Texas Elections Director: Electioneering For Greg Abbott Isn’t Electioneering

In a stunning abandonment of all logic and reason, the Texas Director of Elections, Ann McGeehan, has determined that wearing in a polling location a button or a T-shirt bearing the words “Don’t tread on me” along with a coiled snake doesn’t constitute electioneering.

Writes the director in what can be described as the most poorly worded policy decision that I have ever read:

“It is the opinion of this office that people simply wearing a t-shirt or button with the wording “Don’t Tread on Me” displaying the coiled rattlesnake and nothing else are not electioneering for (nor does such action relate to) a candidate, measure or party and such action does not relate to the conduct of the election.”

Stunning in that this symbol has become the unofficial seal of the TEA party movement.

Illogical in that this symbol is the adopted symbol of a real Texas Republican politician engaged in a real campaign against a real Democrat. In other words, if wearing the symbol that represents the campaign of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is not electioneering, then anything goes from here on in.

Unreasonable in that Greg Abbott actually uses the Gadsden Flag on his campaign material. He even has a “Don’t Tread On Me” campaign on his website. You can see it here and read about the fact that “If you contribute just $10 to General Abbott's campaign, you can get your own "Don't Tread on Me" embroidered hat or t-shirt!”

He even poses for a photograph with his campaign symbol.

It now appears to me that merely bringing the federal Department of Justice here and federalizing the entire election process in the state of Texas would not be enough to stop the gross crimes and misdemeanors of ultraconservatives and other assorted fanatics. Texas is simply too far gone for any of that.

No, there is only one thing we can do in order to bring Texas forward into the 21st century, completely skipping the 20th.

Bring back Reconstruction.

Leo Berman: Bill Will Challenge Legality of 14th Amendment

Aha, so there is a method to Leo Berman’s (R – Tyler) utter madness.

I think I have mentioned in passing that one of the matters to be considered by Texas’ 81^st Legislature is the matter of HB 256 entitled “AN ACT relating to birth records of children born in this state; creating an offense,” the title of which is enough to give offense.

Authored by Leo Berman and co-authored by neoconservative colleagues Dennis Bonnen (R - Angleton), Debbie Riddle (R - Houston) and Allen Fletcher (R - Houston), the purpose of the legislation, as Berman revealed here, is to challenge the constitutionality of the 14^th Amendment to the US Constitution.

He proposes to do this by denying the issuance of birth certificates to any infant born to alien parents within the borders of Texas, a condition that is in direct contravention of Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment, to wit:

“Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

No where is there any reference to special circumstances, like their parents were not citizens, illegal alien or not.

Berman revealed his true intensions in a speech he gave yesterday to some of his anhängen, The Minutemen Civil Defense Corps.

From The Chron’s Texas Politics Blog:

“Berman said if his proposal to prohibit automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants passes it would undoubtedly spark a court fight that he hopes lands in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“‘That's exactly what we're looking for,’ said Berman, R-Tyler. ‘We want to be sued into federal court where our attorney general can take this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.’”

Exactly what he wants, it seems, is to do away with that troublesome 14^th Amendment. You know, the one that has guaranteed the rights of every man, woman (lately), and child of life liberty and property. The one that promises “due process.” The 14^th Amendment was the crowning achievement of the Number One rated US President, Abraham Lincoln.

But Leo Berman and his sordid ilk want it done away with, and he thinks Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott (or his Republican successor) is just the man to do it.

Well I find State Rep. Leo Berman’s latest efforts to be fantastically refreshing and I want to urge that he keep it up, and propose other bills, as he has in the past and present, in the same vein.

What better way to prove a central point in my thinking, that the post Civil War Reconstruction Period ended much too soon in Texas, as it did over much of the former Confederate States of America.

The Grand Army of the Republic and the federal government back then made a classic mistake, one that was once the sole method (besides abstinence, which has since been discredited by Bristol Palin) of birth control: pulling out too soon.