Final Funnies of 2010

"It Gets Better": Texan of the Year

Our pick beats the living daylights out of the Dallas Morning News' choice, that's for sure.

The Texas Progressive Alliance on Wednesday named Fort Worth city councilman Joel Burns as its 2010 Texan of the Year.

Burns, who represents Fort Worth’s District 9, received international attention and acclaim in October of this year after delivering a speech at a Forth Worth city council meeting concerning suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth as part of Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign.

In his speech, Burns spoke eloquently and emotionally about his own experiences as a teen facing bullying in Crowley because of his sexual orientation. Burns’ speech, which became an internet sensation, resulted in interviews on CNN, NPR’s All Things Considered, an in-studio interview with the Today Show’s Matt Lauer, and an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“Joel Burns’ speech did more to raise awareness of the difficulties LGBT youth in Texas face on a daily basis perhaps more than anything else this year,” said Vince Leibowitz, Chair of the Texas Progressive Alliance. “His courageous action in delivering this speech was worthy of recognition, and progressives everywhere should salute him,” Leibowitz continued.

TPA Vice Chair Charles Kuffner of Houston echoed these sentiments. “As progressives, we stand for equality for all people. It is rare that public officials have the courage to do what Joel Burns did,” he noted.

Burns, the first openly gay municipal elected official in Tarrant County, was first elected in 2007.

Burns joins past TPA Texans of the year including Houston Mayor Annise Parker (2009); the Harris County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign (2008); the House Democratic Leadership Team of State Rep. Jim Dunnam, State Rep. Garnet Coleman, and State Rep. Pete Gallego (2007); and Carolyn Boyle and Texas Parent PAC (2006).

In addition to giving Burns its top honors, the Alliance also named Dr. Al Armendariz, Administrator for Region 6 of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Texas DREAMers as Honorable Mentions.

Armendariz was recognized for cracking down on polluters in Texas in spite of immense political pressure from state leaders and corporations. Armendariz issued the first Emergency Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Order against a natural gas operator in Parker County which caused high levels of methane in private water wells.

The Texas DREAMers -- students and activists involved in supporting the DREAM Act through peaceful protest and other means -- were recognized for their work in Texas which has included everything from organizing phone banks to call and persuade U.S. Senators, to staging sit-ins and demonstrations at the offices of U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. The group has even staged hunger strikes in support of its efforts.

The Texas Progressive Alliance is a coalition of more than 50 of Texas’ most prominent netroots activists, blogs, and bloggers united to help further the progressive movement in Texas. Founded in 2006, the TPA is the largest state-based coalition of netroots activists in the United States and was instrumental in bringing Netroots Nation to Texas in 2008.

Additional nominees for our annual award included Ana Yañez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, and Texans Together/Houston Votes.

In a difficult year for Texas progressives, these individuals and organizations stood out for standing up to the onslaught of extreme conservatism the state of Texas and the nation weathered. They will no doubt continue to be under fire for expressing their views and championing their causes in the year ahead, and the TPA both salutes and stands with them.

Last Weekly Wrangle of 2010

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes Santa Claus was good to you as it delivers the last blog roundup for 2010.

Bay Area Houston notices that Death Panels are starting in January.

Off the Kuff took a look at the election contest that was filed in HD48.

Letters From Texas told a little Christmas story from his childhood, to (unsuccessfully) prove that he's not a scrooge.

It seems the EPA and Big Gas agree on something: Hydraulic fracturing causes gas to penetrate into the water table! TXsharon caught Big Gas shooting themselves in the foot and exposed it on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

If you want a lighter take on Texas's four new Congressional seats announced by the Census this week that includes calls for reform on how we do redistricting in Texas and Lord of the Rings references, head over to TexasVox.

WhosPlayin has mostly been quiet over the holiday, but is following how one gas driller, Titan Operating, has legal battles going on in the adjacent cities of Flower Mound, and Lewisville.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker talks about a recent story out of New Mexico. He asks a number of questions about abortion, choice and reality. Between the warring camps and what real people face there is an enormous gulf. See how you would answer his questions here: Abortion, Choices, and Compassion.

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about federal money being used to improve the Galveston Seawall. Galveston County voted Republican in 2010. Where are the bake sales to raise the needed funds to improve the Seawall and to get the Feds out of Galveston County? Where are the citizen volunteers doing the work themselves? Where are the committed liberty loving citizens of Galveston County living up all the talk of self-reliance and local governance?

Maligayang Pasko, pinsans

JFGI

Bonus Christmas Funny: An interview with the Nativity Inkeeper

More on Keystone XL, radioactive pollution, and DREAM

-- Charles Kuffner and Swamplot both linked to my posting regarding the Keystone XL pipeline and the environmental future of Houston's East End (like Hair Balls, Swampy was on the case back in June). FOX26's Ford Atkinson and videographer give you a look at ground zero and its residents. Ken Fountain posted also and Pin Lim has several photos from our tour.

