Michele Bachmann to Resign and Move to Oregon

Well the fat is in the fire, and I am taking Congresswoman Michele Bachmann at her word that she will now be forced to resign from her congressional seat in order to avoid the coming wrath of God to Minneapolis and move, as she has suggested, to Oregon.

 

At least she has until August 1^st.

That takes some of the urgency out of it at least.

Today, Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota signed the Marriage Equality Act that was passed by the Minnesota legislature this past week.

From the Washington Post:

“Dayton thanked legislators for ‘political courage’ before signing the bill just a day after it passed the state Senate. It passed the House last week.”

In other news, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has avowed that should the marriage equality act become law, it means the inevitable sure and swift reaction from a vengeful god who does not want His creations to love one another when they are of the same sex.

Said Bachmann to a local TV station reporter:

"Sodom and Gomorrah thought they could defy the will of God, and we all know what happened to them. If the governor signs this legislation into law the Minneapolis-St. Paul region will be next.

Fire and brimstone is about to rain down on Minneapolis. Or something anyway. Fire and brimstone is so Old Testament now. Maybe it will be floods from spring runoff. Or a late spring blizzard. Or tornadoes. They have tornadoes there don’t they?

Anyway, Michele Bachmann is outta there now that Governor Dayton has signed the bill that takes effect on August 1^st 2013. Where is she going one might ask. Well she answered and the answer is Oregon which has constitutionally banned same sex marriage.

For now anyway.

Natural Disasters vs. Acts of God

Michele Bachmann is looney tunes. She actually claims that the natural disasters that have occurred are all because of the wrath of God. But that’s not all. She also claims that 911 and Benghazi (which occurred on 9/11) are also the result of God’s wrath.

 

Everything bad is apparently God’s wrath.

That’s it. That’s the ticket. Last Saturday I was working outside and got a huge blister in the middle of my palm. Very painful, especially when it burst. The palm of humans have some of the highest concentrations of nerve ending in the entire human body. So I’m guessing that if Michele Bachmann is right about natural disasters and planned attacks by fanatical Muslims being a result of God’s wrath, then by God my blister must be similarly an act of God.

So I was looking around You Tube for a quote from Michele Bachmann on all the bad things that happen to us, found them, but then found this little gem. It has very few reads but it cleverly turns it back on Bachmann in terms of Red State/Blue State.

Pretty funny.

3 Out of 4 Ain’t Bad

Well the Uniform Elections of May 2013 are now in the history books. These are very local city and school board elections and turnouts usually stink.

 

In Fort Bend ISD there was a truly dismal turnout of 3.27%. This is about half as much as usual. When there is a truly hot button election Fort Bend school board races can attract up to 6% turnout. So in this election, every participant cast a vote for themselves plus 29 of their neighbors who are registered to vote in the district.

Results were uninteresting. Jim Rice won handily. He was running against an empty chair so it stands to good reason that the vote was heavy in his favor.

Dave Rosenthal fended off his seat from Cynthia Lenton-Gary who was appointed to the seat to serve out Jim Babb’s term. She then lost it to a TEA Party geophysicist. Interestingly enough, had they been the only two running Rosenthal still would have won handily.

In Lamar CISD things ran a little more interesting. Most notable was Kay Danziger’s squeaker in her race for District 2 against Beth Horstman. Danziger lost to Horstman in early voting by 14 votes, but scored 20 more Election Day votes than Horstman, putting her over the top by 6 votes.

Both Anna Gonzales and Frank Torres slaughtered their opponents who were supported by PAC money that was chiefly funded by a Tomball homebuilder. The PAC, known as Whistle PAC, was founded by the brother of a local political consultant who was chiefly responsible for recruitment of these candidates. The brother, Rodney Vannerson, is up on charges of Criminal Mischief when he was caught red-handed stealing Frank Torres’ campaign signs.

