It’s becoming clear now that handsy Texas ball-of-fire Rick Perry, in notably indiscreet fashion, has been trying to cover-up or kill an investigation into the execution of an innocent man, which would show that… well… he and his staff could have maybe prevented this from happening! This is a major scandal, for serious. BUT LET US CONSIDER THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS. If you’re Kay Bailey Hutchison, and you have a Texas Republican primary against Rick Perry in a few months, how do you attack this from the right? How do you reconcile (a) the major opportunity to attack Rick Perry for this major thing and (b) the fact that the Republican base loves the death penalty and will always love it and want it and cherish it? Hmm… uhh… how about… Rick Perry is in cahoots with the liberals? Huh? Any objections? Fine, type up a statement. MORE »

WHY EVEN WORK TOMORROW? THE NEWS STORY OF THE WEEK ALREADY HAPPENED: Jesus, we were starting to think that we might have to *ask* for someone to make an animated .gif of Rick Perry petting that old man. Fortunately operative “Elliot P.” came through just in time, showing a little goddamn initiative around this place. Rick Perry, what are you doing! This is how Pig AIDS gets spread!

HOLY MOLY LOOK AT GOV. RICK PERRY TOUCH THIS MAN. JESUS. He’s like, well sure I’ll shake your hand old man, but before I do that, I’m just gonna pet your hair a lil’ bit, and you’re gonna have to deal with that. Ha ha ha! This is still so good, even on the 42nd watch. And it’s not a one-off thing, either: this is simply how Rick Perry greets other humans. MORE »

Someone sends RedState a photo of this unfunded, dinky thing, in Texas, and Erick Erickson writes, “We need that spirit in this country. We need the Spirit of Skidmore.” As tipster “Michael E.” writes, “An example of some garbage museum that the conservatives think should be the gold standard. ‘Welcome to the Smithsonian Institution, now without federal of state funding, open Sunday 3-5PM!!’” Indeed. It’s easy to maintain a museum when all it features is a bunch of old, rusty mechanical shit laying around the parking lot. [RedState]

On Tuesday, September 8th at 11 AM (8/11), Barack Obama will be taking the teevees of our nation’s classrooms by force for what can only be described as purposes of communism. Most of America’s Good Parents have already said they would not be sending their school-aged children to school on this day, but Texas school districts will be taking NO CHANCES and are stepping in to ensure that whatever suck-up nerd retards bother to show up anyway will not be seeing that speech. MORE »

The secessionist losers in Texas held a major rally (like 2 people) in front of the state Capitol this past weekend, but whither be leader Rick Perry and his 70 pretend-secessionist allies from the state legislature? Apparently they were all busy doing… let’s see… anything else. But the Texas Observer was there to cover the madness and met some interesting “Real Americans,” who at one point very patriotically shouted, “we hate the United States.” MORE »

To the surprise of no one, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison officially declared that she would be running for governor of Texas against Rick Perry, who could potentially serve FOURTEEN FRIGGING YEARS as head of that state. The race got off to a colorful unofficial start in late July when Internet sleuths discovered secret gay code words, such as “Rick Perry gay,” on the senator’s campaign site. MORE »

When you stop to think about it, the only thing preventing Tom DeLay from replacing Karen Finley as the world’s greatest performance artist is the fact that he has never publicly shot yams out of his ass. But now he’s doing the next best thing, which is participating in the hit weight-loss/salsa competition for pudgy Republicans, Dancing with the Stars. MORE »

• High-frequency trading? Goldman Sachs? Ball’s in your court, Taibbi. [Matt Yglesias]
• “You Want Context? Drudge Will Give You Context.” And brain herpes! [Weekly Standard]
• Joe Biden is such a golly liberal fascist, according to liberal fascist experts. [USA Today]
• The best part of RedState’s furry convention was when Liz Cheney gave everyone an enormous boner — as stiff as a starched collar! Who could resist doe-eyed Liz in that delicious panda bear suit? So soft. [RedState]
• Sean Hannity is now a Texas Kentucky Colonel. [Think Progress]
• CNN took one look at the ad Media Matters wanted to air and said, “What is this? You are not selling pills or automobiles? NO. This will not do. Air your facts on Fox.” [TPM]

See, this is why we haven’t kicked Texas out of the union (yet): because sometimes Texans do funny things for us to laugh at. For example: unofficial Republican gubernatorial candidate Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has a web site that contained tasty little hidden phrases like “rick perry gay” that Governor Rick Perry’s people did not like so much. MORE »

Rick Perry, the most foul hair-monster of a governor since Rod Blagojevich, has amassed a small collection of sexy shoe-fetish photographs on his Flickr site. The name of the collection? “Kicks for Rick,” of course, showcasing exactly how Rick gets his kicks. Next fall, will Texans want to re-elect, for the billionth time, a known shoe molester? [NBC Dallas-Fort Worth]