From Greg Feeley on DM.net I saw a reference to this Molly
Ivins column about the Texas Republicans in the legislature:
Faced with a $10
billion deficit, the Republicans decided to outlaw gay marriage. Then
they kicked 250,000 poor children off a health insurance program that
is mostly paid for by the feds in the first place. Picking on the
weakest, the frailest, the youngest and oldest Texans has been the
sport of choice this session. When the handicapped came to the capital
to protest cuts in their services, the governor had them arrested. The
combination of cruel budget choices and an unfair process made this
the session from hell.During a committee meeting, Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Houston) demanded
earnestly, “Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free
education? Free medical care? Free whatever? It comes from
Moscow. From Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell.”
Rep. Joe Crabb (R-Atascocita) explained why no public hearings were
held on the now-infamous redistricting bill: “The rest of us would
have a very difficult time if we were out in an area — other than
Austin or other English-speaking areas — to be able to have committee
hearings to be able to converse with people that did not speak
English.” The guy’s talking about South Texas.
On this topic, I saw multiple news stories about the
use of the Homeland Security department to track the
Democrats. This is seriously alarming stuff. The concerns of
citizens who have been watching this infrastructure creep in have been
dismissed at every point. “It won’t be used against citizens, it is
only for terrorism, it makes you safer”, etc. In fact, those
dismissals are lies. It takes very little to turn these mechanisms
into authoritarian weapons against our own citizens, and as we see you
don’t even need a very good reason. Americans who weren’t scared of
this stuff before need to start getting scared now. Which makes you
feel more fear, terrorism or the Homeland Security department?
