Gonna need more blade runners
Like the rest of the country the Republicants used their humanoid form to deceive the willfully deceived and are now running hog wild drunk with wrongly elected power. First order of business was to rig the rules.
"Majority rule, minority rights." It's one of the first axioms you learn in civics, social studies or whatever your elementary school called it. It's part of the American social contract, that those out of power in a legislative body have at least some means to check the actions of those in power.
In the Texas Senate, for more than half a century, the so-called "two-thirds rule" has been that means. At the beginning of each legislative session a blocker bill was passed. To debate any other bill, two-thirds of the Senate, 21 of 31 members, was required to agree to the suspension of regular rules, bypassing the blocker bill. Until Wednesday.
That's when state senators voted 20 to 10 to change the two-thirds rule to the three-fifths rule. Now, only 19 votes are required to suspend regular Senate rules. Republicans hold 20 seats in the chamber.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has long been against the rule. In 2007, as a senator, he tried to to kill it, ending up on the wrong end of a 30-1 vote. With his election to the state's No. 2 post in November, however, he finally had the power to get his way, using Senate committee posts to ensure the vote.And just who is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patty? Why he so dumb he need da guidin' light of that beacon of liberty the Tea Party.
Tea Party members had Dan Patrick’s back during last year’s election.
Now the state’s new lieutenant governor is returning the favor.
Patrick has created a committee, his own Grassroots Advisory Board, to help guide him on hot-button issues such as border security, tax cuts and education reform.
Nearly two dozen grassroots leaders from around the state are gearing up to begin their work.
“I’m both shocked and encouraged by the response of the people,” said Julie McCarty of Grapevine, the co-founder and president of the NE Tarrant Tea Party and a member of the board. “People are so excited they will have a voice.
“I think this will be an open forum where we can share ideas, talk about what we like and don’t like and make suggestions.”
Putting the white in white bread
Scary, huh? Maybe they can dream up an amendment banning Sharia law like them Okies up north. Or maybe like Representative Molly White they can adopt a policy requiring Muslim visitors to renounce terror and swear allegiance to the United States. Too frightening to even imagine what will come out of the witch's cauldron they call a forum. We're heading down the drain with a vengeance from environmental destruction to brain cell destruction.
Yessiree, if you were thinking Texas needed to address its pollution issue, you were right. After all, if Texas we're a country we'd be the seventh biggest polluter in the world. You asked for change and change you got:
In 2007, Texas regulators quietly relaxed the state’s long-term air-pollution guideline for benzene, one of the world’s most toxic and thoroughly studied chemicals. The number they came up with, still in effect, was 40 percent weaker, or less health-protective, than the old one.
The benzene decision was part of a sweeping overhaul of Texas air-pollution guidelines. An analysis by InsideClimate News shows that TCEQ has loosened two-thirds of the protections for the 45 chemicals it has re-assessed since 2007, even though the state’s guidelines at the time were already among the nation’s weakest.
It’s “the most irresponsible action I’ve heard of in my life,” said Jim Tarr, an air-quality consultant who worked for TCEQ’s predecessor agency in the 1970s. “I certainly can’t find another regulatory agency in the U.S. that’s done that.”
The decision by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was a boon for oil refineries, gas drillers, and other benzene-emitting facilities, because it allowed them to release more benzene into the air without triggering regulatory scrutiny. But it defied the trend of scientific research, which shows that even small amounts of benzene can cause leukemia. The American Petroleum Institute, lobbyist for some of the nation’s largest benzene producers, privately acknowledged as early as 1948 that the only “absolutely safe” dose was zero.
Polluter: “I want [my son] to be just as
"protected" as every other kid in Houston.”
Meh, what's a little leukemia between friends? Seems a new sociopath has been put in charge of upping the pollution cuz he's "a good scientist who takes his job seriously". Talk about those with the worst of motives having the strongest convictions. What with fracking causing unprecedented earthquakes and more importantly devastating our already stretched water resources, Texas will one day be held up as an example of an environmental nightmare committed in the name of wholesale greed and lust.
Yup, the rapists are riding high in these parts where the roots of ultra-conservatism run deep, dark and twisted. This has brought a level of self-paranoia to towering new heights all but destroying the last vestiges of satire. Hard to top stupidity with over-the-top mockery when that's already happening in real life.
A nine-year-old boy's love of The Lord of the Rings has gotten him in trouble with a power more terrible and despotic than Sauron himself: school administrators.
The boy, Aiden Steward, was suspended by officials at Kermit Elementary School in Kermit, Texas, after he tried to make a classmate disappear using his magic ring.
Since Steward was not in possession of the One Ring To Rule Them All, his attempts at dark magic failed. Still, administrators considered it a "terroristic threat" and had no choice but to take action.
It's always "no choice!" isn't it? (On the day of reckoning they will hear that phrase again - much to their horror.) Yes, folks if you want to terrorize a Texan simply flash your LOTR ring at them and watch them flee for their lives. Just can't make this stuff up!
Dark days are coming. Many will be the victims. Hell's demons have been set loose - and they all carry a Bible in disguise. Wait too long, God, and there'll be nobody left.
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