The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance might be a little late to work this morning, after celebrating the Rick Perry indictment all weekend, as it brings you the best lefty blog posts across the Lone Star State from last week.

Off the Kuff reminds us that there's one more special Senate election to go this year, and this one features a Democrat that's worth supporting.

Harold Cook warns us to keep a sense of perspective on the Rick Perry indictment.

Texas Leftist keeps wondering when the national media is going figure out that Texas could be a swing state today if enough people were actually voting. Plus: clarifying Wendy Davis' stance on LGBT equality issues, and what we can expect if she's elected.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson wryly observes that unfortunately in Texas, we have the government that we voted for... or didn't vote for, as the case may be: Avoiding Medicaid, Non-Voting, And Ferguson.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos finds it amusing how Greg Abbott promotes himself as a small government fiscal conservative while he squanders taxpayer dollars on ridiculous lawsuits: Greg Abbott’s Frivolous Fights with the Feds Cost Taxpayers Millions.

CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme notes that audit of Hidalgo County voting machines shows no tampering. Of course, without a paper trail, you can't really be sure. Kudos to Travis County for their efforts to provide auditable elections.

After the late Friday afternoon news broke about Rick Perry's felony indictments, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs consumed more adult beverages than he planned. All weekend long.

Egberto Willies thinks that Hillary Clinton should pay attention to the Obama coalition that Rand Paul is trying to assemble.

Neil at Blog About Our Failing Money-Owned American Political System bought a Texas cake to mark the indictment of Rick Perry. NeilAquino.com has many pages and is well worth your time to consider.

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And here some great blog posts from elsewhere in the Deep-In-The-Hearta.

jobsanger has the chart that illustrates how Rick Perry's payola scheme has worked so well for him over the years.

Grits for Breakfast notes that the economics of the Rio Grande border surge are not sustainable, while Scott Braddock shows how Rick Perry's border posturing is bad for the people that actually live and work there.

Fascist Dyke Motors seems to have misplaced her father's suicide diaries.  If you find them, could you kindly return them?

State Impact Texas has the news that diesel fuel has been used in hydraulic fracturing, which is illegal.  Bluedaze offers the proof.

nonsequiteuse expands on the report that John Cornyn and Ted Cruz spend more taxpayer money on their office operations that nearly every other US Senator.

In the third installment of a continuing series, Socratic Gadfly's word to text Greg Abbott -- per request in his movie trailer ads -- is not 'freedom' but 'RickPerry'.  Or 'indictment' is good, too.

Juanita Jean disagrees with the calls for Rick Perry to resign.

Lone Star Q decries Rep. Jonathan Stickland's attack on transgender inmates.

The Texas Election Law Blog games out the state's strategy in the redistricting litigation.

Lone Star Ma celebrates National Breastfeeding Month.

And finally, The Bloggess wants us to know that help is always available if you need it.

Sunday Funnies

Morning-after fallout from the Perry indictment

-- CultureMap Houston:

If found guilty, Perry could be face up to 109 years in prison. He'll surrender to the Travis County Jail where he will be fingerprinted and have a mugshot taken. According to the Associated Press, his defense attorney David L. Botsford is being paid $450 per hour with state funds.

-- Socratic Gadfly:

...(I)f convicted, Tricky Ricky will have to give up that beloved hogleg that he allegedly uses for killing coyotes. It's not just the concealed weapons angle; convicted felons in Texas can't own firearms for five years, and they can't ever have concealed carry permits. That, and many other, restrictions he would face are here. (It's also a great way to do voter suppression, because a felonious Trickster can't vote until he's done with sentence and parole!)

No pistole and no voting; that's about the most fun parts of this.

Beyond that, this has been coming for 20-plus years.

At my first newspaper, I had a set of investigative journalism stories connected to his race against Jim Hightower for Ag Commissioner. Hightower's department was investigating an agrichemical company legally incorporated as a co-op. One of his agents accidentally went from adjoining private ranchland onto the company's site. Perry reportedly told the company to use this as an excuse to stall, stall, stall until after the election, which he, of course won in 1990.  Given the bribery cases against Hightower's aides (to which he was in no way personally connected), Perry had a good chance of winning.

Assuming what I heard as rumor is true, nobody should underestimate Tricky Ricky's legal elbows.

-- Real-time reactions from the Texas Politics blog at the HouChron, "need-to-knows" from Talking Points Memo and the Texas Observer, and some gloating and more good links from Greg Mitchell and Juanita Jean.

I'm going to hold off on the chortling at least until I see a mugshot that's been Photoshopped.

Update: This Austin Chronicle piece has a good backgrounder on Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor who brought the case to the grand jury that returned the indictments.  Kindly note that he was appointed by a Republican judge.