The Texas Progressive Alliance sure hopes that Harris County has a disaster recovery plan for the loss of its voting machines as it brings you this week’s blog roundup.

Off the Kuff had three more interviews this week, with State Reps. Armando Walle, Ellen Cohen, and Kristi Thibaut.

Meet Jeff “The Trucker” Evans, an unemployed 49-year-old whose unemployment benefits were restored by Congressional Democrats after a Republican filibuster caused the payments to temporarily cease. Eye On Williamson explains how misdirected Tea Party anger causes Jeff the Trucker to vote against his economic best interest.

John Cornyn, known as a rapist enabler, decides to waffle on 14th amendment to the constitution. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is certain that Cornyn doesn’t care about civil rights – just his fat a**.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker summaries the latest scandals at TYC. The more things change over there, the more they remain the same, sadly…. Check it out : Texas Youth Commission Abuses Make the News Again.

Neil at Texas Liberal attended press conferences held by both Houston Votes and by a local so-called Tea Party group, as a possible pattern of harassment and intimidation against likely Democratic voters in Harris County may be at work. Also, Neil announced that he will now also be blogging at The Daily Hurricane as well as at Texas Liberal. Neil is also a featured politics reader-blogger at the Houston Chronicle.

WhosPlayin reports that the local school district sent a letter to the Attorney General’s office requesting exemption from release on the grounds that some personal expenses on district credit cards were too embarrassing to release.

The warehouse where election machines are stored erupted in flames last Friday morning, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs had the early line on what it means for Houston and the surrounding area, which represent 15% of the statewide vote tally. Coupled with the histrionics of Leo Vasquez vis-a-vis Houston Votes, it’s going to be a real lively election season (and that’s before a single race gets mentioned).

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Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek won the Senate primary in Florida last night. While he is clearly the better Democratic candidate, the downside is that means that he and Gov. Crist – who is running as an Independent – will now be fighting for the same votes, possibly giving Republican Marco Rubio a path to victory. Whomever wins this seat may decide who has control of the Senate next year. On the gubernatorial side, Republicans wisely chose Medicare fraudster Rick Scott who will face Democrat Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer.

Over in Arizona, incumbents Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer won their primaries. McCain faced former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who is even crazier than McCain these days, but strangely, lost. Republicans also nominated former Vice President Dan Quayle’s son, Ben Quayle, to an open congressional seat in Arizona. Probably because he said President Obama is the worst president ever, or something.

Lastly, in Alaska, the Tea Party looks to have claimed another victim in their ideological purity war. While we are still awaiting some absentee ballot results, Sen. Lisa Murkowski was likely defeated by some guy named Joe Miller (no really, he’s basically just some guy with no experience or accomplishments to his name). So some incumbents won and one lost. How will the media make an overly simplistic narrative out of this?

Oh.

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The Texas Progressive Alliance welcomes everyone back to school as it brings you the best of the blogs for the week.

This week, Off the Kuff did three interviews with State House candidates – Joe Montemayor, Rick Molina, and Silvia Mintz.

Bay Area Houston wonders why the Texas Federation of Pecker Heads have have endorsed Rick Perry.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme calls out all republicans clamoring for ‘small government’. Why do republicans want more tainted food and another BP disaster?

Libby Shaw is fed up with the Party O’ No. She gives us chapter and verse as to why in Bereft of Solutions and Ideas, The GOP Gins Up Controversy. Check it out at TexasKaos.

WhosPlayin posted documents obtained by the Hank Gilbert campaign, showing alarming gaps in Texas food safety, and a Department of Agriculture that seems more concerned about appearances than anything else. On the lighter side, local governments are struggling for cash and seeking corporate sponsorships on public facilities. Hopefully someone will pull the plug on this deal.

PDiddie posts about the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding the Manhattan Islamic center in Mosquerade, at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at Texas Liberal offered up a picture of the excellent new wheelchair ramp on the beach in Galveston. This ramp was paid for with our taxpayer dollars and was built by government, for the good of all people of Galveston and for the good of all people who visit Galveston. Without government, we would live like barbarians to an even far greater extent than we do at current.

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The Texas Progressive Alliance is enjoying its last week before school starts as it brings you this week’s blog roundup.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is amazed at how much republicans like John Cornyn hate our constitution and the freedoms it accords us.

Off the Kuff continued the 2010 interview series with conversations with State Reps. Scott Hochberg, Sylvester Turner, and Jessica Farrar.

Neil at Texas Liberal noted that you can register to vote in three languages in Harris County. No matter what the Republicans and the Tea Party folks hope for, we live in a diverse city, county, state, nation and world.

Bad news for Barnett Shale residents: methane + sunlight + oxygen = formaldehyde. Considering the constant, massive fugitive emissions, it’s no wonder we have “astounding” high levels of formaldehyde. Brought to you by TXsharon at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

The latest broadside from the Back to Basics PAC, “Hands OFF our land!” is a wedge issue for Bill White. It’s effectively separating Rick Perry from rural (mostly Caucasian) Texans. Read it — and watch it — at PDiddie’s Brains and Eggs.

Over at TexasKaos, libby shaw chronicles the latest embarrassment from Louie Gohmert in TX GOP Louie Gohmert Has Melt Down on CNN With no evidence to support him, Louie did what he does best – spews and sputters… Check it out….

This week at McBlogger, we start our long awaited transfer to WordPress and a new design. Come by, check it out and see what Sleazy Todd Staples is up to now.

