Valentine's Day Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is slowly thawing out -- and that has something to do with the warmth in our hearts for our collective sweeties -- as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

This week on Left of College Station Congressman Bill Flores gives talking point answers to softball questions. Also, a look at the Republican attack on birthright citizenship both nationally and in Texas, and how Republicans are undermining Texas’ economic future by cutting education funding today. LoCS also covers the week in headlines.

Off the Kuff reads an op-ed about how the budget should be balanced and detects a shift in where the center of the debate is.

TXsharon at BLUEDAZE: Drilling Reform for Texas says "So what" to another attempt by the Big Gas Mafia to avoid regulation of hydraulic fracturing.

Eye On Williamson points out that it's not what Gov. Rick Perry said in his "State of the State" address, but what he didn't say: Un-meaningful measures.

Lightseeker reports on the coming coverup of the multi-billion dollar shortfall in educational spending in The once and future lie: Schools are in financial trouble because they have too many paper pushers. Check it out out over at TexasKaos.

McBlogger takes a look at some bipartisan craziness that's sure to clog up our courts forever.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants every parent to know that Republicans hate teachers and public education.

Rick Perry spent time in California and Washington DC over the past week, returning to Texas briefly to give his "state of the state" address. Which revealed that he lives in a state of delusion. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs points out that the emperor is unclothed.

Bay Area Houston says that trusting Rick Perry with fiscal responsibility is like trusting a convicted child molester with the keys to a daycare.

Letters From Texas observes Republican priorities around the country and in Texas, and concludes that Republicans are at war with women.

Neil at Texas Liberal notes that having planned all the harm they can on health and education, Texas Republicans are now going after history and the arts. Neil also posted on comments made by Texas state Senator John Whitmire, who made the astute point that average citizens themselves are going to have to organize and fight back if they want to stop the worst of what Republicans have planned for Texas.

TexasVox writes that TransCanada has already started condemning land in Montana for the Keystone XL pipeline to bring the world's dirtiest oil to Texas refineries: is Texas next?

Sunday Funnies

Bush's Swiss visit off after threats of legal action on torture

"A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy and, while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man. It is the only dictator that free men acknowledge and the only security that free men desire." -- Mirabeau B Lamar, 2nd president of the Republic of Texas and the "Father of Texas Education"

"Rush Limbaugh makes a crack about this every week, because who better to get your health advice from than a drug addicted fat man. Rush, I have proof that no one in the government is forcing you to eat right and exercise. YOU!” -- Bill Maher, on Limbaugh’s criticisms of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign

Rumsfeld: I should have resigned after Abu Ghraib

Outside the Egyptian consulate in Houston

Rick Perry chases jobs out of Texas *update*

While we're piling on Governor Zoolander, let's note this news.

Online retail giant Amazon.com is closing a suburban Dallas distribution center and scrapping plans to expand Texas operations after a dispute with the state over millions of dollars in sales taxes, an executive informed employees Thursday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

Dave Clark, Amazon's vice president of operations, writes in the e-mail that the center will close April 12 due to Texas' "unfavorable regulatory climate" (emphasis mine). Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako would not say how many employees work at the Irving distribution center.

Texas contends Amazon is responsible for sales taxes not collected on online sales in the state and the comptroller's office last year demanded $269 million in uncollected sales taxes from the company. Amazon subsequently filed a lawsuit against the state, demanding it produce the audit that generated the figure.

[...]

Clark said in his e-mail that the company also is scrapping plans "to build additional facilities and expand in Texas, bringing more than 1,000 new jobs and tens of millions of investment dollars to the state." Texas employees who are willing to relocate will be offered positions in other states, Clark said.

Let's pause here for a moment. I am in favor of Texas -- and every other state, for that matter -- levying sales taxes on online purchases. To those who would wail about doing so, from corporate retailers to teabaggers and every conservative schmuck in-between -- I say "get a grip". You cannot whine about budget deficits and simply refuse to consider any potential tax revenue streams. It's delusional to think that you can. Oh wait ...

But what I think is neither the point of this post nor the majority viewpoint in Texas. This action by the comptroller completely contradicts the governor's "Texas is good for bidness" BS he repeatedly blathers, and this level of extreme hypocrisy has apparently -- finally --  pissed off all those suckers who just elected him last November. (A little too late for any meaningful action, but then they have always been slow...)

Rick Perry is too busy to notice all that commotion, though; he's in Washington DC to address the CPAC convention this afternoon. That's after visiting California to celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday last week, while Texans shivered under rolling blackouts across the state.

He's not taking extended victory laps or even 'drumming up new business'. It's all part of his 2012 vice-presidential campaign. And his book tour.

McBlogger and Bay Area Houston have more.

Update: It's all Susan Combs' fault.

"That is a problem and I would suggest to you that we need to look at that decision that our comptroller made," he said. "The comptroller made that decision independently. I would tell you from my perspective that's not the decision I would have made."

Well isn't that special. Now we have a catfight between Republican state executives.