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Juanita is writing a new television series.  It’s called C.O.R.P. for Cops Over Rick Perry.

It seems that Juanita just found out that the citizens of the Great State of Texas have paid almost one million dollars of perfectly good cash United States money for Rick and his wife to maintain their globe-trotting lifestyle.

Taxpayers footed the bill for close to $1 million in security costs for 23 foreign trips by GOP Gov. Rick Perry and his wife over seven years, according to records obtained under the Public Information Act by the San Antonio Express-News/Houston Chronicle.

And where did that money come from?

… the cost of the security detail is paid primarily from the state highway fund, which is fueled by the state gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees.

So, when you’re at the gas pump watching those numbers wizz by, think of Rick Perry dining in Paris France on your dollar.

“I swear this idea will sell to Hollywood,” Juanita says.  “Picture the antics of Texas’s featherweight governor in downtown Venice Italy with a security detail of Texas Rangers with itchy trigger fingers anxious to get even over that whole Mussolini thing.”

“Hell, somebody other than Rick Perry ought to make money over this deal,” she stomps.  “I can’t wait until after this election when Rick has to go back to the Rivera with Bobby Bodine’s Bargain Security Services and Fishing Guide to protect him.”

“Hey, Juanita,” Verdelia kicks in, “Rick Perry has a license to carry and a pretty good aim for coyotes.  Why in tarnation does he need a security detail?  He ain’t man enough to protect himself?”

“Uh, no,” Juanita answers.  “As you recall, he’s little girl silly scared to death of snakes.  Come to think of it, I can’t imagine why.  I doubt they’d bite him — just as a professional courtesy, you know.”

“Amen to that, Hon,” Verdelia replies.

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Woo woo!

It has become an article of faith among certain Beltway inside-game commentators that there’s no way the Dem attack on secret money funding elections could ever have a prayer of working. Surely the issue is too esoteric, too process-y, and too removed from voter concerns about the economy to resonate.

But a new poll commissioned by MoveOn, and done by the respected non-partisan firm Survey USA, strongly suggests that the issue may indeed matter a good deal to voters after all.

The poll finds that two thirds of registered voters, or 66 percent, are aware that outside groups are behind some of the ads they’re seeing. This makes sense, since the issue has dominated the media amid the battle over the huge ad onslaught against Dems funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s groups.

What’s more, an overwhelming 84 percent say they have a “right to know” who’s bankrolling the ads.

Hey, Karl, the Mad Hatter wants his crazy back!

Where are you getting the money?  Even your friends want to know.

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From Chicago.

The last name of Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney is misspelled as “Whitey” on electronic-voting machines in nearly two dozen wards — about half in predominantly African-American areas — and election officials said Wednesday the problem cannot be corrected by Election Day.

So, his name is listed as “Rich Whitey” on the ballot.

“Do not fret,” Juanita says.  “Just send those ballots down here.  We have the same damn ticket on the GOP side.”

Click the little one to get a whole mess of Rich Whiteys.

F

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One of Juanita’s favorite customers is a guy named Bud Malone.  Bud is labor union guy who’s been retired for some years now but still keeps up the fight.  He’s from Minnesota but is spending his days now in the warm sun.

Bud gets peeved to high hell and back about guys claiming to be Americans who “want their country back” but seem far to ready to sell out to the highest bidder.  Greed is an ugly thing that no one wears well.

HOUSTON — State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

So they want their country back to sell it to the Chinese?

The deal represents China’s second try at making a big move into the U.S. oil and gas market, following a failed bid five years ago to buy California-based Unocal Corp.

Intense political opposition over energy security concerns derailed that $18.4 billion deal. But analysts expect few political or regulatory hurdles to the CNOOC-Chesapeake deal.

“The climate is much more hospitable now,” said Juli MacDonald-Wimbush, a partner with Marstel-Day, an energy and environmental security consulting company in Fredericksburg, Va.

I am amused by the idea that “the climate is more hospitable now.”

How’d that happen?

I think Bud has the answer.  He sent me this email late yesterday about this story —

“Susan. My first read of the day makes me nauseous. As a nation we climb the ladder of stupidity with relative ease. How about those God fearing  independent Texas guys that lease their land to a big time rival and then bitch about our own government. Everyone has their price, I guess. Bud”

He’s right, you know.

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Our buddy Don A sent this with the comment, “This is amazing. Such a stream of original adjectives is hard to find.”

I agree.  It is a thing a beauty.

By the way, as a practitioner of yoga, I now have another reason to make my morning yoga session at the YMCA – it pisses off the religious right!

Enjoy a good read.

I sip my wine and sigh. What deeply unhappy lives these people must lead, no? So small and cloistered, panicky and scripted, entirely cut off from anything resembling the hot thrum of raw, sticky, swear-worded life as you and I know it, as they shuffle like chilled meatpacks from air conditioned SUV to stuffy Holiday Inn conference room, threadbare high school auditorium to sparsely attended right-wing nutball Midwestern church, retirement home, cotton-candy fairground.