The Texas Legislature is getting down “M.C. Hammer” style as they open a new Special Session after the Regular Session ended. That first session was one in which Gov. Good Hair made sure he had bills covering all his political bases locked and loaded. Taking sonograms of fetuses before abortions was an emergency for legislators. The emergency of school funding in shambles was not.
The bill succumbed in what seemed like a sensible death in the Texas Senate after the federal government threatened to close Texas airports had the bill passed. Had such a restriction been passed for police, as they were about to search a suspect on the side of the road or in a law enforcement office or jail, I’m sure the bill would have dropped faster than one of my cell phone calls.
Offensive as it seems for Transportation Security Administration workers or those private security personnel who handle the same duties at certain other airports to search an old lady or a baby or even an airline pilot, no one seemed to really mind it so much after those planes hit the World Trade Center, The Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania on 9/11/01.
I have never been frisked by a TSA person even though I’ve had my disagreements with some. Last week when I traveled to and from Kansas City I had a lengthy jaunt through the X-ray machines what with a CPAP and two computers. I ended up using eight containers to put all my stuff in before they went through the machines, leaving my shoes for last. The Kansas City airport (MCI) has its security operated by a private contractor. I don’t know why, but they seemed exceptionally nice during this visit. The lady checking the IDs was just as sweet as she could be.
These bills to prohibit “groping” by airport security are among the most ridiculous examples of Puritanism that can be found since Puritanism was cool. Such proposals make its Tea Party proponents seem like they might easily coexist with theTaliban.
So, my suggestion, and I think it one worthy of consideration, is to send all of these Dark Ages Americans to the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan and let them bear witness as missionaries to the Taliban. Who knows what either side might find. Just one thing to remember, no back slapping the Talilban and no crotch-grabbing the Tea Partiers.
BACK IN TEXAS — Coy seems to be the watchword these days among the growing crowd of would-be candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets ready to lead the secession
These GOP politicians who otherwise take up valuable air on this planet are, of course, joined by declared candidates his Mormonesque Mitt Romney, his Newtwitishness Newt Gingrich, his Weirdness Ron Paul and other well and less well known Republicans such as pro-Pot former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and pro-anything that works at the time former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Coy. The rest are being coy. Coy can be cute. But it’s not so much in this case.
Soon you will need a program for the players. And, I am not talking about a television program hosted by his Donaldness Donald “The Donald” Trump.
Such a wide-open field makes for a more-interesting race sometimes. In this case, the race might evolve into a contest in which of the biggest harebrain crackpots might be nominated rather than the traditional GOP “good party man.” If this next presidential challenge doesn’t finish off the Republican Party as we know it, then I don’t know what will.
But what if the dog actually catches the car? What will Fido do with it?
My prediction is that a Republican president taking office in 2013 will not be the cure-all for all those, supposedly, long-suffering GOP and/or Tea Party boosters. An example is the furor over the state of Texas failing to receive a major disaster declaration from Spring wildfires.
FEMA rejected a request earlier this month by Gov. Good Hair for a declaration that would help reduce the state and local fiscal burden for those wildfires that have scorched more than 2.2 million acres across Texas. Perry said at the time of the rejected request: “It is not only the obligation of the federal government, but its responsibility under law to help its citizens in times of emergency.”
This is the same governor who shocked millions of Americans by saying Texas could secede if it wanted to do so.
“We are very proud of our Texas history; people discuss and debate the issues of can we break ourselves into five states, can we secede, a lot of interesting things that I’m sure Oklahoma and Pennsylvania would love to be able to say about their states, but the fact is, they can’t because they’re not Texas,” Perry said.
The governor must have been tossing back cold Lone Stars at the Dixie Chicken when Texas History was being taught during his college days at A & M.
An 1845 joint congressional resolution annexing Texas allows, theoretically at least, the state to divide itself up into five states. That doesn’t mean Texas would leave the United States. The Civil War took care of that notion. That was after Texans turned their back on one of its most revered figures, then-Gov. Sam Houston. The leader whose troops defeated Mexico at San Jacinto and who was later president of the Republic of Texas and a U.S. senator for Texas — before Texas he also served as governor of and a U.S. representative from Tennessee — was removed as governor because of his strong opposition to secession.
In addition to the millions already granted to Texas, federal help has come in the form of wildland firefighters from 35 states. Many of those who have helped battle fires across the state are from so-called “hotshot” crewswhich come from three federal agencies, Native American tribes as well as from the states of Alaska and Utah. The U.S. military has likewise lent assistance in the form of helicopters and air tankers.
Having the federal government take an additional burden of the funding for fighting these fires would be welcome and might have been readily deliverable to the state. Unfortunately, Perry and his faux secession act as well as a number of Texas congressional members made that declaration a non-starter.
An increasing number of Republicans were elected to the U.S. House from Texas over the past decade. Yet, few of them have found access to power and have spent more time obstructing and less time working with the administration. Congress members from the state with more tenure and more oomph might have grabbed the president’s ear or found ways to, as that great scholar Larry the Cable Guy says: “Git R Done.”
It seems cruel to say that voters who think the federal government should fork over millions every time their governor says: “Go,” only have themselves to blame. But that is about the gist of it. People who want ideologues in office and get them are often disappointed. Life isn’t easy to stand for your principles unbending. I have seen the word politics defined as “the art of compromise.” Perhaps it is more an inexact science. Although, “compromise” remains an essential particle.
