World Politics

Will the State Water Plan Funding Get Out of the House? Maybe

Last week, pretty much everybody and their grandmother thought the state water plan was deader than an Elvis Presley-era jumpsuit. Hopes were high when the 83rd legislative session opened in January. Many people who pay attention to this stuff (i.e. people like us who think water rights are intere ... More >>

Judge Tosses Out Texas' Method Of Funding Schools, Saying It's Unfair

A state district judge ruled today the method Texas uses to fund its schools is unconstitutional and unfair and must be overhauled. Ruling in a suit brought by the Houston school district and other districts, Judge John Dietz said the state has not met the basic requirements of fairness in funding ... More >>

Rick Perry Should Pee in a Cup if the Poor Have to for Benefits, State Rep Joe Deshotel Says

Texas Senate Bill 11 aims to make drug-testing mandatory for all applicants to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. If applicants pee dirty, they would be ineligible to reapply for one year, unless they enroll in a treatment program. The bill would also require that parents who flunk ... More >>

Billboards Say MLK Was GOP. Who Would've Thunk It?

Billboards in Austin proclaiming that Martin Luther King Kr. was a Republican are raising more than a few eyebrows. The billboard campaign was funded by Houston conservative activist Claver Kamau-Imani, who told Hair Balls that, despite many people's assumptions to the contrary, King was a GOP man, ... More >>

The Bible Bandwagon's Getting Crowded: Rick Perry, Greg Abbott Grab A Piece Of The Kountze Limelight

Don't worry, Jesus: You will not be fighting Your epic battle against Satan on the battlefields of Kountze High School alone. By Your side will be Governor Rick Perry and state Attorney General Greg Abbott, both of whom have somehow decided to intervene in a red-meat, hot-button issue sure to pleas ... More >>

Nine Awful, Terrible, "What Were They Thinking?" Political Halloween Masks

You're deep into your Halloween plans, possibly distracted by the presidential race. Or possibly not. Should you combine the two and do your trick-and-treating dressed as one of the leading pols of the day? You might want to think twice about your answer. A survey of Halloween websites shows that ... More >>

Post Presidential Debates, Rick Perry, Whatchya Plannin? (Please Not A 2016 Presidential Run)

It's been a bizarre few weeks for the Gov. The madness began in late August when Perry said he would "absolutely" consider another run at the presidency, adding that 2016 is a long ways off and "a lot of good things can happen." Oh, Rick. What "good things" are those? Did you mean the impending Ch ... More >>

Wait A Second, Did Mitt Romney Just Mess With Texas? (He did.)

For all the analysis that has sprung from Mitt Romney's stoopid rather imprudent comments, which magazine Mother Jones captured and released earlier this week, it's possible one thing has been lost in the tumult. Mitt Romney just messed with Texas. He just messed with it but good. According to Tax ... More >>

Bye, Bye Rick Perry: How Ted Cruz Became Texas' Most-Important Republican -- and He's Not Even Elected!

Rick Perry, it's so over. Sure, you've been fun. Hell, you've been great to us here at Hair Balls. Like that time you thought Solyndra, a solar company, was a country? Or, when you applauded George W. Bush for all his work defending us from freedom? Oh, man. That was a good one. And just recently wh ... More >>

Ted Cruz: First Intellectual Tea-Partier Ever

Last night, as we watched Sarah Palin bloviate on Fox News -- yes, doubtful reader, we do under highly unusual circumstances tune in to Fox News -- we were struck by something. Ted Cruz, compared to virtually every single Tea Party member on this green earth like Palin, is really damn articulate. Li ... More >>

NAACP Focuses on "Outrageous Voter Suppression" at Annual Convention

"We are wading through the greatest wave of legislative assault on the right to vote in more than a century," shouted National Association for the Advancement of Colored People President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous into a microphone at an over-air-conditioned exhibit hall at the George R. Brown Co ... More >>

Election Eve Viewing Party

Progressive Forum Houston: Rachel Maddow

Dems Dream Of A Blue Texas As They Convene In Houston

For people who've been losing Texas elections pretty consistently since the `80s, Democrats at the Democratic State Convention officially kicking off today in downtown Houston are surprisingly upbeat. That's because many of them are expecting the tide to turn in Texas politics, maybe not today or to ... More >>

Keith Judd: Texas Prisoner/Presidential Candidate Does Shockingly Well in West Virginia Primary

