What’s With All This Shariya Law Hysteria?

Really. What’s with it? How did it all get started? Whose best interests does it serve?

Social conservatives are just in a dither about how those Muslims are going to impose Shariya Law on America. How Americans are going to have to stone each other for not observing this or that Muslim rite, and how we will be forced to cut off the hands of convicted thieves.

You know, Shariya Law stuff.

There’s this legislator in Oklahoma who is submitting a bill to ban “any law, rule, legal code or system" not rooted in the Constitution of Oklahoma or the United States.” No, read about it here, I’m serious. The whole reason for the bill is to prevent the establishment of Shariya Law, the judicial system of orthodox Muslims like the Taliban. You know, the people we are in a shooting war with in Afghanistan.

How they think Shariya Law would ever become the law of the land here in America is beyond wonderment. Establishment of any religion, Christian or otherwise, is specifically forbidden by the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution. It could never happen, and the ban has already been taken care of.

So why do these yahoos think that Shariya Law is the next big thing here in America? How do they think it is at all possible?

Could it be that social and evangelical conservatives are, themselves, trying to invoke their own form of Shariya Law and have had some success with that? Anti-choice bills have become the law in several states. Anti-choice bills are essentially philosophically based on the notion that life begins at conception, a notion that has no scientific basis at all. A notion that is entirely based on religious belief. And what about state constitutional amendments passed, including here in Texas, that forbids gays and lesbians from being legally married? What’s the basis for that? I’ll tell you what these laws are based on.

Leviticus 18:22:

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

So you see, laws based on religious belief are here with us now. Indeed, America has a long tradition of suppression and control based on religious belief. The evangelical right do it all the time so it stands to reason that Muslims, fanatical Muslims, will one day take over and impose their religion on all America.

So so, these people think anyway.

Texas to Opt Out of Medicaid?

The very notion of opting out of one of the largest government health services program seems crazy on the face of it. No way, I would have said before November 2nd. But now that we know the count, and what the numbers are in state house and senate, it seems this, too, is possible.

Texas could opt out of Medicaid.

In so-doing, Texas would be turning up its nose at $16.6 billion in federal dollars.

Rick Perry thinks it’s a fabulous idea.

So does State Rep Warren Chisum (R - Wackoville) who has said this:

“Too much of taking money with strings attached is just not good for the people.”

This has precedence. Last year Rick Perry passed on collecting $555 million in federal dollars to help pay unemployment to thousands of out of work Texans because the funds came with strings attached. So turning down sixteen billion dollars in federal money with strings attached seems not so big a reach.

Chisum said that his good ol’ buddy John Zerwas agrees with him and actually got some legislation passed last year to study the idea. Zerwas, who is a gas passer (an anesthesiologist) is probably the last one in the capitol building who wants to see Medicaid go bye-bye. My guess is that he wanted the study to get done so that these yayhoos could see what a truly bad idea the whole notion is.

That’s my guess, anyway. This is what he actually said:

“Zerwas said that looking seriously at opting out would be ‘a good exercise for us to go through’ but that it wasn't his study that put the idea on the table. ‘Opting out really comes from national and statewide think tanks’ such as the Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he said.”

And Zerwas knows that opting out would be a disaster for the medical services industry in Texas, and not just for those who receive Medicaid benefits.

Because if you think the medical industry will just shrug its shoulders at the loss $16 billion and bring their collective belts in another notch or two, you have truly been drinking the kool-aid.

Squeezing Blood from Turnips: White Stumps for Votes in East Texas

Yesterday in looking at the early vote trends and seeing that there is definitely elevated interest in this mid-term election, much higher than in 2006, I came to the conclusion that, in the end, getting your base out to vote is going to be the key to winning an election this year.

And now, in an irony of ironies. I read this morning that the Bill White campaign is stumping for votes in East Texas.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“Republicans have carried the region in the race for governor since Democrat Ann Richards narrowly lost it to George W. Bush in 1994. This year, the GOP is blanketing the airwaves with ads tying local Democrats to an unpopular President Barack Obama.

“But White thinks he can again turn this swath of Texas — more culturally like the Old South than other parts of the state — into a political battleground.”