When it comes to picking the next nominee to run against President Obama, perhaps something more substantial than nice hair and a pretty smile might be entertained by Republican voters.
Should agents of some future diabolical one-world government storm inside our homes and snatch away our fishing rods and reels — mine, when I get around to buying some more angling equipment again, will have to be snatched from my cold, dead hands — at least in Texas we may still catch plenty of those old catfish to keep us fat and happy. This is because the Texas Legislature passed a bill today that allows the practice of “noodling,”or hand-fishing.
Oklahoma noodling champ Lee McFarlin shows off a catch he made by hand. Luckily, he still has both of his arms.
Now granted, some Texans may have not known or cared that catching fish by hand in the state’s waters was illegal. But it is.The practice can land you a Class C misdemeanor offense featuring a $500 fine. And, I am uncertain as to this but if it is the same as other game violations in Texas, someone who commits such an act against wildlife also face a civil restitution fee. Now I don’t happen to know what the restitution value is for say a big ol’ blue cat, which can get big enough for you to call a wrecker to help pull it out, but the so-called “recovery value” for the animal can be found in the Texas Administrative Code:
” The recovery value of an individual fish shall be determined by adding the fish’s basic and recreational value for species which the Commission has designated as having recreational value for the purpose of civil restitution.”
Now on to the specifics:
“Recreational value for an individual fish is calculated by dividing the average value of an hour of fishing by the difference in total length between the state record fish and minimum hookable total length for that species and then multiplying that quotient by the total length in inches of the individual fish being valued, minus the minimum hookable total length for that species. This product is then adjusted for inflation by multiplying it by the quotient of the Consumer Price Index in the fiscal year the fish were killed, divided by the Consumer Price Index in the fiscal year the data were collected to determine the average value of an hour of fishing.”
That darned ol’ Consumer Price Index. It seems to just pop up everywhere.
Now let’s say that blue catfish that you and a buddy struggled with and which almost killed you both while pulling it out of an underwater stump weighed around 30 pounds. That’s pretty dad-burned big but hardly the record 121.5-pound monster that Cody Mullenix bagged in 2004 in Lake Texoma. Still, if you use the formula from the Texas Administrative Code then perhaps you better start pulling out that checkbook.
Even though the new law, if ultimately signed by our Goodhaired Gov. Rick, might save you some money one has to ask if the thrill of noodling is worth the loss of an arm?
Some old Cajun men once described to me the way they used to reach into underwater tree stumps and catch some enormous catfish. It sounded, to me, as a prime way to have one’s arm bit off, if not by a monstrous catfish, then perhaps by an alligator. Remember those daunting words from the brilliant songster Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses,” a one-armed man who hunted alligators for a living?
“He could trap the biggest, the meanest alligator, and just use one hand/That’s all he’s got left ’cause an alligator bit him/Left arm gone clean up to the elbow.”
More and more nowadays the Tea Party seems as if its prime target is the Republican Party. Sooner or later the GOP faces possible vaporization of the Whig Party type if the TP frustration with the Republicans finally reaches a China Syndrome phase.
“Mr. Gingrich, who seems not to mind “radical change” in his domestic life, is simply wrong about the Boehner-Ryan Medicare plan,” Temple says in a press release.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Temple goes on to criticize Gingrich while damning Ryan and Boehner with faint praise:
“It is not “radical. It is tame as a pussy cat,” says Temple. ” The Boehner-Ryan Medicare plan is to fix Medicare and Medicaid sometime way off in the future, in the sweet bye and bye. While Obama, Gingrich, Romney, Pelosi and Reid favor the essential tyranny behind ObamaCare – forced purchasing of a product – Boehner and Ryan have, up to now, been content to fiddle while Rome burns with regard to Medicare.”
Great stuff. With friends like Temple, the Republicans sure don’t need enemies although they’ve got them up the yang.
So, let the political allies tear themselves to shreds. I’m going fishing. Well, maybe not. Here is why.
Scott Jennings, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden, responded to a call back in March that a commercial fishing boat had pulled into Freeport with an 8-foot, short-fin mako shark. A Game Warden field reportstates that the crew told the Jennings that the shark had jumped into the boat’s stern as they were weighing anchor.
Yeah, right.
Incredibly, the shark flipped over the crewmen’s heads and landed forward beside the center console of the boat. The crew told the game warden that at one point, they had seriously considered abandoning the boat to the shark.
The report goes on to say that the shark couldn’t be removed from the boat without it being harmed so the game warden called up National Marine Fisheries Service agent Charles Tyer, who arranged the purchase of a “federal highly migratory species permit so that they could legally land the shark.”
Now that’s one hell of a fish story and a lot more fun to relate than the continuing soap-opera-like squabbles between the Republicans and the Tea Partiers.
There is no better place to get a monumental snapshot of America in the Depression-World War II years than on the Library of Congress Website. This photo, simply titled “East Texan,” was taken in Jacksonville, Texas, in October 1939 by renown photographer Russell Lee as part of the Depression-era federally-funded Farm Security Administration documentation project. If you can’t see the worth in this federal program through works of art such as these, then you probably just have no real appreciation for history. Lee would later become a professor of photography at the University of Texas in Austin.
