Miserable Monday

 The second day of extremely cold temperature (currently 20 degrees), and the forecast says tomorrow will be worse. If there is a god, this may be her way of punishing Texas for Greg Abutt.

Speaking of god, church attendance in the U.S. has been declining for years, partly because in many churches, El Pedo Grande worship is replacing Jesus worship.

There's video online today of El Pedo Grande describing Washington D.C. as a rat-infested shithole. It isn't now, but it definitely was while El Pedo was the make-believe American precedent (sic). Everywhere he is becomes a shithole because HE'S THERE.

Sundazed: The Best & The Worst

CNBC ranked the ten best states to live in, and the ten worst ones, looking at criteria such as crime rates, environmental quality, health care, voting rights, and access to child care. Here are the ten worst states to live in, with the lone star state being the worst of the worst.

• 1) Texas
• 2) Oklahoma
• 3 )Louisiana
• 4) Tie between South Carolina and Alabama
• 5) Blank because of the above-mentioned tie.
• 6) Missouri
• 7) Indiana
• 8) Tennessee
• 9) Arkansas
• 10) Florida

 The ten best states to live in are these, with Vermont leading the group

• 1) Vermont
• 2) Maine
• 3) New Jersey
• 4) Minnesota
• 5) Hawaii
• 6) Oregon
• 7) Washington
• 8) Massachusetts and Colorado (tie)
• 9) Blank (see number 8)
  
• 10) Connecticut

Speaking of Texas, the state's AG, Ken Paxton, is the personification of Texas rottenness. He's avoided prison for several years, but his own party finally had enough and impeached his useless ass. Now Kenny Boy wants to change the rules for his impeachment trial in the Senate.

Q NOTES No. 1,128: Red State Blues

Texas has gradually found a way to consistently rank in the top five among America's worst red state hellholes. In recent years there's been hope that demographic trends in a few of the state's urban areas (e.g., Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin) would result in the state's flip from red to blue. That must be a real possibility since Texas MAGA Monkeys are working on legislation that would authorize them to ignore or toss out votes in Houston.

What this country really needs are a bunch of new rules that would require Corrupt Clearance to resign his USSC seat immediately. The traditional rules have allowed rotten scumbags like Clearance and Mongo Wrongo too much latitude to piss all over us and get away with it.

Another thing this country really needs is Democrats holding solid majorities in both the House and Senate and giving the MAGA morons serious instruction in the meaning of "Payback gonna be total hell, motherfuckers."

Another thing that would benefit the country would be comprehensive media coverage of Gymbo (Coverup) Jordan's deplorable conduct in the Ohio State sexual abuse scandal. If the dimwits and dullards in his district won't get rid of him, he should at least be publicly disgraced and hated by nearly everybody.

Q NOTES # 339: Ice

Texas is collapsing under the weight of a severe winter storm that's in its fourth day with no immediate end in sight. The state wasn't prepared for an event like this one, and it's pretty simple to connect the blame for that lack of preparedness to the right-wing politics that dominate state government (see ERCOT for additional information). 

Since his state is facing a catastrophe that's made worse by (R) policies, it was predictable that Gov. Greg Abbott would appear on Fox News with Sean Hannity, attempting to shift the blame to liberals. Most (R) voters in Texas rely on Fox News for their misinformation.

Updated 3:22 PM Wed: Daily Kos is carrying a report on the Texas ERCOT debacle. The moral of the story is simple: When conservatives are allowed to set policy and make the rules long enough, the disasters that result are inevitable. In this case, the policy and the rules involve manipulation of supply and demand to maximize profit-taking.

Updated 5:13 PM Wed: Right-wing AM radio host Rush Limbaugh finally bit the bullet after months of hinting his end was near. I imagine this news will make what was already a rotten week even worse for many Texans. Not all of them, of course.

Updated 5:25 PM Wed: Rick Perry, formerly a gub-mint employee in Cheez Doodle's cabinet, suggests that real Texicans would gladly freeze to death rather than comply with federal energy regulations. The possibility he's right would explain a lot of things.

Virginia

So let's assume that the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general all resign, and Republicans get control of state government in Virginia. Am I supposed to believe that will suddenly restore respect for non-white citizens and women? Democrats need to calm down and think this through.

As Malcolm Nance is reported to have said, this kind of coincidence takes a lot of planning (or words to that effect).

Added 5:38 PM Monday 11 Feb: Brane Space weighs in on Virginia. Good to see sanity making a breakthrough while Democrats seek ways to self-destruct.

Poor Texas

If they ever start handing out an annual trophy for Worst Fucking Republican, a Texan will win it every other year, at least. The state has a serious shortage of intelligent voters, and a surplus of rotten GOP politicians.

