Rather than just hinting at it between comments about miracles and squirrels, Mike Huckabee is now painting Texas as a battleground from which he will launch himself into the middle of a brokered Republican convention. It was apparently not enough for Huckabee to self-identify with conservatives; now he has taken up the flaming sword and pledged to carry it all the way home, possibly dampening talk of a third party candidate in the process.

John McCain, newly minted presumptive Republican nominee for President, decides that maybe he isn't really opposed to torture after all and votes against banning it.

Think conservatives are all ready to line up behind McCain? it certainly seems that way, but not everyone is buying it: the push for a third party conservative candidate lives on.

The rumor is that Mitt Romney will endorse McCain a little later today and release his delegates, ostensibly to line up behind the senator from Arizona. And in this business, a rumor like that means that it is definitely going to happen.

In a move that damages Bush administration attempts to extend and broaden executive privilege, the House voted overwhelmingly to hold former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in contempt for failure to cooperate in the ongoing US attorney firing scandal. I guess this means that when you get a subpoena from Congress, they really mean it. More as it develops.

Ladies and gentlemen, Texas is officially a firewall state for the G.O.P. How do I know this? Because Alan Keyes is putting his Presidential campaign on the line here in the Lone Star State.

From the Good Government Department: I would argue, in relation to this news story, that if you launch a missile at something that is already careening towards Earth from space, you are not "shooting it down." You are just "shooting a missile at it" and possibly "exploding it into several smaller pieces that will fall in a wider radius than the original object would have."

I have been watching CNN and MSNBC off and on over the last two couple days, and I keep hearing the stable of pundits at both channels question the process of superdelegates, even as they have some superdelegates in the studio to talk about how they became superdelegates and who they might vote for.

Last night, State Representative Rick Noriega and and Ray McMurrey, both candidates for the Democratic nomination to run against junior Senator John Cornyn in the fall, took to the stage in Austin last night for a debate.

The economic stimulus package was signed into law today by President Bush. Check roll out is apparently set for May.