Once again you can sign the petition to oppose the pipeline here.

Update: The news today that EPA will assume the permitting responsibilities for clean air guidelines from the TCEQ is good news for everyone in Texas who breathes. And likely bad news for Keystone XL.

-- Radioactive water in Houston isn't the only concern, if you can believe it (there's arsenic and a few other things as well), but you have to wonder if this news from Texas Vox isn't somehow connected to the local radiation developments...

Harold Simmons, whose company owns this dump, has spread his cash far and wide, giving Governor Perry over $1 million since 2000 (making him the governor’s 2^nd largest individual donor) and funding campaigns for every member of the Texas Supreme Court among others. While Simmons gets to make billions off this waste, Texans will get the responsibility for managing it for 10,000 years and cleaning it up...

"The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote..."

Update (12/30/10):

A Texas judge ordered a temporary halt Thursday to a proposal that could allow three dozen states to dump their radioactive waste in far West Texas, a ruling that sided with environmentalists and caught the state attorney general's office off guard.

State District Judge Jon Wisser issued a temporary restraining order against the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, which is scheduled to vote Jan. 4 on rules that could expand how much waste could be processed at a dump in remote Andrews County.

The injunction was issued in the judge's courtroom late Thursday morning, shortly after environmentalists filed the request, with nobody there representing the commission. A few minutes later, shocked lawyers from the Texas Attorney General's Office - which hadn't been officially notified of the pending court action - showed up and persuaded the judge to order a new hearing on the injunction.

The hearing is set for Monday in Austin, one day before the commission's scheduled vote.

-- Reasons to DREAM again ...

The White House is preparing a major grassroots push to pass the DREAM Act next year, which President Obama said Wednesday was one of his top priorities after the legislation failed in the recent lame duck session. ...

On a conference call with journalists Wednesday, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the President is willing to "wage a very public campaign" to push the DREAM Act, which would grant undocumented students who were brought into the United States as minors by their parents a path to citizenship through higher education or military service. He added that grassroots activism will be essential to success.

"The President always said on the campaign trail that change comes from the bottom up, and on issues like the DREAM Act, it has to, because there's some real resistance in Washington -- primarily in the other party, but some in our own -- and I think we're going to need to get people activated, and I think you'll see a lot of that over the next months and years," said Pfeiffer in response to a question from The Huffington Post.

During a news conference Wednesday, Obama said he will be reaching out to Republicans who may believe "in their heart of hearts" that passing the DREAM Act is the right thing to do but think the politics are tough.

"Well, that may mean that we've got to change the politics," said Obama. "And I've got to spend some time talking to the American people, and others have to spend time talking to the American people, because I think that if the American people knew any of these kids -- they probably do, they just may not know their status -- they'd say, of course we want you. That's who we are. That's the better angels of our nature."

"Grassroots push" means Obama for America will be recruiting volunteers to make calls, write LTE's and click petitions to sign. With Arizona-styled legislation on tap in many states -- in the Texas Lege, Leo Berman and Debbie Riddle have both pre-filed bills of this type -- only a few conscience-afflicted Republicans will be able to stop them from becoming law.

(By the way, have you read Debbie Riddle's new book on taking our country back to the 19th century? Its "simple, conversational style" makes it "easy to read" for even the most intellectually impaired TeaBagger.)

I believe that DREAM holds the one of the keys to Obama's re-election (the state of the nation's economy, of course, overriding all else).  It's a matter of triangulation: if he fights hard for it and the legislation gets passed, a large core of Hispanic voters will reward him -- and other Dems on the ballot in 2012 -- handsomely for doing so. If he fights for it and it goes down again, the conservatives by their words and actions will have cast themselves in the worst possible light. See Graham, Lindsey. And a slightly-less-large but still significant core of Hispanic voters and some disaffected independents will punish them for it.

Or should. But maybe won't, because they have decided to stay mad at Obama over his increased immigration enforcement policy. Over 800,000 have been deported during the past two years, far more than under the Bush administration, and I shouldn't need to write that this has not garnered any support from any Republican on any piece of immigration reform legislation. In fact Republican senators John McCain and Orrin Hatch both supported DREAM in the past but no longer do.

They are rightfully pissed at the five Democratic senators -- Hagan of North Carolina, Tester and Baucus of Montana, Pryor of Arkansas, and Nelson of Nebraska -- who were too cowed by the TeaBagger factions in their states (or because they are simply as bigoted as the Baggers themselves) to vote for DREAM last week. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater by not voting, or voting GOP, is a self-inflicted wound.