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Less than three months to go…

House – Charlie Cook still thinks the House is very much in play:

The Cook Political Report last week upped its projection from a 30-40-seat net gain for Republicans to a 32-42-seat net gain, with our model showing +34 seats for the GOP. This count is more heavily weighted toward individual race dynamics, but my gut feeling — which, in years like this one, factors in national mood, relative intensity and enthusiasm between the parties and how independents seem to be breaking — is suggesting somewhat bigger numbers.

The wave is still the wave, and it still looks pretty strong and unabated.

The polls aren’t looking good for Dems, though few believe conditions it will be like 1994 (maybe like 2006). Still, I agree with Cook that this will turn only one of two ways: either it will be an average midterm with average net losses for the president’s party or it’ll be a wave with people voting based on their anger and discontent with the state of the economy.

Senate – Tea party crazy Ken Buck won the GOP’s Senate primary in Colorado last night, meaning that Sen. Michael Bennet probably has a better chance of winning now, just like Sharron Angle’s disastrous candidacy in Nevada has brought Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid back from the dead. As for the rest of the most competetive races, Republicans continue to look really good to takeover 4 seats – North Dakota, Delaware, Arkansas and Indiana. Pennsylvania and Illinois remain 50-50, Gov. Crist continues to lead in his independent bid in Florida, and Lee Fisher is making Ohio the Democrats biggest takeover oppurtunity. See First Read’s ratings for a full list. Basically, the remaining months will determine whether the Democrats fend off a lot of the challenges or the Republicans put chamber control in play.

Gubernatorial – Republicans nominated a weak candidate for Colorado governor yesterday and former Rep. Tom Tancredo has announced an independent run, giving Democrats a good shot at retention. Connecticut looked like a lock for Democratic takeover with either Lamont or Malloy (who won). And over in Georgia, former Gov. Roy Barnes is putting the state in play as Republicans are in disarray over their candidates. The Line has the most recent roundup of the remaining races. There hasn’t been any recent polling here in Texas, but Bill White continues to run a solid campaign. Will it be enough to topple Perry? Only time can tell.

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Tonight had the biggest primary news in awhile. In the most major news, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado survived a primary challenge from the left by former state Rep. Andrew Romanoff (I guess that anti-incumbent stuff from the media was a bit premature?). Also, Linda McMahon won the Republican Senate primary in Connecticut, which is good news for Democrats since she is looking pretty weak against Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Meanwhile in the state’s gubernatorial primary, Ned Lamont (who ran unsuccessfully against Joe Lieberman for Senate in 2006) lost to Dan Malloy. All in all, it was a good night for Democrats.

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The House of Representatives returned from district work break to pass a bill to save cash-strapped states from having to layoff teachers, police, and other state workers. President Obama immediately signed it into law. The House also passed a bill to increase border security funds, which the Senate already passed.

Meanwhile, the Senate confirmed James Clapper to be chief of U.S. intelligence before going into recess.

UPDATE: Texas Republicans are considering legal action over a provision of the jobs bill that applies to Texas education funds.

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The Texas Progressive Alliance is pretty sure its invitation to President Obama’s events in Texas were lost in the mail, and we will keep saying that to ourselves as we bring you this week’s blog highlights.

Off the Kuff continued his interview series with Congressional candidate Ted Ankrum and State Representatives Senfronia Thompson and Garnet Coleman.

Staggering levels of formaldehyde in Barnett Shale air and the attempted cover up, breaking news by TXsharon on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

This week on Left of College Station, Teddy reports that the Republican electoral strategy is to conceal their policy agenda, and notes that Congress should do nothing because the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire. Left of College Station also covers SMUT and the says Texas Dominates the Recession at a price.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why republicans like John Cornyn want to take us back to pre-Civil War days when blacks were not full citizens of the United States.

What part time governor is also a real estate genius or maybe instead a sleazy grafter? Read Libby Shaw’s take over at TexasKaos in Gov Rick Perry Stuffed His Pockets with $500K from Murky Land Deal.

NatWu at Three Wise Men says that however bad that economic news seems these days, things are actually much worse.

WhosPlayin stepped in it this week by pointing out how the local school district is giving an across-the-board raise to all administrative personnel, many of whom are already highly paid, while some highly-experienced teachers could go without raises this year.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has been skewing the child support statistics to his favor, reports PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

On a day trip to Galveston, Neil at Texas Liberal took a picture of a portion of the Seawall mural that showed workers in hazmat suits cleaning up muck from the sea. While Galveston is a great place to spend a day and spend a few dollars, the folks there are long-acquainted with toxic spills.

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As this article makes clear, America is still full of racist, ignorant, intolerant people:

[H]eated confrontations have also broken out in communities across the country where mosques are proposed for far less hallowed locations.

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.

This is no big surprise. If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that there will always be some ignorant, paranoid, xenophobic jackasses out there to make us all look bad. Fortunately there are more people on the side of religious freedom (and tolerance) than there are against it. This is still America, after all.

Sigh in disgust at this one:

“As a mother and a grandmother, I worry,” Ms. Serafin said. “I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.”

“I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion,” she said. “But Islam is not about a religion. It’s a political government, and it’s 100 percent against our Constitution.”

Now, what do you want to bet that she isn’t against Islam influencing the government because she’s a strong secularist but because she’s a Christian? Besides which, such fears are pretty much ridiculous when we all know that this country is going to the Mexicans. She ought to fear the growing Catholic menace!

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The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan as the 112th justice of the Supreme Court by a 63-37 vote.

The Senate also approved a bill to save hundreds of thousands of state jobs and Speaker Pelosi says she will call the House back from recess next week to pass it. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans stalled President Obama’s intelligence nominee’s confirmation and movement on even the scaled-back energy bill will be delayed until September when they return from break.

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