The big news in Texas right now is that George P Bush, son of a JebBush, got elected Land Commissioner in Texas and is violating the law, hiring his friends and family, not posting jobs, and has turned the Texas General Land office to a frat house / political payoff machine that even has his retired Republican predecessor aghast.

He’s a damn Bush, people.  What the hell did you expect?

If you didn’t want someone acting like a damn Bush, why the fool tarnation did you elect a damn Bush?

Personnel records show that Bush has directed at least 40 external hires between November 2014 and July 2015 but listed only four of those with the Workforce Commission.

The average salary for those four jobs was about $65,000. The average salary for the 36 jobs that were not posted was about $90,000.

Ten jobs went to campaign aides, including temporary transition director, Trey Newton, who made $17,500 per month, and the five regional outreach coordinators, who are making annual salaries of $55,000. Newton, the campaign engineer Bush once called “our Karl Rove,” left in January. He did not return a call seeking comment.

And it gets worse.  His college friends and GOP donors with no management experience get triple digit salaries.  Because he’s a Bush.

Last week I complained that he’s never at work because he’s out campaigning for his Dad.  I guess I should have kept my mouth shut.

In related news, the latest Gallup poll says 75% of Americans see widespread government corruption.  In related to the related news, they are damn right.

So there’s the guy in Central Texas named Scott Lattin who is all the hell gung-ho about law and order.  He had a bumper sticker on his truck that supports the police.

And that’s why, he says, somebody came along and painted Black Lives Matter in his truck’s rear window and along the side of the truck.  The police came and took a report.

Then FOX News calls and asks if they can come do a story.  Sure, good buddy, come on over and we’ll talk trash about black people.

When Fox gets there, oh my gawd, the glove box is torn open and the seats are slashed.  Like, you know, magic.

After the Fox News report, the story went to Fox national news and then three things happen:

1. His family started a Go Fund Me account that raised $6,000
2. The police noticed that the slashing happened after they has been there
3. Lattin fesses up that he did it himself

His reason?  He needed insurance money to fix his truck.  He’s white.  Insurance fraud is white crime.

Thanks to John for the heads up.

Oh, it’s getting good.

An aide for Rand Paul claims that an aide for Marco Rubio “assaulted him” in a bar on Mackinac Island in Michigan.

What the hell is wrong with these people?  I watched the video and it was a little shove.  A bar fight involves broken Lone Star bottles,  couple of broken chairs, three black eyes, at least one ambulance, and some stitches, not some guy in khaki shorts, a button down shirt and LL Bean loafers.

Go take a look.

The Paul aide, who is claiming he was assaulted, provided the video but it cuts off directly after the shove.  That’s just real convenient.

No word yet on if a Hillary aide gave a noogie to a Bernie aide.

Thanks to chloe bear for the heads up.

We’ve gotta to go to the sunshine state, y’all, because all that fun relaxes you.

Or not.

A Florida woman who was driving her kids to kid things shot a dirty look at a man in a Mercedes who was weaving in and out of traffic.  The man return the look with waving a handgun at her car.

She called 911.  While on the phone, she said he “brandished a military-style rifle with a scope attached.”  He was driving erratically, including putting his Mercedes in reverse.

She drove away as fast as she could.  Other drivers got to see the rest of his behavior.

Gayle Sarceno first encountered the man after he leaped out of his Mercedes facing the wrong way at an intersection, and he began jumping up and down on one leg.

“He’s spewing blood from his leg,” Sarceno said. “He just drops, right there in the center lane.”

She and another witness stopped to help the man, who told them his name was Alex and that he had shot himself in his car.

Sarceno said the man was in extreme pain and apparently went into shock, and he was taken by an ambulance to a nearby hospital.

Police say they found a handgun and a large rifle in his car.  They are not releasing his name, which kinda takes away a lot of the fun about this.

Sometimes Miss Karma is a lovely lady.

Thanks to Mike for the heads up.

You guys remember Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, two Michigan Tea Party Super DeLuxe Brand Christians who got caught doing the hanky panky and tried to make up a gay cover story because gays are yucky?

