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The Right-Wing Nutjob Forces are on the march again!! Today's Target: Houston!!

Not all conservatives are "nutjobs," obviously, but Debbie Schlussel is. The Ann Coulter-wannabe spouts nonsense pretty much full-time, and she has a new cause: President Obama has ordered officials at Ellington Field to paint over the "LT G W BUSH" from the F-102 that sits outside the field's gates.

Knowing what we know about Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard's Ellington unit, we always thought it was kind of funny that they were honoring him, but what the hell. Schlussel, however, is outraged that the name is gone.

The pettiness and low-class behavior of the current Commander-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, apparently knows no bounds and no nadirs too low to which to aspire.

That's displayed by the Obama administration's paint-over of the name of former President George W. Bush on an airplane he flew as a pilot in the United States Air Force.

Uh, yeah. We're sure Obama had that high on his First 100 Days priority list.

Glenn Beck has stumbled onto an extremely lucrative shtick -- act like an insane man, and right-wing nuts will give you incredible ratings (for cable, anyway), they will throw money at you for your supremely silly books, they will take you seriously as a political analyst.

Hard to believe, but true.

Beck, as anyone who tunes into KTRH-AM in the mornings knows, is completely unlistenable (He's got great radio chops, but other neessary basics, like logic and sanity, are missing). So it's a good thing there's a transcript to his groundbreaking interview with Daniel Miller, a Houstonian who is head of a Texas-secessionist group called the Texas Nationalist Movement.

Some highlights:

Photo by Paul Knight

A senior captain in the Houston Fire Department kept a noose hanging in his locker, and according to the Houston Black Firefighters Association, the fire department, city council and mayor haven't taken the incident seriously.

"They basically gave him a slap on the wrist," firefighter Michael McCook tells Hair Balls. "The mayor said that he was probably just practicing tying knots, but there are no tactical procedures performed with a hangman's noose."

The whole thing started back in February, when a black firefighter saw the noose in Captain Keith Smith's locker, at Fire Station No. 41. The firefighter, along with another black firefighter, told several of their supervisors about seeing the noose. That's when things got messy.

Supporters of Bill White's Senate campaign -- or at least people he hopes are supporters -- are getting a special one-time offer these days.

White says he'll match every donation he gets with one of his own! Limited time only!! And that's not all.....Actually, that is all.

Says the e-mail from the campaign:

I am writing to ask for your help in responding to an incredibly generous offer: Bill will match all donations to his U.S. Senate campaign that we receive by June 30!... If you are willing to support his campaign financially, now would be the perfect time. Why give now? Because the contribution will go twice as far with the matching funds. Your donation of $1000 would mean $2000 for the campaign; giving $100 would mean $200 for the campaign.

So, White is going to lend himself some money, and then when/if he wins he'll have fund-raisers to pay himself back, right? Not so, his spokesperson tells Hair Balls.

The Texas Longhorns are playing the LSU Tigers in the College World Series, and that can mean only one thing: an entirely dull press release announcing some stupid bet between the governors of the respective states.

And voila!! Rick Perry's putting up Texas barbecue, Bobby Jindal is putting up seafood, and they bothzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Barbecue vs. seafood? This is the best they can do? We think not. Here are some bets that might really be worth talking about.

1. The internet was abuzz two years ago when Louisiana's US Senator David Vitter got caught up in a call-girl scandal that at one point involved charges that he, ummm, liked to wear diapers. Now, come on: when it comes to bets, you can't beat that. Losing governor gets Vitter's diapers. (We assume they're in evidence somewhere.) If it's a sweep, losing governor wears Vitter's diapers. Call girls optional.

Photo courtesy of Marina Castillo-Knuti

Keep the DREAM alive. That's what community activists in Houston are trying to do tomorrow at Mason Park when they hold a rally in support of the DREAM Act, a piece of federal legislation that would allow certain undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship.

Officially called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, (see our take on it here) the proposed law would let illegal immigrants who entered the United States before the age of 16 and have lived here for at least five years to earn permanent residency by either serving in the military for two years or by completing at least two years of college.

Sponsors of the tomorrow's rally, Immigrant Families and Students in the Struggle, ask that supporters don their cap and gown to symbolize all of the undocumented students' graduating from high school and college. The event in Houston coincides with the National DREAM Act Graduation Day in Washington, D.C.

Photo by fixermark

Congress, which has nothing better to do than pass non-binding, feel-good resolutionsthat will have no effect, did just that today with a vote on a bill "Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law."

The resolution passed 405-1.

One nay?..........Dr. Ron Paul of Brazoria County, in the hizzy!!!111!1111

The Iranian revolutionaries join such company as Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King as being the subjects of yet another one of Paul's idiotic stands.

We're sure there is a deep policy principal involved -- maybe it took fiat money to keep the lights on in the House as the roll call was taken -- but thank God the people of Angleton are still getting the quality representation they deserve.

A while back we wrote about the Houston Airport System exporting its vast knowledge of running airports to countries all over the place. HAS wasn't too forthcoming about the financial aspects of it all.

A couple of months later, Mayor Bill White suddenly forced out the HAS director -- at least partly because of the foreign-country stuff -- the Chronicle tried to get answers about finances and was stonewalled too.

The reporters at the Texas Watchdog website have jumped into the fray, filing Open Records Act requests on things like HAS salaries, and they have discovered the same intransigence.

With a twist -- HAS claims it can't release salary information because it might compromise national security.

Among the heroic people fighting for freedom these days -- the protesters clogging Iranian streets, taking life-threatening risks to urge democracy in a repressive regime; and, ummm, House Republicans.

At least according to one House Republican, Houston's John Culberson.

The Twitter-addicted rep has -- as pointed out by Washington Monthly -- bravely taken to the streets, 140 characters at a time, to say what he's doing is as awe-inspiring as those Iranians putting their lives on the line.

First, since Culberson can't stop telling people how hip he is to all this wacky new media stuff, he writes, "Good to see Iranian people move mountains w social media, shining sunlight on their repressive govt - Texans support their bid for freedom"

Later he adds: "Oppressed minorities includeHouseRepubs: We are using social media to expose repression such as last night's D clampdown shutting off amends"

Muslims in Texas and around the United States aren't being allowed to practice one of the key tenets of their religion -- namely charitable giving -- because of our country's terrorism-finance laws, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In its 164-report "Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity," the ACLU is almost certain to once again boil the blood of right-wing talk show hosts here and around the country.

The report blames the Bush administration and its anti-terrorism efforts in the financial sector with, in essence, shutting down several Muslim charities in the United States, "including the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, once the largest Muslim charity in the United States," said Jennifer Turner, a researcher with the ACLU Human Rights Program and author of the report.

It includes this bit on Texas:

The ACLU also received reports that many HLF donors in Texas and elsewhere were questioned by law enforcement about their donations, but the ACLU has not been able to determine the number of donors interviewed nor the precise time period when these interviews occurred.297 One Texan donor told the ACLU, "Some people who have donated large amounts of money, people who gave with credit cards or checks bearing their name, have been investigated by the FBI. They have been questioned, and in some cases threatened with having their passports confiscated or denied." According to the executive director of a Muslim charity in Texas, "Our donors are concerned because all the HLF donors are being harassed when they come back into the country, and some of the big donors to HLF were harassed by the FBI.