I need your help. If you can be funny and irreverent about politics and social commentary, why don't you do it here? It's tough to keep fresh content up here all the time all by myself. I do have a life you know. Well, if by life we agree that means champagne at the Four Seasons and making out with strangers.

Email me and let's discuss. You can be an anonymous contributor and enjoy the trill of people wondering who in the hell you are!

The House voted to permit importing prescription drugs. The prescription drugs in other countries can be two-thirds less expensive than they are in America. The president opposes providing low cost prescription drugs to Americans. It's because he hates you as much as you hate him.

One Republican was quoted, "I would prefer to stand up for my constituents in Missouri as opposed to the pharmaceutical companies keeping competition and low prices out of this country," said Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo. Well, I'll be. Look at that! A Republican actually putting their constituents and what's right for America above political idealogy and corporate pressure. Will wonders never cease?

The Attorney General now has the ball in the political football game that pits the Speaker v. the House. This intense rivalry has been heating up for a while and now that it's in the hands of the AG, it has all the excitement of a rousing game of dominoes.

Regardless of whether or not you support Speaker Craddick, there is just something unseemly about the way he is so stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the vote of no confidence. It's a clear case of political power trumping any sense of duty to the House or to the state. If he survived, so be it. If he was voted out try to maintain some dignity.

Are you on LinkedIn? If so, why can't we be professionally connected? If not, then join and shoot me an email so I can look you up and add you.

The AAS has a blurb about a private investigator honored for finding a wiretap under a client's house that sent her ex-boyfriend that put it there to jail for five years.

It's just semantics, really. For an ex-boyfriend to plant a wiretap under an ex-girlfriend's house is illegal and gets a man five years in prison. For a president to plant wiretaps coast-to-coast without probable cause is called 'Homeland Security.'

Violation of your rights as guaranteed by the laws of our land and foundation of our entire system of government kind of piss me off. I guess, like the rest of the non-voting, do-nothing, celebrity obsessed nation I should just sit back and not give a shit. Quick, somebody get me one of those little flags for my yard and a bumper sticker that says, "These colors don't run." Then when I begin to have these doubts about how the current administration is eroding my rights I can wave a flag in a lock-step march of the braindead zombies.

Hey y'all. I been thinking it's about time for us to get drunk together and talk public policy. If you're interested in helping sponsor something when everybody gets back from the NCL conference maybe we can all go to SIX again. That was fun! Plus, the totally loved us. Let's discuss. In The Pink Texas has already said she's in, well...anytime there's booze you know that wino is on board. (I kid, I love.)

Democratic presidential candidates are embracing gay rights in varying degrees. With opinion polls showing more and more support for gay rights, the Dems are confident that the gay wedge won't have quite the impact it has in past elections. Not that the Family Focus sure as hell won't try! (source)

Seriously, I think this clip may be the total sum of my inspiration to write about Texas politics. To this day, when I walk across the rotunda I'm humming this song and it takes a lot of self-control not to bust out in the full routine.

Man, when people say the Baptists can be a little kinky they aren't kidding are they? I think this is what you wind up when everything is bad and there is all that repression.

It makes me glad I'm a Methodist. We're all about the grace of forgiveness...but even a Methodist might be appalled by this!

Ohio: Home of the Whacko! A new 'pro-choice' bill is making the rounds in Ohio. It's mind-boggling.

As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort.

Claiming to not know the father's identity is not a viable excuse, according to the proposed legislation. Simply put: no father means no abortion.

Senator Wentworth claims the reason he leases a Lexus and pays for it out of campaign funds is because it's dangerous to drive on I-35 and a Lexus is a safe car. SAXN points out that there are 17 cars that rated higher in safety tests than the Lexus and some were even (gasp!) mid-priced American cars. The Senator apparently was interviewed by the SAXN while he was driving. Something that the Senator himself thinks ought to be a crime.

Ugh, the news in the Summer totally sucks, yo.

Guiliani has proposed his health care "solution." A $15,000 tax credit so people could purchase their own insurance and not through employers. Well, maybe that would take care of the people that earn more than $15,000 a year? Tax credits are the Republican go-to answer for all domestic issues aren't they?

"We've got to solve our health care problem with American principles, not the principles of socialism," he said. "I know Democrats will say this is unfair, I know they'll squeal... But I'm a realist. I face reality, which is: if you take more people and have government cover it, it's called socialized medicine."

I don't even know who this jackass Tom Tancredo is, honestly. But I saw on Americablog where he said, "If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina." (source)

That statement made some Iowa newspaper. The total population of the state of Iowa is just over 2 million. The total number of people in the room when Tancredo made this ridiculous statement? Thirty. Last check had 81 comments on Americablog's post about it. That's 2.5 times more people than even heard him say it in the first place.