Karen Mendoza’s race – a 3-way – resulted in the election of Kathryn Kaminski. Kaminski was also funded by Whistle PAC, and in this case, the out-of-district money came in handy and bought Kaminski a seat on a school board where the pay for her service is Zero Dollars. Kaminski is a LCISD contractor. That’s right. A contractor. Did anyone bother to explain to her all that stuff about conflict of interest? It’s big in the public sector.

Still, results in LCISD could have been much worse. Elections have been bought and paid for before and this one had dollar signs stamped all over it. A really good school board trustee was replaced by someone whose business brings her in direct conflict with her service on the school board, but in three other races the outcomes were good ones.

3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

No “Do-Overs” in Obamacare

One of the intentions of the Affordable Healthcare Act, better known as “Obamacare,” once a derisive term, was to lower monthly healthcare premiums by introducing competition in the insurance marketplace. As it stands today, a person who works for a company that offers group medical plans is forced to deal with the companies that have made a deal with the employer’s HR department, and typically there is only one vendor selected.

 

Now, with Obamacare, there is true competition, and insurance companies are finding their monthly rates are posted in state marketplace websites so potential clients can compare rates and services. In Texas, of course, we don’t have a similar website to go to for the best deal in the healthcare exchanges. That’s because Perry has declined to set one up and wants the feds to do it. If Obamacare succeeds, you see, Rick Perry and his TEApublicans fail.

For a president who has been accused of being a socialist, this is not a very socialist state of affairs, is it?

It appears to me to be more of a progressive arrangement: breaking up monopolies by encouraging competition.

For example, Think Progress has a story out today about two events in Oregon. It seems Oregon has a website where one can view the monthly premiums being set by insurance companies, and two of these companies participating in the health insurance exchange have asked permission to lower their monthly premiums by as much as 15%.

Click me. I get bigger.

See, they were playing by the old rules of monopolistic health insurance. Their competition was severely underbidding them. So two insurance companies one of them being Providence Health Plan, have embarrassingly found that they are charging too much and want a do-over. I am actually in favor of not allowing do-overs. Let the market decide which company survives and which do not. That is as close to laissez-faire capitalism as you can get.

And what is so wrong with that?

In the oil and gas business, they have offshore lease sales from time to time, and the company that wins a lease has bid the most. It doesn’t work if you get a do-over. In school districts, vendors bid on everything from toilet paper to building construction. If they get underbid they lose. There are no do-overs.

So, no do-overs in Obamacare, OK? Let the market run its course and let the strong survive.

That’s Obamacare.

Taking Mom to Hooters

Sunday, you know is Mother's Day in the United States of America.

 

Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908. Mother's Day in its present format that is. The celebration of mothers, motherhood, maternity, and the influence of mothers in society is centuries old, as in the Roman festival of Hilaria or the Christian holiday Mothering Sunday.

 

No, American Mother's Day is held on the first Sunday in May, and founded by a movement inspired by the dead mother of Anna Jarvis. The day took a turn for the worse as commercialization took it away from its grassroots beginnings and everyone started to make money out of the day. Anna Jarvis was not happy with that turn of events, but what can you expect? The only holiday that has not been commercialized is Ascension Day.

 

Like Hooters. You know, Hooters, the restaurant that sports a man-cave décor and features waitresses, er, servers dressed in tight fitting T-shirts and short shorts. Hooters is advertising a sales promotion for Mother's Day. If a mother goes to eat at a Hooters on Mother's Day, and buys a drink, Hooters will pay up to 10 smackers for her meal. One caveat: at least one of her progeny must also come and eat.

 

No really.

 

Hooters is not really known as a family restaurant. Not really very well known for its haut cuisine. There are actually only two things that it is known for, both the left and right ones.

 

It is more likely that fathers will enjoy themselves more at Hooters than mothers.

 

So I guess this is yet another attempt at gross commercialization and expanding a clientele that up to now has been male-dominated. I wonder what Anna Jarvis would think of this development? Adding the hooters of Hooters to the list of things to honor motherhood?  

 

Here in America we over-commercialize every holiday - except maybe Ascension Day. So far Ascension Day is safely non-commercialized and we haven't figured out a way to make yet another million dollars on that holiday.  

