Monday, June 04, 2012

The Weekly Pre-Convention Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready to get conventional as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff has his and others' reactions to the election results from last week.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger is ashamed that America's leaders find it expedient to hand the reins of public education over to corporate interests. Education is designed to show us what is already known, and guide us to discover what we need to know. But that interferes with the bottom line: Climate Change: America's Leaders Paid To Mislead.

After relocating from early March to late May, the 2012 Texas primary elections finally took place. WCNews at Eye on Williamson posted this statewide primary analysis.

Poor Seamus the dog was NOT the only car-roof victim of Mitt Romney's abuse that terrible day in 1983, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has video from the archives of the New Hampshire State Police that prove it.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know John Cornyn is trying to pass off the funding of basic infrastructure from the Feds to the counties. Nice trick, you rapist enabler, you.

At TexasKaos, Lightseeker reports on two "drive me crazy" outcomes now that the primary electoral smoke has cleared. There is A Conversation We Need to Have about the once and future fate of the Texas Democratic Party and by extension all progressive efforts here in the state.  

The Lewisville Texan Journal finds itself agreeing with Republican Congressman Michael Burgess's bipartisan bill to increase healthcare pricing transparency, but warns that the move will only help up to a point; using existing hospital price data from Texas, they show how difficult it can be to comparison shop healthcare facilities.

Neil at Texas Liberal -- who has not forgotten that the Texas forced sonogram law is state-mandated rape --wrote about the multiple meanings of the Houston Ship Channel.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

Sunday Funnies (state conventions week edition)

"Mitt Romney won the Texas Republican primary last night, crossing the crucial 1,144 delegate threshold. What a story! He came from never being behind to clinch the Republican nomination. They said it could be done, and against no odds he achieved the possible!"

-- Stephen Colbert


"Mitt Romney has begun vetting his vice presidential candidates. This is a tough thing because they want to appeal to the Republican base. They want a strong conservative there, but someone who will not upstage Mitt Romney. So the search is on for a strong conservative in a coma."

-- Bill Maher


The Democrats are headed to Houston, named for the Texas giant who led his ragged army on a strategic retreat eastward until finally engaging the enemy at San Jacinto and achieving glorious victory. Bereft of a statewide office holder for nearly two decades, the party still is in its Runaway Scrape phase.

The Republicans are convening in Fort Worth, these days a happy blend of traditional cowboy sensibilities and big-city culture that seems mighty comfortable to suit-and-boots-wearing politicians of the GOP persuasion. Fort Worth is thriving, and so is the party.


What Republican 'thriving' really looks like.

Friday, June 01, 2012