Crazy Louie

Take this asshole for example. Louie Gohmert's district must be one of the worst backwater hellholes on earth.

Don't even get me started on Rafael (Ted) Cruz or Danny (Goeb) Patrick.

Holding the Title

I won't argue the fact: There are places in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Central America or South America that could reasonably be called the asshole of the world. I've seen some of those places in movies or TV news reports, although I've been fortunate to escape seeing them in person.

But let's get serious here. None of those foreign third-world dumps deserve to be known as the asshole of the world as much as Alabama, Mississippi or Texas. Why? Because this is the United States, and IN A COUNTRY LIKE THE USA, THERE AIN'T NO GODDAMN EXCUSE FOR SHIT LIKE THIS!

Beauregard Sessions. Roy Moore. And now we get some worthless dipshit named Brett Talley.

So this week, Alabama claims the trophy. That's not to say that Texas or Mississippi won't be able to reclaim it, since both are also swarming with ignorant yahoos, rednecks, crackers, and lowlifes. 

Update 11:39 PM: When Texas reclaims the title Asshole of the World, as it inevitably will, Rep. Louie Gohmert will be one of the top five reasons why. That disgusting shit bubble has a permanent spot in the top five.

Corndog

Texas has two Senators, like all states. Both are, as the old man always said, worthless as tits on a boar hog. Rafael (Ted) Cruz is a total waste of oxygen, and his senior partner, Corndog Cornyn, is nearly as bad.

The latest proof of Cornyn's worthlessness is his willingness to copy Donnie Two Scoops, one of the three worst political leaders on earth.

Cruz, Cornyn, Louie Gohmert, Danny Patrick, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, Tom DeLay, Sid Miller, Rick Perry, ad infinitum. What the hell is wrong with Texas?

Nearly as putrid as Rafael Cruz

AGs

When worthless political hack Greg Abbott was serving as Texas AG, he shilled for voter ID legislation by claiming that voter fraud was rampant, even though he knew he was lying. I thought he was the worst state AG I'd see in my lifetime. Then along comes Ken Paxton.

Every time you think you've seen the absolute worst the Republican Party has to offer, they sink to a new, uncharted depth.

I'm pretty sure that Paxton is encouraging public servants to conduct themselves in a manner that will provoke one or more lawsuits over the religious freedom issue. Legal battles will provide an ongoing supply of fuel to keep the controversy flaming as a fund-raising goldmine for Christian dominionist politicians like Paxton, Cruz and Patrick.

It's really pretty simple. To the typical evangelical right-winger, religious freedom means the freedom to impose Biblical law whenever secular law doesn't correspond to their personal interpretations of what God had in mind when He created America.

The current situation illustrates why it's always a serious mistake to elect Christian dominionists to any public office.

The Color Purple

When my bro in Houston sends me email, the subject is usually Texas A&M football, but occasionally we exchange views on current political issues. Most recently, the topic for discussion was the color purple. We tossed around ideas about whether a Democrat would ever be elected to a statewide office in Texas during our remaining lifetimes.

With that discussion recently completed, I came across a Washington Monthly news feed on Facebook that linked to their article on the same issue. The writer looks at recent voting patterns in Texas and projects four scenarios for the 2014 election; Democrats don't net fifty percent of the vote in any of them. Democrats who are pumped up by the Wendy Davis filibuster of the Senate abortion bill need to calm down. For the time being, white people still control elections in Texas, and they vote Republican.

Farts

Jerry Brown says Rick Perry's radio advertising buy urging California businesses to relocate to Texas is so miniscule as to be meaningless, but that isn't exactly how he put it.

Bad Ideas

Some people just can't leave well enough alone. We don't need an annual football game between the Aggies and Longhorns, and we definitely do NOT need a state law requiring one. In Texas, even the Democratic legislators are ignorant dipshits.

Birther Update

Those mutha fuggas crazy.

Primarily

According to a report in the Dallas paper, the Associated Press is projecting that Dewhurst and Cruz will decide the GOP nomination for Kay Bailey's Senate seat in a runoff, and from what I've read, Cruz would be favored to win a one-on-one match against Dewhurst. This is unfortunate for the state of Texas, because as little use as I have for Dewhurst, he's still way better than that damned Cruz. For some reason, Texas is determined to fill every elected office at the state and national level with worthless assholes.

Memorabilia

Just what brain-dead Texas Republicans have been crying for -- the Rick Perry action figure. Available in fine stores soon. And for the record, this may be the gayest action doll ever manufactured. Did they ever make a Truman Capote doll ?

