People don't like pipelines carry toxic materials running through their land

Crony capitalists can just take your land, because republicans and some crony capitalist democrats let them.

The Gipses are one of hundreds in the Crossroads with pipelines crisscrossing their property. For the Gipses and others, their worries aren't about fracking or possible pollutants. For them, the problems start with two legal words: eminent domain.

The Eagle Ford Shale play has unlocked thousands of barrels of oil from the dense brittle rock formation that lies in the depths below their feet. But the oil has to make it to market, and to do that efficiently companies need pipelines. They will buy the right to put in the steel lines, but if you don't cooperate, these private companies use their power of eminent domain - the legal authority to take privately owned land for the public good.

Residents want the jobs funded with taxpayer dollars

Why should this even be an issue? Crony capitalists.

Colonia residents showed up in force at a Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council meeting last Thursday to get behind a big jobs issue proposed by the Equal Voice for America’s Families network.

Equal Voice wants the LRGVDC to make sure a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, known as Section 3, is fully complied with so that local, low-income residents can be hired for projects receiving federal assistance.

Equal Voice has one major particular project in mind, one that will see $122 million in federal funds spent on repairing houses damaged by 2008’s Hurricane Dolly.

“We are here to express the urgency and how critical it is for the people who live in the colonias that we have the support of the Equal Voice Action 3 plan. It goes without saying because we know about the high unemployment in South Texas. We know how the situation is with the economy,” said Juanita Valdez-Cox, director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero, a member of the Equal Voice group.

It's time for the Monday blog roundup

The Texas Progressive Alliance is stocking up on unhealthy snacks and adult beverages as it brings you this week's roundup.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is concerned that frivolous issues, wielded by the GOP-Tea Party-Republican Party, is a terrible distraction from serious problems facing America. Character slaughter, in the battle for a Republican Presidential candidate, does not show who the best candidate may be, so Divided and Apathetic We Fall …

In addition to all of the redistricting litigation, the state of Texas has also filed a lawsuit to get the odious voter ID law precleared. Off the Kuff has a look.

Texas always ranks high on the list of "business friendly" states. WCNews at Eye On Williamson says It’s time for Texas to become a top 10 state for the rest of us.

A Houston Not-So-Much 'Stros rant, starring Roger Metzger as Ron Paul (or maybe the other way around), is posted at PDiddie's Brains and Eggs.

At TexasKaos, lightseeker explains that Rick Santorum's wife DIDNOT have an abortion, but therein lies a tale and an advocacy for a sane truce in the choice wars. Give it a read: Abortion, Choice and Absolutist Morality.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme, like everyone else, knows that the Texas Supreme Court is crony capitalism central.

Neil at Texas Liberal made a post about the great resources at the C-SPAN program archive, and at the new American wing of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. These are first rate, free and accessible websites that respect the fact that everybody has the ability to understand complex things, and that everybody has the abilty to engage in political action.

Bad news for Corpus Christi

No wonder republicans run the city council and the county.

For the second time in three years, Corpus Christi finished next to last in the Central Connecticut State University's ranking of America's Most Literate Cities with a population 250,000 and above.

Except for Austin, a Democratic island in Texas, Texas cities did poorly.

Brownsville should come clean about the shooting of a student

What could possibly possess Brownsville? Hiding information about the shooting of a student will only make people think you have something to hide. Now I do.

The Brownsville Police Department has asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to rule against releasing files related to the fatal shooting of a Cummings Middle School student on Jan 4.

The material includes a surveillance video, according to the letter to the attorney general, dated Thursday.

Jaime Gonzalez Jr., 15, an eighth-grader at Cummings, was shot at the school by police when he brandished what appeared to be a handgun and refused to put it down when ordered to do so. Later the weapon was found to be a pellet gun.

The Brownsville Herald, along with several other media outlets, requested under public information laws, the police report and investigative file related to the shooting.

It's obvious to anyone that the Texas Supreme Court is crony capitalism central

No doubt republicans are crony capitalists. No doubt corporations run Texas.

