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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

The Texas Blue: News

The Ice Storm Cometh

It isn't treacherous outside yet, but as The Texas Blue has its home office in Denton, the Weather Channel is convinced that we are in a state of emergency. I wanted put out a quick update on national politics before the power goes out and we have to revert to living like hunter-gatherers.

Friday News Roundup: Immigration and Other Indictments

Today we have a new article from staff writer Betsy Parchem, resident of Farmers Branch and reluctant witness to the English-only ordinance hijinx currently underway in that city.

Bipartisan Bug Redux

In yet another case of "hell freezing over" moments, 2 more Texas Republicans voted yes on a bill in the Congress yesterday.

The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act was approved on a 253-174 vote in Congress. In a slightly more partisan vote than the mimimum wage, 37 Republicans voted for the bill, while 16 Democrats opposed it. The stunner is that our own Smokey Joe Barton (TX-6) and Kay Granger (TX-12) voted to pass the bill, along with their TX Democratic colleagues.

Back to Boston

I got a letter this morning from Karl-Thomas Musselman, who until yesterday was the Editor of the Burnt Orange Report and a vibrant, driving force in Texas' netroots revolution. He's moving to Boston to work on ActBlue, which you should probably be familiar with if you are not already. I've lived in Boston a couple of times, once for a while after I graduated high school and again during the 2004 election cycle.

Menos Threatening Letters, Please

A few days ago, I saw a story about a promotion a southern pizza chain was running in which they would accept pesos as well as dollars. Pizza Patron caters to a Hispanic clientele, and news of the promotion brought them deals. It also brought them death threats.

Democratic National Convention set for Denver

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean announced today that Denver, Colorado will host the 2008 Democratic National Convention on Monday, August 25 through Thursday, August 28. The options have been between Denver and New York for the past few months. Dean claimed that the bids from both cities have made the decision "enormously difficult."

The Bipartisan Bug in Congress

The 110th Congress has only been in session for a few days, and already some Republicans are breaking rank and voting alongside Democrats. I truly did not expect this, but 82 Republicans in the House voted to pass the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. Two of them are from Texas.

Congressman Ted Poe (TX-2) and Congressman Kenny Marchant (TX-24) actually went against their party's position, and vote Yea on the matter. This comes as a shock to me, considering Marchant voted with the party line 99% of the time in his previous term.

News Roundup: Political Blitz

Wednesday was relatively quiet in Texas politics - the beginnings and goings-on in Austin seemed muted in comparison to the frenzy of the day of the Speaker's Race. Sure, Dan Patrick filed a trigger law in the Texas Senate that outlaws abortion in case of Roe v. Wade being overturned, but the time for that idea may have already passed.

Cutting off noses to spite faces

Managing editors sometimes get into the habit of managing in the background and letting their publication's star writers shine. For better or for worse, I've pretty much done that for the week or so that The Texas Blue has been up. But I feel I have to note one small thing, to perhaps balance some invective being leveled in the blogosphere:

Intentionally running (funding, supporting) a primary opponent against an incumbent Democrat which holds a seat in an area which is at best only marginally blue (which would apply to far too many of our Democrats in the state legislature) is, put simply, political suicide.

The Day After

Not much seemed to be cooking in Austin throughout the morning. The news mostly concerned the post-game on the Speaker's Race, and various MSM analyses of what happened, or what it all means.