 

Not yet, anyway.

Steve Stockman Shuns Sensitivity

Here in Texas we have one of the poorest excuses for a congressman since Michelle Bachmann darkened the halls of Congress with her presence. Steve Stockman formerly of TX-9 before being run off by Democrat Nick Lampson, and who now represents newly created and supremely safe TX-36, is a tool.
 

Not a tool of the devil. Just a tool.

You can go here and see why. It’s a link to a page within Stockman’s campaign website, a page promoting his latest project: a free raffle to win a Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Stockman suggests that you “grab this gun before Obama does.”

And so, yes, I registered for the drawing. If I win it I intend to disassemble it and throw it in the Brazos River.

Not because I don’t want another gun to go to a gun nut. Not even close. I registered on the off-chance that I might win it and destroy it, because of the raw insensitivity that Stockman is displaying by choosing this make and model of assault weapon to raffle off.

You see, Stockman could have chosen to raffle off a Benelli MR-1 or a Rock River Arms LAR-47. They have similar features to an AR-15. The LAR 47 even has a real sexy high capacity magazine that comes standard. But no, instead, Stockman chose to raffle the very make and model of semi-automatic weapon as was used as a WMD for 20 six-year olds and 6 educators in Connecticut. 
Not only is this whole thing horribly insensitive, I find it sweetly ironic that the winner of the rifle must pass a “dealer’s background check.”

Steve Stockman is so stupid he makes Rick Perry look like Albert Einstein. He is so insensitive that he makes Mahatma Gandhi look like a mass murderer.  Steve Stockman is so worthless that I dearly miss the airspace that his presence in the world displaces.

 

On Electing Liars

I like this quote from Jarod Kintz’s book “This Book is Invisible: ”On average, women are better liars than men. But the best liars are men, because politicians are still predominantly men.” And the reason I bring this up is that South Carolinians in the 1st Congressional District just elected themselves one massive liar. A politician, a liar, a man not especially good at being either – former governor, former congressman and former family man, Mark Sanford.

 

Now lots of people are saying that Republicans are establishing a new outreach program. They’re electing adulterers. I really couldn’t care less about that. Adultery is something we see on both sides. Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, the list goes on and on.

What I question is the judgment in electing such a bad liar as Mark Sanford whose insanely inartful lie to his staffers led to what amounts to a well-known American meme, hiking the Appalachian Trail. When I first heard that quote I knew it for the lie that it turned out to be.

Politicians lie, but there is an art and science to a lie. And sometimes the best lie is simply telling the truth.

Now in truth, Colbert-Busch didn’t have a gnat’s chance in a hailstorm in this district.  Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by 18% last year. A map view of the district’s boundaries reveals gerrymandering writ large.  It’s a KKK district, if you will – Whites Only.

And in a special election, it’s all about turnout. Participation is miserable in off year special elections. So Sanford was able to get out that special kind of voter who will vote for anything other than a Democrat. Even a really bad liar.

So this is good news to liars, especially really bad ones. Take heart if you are a Republican. Republican voters these days don’t care about anything other than what the letter beside your name is. They vote for the letter, not the politician.

And I should know this because that is how I vote. Except if given the choice between a Republican and a really bad Democratic liar, I will cast my ballot for Mr. Under Vote.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Regulations

After West, Texas blew up political cartoonists had a field day, especially pointing out the sheer irony of Rick Perry's portrayal of Texas as a business friendly deregulated state where a capitalist can take more of their profits home.

 

Perry took great umbrage over one cartoon that came out in the Sacramento Bee. And that got him yet another cartoon about his pitiful whining.

 

And lots more.

 

So it's Toon Tuesday, with Perry and West, Texas front and center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Rush the Bum

I have posted a link to the Rush Limbaugh Sponsor List for a few weeks now and today I hear news that the country-wide movement to silence the bigoted hate-speech of Rush Limbaugh may see victory at a time that is just around the corner.
 

