Update: Some of you said you want to be involved with Battle Ground Texas. As noted in the comments v2aggie2 said the organization will start up next month. I'll post a diary as soon as I learn more.
Cross posted on Texas Kaos.
I am very excited to learn that a national effort is moving into the once great state of Texas. The goal is to flip Rick Perry's right wing hell hole back to its heart and soul as a fair, normal, national and democratic state that cares about its people.
Imagine Texas before former Governor G.W. Bush and Rick Perry ruined it. That would be the Texas of the incomparable Molly Ivins and the amazing Ann Richards. These tough ladies could see right through the antics and willful jackassery of the likes of the Bushes and Rick perry.
What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols. Molly Ivins.
Here's looking at you George P. Bush, yet another Bush carpetbagger who intends to use the once great state of Texas as a launching pad by which to serve his personal political ambitions. That and line his pockets to follow in the footsteps of his dear and beloved uncle W.
We've seen this horror show too many times before. We have been punished too much by smoke and mirrors budgets, toxic caldrons of far right ideologies and right wing nuttery for far too long. No more Bushes. No more Perrys. Never again.
As in never.
Go back to your home state of Florida, George P.
Oh wait. Florida's demographics must be far too purple to shut down voter recounts or suppress minority voters, anymore. Poor Texas.
Texas is a very complicated place. It is a huge state that boasts two time zones and a vast plethora of mixed rural and urban regions. A city like Houston is a global melting pot. A colorful rainbow of diversity, the city is bursting with thriving businesses, and stellar academic and research institutions. And because it tends to be fairly progressive and tolerant (Houston proper, that is) it is easy for transplants like me to ignore the fact that Houston also happens to be in Texas.
Well, it is easy to forget until someone like Rick Perry, Louie Gohmert or Debbie Riddle appear on the scene.
Worse, neoconservative chicken hawk who is apparently wearing Dick Cheney's training pants, Ted Cruz, is even scarier than the others, if that is possible.
Slick and divisive Ted knows how to work a room filled with rabid right wing war mongers. Think Sarah Palin dressed in a guy's suit and one who holds an advanced degree. The Tea Party people in Texas see Rafael Ted as a future Supreme Court Justice. For, according to them, he is a "white Cuban" who holds deeply religious values.
Alas, despite its Republican clowns, lunatics, political snake oil dealers and crony capitalists, Texas is hardly a terrible place. It has its beauty and its charm. It has a beautiful coast line. There are some pretty amazing vineyards, too. Most of the folks here are friendly, kind and very generous. The good people of Houston opened their homes, arms and wallets to offer refuge to the victims of Katrina in 2005. They (we) would do it again in a New York City nano-second.
The state has certainly produced its fair share of famous people such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, LBJ, Dr. Denton Cooley, Dan Rather, Sandra Day O'Conner, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Janis Joplin to name just a few.
Unfortunately politicians like W., Guv Oops and Dick Cheney's under study, mean boy Ted Cruz give the once great state of Texas a bad name.
Rick Perry and his right wing base of the Texas Taliban, secessionists, racists, xenophobes, misogynists and homophobes make the place seem like a three ringed circus that is run by its clowns.
In Rick Perry's Texas "conservative values" translates into greed, corruption, crony capitalism and the bashing of women and voter's rights. That and they seem to enjoy punishing poor women.
Nothing is sacred in a state that is poisoned by crony capitalism and right wing extremism. Even noble endeavors such as the state funded Cancer Institute (CPRIT) can become a sullied cash cow for Rick Perry's political appointees well as the donors to the CPRIT Foundation. Which is why folks who do not trust or support Rick Perry get nervous when we see articles like this on the front page of the Houston Chronicle.
Perry has a surprise in his State of the State address
Heaven help us all. Seasoned realists like me wonder how many taxpayers will get thrown under the bus while Rick Perry gins up more schemes by which he can keep rewarding his crony donors.
And just when we think we've heard the worst from Rick Perry and the Texas GOP at home, their soul mates in Washington D.C. step up to show off their intolerance, cowardice and lack of leadership where immigration reform is concerned.
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