Well, if you’ve every wondered how the fool tarnation Rick Perry became a millionaire when he’s never had a job outside of a government paycheck in his entire life, then you ain’t lookin’ hard enough.

It’s crap like this.  All.  The.  Damn.  Time.

The bill pending before the state house and senate in the special session says that all abortion clinics must be upgraded to to ambulatory surgical centers even though there is no evidence that will improve services or that there have been any problems.

And who stands to gain if that happens?

If the bill passes, only five Texas abortion clinics would remain open—those that are already equipped as ambulatory surgical centers, advocates say. But a question remains: would the 420 other ambulatory surgical centers that exist in Texas begin performing the operation? Abortion rights advocates predict that the demand for the procedure won’t disappear with passage of the law.

One company that will be faced with that decision is United Surgical Partners International, based in Addison, TX. Their vice-president of government affairs is Milla Perry Jones, Gov. Rick Perry’s sister. She is also on the board of the Texas Ambulatory Surgical Center Society.

Crap like this.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Locals know the icon of local politics, Bev Carter of the Fort Bend Star.  She never backed down from a fight.  Bev passed away on Saturday evening.

She was my first editor and my biggest critic.   I worked for her off and on for twenty five years.  I say off and on because we often butted heads.  I think she fired me once and I quit twice.  Together we scared people.  There are more stories to tell than I really want to remember right now but I specifically recall both of us walking into commissioners court once and the county attorney running for the door.

About once a month we’d show up at the courthouse on Friday afternoons to do “bed checks,” seeing which elected officials left work early.  It worked – they started their weekend at 5:00 just to keep from getting pictures of their empty desks in the newspaper.

I once hid out at her house for a week to avoid a subpoena to reveal a source.  I was willing to go to jail until I found out that they wouldn’t let me bring my own underwear and pillow.

We practically single-handedly got rid of a corrupt district judge and an incompetent district attorney.  We rifled through cell phone bills back when the county was paying by the minute and found thousands and thousands of dollars of personal calls, even hundreds to an elected official’s girlfriend.  During that episode I saw her make a grown man cry and then holler at him for crying.

We were the first to realize that FBISD Superintendent Raj Chopra was a fraud, and we got called every name in the book for going after him because “it made the school district look bad and that hurt business.”  Screw the kids; we can’t hurt real estate agents!

We got into a fight with a police chief, more than one constable, the entire Rotary Club, and the county attorney.

Her newspaper, which she founded and published, did more to make Fort Bend liveable than the chamber of commerce ever did.

When I met her in 1985, she was a Republican.  By 2000 she was a Democrat and didn’t care who knew it.  Her favorite thing to do was to hack off the religious right.

She was married five times but said that didn’t count because she married one of them twice.  I said it most certainly did count because she shot one of them and that should count double.  She shot him and while driving him to the emergency room concocted the story he should tell about shooting himself.  She claimed to have invented the phrase, “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it” when the police came the emergency room to interview her about the “accident.”

She was one tough broad.  She fought COPD, breast cancer, and the recent death of her only daughter.  My last conversation with her was from Austin at the rally with Wendy.  She wanted to know where I got the pink tennis shoes.  I had talked to her the week before and she fussed at me for not writing enough about local politics, so I guess it’s time for me to go piss off the sheriff or the district attorney.

The last story we worked on together was a fun one.  It’s fun when people you don’t like prove that nobody should like them because they are jerks.

Bev leaves behind a son, Michael, his wife Lisa,  three grandchildren she completely adored, and a large grateful fan base who will miss her.

Her last column was a tribute to her father.

She was smart, courageous, and beautiful, but mostly she was fierce.

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Thank to Donna for reminding me that I forgot.

Okay, this whole “demonstration” thing has really caught hold at the Texas Capitol.

It seems that some folks thought it was hunting season in Austin on the 4th of July.

Armed demonstrators gathered outside the Texas capitol building in Austin on Wednesday, seeking to highlight the state’s right to openly carry rifles. While some were unsettled by the display, the protesters said the event was designed to get people accustomed to the weapons and show that those carrying them were normal citizens.

“That’s why we’re here. Trying to make people feel more at ease, so they don’t feel that way,” said Scott Smith, a member of the group Open Carry Texas, which organized the event.

Look, son, I don’t mean to be tacky but I’m just now barely getting used to pierced eyebrows and Mohawks.  It’s gonna take me a decade or two to feel “at ease” walking through the OK Carrol.

These suckers were carrying loaded weapons.  At one point the DPS Troopers asked the gun nuts to remove the magazines from their weapons but they wouldn’t, stating they were “within their rights” to strut around toting an AK47 filled with enough lead to stock a sinker factory.

They tried to go into the Capitol itself but DPS Troopers put their boots down.

Later in the day, demonstrators attempted to enter the state capitol building with their guns out. They were turned away by a trooper, who told them that while concealed handguns were permitted inside, their semi-automatic assault rifles weren’t.

Well, ain’t that something real special?  They can walk circles around me enjoying the day on the Capitol grounds with live rounds in the chamber, but they can’t go inside where the freekin’ people who made these stoopid laws are sitting around thinking up more stoopid laws.

They have video right here.

Holy crap.  These guys outgunned the DPS.

Thanks to Bubba for calling me and saying, “Wanna hear the damnest thing?”

It happened in Houston, too.  They did it at the police station.   Would I kid you?

“If you don’t use your rights, they can take them away,” said Ed Aldredge of Sugar Land, who brought along his 11-year-old son, Austin, who carried a .22-caliber rifle.

Yep, an 11 year old can carry around a loaded rifle.

And surprise — middle aged white men.

The crowd, composed of mostly middle aged and older white men, dubbed the protest the “Come and Take it Away Freedom Walk” and after an hour or so of marching and posing for photos with their guns, the group decamped to nearby Tony’s Barbecue, a restaurant chosen by the group because it let them bring in their weapons.

Because what’s barbeque if you can’t shoot again after you cook it?

What this country needs is far more black men walking around with heavy artillery.

One of the things that was laughably apparent at the gathering at the Texas Capitol was not that we outnumbered the anti-choicers by leaps and bounds, but also that they were all so damn old that they shouldn’t buy green bananas.  Hell, half of them owe Noah a dollar for the boat ride.

They want to fix that.

They’re bringing a bus from … get ready for this … Washington, DeeCee – the most hated of conservative places.  They are bringing a busload of students from outside of Texas to come and call me a murderer.  You know how Republicans are always screaming that this is a states right?  Well, maybe not so much in this case.

Seating is limited and will be on a first come, first served basis, so please let us know right now if you can meet us in Washington, DC this Sunday, July 7th, to join the Students for Life team on the 24 hour road trip to Austin!

And if you can’t meet us in DC on the 7th, we will be passing through the following cities where we can pick you up as well: Roanoke (VA), Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, and Little Rock.

They are planning on staying for a week.  Honey, you leave a college student for a week in Austin and they will be going back home with a Hillary ’16 tee-shirt and a baggie with a controlled substance.

If you want to go help turn these kids away from the evil destructive forces of theocracy,  here’s how it’s happening.

Thanks to Kathleen and Tom for the heads up.

Click the little one to get the big one.

Reservations required.  You can get your tickets or sponsorships right here.   Or mail it to Silver Democrats, PO Box 785, Richmond, Texas 77406  For more information, go here and scroll down halfway.