Texas Senator John Cornyn used to be a relatively quiet and unresponsive piece of senatorial furniture.  But since Ted Cruz got elected, Ole John found his voice.  Ole John has started fretting about getting primaried.

For those of you who don’t know John, he’s a drugstore cowboy who wore embroidered on his shirt and never pulled a trigger in his life.  I once claimed that he singlehandedly put fringe on the endangered species list.  (For you other rhinestone cowboys, if it’s cold enough to wear a leather jacket in Texas, you ought not to be wearing a straw hat.  Any damn fool knows that.)

John’s latest attempt to piss off yankees is his concealed-carry-reciprocity bill.  That means if someone in a gun-nut state has a concealed carry permit, they can conceal carry in a state that doesn’t.

A top priority for the National Rifle Association, the measure would force states like New York with relatively strict gun laws to allow individuals who have concealed-carry privileges in their home state to pack heat.

In other words, they believe that one state’s laws should be carried to all states, you know, like federal law.  But just for guns.  Not for marriage equality or women’s health.  

Honey, that reasoning is the other kind of fringe.

Thanks to Larry for the heads up.

In case you’re wondering what the political law of thermonuclear dynamics is — when the heat is on someone else, it’s not on you.

Thank you, Arizona, for taking the heat off Texas.

Arizona is trying to pass SB1435, in which they redefine what an Open Meeting is.  It used to be that in Arizona any time a governmental body met in a quorum which discusses any manner of the public’s business, it was an open meeting subject to attendance by the citizenry and recorded for prosperity.

I guess they got tired of the horrendous and very public ridicule they were getting.  They want to change that to mean “only when action is taken.”  That means they can say all the dumb stuff they want behind closed doors, but the only part of the public’s business you get to see in public is the actual vote, which generally takes less than a full minute.

In other words, the open meetings law will be changed to mean the open voting law.

That whole democracy thing isn’t working out very well in Arizona.

Thanks to Bunny for the heads up.

Herman Cain.  Yeah, he’s still around.

And he’s still screwing around, too.  From his website —

That’s not quite true.

The President’s 2016 Budget includes $168.8 billion for VA in 2016. This includes $70.2 billion in discretionary resources and $95.3 billion in mandatory funding. Our discretionary budget request represents an increase of $5.2 billion, or 7.5 percent, over the 2015 enacted level.

Yep.  He’s still screwing around.

Thanks to AlanInAustin for the heads up.

I live in South Texas.  We don’t have weather here.  We have hot, not so hot, and steam bath.  That’s not totally true.  We do have a spring season.  Last year it was on a Tuesday.

If you want to see weather around here, you have to watch The Weather Channel.  Jim Cantore is the superhero of weather.

Thundersnow in Boston yesterday.

Dude, that was number six!

Joy is a wonder to behold.

Before he was Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott was Texas attorney general and spent $4.25 of taxpayer’s money suing the federal government, or as he liked to call it – “suing Barack Obama.”  Abbott knew that most of these suits were silly, but he liked to rack up numbers so that every week he could feed the hungry hordes in Texas who wanted him to sue Barack Obama.

That $4.25 million does not count the money the federal government had to spend to defend us against Abbott’s goofy and frivolous lawsuits.  So, just to be fair about it, let’s say it cost us $8.5 million dollars total.

Every now and then, I feel compelled to remind politicians that it’s ALL our money, whether it be city, state, school district, MUD district or federal government.  So when the county sues the state, we pay on both ends.

Anyway, as attorney general Abbott had Texas sue the federal government 31 times.  Here’s the scorecard with Greg Abbott as team manager …

Based on court rulings, Texas has definitively won five of those cases. In 10 cases, the courts ruled against the state. Nine cases are still pending, and the AG’s office withdrew the remaining seven.

Let’s see, 31 minus 9 (still pending) is 22.  Of those 22, Abbott won 5.  That’s hitting around 23%.  Let me ask you this.  Would you hire a lawyer who costs a ton of money proudly advertises that he wins a whopping 23% of his cases?  Or a heart surgeon who has 77% of his patients die?

Greg Abbott: a bad lawyer and an even worse governor.  We’re Texas Proud!

Thanks to David for the heads up.

From the Lexington Dispatch.  For real.

Thanks to Brian for the heads up.