We have talked about Texas’ new Commissioner of Agriculture, Sid Miller, many times here at the beauty salon.  In fact, he’s one of the main reason we’re still open.

He’s the guy who would have to study up to be an imbecile.

Well, Darlin’, he made the front page of the Austin American Statesman today.

It seems that Ole Sid has gone through money like Sherman through Georgia.

Newly elected Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller appointed the wife of his longtime political consultant and business partner to one of the highest-paid positions in his agency — part of a restructuring that has added several expensive executive positions to the agency.

Kellie Housewright-Smith was named a member of Miller’s transition team on Nov. 17 at a pay rate of $13,750 per month, according to personnel records obtained under Texas open records laws. Her husband is Todd Smith, who has worked on all of Miller’s state political campaigns.

The fun part is that she knows diddle squat about agriculture.  Hell, Thelma grows tomatoes in pots outside her doublewide so she’d be more qualified.

Well, once the Statesman started asking questions about her, she resigned to tend to “family health matters.”  I betcha.

That didn’t empty Sid’s Bag O’ Nuts.  No, sireeee.

Another of the commissioner’s new high-level hires was sanctioned by the Federal Elections Commission in 2004 for improperly obscuring sources of campaign contributions.

And I seriously doubt this is going to be the end of it.  Ole Sid don’t learn from lessons.

Miller also has ruffled feathers among his former colleagues in the Legislature by aggressively pushing for substantially more money for the Department of Agriculture, an agency whose budget he voted to slash when he was a representative, according to a recent Texas Tribune report. The report also revealed that Miller had been banned from parking in the secured driveway around the Capitol after he was caught parking there without permission.

Permission?  Sid don’t need no stinkin’ permission.

Maybe we could just ban him from the capitol.

Thanks to Donna for the heads up.

Oh y’all, John Boehner kicked Louie Gohmert so hard that Gohmert’s grandchildren will be born shaking.

Louie got tossed off two taxpayer funded congressional tours during the upcoming recess.  Boehner did it.  Boehner stressed that he didn’t do it because Gohmert ran against him for Speaker.

According to Gohmert’s office, the Texas Republican was slated to travel with California Republican Dana Rohrabacher “to meet with their friend,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. “But his participation was disapproved after all arrangements were made,” his communications director, Kimberly Willingham, told CQ Roll Call.

Gohmert was also scheduled to go to Africa with Oklahoma’s crazy man James Inhofe but Louie got booted from that trip, too.  I don’t think Boehner booted Louie for being ignorant, weird, and racist because Inhofe is all those things, too.

But, Gohmert got even.

Gohmert suggested it was important to talk to foreign leaders involved in the Middle East, but he said he could no longer do that “because the speaker won’t allow me to go overseas to talk to them.”

“I’m fine with that,” Gohmert said. “Because he canceled my trip this weekend, I’m going to be on Fox News, so thank you, Mr. Speaker.”

Yeah, being on Fox News is a bunch better than going to Egypt.

Uh, except when you go to Fox News and the show’s host thinks you’re dangerous.  Louie went on Fox News to announced that we should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, which is akin to pouring jet fuel on a forest fire.  The show’s host was babberflaster.

“You really don’t think — I mean, that’s a volatile option there,” Neville pointed out as she searched for words. “To go in and bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and you really believe that Russia will stop and say, ‘Okay, fine, go for it.’ I mean, that’s a dangerous…”

Gohmert argued that Russia might even get behind an attack on Iran because its leaders were “concerned about radical Islamist terror much more so than [the Obama] administration is.”

“They’re not crazy over there in Russia,” he insisted.

Maybe not, but they are plenty crazy sitting across the table on Fox News this morning.

Yes, (and I never thought I’d say this) thank you, Mister Speaker.

Thanks to Irene for the heads up.

I swear to my best curling iron that we ought to stand at the back door to the Texas Lege and hand out red rubber noses.

So last week they were discussing making it illegal to text while driving.  Because that kills people and not just the person texting.  Well, it passed but without the support of the three powerfully unfortunate-looking white boys from East Texas.

And why would they we opposed to this?  FREEDOM!

“I view it as government overreach,” [Will] Metcalf said Friday. “What are we going to outlaw next — changing your radio station, taking a drink of water, adjusting (your air conditioning)?”

State Rep Mark Keough sees other problems.

Another consequence Keough worries about is how law enforcement will enforce the new law.

“While they’re driving, they will have to do the very thing they’re telling us not to do,” Keough said.

He said law enforcement personnel will have to take their eyes off the road to see whether drivers are using their mobile devices.

Which is also what they have to do to see if you’re speeding, running a red light, or driving while stoopid.  FREEDOM!

But, Keough has a solution.

Keough said he’d like to see a campaign similar to “Don’t Mess with Texas” that changes the culture of distracted driving.

Yeah, there is now zero, completely zero litter in Texas.  But we do have lots of FREEDOM!

Thanks to Gene for the heads up.

Former Party Chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, Todd Kincannon, says that a drug he’s been taking all month suddenly made him go all nuts and abuse his wife.

His wife says, “Hold on there, cowboy.”

Todd Kincannon, a Columbia attorney and former executive director of the S.C. Republican Party, has been accused of threatening his wife and refusing to let her out of his car Thursday night, according to a report from the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.

…

The officer then spoke with Kincannon’s wife, Ashely Suzanne Griffith, who said that they “have a history of unreported domestic violence.” She said she was “extremely fearful” of Kincannon and described him as being “extremely ‘traditional’ and controlling, thus becoming very upset due to embarrassing him,” according to the report.

She also says that her husband “is very controlling” and has threaten to kill her, her family, and himself in the past.  A Republican man who is very controlling?  I’m shocked, just shocked I tell you.

Kincannon blames the drug Benzonatate for his behavior.  He says that he’s been taking it for a cough since March 5th but this time he chewed it and that caused him to overdose.  He added, “You’d think a guy with my IQ would know better.”  No, Honey, I think exactly the opposite.

Thanks to Carl for the heads up.

Well, it’s Arizona.  Something about the dry air, I suspect.

I want you to meet Arizona Republican State Senator Sylvia Allen, who is very concerned about morality.  Frighteningly concerned.

She bemoans the fact that we cannot force people in America to attend church.

Appropriately, the bill being discussed is one that would allow people to carry weapons into public buildings.  I suspect she wants to be the enforcer of the church-or-die branch of the Women’s Missionary Union.

Thanks to Alan for the heads up.

No take backs, Louie!

Louie Gohmert thrilled my heart by emailing The Hill in Washington Dee Cee and saying …

“Ted [Cruz] is a good friend and would be an outstanding President; however, I haven’t ruled out an exploratory committee myself,” Gohmert said in a statement emailed to The Hill from a spokesperson.

Yes!

Then on the same damn day Louie’s office gets real with a Texas online newspaper, calling the first statement “irony.”  Dumb, yes.  Irony, no.  Sir, I know irony.  Irony is a friend of mine.  You are no irony.

And you wanna know the only reason Louie isn’t running?

“To more completely describe his actual beliefs, Congressman Gohmert notes the Kennedy-Nixon debates created a line of demarcation beyond which television became the critical factor in being elected President which also meant there would be no more bald Presidents in his lifetime.”

Well, he does have a point.  There have been exceptionally dumb Presidents since Nixon.  There are also been crazy Presidents since Nixon.  But bald?  Nope.

Get a man a wig and a filing fee, dammit.

Thanks to everybody and their Aunt Matilda for the heads up.