Majestically mulleted Texas prisoner-cum-presidential candidate Keith Judd has picked up 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia's Democratic primary. (We examined the Keith Judd phenomenon back before he was just a gleam in West Virginia's eye.) The Associated Press reports that Judd, serving time ... More >>

GOP State Senator John Carona to Colleague Dan Patrick: I Heard You're Gay, But I Never Said It

When Republican state senators attack!!!! (Things get extremely passive-aggressive.) Texas state senators Dan Patrick, Tomball's Own, and Dallas's John Carona got in a nasty e-mail fight first discovered by the Quorum Report. QR is behind a paywall, but some subscribers have posted highlights of t ... More >>

Forget Etch-a-Sketch: Vintage `60s Toys For Newt, Obama & Rick

A spokesman for Mitt Romney stepped in it this week when he cited the 1960s toy Etch-a-Sketch when discussing how easy it would be for his candidate to pivot, issues-wise, from appealing to the rightwingers of the GOP primary to the more centrist voters in the general election. It was a bad metapho ... More >>

Down the Hatch

The Texas Attorney General's Office says a drugmaker lied in order to push an antipsychotic on foster children. So why are kids as young as three still taking the drug?

Gay Rick Perry: The Rumors Resurface

Ready for your Kindle.​Kick a man while he's down, why don't you? Rick Perry has effectively taken himself out of the GOP nomination race, it seems, and he did it by his performance on the stump, not by skeletons in the closet coming out. But now that he's seemingly buried, former state rep ... More >>

Gadhafi, Transvestites & the Reagan Administration Making AIDS Jokes

Gadhafi in a rejected cover for Love and Theft.​Muammar Gadhafi -- a.k.a. he who cannot be Googled -- is dead, according to Libya. Not to mention graphic video of his dead body. Gadhafi's loss robs the world of the leader who most looked like the current Bob Dylan, and there really isn't a go ... 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 >>

8 Memories from Congressional Page Land: Sandwiches with the Speaker, Shaking Bill Clinton's Hand and Stealing KFC Decals

Qui-Gon in your room?​Today, it was announced that the House of Representatives Page Program, a program both steeped in history and marred by scandal, is coming to an end. According to USA Today, House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi cited the $5 million annual expenditu ... More >>

Gov. Rick Perry May Have Used Taxpayer Dollars To Promote "The Response", Says ACLU

Photo by Mandy OaklanderReverend Barry Lynn and Terri Burke are protesting The Response​Diversity-minded, Constitution-abiding folks are pissed at tomorrow's one-day Jesus camp called "The Response." Governor Rick Perry, of course, is the belle of the ball. It's a little complicated since he' ... More >>

Texas Cities and Nonprofit Entities to Get About $3.5 Million in National Settlement of JPMorgan Suit

Settlement helps, a little.​Financial giant JPMorgan has agreed to pay $228 million to settle charges that it manipulated deals involving the government bond market, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says the state's portion of it will be about $3.5 million. The money will go to Texas mu ... More >>

Sarah Palin Sneak Preview: The Agony of The Undefeated

That word you keep using...​There was an advance screening last night of The Undefeated, the new film by Stephen K. Bannon that traces the rise of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin from her early years as mayor of Wasilla to John McCain's 2008 Vice-Presidential candidate to her new status as ... More >>

Here's Something: Obama Polls As Well As Perry In Texas; Both Over 50 Percent

Make his next one a Shiner​Here's something we wouldn't have guessed: Texans give President Obama about as good a job approval rating as they do Governor Rick Perry. More surprising, both are over 50 percent. The Texas Lyceum has a new poll out, and it shows Obama with an approval rating of ... More >>

Calling All Sluts

Time to fight back

Payday Lending: Texas Takes Teeny, Tiny Step to (Barely) Regulate

Gary Elkins: State Rep, payday lender.​Payday lending, where lower-income, lesser-educated, financially strapped people get some instant cash but sometimes end up paying 500 percent interest, is an industry ripe for some regulating, you would think. But that's why you're not a member of the T ... More >>

Five GREAT Things About This Weekend's Rapture

Music to be playing about 6 a.m. Saturday.​In case you hadn't heard, the Rapture will happen at 5:58 a.m. Saturday. All the good, Christian people will ascend to heaven and everyone else will be left here to suffer through unprecedented natural disasters before the End of Time comes in the fal ... More >>