But instead of getting the bum’s rush as we all hope to see in the near future, it looks like Rush is going to act proactively and pick himself up by his collar and throw himself out into the street.

It’s pretty funny, too. Limbaugh is feigning outrage that the president of Cumulus Media, the broadcast network that syndicates his show over 40 radio media markets, blames him alone for the loss of a hundred million dollars in ad sales because advertisers were refusing to buy ads during Limbaugh’s time slot.

Limbaugh is so outraged that he is threatening to go off the air.

Hey, works for me.

I am reading in other sources that this is affecting all right-wing political talk shows because media marketers are themselves, proactive.

Limbaugh is effectively poisoning the talk show format in America.

But really, I’m in full agreement with Sandra Fluke whose name Limbaugh repeatedly besmirched over the airwaves. I’m going to miss Rush Limbaugh. He has served well as our number one ambassador to the liberal cause.

Blood Money

Each day, according to a 2010 statistic, 85 people on average lose their lives in gun violence. That number fluctuates, obviously, depending on the day and the number of insane people that gain access to weapons of mass destruction – an AR-15 for instance – and blow babies apart.
 

Then the statistic takes a little jump.

And the NRA allows this to continue unabated, aided and abetted by nearly every United States Senator, every senator has their hand in gun violence every day that they allow unrestricted purchase of WMD at gun shows.

Every dollar in campaign contributions that these senators accept from the NRA has blood on it.

The blood of babies.

I call on every US Senator who has accepted blood lucre from the NRA to donate those dollars to the Sandy Hook Support Fund. I’ll even provide the address to which these checks can be sent.

Sandy Hook School Support Fund
c/o Newtown Savings Bank
39 Main Street, Newtown CT 06470

Do it, Senators. Do it or there will be blood on your hands on Judgment Day.

 

 

Fort Bend Follies Continues

Here in Bat Guano Kahraaaazy Fort Bend County Texas, around election times you can always expect Republicans to be present near crime scenes. Republicans you see, take it as a cue from their elected officials to deny people of democracy. Deny them the ability to vote. Deny them information to make an informed decision. Deny them good people to make good decisions that affect their lives. And deny their political opponents of the right to post campaign signs in public areas, or even on private property.

They’ve been doing it for years, but this year…this time… they got caught red-handed. And it’s better than you think.

The Richmond police arrested Rodney Vannerson a bail bondsman who lives in Sugar Land, when he was seen cutting down an opponent’s campaign sign for school board trustee. Well, no, Rodney Vannerson isn’t running for anything, but his sister, Karen Vannerson, is a paid political consultant for practically every Fort Bend County elected official.

You might remember Karen Vannerson from a couple of blog posts before. In one she is seen in a video blasting away at Troy Nehls who was in a heated primary for County Sheriff. And for good reason. Vannerson’s client was Chief Deputy Craig Brady who had 400 large to spend on his campaign. Vannerson can smell campaign lucre like no one else. In the video, Karen says that she is sick, just sick I tell you, of people going around stealing campaign signs.

 

No, I'm not kidding. Go take a look.

And this is no different. Apparently there are 4 seats up for election in the school district that borders the one I live in, and all of the Democratic candidates for these seats were being challenged by Tea Party candidates who are funded by WhistlePAC, a political action committee that has raised $27,000 to fund the Tea Party Candidates. WhistlePAC was founded by, wait for it, Rodney Vannerson.

You also might remember Karen Vannerson from before when she was known as Karen Pearson. Apparently after her divorce, Karen decided to revert back to her maiden name, an action that is so costly and time-consuming that few attempt it. Karen Pearson was responsible for the arrest of one Joey Sula, who was then convicted of theft of a half a million smackers from Pearson. Money that she says he stole, but most people think Sula just charmed the pants off of Pearson.

But back to the present-day crime wave.

Also accompanying Rodney Vannerson was an existing school board member Dar Hakimzadeh. A sitting school board trustee at the scene of a crime is juicy stuff, even for Fort Bend County. But more to the point, Dar Hakimzadeh it is said, is also Tea Party, and his presence on the board has devolved the school board to a quivering mass of protein. Nothing gets done, and outrageous requests from him are routine. The goal is clear: the dismantlement of public education from within.

