Chupacabra Report

When I heard that Rick Perry was trying to sell off the Texas Lottery I figured it was more of the republican orthodoxy of socializing costs and privatizing profits, and hoped that less crooked minds would prevail over this nonsense. But a report from the Chron’s Austin Bureau last week tells me that this scheme is truly the work of the devil.

Former Senator Phil Gramm is now a vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank, and is advising Perry on the privatizing scheme; former Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan is now a lobbyist for UBS. Sullivan lobbies with Perry’s former chief of staff Mike Toomey, who must be too busy shilling HPV vaccines for Merck to get his hands in this particular cookie jar.

I thought that Gramm was now Virginia’s problem, like “Virginia Tom” DeLay. When Gramm was a senator, some of his rich friends built him a nice house there. When these characters leave elected positions for “opportunities in the private sector” they should do just that, instead of grasping, zombie-like, at the public purse.

In my dreams, someday these folks are going to start getting their dicks caught in this revolving door.