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?