Adam Weinstein

Fiscal responsiblity. Yes sir, that's what it's all about these days. Along with iPods, plasma high-def televisions, and Snuggies, talking about fiscal responsibility has become a staple of American life (but irony, sadly, not so much). It's not just for Tea Partying, gun-toting conservatives or obstructionist congressional Republicans, but "moderate" Democrats, too—and of course, so-called "independent" voters who have never voted for anyone to the left of Ted Nugent. Health care? Unemployment? Why are we talking about spending more money that we ain't got? That's not how everyday people operate their budgets, we're told, and it shouldn't be how the government operates, either. (Except if the government is run by a Reagan or a Bush, in which case: Spend away).

Nobody's been a bigger beneficiary of all this belt-tightening, balanced-budget posturing than Marco Rubio, the frontrunner for Florida's open Senate seat. The Republican speaker of the state House has styled himself as a Tea Party-friendly, arch-conservative alternative to moderate GOP Gov. Charlie Crist (a maverick who's been burdened with the task of actually governing and managing a budget. And who also has committed the unpardonable sin of being civil to President Obama.) Rubio's red meat has been government waste: His campaign call is for "limited government and opposition to the Crist-Obama agenda of tax, borrow and spend."

Except Rubio loves to borrow and spend—and if you've ever given to a GOP-connected cause, you've probably helped him. The Miami Herald recently broke the news that in 2007 and 2008—the prime recession years, when all our 401(K)'s evaporated—Rubio charged $109,618 to an American Express card opened by the Republican Party of Florida. That included a $133.75 haircut at Churchill's—a high-flying barbershop in his hometown of Miami (insert John Edwards comparison joke here), and $4000 to fix his busted family minivan. Rubio paid the GOP back for what he deemed "personal" expenses on the account, letting the unpaid balance—all $93,566 of it—ride on the card. The state party eventually paid that tab, which included Rubio's broken-car fees.

In fact, this is part of a larger media investigation into the Florida GOP's free-spending ways. Just-deposed state Republican Chairman Jim Greer liked private jets and "lobster dinners," both of which apparently put him in a good state of mind to rail against "unnecessary pork barrel spending" by Democrats.

So Rubio's not the only big spender in the Florida Republican Party. But he's one of the most hypocritical, since he made Crist's acceptance of federal stimulus money the focal point of his political offensive. In a page straight out of the Tea Party playbook, Rubio has said that Obama's and Crist's spending policies "will rob my children and their generation of their prosperity, and some of their freedoms."

Thank God! At least we now know that, if the worst happens, Rubio's children will be reimbursed by Amex and the Grand Old Party. Until, of course, Obama's socialist regime bans credit cards.

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When a magazine in Dallas offered me a job last summer, my wife and I jumped at the chance to settle in the city that Molly Ivins once painted red. We had visions of a Lone Star libertarian utopia, where there was enough open space and distrust of government to allow everyone some freedom in choosing their bliss.

Boy, were we wrong. From the hip neighborhoods of Lower Greenville and Deep Ellum to the grittier areas of South Dallas, what we experienced was an over-policed nanny state—exactly the sort of thing you'd expect pro-secession and anti-liberal Texans to hate. But they're not angry, because they're not the target: Few straight white Texans have anything to worry about. That's documented.

Want the full story? Check out my piece in the March/April issue of Mother Jones, "Lone Bar State." The Lone Star State, it turns out, is still a place where "undesirables" can be rounded up, humiliated by authorities, tossed in jail cells, and even have their skulls cracked—legally. It's made possible by a catch-22 in the state's penal code: a public-intoxication law that permits peace officers to go virtually anywhere, anytime, and arrest anyone they want. Except who they really want to arrest, it seems, includes mostly gays, Latinos, and blacks. As one cop told me, "We go after the disenfranchised, the people who can't stand up and defend themselves." Another lawyer who represents folks arrested for PI put it even more bluntly: "If you’re brown and you're around," he says, "you're going down."

Much of that goes down just a few miles from the chic Dallas-area estates of George W. Bush, H. Ross Perot, and a bevy of other prominent, wealthy Texans. Down there, they're fond of saying, "The eyes of Texas are upon you," and obviously they mean it.

But today, the eyes of our readers are on Texas.

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