Kristi Thibaut: Former State Rep Announces for At-Large Council Seat

Kristi Thibaut: Running for council.​Kristi Thibaut, the Democrat who rode the 2008 Obama surge into a single term in the state legislature representing Memorial and the west side of town, has announced she is running for the at-large City Council seat being vacated by term-limited Sue Lovell. ... More >>

Mandatory Abortion Sonograms Bill Passes: Ladies, Get Ready For Your Close-Ups

Dan Patrick has reason to smile; women, not so much.​Any woman seeking an abortion in Texas will be forced to undergo a sonogram and be asked if they want to view it or listen to the fetal heartbeat, thanks to a bill that passed today and that Governor Rick Perry says he can't wait to sign. P ... More >>

"Choose Life": Bill to Put Your Religious and Political Views on Texas License Plates Passes Senate

Holier than thou, person stuck behind me in traffic​State Senator Dan Patrick is proudly reporting that the Texas Senate has passed by a 21-10 vote his bill creating license plates that say "Choose Life," thereby, we guess, breaking off the crippling shackles of all those Texans who have been ... More >>

Comment of the Day: The Tea Party and Secession

​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 >>

Rhode Island Wants a Medical Center Like Ours

Rhode Island: Almost as many square miles as Harris County​Lincoln Chafee, the former senator from Rhode Island who is now the (barely a) state's governor, announced today he wants to build a presumably mini-version of the Texas Medical Center. A "knowledge center" would be developed on land ... More >>

Voter ID Is a Texas Emergency, Rick Perry Declares

Rick Perry: It's a red-meat special in Austin today​Remember that vast tsunami of voter fraud that swept across Texas, coming close to throwing into chaos the very concept of democracy? Neither do we. Even Karl Rove, using every bit of the federal government he could get his hands on, couldn ... More >>

Texas To EPA: Keep Your Hands Off Our Rubber Stamp!!

Texas goes to court​As expected, Texas state officials are not just going to roll over and accept the Obama administration's taking away their right to rubber-stamp every application to let companies pour greenhouses gases into the air. Texas AG Greg Abbott went to court today, filing a petit ... More >>

Texas Tribune Gets A Hefty New York Times Correction

The Texas Tribune: Mistakes were made​The Texas Tribune, the semi-new non-profit journalistic outfit, has been partnering with The New York Times. On Sundays, Times readers in the Lone Star State get two pages in their print edition with stories from Tribune writers. The partnership is relati ... More >>

Voter Intimidation Victim and Witness Come Forward, And Nov. 2 Looms Closer

Voter intimidation: everyone wants to shift the blame.​No one seems to want to play nice at the voting polls this year. And new names and organizations keep getting involved in the already over-crowded, controversial fray.King Street Patriots/The Tea Party. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. The Te ... More >>

King Street "Patriots": Voter Intimidation Continues At Polling Stations Around Houston

Photo by Chasen MarshallIf the signs don't sway you, the poll watchers might.​Polling stations around Houston have turned into bastions of controversy this week: Fourteen reported incidents Monday and another that Hair Balls heard about on Wednesday in south Houston near Gulfgate. There are few d ... More >>

Tea Party Caucus: Rest Easy, Montrose -- Your Congressman Has Joined This Elite Group

He'd be comfortable in Montrose, apparently​If there's one part of town we think of when we ponder the noisy-old-people phenomenon that is the Tea Party, it's Montrose.The `trose is just packed with factually challenged, self-deluded Obama-haters...isn't it?Not really, of course. The neighborhood ... More >>

Obama & JFK: Five Ominous Parallels Someone's Aware Of, Right?

The Secret Service is on the case, we hope​As the dog days descend upon us, the mind starts to wander.It may wander so much that it occasionally turns into Fox News, although this is not recommended. Same with trolling though right-wing blogs.It's a scary world out there, folks. And it brings to m ... More >>

TCEQ & The Sunset Commission: Texas Environmental Groups Try Working Together

Coming together vs. TCEQ​The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, made up of 12 state legislators who evaluate state agencies every dozen years, is examining the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and will make a recommendation during the next legislative session whether to renew, tweak, or ab ... More >>

Money, Marbles and Chalk! An Affectionate Sketch of Ann Richards

Actress Holland Taylor plays the late Texas governor

Kidnapped

Texan Larry Plake went out to one offshore oil job too many and ended up held for ransom in the Nigerian jungle.

MLK Grande Parade

Houston salutes the man with a dream

Barack Obama and Me

It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator

Cortés, the Killed

Local Restaurant News

Hot Plate

Dish