Loving Texas is Hard Sometimes
The Texas of my imagination collides with Dan Patrick.
Been thinking 'bout it lately, Been watching some TV
Been looking all around me, and what has come to be
Been talkin' to my neighbor, and he agrees with me...
It's all gone crazy.
-"Texas" by Chris Rea
These are the opening lines of a song that would be the state's anthem, if it were up to me. "Texas" goes on to describe a state where you can escape the idiocracy of the rest of the country and go to a place with "...big long roads out there, big steaks, big cars, no trouble there, yeah that's the place for me. I'm going to Texas."
The original video for the song showed a family, presumably in eastern Europe, who are entranced with the idea of emigrating and coming to Texas. and when their wretched little Trabant breaks down, they are rescued by a group of US soldiers stationed in Germany and sent on their way to those big long roads out there.
When I was a Regional News Director in Wyoming for a time, I loved the scenery and climate (mostly) but when sitting in a studio and thinking about life, I'd play this song. And I got instantly homesick. After 4 years there, I took a job back in Texas, and realized something.
What I actually missed was the idea of Texas, not what she has become. The craven group of politicians who have come to run this state has made it into simply a large, diverse MAGA rally with oil wells.
I've written about them, unfortunately, many times.
Roger T. Gray
In fact, it was my first subject for this disreputable group...
Roger T. Gray
In my mind, the Holy Trinity of Texas was Travis, Crockett, and Houston. It is now Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton, with Cruz thrown in for bad measure. It may be proof that Darwin was wrong after all.
For the last 4 months, the state's oldest floating crap game has been underway. The Texas Legislature is meeting to courageously rubber stamp anything they think Trump will cotton to, even fictional cosplaying kids.
Republican state Rep. Stan Gerdes filed a bill with the excessively labyrinthine title of...
“Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education (F.U.R.R.I.E.S) Act,” which would prohibit any “non-human behavior” by a student, including wearing animal ears or barking, meowing, or hissing. This new trend of naming bills in such a way as to form some overly baroque acronym is now officially tiresome.
The idea here is that there is supposedly some new trend of kids wanting to identify as small animals and demanding litter boxes in school restrooms. Yeah, I know. Now to be clear, there is no evidence other than the internet rumor mill, that there is anything like this happening, but it is such an alarming fiction that it must be addressed by an actual law.
You know, like preventing Haitians from eating our domestic pets.
And like the Haitian rumor, it is absolute BS, but too good to pass up for a fawningly obsequious politician. Speaking of fawningly obsequious politicians, both Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows have backed this mindless legislation.
Why, you may ask? Well, it seems they believe, and not without evidence, that their "base" will think it's actually happening and is yet another sign of some sort of Democratic Party insanity that must be addressed. Are there people who are way too interested in cartoon animals and such? No doubt. Are kids asking schools to consider them animals? That would be a no. No actual incidences of this can be found.
And frankly, if our duly elected collection of screwballs confined their goofiness to stuff like this, I would be happy. But the Governor will have, by the time you read this, signed a bill to steal money from public schools to give to private schools in the guise of "school choice." And, yes, I have written about this before...
Roger T. Gray
The guy behind the voucher push is a libertarian billionaire named Jeff Yass, who ironically has a huge stake in one of the big reasons our kids are distracted from learning, TikTok.
And like most libertarians, he doesn't like the idea of public education, or much else that is public for that matter, except for bombers and aircraft carriers. He has contributed funds and pushed to get vouchers passed nationwide, including giving $12 million to our own governor in 2023 and 2024 alone. You wonder why Governor Ironside has been as anxious as a hormonal teenager at the prom to get this bill done, well, that is why.
As I explain in the above article, the $10,000 voucher won't pay for most private school tuition, and only benefits those who already have the means to send their kids there. And as Leonora Bolton wrote in the Texas Observer...
"My biggest concern as a former private school teacher is that private schools owe their families nothing. There is no true oversight in a private school, no legal obligation to teach specific curricula, nor to hire qualified or certified teachers, nor to accept all students regardless of disabilities or other challenges. Why should they get public money without public oversight?"
But her public oversight is now termed "governmental overreach" by this crowd and thus can be dismissed.
Well, we now have it, and public schools will get less money than they would have, and if scores go down, those libertarian doubters will have their perfect scenario for privatization. What's ironic is that when these whiners complain about how we stack up against kids from other countries, they fail to mention that none of those countries do this. They wisely invest in a quality public education system.
Besides, 10,000 Lire won't buy you much anyway.
We also now have a soon-to-be-heated Republican primary for John Cornyn's Senate seat. Cornyn, who has always portrayed himself as one of the saner voices in the GOP, is being challenged by our pestilential Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose ethics make the late Jim Mattox akin to Francis of Assisi.
Paxton was acquitted in an impeachment trial in the state senate, overseen by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a guy who got $3 million in campaign donations from a pro-Paxton group just before the trial began. Oh, and he also prevented the testimony of Paxton's former mistress...
And, yes, I wrote about all this earlier...
Roger T. Gray
So Ken skated, and took that acquittal, tucked it under his arm and ran for daylight. He has announced investigations into anything the MAGA folks hate from Pfizer and the Covid vaccine to a new largely Muslim community being planned near Plano. Why the Muslims? Because they are Muslim, stupid, and he and the Governor don't like that idea.
