Kay Bailey Hutchison

ESPN's Craig James to Run for U.S. Senate In Texas

The next senator from Texas?​Great news if you're a fan of inept political campaigns, or if you just want less awful announcing on your TV. Craig James, ESPN college football analyst who was personally involved in two ugly college football scndals of varying degrees, is running to replace Kay ... More >>

Tommy Lee Jones For Senate: New Poll Says He Could Kick Ass

Is there a draft in here?​The movement to draft Tommy Lee Jones to run as a Democrat to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison is most likely doomed to failure, but a new poll shows Jones might be a viable candidate. Public Policy Polling released its survey today on the 2012 Senate race, and it shows ... More >>

Thank You, Lord: Dan Patrick May Run for Senate

God is on line two, with a campaign contribution.​If you take as a given -- which you should -- that it's going to be awhile before a moderate ever gets elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas, then you want your troglodyte senatorial candidates to be as entertainingly fringe as possible. So lo ... More >>

Tommy Lee Jones for Senate: Crucial Updates

Since our item on Houston attorney Geoff Berg's campaign to draft Tommy Lee Jones for the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, things have been moving fast. 1. Tommy Lee Jones still has had nothing to say on this. 2. But the story has been picked up by CNN, the Dallas Morning News, ... More >>

Tommy Lee Jones For Senate: Congressman Gene Green Says Why the Hell Not?

Senator Tommy Lee Jones?​Geoff Berg, host of KPFT's Partisan Gridlock show is leading the improbable battle to draft Tommy Lee Jones as a Democratic candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. They've got a Facebook page and everything, including a petition with an op ... More >>

Kay Bailey Hutchison Retires: Five Career Highlights

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced she will not seek re-election to the Senate, probably a wise move after conservatives sensed blood in the water after her disastrous gubernatorial campaign. KBH's three terms in the Senate were somewhat odd in that she never made all that much of an impres ... More >>

Willie Nelson's Pot Bust: A Milestone In Marijuana Policy?

​You gotta love a sumbitch like Willie Nelson who, unlike Bill "I-Never-Inhaled" Clinton, has always 'fessed up to using copious quantities of herb. Two days ago, in response to his pot bust last Friday at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Sierra Blanca (that's a Spanish geographical term for th ... More >>

Turkey Of The Year Runner-Up: Bill White

Bill White loses another race​It's a week or so away from the 2010 Turkeys of the Year issue, where we honor what is best in Turkeydom for the past year. This will be our eighth edition of the awards, and as always competition is stiff. Building up to the grand announcement of the winners, we' ... More >>

Sheila Jackson Lee, We're Sorry (Really)

Hair Balls regretfully posted this afternoon misleading information about a Washingtonian magazine survey concerning members of Congress.The blog item, which we've taken down, was supposed to be based on the survey the magazine published in its current September 2010 issue. However, the link on t ... More >>

Rick Perry, Great White Hunter: How Does He Stack Up?

Rick Perry is getting a lot of Internet play today for manfully admitting to the Associated Press that he used a laser-sighted pistol with hollow-point bullets to kill a coyote that was threatening his dog while he was out jogging.Take that, dog predator. You should have known our governor never jog ... More >>

The Big Secrets In Bill White's Tax Returns, Revealed

​You know things have gotten off on the wring foot challenging Rick Perry when the state's leading political writer compares your operation to Kay Bailey Hutchison's.Here's how things have gone in the Texas governor's race since the primaries: Rick Perry has been in Patton mode, ostentatiously "ac ... More >>

Farouk Shami Is On Fire. His Campaign Song? Eh...