Testing 1-2-3

In the ongoing crusade to avoid tax increases at all costs, Republicans in the state legislature are taking meat axes to the public school system. An editorial in the Dallas Morning News discusses the latest development in the conservative war on intelligence.

Sunday thoughts on two-bit political operations

The Austin American Statesman has a good article today concerning the state legislature's struggle to find a few billion dollars that are sitting in a drawer somewhere, waiting to be applied like a band-aid to the Texas budgetary shortfall. Good luck with that, boys.

There's a picture of Sen. Dan Patrick accompanying the article. Looks like he's carrying enough blubber around to be a serious contender for the 2012 nomination. Patrick is apparently a big wheel in the Houston-area tea party operation, meaning he's an elected official without the experience or other qualifications to be a first-rate legislator -- exactly the kind of bozo that today's Texans typically want representing their interests in Austin.

For discussion's sake, let's generously concede that 45 percent of Americans tend to identify themselves as Republicans. The actual number is probably closer to 35 percent, but who's counting ? Then let's assume about 65 percent of Republicans fall into the category of tea party supporters. If my calculations are accurate, the percentage of Americans who could be classified as tea party supporters is around 30 percent. Even if I'm off by ten percent, teapeople are still a minority of around 40 percent. This country has somehow managed to turn a lot of political power over to people who represent an ideological minority.

Most Americans readily say they're in favor of less government spending. Personally, I'd prefer less money pumped into foreign aid, subsidies to agribusiness giants, and overseas engagements like the war in Iraq. My neighbors probably have a different list of cuts they want to see. Politicians who promise less government spending and fewer taxes have an easier time winning elections than those who don't, as Walter Mondale learned the hard way. But American voters have an unfortunate tendency to settle for platitudes and cliches from candidates rather than demanding specific details on the budget slashing they're planning, and therefore always get the government they deserve.

 Sen. Dan Patrick, former Limbaugh wannabe, now the voice of the Texas Tea-dium Party

Paranoia

What we have here is a solution in search of a problem. The massive voting fraud that the photo ID requirement is supposed to eliminate exists only in the vivid imaginations of right-wing zealots obsessed with the peculiar idea that Mexico is trying to re-conquer Texas one wetback at a time.

Looking back at Ronnie Reagan

If he'd held on a little longer, Ronald Reagan would've been 100 years old this month. The anniversary of his birth has been treated with more reverence than the anniversary of Jesus Christ's birth by Republicans kneeling in reverence before his shrine.

I was in mid-career during RWR's eight years in the White House, and the anti-welfare policies, rhetoric and "welfare Cadillac" mythology of the Reagan administration made my life measurably more difficult. The welfare reform policies of the time were known as monthly reporting and retrospective budgeting, and were apparently designed to drive the working poor off benefit programs like food stamps. Instead of traditional prospective budgeting, in which future benefits were based on anticipated income, the Reagan policies mandated retrospective budgets in which NEXT month's benefits were based on LAST month's actual income. Clients with earnings were required to provide written reports and documentary proof of all income every month. For example, all income received in January had to be reported and verified by early February. During February, agency caseworkers would re-budget the case and authorize benefits for March based on January's actual income. If John Doe had an income increase due to overtime in January, his March benefits were reduced even though his income was less due to fewer hours.

Republicans claimed the new system would eliminate fraud and ensure benefits that were accurate to the penny. In reality, every state had to design and implement a massive technological change to generate the monthly reporting forms and commit substantial manpower to processing the forms and adjusting benefits month-to-month. It was a classic example of Republican government, in which spending a thousand dollars to save ten dollars was considered cost-effective if it resulted in punishing poor people and state employee bureaucrats. Virtually every state protested the boondoggle and requested waivers with no luck.

In 1989, Bush 41 replaced Reagan in the White House. To its credit, the Bush administration promptly scrapped monthly reporting and retrospective budgeting, and my life improved as a result. Still, eight years of Reagan's fantasies about welfare queens driving Cadillacs to the food stamp office created a hostile anti-welfare mood among Texas taxpayers that helped George W. Bush become governor a few years later, leading to the privatization boondoggle.

More evangelunacy

I've noticed a lot of complaining lately by evangelical Christians about the way they're persecuted and how they're being forced into the shadows. But a few of them have escaped the ghetto and been elected to the Texas Board of Education. This bunch of lunatics has decided that Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the founders of the country and has been immortalized on Mount Rushmore, isn't a fit subject for inclusion in the Texas public school social studies curriculum. When I read about crap like this, the only conclusion I can reach is that the evangelunicals haven't been driven far enough from the public square.