWIW he should still resign from Congress) their opportunities to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory continue to mount. Let's count the ways ...

1. Former 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is still in the national spotlight, meaning that either there are no Republicans more qualified than her, or that she will follow through with her plans to carve off so-called "Palinistas" from the national Republican Party and form her own ultra-conservative political party.

2. Former vice president Dan Quayle believes that the Republicans will make big wins this fall. Given who is making this prediction, it has a lot of Republicans nervous.

3. A lot of the polls showing Republican candidates in the lead were taken by pollsters who "polled" a variety of zoo animals, the majority of which were elephants.

4. Though George W. Bush appears to have quietly retired to his ranch in Crawford, there are rumblings that his book "Decision Points", which will hit shelves this fall, is full of meaningless ramblings about knowing when to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

5. Though President Obama's approval ratings are "only" hovering around 40%, this is pretty good considering that we are in the middle of Great Depression 2.0 and the worst national natural disaster since Godzilla invaded New York has befallen the Gulf coast. However, vice president Joe Biden -- making a characteristic gaffe -- said that his boss's numbers could "go a whole lot lower."

6. Rumors of an alien spaceship landing this summer in Ohio have lead many to conclude that the 2010 midterm elections will be postponed a year so that Congress and the President can prepare for a Martian invasion.

Rest here. In the spirit of bi-partisanship, the ten reasons why Democrats could still choke, including these gems:

2. Odds in Las Vegas are now only 2 to 1 that Democrats will hold onto the House of Representatives, and 3 to 1 that Levi Johnston's marriage to Bristol Palin won't make it to its one year anniversary.

3. Bo the White House dog has held several press conferences in which he has stated his willingness to work with a Republican majority in the Senate.

4. South Carolina Democratic candidate Alvin Greene, who is facing federal obscenity charges amid rumors he is a Republican plant, plans on switching his party affiliation to the newly formed "Greene Party" should he lose in November.

...

6. Lobbyists trying to bribe public officials are, for the first time in four years, spending a slight majority of their money on Republicans instead of Democrats.

Seriously though, if you cannot comprehend the scenario that a change of leadership hands in the House portends, then please don't watch this. You'll have nightmares.

Hey, Greg Abbott! Here's a case of voter fraud

Your only problem is that he is a Republican state senator.

The newest member of the Texas Senate, Brian Douglas Birdwell, voted in the November 2004 presidential election twice, choosing between George W. Bush and John Kerry in Tarrant County, Texas, and again in Prince William County, Va., according to election records in the two states.

Voting in the same election twice is a third-degree felony in Texas.

What's more, Birdwell's record of voting in Virginia from 2004 through 2006 would seem to place his residency in that state, not in Texas, which could imperil his spot in the Legislature. Birdwell voted a Virginia ballot in November 2006; if that's enough to establish him as a Virginia resident, an issue that can only be settled in court, it means he's not eligible to serve in the Texas Senate until at least November 2011.

Abbott, you may recall, has had his goons peeping into little old ladies' bathroom windows in his quest to find any examples of voter fraud in Texas.

"It's a piece of evidence that's hard to refute and usually fatal," says Randall "Buck" Wood, an Austin lawyer and a Democrat respected across the political spectrum for his mastery of election law. The residency question, as Wood sees it, puts the courts in the position of deciding whether someone did something illegal — voting in an election in a place where they don't reside — or simply is ineligible to run in another place because of that vote. He thinks most judges would choose the second option rather than deciding the candidate in question did something criminal. The crime, if there is one, would be voting in Virginia while residing in Texas. Wood thinks a court would most likely see no crime, saying instead that the voter was a Virginia resident and voter who is simply not eligible to run for Texas Senate.

So will Birdwell resign? Will the Texas Attorney General prosecute him whether he does or doesn't? Or will the judge who eventually hears the case do what Buck Wood thinks they will do?

Inquiring minds and all that. Charles Kuffner has more.