Old Dar got caught and questioned, but was not arrested.

I’m sure we’re not done with this tale of Tea and Trustees so stay tuned, and a big tip of the hat to the Fort Bend County Herald Coaster for reporting this amazing story.

Oh, and by the way, Early Voting for the Lamar Consolidated ISD school board election continues this week with election day next Saturday, May 11^th. If you live in one of the 4 districts that are up for election this year, get out and vote because you know that the Tea Party will surely do just that.

South Carolina Outperrys Perry

Rick Perry must be gnashing his teeth and kicking wastebaskets today as he has been

They Passed What?

officially “outperried” by South Carolina’s state legislature and its governor, Nikki Haley.

 

When Rick Perry was asked how Texas was going to implement the Affordable Healthcare Act, famously known as Obamacare, he punted and told the feds that they could go on ahead and draw up the plans. All of us future Obamacare clients cheered because this told us that we were going to get a deal where Rick Perry and his cronies don’t get rich.

But today the state legislature of 1^st to secede South Carolina has fired another shot at Fort Sumpter by passing the oddly named “South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act.”

Isn’t that an odd name? Isn’t it more like a Freedom From Health Care Protection Act? And who in H-E-double-hockey-sticks can be in favor of that? I’m so free. I don’t have a lick of health care protection to my name.

This is something that could be so Rick Perry. Rick Perry was all about secession awhile back. This South Carolina act is all about secession through what is called nullification. Nullification is so unconstitutional they didn’t even have to write an amendment to the Constitution to make it so. But this state thinks that it is wiser than the Supreme Court of the United States, which upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Healthcare Act, as the act declares Obamacare unconstitutional and their act allows them to ignore Obamacare because it is unconstitutional.

Not their job. Leave that one to the Supremes.

And I really like one of the provisions in the act, the one having to do with the penalty you pay for not participating in a healthcare plan. When you pay your federal income tax next year you have to document that you have health insurance or pay a penalty to the federal government through the tax code. South Carolina’s act allows South Carolinians to deduct that penalty from their state income taxes.

That’s pretty funny. The penalty runs in the hundreds and up to a couple of thousand dollars. Where will that state get any revenue if everyone gets to deduct their penalty?

Wait, I just figured out why Rick Perry is even more frustrated by this act. Texas has no state income tax so this brilliant deduction idea wouldn’t even be possible in Texas.

Two Years Ago Today

It has now been two full years since President Obama risked his second term and went all in to bring an unsuccessful end to Osama bin Laden’s miserable life. Two years is an eternity in your average American’s memory.

 

Americans believe the last thing you tell them, especially if it agrees with their preconceived notions. So when Dubya was President Dubya he went after the Saddam Hussein because he was a threat to the region and because he killed his own countrymen.

WMD? What was all that about WMD?

So two years ago, Barack Obama ordered the execution of Osama bin Laden, and Seal Team 6 made it so. This week George Bush launched his presidential library, complete with “Decision Points” in which the artful lie of the real reason Bush invaded Iraq is laid out for all to see.

Osama who?

And We Were Worrying About Background Checks?

A baby and his rifle

Five-year old Kristian Sparks was playing around with his Cricket rifle, a weapon that shoots actual bullets the other day, and shot his two-year old sister, Caroline, full in the chest. A wound that eventually led to the death of the baby girl.

The little boy was given his rifle when he was four years old. The rifle is of a kind that is actually made for children, having the label "My first rifle."

I have never heard of such a thing.

But when you read this article, you find yourself in a very strange world where no one is very surprised that a boy that age owns a gun. Heck, even Ralphie was in 5th grade, and the gun he got from his father for Christmas only shot BBs.

And he almost shot his eye out.

Apparently while Kristian's mother was in the next room in their mobile home, Kristian pulled the rifle's trigger while it was pointed at his sister, and it went off. The story is that no one knew it was loaded.

