Rick Perry is done. Over. Goodbye, have fun, don’t let the saloon door hit you on the way out.

It makes me sad, mainly because I’ll miss Zac Crain’s blog-comics about Perry. ("I HAD THIS THING BY THE GD BISCUITS. Ol' Crotch had the ball and he was RUNNING WITH IT, BABY.") Until he runs for president again, of course. For now, though, Perry, as Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka noted, seems checked out:

Not that a disengaged Perry can’t still make some noise during this legislative session. Having witnessed last year’s battle over a 20-week fetal-pain bill in Georgia (which eventually passed, with some restrictions), I can tell you that the debate is going to get ugly and infuriating. (If you want to read up on the bill’s origins, how other states have fallen in lockstep, what lies ahead for Texas, just start Googling and prepare yourself to choke down an oversized anger scone with your morning coffee.)

But for the most part, as Christy Hoppe’s excellent story suggested, Perry is riding this one out in hopes of not doing or saying anything that will haunt him when he runs for president again in 2016.

Which is at once a good thing and yet kind of confusing. Good because speaker Joe Straus, as Burka also noted, suggested that he’s willing to address big, important topics during this session: energy, water, transportation, education. I’ve always liked Straus, even though he’s a Republican and I always misspell his stupid last name. So even though the Ledge is full of Tea Party children ready to burn down their own playground, I get the sense he can hold them off and strive for meaningful compromise with Dems on at least some issues.

Without Perry and his Big Swingin’ Ego to deal with, there’s at least the outside hope decent legislation can be had.

The confusion comes from the insiders’ assurances that Perry is going to run again. For the life of me, I can’t understand rich donors. To throw away money on someone who proved what we in Texas always knew — that Rick Perry is a charlatan, an actor who plays the part of a sentient politician only when his handlers crank him up and send him out to do their bidding — is asinine. He simply isn’t smart enough to lead the country. He will never be president.

But I guess as long as he disagrees, Straus can try to get real legislative work done. And I can look forward to some more funny pictures of him on FrontBurner in 2015.

Elsewhere

Dallas County is gonna have like $17 million extra in 2014. New Galaxy Notes for all! Premium Suite upgrade, baby!

Now the DMN just rounds up its writers’ Twitter responses to things like Rob Ryan being fired.

BTW: If you want to see how a news reporter can use Twitter well, read @JasonWhitley’s timeline last night, when he was covering the UT Southwestern shooting. Guy gets it.

Here’s some more fun reading: How climate change is affecting Texas.

The Dallas Voice says a gay Plano couple got kicked out of a bowling alley for being gay. Also because they didn’t like brat kids, which I’m totally on board with.

Retweets

Hey, Skin, why don’t you kick me in the junk while you’re at it?

Kidd. Do not set me up like that, please.