One of the benefits of writing for a music blog is you don't have to follow politics unless you just want to, or unless some politician is so desperate they think commissioning a campaign song Auto-tuned up the yin-yang and with lyrics that went out of style when disco did is going to improve their ... More >>

Campaign Shocker: Rick Perry (All But) Admits He's Gay

Maybe we spoke too soon with that pre-bituary of Kay Bailey Hutchison's gubernatorial hopes.Because we just don't know how Texans are going to cotton to the fact that their governor appears to be an ABBA fan.Rick Perry's campaign has released a new video entitled "Earmark Queen," which is all about ... More >>

The Death Of The Kay-For-Governor Effort, In Five Telling Moments

​The campaign of Governor Rick Perry has been gleefully sending out "pre-bituaries" -- in other words, stories analyzing what went wrong with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's gubernatorial race.Barring an upset of Truman-like proportions, the only question remaining in tomorrow's primary will be whe ... More >>

Dems' Farouk Shami Tries To Out-Nut GOP's Debra Medina

​The gubernatorial primaries in Texas have featured one outrageous statement after other -- Texas should secede, 9/11 was an inside job, Kay Bailey Hutchison knew what she was getting into -- but we have a new contender for top prize.Democratic candidate Farouk Shami met with the Houston Chronicle ... More >>

Bad Day On The Political Trail: When Glenn Beck Sounds Saner Than You

​(Updated with Perry reaction)How do you know you're having a bad, momentum-killing day on the campaign trail?When you're forced to put out an official statement saying No, I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job.Debra Medina, who had been surging recently in polls of the GOP gubernatorial primary ... More >>

Latest Poll: Is Kay Bailey Hutchison Headed For Third Place?

​The latest poll on the GOP gubernatorial primary has just been released, and it's got some surprising stuff in it.Rick Perry still leads the field, albeit with an uninspiring 39 percent. After that, though, is where the surprise comes in -- Kay Bailey Hutchison leads tea party favorite Debra ... More >>

Right-Wing Bloggers: Armed, Dangerous And With The Governor

Governor Rick Perry spent the weekend holding a summit for conservative bloggers and social-media types. It included a trip to the gun range, because Rick Perry is a Texan, dammit, and you'll pry his firearms from his cold, dead etc. etc.We know bupkis about guns, but the Come and Get It blog notes ... More >>

Kay Bailey Hutchison Continues To Nail Down The Inside-The-Beltway Vote So Important To The Texas GOP This Year

​Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison rolled out the big guns today as President George H.W. Bush endorsed her. Coming on the heels of the recent endorsement of former Secretary of State James Baker, Hutchison has ably demonstrated what it takes to win the GOP gubernatorial primary. If it were being run i ... More >>

Turkeys of the Year

In a highly competitive 2009 field, Governor Rick Perry is the biggest gobbler of them all.

The Tug of War

Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison are locked in a pitched battle over the soul of the GOP. They are also running for governor.

Hutchison Staying In Senate Until She Wins The GOP Gubernatorial Primary (If She Does Win)

​More stumbles for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in her attempt to take out Governor Rick Perry: After saying for months that she would quit the Senate around now to go all in on the gubernatorial race, she has just announced she won't leave until after the GOP primary.Why? Bad poll numbers leading ... More >>

The Dallas Observer Learns About Interviewing Bill White

Photo by Sam Merten​Our sister paper the Dallas Observer tagged along recently as Houston mayor Bill White visited a suburban deli and learned what it's like to deal with the generic, content-free answers the big man uses when he doesn't want to reply to what you're asking.The headline? "Will Sena ... More >>

John Cornyn Has KBR's Back In Any Future Rape Cases

​We've written several items about Jamie Leigh Jones, the local woman who is suing KBR over a gang-rape she says happened while she was working for the company in Iraq.The company put up roadblocks to her attempts to resolve the situation and her claims of rampant sexual harassment in KBR camps, b ... More >>

Gubernatorial Candidate Kinky Friedman: My Dog Could Run This State As Well As Rick Perry

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​ "Going from musician to politician is definitely a step down," says Kinky Friedman, who announced his Texas gubernatorial candidacy Tuesday morning. "But I'll take it for Texas." Of course, it's a step that Friedman, author of songs such as "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jes ... More >>

Gubernatorial Candidate Kinky Friedman: My Dog Could Run This State As Well As Rick Perry

Photos by Craig Hlavaty​ "Going from musician to politician is definitely a step down," says Kinky Friedman, who announced his Texas gubernatorial candidacy Tuesday morning. "But I'll take it for Texas." Of course, it's a step that Friedman, author of songs such as "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jes ... More >>

