Hot off the presses —

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “has finally retired, but it’s not what you think: The governor has officially retired as a state employee, but gets to keep working as Texas governor. The maneuver, perfectly legal according to his campaign, has dramatically boosted his take home pay,” the Texas Tribune reports.

“Perry makes a $150,000 gross salary as Texas governor. Now, thanks to his early retirement, Perry, 61, gets a monthly retirement annuity of $7,698 before taxes, or $6,588 net. That raises his gross salary to more than $240,000.”

When the Texas Tribune asked him about it, a Perry spokesman said that it was perfectly legal.  Yeah, well, so is chasing an intern around the desk in the Oval Office but I don’t think a president or a governor ought to do that either.

In the understatement of the year, The Texas Tribune noted —

But the disclosure is sure to spark criticism of Perry, who has called for sweeping changes to Social Security for average workers and has railed against special “perks” that members of Congress get.

Ya think?  Ya think that the other candidates won’t jump on this like flies on garbage?  Goodness sake, Buck came in here once with a goat under each arm and a catfish in his back pocket and that smelled better than this does.

And on top of all this, Perry gets Social Security and lifetime state-provided health care.

How much of my money does this boy need?  Poor public servant, my sweet patootie.  Plus, he gets $10,000 a month rent money, magazine subscriptions, a pool boy, a state chauffeur, and travel money.

What does he need?  Enough money to burn a wet elephant?  How ’bout he gets a job, dammit?

This whole mess has been more confusing than Chinese algebra but it looks like a deal has been struck.

Texas will have a single primary on April 3rd.  Thank you, Sweet Jesus.

Other details:

February 1, 2012 – New residency deadline for candidates seeking election to the Texas House and Texas Senate.

February 1, 2012, 6:00pm – New deadline of court-ordered reopened filing period, in which candidates for all offices have the opportunity to amend, withdraw or file a new application for the ballot.

February 3, 2012 – New deadline for County Executive Committees to conduct drawing for candidate order on ballot.

April 3, 2012 – Date of the 2012 General Primary Election.

April 14 or April 21, 2012 – Date of County and Senatorial District Conventions, as determined by the State Chair of each political party.

June 5, 2012 – Date of the 2012 General Primary Runoff Election.

Now the downside is that there will be a two month run-off in the primary election, which means that the odds of there being bloodshed or at least spitwads thrown in the Fort Bend GOP primary race for sheriff increase dramatically.  Since there are 4 candidates, there almost assuredly will be a run-off.

The latest spitwad thrown?  I took a picture of it last night.

Yep.  This sucker is pretty near the same size as Juanita’s purse or Del Rio.

Meanwhile, while these two dudes are playing spite games with each other, the sole Democratic candidate is taking bullets for the public.

I love yew, Democrats.

Mike Toomey is a political hack for big business and he’s Rick Perry’s best friend.  Toomey is Perry’s former Chief of Staff turned Austin lobbyist who rakes in the big dollars for his known coziness with Perry.

In the world of big legal corruption, Toomey is Perry’s pimp.  Everything that links Rick Perry to pay to play has to go through Toomey.   From Perry’s Executive Order to give every teenage girl in Texas an HPV vaccine to a very lucrative land deal for Perry in 2003, Mike Toomey’s lobbying clients stand to gain off of Perry’s every action.  And so do Mike and Rick.

Toomey even got caught buying a Green candidate to divide the Democratic vote.  In Toomy’s book, nothing is too sleazy to do for Rick Perry. Well, I think that’s in Perry’s book, too.

Including cheating.

Two Washington-based watchdog groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, accusing Rick Perry’s campaign and a pro-Perry super PAC of violating campaign finance laws.

The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 wrote in a letter to the FEC that it appeared the super PAC, Make Us Great Again, produced video and then gave it to the Perry campaign free of charge. Federal law prevents super PACs from making any kind of contributions to candidates.

And guess who runs the Super-PAC “Make Us Great Again” that is named as the violator in the complaint – Mike Toomey.

They say that even the thought of Rick Perry in the White House makes dollar signs appear in Toomey’s eyes.

Here’s a hint for other Watchdog groups – if Mike Toomey has touched it, it’s corrupt.

Rick Perry is all in a tither about lobbyists (he mean Newt Gingrich, of course) who determine out laws.

“Legal corruption,” he calls it. As president, he’d outlaw it.

It’s a forehead-slap-inducing declaration, coming from a man whose political career has thrived from the symbiotic relationship he’s nurtured with powerful former lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Perry owes his longevity in office to his willingness to cede power to lobbyists, who in turn, tap special interest groups for campaign contributions.

“No blacker pot every called a kettle black,” says Craig McDonald, executive director of Texans for Public Justice, which tracks political money in Texas. “He’s the kingpin of legal corruption.”

Next thing you know he’s going to want to outlaw forgetting things in a debate, pandering to the steeple people, and dressing like Dale Evans.

Ole Rick’s playing basketball in a mine field with comments about legal corruption.  There he was on stage flapping his elbows like a rooster in love with his own voice while really making a damfool of himself.  Yep – he’s the Don Corleone of legal corruption.

I need to apologize to Little Bubba.

When Little Bubba went to college, he wanted to major in history. I told him that was a bad idea because when you look in the want ads, you rarely see “Wanted: Historian.”

Little did I know that historians can make millions of dollars of taxpayer money by offering history lessons to governmental agencies. Newt has opened a whole new occupation. “Historian” is now the cover word for “lobbyist.”  You know, kinda like “hiking the Appalachian trial” is the cover word for “boinking  my mistress.”

Little Bubba went to law school. Now Newt tells us that lawyers don’t know diddle squat.

I apologize to Little Bubba.  Go back to school and get a degree in history.  Apparently, there’s an excellent job market for that now.