The one thing that will sink the GOP’s chances of taking the White House is their sense of priority. Let’s face it most people just don’t give a hoot about what the GOP screams the loudest about… and of course Texas, as usual, is screaming the loudest of the loudest…
Tea Party cruises to wins in Texas Republican primary runoffs
Texas Republicans aligned with Tea Party darling Ted Cruz were projected to win primary runoffs on Tuesday for two of the state’s most powerful posts,
SOURCE: Tea Party cruises to wins in Texas Republican primary runoffs – Yahoo News.
What makes Texas so different from the rest of the U.S.? They seem to be off the edge in so much of what they do.
Maybe its the water? They have lots of two foot deep reservoirs built by a Democrat LBJ while he was in Washington. Maybe they have a one-of-a-kind fungus that affects the brain.
Maybe it is all that dust and sage brush? – I have been to Texas several times. A few of those trips were by car and I can say Texas is mostly parched land and sagebrush. Maybe something about that affects people?
Maybe it is those longhorn cattle? – You just don’t see those cows anywhere else.
I just don’t know what makes people who live there as strange as they are. When the company I was working for shut down the Indianapolis facilities I moved to New Jersey for four years to finish out my pension. My best friend of a couple of decades moved to Texas. But something happened to him and his wife. We kept in touch for a few years but their strange behavior caused us to go our separate ways. We visited them once but they were just not the same people they were. Another glaring thing was that the house they lived in, although recently new construction, was falling apart. There were cracks in the walls, molding coming loose, paint peeling and the strange thing was they didn’t even seem to notice?
Ted Cruz seems to be the darling of so many of those folks. I just can’t understand that! What is it about Texas?
Ms. Alexander was found guilty in May 2012 of discharging a deadly weapon near her estranged husband and newborn baby. She countered that she had long been abused by her husband and had fired the shot as a warning for him not to get any closer to her during what was becoming a physical altercation. He was not injured.
Under Florida law, people have no duty to retreat from danger before fighting back, even with deadly force. But a judge ruled that the stand-your-ground law didn’t apply in Alexander’s case. After a jury found her guilty, the judge sentenced her to 20 years in prison, citing Florida’s tough minimum sentencing laws, even though Alexander had never before been in trouble with the law.
SOURCE: Florida mom to get new trial: Did court detect a ‘stand your ground’ inequity? – CSMonitor.com.
I might be coming to a conclusion on not enough facts but this story seems to reek of racism to me. A black person who simply discharged a gun near someone who is allegedly abusing her gets 20 years in prison even though no one was hurt and a person who shot and killed a kid who was simply walking in his neighborhood gets off free! I know there is a wide variety of so-called justice within the States but I can’t understand how these two events could happen under the same judicial system?
But then again the folks in Florida continue to confuse me. If we are to believe the common knowledge Florida has a much higher population of senior citizens than most other State. I am one to believe that as we age we gain wisdom that we didn’t have in younger years. I know that is certainly true for me! But that doesn’t seem to be the case in this instance.
Florida just confuses me I guess. How can a State that is made up mostly of senior citizens be so careless in dishing out “justice” and where is the outcry if that is not so? Now Texas I can possibly understand in these modes. They have an inordinate amount of “shoot-from-the-hip” cowboys in that State who relish living in the 19th century. To them the only really important things are their guns and their particular version of God. They seem to have little compassion or understanding for anyone else. But Florida, at least demographically, is much different. Could it be the polluting effects of the Bush boys being governors? 🙂
I guess now that I have dissed both Florida and Texas in another post I better stop. But as my hero Will Rogers says they are the ones giving me the material, I just report it with my version of spin…..
October is America’s Deadliest Month of 2013
Unless we pray and work to change things, 8 people are set to be killed in October.
Marshall Gore on October 1 in Florida – KILLED LAST NIGHT BY THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Michael Yowell on October 9 in Texas
Edward Schad on October 9 in Arizona
William Happ on October 15 in Florida
Larry Hatten on October 16 in Texas
Allen Nicklasson on October 23 in Missouri
Robert Jones on October 23 in Arizona
and Arthur Brown on October 29 in Texas
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/upcoming-executions
SOURCE: Shane Claiborne: October Executions | Red Letter Christians.
