Did you know John McCain is running for President? He made it official today, much to everyone's surprise. I'm glad to see it, though. I was starting to think he was kidding.

Well, it happened. The House passed HB 218 this morning, one of two voter ID bills proposed in the Lege. 218 is the one that requires a photo id to vote. Representative Betty Brown, the Republican author of the bill, claimed that the right to vote had been protected against voter fraud. Rep. Rafael Anchia argued that, well, no, it hadn't, pointing out that college students buy counterfeit versions of the documents required by the bill all the time in order to drink.

Some interesting news from the DSCC: Hamilton Beattie & Staff has a new poll, and it happens to be about John Cornyn. In news that can't be much of a surprise to anyone, John Cornyn can't get above 50% against a generic Democratic candidate among 800 likely voters. What may surprise you is that he has incredibly low name ID — 39% of respondents didn't know enough about him to rate his as favorable or unfavorable. Details and PDFs inside.

The Voter ID bills will undergo debate in Austin today, and I am not the only one who thinks there are severe problems with them. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram ponders whether requiring a picture ID to vote and a certified copy of a birth certificate, passport, or proof of citizenship to register is a poll tax, and rightly so — getting those documents costs money that not everyone has.

The Texas House will soon vote on a measure to take control of the TDEx database away from Governor Perry. Representative Swinford, author of the proposal which includes that measure as well other Homeland Security concerns, said it came about because of a "crisis in trust." Indeed. It seems like Republicans can trust their own leadership for support even less than they trust the opposition these days — the guys on top of the GOP keep making life hard.

Joe Trippi has joined the John Edwards campaign. Rejoice, activists in search of a people-powered candidate: the Man Who Forged The Netroots With His Bare Hands has chosen a candidate. His insight can only be a boon to Edwards.

Alberto Gonzales testifies before the Senate today, and this Washington Post story indicates that if it weren't for his eons of loyal service to Bush, he would already be gone. Instead, because he is so totally a hardcore Bushie, as it were, he has been given a chance to fix everything by way of his testimony today. Since Gonzales is a pro, I doubt anything incredibly interesting will shake out of his appearance, but you never know.

The news is out that the Supreme Court upheld a controversial ban on what the right-wing politicos like to call "partial-birth" abortion today, in a 5-4 decision. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority decision, and the dissenting opinion was written by Justice Ginsburg. The major Democratic candidates for President have issued statements concerning the ruling, and they can be found after the jump.

Imagine the horror. It is like something out of a Stephen King novel: politicos and press members all discover at the end of a news-heavy Tuesday that their Blackberries don't work. The truth is even worse — they still don't, and the Blackberry customer service line simply informs you that they are having some problems.

So the Texas Observer explains it all — they provide a simple form from the ACLU that you can email to the Office of the Governor to find out if you're considered to be a threat. I reproduce the form letter for cutting-and-pasting purposes after the jump, and have just submitted the form myself. I'll keep you posted as to what reply I get; you guys do the same.