Okay, so the talk all over Texas is why did Rick Perry change his mind overnight about running for President?  Other than the fact that he wakes up in a new world every day, there’s been speculation that he stayed in to kick Santorum in South Carolina so that Romney could be the nominee and Rick would be Veep because Romney needs a Southerner and a card-carrying, baptized down at the river, footwashing, hallelujah  member of the steeple people on the ticket.

According to Reuters, that ain’t right.

After talking to insiders at the Perry campaign, they broke it down into these factors:

1.  Romney is a damn Mormon, which sounds a whole lot like Muslim, and they wear funny underwear so somebody, by gawd, has to beat him and Newt is …. well, Newt, and Santorum will fade like crepe paper in sunlight.

2.  Crony Capitalism pays well.

A source close to Perry’s campaign said he still could go to his donors in major Texas cities “and raise $2 or $3 million, at least.”

“Texas is not tapped out,” the source said.

Well, sure, most Texans are tapped out, but Perry’s friends owe some pay-to-play money.  And Perry ain’t even sold the state parks and the Alamo to developers yet.  And, hell, even promising to pass legislation to do away with Texas open beach laws is gotta be worth 50 million or so.

3.  The people in South Carolina are redneck hillbillies.  We’re talking snake-handlin’, prayer-curin’, Jesus-lovin’, drunks with a pickup truck and girlfriends with tube tops and big ole hair.  That ain’t me talkin’, y’all – that’s Rick Perry’s campaign talkin’.

Graham told Perry, who has made patriotism a recurring theme on the campaign trail, that the governor could do well in South Carolina in part because of the state’s concentration of socially conservative voters and military personnel.

Look, all this is fine with me.  I am delighted that he’s still in the race because he’s a doofus pooping all over the Republican brand.

Plus, my best guess is that they’ve already made a license plate for him in South Carolina.

They put it in graph form.  How much per vote did Rick perry spend in Iowa?

Being as how I am not a highly trained paid political consultant, I suspect my opinion doesn’t count for much, but wouldn’t he save himself some money and Texas some embarrassment if he just stood on the street corner handing out $500 bills?

Thanks to Dianne and Jimbo for the heads-up.

Texas Congressvarmint and bon vivant crazy man, Louie Gohmert is most likely one of the wackiest people in congress.

Come to find out, Louie, who hates government, has been on the government teat his entire life.  He’s a professional teat sucker.

Gohmert was elected as a state district judge for Texas’s 7th Judicial District comprising Smith County (Tyler) in 1992 and was reelected two times before being appointed by Governor Rick Perry to fill a vacancy as Chief Justice on Texas’s 12th Court of Appeals

Now, we pay our judges pretty well in Texas, but Louie is the 11th poorest man in Congress.

Gohmert had an average net worth of -$150,001 in 2010.

Fiscally conservative?

Probably not.

Remember:  Gohmert voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 on the grounds it did not do enough to deal with the government’s growing debt.

Need a mirror, Louie?

Thanks to Ralph for the heads-up.

According to Gail Collins of the New York Times, Governor Rick Perry decided to re-enter the Presidential race while jogging.

After his fifth-place finish in Iowa, Rick Perry suspended his campaign but then tweeted, “Here we come, South Carolina.” This appeared to surprise some of his staff, who seemed to feel as if their long political nightmare had ended in Des Moines. But it turned out that Perry had jogged his way back into the race.

“I was out on the trail when it kind of came to me,” he said.

As you might have been taught in kindergarten, not every idea you have while drifting off to sleep or out jogging is a good idea.

Apparently, Governor Rick Perry has had some other ideas about this whole secessionist thing while he was out jogging.

Boats!  Dammit, the Texas Highway Department needs boats!  Big ole fast boats!

With guns, no, cannons.  Nah, make that big ole honker  machine guns.  Loud ones!

And one of these won’t cut it.  We need a fleet of these suckers!

“A new fleet of patrol boats is poised to join the battle along the Rio Grande and international lakes.”

Honey, don’t you think this is a little overkill for Falcon Lake?

Governor Perry now has a fleet of six of these boats at $580,000 each.  They were funded by the Texas-is-so-broke-we-can’t-buy-textbooks-or-provide-health-care-for-poor-children Legislature and the dreaded, awful, socialist Federal grants.

I swear to God that he’s gonna put these suckers on the Sabine and Red Rivers and declare himself President of Texas.

Thanks to Brian and Laura for the heads-up.

Okay, I didn’t know how else to write that headline so you’d be mentally prepared for this.

Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire have decided that any new law passed this year must “include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived.”

Okay, so going back to 1776 isn’t far enough for them.  Feudal England’s the ticket to freedom, dammit!  This means we have to release hostages held by the king and that no member of the d’Athée family can be a royal officer.  And that’s just for starters.  We have to restore disseised Welshmen and forgive twenty-five of the rebellious barons.  But, in the end, we have to run the whole thing by the Pope.

Now look, I consider the Magna Carta to be the greatest legal document ever written in the English language, but holy crap I doubt it says a whole lot about wiretapping or traffic laws.  On the upside, it does say that a widow is not required to remarry if she doesn’t want to, which is overly progressive in the religious right’s mind.

My favorite quote?

Upon seeing the bill, New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Ray Buckley said he was “mostly speechless.” “I appreciate all the hard work the Republican legislators are putting into the effort to make them look like extremists,” he said. “Saves us the trouble.”

And one of the bill’s Republican sponsors just couldn’t miss the opportunity to say this to the reading public —

Vita admitted he needs to “bone up” on the content of the charter, but said “it’s a document that still functions.”

Don’t say “bone up,” Dude.  Just don’t say that.

Thanks to Nancy for the heads-up.