Memorial Day is upon us. In both old and new media, there is a great deal of discussion on the war. This is proper — Memorial Day is an American tradition that goes all the way back to when it was first a remembrance of Union soldiers who died during the Civil War; then, it was called Decoration Day. The holiday in and of itself is an occasion to examine and discuss the War in Iraq, and I am concerned that there doesn't seem to be an effective way of doing so.

After a weekend that saw fight after fight on the floor of the House, culminating in Representative Haggerty forcing Craddick to do something he didn't want to do in adjourning... well, you can guess what most of the news is about on Memorial Day, and likewise what constitutes most of the roundup.

As I mentioned earlier, the Republicans are not having a good time of it here in Texas, despite how happy some of them might look about sticking it to Craddick on a daily basis.

The GOP has problems.

Kuff tells us the motion to vacate is Coming Soon. KVUE has a readable version of the 60,000 pages from the Craddick fishing trip lawsuit. And it wasn't just in Texas that Republicans encountered some difficulty.

As the session nears closing, big things have a habit of happening, sometimes all at once. Yesterday was one of those "all at once" days. For instance, if you were really hoping to vote in a February 5th primary in Texas or to suppress voter turnout by way of the Voter ID bill, your dreams have been dashed.

It is that time again when the primaries are looming large in everyone's minds, and populism is running rampant this week in discussions about the US Senate race. David Van Os sent out a newsletter reiterating a post on his website declaring that "we need a people's candidate" to run against John Cornyn, and I agree. I do, however, question a point that he and others have been making about money.

As is usual with presidential primary races, the speculation over who will get each party's nomination is rampant, and usually wild. Speculation concerning what it all means is less popular, because that kind of crystal-ball gazing incorporates a ridiculous stack of unlikely assumptions. That being said, I would like to point out what the Houston Chronicle's Clay Robison opines as the only thing approaching certainty: if Senator Clinton wins the nomination, life gets difficult for some of the new Democratic members of the Texas House.

We are very close to the end of the session. In one week, it will all be over but the crying. After a session in which Democrats acquitted themselves very well, it is worth examining who the losers were. In this case, it was the legislative leadership, whose plans were quickly scattered and dismantled.

My political science degree tells me that most polls are useless, and I definitely know that presidential polls a year and a half out from the election mean absolutely nothing. That in no way stops me from enjoying things like this poll from Newsweek, which shows every top-tier Democrat beating every top-tier Republican.

Yesterday I mentioned that one Politico story on the Senate immigration compromise carried a line or two about Senator John Cornyn's distaste for details. I couldn't find much else about that at the time, and not too long afterward I saw Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on MSNBC talking about the deal in positive terms.