Jim Hightower

Wherever you live in our Land of the Free, you can count your lucky stars for Texas. That's because year-in and year-out, the Lone Star State sets the national standard for all-star political wackiness, so no matter how embarrassingly goofy your state politicos are, at least you can count on them being slightly more sane than the Texas bunch.

Our goober of a governor sets the pace. A teabag regular, he rants constantly about the intrusions of Obama's big bad federal government into Texas affairs. But – Shhh – he quietly took $14 billion from Obama's devilish stimulus program in order to claim that he had "balanced" our state budget.

And no doubt you've heard about our right-wing state board of education, which is nuttier than a pecan grove. They tried to rewrite our schools' history books by such moves as deleting Thomas Jefferson from a list of influential thinkers of the Enlightenment period, then these nuts decided that even the word "enlightenment" should be banned. So our new state slogan is, "Texas: Ignorance Is US!"

Joining this circus are state officials who recently decreed that citizens can no longer freely enter our state capitol, but instead must go through metal detectors and have their belongings searched. However, the officials did provide one exception: If you're carrying a handgun, you can scoot right in through an express lane! Texas allows people to get a concealed handgun license and pack heat wherever they go, so there's now an express entry into the Capitol specifically designated for "CHL Holders."

Adding to this goofiness are hundreds of lobbyists who're getting CHL clearances in order to use the express lanes. So now our legislative halls will be teeming with pistol-packing lobbyists calling out legislators to say, "Support my client's bill... or else."