Oh dear.

Rick Perry is going all Hollywood.

… meat-eating, death row executing, no-apologizing Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who wants to be your next president, showed up and partied with models during New York Fashion Week.

Certainly there’s nothing wrong with Perry attending fashion week — it really does take all kinds! — we just aren’t entirely sure it’s his scene. Nevertheless, Page Six reports the prospective Commander-in-Chief had dinner in New York City with Donald Trump (so fashion!) and afterward, went to the Sherri Hill show and immediately went backstage, where 30 some odd models were clad only in bathrobes.

He’s so hot.

And yes, reading that took 3 minutes of your life that you will never get back.

Thanks to Beth for the heads-up.

Okay, here’s the deal.

The Texas Lege, in its semi-tragic ignorant  Republican glory, has decided that we just absolutely have to do something about this letting people vote thing just because they have a valid voter certificate.  Outside of your government issued voter certificate, they have decided that you must have one of  the following items to present at the polling place in order to vote in Texas.

A valid Texas drivers license
A DPS-issued election identification certificate
A United States passport
A United States  military ID card
A license to carry a concealed handgun issued by the Department of Public Safety.

A valid college issued photo ID card won’t work. But a concealed handgun permit will.

Hal got a handle on this thing.  Only one of those five items does not require you to produce proof of citizenship.

It’s the license to carry.  You do not have to prove citizenship to get a license to carry a gun in Texas. On September 10, 2001 Mohamed Atta could have gotten a license to carry in Texas.

By the way, the DPS will issue an  identification certificate for free to people over 70 years of age, but they require a valid birth certificate, which costs $22.  That’s a poll tax.

Thanks to Bubba for cahootin’ with Hal about this.

The creepy Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott, has ruled that the Texas taxpayers have no right to see how much of our money is being spent to provide protection for Rick Perry while he scampers around the country trying to be President.

“For security reasons” (please shake your head knowingly here), Texans cannot be given a dollar figure because then some bad guy might figure out … I dunno, how much money we’re spending to protect Perry’s butt … and then the terrorists win.  You know, because they hate our freedom.  But apparently not our freedom of information.

Texans will not be allowed to see how much we had to spend to protect Rick Perry’s political ambitions until after the 2012 Presidential election.  Cute, huh?

However, the San Antonio newspaper was able to obtain six months of numbers prior to Abbott slamming the books shut last July.  In a very creepy fashion, I might add.

AUSTIN — At a time when state budget reductions were used to help offset a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall, taxpayers were billed for more than $294,000 in security detail expenses for out-of-state trips by Gov. Rick Perry or his wife, according to records released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Destinations included the Bahamas in January for a family vacation and trips to Amsterdam, Madrid and New York by Anita Perry alone — visits that Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said were for economic development.

Rick Perry traveled to locales including New York, Washington, California and Las Vegas for events such as promotion of his anti-Washington book, “Fed Up!” He also made speeches and attended to duties related to his then-chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association, along with meetings with business leaders or potential supporters for his presidential bid.

Now, I know that some people would argue that Perry’s campaign should be paying these security expenses.

But, here’s the bigger question:  what’s the deal with Chuck Norris?  Did he break his leg or something or did Christie Brinkley tangle him up in one of those exercise machines and he can’t get loose?

Chuck Norris and Rick Perry are supposed to be like BFF’s.  Truly, if they touched each other even one little tad more often, they’d have to move to San Francisco.  That’s the law in Texas, look it up.  You could not separate those two guys with a crowbar and Ronco Electrolux Separator Machine.

So, why can’t Chuck Norris provide security for Rick Perry?

I mean, it seems to me that if Rick Perry is running for President as the tough guy, he would not need a third of a million dollar protection in just a couple of months.

And if Chuck Norris is such a tough guy, why can’t he prove it?

Answer me that, would ya?

Thanks to Corrine for the heads-up on the numbers and the good people at The Wacky Deli for the great pictures, which I found this morning by searching Rick Perry and Chuck Norris, not hoping to get anything near that cool.

In a not-so-memorable event, Dick Trump had lunch with Rick Perry.

Mr. Trump announced afterward —

“Well I had dinner last night with Jim Perry, I was impressed with him,” he said in a video posted on The Street.