Of course, every worm-addled pronouncement by our new HHS Secretary RFK, Jr is taken as gospel by Ken as well, no matter how lame. RFK doesn't like immunizations so Ken is investigating Pfizer for overstating the vaccine's effectiveness. The LA Times reported it with this headline...
A bogus new attack on COVID vaccines from Texas’ least credible politician.
RFK also is not fond of the idea of fluoridation and some conservative states have ignored pleas from researchers and dentists all over the country and outlawed it. But that wasn't extreme enough for Paxton. I got this email from the AG's office at the station the other day...
AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton has sent Civil Investigative
Demands (“CIDs”) to Colgate-Palmolive Company (“Colgate”) and
Proctor & Gamble Manufacturing Co. (“Proctor & Gamble”) —which
advertises and sells “Crest” branded fluoride toothpaste—for
marketing toothpaste products to parents and children in ways that are misleading, deceptive, and dangerous.
The investigation was launched amid a growing body of scientific
evidence demonstrating that excessive fluoride exposure is not safe for children.
Let's state for the record that fluoride is only a problem in huge doses, not what's in city water or certainly in that tube of Colgate. And let's also state for the record that this is one of the most brain-dead emails ever committed to the internet.
So why the investigation, which will most certainly not happen other than in this email? Because Paxton saw a parade and jumped in front so people might think he was leading it.
His convictions are summed up by Captain Renault, the corrupt French policeman in Casablanca...
Major Strasser:
Captain, are you entirely certain which side you are on?
Captain Renault:
I have no conviction, if that's what you mean. I blow with wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.
And for Paxton, the prevailing wind blows from the Oval Office, and no pronouncement is too pusillanimous if it will gain MAGA favor. It's going to be the most bootlicking campaign ever as both men try to prove who is the most servile acolyte in the state.
We may even outdo Lindsay Graham (R-Tara) in that regard. Although this post on X will be hard to beat...
Lindsey Graham@LindseyGrahamSC I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!
The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!
Take all the collective fatuous ass-kissing in a Trump Cabinet meeting, and it's at North Korean levels, roll it into one person and the result is Lindsay Graham.
And here are some more work done in Austin this session...
- Social Media: The Texas House passed a bill that would require a social media warning label for minors and a proposed ban on kids' access to social media, which is now being considered in the Senate.
- Hemp Product Regulations: A bill related to regulating hemp products, specifically those with THC, has been passed in Texas, with the House committee making changes to the Senate version to restrict sales rather than ban them.
- Transparency in Political Ads: A bill requiring more transparency in political ads has been passed in the Texas House.
- Homelessness:.Lawmakers are considering a bill to strengthen the state's ban on homeless encampments and speed up the eviction process, raising concerns among advocates.
- Antisemitism: The Texas House approved an antisemitism bill requiring schools to use a specific definition of antisemitism when addressing student discipline.
- Property Ownership: Senate Bill 17 would regulate foreign ownership of property in Texas.
- Abortion Pills:.A wide-ranging crackdown on abortion pills has passed the Texas Senate.
- AI in Education: A bill prohibiting the use of artificial intelligence technology for classroom instruction is also being considered.
Was any of that on your bingo card of concerns when you voted for this peanut gallery full of ignorami?
They even set up their own version of the DOGE clown car to streamline state government, even though we have a long-established Sunset Commission to periodically review state agencies. I guess that name wasn't catchy enough, or more accurately, not Elon enough.
And, of course, the prevailing wind from the oval office is not going to power a windmill if Pope Don can help it.
So, of course, our duly-elected public subservients have passed some onerous new regulations on any green energy projects, despite the fact that wind and solar have saved our collective electrical bacon lately. The ludicrously named Electric Reliability Council of Texas has become fairly reliant on all that tree-hugging voltage.
In just the first week of March, the ERCOT power grid that supplies nearly all of Texas set records for most wind production (28,470 megawatts), most solar production (24,818 megawatts), and greatest battery discharge (4,833 megawatts). Only two years ago, the most that batteries had ever injected into the ERCOT grid at once was 766 megawatts. Now the battery fleet is providing nearly as much instantaneous power as Texas nuclear power plants, which contribute around 5,000 megawatts.
But no matter. If Trump doesn't like it, then we don't either.
Our own Lt. Dan is also now chairman of the new White House Religious Liberty Commission. One of their goals is to root out "anti-Christian" bias in the country. I'm not sure where they are seeing that, to be honest. I live in a small town of 5000 people, and there are 19 churches here and no pesky synagogues or mosques. Best I can tell, no one is picketing any of them.
But I'm sure it's out there, and I expect an email next week from Paxton on the Attorney General's Genuinely Religious Association Verification Act To Evangelize, or AGGRAVATE.
And see, I got through this without once mentioning tariffs.
To end this, there is another Chris Rea song that is a favorite of mine and sums up my attitude toward our state leaders.
"Set Me Free."
Please.
Now, he is part of the Texas Outlaw Writers, and if this doesn't pan out, the outlaw part will still work as he will indeed resort to robbing banks.