Here’s something that ought to make the 81st Session interesting:

Texas House:   76 Red fish   74 Blue fish

Texas Senate:  17 Red fish   13 Blue fish

Monday was the first day to file bills.  *Yawn* nothing much overly exciting there.  Yet.

The House fireworks have already started.  On Monday, Leo Berman of Tyler (Tyler??!!) released a letter signed by of 13 members losers who support lame duck speaker Craddick’s bid for another session.   The dumb and dumber include Warren Chisum (r Pampa), Linda “landslide” Harper-Brown (r Irving),  Carl Isett (r Lubbock), Phil King (r Weatherford), Jodie Laubenberg (r Parker), Ken Paxton (r McKinney), Dan Flynn (r Van), Geanie Morrison (r Victoria), Bryan Hughes (r Mineola), Bill Callegari (r Katy), Larry Taylor (r Friendswood), and Wayne Christian (r Center).  Thanks to Harvey Kronberg for posting the release.

The usual suspects and not a Bluefish in the bunch.   Hmmmm….76 minus 13…..that leaves only 73 Redfish left to catch.  

On the other hand, most Bluefish are easy.  They actually believe Craddick will respect them in the morning.  There’s one or two wiley Bluefish that might make things more sporting.  Keep in mind that Bluefish are not the brightest fish in the pond. 

The kegger starts January 13th.  Hold on to your hats, it’s gonna be one heck of a rodeo. 

Today is Veterans Day. 

Today is the day you should thank every single member of our uniformed services for what they do.  They do what they do so you don’t have to.

They learn things about themselves and others that nobody should ever have to learn.  They sometimes work and live in conditions that would put you to shame.  Some put their careers on hold.  Some put their educations on hold.  They put their family life on hold.  They put their lives on hold.  

They put their lives on the line.  Every. Single. Day.  Some lose their lives.  Others just lose parts of theirs.

It’s called service to your country.   

They do all this so that the maniacs of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas can harrass grieving mothers and fathers and wives and husbands and spit on the graves of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.   

They do all this so that 50+ percent of you can be too busy getting your nails done or going to the gym or just too busy being busy to bother to go vote. 

They do all this so that our congressmen can keep freezers full of cash in their homes and offices.  They do all this so that our senators can tapdance their way through airport bathrooms, seduce congressional pages, and get their houses remodeled for free by government contractors.

They do all this so that our elected officials can send pornographic images to each other from taxpayer-paid computers and put their mistresses on the government payroll.  They do all this so that our elected representatives can live high on the hog on their campaign accounts, flush with the contributions of lobbyists and special interests.  They do all this so that our elected representatives can pay their wives, husbands, children, and each other for political consulting services out of their campaign accounts. 

That’s the price of freedom. 

Can you look a veteran straight in the eyes and tell him or her their sacrifice was worth it?

The United States Marine Corps is 232 233 years old today. 

Semper Fidelis.

Thank you.

McCain has just conceded to Obama. 

Be that as it may, the fat ladies ain’t sung yet.

Keep an eye on the battleground states:  Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin.

Fox News just called Virginia for Obama. 

UPDATES will be in the comments section.

MSNBC just called it for Obama.

CBS just called it for Obama.

CNN just called it for Obama.

MSNBC has called Texas for McCain.  Well, d’uh.  Talk about stating the obvious.  CNN says Texas is still in play.

Keep an eye on the battleground states:  Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin.

Harris County 9.95% of votes: 

Straight dimocrat 54.89%      straight republican:  44.72%

O’Biden:  53.04%     McCain-Palin:   46.39%

Noriega:  52.94%     Cornyn:  45.40%

CD 10:  Doherty:  31.63%    McCaul:  66.89%

CD 22:  Lampson:  43.16%    Olson:  54.90%

UPDATE   UPDATE   UPDATE:

Wilco early votes:  

O’Biden:  43.97%   McCain-Palin: 54.82%

Noriega 39%   Cornyn   57%

Maldonado:  51%    Daniel:  46%

Grimes:  50.09     Birkman:  49.91%

Some of y’all might remember one of our pre-primary posts (see Decision Time and The Winner Is) where we predicted November would be like “…shooting fish in a barrel”.

If you believe all the political pundits these days, people are shooting at the red fish, not the blue fish.  Keep in mind Texas red fish are some very fast swimmers.

The Texas House of Representatives made a mockery of democracy last session.  Our house races are; in effect, a referendum on speaker craddick.  A vote for either of our republican candidates is a vote to continue the regime that passes for leadership in the legislature.  We believe that if we don’t clean our own house, the dimocrats are going to do it for us. 

We don’t believe that Obama has coattails long enough to help out any dimocrats in Wilco World.  With that in mind, we’re gonna live blog election returns so you don’t have to.

To turn a phrase of the late, great San Antonio sportswriter, Dan Cook: It ain’t over until the fat ladies sing. 

This is for the more than 50% of our fellow Wilco Worlders that were too darned lazy to get up off your lazy buns and early vote.

If you up and die before you drag your ownself over to go vote on Tuesday, you should go straight to hell. That’s right.  Straight. To. Hell.  We say it because that’s where you belong.  You belong there because, thanks to your shiftlessness, those wretched commie-lovin’ libruls in that County to the south of us turned out a greater percentage of early voters than we did.

Did you forget that that’s what all us red-blooded, red-state-lovin’ Wilco Worlders DO??!! 

What’s that you say?  You say you haven’t made up your mind who you want to vote for, yet?  Heckfire, maybe you’ve just plain lost your mind. 

Our advice for Tuesday?  Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to wait in some really looooong lines.  Libruls are used to waiting in long lines - you know, like welfare lines - so don’t let the libruls win because you couldn’t be bothered to wait your turn to vote. 

Otherwise, you know where you can go…. 

Woo Hoo.  Records are made to be broken.  Here’s the latest on some Texas early voting numbers:

Bell County  61,718

Brazoria County  77,511

Collin County  219,794

Dallas County  477,455

El Paso County  114,765 

Galveston County  77,325

Harris County  754,499

Lubbock County  69,910

Nueces County  66,925

Tarrant County  459,856

Travis County  299,325

Williamson County  113,100