Author: Dick

Just hanging out with my bros.

Who said they wouldn’t have Drew Nixon to kick around again? Oh that was Richard Nixon and since he’s dead I think he doesn’t have to worry about people kicking him around unless you believe in Hellfire Damnation and his orchestra.

Drew Nixon is an entirely different matter. A grand jury in Panola County, Texas, indicted the former state senator after he allegedly mislead two potential candidates for an election to a water supply district board. Nixon was both an accountant and election administrator for the district.

For those of you who might not know the otherwise obscure former Texas lawmaker, he is the same geeky guy that was busted in 1997 for offering an undercover officer in Austin $35 for oral sex. This is despite the fact that everyone knows the going rate is $50. No, just kidding about the latter.

Nixon’s indictment comes after an investigation by Texas’ wheelchair-bound Attorney General Greg “Ironsides” Abbott.

“Texas will not tolerate illegal acts that undermine the integrity of the electoral process,” said Abbott, in a press release. “Election officials have a duty to serve the public’s interest, not their own. Voters can rest assured the Office of the Attorney General is committed to strictly enforcing election laws.”

I’m certainly glad voters can rest assured about something, although resting assured that Abbott is committed to strictly enforcing election laws is not a matter of which I would normally rest assured, or assured-er. One may read the entire indictment and press release on Abbott’s Web page. One may also find on that Web page, Greg’s favorite movies and what is loaded on his iPod.

Nixon is certainly not dumb but he has made some very stupid mistakes over the course of his career as an accountant and elected official. It pains me the most not because he was or maybe still is a Republican, but for the fact that he graduated from my Alma Mater Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogodches, Texas, Nicknamed Steve U. Home of the Lumberjacks and we’re OK. That is, except for Drew Nixon.

FYI, here is a Wikipedia article about Greg Abbott and the freak accident that left him wheelchair bound. It’s pretty weird.

It was announced yesterday that Gee Dubya commuted the sentence of former White House aide Scooter Libby. I read today that a complete pardon is possible for Libby, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick “Dick” Cheney.

All such actions fall under the purview of the awesome powers granted the president of the United States.

A lot of outrage exists among those who dislike or otherwise Bush and his band of hooligans. But that holy acrimony is less about Libby than it is the seemingly never-ending hypocrisy of the Bushites — including politicians, talk radio hosts and their wolfpack fans.

The fact that the right made such a big deal out of “the rule of law” when it came to the impeachment of Bill Clinton for what was in reality having oral in the White House makes it hard for many on the left to swallow (no pun intended)that the rule of law is being thwarted legally.

Oh and how the rightists raised holy hell when a departing Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, whose lawyer I might point out was none other than Scooter his ownself.

Nonetheless, the righties always claim to being on the side of God, even when the shoe is on another foot. And this administration and many of its supporters have raised hypocrisy to an art form.

Of course, hypocrisy is not illegal, thankfully for a lot of people on the left, right and in between. It is, however, annoying to the point of anger for a lot of folks who are predisposed to not liking someone or something in the first place.

Whether Scooter comes out of this clean as a whistle doesn’t really matter. It’s the hypocrisy stupid.

Happy Fourth of July Scooter and don’t blow your hand off with a cherry .

Some tumultuous moments were apparently taking place a few blocks from where I now sit typing away. An armed inmate took a hostage or hostages about 8:30 this morning at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, but is back in custody, according to the Beaumont Enterprise This news somehow puts me in a funk for you know, rainy days and Mondays and hostage-taking always gets me down. That’s a joke son. I dig rainy days and Mondays can be okay, especially if it’s a rainy Monday. Hostage-taking. Bad.

Hopefully, things are back to normal at the county courthouse and no one was hurt. I can predict with accuracy of plus/minus 12 percent that someone — in addition to the inmate — now has their ass in a crack.

And speaking of crack …

Do you think Rudy’s peeps are smoking crack?

Rudy’s campaign is slamming a New York firefighters union that plans to derail the former hizzoner’s presidential campaign. Just who do those ungrateful union radicals think they are putting down St. Rudy, the man who saved New York all by his lonesome — with a little help from Bernie Kerik, of course — after 9/11?

Nothing like a relaxing day in the water.

Significant weather events such as the flooding that has been taking place in North and Central Texas serve as a very poignant reminder that it sometimes rains like living hell in the Lone Star State. Just remember what Stevie Ray Vaughn said:

“It’s flooding down in Texas/All the rich folks just drowned.”

No, that’s not really what Stevie Ray said, exactly. But you get the point that it can and does come what we living here in East Texas refer to as “frog stranglers.” Is that the point? No, really what is the point?

Well it is that some folks have this preconceived notion of Texas being a vast desert wasteland. It’s not, of course. It’s only a vast wasteland, not a vast desert wasteland. I’m joking, although some desert is found in western Texas such as the Chihuahuan Desert. That is, as many of you are probably aware, where the cute, loveable, ankle-biting Chihuahua dog breed got its name. The dogs were bred to climb down tiny holes to catch desert-dwelling rodents which were used to make a slightly gamy version of carne asada known as raton asada. If any of what I just said is true then I would be sort of surprised because I just made that all up.

But it is true that some people have a stereotype of Texas which they probably got from watching too many Westerns, or “horse operas,” as my daddy called them.

When my Navy ship made port calls in Australia some 29 years ago, several Aussies asked me if I rode a horse. I told them that I did and said I would take them down below into the berthing spaces of my ship to catch a glimpse of “Silverbolt,” however the horse was taking a nap.

Since the world is one big wired-up conglomeration of computer chips and motherboards and fatherboards requiring increasing amounts of dilithium crystals, then perhaps these stereotypes are not quite as widespread these days. (Not to mention that Western movies, as in Old West, are only allowed on cable stations on Saturday mornings).

Nonetheless, I am sure a little of the Texas mystique remains throughout the world these days and shall remain for many years to come. That is, if it isn’t all washed away by floods.