Texas Values And Other Tall Tales
Inside the last week of Texas lawmaking, where facts go to die and bills get weirder by the hour.
https://www.lonestarleft.com/p/texas-values-and-other-tall-tales
Last night, I re-read the article I wrote yesterday and realized I called Texas Republicans “stupid” at least five times. That wasn’t very nice of me. I meant to do it six.
But in all seriousness, calling them stupid isn’t fair. Republicans aren’t stupid. They’re just chronically allergic to facts, hostile to nuance, and deeply committed to the ancient art of legislating by gut feeling. It’s not a lack of intelligence, but a talent for ignoring anything requiring reflection, research, or reading past the headline.
So no, we shouldn’t call Republicans stupid. Even when they work very hard to earn it. We should call them what they are, which is dangerously unqualified to govern in a functioning democracy.
With only seven days left in the Legislative session, I plan to approach this next week with a light-hearted tone. We should laugh at them instead of letting them get under our skin. Because humor is sometimes the only shield we’ve left against the absurdity of watching elected officials confuse petty performance with policymaking.
Let’s talk about meat.
Specifically, Briscoe Cain’s (R-HD128) burning desire to protect his God-given right to shove meat into his mouth without interference from science, progress, or anything remotely resembling the 21st century. During the final debate on SB261, which bans the sale of lab-grown meat in Texas, Cain treated us to a deeply unhinged TED Talk on why Texans must be saved from the horrors of “cell-cultured protein.”