After a pretty brutal floor fight, Courser just gave up and resigned at 3:00 a.m.  Yeah, a.m. It was brutal.  Gamrat wouldn’t budge.

Yet Gamrat held out. She had told reporters that she was promised censure by Republican leadership when she signed a statement about her role in the affair and cover-up, according to MLive.

“I know in my heart the mistakes I’ve made are not all the mistakes in the report,” she said on the state House floor early Friday morning, according to MLive. “I still believe my actions warrant censure, but not expulsion.”

She was expelled in a 91-12 vote around 4 a.m. on Friday morning, according to the Detroit Free Press.

She says she’s going to run for the seat again even though she’s been expelled.  Remember Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?  Cindy Gamrat.

Thanks to Carl for the heads up.

by Primo Encarnación y Hachecristo

My cousin, Jesus Hachecristo, and I were fishing up at Lake Sam last weekend. Jesus is a fishing guide up there, under the nom-de-angler of “Caddo Joe.” His clients are convinced he is the last in a long line of Caddo Indian shamans, whose spirit guide is a largemouth bass. Jesus’ spirit guide is actually pulque, but all this is another story.

While drowning our leeches, Jesus was asking me, the former political professional, what was up with Donald Trump. How does it end? It does end, doesn’t it? Surely to god he will not be….

Well, he won’t be President, but he could well be the nominee. So far, the Trump bubble has stayed aloft with equal parts hot air from corporate media and balloon juice from the candidate. For it not to burst, Trump is going to have to build a ground game to supplement the air game he’s already winning.   Without the campaign staff and volunteers to identify support, persuade voters and get them to the polls or caucuses, there’s going to be a lot of Trumpers wondering what the hell happened to their lead. Butts are attracted to warm, comfy chairs. Telling a pollster who conveniently called you in that chair that you support the guy from The Apprentice, which you watched from that chair, is one thing.

Getting your butt out of that chair, warming up the truck and driving to the Elks Club to stand for hours on end in a roped-off square labeled “Donald J Trump” in the middle of an Iowa winter? That’s something else entirely.

So what kind of moves has the Donald made to build his organization? Some rather surprising ones, it turns out.

First, in Iowa, he hired Chuck Laudner as State Director. This was a canny move: Laudner engineered Santorum’s win last time, albeit a win so narrow that no one knew about it until weeks later. He also engineered Steve King’s ascent to Congress, where Laudner was his Chief of Staff. Not a bad get.

But he also has some weird talent out there. Consider State Co-Chair Tana Goertz, a former Apprentice contestant who ran an Apprentice-style contest to recruit caucus leaders. Laudner’s Deputy Directors include Ryan Keller, whose only experience at this level was engineering Rick Perry to a 6^th-place finish in the last Ames Straw Poll; Brad Nagel, a retired Navy SEAL working for a “values-based” micro-lender; and Chris Hupke, whose 20-year political resume includes batshit-bible-crazy gigs at places like Focus on the Family, and the SD Family Policy Council.

Elsewhere, both his national chair and his New Hampshire chair are refugees from the Koch-fueled dink-tank, Americans for Prosperity, as are his national strategy advisors, Alan Cobb and Associates, whom he hired out of Topeka, KS.  Cobb, in fact, was once the public affairs director for Koch Industries.  The pollsters, Cole Hargrave, out of OKC, worked for right wing nutjob Gov. Mary Fallin. His team in South Carolina includes prominent Tea Partiers.

Overall, then, the Donald’s organization looks like a crazy quilt of wannabe-Trumpers, bible thumpers, and pump-and-dumpers. This Rube Goldberg contraption looks like it should fly, on paper, but it lacks overall thematic cohesiveness and direction from the top. It is here that I think he is vulnerable in the GOP primary: he can keep this spit-and-baling-wire contraption aloft, for now. But at some point, the Trump Flying Circus and Crop Dusting Company is going to have to bring this sucker in for a landing.

Alert the NTSB: it’s gonna be a helluva crash.