Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania has a big damn mouth, thank God.  Speaking about the defeat of background checks, Toomey spilled the beans.

“In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey said.

So, if Obama were to find a cure for cancer and it costs a buck fifty a shot, Republicans would vote it down because it would make Obama look good?

We really missed the boat here.  We should have started the rumor that Obama invented the 3-D printed guns.  Republicans would ban them so fast they’d leave a trail of smoke getting to the House chamber.

Thanks to Miemaw for the heads up.

Angus Monk, in his 50s, is understood to have fired his rifle at vermin in the outdoor loo when a bullet rebounded and hit him in the chest.

Thanks to Carl for the heads up.

In 20 years of having a website, this has never happened to me.

The last half of the long story I wrote about local politics yesterday has disappeared.  The entire last half is gone.  I don’t have a copy of it.

If you do, you are my best friend.  If you have a cached copy, please let me know.

NEVER MIND.  Hal found a cached copy!

I don’t think we’re gotten near the end of the explosion in West, Texas.  This explosion was not an act of God and we’d be damfools not to keep our eye on it to insure it never happens again.

If you own a home a Texas, you’re apt to have an insurance policy on that home with a one million dollar liability limit if someone gets hurt on your property.  That, my friends, is the same amount of insurance that the West Fertilizer Company had.

“If you want to drive a truck down the interstate, you’ve got to have $750,000 in coverage, even if you’re just carrying eggs,” Roberts said. “But if you want to put this ammonium nitrate into this town next to that school and that nursing home and those houses, you’re not required to carry insurance.”

The property damage alone in West could reach $100 million.  That’s not counting the death and injury bills.

In my mind, what happened in West and what happened in Bangladesh are different only in the the number of people killed.  The owners of that plant knew – or should have known – full well that those volunteer firefighters were walking into a death trap.

The owner of the business in Bangladesh was arrested.  The ones here are called job creators and given tax breaks.

The Dallas Morning News has a map of where the fertilizer plants are in Texas.  See if there’s one near you.

Thanks to Ken for the heads up.

The Washington Post asked ten writers what they would get rid of while doing spring cleaning.

Texas, of course, made the list.

I cannot tell you the number of emails I get every day from people – some are perfect strangers – asking me to help Texas secede.

I live here, y’all.  That’s just rude.

I know the NRA had a convention here in Texas, but they did it in a city with a gay liberal mayor.  Why they picked Houston, I dunno.  Houston is blue.  I think they expected to see people walking through Discovery Green – Houston’s Central Park – with weapons strapped to their hips and wearing cowboy boots.  It’s too damn hot to wear boots in Houston and heavy leather belts are outta the question.  So is walking most days.

So, if Texas has to go, can Houston stay?  How about Dallas; it’s blue?  And the Rio Grande Valley. It’s full of good Democrats.  And Austin, well, except for that SXSW thing.

I can see your point about East Texas, Armadillo, and especially Waco.

But, Houston?  Please not Houston.

Thanks to Mom’s Hugs for the heads up.

Okay, sometimes the best way to tell a story that’s as complicated as calculus with Roman numerals  is just to tell it.

We have a school board race in my community that’s hotter than a $5 pistol.  Four seats are up for grabs in an election to be held on May 11th.   Early voting is underway.

Scroll back two months ago.  Everything was going pretty smoothly until the Tea Party and a paid Republican political consultant recognized that this particular race is the hotbed of turning Texas blue – the next area of Fort Bend County to flip Democratic.  Once this commissioner’s precinct flips, the county will flip and once the county flips, Texas will flip.  Fort Bend County, on the edge of Houston, is the most diversified county in America.  This is the petri dish of Texas becoming a Democratic state.  I live here.

And this school board race is in the Hispanic part of the county that needs energizing.  We elected a county commissioner here in 2008 and he kept his seat by a frighteningly slim margin in 2012.  If Texas truly is a battleground – it starts here and it starts now.

This school board race began getting ugly back in April, when a local man named Rodney Vannerson, who is bail bondsman, formed a PAC and named it the deceptive “Whistle PAC“.  He says they are whistle blowers.  He named it that because “We Don’t Want To Pay Our Taxes or Have Our Kids Go To School With All Those Diverse Kids PAC” was already taken.

They cloak the racism by calling it “attendance zone issues.”  Cute, huh?