I guess my point in all of this is this. Here we are getting all worked up about a few US senators not allowing a bill on universal background checks for potential gun buyers to come up for a vote all the while people make guns for little children to use, and other people buy them for their children.

But I think the quote of the day comes from Cumberland County Judge John Phelps who was heavily quoted in the article. Of the tragic events, he said "This was a total shock. This was totally unexpected."

Because seemingly in answer to Phelps' statement Louisville child advocate Sharon Rengers, said "we're going to offer a 4-year-old a gun and expect something good from that?"

When is NRA a Bad Acronym?

Two Houston ISD elementary school principals are reconsidering whether an off-campus group can come to school over a two-day period and teach children about gun safety. No, not how to handle guns in a safe and responsible manner, but how to avoid touching them when they see one.

 

Which is a good idea on its face.

But the principals reconsidered their decision to hold the mini course for their pupils because they misunderstood that the off-campus group was not the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) but the NRA (National Rifle Association).

And because the NRA has evolved into an extremist lobby group with political views way out of the mainstream of American opinion, once they heard the course was to be given by the NRA they begged off because they didn’t want it to look like they were making any endorsements of the NRA’s extremist viewpoint that universal background checks, supported by 80% of Americans, were non-starters.

I don’t know whether to jump up and down in glee over the NRA getting the cold shoulder from HISD principals because of their extremism, or anguish over the fact that school children will not receive training that when they see a gun they need to go the other way and tell an adult about it.

But I guess I’ll jump up and down because I hear that the district’s police department has a lesson plan on that one, too.

Congress Finally Acts in a Bipartisan Manner

Congressmen and Senators have finally come to their senses and decided that this Do Nothing Congress has got to do Something. So before getting packed up for their upcoming break they rushed through a bill that would allow the FAA to move funds around so that they don't have to furlough 1500 air traffic controllers, which would result in nationwide flight cancellations and delays.

 

They decided that these 1500 people needed to stay on the job even in light of the sequester that Republicans all seemed to be wildly if favor of when they let it go into effect.

 

So now I suppose they are going to do something about all the cuts to cancer research and Headstart programs that the sequester will also bring about.

 

Or maybe not.

Early Voting Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow you can go to any early voting location in the county and cast your vote for the candidate of your choice in the May Uniform Election. This is the election where local races that are of the greatest importance to local political decisions are made.

 

They aren't as sexy as a presidential election, and not even as well-attended as mid-year elections are, but they are the ones that affect your personal lives the most, because it's true: all politics is local.

 

What is also true is that when you vote in an off-year election, you speak for not only yourself but 18 other voters who typically sit these elections out.

 

Which is fine, in my opinion. Because if the truth of the matter be known, most people do not inform themselves on local issues, nor do they care about them a whole heck of a lot. Ad if the truth be known, I always love to cast my vote for 19 of my conservative neighbors. And they should be relieved that I do this for them because I try to keep informed on the local issues.

 

So tomorrow I will go to the polls and cast my 20 votes for Cynthia Lenton-Gary, and not for Dave "What Me File" Rosenthal. And I will also vote for anyone but Jim Rice, whose campaign warchest is full of lucre from construction companies.

 

And if I lived in a Lamar Consolidated ISD and lived in one of the districts that are currently up for grabs, four of them this year, I would vote for Frank Torres (District 3), or Karen Mendoza (District 1) or Anna Gonzales (District 6) or Kay Danziger (District 2)

 

In Lamar CISD they vote by districts whereas in Fort Bend ISD anyone can vote for anyone running. The person needs to be living in the district they run in, but I can vote for anyone in any district. So in Lamar CISD people can win by tens of votes. In the last election a Trustee was challenged by some guy with a bone to pick over her vote on the Foster HS attendance zone. She won re-election handily by over 260 votes and there were only 300 plus votes cast in her district.

 

So Lamar CISD is usually interesting to watch, but Fort Bend is where I live.

