We have an Attorney General in Texas named Greg Abbott.  Greg was in a bad accident and became a millionaire by suing for it.  Now he’s for tort reform so nobody else can do that.  He made my butt itch.  (Sorry, Momma, there’s no way to clean that up.)

Well now there’s another little windfall for his friends:

When Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced earlier this year the settlement of a big Medicaid fraud case against two drug companies that netted the state a record $56.5 million, he didn’t mention that nearly one-third of the money $17.3 million didn’t go to taxpayers. Instead it went to an Austin law firm that handled the cases for his office.

Nor did he reveal that the same firm will receive millions more for its work on the case against a third pharmaceutical company, now in final negotiations.

In all, Wright & Greenhill — using a legal team headed by a former assistant attorney general — stands to earn about $30 million in contingency fees from an unusual contract signed in 2007 to provide outside legal services to Abbott’s office.

Abbott says the Lege didn’t give him enough money to hire lawyers to prosecute these cases so they farmed it out.

You can hired a helluva lot of government lawyers for $17 million. Which just goes to prove once again that Republicans will step over a five dollar bill to pick up a dime.

Me?  Well, I’m just wondering how much of that money is going to end up in Greg Abbott’s campaign account.  I’m betting a bunch.

There are some of us here in Texas who are enjoying Rick Perry’s meteoric rise in the GOP standings.

The higher that rise, the bigger splat they make when they fall.  And he will fall.  And it will happen for one simple reason:  you simply cannot buy everybody.  There is not enough money.  And when you can’t buy everybody, you hack off those who don’t get paid.

Take for example, nuclear waste.  No, please, take it.  We don’t want it.

Texas governor Rick Perry tried to sideline a state commissioner who opposed expanding the scope of a nuclear-waste landfill owned by one of the governor’s biggest political donors, Reuters has learned.

Bobby Gregory, owner of a wildlife ranch and landfill company south of Austin, had opposed a plan to let 36 states send nuclear waste to a 1,338-acre site in Andrews County.

On the other side of the issue was billionaire Harold Simmons and his company Waste Control Specialists LLC, which stood to gain millions of dollars from accepting out-of-state shipments. Simmons had donated over $1 million to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns.

Now I am practically certain that even Bobby Gregory would admit that it might to cool to have the animals on your ranch glow in the dark and genetically mutate into something Martian-looking that Sarah Palin might want to shoot and hang on her wall, I am also practically certain that Bobby Gregory doesn’t want that animal to be his grandchildren.

Bobby Gregory and Friends

When Gregory, a member of the Texas Waste Commission,  began to object, Rick Perry tried to bribe him with a  “prestigious appointment as a regent of a state university.”  If Gregory took the appointment, he would have to resign from the board that makes the approval about the nuclear waste.

Bobby Gregory turned Rick down flat.  He also pleaded with his other commissioners —

“Without question in my mind this is too much, too soon, too fast, and I’ve added the caveat — if at all,” Gregory told the meeting. “It is beyond preposterous, it is beyond absurd,” that the commission should vote without reading over 5,000 public comments, he said.

He lost.  And then his term ran out and we got nuclear waste that we weren’t ready to accept.

Perry got the political donation, Harold Simmons got rich off the heath and safety of Texans, and Bobby Gregory got respect.  He’s the only one of he three who can take his reward to heaven with him.

In Germany, Pavement Princesses are now paying taxes.  Since the Hoochy-Koochy ladies working indoors have to pay taxes on their earnings, the government felt that the ladies who work the sidewalks should pay, too.

The city of Bonn has begun collecting taxes from prostitutes with an automated pay station similar to a parking meter, proving again that German efficiency knows few if any bounds.

Bonn is not the only city in Germany to charge such a tax, but it is the first to hit upon the idea of a ticket machine that prints out receipts for the nightly flat fee of 6 euros (currently about $8.65) for the privilege of streetwalking. The meter went into service over the weekend, and by Monday morning had collected $382 for the city’s coffers.

Seems fair to me.

So, here’s what I’m wondering:  can we tax political whores?  Since campaign contributions are non-taxable, if seems to me that the least we could do is install an automated pay station outside of congress.

Campaign finance reports would have served as a remarkably prescient crystal ball [on the AT&T / T-Mobile deal]: Lawmakers who’ve taken big bucks from AT&T and T-Mobile’s deal tended to be the most outspoken expressing “disappointment” in the DoJ decision. Lawmakers who shunned AT&T’s largesse were generally pleased.

A Pavement Princess just sells her body.  Your local Congressho sells his soul and your body.  If we could tax that we could settle this national debt thing overnight.

Thanks to Sandy and David for the heads-up. I won’t embarrass them by saying which one sent the Pavement Princess part.

I love you.  I voted for you.  I worked for you.  I believe in you.

The reason I supported you over Hillary Clinton in the primary is that Hillary was unsuccessful in getting health care for all Americans, and then she quit the fight for the next seven years.  She dropped it.  I want someone who will fight for me.  And even when they lose, they will get up and fight again.  I believed you would do that.

Fight, Mr. President. Fight for us.

For the past decade, we have tried it their way.  The Bush tax cuts do not create jobs.  All the cards are on the table face up, Mr. President, so nobody should have a problem seeing that. Tax cuts for the wealthy do not create jobs.  Well, except for former Republican Senator Phil Gramm who is helping them hide their money in tax havens overseas.

It didn’t work for Hebert Hoover and it’s not working for you.