Latinos could -- how many times has this been written in the past fifteen years alone? -- have even greater influence in 2012, but it's pretty much all up to them. If they want to settle for another excuse not to turn out and vote, then the chances they will take with even more Republicans in charge two years from now are pretty dicey, IMO.

After the next legislative session, and after a year of Blake Farenthold as Congressman, somebody ask Latinos in Nueces County how that's working out for them.

Update: Res ipsa loquitur.

Congressional Republicans are pronouncing President Obama's proposal that the next Congress overhaul the country's immigration laws as dead before arrival.

T'was the work week before Christmas Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is tracking reports of sugar plum sightings as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

Off the Kuff reminds you that expanded gambling is still doomed in the next legislative session.

The EPA Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Order to Protect Drinking Water in Southern Parker County has spawned a media frenzy but news sources only tell part of the story. TXsharon has a short timeline of events surrounding the water contamination that should change the conversation, at BLUEDAZE: Drilling Reform for Texas.

Led by the so-called "professional left", Texas Democrats locked Aaron Pena in the virtual town square stocks and hurled rotten tomatoes at him until he cried. "Call Out Aaron" Day was the social media hit of the holiday season, by all accounts (except Pena's). See PDiddie and Brains and Eggs for details.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know how deluded you have to be to pick Dick Armey as Texan of the Year.

Neil at Texas Liberal ran the Dan Patrick family Christmas sugar cookie recipe that the senator posted on Facebook. In addition, Patrick announced an update on the Tea Party caucus in the Texas Legislature. After you eat enough of the Patrick cookies loaded with butter and sugar, you can go and die because the Tea Party Caucus made sure you had no health insurance.

Mean Rachel got really pissed off at Aaron Pena.

TexasVox went absolutely crazy covering the sunset hearings on the TCEQ and Railroad Commission this last week, and if you missed it, you can get caught up here.

Bay Area Houston has a message. Dear Aaron: Hispanics do not like cowards.

Jingle all the way Funnies

DADT done but DREAMs dashed

In a historic vote for gay rights, the Senate agreed on Saturday to do away with the military's 17-year ban on openly gay troops and sent President Barack Obama legislation to overturn the Clinton-era policy known as "don't ask, don't tell."

Obama was expected to sign the bill into law next week, although changes to military policy probably wouldn't take effect for at least several months. Under the bill, the president and his top military advisers must first certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' ability to fight. After that, the military would undergo a 60-day wait period.

Among the strongest voices in favor: Joe Lieberman. I'll give credit where it's due since I disagree with the man on virtually everything else. Oh, and the enigmatic Ben Nelson (NE) also.

Repeal would mean that, for the first time in American history, gays would be openly accepted by the armed forces and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out.

More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the 1993 law.

"It is time to close this chapter in our history," Obama said in a statement. "It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed."

The Senate voted 65-31 to pass the bill, with eight Republicans siding with 55 Democrats and two independents in favor of repeal. The House had passed an identical version of the bill, 250-175, earlier this week.

No Democrats voted against the measure; the 31 nays included both Texas senators Cornyn and Hutchison.

The 65 ayes included independent Lisa Murkowski and Republicans Scott Brown (MA), Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, John Ensign, Mark Kirk (IL), George Voinovich, and Richard Burr.

Deserving of specific reproach is West Virginia's Joe Manchin, who skipped the vote. Though Oregon's Ron Wyden -- just diagnosed with prostate cancer -- postponed some pre-surgical tests to cast a historic vote, Manchin had a Christmas party to go to.

Supporters hailed the Senate vote as a major step forward for gay rights. Many activists hope that integrating openly gay troops within the military will lead to greater acceptance in the civilian world, as it did for blacks after President Harry Truman's 1948 executive order on equal treatment regardless of race in the military.

"The military remains the great equalizer," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Just like we did after President Truman desegregated the military, we'll someday look back and wonder what took Washington so long to fix it."

Sen. John McCain, Obama's GOP rival in 2008, led the opposition. Speaking on the Senate floor minutes before a crucial test vote, the Arizona Republican acknowledged he couldn't stop the bill. He blamed elite liberals with no military experience for pushing their social agenda on troops during wartime.

"They will do what is asked of them," McCain said of service members. "But don't think there won't be a great cost."

McCain's response is a profile in disgrace. I particularly like how he transmogrifies an issue supported by 70% of Americans as belonging to "liberal elites".

John McCain has reduced himself to Captain Queeg -- rolling ball bearings in one hand, mumbling about strawberries.

Also today, no DREAM will come true for the children of undocumented aliens.

Senate Republicans on Saturday doomed an effort that would have given hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a path to legal status if they enrolled in college or joined the military.

Sponsors of the Dream Act fell five votes short of the 60 they needed to break through largely GOP opposition and win its enactment before Republicans take over the House and narrow Democrats' majority in the Senate next month.