But apparently not toooooo impressed.

Yeah, he has that forgettable affect on me, too.  Mr. Perry, not Mr. Trump.  Oh wait, pretty much both of them.

Thanks to Kellybee (who I completely and happily stole the title from), Sharon, and Stephen.

Juanita says she has no idea why we let Republicans get away with calling rich people “Job Creators.”

We understand that “Job Creator” sounds a tad better than “Greedy Rich Old White Guy Who Doesn’t Want To Pay His Fair Share of Taxes and Probably Has More Money Than The Robber Baron’s Ball Hidden Offshore.”  We get that part.

But, why did we let them get away with that?  Why didn’t we burst out in laughter the minute they said it and ask, “Why the hell aren’t the job creators creating jobs?”

Oh yeah, I know the Republicans will say, “Well, they can’t create jobs until you take away all those horrible regulations,” which is to say:  let them have an unsafe workplace and knowingly produce defective and dangerous products without any liability.

What we need is a stinkin’ translator.

Job Creators are not Job Creators until they create some damn jobs.  Before then, they’re just fat lazy people.

Why didn’t we jump out front of this and call it the “Give Paris Hilton A Tax Break.”

It’s like when we let them start calling social security “an entitlement.” Heck, even Democrats call it that now.  Social Security is not an entitlement, it is “earnings from a lifetime of investments.”  I cringe every time I hear a Democrat call it an entitlement.  Stop it!

Job creators, my patootie.  I cannot believe we let them say that.

For the past couple of days, Juanita Jean and staff and patrons of The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., have been trying to understand how a bank can have a “rogue trader” lose $2 billion (that’s a B) of their money.

Juanita banks at First Texas Guaranteed Alamo Savings Bank and Trust and can give sworn testimony that they sit in the vault every night counting every damn penny of her money.  They are terrified of losing Juanita’s money because she knows 17 ways to open a bank president’s office door lock with a hair pin and a can of WD40.  There’s no hiding from her.

However, Juanita’s bank does not employ former Texas Senator and Stone Cold Crook Phil Gramm.  UBS does.

Phil Gramm: already in the handbasket

As we’ve discussed in the past, Phil Gramm helps rich Americans hide their money in the cold Swiss vaults of UBS so they don’t have to pay taxes.  Juanita is pretty sure Gramm is going to hell for that.

So when the story first broke that UBS had lost $2 billion dollars, which – maybe coincidentally, but I doubt it – matches exactly this $2 billion —

The loss would effectively cancel out $2 billion the bank had hoped to save from a cost-cutting program announced last month in which 3,500 jobs would be axed.

So one month you fire 3,500 people to save $2 billion and the next month you lose $2 billion to a rogue trader.  What?  You didn’t want to travel all the way to Vegas to lose the money you made off taking people’s jobs?

What we couldn’t understand, though, was that “UBS said none of its clients’ money was affected by the rogue trades.”  What?  They have $2 billion that doesn’t belong to their clients?  Was it sitting around in candy dishes or something?  I know Phil Gramm ain’t taking a dime out of his pocket to make up for it.

So, today, Matt Taibbi finally explained it in a way even non-bankers can understand.  And he ain’t buying the story either.

The news that a “rogue trader” … has soaked the Swiss banking giant UBS for $2 billion has rocked the international financial community and threatened to drive a stake through any chance Europe had of averting economic disaster. There is much hand-wringing in the financial press today as the UBS incident has reminded the whole world that all of the banks were almost certainly lying their asses off over the last three years, when they all pledged to pull back from risky prop trading.

Go on over and read Taibbi’s article if you’re interested in watching Europe collapse.

My interest is in Phil Gramm’s role.  Did I tell you that I think he’s going to hell?  I’m pretty sure of it.  You remember Phil – he’s the guy who had to step down as John McCain’s adviser after calling us a ‘nation of whiners.”

Now, of course, Juanita has a plan.  She is a solution oriented woman.  Here’s her plan:  We empty the prisons of non-violent drug offenders, because prison ain’t helping them and they’re not hurting us.  That opens up enough cells to replace them with bankers, because – and I’m sure you’ll agree with this – bankers are far more dangerous.

Thanks to international banking expert Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads-up and the Frito Pie for breakfast.