The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready for this Saturday's rally to save Texas schools in Austin as it brings you the weekly roundup.

Neil at Texas Liberal noted that Texas state representative Borris Miles of Houston called upon Texans to flood the state Capitol, just as we are seeing in Wisconsin. Miles made the strong point that it is up to each Texan to decide to fight back against the brutal and vindictive budget and social policy legislation now being considered by our legislature in Austin.

Letters From Texas closed the loop on how decisions that the Republicans in charge are making affect every aspect of your child's public school education, and it's even worse than you thought.

John at The Texas Cloverleaf is looking for your support to win a DFA-sponsored scholarship to Netroots Nation 2011, and shows how you can apply for your own chance.

Bay Area Houston says state representative Larry Taylor's TWIA is in TWOUBLE.

Off the Kuff notes that quite a few Republicans are now talking about using the Rainy Day Fund. Will they have the guts to go against Governor Perry? That remains to be seen.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy looks at the Center for Public Integrity’s investigation into sexual assault in Aggieland. LoCS also covers the week in headlines.

Is Dos Centavos making a full-time return? Stace teases us with a smack-down of the Texas Democrats that voted for the sonogram bill.

Eye on Williamson details what 30 years of GOP degradation of government has left us: Debt and privatization, is that the future of Texas?

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw points out that the Texas Taliban Impose More Government on Women . It is as bad as you think ...

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that the republican war on workers, women, Hispanics, children and the poor is going gangbusters.

The Koch brothers are poised to make another bundle if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, writes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

WhosPlayin went after Congressman Michael Burgess, who is pushing a bill to sell war bonds to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, and whatever war is next. Problem: Burgess thinks bonds are free money, having told the Air Force Times that they don't add to the debt and you don't have to raise taxes to pay for them. The Republican War on Arithmetic continues...

Is free parking in downtown Austin a thing of the past? McBlogger has a rant before it comes to pass.

Michael Moore rallies Madison protestors: "America is not broke"

As the Capitol building reopened following two judges' orders to stop prohibiting public access to the building, another huge, sign- carrying crowd massed in downtown Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, March 5.

Once again, there was a festive, playful mood. Protesters carried inflatable palm trees in the frigid weather and signs that read: "Fox News Will Lie About This" (a reference to video of union members screaming and shoving at a rally on Fox's "O'Reilly Factor," which O'Reilly claimed was from Wisconsin, but which clearly showed palm trees and sunshine in the background.)

Capitol Kids, a high-end toy store on the capitol square, was selling bright red t-shirts for kids, with the legend "Teach Me How to Protest," and the Wisconsin Solidarity sign: a blue fist in the shape of the state of Wisconsin ...

"For three weeks you've stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois. Whatever it took, you did it. And one thing is certain, Madison is only the beginning," Moore said.

He connected the protests in Wisconsin to the struggle against economic and political inequality nationally and around the world. The movement is "a little bit of Egypt and a little bit of Madison," he said.

Revving up the crowd, he talked about how a tiny minority of billionaires bought our political process, and torpedoed public spending on things that benefit most people like education, suppressed wages and benefits, and concentrated wealth in a few hands. "But that wasn't enough for them," he said. "Now they want your soul. . . . They want your dignity." Now they are arguing that working people can't even have a place at the table, Moore said. He described a pilot making $19,000 a year who can't even negotiate for a few more hours of sleep in his car at the O'Hare parking lot.

He begged reporters to write down a statistic: that 400 people in the United States now have more wealth than half of all Americans combined -- 155 million people.

"The few who have the most money don't want to pay their fair share of taxes," Moore said. Furthermore, "They are the very people who don't pay their taxes crashed our economic system."

"The nation is not broke, my friends," Moore said. "Wisconsin is not broke. There is plenty of money to go around."

That bears repeating.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

We're having our own little rally in Austin next weekend to Save Texas Schools. Want to join us?

Sunday Funnies

"So, to wrap up: rather than bring the highest marginal tax rate back to what it was in 1990s, we need to bring teachers' abilities to negotiate their own livelihood back to the 1890s." -- Jon Stewart

"Shocking footage from Madison, Wisconsin! They're not only busing in people from out of state, they're also busing in palm trees ... I say if Wisconsinites wanted [Bill] O'Reilly to use footage of their protest while he was talking about possible violence in Wisconsin, those peaceful Wisconsin protesters should've been violent." -- Stephen Colbert

"People from all fifty states and fourteen foreign countries have donated pizzas to the protesters in Wisconsin. Someone asked, 'How can we fix things in Wisconsin?' And someone else said, 'I know! More cheese!!!'" -- Conan O'Brien

"The latest rumor is that Moammar Gadhafi is calling other countries to find a place to live in exile. So far, Chile has offered to rent out an empty mine." -- Jay Leno