President Barack Obama called the vote "incredibly disappointing."

"A minority of senators prevented the Senate from doing what most Americans understand is best for the country," Obama said. "There was simply no reason not to pass this important legislation."

Dozens of immigrants wearing graduation mortarboards watched from the Senate's visitors gallery, disappointment on their faces, as the 55-41 vote was announced.

"This is a dark day in America," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles. "The Senate has ... thrown under the bus the lives and hard work of thousands and thousands of students who love this country like their own home, and, in fact, they have no other home."

Helping send the bill to defeat were five Democratic senators: Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Jon Tester of Montana, Max Baucus of Montana, David Pryor of Arkansas, and Nelson. Manchin, as previously mentioned, had other priorities. Three Republicans -- Bennett of Utah, Lugar of Indiana, and Murkowski -- voted in favor.


Lindsay Graham earns his dishonorable mention:

"To those who have come to my office — you’re always welcome to come, but you’re wasting your time.

We’re not going to pass the DREAM Act or any other legalization program until we secure our borders. It will never be done as a stand-alone. It has to be part of comprehensive immigration reform."

Go fuck your bigoted self, Senator.

Jon Stewart puts on his man pants

I came down pretty hard on him when he dodged responsibility for his influence on the national conversation, so I need to give him mad props for this.

Some have questioned why the Republican effort to block a bill to fund health care for 9/11 first responders hasn't received more coverage on the cable news networks. And one of the cable news industry's best-known tormentors on the subject -- "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart -- spotlighted the issue on last night's show,  interviewing a panel of first responders afflicted with grave health difficulties to flesh out what he sees as the media's blatant disregard for the heroic municipal workers at the center of the controversy.

Stewart has been hitting the general media silence around the first responders and the pending legislation that would help to alleviate their health and financial difficulties for much of the past week. Last night's panel discussion took more direct aim at congressional inaction on the measure -- and the Senate Republicans' filibuster in particular. This marked one of the only occasions the satiric cable show featured a panel discussion, and through most of the nine-minute segment, Stewart's demeanor was uncharacteristically somber, as he sought to give the bulk of the airtime to his guests.

This link has the video.

It's a profound shift in Stewart's intent here to skewer the worthlessness of the American corporate media in a serious way, instead of his usual satirical. And I applaud it. Stewart's effort was underscored by another significant critic (emphasis mine):

(F)ormer "Good Morning America" producer Eric Ortner -- who worked as a medic at the site of the devastation on 9/11 -- had some choice words for media colleagues who "will be jockeying to outdo one another on 10th anniversary coverage" of the attacks next year.

"The sad thing will be that the wall to wall coverage will be little more than window dressing with little true consequence," Ortner told the New York Times. "They'll make us feel patriotic and tearfully grateful as they sidebar a piece or two on the plight of the rescue workers who still seem to be dying broke, ill, and in need of basic benefits. When that happens, this is the moment that I'll remember. It’s when the press was needed most, when sunlight truly could disinfect, and my colleagues just aren’t there. This is not a partisan issue… this is a clear case of right and wrong, and basic responsibility. It’s the reason many of us got into the business to begin with ... expose injustice and question those who allow it to exist."

When Bill O'Reilly would rather fight his annual War on "Happy Holidays", when Neil Cavuto and the rest of the Fox freaks spend hours a day on things like the Ground Zero mosque or Julian Assange's broken condom but wrap themselves in the Stars and Stripes and call each other "patriots" for not wanting to pay any taxes ...

... you should remember it, too.

More here.

"Call Out Aaron Pena" Day is finally here!

It's the social media event of the season!

Because Pena has been a big Twitterer and blogger himself, his flip-flop to red earlier this week has unwittingly left him wide open for ridicule.

And so we must exploit his soft, expansive, weak underbelly.

Here are your action items:

1. Defriend him on Facebook (if you are his friend, of course), and unfollow him on Twitter (if you do).
2. Call his office -- (512) 463-0426 or send a fax to (512) 463-0043 -- and tell him to resign and run for his seat as a Republican.
3. Contact his campaign contributors and ask them to request a refund of the money they donated to him. (Pena and fellow turncoat Allan Ritter have both indicated they would return them if they were asked to do so.) But John Coby lists a compelling reason why they won't: they're mostly Republicans themselves.
4. Tweet something using the hashtag #CallOutAaron
5. Write something on your social medium of choice.

Needless to say, just about everybody in Texas is aware of this public flogging/humilation. Even Keith Olbermann piled on (indirectly, in this excerpt that puts the shame of the Lone Star State on full display):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Don't be left out of the holiday festivities! Join the fun!

Update: See Mean Rachel and Burnt Orange for more.