More has come out this morning about the TYC case, and the following story contains some tales about the hiring protocols and standards employed by the TYC, or perhaps the lack thereof. This is one of the more bizarre headlines to come out of the TYC abuse debacle: one of the TYC officials being investigated has a MySpace page which the Austin American-Statesman's Mike Ward was intrepid enough to dig up. If you're of a certain age or generation, you probably have a MySpace page, but I don't know many 41-year-olds that have them.

While the rule about the Iowa caucus is not strictly "two men enter, one man leaves," it is a very important event in the presidential primary timeline. John Edwards has acknowledged the importance of Iowa by spending a great deal of time there since 2004. The DVDs explaining his health care plan that were sent to 70,000 Iowans only reinforce the idea that not only does he consider Iowa to be important, he also thinks he can win there.

This week's feature, by Karl Lynch, examines the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission and the impact that commission's decisions had on Texas. He seeks an answer to what should be a basic question: is the process worth it? Check it out here.

On the heels of an announcement by Travis County DA Ronnie Earle that he intends to open a criminal investigation into possible TYC sex abuse coverups, Governor Rick Perry has appointed a special master to conduct another investigation. The state legislature is conducting an investigation. Statesman puts the total number of investigations at seven.

For this installment, I talked with Molly Beth Malcolm, former Texas Democratic Party chair and current member of the Texarkana College Board of Trustees.

I just acquired this press release from Rep. Dunnam's office calling for a conservatorship of the Texas Youth Commission.

We've talked about the actual primary elections quite a bit, and we even directed you to Time Magazine's examination of the Invisible Primary. We've mentioned the third primary tacitly but not directly — the Money Primary.

Whenever an editorial titled "The Smell Test" shows up in the paper that has your name in the first sentence, you probably aren't going to be happy about the contents. I imagine state Senator Jane Nelson isn't crazy about the media she's gotten lately on the subject of paying rent on a house to your spouse with campaign dollars, and state Senator Kim Brimer probably wishes people would stop talking about it.

For this installment of On The Record, I spoke with Michael Apodaca, President of the Texas Young Democrats.

Robocalls have become an integral part of GOTV efforts for both parties. They are becoming an increasingly popular and effective way to accomplish two distinct objectives. First, they are helpful in getting your base to the polls. Second and more controversial, nefarious "push poll" calls successfully repress voter turnout. Several companies advertise that they can set up and make millions of calls for campaigns.