Okay, this is going to be a long story but you might want to pay attention because the same thing is happening in your county.  I promise you that.

This is about Williamson County, Texas, and the buffoons on their commissioners court.  In Texas, county commissioners are the single most corruptible job in government.  Each county has 4 of them and they are led by Boss Hogg (at least in my county) called the County Judge.  Oddly, the county judge doesn’t have to be a judge.  In my county, the last three of them have been Republicans and high school graduates.  Seriously.

They decide how all the tax money is spent, so lots of people want to be their friends.  In a loophole designed specifically as pro-corruption, county commissioners do not have to get bids to hire professional services for the county — that’s  lawyers, engineers, architects, auditors, hookers … (okay, I made up the hooker part.  I’m just guessing on that part.)

Consequently, these “professionals” want to be close friends with county commissioners so they can get enough taxpayer money to air condition hell.  Commissioners can accept gifts from these people as long as such gifts are disclosed in their financial statements.  These financial statements are open for public view.  But there’s a catch.  You have to ask for them in writing and they can only be viewed during normal business hours at the county clerk’s office.  Copies of them cost $1 a page.

But, the real corruption is in the form of campaign donations.  They can take unlimited campaign donations from these professionals.  And they can spend that money any way they want to.  One of my county commissioners bought a pickup truck for his son and called it a “campaign truck.”  His son lives in another county and doesn’t even have his dad’s bumper sticker on the truck.  Another was spending it on his girlfriend in Austin.  Our county judge tried to pay his wife for doing campaign work for him.  Another one is buying clothes with it, contending he needs those clothes to go to work in.

And do you think the district attorney would prosecute this caca del toro? Oh please, slap yourself.  They set the district attorney’s salary and his operating budget.

I know this story is getting as long as a West Texas well rope, but I’m gonna quit spattering grease in a minute and get to the bacon.

Welcome to Williamson County, Texas, which is just north of Austin and deeply mired in Tea Party politics.  I’m going up there to speak to the Sun City Democrats in November so I figure I might was well ride into town with a target on my back so here goes.

Back in June, there was an open constable position in the county so the county commissioners interviewed some people before they voted to fill the job.  A man named Robert Lloyd interviewed and was astounded to be asked his position on gay marriage and abortion.  Constables don’t have anything to do with that.  Constables serve civil papers, not deliver babies or perform marriages.

But it gets even better.  Robert Lloyd sued them.

“He said to the commissioners it was tough to answer the question about gay marriage,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants did not approve of this attitude, and even told Mr. Lloyd he needed a better answer to their questions about gay marriage.”

After the interview, commissioners voted unanimously to hire the brother-in-law of the of the person who serves as attorney for the Commissioners Court.

Obviously, you cannot ask questions like that because even the Texas Constitution says you can’t.

I do not know what the correct answer to gay marriage is but I suspect it involves the F word and heavy weaponry.

So, what does Williamson County do?  Do they use the above mention “attorney for commissioners court” or even the county attorney, whose duty it is to represent the county?

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No, the county attorney, Republican Doyle “Dee” Hobbs, Jr., is apparently not qualified to handle “representing the county.”  Republicans are kinda famous for that.

So, the county commissioners go out and hire the powerhouse law firm Bracewell & Giuliana  in Houston.

You will thoroughly enjoy what Bracewell and Giuliana are charging the taxpayers of Williamson County to defend raw and vicious hate on commissioners court so they could brother-in-law in the good ole boy they wanted in the first place.

As you read through the contract anyone who has ever dealt with these things can tell you that it’s not unusual for you to pay the hourly charge of 7 or 8 lawyers in the firm for a meeting on your case, and that hourly charges are the least of the charges.  The real money comes from “expenses.”  Holy cow, what they charge for a paperclip makes the $175 for a hospital aspirin look like a bargain.

So, finally, I get to what I want to say:  Have you ever notice that Republicans won’t give a slice of bread to a starving baby but will pay millions of dollars to a legal firm to defend their right to hate entire groups of people?

That’s what I wanted to say.  Sorry it took me so long to get to it.

Thanks to Elizabeth Moon for the heads up.

So, on September 6th John Cornyn got a pithy letter from the Federal Elections Commission.

It was a Dear John letter that went something like this:

John Cornyn

Dear John –

When you file FEC reports, you actually have to explain what you spend the money on.  “Whatever” is not an acceptable explanation.

Usually these vague explanations mean the candidate has something to hide.

You aren’t cheating on us with that floozy, the Texas Ethics Commission are you John?

We’re waiting for an answer John.

The FEDERAL Election Commission.

And then there’s that other John.  Boehner.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting —

The Federal Election Commission is examining whether dozens of political action committees and individuals contributed more than the legally allowed amount to House Speaker John Boehner during last year’s election cycle.

Among the groups that were allegedly overgenerous to Boehner were Coalpac and Minepac, which represent the mining industry, as well as political committees representing the Exelon, Constellation and Luminant power companies, and the Ceasars and Penn National gambling enterprises.

Good Lord, Darth Vader has better friends.

Boehner’s campaign said that he can’t be expected to keep up with all the people who give him money.  After all, he did raised $22 million in the 2012 election cycle and no less that $327.67 of it was perfectly legal but does the media report that?  No, they do not.  They only want to talk about the 21,999672.33 that was suspicious.

It’s a bad time to a John, right?

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen and Brian C for the heads up.

The owner of the iconic image which depicts three firefighters raising an American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center are jumping mad that Sarah Palin, who believes in the free marketplace, flat out stole their picture.

So, they sued her patootie.

“It’s important to enforce our copyright on this iconic photo,” Jennifer Borg, general counsel of the North Jersey Media Group, told CNN. “When neither Ms. Palin nor her PAC responded to our demand letter to remove the photo, we were left with no choice but to seek redress through the courts.”

I know this is Barack Obama’s or Katie Couric’s fault but they haven’t figured out how yet.  Probably witchcraft.

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Thanks to David for the heads up and John for the graphic.

In case you haven’t heard, Ted Cruz is running for President.  The reason he’s doing it is to prove that Texas Republicans have a deep bench when there’s crazy involved.

So, he’s scheduled to speak at the Iowa Republican Party Reagan Dinner on October 25th.  Tickets haven’t been selling like solid gold AR 15s with a food storage cartridge  at a survivalist convention.  Hell, they haven’t even been selling like underpants at a nudist camp.  They ain’t been selling at all.

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That’s right, there’s a 25% discount for a ticket to hear Ted Cruz.  I’ll bet ya my best pair of pink boots that by October 10th they’ll be paying people to come.

Hell, if you want to hear crazy, Glenn Beck is free and you can wear your wife beater t-shirt and drink your Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in peace with none of that praying crap involved.

Question.  If Ted Cruz was in the woods and he fell over but nobody was there to hear it …. would four psychiatrists in Ames, Iowa, look at each other and say, “There’s been a great disturbance in the force”?

Thanks to Kyle for the heads up and John for the funny picture.

Last night on his teevee show Mill Maher introduced a new word to the dictionary – Blacktrack.

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Simply stated, it is the reason that Sarah Palin went sashaying around the country feeding children Ding-Dongs after Michelle Obama said she wanted children to eat healthy foods.

It is a scientifically proven dead solid certain fact that Republicans will be totally against anything and everything that President Obama or Michelle Obama advocate.

Let’s play that game for all it’s worth.

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Let’s see how long those suckers survive without water.

Look, I’m not saying that God is getting even for the State of Colorado’s recall election over guns, guns, we want more guns election.

I’m not saying that because I don’t believe that God extracts justice that way.  However the right wing does.  So …. maybe you gotta believe them.

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