She said it

"She is not here. She is campaigning all over Texas. But she is taking her pay from the taxpayers ... I don’t consider that integrity, and I don’t consider it leadership."

-- Kay Bailey Hutchison, about her opponent, Harris County treasurer Nikki Van Hightower, in their 1990 run for state treasurer

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In her book "Going Rogue", Sara Palin says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking "only" for reasonably priced rooms and not "often" going for the "high-end, robe-and-slippers".

Fact-check: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City's Central Park for a five-hour women's leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children's travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.

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"I went to sleep, and when I woke up people were mad at Obama. And I thought, 'Did I miss something? Did Obama start an illegal war? Did he fly over a flood zone and just wave? Did he torture detainees in a secret prison? Did he start illegally tapping phones? Did he alienate the world and squander a surplus? Because if he did any of that, we need to impeach that jackass.' ...

Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California, made a triple-X movie of herself. So now we know why she was stripped of her title --not for being anti-gay, but for being pro-stupid. She actually thought it wouldn’t get out? C'mon! It always gets out. That's the first 'Law of Pornodynamics': A pair of fake boobs in motion stays in motion."

"I hereby appoint myself the president's Tell-People-Where-to-Go-and-What-to-Kiss Czar. Fox News, if you want an exclusive: pucker up!"

-- Wanda Sykes

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is starting to feel an odd craving for can-shaped servings of cranberry sauce as it brings you this week's highlights from the blogs.

TXsharon continues to follow the abuses of Aruba Petroleum in a Barnett Shale backyard and Wednesday the Wise County Messenger picked up the story. It's all on Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is really p*ssed that some South Texas Democrats voted against women's health care.

WhosPlayin posted an interview with Neil Durrance, the Democratic candidate seeking to unseat Michael Burgess in Congressional District 26.

A guest post from the ReEnergize Texas blog is the pick of the week over at Texas Vox, where we were quite disappointed that the Georgetown city council snubbed students over nuclear power.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on some of the talk this past week about raising the statewide gas tax. All that being said there are only two options to pay for transportation in Texas. Which will we choose: taxes or tolls?.

McBlogger takes a look at Sen. Hutchison's decision not to resign from her Senate seat.

Off the Kuff looks at a threatened outbreak of homophobic behavior in the Houston mayor's race.

The War on Christmas starts early at The Texas Cloverleaf, complete with a beach landing at Walmart.

Sue Schechter announced for Harris County Clerk last week and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs caught the press release.

With Thanksgiving almost here, Neil at Texas Liberal ran a picture of a sultry pilgrim holding a turkey, and included in this post information about the status of women in colonial New England.

Sunday Not Very Funnies