The latest Dateline tabloid TV was about stolen iPods. If Chris Hansen said iPod one more time in his broadcast I was afraid he was going to turn into an iPod. I wonder if saying iPod means that he and his entire crew got free iPods for all the publicity they must be giving the iPod? iPod. The whole dumbass premise of the show was that people took iPods that were just laying around. Is this stealing? Uhm, yeah. It's stealing. And, big shocker...people steal things left laying around.

Let me tell you why I hate these shows. Not because I like pedophiles or iPod thieves. It's trash TV. I mean, even Girls Next Door contributes more to television than this kind of crap a network passes off as a 'news program.'

iPod.

The bridge collapse in Minnesota was certainly catastrophic. Will the president declare martial law while Homeland Security assures us that is was not terrorism and merely a poorly constructed bridge? (CNN)

This does nothing to soothe my irrational fear of bridges.

A few years ago a lawyer friend of mine showed me this deposition on a video. I remember laughing hysterically for a long time. I especially love that the man wore a mask over his face because they were videotaping the deposition. If you could use a laugh, you have to watch.

Some folks in Hollywood sent me the premium DVD of that movie, 300. It's about some ancient men fighting or something like that. Why don't we give it away to the person that submits a good photoshop of the cover art with a Texas political theme?

click to enlarge and right-click save as. Email your photoshop to me.

Dick Cheney. Hands Down. (CNN)

MSNBC reports on a YouTube short asking anti-abortion protestors their thoughts on abortion. The interviewer asks them if they believe abortion should be illegal then what should be the penalty for women that have abortions? Hmmm, the protestors stunned faces reveal they've never even thought about it before. Gee? Why think when you can just proclaim because of your belief system other people should be denied something. (via)

Just because, that's why!

The Texas Observer is hiring a blogger. Pay scale is three pennies a word, ten word max. Blogging pays well! If they paid in Veuve Clicquot, I'd totally apply.

Senator Clinton's letters to a friend during her college days have been thoroughly poured over by The New York Times. They are excruciatingly boring and remind me of my young cousin. A little to seriously self-important. They read like she's consulting a thesaurus instead of communicating any emotion or story worth communicating.

Maybe that's the problem with smart people. They generally lack social and communication skills. That's why I'm so damn good at it!

The president has issued an executive order detailing martial law in the event of a catastrophic event. Bush says the new plan for dealing with a catastrophic emergency would "enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency." (Yeah, the feds did such a bang up job after Katrina). (SAXN)

As the article quotes someone as saying, for a party so opposed to big government this sure sounds awfully big. How can we not be suspicious? I am going to be so pissed off during martial law I just know it!

The raid on that freakshow Senator Stevens (R-Alaska) has something to do with his ties to a contractor already pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators. You may remember Senator Stevens as the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" scandal became a rallying cry for government pork.

I swear, sometimes all I have left is my Righteous Indignation.

The fact that Fox news calls blogs bullies, full of hate language, conspiracy and innuendo almost made my eyes roll out of my head.

In other related news, Lowe's pulls their advertising from the O'Reilly Factor and now the bullying blogs begin to put pressure on other advertisers to do the same.

Here's a handy dandy chart on candidates and their position on issues.

Newt Gingrich is making the rounds again and he's predicting a Clinton-Obama ticket. That's not exactly some great wisdom, but I love how the GOP is trying to make America think that we don't know that all of their candidates suck fat greens.

The one thing everybody agrees on is that McCain should just bow out and quit embarrassing himself. He let his ambition to be president compromise his beliefs and it has ultimately destroyed him. Romney is a--I don't know what--but I can tell you that ain't nobody in the Deep South gonna vote for a Morman. It's gonna be tough for them to vote for Guiliani because, even though he's got a great 9/11 success story he's still a adulterer that married his cousin. Oh, wait...maybe that will play well in West Virginia. And seriously? Fred Thompson?

Newsweek's bold faced headline, Why is This Man Gloomy?, to a story about a new book on Dick Cheney is a complete waste of paper. Their answer? A sheepish, "nobody knows." For a man that's written two books about Cheney, the author has no insight as to why this man is so goddamn creepy.

That's hard to do. (Chron)

Even though the legislature took some action in the wake of a sex and abuse scandal in Texas' juvenile detention centers, they only looked at half of the problem. Some of the facilities are contracted out to private agencies that have sketchy records in other states. A DMN investigation sheds a little light on those problems.

Sure, there is a part of me that doesn't care a whole heckuva lot about prison conditions. But, there is also right and wrong. Making kids suffer in bad conditions certainly doesn't give them any hope for their future. When Perry calls the legislature back to town on whatever his latest whim will be, they need to include contracted companies in their sweeping changes. (DMN)

Oh, and just a sidebar: What kind of masochist wants to get into the private prison business?

It's sad when people die. It's still sad when people die because of stupidity. Not that the pilots were stupid, America is stupid, TV News is stupid. These helicopters were providing live TV coverage to a car chase. In Phoenix. Maybe God made the helicopters crash. (via)