“‘A lot of Texas Democrats are coming back home in my campaign,’ White told The Associated Press. ‘We're going to be stronger than other statewide candidates in a long time.’”

Now it is one thing to be out there getting your base to the polling booth, and another thing to be out there hammering at persuadables and independent voters. One is a sure thing, the other is a little more iffy in getting positive results.

But it is a completely different thing to be out there in the middle of the last of the Old South trying to turn a region of Texas away from their approval of all things Rick Perry. A region of Texas that went for McCain/Palin in a huge, huge way just 2 years ago. Nacogdoches County, where Bill White and singer Robert Earl Keen visited this weekend voted 63.4% for McCain/Palin in 2008, exceeding the Texas statewide average by 8 points.

Well at least they spelled "African " correctly

This is a region of Texas that has actually gotten redder if that is at all possible. It is a region that has been home to redneck racists for years now. Signs like this appear in front of homes in this area of Texas. In short, Bill White is out there in East Texas trying to squeeze the blood out of a turnip. Ten days out from the General Election, and this is where the White Campaign has decided to concentrate its efforts.

I don’t know who is making this decision for Bill White, but I hope he or she continues their practice in political consulting by working for Republicans next time, because they are doing a smash-up job working for them this year.

UT AK-47 Shooter’s Actions are “Highly Suspicious”

In the news earlier today we hear that a University of Texas student sent people ducking for cover early this morning as he showed up to the campus with his AK-47 and popped off a few rounds outside, hitting no one, and then ran to the Perry-Castenada Library (PCL), fired a few more rounds before ending his own life on the library’s fifth floor.

Coincidentally, it seems that John Lott, a national figure that argues for legalizing the carrying of concealed weapons on university campuses, was going to present his arguments to UT students at the UT Law School at 6:30 this very evening.

However, in view of the fact that the campus suffered an attack by a student who was carrying a weapon that was decidedly not concealable, unless you are wearing a long trench coat, which this student was not, the Lott presentation was cancelled.

Causing the person at this website to label the AK-47 wielding student’s actions “highly suspicious.”

Not “highly suspicious” in the sense that someone who carries a semi-automatic rifle onto a university campus and then fires off a few rounds before ending his own life. Not that kind of “highly suspicious.”

No, we’re talking “highly suspicious” in that it was obviously the sole intent of this AK-47 student to disrupt the Lott presentation on the merits of carrying concealed weapons onto a college campus. Disrupt it and possibly get it cancelled.

Really. 

"The fact that the shooting occurred prior to the talk is, to say the least, highly suspicious."

Is that just about the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Obviously, they seem to claim, this student came on campus fully intending to pepper the place with live ammo and then take his own life – all to prevent John Lott from speaking.

Now it occurred to me that what this guy just proved was that Lott might have a pretty good idea. Had all the students who shared the campus with the shooter seen him opening up on them, they could all have simultaneously pulled out their nines and drilled him from 18 directions.

And no, I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea. Guns and colleges are about as incompatible as guns and booze.

But read the article, and all the commenters. These people are convinced that the UT gunman was actually working to oppose the Lott presentation.

And would end his life for his cause.

Proof positive that owning a license to carry a concealed weapon does not require a minimum IQ.

Debbie Riddle Slammed By Former FBI Agent

You may have seen on CNN the Anderson Cooper interview of State Reps Debbie Riddle and Raphael Anchia the other day. They say the video is being spread far and wide. I myself received two emails from two different sources urging me to sit through the eleven minute exchange. In his email message, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie even congratulated State Rep Anchia for not falling out of his chair through the interview.

Anyway, it looks like Cooper was unwilling to just take Debbie Riddle’s word for it that she had the absolute unvarnished truth from a “former FBI agent” that mothers-to-be were crossing the US border illegally so they could give birth to citizens who would grow up to be terrorists.

You know, “real tin foil hat” stuff. Not just crazy, Texas Crazy.

So he went and got his own former FBI agent to interview, one Thomas Fuentes, a former assistant director no less. Fuentes pretty much debunks the whole riddle that is Debbie Riddle.

I like the “No preschool list” idea.