Rodney has a sister named Karen Vannerson. She’s a Republican paid consultant. And a little nuts. Okay, a lot nuts. The day of the filing deadline she looked like she was trying to thread a sewing machine while it was running, looking hysterically to find candidates. She was calling and sashaying all over Richmond/Rosenberg looking for someone, anyone. It’s not easy finding people who want to join hands with folks who spend their lives doing deceptive stuff … and get paid for it.

Rodney the bail bondsman started getting some newspaper noise about his Whistle PAC. Still claiming they were about beating the “good ole boys,” they neglected to tell people that they ARE the good ole boys. He proudly announced that they were going to raise “more money than has ever been spent in an LCISD election to back new candidates.”

“We have a substantial amount of money that is available for these elections,” said Vannerson. Currently the Texas Ethic Commission shows the PAC has raised $6,050, but Vannerson says that amount was part of the initial funding, and the next report will reflect a much larger amount.

He wasn’t kidding. At their last accounting to the Texas Ethics Commission, they had raised $27,200. Which sounds impressive until you realize that $20,000 of it came from one man. (Click the little one to get the big one.)

Ding, meet Dong. The bell going off in your head asks, “why would someone who lives in Tomball, Texas, care about a school board race in Rosenberg, Texas – at least 15 school districts away?” Perry Homes … hummm, I’ve heard of that.

Bob Perry died last month and by all reports is still trying to explain to Sweet Jesus about the whole Swift Boat Veterans for Truth thing, but his name lives on – as does his money and political philosophy.

This whole thing is nothing but a front for Perry Homes money and political philosophy.

Battleground Texas, indeed.

A couple of weeks ago, we began to notice that the political signs of the “good guys” were getting stolen. That happens everywhere. However, this is a small community and we were watching pretty closely. Our candidates don’t have a Perry Homes Sugar Daddy with a political agenda financing their signs. They have to raise money for them one house party at a time.

We had seen trucks belonging to some local political hacks leaving the scene of stolen signs but we weren’t able to catch them. Enter the Richmond Police Department.

The man behind a Fort Bend County-based political action committee supporting candidates for the Lamar Consolidated ISD Board has been charged with criminal mischief over the removal of political signs of a rival.

A Richmond police report says Rodney Vannerson, 48, of Sugar Land admitted pulling up the signs belonging to Board member Frank Torres because they were placed in the City of Richmond’s right-of-way.

The officer informed him he did not have that authority and that he would be charged with criminal mischief.

Vannerson was the only one charged, but he was not alone. LCISD Board member Darab Hakimzadeh and another man were with him.

Oh, but wait. The evidence mounts.

A day earlier just after 10 p.m., police also got a call about a political sign being cut down in the 1100 block of Lamar Drive. Vannerson was found in the area – on foot – and questioned by police.

A witness told police the suspect was in a white pickup truck with two other men. Police found a white truck parked on Elm near the intersection with Winston Drive. Police stopped two men walking near some political signs also in the area. Those men were Hakimzadeh and Michael Ross.

They told police there were just checking on other political signs in the area.

Yeah, officer, we’re just strolling around the neighborhood at 10:00 at night “checking signs.” There’s signs missing? You mean like the ones a witness saw me throw in the gully? Noooo … we’re just walking around.

Dar Hakimzadeh is an incumbent board member who is so heavily rightwing that he tilts toward the ground. He’s not up for election this time. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a school board member being found at the scene of a crime after dark two times in a two day period, but … holy crap, what am I saying? I wouldn’t buy that story from a 15 year old and I ain’t buying it from you. Sign Stealing ain’t what we mean by participatory democracy, Dar. You jerk. I’m gonna make it my mission in life to embarrass you in front of children. It’s a worthwhile endeavor on my part.

So, the election is May 11th. We’ve got a Perry Home builder from Tomball financing a thieving PACman, a criminally suspicious school board member, and four completely unqualified candidates for the school board.

That’s about par for Texas, Honey.

There’s gonna be more on this story. Ole Bubba and his friends are out at the Hispanic Heritage Society’s Cinco de Mayo party today to get people to the polls for early voting. I wouldn’t try to steal something off of them. They never throw the first punch but they will thrown the second 17 punches.

UPDATE:  Bullet, meet foot.  Hal over at HalfEmpty found a fabulous video of Karen Vannerson (her name was Pearson at the time), the paid Republican political consultant, lecturing her fellow Republicans about how stealing signs is “very childish, very immature.”  She pitched a ft about someone simply moving a sign.  “If it’s not your property, don’t touch it,” she growls.