Since this data directly relates to this mornings post I though I would include in a afternoon post.
Let me say up front that like Shane Claiborne who authored the above post I am pro-life. That means I value life before it is born and after. Unlike many of my conservative friends who are only against abortion, Shane and I and millions of others don’t think that any government or any earthly body should decide who should live and who should die. That decision must be left up to God and God alone.
It is interesting to note that five of the eight executions that are scheduled this month are from Texas and Florida. Another rouge State, namely Arizona, accounts for two of the other three. Why these three States execute several more people than the other forty-eight combined? What is in the mentality that causes this to happen. I would really like to know? Are the people of those States aligned with their leaders in government in this regard and if they aren’t then why do they continue to elect them to office?
I mourn all life that is taken at the hands of men and that certainly included the victims of the above group but execution is not justice it is pure and simple revenge and the Almighty made it clear that vengeance belongs to him not us.
It is a fact that when you look at Texas and Florida they are first in many areas. They are the execution capitals of the world. They do the most to inhibit the vote. They are two of the most radically conservative States. But, now I learn that they also have the highest uninsured rates in the country.
It seems that Texas and Florida just don’t like poor people very much. They have the highest uninsured rates and they are determined to remain so by not producing a Statewide exchange. That fact does not really surprise me at all as they are so adamantly against anything that is associated with Democrats. The folks who they choose to run their states live up to the phrase “biting off your nose to spite your face”. After the massive plant explosion recently in Texas I know they don’t do much to protect their citizens in any regard. Even though these State are supposedly the heart of the bible belt the “least of these” seem to mean nothing to them.
I really want to believe that the folks in these two States are caring and loving individuals but from what I can glean from recent events that just doesn’t seem to be the case. I hate writing off entire groups of people. I would love to hear some stories about how these folks live up to the title of being a caring and compassionate with those outside their immediate families.
Texas has always prided itself on its free-market posture. It is the only state that does not require companies to contribute to workers’ compensation coverage. It boasts the largest city in the country, Houston, with no zoning laws. It does not have a state fire code, and it prohibits smaller counties from having such codes. Some Texas counties even cite the lack of local fire codes as a reason for companies to move there.
But Texas has also had the nation’s highest number of workplace fatalities — more than 400 annually — for much of the past decade. Fires and explosions at Texas’ more than 1,300 chemical and industrial plants have cost as much in property damage as those in all the other states combined for the five years ending in May 2012. Compared with Illinois, which has the nation’s second-largest number of high-risk sites, more than 950, but tighter fire and safety rules, Texas had more than three times the number of accidents, four times the number of injuries and deaths, and 300 times the property damage costs…..
“The Wild West approach to protecting public health and safety is what you get when you give companies too much economic freedom and not enough responsibility and accountability,” said Thomas O. McGarity, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and an expert on regulation.
SOURCE: After Explosion, Texas Remains Wary of Regulation – NYTimes.com.
The source article above is about the fertilizer plant that blew up a few months ago and killed many people in the area. But the primary stimulant for this post was another article that showed that Texas is the number one State when it comes to nursing home abuse. They get a solid “F” in that area. Plainly speaking, they just seem to be more interested some self-perceived independence than they are about the safety and security of their citizens. Especially those who can’t take care of themselves.
Texas has always been a very confusing State to me. The mentality there seems to be all about bravado. In order to avoid confusion here is the definition I am using for bravado: a pretentious, swaggering display of courage. Synonyms – brag, bluster, bombast. Many, including their most recent U.S. Senator are just too pretentious (I am trying to be polite by using this word) for me.
Texas just seems to be the ultimate dichotomy. They are a glowing example of opposites. On the one hand they probably have more Christian mega-churches than any other State and they scream the loudest when it comes to certain Christian principles but they are also the execution capital of the world. If they really held to their Christian principles they would understand the concept of their bother’s keepers. But instead they repeatably try to repeal a health care law that would provide healthcare to 30 million of their brothers and have nothing to replace it with. They just seem to have no understanding of being a good Samaritan really means.
They elect the most radical of radicals to represent them in Washington. Are the people themselves actually that much distanced from the rest of us. Texas just plain confuses me? At times I kind of wish they would go off and form their own country as they frequently threaten….
RJ's Corner - Old Version 