Saving the Postal Service

During the 2006 lame duck session of congress as Republicans were poised to lose their majority in the House a bill was pushed through and signed by then President Bush that did amazing damage to a federal government function: the United States Postal Service.

 

Because, you see, the success of the Postal Service was proof positive that the feds can run a business and turn a profit just like private industry can.

And do it on the cheap.

Republicans wanted to privatize the postal service, and the only way to do that was to make the Postal Service unprofitable. Which they did.

How they did it is Machiavellian. They placed such a strain on the retirement program that the Postal Service, for the first time in its history, defaulted. It ran in the red. They were required, by congressional decree, to fully fund their health insurance program for people to draw on in 75 years, and do it within 10 years.

No entity on Earth is required to do that. It means that the healthcare benefits of some future employee of the Postal Service is fully funded even before that employee draws one breath of life.

Well, today I read that Congressman  Peter DeFazio of Oregon has filed a bill to fix that problem so that the US Postal Service can run in the black again. Without this handicapping 2006 legislation, it is said that the Postal Service could have turned a 1.5$ billion profit last year alone.

Truly an embarrassment for the privatizing neoconservatives in Congress.

But there is no guarantee that this sane and logical legislation will make any progress in the House. DeFazio is trying to enlist the citizenry to lobby for the bill on all fronts. A petition is up on the White House’s ”We the People”website.

You know, it’s not a bad idea to go over there and sign the petition. I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to send my snail mail via a private company that’s going to charge an arm and a leg for something that the government monopoly can do for less than 50 cents each.

Promoting Women’s Health…Yeah…That’s the Ticket

Bob "Coathanger" Deuell

In the Texas State Senate today the Democratic voting bloc, minus one, is blocking a particularly disingenuous bill, SB 537, Similar bills have been passed into law in at least 4 other states.  The bill, authored by State Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, will place new licensing standards on abortion clinics in Texas, standards that are being touted as new requirements that are meant to enhance safety and promote women’s health.

It’s real intent is to put unecessarily restrictive standards on abortion clinics, standards that will lead to closure of all but 5 of the currently operating abortion clinics in the state.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose the bill and have stated that “only five of the state’s 37 abortion clinics are licensed as ambulatory surgical centers, a requirement for performing abortions beyond the 16th week of pregnancy. Most of the remaining clinics provide only drug-induced abortions and would likely have to close, unable to meet the renovation costs required to become a surgical center.”

The actual purpose of the bill, as in similar bills in Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi and North Dakota, is to make it harder for women to have abortions in Texas.

But Deuell, who has all 19 Republican votes and one Democratic vote, needs one more Democrat to vote to move his bill to the Senate floor. So what does Senator Deuell do? He meets with the Democratic holdouts and tries to convince them that this is a bill that will promote women’s health and safety by placing stricter regulations on clinics, regulations that are completely unnecessary.

And yes, contrary to what Deuell is claiming, the bill will not promote women’s health and safety, it will actually do damage to women’s health as they find they must seek dangerous and unsafe alternatives: the “Coathanger Solution.”

And the only Senate Democrat who is buying any of Deuell’s bat guano logic is State Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. of Brownsville, who likes every anti-choice bill that is set before him.

Why Ranking Schools Nationally Rankles

The US News and World Report came out with their 2013 top high school rankings today. They do this every year and every year we see the same thing: when you can cherry-pick your students your school rankings skyrocket.

 

In public education we are not all cut from the same bolt of cloth. The grand majority of the top schools, listed here and for an additional 196 pages, are academies, specialty schools and magnet schools. For the most part students who want to attend these schools have to apply for a position, and be accepted after the school examines their academic records.

Or score well on an entrance exam.

But these schools are rated on the same scale as schools which admit all who live within their attendance zone. Schools with no waiting lists and no entrance exams.

Someday I’d like to see an honest rating system. One where schools of like kind are rated together and separately rated from magnet schools.

And someday I’d like to see a rating system that also lists the school’s level of funding. Because I can guarantee you what that will reveal is already known to all: you get what you pay for.