Hey Texans -- You Can't Disappoint Us If We Don't Have High Hopes

​In our cover story this week, we take a look at the Houston Texans' brief-but-tangled history of breaking our hearts. A franchise that seems to begin each year riding on seemingly reasonable hopes of improvement consistently ends it with waves of disappointment.We also rounded up some predictions ... More >>

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas: "Palo Duro"

View Five States of Texas in a larger map As any proud Texan can tell you, the Lone Star State is entitled constitutionally to split into five states if it so wishes. The scenario has rarely been more in the news than it has relatively recently, when Gov. Rick Perry played to the wingnut gallery in ... More >>

Feeling The Sweet Flow Of Freedom With Sean Hannity

Photo by Pete Vonder Haar​Conservative radio/TV host Sean Hannity began hosting his "Freedom Concert" series, benefiting Oliver North's Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund for the children of soldiers killed or disabled in action, back in 2003. Last Saturday the 2009 incarnation kicked off at the Cy ... More >>

Amazingly, There Are Some Flaws In Rick Perry's Plan To Secede

As the whole blogosphere knows by now, Rick Perry -- the only governor Texas has at the moment -- has talked of the possible need to secede from the United States.This apparently counts as pro-America rhetoric at a tea party; the logic of that escapes us. (Oh yeah, it's no longer "America" when ther ... More >>

A Pardon For Galveston's Jack Johnson? McCain's On It

Senator John McCain is announcing today that he wants President Obama to issue a pardon for Jack Johnson, the "Galveston Giant" who ruled boxing's heavyweight division in the early 20th Century and was convicted of transporting a woman across state lines to get him some.Because McCain is all about t ... More >>

T. Boone Gets Ready For His Million-Megawatt March

General T. Boone Pickens is invading Washington, D.C. tomorrow. Well, virtually. Members of his New Energy Army, numbering somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million strong, are planning to bombard Congress with emails and phone calls urging lawmakers to pass legislation favorable to Pickens' plan to ... More >>

Is Casino Gambling in the Cards for Galveston?: Getting Up a Game

Bringing casinos to Texas would require a state constitutional amendment

R.I.P. Texas, Says Best-Selling Author (A Non-Texan)

Texas, your day is done.That's according to Bryan Burrough, the Vanity Fair contributor and author of The Big Rich, a best-selling look at the oilmen who ruled the state and beyond for much of the 20th century.Burrough writes in an op-ed column in the Washington Post that, with the farewell of Georg ... More >>

Texas Monthly, Bound for the Recycle Bin?

There's an interesting supplement in the new issue of Texas Monthly, the one with all-but-declared gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on the cover. It's a 32-page mini-mag called Texas Bound for Music, and appears to be TM's attempt at... well, it's not really clear exactly ... More >>

Bill White Is In The Senate Race -- Obama Style!

It's not much of a surprise after leaks began coming out last week, but Houston Mayor Bill White formally announced today he's in the race for Kay Bailey Hutchinson's senate seat.He did it Obama-style: via a video on his website. In front of what look like sagging bookshelves, White describes a Hous ... More >>

Texas Governor's Race: The Fun Is Beginning

As you've no doubt heard, Kay Bailey Hutchison yesterday took the first steps to enter what would be a highly, highly entertaining GOP primary for the governorship next year (Just think of the hair-care budgets alone between her and Rick Perry).What about the not-so-boy wonder from Houston, Mayor Bi ... More >>

Our Congresspeople: The Best & Worst

Sure, the Team Sucks. But That Doesn't Mean We Care What You Had for Lunch.

Kinky Politics

Gubernatorial hopeful Friedman knows when to Hold 'Em

Training Day

Light rail's first day brings one high after another

A Rave Mistake

Apparently the U.S. Senate has little better to do than hassle the pacifier-and-glow-stick set

Judicial Show and Tell

Senators Gramm and Hutchinson dig deep into applicants' political pasts

No Contest

KPRC uses the IRS for this month's sweeps giveaway

GOP Lay-Ups

Enron fuels Republican soft money machine

Letters

The Insider

The Year of Living Anxiously

Are We Having Fun Yet? Or is it just the jangly buzz of advanced urban stress syndrome?

Letters

The Case Against Kay

Last year, a grand jury was told tales about Texas' junior senator. Here's what they heard.