An Internet fundraising effort by the popular Republican-leaning Web site RedState.com steered 183 contributions and $10,000 to Taylor from readers like Sierra across the country this week.
…
Taylor welcomed the help. He trailed incumbent U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, by a large margin in fundraising reports filed shortly after Taylor’s expensive Republican primary victory March 7 and is trying to recharge for the general election in November.
“I’m not an incumbent; I can’t go to Washington and raise huge amounts of (political action committee) money. It is going to require grass-roots activists here in Central Texas and, honestly, around the country to contribute,†said Taylor, 33.
Edwards posted about $1.3 million and Taylor reported about $200,000 in filings with the Federal Election Commission as of March 31.
…thank Eric from MindSpeak: Progressive Politics With a Twist. Eric kindly tweaked my templates so they look OK in IE and other browsers (I’m pretty ignorant of both how the site looked in other browsers, as I use Firefox, and of how to make it look right in other browsers), even fixing the color of my Google ads.
So, BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG thanks to Eric for helping me out with that. You Da Man, Eric.
In addition to the launch of TexasKOS this week, I’ve become aware of a few other blogs which I thought may be of interest to Annex readers.
First of, via a note in the comments, check out Ramblings of an HHSC Employee Amidst Chaos, which is exactly what it sounds like. The top post up right now examines this Chron article and points out problems HHSC clients are having with the system.
Also, a new blog worth a mention is Penny Barrett Hornsby’s Musings of a Liberal Texan. Not necessarily a lot of Texas-centric plus but some entertaining and interesting “musings.”
Next, we Samm Almaguer, the “diary of a disposable” state employee, which includes this post on the state employee’s assocation’s endorsement of Carole Keeton Strayhorn.
In addition, the interesting Armadillo Podcast, which reports its reason for existing as:Â “Weekly podcast interviews of Austinites famous and infamous, known and unknown, with the sole intent to convince my good friend Galia, an Israeli woman living way out in California, to move and live with us here in Austin, Texas, the land of the weird and the home of the armadillo.”
Another group of Texas Democrats, this time from Spring near Houston, is also on the web with Spring Democrats.
[Another Great Guest Blog from Barbara Radnofsky, Candidate for U.S. Senate.—VL]
NASA/Galveston Bay: Today and this evening I spent in the Galveston Bay area speaking to residents near NASA who are outraged at the price of gasoline and Sen. Hutchison’s ranking as the number one recipient of oil lobby money.
Thanks to a post by Nate at Common Sense earlier today, I found out about a new site called PoliticsTV.com.
They’ve got a couple of channels I’ll direct your attention to: the Candidate Channel, where candidates can have their video posted, and the Democracy Channel, which includes video of a lot of great stuff including forums and other events (like today’s protest) related to Congress and other political stuff.
Via Eddie from The Red State, we have Congressman Charlie Gonzalez’s statement on why he voted against the Markey Amendment to COPE in committee the other day.
The Lone Star Times was down a bit this morning because their service provider got hit by “Islamohackers,” that knocked LST and several other conservative blogs offline.
Thanks to Texas Redd for letting me know about that, and for the hilarious Photoshop LST has up here, in their post about the service interruption.
Here’s Congresswoman Jackson Lee’s comments from her press release on today’s protest. I’ve also obtained a pic of her arrest:
On Friday April 28, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee will stand with other Members of Congress, civic leaders and students in an act of conscience to protest the Sudanese government and its hand in the Darfur genocide. This act of civil disobedience will take place at the Sudanese Embassy here in Washington, DC.
What is happening in the African nation of Darfur is an international tragedy and it is time for the violence to be stopped. Over 300,000 people have died and 2 million are now homeless. Countless women and young girls have been raped and children have been mutilated.
“I am proud to stand side by side with my Colleagues as we raise public awareness of the genocide in Darfur and work to build a lasting peace in that region of western Sudan. By taking this stand today we hope to teach others that Darfur is an important step in raising awareness and pressuring the Bush Administration to become more engaged in ending the suffering of those in the Darfur region.”
Over the last four years, more than 400,000 lives have been lost and over 2 million people have been forced from their homes as a result of a genocide undertaken against the African peoples of Darfur by the government of the Sudan and its Janjaweed militia. A campaign of the mass murder of unarmed civilians, of mass rape and torture, and the systematic destruction of villages and crops has been waged. Despite condemnations from many quarters, this genocide continues unabated today.
“We need the U.S. to take leadership in the process of achieving a resolution and to stop this genocide,†stated Congresswoman Jackson Lee.
Sheila Jackson Lee’s standing up for something very important. Remember Bosnia? It’s time we take action, real action.
Do you know that you can 