In the last 10 years, the majority of Texas Supreme Court decisions have favored corporate interests over consumers, and the panel of judges has repeatedly overstepped its authority by overturning jury verdicts and interpreting the law to benefit the rich, according to a scathing report set to be released today by consumer advocacy group Texas Watch.

“The Texas Supreme Court has marched in lock-step to consistently and overwhelmingly reward corporate defendants and the government at the expense of Texas families,” the report says.

What happens if there are 2 primaries this year?

How will counties make up the cost?

There is growing concern that a split primary will cost Hidalgo County so much money that commissioners might have to reduce the number of polling locations in order to stay within budget.

One of those with such concerns is Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Yvonne Ramon, who is hoping to testify about the impact of this year’s elections fiasco at a status conference hearing being held by a federal court in San Antonio on Friday.

The families of the Rio Grande Valley suffer the effects of income inequality

While fat cats like Mitt Romney become super rich looting company assets like pension and health funds and placing bets with your mortgage money, real people suffer the consequences.

The group says the state of families who live in the Valley “illustrates clearly the inequality that has become a part of our nation's social reality.”

In a statement accompanying the State of the Valley address, Equal Voice says Valley families “work longer hours for less pay, and pay higher tax rates than any other region in the country.”

The group points out that the Valley has invested more people in the nation's Armed Forces than anywhere else in the nation, and yet its veterans “continue to lack the medical care that they have been promised over and again.”

Other injustices are highlighted in the report.

“We have the highest number of uninsured people in the USA, have no public hospital, and yet are charged some of the highest rates for medical care in America. We are the youngest region in the nation and yet our schools are vastly, and, unfairly, underfunded,” the group states.

What to do about in state tuition for undocumented kids when your base is racist?

The republican party is a joke. An ugly, racist, sexist, homophobic joke.

The Texas law allowing some illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates, a flashpoint issue that helped doom Republican Gov. Rick Perry's campaign for president, is set to be tweaked Thursday to remind students they promised to seek legal status.

Thursday's vote on a rule change by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is a small step toward putting more pressure on those students to follow up on their pledge.

They could have been much, much worse.

Corpus Christi city council elects Kelley Allen

All discussion was behind closed doors. No need for that pesky public to know what was said.

Calallen resident and local business owner Kelley Allen is the new City Council representative for District 1.

Council members gave unanimous support Tuesday to appoint Allen to the seat vacated by Kevin Kieschnick this year after he was appointed to Nueces County tax assessor-collector.

Harlingen seniors registered to vote

Vote, vote!

Hundreds of Harlingen High School seniors pledged Monday to vote as soon as they are 18 and able to do so.

They attended a voter registration drive held in the school canteen that was hosted jointly by Harlingen CISD and the Advocacy Alliance for Texas (AACT) and filled out voter registration forms from Cameron County Election's Department.

“I will be 18 in two months. I plan to vote in the presidential election this year because it is so important we choose the right president,” said Harlingen High School student Jasmine Ruiz. A senior, Ruiz told the Guardian she plans to go to TSTC-Harlingen in order to pursue a career in the medical field. Asked if today’s voter registration drive influenced her decision to vote, Ruiz said: “It helped make up my mind for sure.”

How does a newspaper minimize Romney's low tax rate?

The Corpus Christi Caller Times shows its greedy corporate bastard roots with this headline 'Romney paid $3M in federal income tax in 2010'

Oh, look here, you stupid reader! Isn't that a lot of money? Then, the Caller Times doubles down by rounding up Mitt Romney's effective tax rate to 14%.

This tax rate is fundamentally unfair when average people pay around 30% of their meager wages. This tax rate is even worse when you realize that the greedy corporate bastards want to gut Social Security and Medicare so that they don't have to pay more than 13% effective tax rate.

When Newt Gingrich says he wants kids to clean toilets, when Newt Gingrich says we need to eliminate food stamps for the working poor and unemployment insurance for those laid off, Newt means he wants to turn the American labor force into the American version of Foxconn. Think about it.

It the weekly blog roundup from your friendly TPA

The Texas Progressive Alliance thanks the state of South Carolina for all the laughs as it brings you this week's blog roundup.

