First Federal Government Structure Built In Texas W/ Texas Progressive Alliance Round-Up

Here is the weekly posting of the Texas Progressive Alliance round-up. The TPA is a confederation of the best political bloggers in Texas.

With the round-up this week, I’m including two pictures of the United States Customs House in Galveston, Texas. This building was the first building constructed in Texas for use by the federal government.

The structure you see above is the customs house. It now the home of the Galveston Historical Foundation.

The building was completed in 1861. While it was occupied by Confederate traitors, our Federal government took the building back soon enough.

As you see with the plaque below, the federal government has long been active in Texas.  This remains the case today, even while Governor Rick Perry talks about secession, as many Texas Republican lawmakers seek large amounts of  money from the federal government.

Here is a link to a video I made where I read the Federalist papers on the grounds of the San Jacinto battlefield. This is where Texas won independence from Mexico.  All places are the right places to assert the supremacy of the federal government over the states.

Here is the round up—

This week on Left of College Station, Teddy takes a look at the beginning of the campaign for CD-17 between Chet Edwards and Bill Flores. Also, Teddy covers money in local politics by looking at the campaign finance reports of College Station and Bryan municipal candidates. LoCS also covers the week in headlines.

TXsharon of BLUEDAZE: Drilling Reform for Texas stepped in DoodyGate this week! It appears Range Resources fabricated a toxic spill to cover up their illegal dump. When a toxic spill causes less hassle than doody, you know the Texas Railroad Commission “regulations” need updating. Will the City of Denton exercise their new found powers?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme urges you to tell the Texas Legislature that legalizing drugs will stop the border violence. No drug profits. No drug war.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the Texas GOP’s ploy to raise taxes next year, if they’re left in power, and then blame it on Obama. Let’s stop them: Dewhurst lets the cat out of the bag.

Help send the Texas Cloverleaf to Netroots Nation by voting on a DFA scholarship.

This week McBlogger would like to send out a massive thank you to Hank Gilbert for standing up and actually calling out Toll Road Todd for beating up, yet again, on Teh Gays.

Just a few weeks after WhosPlayin wrote a blog post pointing outLewisville ISD’s illegal “zero tolerance” policy, the school boardunanimously overturned it. But WhosPlayin continues to look for answers.

Off the Kuff took a closer look at that Rasmussen poll from last week.

The same thing that caused the deaths of miners in the Upper Big Branch mine is the cause of the bursting of the housing bubble, the Lehman crash, and the implosion of our financial system. Read more at PDiddie’s Brains and Eggs post entitled Consumer regulation as coal mine canary.

There is an old saw which says it is a poor general who blames his soldiers for defeat. With the question of Texas public education still unresolved and hurling toward the latest crisis of funding and quality, lightseeker at TexasKaos takes on a San Antonio Express editorial which proceeds to bash teachers and unions as the overlooked villains in this recurring horror show. Check it out : On Teacher Bashing , or Beating Up the Easy Target in Educational Failures.

Neil at Texas Liberal is pleased to announce that the blog now has a New York City correspondent. Lyuba Halkyn, a daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, will now offer up her views for the blog reading public. This post also has a great picture of a blimp flying over Manhattan in the 1930’s.