AUSTIN -- There are weeks when no one seems happy, especially when public officials are giving them such good reasons to be grouchy.

Take Gordy Bunch, who heads The Woodlands township board, suggested at a community meeting that the Confederate statutes being pulled down across Texas cold find a new home in his happy community.

Make that formerly happy.

Within two days, Bunch was backing up on that offer faster than greased lightning. Someone went to the woodshed in The Woodlands, we'd guess.

Next came the nomination of Jeff Mateer for a federal judgeship in the Lone Star State. Critics quickly pointed out that he had once called the LGBT agenda "Satan's plan."

And then the Texas Railroad Commission, always a fun group, went public with a nasty family spat over the future of executive director Kimberly Corley. Seems that Commission Chairman Christi Craddick met with Corley and told her to look for work elsewhere, unbeknownst to the other two commissioners.

Not good, said miffed Commissioner Ryan Sitton, who quizzed Craddick in a public meeting about what happened, at one labeling Craddick a "dictator." He then filed a request for an opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton about whether Craddick overstepped her authority.

For her part, Corley turned in her resignation letter effective Nov. 7, enough time for the commission to have another blowout or two in public over Craddick's handling of her departure. 

Finally, state Rep. Dawnna Dukes, the Austin Democrat who is under indictment on corruption charges, provided this capper: She spent $51,000 on an online psychic, appeared for work at the Capitol impaired and hid a cellphone from investigators.

In a case straight from TMZ, with all its twists and turns so far, this is a new one.

You really can't make up stuff this good.

From Mike Ward, the Houston Chronicle's Austin Bureau chief, and Scott Braddock, editor of the Quorum Report, comes Texas' leading online podcast about Lone Star politics -- now coming to you in collaboration with Texas Public Radio. We've got the lowdown on all the political action under the Pink Dome in this week's Texas Take, a weekly insiders look at Texas politics -- and what it means to average Texans.