Mark your Calendars for Saturday July 19th 7:00PM to 10:00PM.  As the Netroots Nation conference winds to a close Saturday evening, come by Bay6 Studios in East Austin:

Kick Back and Kick it Up before We Kick 'Em Out!

Sponsored and hosted by Texas Kaos and Bay6 Gallery.  Featuring music, food, drink and  agroup art exhibition of work by Texas artists with a political theme titled:

"Blogging from the Right Side of the Brain."

I realize it's a bit of a challenge to know where to draw the ethical line when you've made your bones on behalf of an utterly corrupt regime, John Cornyn, but here's a quick and easy rule of thumb.

If you're going to have people who work for you go onto blogs and talk you up, they need to disclose who they're working for.

Otherwise, crap like this happens:

In the Texas Lyceum's just finished poll, Rick Noriega is within two points of John Cornyn (via email from the Rick Noriega campaign:

The live interview poll has Noriega with 36 points and John Cornyn at 38 with still 24 percent undecided voters and a margin of error of 4.5 percent. Underscoring the deep desire for change in the state, 70 percent of Texans believe the country is on the wrong track and only 23 percent say "things are moving in the right direction." This is the third independent poll showing a tight race between John Cornyn and  Rick Noriega.

Had an absolutely fabulous time last night at the Bloggers Caucus last evening.  

If you weren't there, you were missed.

If you were there, remember to hydrate for the hangover...

The Cedar Door folks took great care of us. I recommend the jalapeno poppers and the Mexican Martinis.  WooT!

Junior John Cornyn is a great admirer of a big military footprint.

He just doesn't want it to cost too much.

He's had lots of chances to support the troops in addition to supporting the McBush Iraq War, but he's pretty much taken a pass.

(From the diaries -- kos)

Mikal Watts has just released a statement withdrawingfrom the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Texas.

I've included his statement under the fold, but first I'd like to thank Mikal, his family, and his supporters for their efforts.  The contest so far has helped to raise the profile of this race, and when we send a new Senator who actually represents Texas interests next year, in will be in part due to his strong entry into the race.

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Mikal in the  Texas Democratic Party.

Statement from Mikal Watts:

For the last five months I have been exploring a race for the United States Senate because I believe that our junior senator, John Cornyn, has let Texas down and is more concerned with his cronies and friends in Washington than with what’s best for Texas.

After spending the last several months putting everything into this campaign, I have seen the toll this effort has taken on my young children. For these reasons, my wife and I have made the decision that I will not be seeking the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 2008. I was brought up to believe that public service is a noble endeavor and I will continue to be involved at some level in the future. However, I realize that my time now should be devoted to serving my children so they may grow up in a healthy environment with both parents at home to meet their needs.

The reasons for creating my exploratory committee still exist. As I have criss-crossed the state and met and talked with tens of thousands of good Texans, it is evident how much the people of Texas want and need a Senator who will fight every day for their interests and not the special interests. We need to elect a new Senator in Texas and I will personally do everything possible to support the Democratic nominee.

It is hard to express the gratitude I feel for all the support my family and I have received as we have pursued this effort. I know that our vision for the future of Texas is one that all of our friends and supporters share. It’s been one of the greatest blessings of my life for their faith in me, and for all of their hard work over the past months. While the decision not to seek the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate has been a difficult one, I know that it is the right one for my family at this time.

Update:  

A Statement from Rick Noriega

I received a call from Mikal Watts this morning informing me that he has decided to withdraw from the Democratic Primary race for the United States Senate.

As Teddy Roosevelt once said, the credit goes to the man in the arena.  And Mikal Watts will always have my utmost respect for standing in the arena and highlighting how John Cornyn has let Texas down, placing political extremists and his financial contributors ahead of the people of Texas.

Of course, this is not the first time Mikal has been in the arena — he’s been a true friend to Democrats in Texas and throughout the nation, and has always had the courage to stand up for his convictions.

Today, Mikal made a very difficult and personal decision to put his family first.  That’s a reflection of a strong character and a truly grounded leader.

Mikal and I made plans to sit down together in the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I’ll continue the campaign that we started together and fight for the vision for a better Texas that we continue to share.