Since the rich did not create jobs with their windfall profits, we can.  Put the tax rate back to what they  paid under Bill Clinton and start rebuilding this country.  People need jobs and, frankly, they don’t care if their paycheck comes from Joe’s Pavement Company or the United States of America.  We still have buildings, walking trails, state parks, bridges and schools built by the WPA. They stand today as tribute to a man who fought for America and Americans, Franklin Roosevelt.

The Republican Party has made it clear that they are willing to destroy this country to get elected.  Please prove the opposite, Mr. President.  Simply say, “I do not care if I am not re-elected.  I will save this country.”  I know you believe that.  We need you to act on it.  Now.

When I read yesterday that you had ditched the EPA’s smog standards, I cried.  I am on supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day.  Yes, I smoked for 20 years like you and John Boehner.  But, I also grew up in the heart of the petrochemical industry and now live 5 miles from the largest coal burning plant in America.   There are days that I cannot go outside because the ozone levels are unsafe for even healthy people.

But, I did not cry for me.  Hell, I’m old.  I smoked.  I knew I lived in foul air.   I cried for the children on the playground, who have become victims of a profit line.  We are no better than a third world country.  We need you to fight for our children’s lungs.

You have an opportunity to save this country before Grover Norquist drags it to the bathtub to drown it.  Tell them how the cow ate the cabbage and dare them to stall, play games, filibuster, or tell the unemployed to stuff it.  I know you can stand up to John Boehner and Eric Cantor.  I’d just like to see it.

I know your political consultants are telling you some horsehockey that the American people are tired of fighting in Washington.  Are they also telling you that your base is tired of getting beat?  Didn’t you hear that loud and clear in 2010?  We didn’t lose, Mr. President, we stayed at home because we were tired of having sand kicked in our faces and taking it.  We need you to muscle up, Sir.

I also know that your consultants are telling you that your base will still vote for you because they cannot vote for Rick Perry.  It breaks my heart that the Democratic Party has become that cynical.  Has our ethical baseline fallen that low?  Worse yet, it is unimaginable and horrifying that the United States of America is governed with that philosophy.

Like the deadbeat dad Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, I will be watching your speech on tv next Thursday night.  It seems to me that you can either speak to him or speak to me, but Mr. President, you cannot speak to both of us.

The Republican Party has boxed you in so that you cannot govern as a Democrat anymore. It seems to me that you have two choices:  you can accept that you will spend 6 more years capitulating to them or, you can take the training wheels off the bicycle and put the petal to metal by learning from Harry Truman that you can fight against a reactionary Congress and give the American people a choice, not an echo.

And if you cannot bring yourself to fight for us, if you do not have the stomach for a battle, that is understandable.  But step aside and give your base an opportunity to elect the champion we so desperately need.

We will always love you, Mr. President, but your base is weary.  Lift us up.

Sincerely and humbly yours,
Susan D Bankston
Richmond, Texas

It appears that the Paulites are taking on Rick Perry in New Hampshire.

One of my Looneytarian friends sent me this link he knew I would like.  It, of course, gladdens my heart.

Rick Perry: You Should Not Vote For Him. He Touched a Mexican.

As soon as they come out with an anti-Perry postcards (instead of this one), I’m buying some of those suckers and sending them to New Hampshire.

There is only one problem:  if Rick Perry is a socialist, then what the hell am I?  That kinda scares me.

Okay, a three judge federal panel will hear the challenge to the Texas redistricting rip-off.

For your Looking Smart at the Labor Day Picnic edification, here’s the judges.

Xavier Rodriguez

Prior to assuming the bench, he was a partner in the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski. Rodriguez was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in 2001 by Governor Rick Perry. He was defeated for election in the Republican primary in 2002. His challenger was Steven Wayne Smith. Rodriguez outspent Smith $558,000 to $9,500.

After his defeat, Rodriguez returned to private practice briefly before being appointed to the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio by President George W. Bush.

Orlando Garcia

Garcia is a former Texas state legislator and a United States federal judge sitting on the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas

Born in Jim Wells County, Texas, Garcia received a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975 and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1978. He was in private practice in San Antonio, Texas from 1978–1990, and a Texas state representative from 1983-1991. From 1991 to 1992 he was a judge in the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals.

He was nominated by President Bill Clinton on November 19, 1993, to a seat which had been vacated by Emilio M. Garza over two years before. Garcia was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 10, 1994, and received his commission on March 11, 1994.

Jerry Edwin Smith

Smith is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on June 2, 1987 and confirmed by the Senate on December 19, 1987. Smith received his commission for the seat, which was created by 98 Stat. 333, two days later.^[1]

Smith attended Yale University and Yale Law School, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1969 and his J.D. in 1972. After law school, he clerked for Judge Halbert O. Woodward on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Smith later served as the director of the Harris County Housing Authority (1978–1980), Special Assistant Attorney General of Texas (1981–1982), chairman of the Houston Civil Service Commission (1982–1984), and the City Attorney for Houston, Texas (1984–1987).

Prior to his appointment, Smith was active in Republican politics.

Smith struck down affirmative action in admitting students to UT law school, and required the EPA to use cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to ban a toxic substance.  Seriously.  He’d take away breathing rights for Democrats if he could.

Everybody is hoping that Rodriguez notices he’s Hispanic and Hispanics are getting screwed under the GOP redistricting plan.

Garcia, having been a state rep and knowing how this game is played, is our best hope for fair and impartial.