The big story last week was the SCOTUS ruling on interim redistricting maps. Off the Kuff has an initial look.

It turns out that PDiddie and Paula Deen have more in common than just their initials; there's also a morality tale involved. Read "Paula Deen, diabetes, and Novo Nordisk" at Brains and Eggs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is tired of the media ignoring grossly untrue, inflammatory, and just plain disgusting things Republicans like Rick Perry make.

Perry's run for the Presidency is over! WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on it here, Good riddance, for now, Perry drops out.

This was a big week of action culminating in the defeat (for now) of SOPA, including Wednesday when many of our sites went dark. Darth Politico refused to go dark, and instead went dork-- with a snark/irony blog supporting SOPA (or "Why Death Stars are a good thing").

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw mourns for Texas in "Poor Texas Forrest Homer Simpson is Coming Back". An eloquent requiem for a candidate who brought untold levels of derision to our state when he revealed how truly shallow and narcissistic he is. Give it a read!

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote this week abour how Houston School Board Member Manuel Rodriguez got away with using anti-gay campaign materials in his recent reelection victory. Everyday citizens, Civil rights groups and the Houston GLBT Political Caucus all gave Mr. Rodriguez a free pass despite his hateful words.

The Corpus Christi Caller Times wishes we had f*cked up our waterfront

What did you say?

Looking at the acres of undeveloped land surrounding the Shoreline Boulevard site for the new park, Jamie Torres Springer a partner with HR&A Advisors, marveled at the openness of the land. "You don't see waterfront land that is that deep and long that can be dedicated for public space," he said. "Most waterfronts are blocked by billions of dollars of infrastructure that has to be redone."

In other words, our bayfront is clean of any major private investment such as waterside hotels, or major shopping centers, or even nitty-gritty stuff like docks or warehouses. Yes we've done a real good job of keeping our bayfront free of anything that looks like it might make money. It's not as if we haven't tried.

The downtown bayfront is where development ideas go to die. There was the entertainment zone on the marina proposed by Landry's. There was the proposal to convert the now-gone Memorial Coliseum into a shopping center. There was the initiative by the Omni people to create an entertainment area. Remember the "land mass?"

Just WTF, WTF WTF!!

Audit leads to investigation of former Brooks County Sheriff

More trouble?

An auditor found more than $500,000 in questionable purchases through former Brooks County Sheriff Balde Lozano's criminal asset forfeiture funds, prompting a local prosecutor to refer the matter to the Texas Attorney General's office.

According to the audit, some of the purchases were channeled through funds controlled by Joe Frank Garza, the former 79th District Attorney who pleaded guilty in March to a felony charge for paying himself and his employees more than $2 million from his office's forfeiture fund without county commissioners' approval.

Former Corpus Christi Municipal Court employee indicted

That's a headline you don't want to see.

Former court analyst Frances Rios was indicted last month on charges of tampering with a government document, a state jail felony.

According to court records, Rios dismissed another person's speeding ticket in February.

A Brownsville story about sustainable living

There are good things going on in this world.

If you want to see what the future of affordable housing looks like in Brownsville, take a gander at the little blue house at 3132 Westwind Drive in the Inwood II subdivision.

Built by the YouthBuild program of the Community Development Corporation of Brownsville, it’s the first LEED-certified house in the Rio Grande Valley, according to CDCB officials. LEED stands for "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design," an internationally recognized "green" building certification. A public open house on Westwind Drive is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 25, from 5 to 7:30 p.m.

To receive LEED designation, a structure must meet a very high level of energy efficiency. Students in CDCB’s YouthBuild program did the construction on the Westwind Drive house, and are at work on a second LEED-certified home, this one in the California Crossing subdivision in Los Fresnos.

Former state Rep. Sergio Muñoz Sr. business gets raided by Feds

That doesn't sound good.

Federal and state investigators raided a healthcare agency Thursday belonging to former state Rep. Sergio Muñoz Sr., who serves as president of the Texas Healthcare Advocacy Association.

More than a dozen FBI agents and Texas Attorney General’s investigators executed a search warrant at Hosanna Health Care, 1001 N. Conway Ave., starting about 9 a.m. Thursday.