U.S. Republican Party

Finding the Write Candidate

Battle Of The Feisty Governors: Sarah Palin vs. Ann Richards

Subpoena Envy

A legislative panel summons local GOP leaders to a show-and-tell

Blocking Shots

We pay for the arena; they'll finance the campaign

GOP Mayoral Pipe Dreams

West U rejected them, so how will they ever win Houston's City Hall?

Does Not Compute

Loopholes still hamper electronic reporting of campaign finances

GOP Jitters

While a party chair guards his rear, Vision America makes judges nervous

When Will They Learn?

GOP label doesn't sell in mayoral races

Best Polling Place

Minute Maid Park

A Country Requiem for the GOP

Minute Maid Park

Turkeys (and Other Creatures) On the Ballot

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

The Insider

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

The Insider

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

The Insider

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

Letters

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

Insider

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

The Insider

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

Letters

Quick! It's almost Election Day!! Do you know who your candidates are? Check this guide to the mother of all ballots!

GOP Sweeps Week

Republicans complete Texas political reconstruction

Balancing the Bench

Will race and bad blood play a part in the Guv's judicial picks?

Which Bug Gets the Gas?

Will the next house DeLay fumigates be that big White one or his own?

Sign Language

Traffic problems? One woman's novel guide to getting city action

A Little Jump to the Right

Can a ballot triple shift win City Hall for the GOP?

Elephants Versus RINOs

Party veterans sound alarms at the proposed GOP political-purity rules

War on bin Laden -- or Unions?

Bush's battle against terrorism now bars some federal labor activities

An Open Mike

He wants to castrate pedophiles and purge the courts of politics. He has assailed fellow jurists, lawyers and lawmakers. He's maverick Mike McSpadden, a tennis ace with a tomahawk tongue.

GOP Inc.

How "Scary" Gary Polland turned his party apparatus into a political slot machine

The Day the Democrats Died

Learning to love the one-party state

The Insider

The Talented Mr. Stockman. A defeated politician resurrects himself in Seventh District heaven with a stash of campaign cash

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.

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 >>

Dave Mustaine, Johnny Ramone, ZZ Top And A Few Other Right-Wing Rockers

​ Most people wouldn't associate right-wing conservative politics with dirty rock and rollers, but you would be surprised. Not all rock cats are card-carrying communists and lily-livered liberals trying to save the sacred animal of the week and converting their buses to biodiesel. In fact, many ol ... More >>

Waiting Room: The Brand-New Health-Care Package Needs Its Own Soundtrack

​This past week, the health-care reform debate reached an end, as the bill was passed by Congress Sunday night and signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. At stake was the health and well-being of millions of uninsured Americans who now stand to be covered by socialized governmen ... More >>

KTRH "News": More Of A Joke Than Ever

Unfair and unbalanced, perhaps unhinged​KTRH used to be the radio-news powerhouse of southeast Texas, filled with aggressive and competent reporters who covered the city well.Now....well, budget cuts have affected all media, so it's no surprise the newsroom staff ain't what it used to be. But the ... More >>

The Rally To Restore Sanity: Did It Succeed?

Preaching to the choir?​What's the point?It was a question I asked myself more than once in the last month: while I was booking the hotel room, then sitting on the flight from Houston to Washington, DC, and finally walking with tens of thousands of others down Pennsylvania Avenue to attend the Ral ... More >>

President Rick Perry: Five Reasons It Will Happen, Five Reasons It Won't

President Rick Perry.​Governor Rick Perry, the man who has shown the ability to ride a crest of not really being liked to three gubernatorial wins, has done it again.He beat a Democrat in Texas, in the Tea Party year of 2010. A stunning achievement. Still, from now on the press will breathlessly b ... More >>

Tea Party Time: Texas Will Be Ground Zero For How They Govern

Time to govern​Second-day opening paragraphs on stories about disasters such as air crashes always include something about "picking through the charred wreackage." And that's what Democrats are doing now in Texas, where the state legislature races were, well, a disaster.No other state in the count ... More >>

Pineapple-infused Tuaca at 360 Sports Lounge

Time to govern​Second-day opening paragraphs on stories about disasters such as air crashes always include something about "picking through the charred wreackage." And that's what Democrats are doing now in Texas, where the state legislature races were, well, a disaster.No other state in the count ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

According to foraging experts, there is food in this picture. Hahahaha. Those silly bastards.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where in ten years we'll make a fortune when we start auctioning off our stockpile of Four Loko. We kicked the week off with a cautionary f ... More >>

Rep. Aaron Pena: GOP Gets Its Supermajority In Texas House: Now It Begins

It's a stampede!!​The upcoming legislative session in Austin might get pretty wild and entertaining -- if not beneficial to anyone who fears the GOP/Tea Party agenda -- thanks to a move today. State Rep. Aaron Pena, a Democrat from Edinburg, is about to announce he is now Aaron Pena, Republic ... More >>

Return to Sender

What Would Comprehensive Immigration Reform Look Like If the Feds Got Off Their Duffs?

Comment of the Day: Hand Doctor Michael Brown and Tax Cuts

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involv ... More >>

Comment of the Day: Back to the `50s, But All The Way

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involv ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Trump's Out -- Bridging the 2012 Asshole Gap

Now we'll never know what his currency would have looked like.​With apologies to Richard Adams: My heart has joined the Thousand. Donald Trump stopped running today: "After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the presidency," Trump announced in ... More >>

Debt Ceiling: The 10 Worst Tweets From the Texas GOP Congressional Delegation

Tweets don't fail me now​As the GOP debates whether it wants the Tea Party to drive it (and the country) off a cliff by playing games with the debt ceiling, we looked to Twitter for the updates from our state's congresssional delegation. Oddly, the Republicans didn't tweet anything like "Yes, ... More >>

Perry's Prayerapalooza: Let the Downsizing Begin (Also: Worst Fast Ever)

The responee to The Response has been underwhelming.​Rick Perry's famous call for the nation's governors to come to Houston this weekend to pray and fast is looking more and more like a mistake to all but the religious right. Of course, if he's looking to win a GOP primary, he may just get by ... More >>

Republicans Dominate Democrats...in Tweeting

​Our modern technological age has created a lot of new ways to communicate with others. For some, these means seem cold and impersonal. For those who use them regularly, they are simply another option for sending messages into the giant black hole of data that is the Internet. For politicians ... More >>

Rick Perry's Big Campaign-Cash Haul: Phil Gramm Redux?

Connally: One very expensive delegate​The political world is abuzz today with word of Rick Perry's impressive fundraising. Right after he entered the GOP presidential primary, Perry hauled in $17.1 million. The cah grab could "counter the perception that his campaign his struggling," the AP s ... More >>

President Perry Likes Big Butts, And You Other Brothers Can't Deny

The website Go Animate is offering everyone a chance to create a brief animation for the GOP presidential field. You choose a backdrop, provide the lines, and your candidate is spouting whatever you say. You don't get the chance to say much, though, so we couldn't have President Rick Perry offer an ... More >>

10 Rock Stars the GOP Should Nominate for President

Now, we're talking!​As the 2012 presidential race begins to heat up in earnest, Rocks Off can't help but feel that the front-runners for the Republican nomination are lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. Call it star power. Call it sex appeal. Whatever it is, these guys ain't got it. If the G ... More >>