Well,  as the Texas League of Conservation Voters just came out with their Legislative scorecard  and Rep. Rick Noriega, who's running for the nomination to defeat John Cornyn was rated at 96%* for his work in the Texas Legislature, I thought it would be a good time to do a piece analyzing Junior John's environmental record.

Turns out to be easier than I thought.

As the misshapen priorities displayed on the Senate floor demonstrated last week, we need more and better Democrats in Congress.  We need them representing our progressive "Move On" values.

Rick Noriega is such a Democrat, which is why I got involved in the movement to draft him for the U.S. Senate race against John Cornyn.  I hope as you get to know him in the coming months of this campaign you'll agree that he is a fitting successor to the Texas progressive tradition of Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, and LBJ-with a little Lloyd Bentsen thrown in for good measure.

While he had some help, it appears that John Cornyn's exercise in political farce on the Senate floor turned into a huge moneymaker, though not necessarily in the way Junior John intended.

But it did raise a nice chunk of change.

For Move On.

Let me first start with an apology for the disgusting performance of the Junior Senator from Texas.

As noted elsewhere, it WAS pure performance-political theatre  of the farce genre.

You might be able to imagine what Rick Noriega, Afghanistan vet and current Lt. Col in the Texas National Guard thought of that display, but Rick is about actions, not just words.  Follow me on the flip for his call to action.

Yesterday marked the one month point of the Texas Bloggers drive for 800 participants on board the Noriega Express to give Texas at least one U.S. Senator who won't embarass us every time he opens his mouth.

A lot has happened in that month, and it could not have happened without YOU.

 With a hat tip to our friends in the Nutmeg State who blazed this trail with Ned Lamont last year, follow me on the flip to see what a Lone Star movement looks like...

I have a confession to make.

I used to think John Cornyn was okay for a Republican. I grew up in AZ with Republicans like Barry Goldwater and Paul Fannin (okay, yes, and Evan Meacham, but nobody liked him by the time we got to know him). These were Republicans we could fight like hell with and still respect as basically decent human beings.

Or those trying to contain them.

BOR is on top of the continuing saga of corrupt Craddick.

Go take a read, if you've got a few minutes. This is history in the making, and the folks at BOR are doing incredible work reporting on it. Major, major props are due.

A few excerpts on the flip to whet your appetite if you haven't been keeping up. (Be sure to check out the comments over there as well.)

The latest installment of Drama Under the Dome has everything the most lurid telenovela could offer-with the possible exception of nubile young women looking for love (unless you're hanging out with Rep. Dan Patrick, R. Misogyny).

Follow me on the flip for a rundown on some of the heroes and villains  featured in the latest episode.

As Rep Nick Lampson continues recovering from his heart surgery, he's making plans for his political future that seem likely to leave a lot of his supporters in the district very unhappy.

The Battle for TX-22 was a hard fought one in 2006. Replacing a wounded Delay (who left the race after the primary in vain hope of allowing the RPT to name a successor) took the combined efforts of a determined candidate, the DCCC and other established Dem powers, and bloggers and other activists sowing blue seeds in a determinedly red district.

Wise County, like a lot of other rural Texas counties, has a lot of challenges.  There's the threat of  the National Animal Identification System, the Trans Texas Corridor land grab, injection wells endangering the quality of ground water, and the unregulated thirst of the gas and oil industry sucking the water table dry. This means  a unique opportunity and a desperate necessity for Wise County Democrats to reach out to their neighbors and unite to make government responsive to them.

Sadly, that is an opportunity that is being ignored in the place of the kind of political hardball that Texas Democrats have been playing intramurally instead of against the Republican opposition.

When contacted for this article, Wise County Democratic Chair Brenda Rankin made a special point of hoping that I as a blogger would be polite, and that she believes that it is important above all things for Democrats to do no harm to each other.

I saw Speaker Pelosi's speech and swearing in on C-span last night.

Anna already wrote about this very eloquently over at Texaskaos, but this seemed a bit long for a comment on her diary, so I beg your indulgence.

Sappy political romantic that I am, I thought of all the women who had fought to make this moment possible.

This is it. It all comes down to today.

We fight for Texans who don't even know there's an election.  For those who've no idea what difference effective and accountable government can make in their lives.

We fight for the very Texans who have never in their entire voting lives voted for a Democrat.

It's our responsibility to fight for them. Because we know.