.

The Texas Tribune has a story this week that’ll make you shake your head so much that your ears won’t stay hooked on.

Todd Staples, aka Mr. Sleeze

Todd Staples, the barely sane Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, has taken it upon himself to provide a safe haven on a Texas government website for bigots and thugs to try to out-testosterone each other by calling for vigilante justice.

Staples has set up a special website for landowners along the border – or anyone else, even including Lou Dobbs if he wants to – to comment on a chat board.  The commenters are suggesting tiger traps, landmines, and the occasional rabid animals as a way to deter anyone from crossing the border.  They are using such literate comments as: “Killem all!!!! They are destroying or great country.”

Keep in mind that border cities in Texas are some of the safest places in the state – and far safer than Austin, for example.  And double that with the fact that the Republican controll the United States Congress – the same party Staples belongs to – is where the funds for the border are being cut.  Yet, Staples screams about the federal government being at fault, hoping that people will think that’s just Barack Obama.

“I wonder if Staples got himself some of that tiger blood,”  Juanita laughs.

“Crazy man,” she mumbles as she walks off to get a case of hair spray to start the day.

.

It looks like the sonogram bill may be headed for trouble in the Texas Lege.  Not through any efforts of Democrats – although I do hear that a few of them are not doing diddle squat to quiet some of the Republican hurt feeling and rumors, which is always helpful.

The problem is between the Super Right Republicans in the House and the Smug Republicans in the Senate.  It seems they cannot agree on exactly how mean, hateful, and patronizing they should be to women.

Dan Patrick - Rock Headed

Juanita knows for a fact that you could turn Texas Senator Dan Patrick upside down and use him for a drill bit.  “If his head had a point, you could etch diamonds with him,” Juanita says.

And that’s where the problems begin.

Absent any real leadership, Dan kinda considers himself to be the President of Texas.  He thinks he runs everything and has even been known to talk to the Brazos River about which direction it should should flow.  Most people give him about as much attention as the river did.

So, there’s a traffic jam at the corner of Mean and Heinous.  The Senate version of the sonogram bill is just mean – the House version is heinous and then some some.

Patrick said the best solution is for the House, with its overwhelming Republican majority, to take up the Senate bill, amend it to make it look like the House bill, and then get it into conference, where it could be pushed out as quickly as next week.

“We are going to pass a good sonogram bill at the end of the day,” he said. “This is not a bill to play politics with.”

“Whoa.  Whoa.  Pull in on them reins, Dan.  This whole bill is politics.  And playing politics is all Republicans know how to do.  They have no clue how to govern,” Juanita stomps at the gall of a statement like that.

“So, if any of my friends in the Lege want to send notes to Sid Miller hinting that Dan Patrick is saying tacky things about his mother, I’d consider it an act of patriotism,” she grins.

And she’d probably throw in a free haircut, too.

.

Bon Mardi Gras, tout le monde!

Show me your wits!

.

Well, it’s here and it’s ugly enough to burn asphalt.

Sugar Land’s new Skeeters “minor league” baseball team starts up in 2012, but they’ve already managed to find a way to take your money.  They have …. well, stuff.

The Skeeters are in no way associated with Major League Baseball.  They are a part of a baseball league  that businessmen across the country have put together to make money.  It’s called the Atlantic League, and by gosh, we’re only 4 states away from anything Atlantic.

The business men charmingly convince “conservative” leadership, like in Sugar Land, to build a them baseball stadium with taxpayer money and they will find 9 guys who can almost play baseball but not good enough to impress anybody.  Come to think of it, that kinda describes the Astros, too.

The cute part is that the “conservative” city fathers talked the taxpayer into doing this for the prestige and tourism that it would bring to city. Please note on the koozie up there that it doesn’t say Sugar Land anywhere on it.  It’s the “Houston area.”  Juanita says that’s just damn sad.

The upside is that for just $35,000 a year (plus additional food costs), you can buy a sky box. And if you’re a businessman, you can take that off your taxes!  I told you there was a good side to this.

(Thanks to the fellas over at Hair Balls for the heads-up.)

.

Customer Alfredo gave us the heads up on this little scam involving several Texas Congressvarmints.

Yesterday, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Southwest Securities $500,000 for using paid consultants to solicit municipal securities business and for violations of some other rules.

And it’s not the first time they’ve been in hot water.  Last year they were fined $470,147 “to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for violating an anti-pay-to-play rule by co-underwriting Massachusetts bond deals within two years after its former senior vice president made political contributions to state Treasurer Timothy Cahill.”

And the year before that, they were in trouble with the SEC, who filed an cease-and-desist order against Southwest Securities for “failure to conduct compliance training for its financial services staff.”

Now, if you and I got into that much trouble yearly, we’d be in the pokey, or at the very least not operating a business.

How did they get away with it?  Well, have a look-see at this little Word document I made for you to see who is getting paid-off. Or, have a little peek at a partial list here.  Click the little one to get the big one.

Other than one donation of $250 to Barack Obama, that there is a cashopalooza of Republican hands out.

Thelma says that they ought to allow the health inspectors to have campaign accounts so we could slide on that pesky “no homemade wine in beauty salons” rule.

*UPDATED: Alfredo also found that Southwest Securities has sneaky down to an art form.  Lookie here at the contributions under the name of their holding company.  You know the clicking drill by now —

And, not surprisingly, Southwest Securities lobbied against regulatory reform.

No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up.

But wait, there’s more.  Why all the money to

Jeb Hensarling: Twenty pieces of silver

Jeb Hensarling?  Southwestern Securities had good reasons to love Jeb back in 2006-2007.  Jeb blocked legislation that could have prevented the financial crisis of 2008:

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and the sponsor of a pending bill to lighten the regulatory load faced by financial institutions.

He says the proposals could put a damper on community banks.

“When the regulators in Washington say ‘should’ or ‘might,’ it often comes across as ‘must’ to the examiner in the field,” Hensarling said.

Read more.

Way to go, Jeb.

I don’t think this is the end of this story because the CFO of Southwest Securities suddenly resigned last October.

I’ll betcha that this story gets better and better.

.

Breaking News:  HOUSE VERSION OF VOTER ID SAILS OUT OF COMMITTEE

Select Committee on Voter Identification & Voter Fraud passes SB 14 on 5-2 vote; two Democrats, Veasey and Hochberg, vote no; the House version strips out Ogden amendment which required appropriation for new ID requirements to go into effect.