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Well, it’s here and it’s ugly enough to burn asphalt.

Sugar Land’s new Skeeters “minor league” baseball team starts up in 2012, but they’ve already managed to find a way to take your money.  They have …. well, stuff.

The Skeeters are in no way associated with Major League Baseball.  They are a part of a baseball league  that businessmen across the country have put together to make money.  It’s called the Atlantic League, and by gosh, we’re only 4 states away from anything Atlantic.

The business men charmingly convince “conservative” leadership, like in Sugar Land, to build a them baseball stadium with taxpayer money and they will find 9 guys who can almost play baseball but not good enough to impress anybody.  Come to think of it, that kinda describes the Astros, too.

The cute part is that the “conservative” city fathers talked the taxpayer into doing this for the prestige and tourism that it would bring to city. Please note on the koozie up there that it doesn’t say Sugar Land anywhere on it.  It’s the “Houston area.”  Juanita says that’s just damn sad.

The upside is that for just $35,000 a year (plus additional food costs), you can buy a sky box. And if you’re a businessman, you can take that off your taxes!  I told you there was a good side to this.

(Thanks to the fellas over at Hair Balls for the heads-up.)

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Customer Alfredo gave us the heads up on this little scam involving several Texas Congressvarmints.

Yesterday, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Southwest Securities $500,000 for using paid consultants to solicit municipal securities business and for violations of some other rules.

And it’s not the first time they’ve been in hot water.  Last year they were fined $470,147 “to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for violating an anti-pay-to-play rule by co-underwriting Massachusetts bond deals within two years after its former senior vice president made political contributions to state Treasurer Timothy Cahill.”

And the year before that, they were in trouble with the SEC, who filed an cease-and-desist order against Southwest Securities for “failure to conduct compliance training for its financial services staff.”

Now, if you and I got into that much trouble yearly, we’d be in the pokey, or at the very least not operating a business.

How did they get away with it?  Well, have a look-see at this little Word document I made for you to see who is getting paid-off. Or, have a little peek at a partial list here.  Click the little one to get the big one.

Other than one donation of $250 to Barack Obama, that there is a cashopalooza of Republican hands out.

Thelma says that they ought to allow the health inspectors to have campaign accounts so we could slide on that pesky “no homemade wine in beauty salons” rule.

*UPDATED: Alfredo also found that Southwest Securities has sneaky down to an art form.  Lookie here at the contributions under the name of their holding company.  You know the clicking drill by now —

And, not surprisingly, Southwest Securities lobbied against regulatory reform.

No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up.

But wait, there’s more.  Why all the money to

Jeb Hensarling: Twenty pieces of silver

Jeb Hensarling?  Southwestern Securities had good reasons to love Jeb back in 2006-2007.  Jeb blocked legislation that could have prevented the financial crisis of 2008:

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, is a member of the House Financial Services Committee and the sponsor of a pending bill to lighten the regulatory load faced by financial institutions.

He says the proposals could put a damper on community banks.

“When the regulators in Washington say ‘should’ or ‘might,’ it often comes across as ‘must’ to the examiner in the field,” Hensarling said.

Read more.

Way to go, Jeb.

I don’t think this is the end of this story because the CFO of Southwest Securities suddenly resigned last October.

I’ll betcha that this story gets better and better.

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Breaking News:  HOUSE VERSION OF VOTER ID SAILS OUT OF COMMITTEE

Select Committee on Voter Identification & Voter Fraud passes SB 14 on 5-2 vote; two Democrats, Veasey and Hochberg, vote no; the House version strips out Ogden amendment which required appropriation for new ID requirements to go into effect.

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Y’all, heads up!  The date has been moved.

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Only in Texas is there such a thing as magic money.

Our handsome and fabulously-coiffed Governor has a little scam going on with magic money.

First, Rick Perry is up close and personal with Grover Norquist, another guy who is not willing to pay his fair share.

Gov. Rick Perry plans to be in the Dallas area on Tuesday to meet with national anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, whose no-new-taxes pledge has been signed by many Texas legislators and Perry himself.  Norquist is coming to Texas to raise money for his group, Americans for Tax Reform.

“Wrap your head around this,” Juanita says, “Grover is against taxes, but he wants you to give him money so he can eat.  In turn, he will use your money to help you not pay taxes.  Hit me upside the head if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be easier to just pay your taxes instead of giving Grover your money?  I mean, it doesn’t seem fair that only Grover gets to eat … or drive on nice roads or have police protection or somebody inspecting his food for safety.”

“But, there’s more …” she promises.

David Nance - The Burner

“Come to find out, Rick Perry’s $2 million slush fund of taxpayer money has been completely wasted with zero results from Rick’s friends and donors who got the money,” Juanita reports.

The Innovate Texas Foundation was supposed to be a hub of economic activity, an enterprise that Gov. Rick Perry agreed to underwrite with nearly $2 million in federal tax money, with the possibility of more.

David Nance, a Perry friend and campaign contributor, hoped for big things for his foundation, where he made $125,000 a year while he rebounded from the bankruptcy of his previous company and started a new one.

“From the $2 million, we got salaries, a dead website, and claims of success when none were there.  We might as well have put it in paper bag and set fire to it.  But, that was the least of the taxpayer money Rick Perry gave David Nance to burn.  Laylan Copelin and Kirk Ladendorf of the Austin American Statesman have word pictures of Rick Perry and his buddy David Nance having a bonfire.”

“So,” Juanita concludes, “the only taxes we want in Texas are those that Rick Perry can give his friends who like $1,000 a day hotel rooms.  Kinda makes you wonder what’s going on in those hotel rooms.  I pretty much figure that somebody’s getting screwed.  However, more than likely, it’s us.”

And I haven’t even told y’all about Alan Kirchhoff yet.

Alan Kirchhoff had two bankruptcies in his past and a job repairing cracked windshields in a Colorado parking lot when he moved to Texas for a fresh start.

He found a home in Gov. Rick Perry’s office. Kirchhoff rose rapidly, culminating with his appointment as director of the governor’s prized economic development program, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. There, he made friends with a powerful member of the fund’s advisory committee, William E. Morrow.

By the time the Texas Rangers began investigating, that relationship and its secret side deals had transformed Kirchhoff, according to the Rangers’ calculations, into a millionaire.

“I have a better plan than Grover to lower taxes,” Juanita says.  “Step 1:  Everybody pay their taxes like normal.  Step 2: Don’t let Rick Perry have any of it.”

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Every now and then, we get some hot damn good news in Texas.

This is it:

East Texas will lose seats in the Texas House, possibly up to half the region’s representation, during what is expected to be a contentious redistricting process in the wake of the latest U.S. Census numbers, political pundits say.

Thank you, Sweet Jesus.  Thank you.