It's Fourth of July week, and that means it's time for fireworks, barbecue, and some good blogging from the Texas Progressive Alliance. Click on to get a heaping plateful of the week's highlights.

Maybe PDiddie at Brains and Eggs was wrong about Obama and Texas. Decide for yourself.

Off the Kuff has one last belated interview from the state Dem convention, with CD32 candidate Eric Roberson.

There is a new email scandal in Harris County. XicanoPwr writes about the offensive emails discovered at the Harris County Sheriff's Office by a local media undercover investigation. One email has Osama bin Laden urging folks to vote Democratic. In another email, a top commander suggested that alligators should be put in the Rio Grande to cut down on illegal immigration.

Big Drunk at McBlogger points out, again, the flaws in the R's "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" strategy. Which really isn't hard to do since the R's don't exactly excel at critical thinking, are in love with fantasy and are (to a large extent) willfully ignorant.

refinish69 of Doing My Part For The Left is delighted to announce that the Texas Medical Association Rescinds their endorsement of Box Turtle and shares Rick Noriega's response to Big Bad John.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the cracks forming in the Texas GOP in A Cooling Off Period For The Texas GOP.

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex takes a look at the Texas Supreme Court's recent opinion declaring, essentially, that if you are injured by a church, you are screwed, which stems from the case of--get this--an exorcism gone horribly wrong.

North Texas Liberal reports on the charge that John McCain and his wife Cindy have defaulted on four years of back taxes for their La Jolla, Calif. residence.

The Texas Cloverleaf helps expose the fact that oil companies are not drilling on 3/4 of the land they already lease, because it will cost them too much. Corporate greed, anyone?

Over at Texas Kaos, it is Kenneth Foster all over again, as it looks like Texas' law of parties is fixing to execute another man, Jeff Wood, who didn't kill anyone.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes John McCain shows his true colors by choosing Phil 'Enron' Gramm as a close associate.

NyTexan at BlueBloggin tell us how the Bush administration has hit the pinnacle of security chaos. We can rest easy now, knowing that we have outsourced the outsource; Department of Homeland Security Outsources National Security

Bay Area Houston writes about State Senator Kim Brimer keeping campaign cash for himself.