Uh oh, HOT DOG!

Texas' government might go BOOM!  Why do you ask?  Well, the state has a $25 billion hole in its plot of its $1.2 trillion budget called a "deficit".  It's big enough to drive a mad truck, train, and plain through it.  However, pro-business pundits bills Texas a shining example of a "lean, mean, business-friendly" state, but what can they do if their majority healthcare and educational budget state going to do if they can't fill it?

In the Dallas Morning News back in October, newly re-elected Texas governor Rick Perry said on the campaign trail that he would be for doing away with Medicaid and Medicare-funded sCHIP (state Childrens' Insurance Program) altogether.  Now he is really trying to piss off the Babyboomers whom are the core of his voting base because if they can't get their health care then his ass will be burnt like toast.

Well, that's the $64,000 question that the GOP super-majority-led Texas State Legislature will have to figure out in the next few months...

Another party switcher in Texas

I'm continuing my series of post-election Democrat-to-Republican party switchers across the South.  Today's state of choice is Texas!  Yeah Texas, you guys are apart of the South, LOL!  Anyways, on to more serious business.  On Wednesday, a Hispanic American Democrat, Aaron Peña, of Texas's 40th house district, decided to jump ship and join the GOP super-majority in the Texas State House.  The kicker is this dude is representative from Hidalago County, i.e. "Rio Grande Valley" of South Texas also known as the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area, which has a solid non-white majority and very Democratically oriented politically.  Peña should know his political career is dead-on-arrival after this term and the treachery of switching parties after an election where he was elected as a member of one party then switch.  Oh yeah, Alan Ritter, a white Democrat turned Republican, of Texas' 21st house district switched as well on the same day, but his district is considered a "toss-up" politically speaking since it's not as diverse and of the average Southern demographics (if you know what I mean) in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area of Southeast Texas.  


I have to say the optimism in politics is at an all-time high at the moment...


(h/t to Burnt Orange and Mean Rachel) 

Why Erykah Badu? Why?

Why would you think it was a good idea for your black ass to film a music video without a permit in Dealey Plaza of the central business district of Dallas and then strip nude in front of a group of majority white bystanders?
Hello?  You are in TEXAS for all sense and purposes; although you are a native of the region, you KNOW this is the Bible Belt and one of the most socially conservative states in the Union. SMDH! 



Personally, I think it is a good song, but the video sucks ass.  Reeks of low-budgetness compared to the other videos I know of in her decade and half long music career, so WTF?  It's not really artistic when you are trying to make a psuedo-sociopolitical statement in your hometown when nobody including your fans doesn't even get it...

Now you have the simple-minded white suburbanites of the Metroplex blogging and talking about how "indecent",  "unartistic", and "needs to be rebuked" along with the Dallas City Council is looking to tighten its city ordinances on film production within the city limits.  On top of that now you have to deal with a disorderly conduct charge within Dallas Municipal Court.  I'm just saying if you going to make a point then at least make on that is solvent or coherent to the point that most of us would understand what you are trying to say rather than looking like a desperate attention whore in anticipation of your latest album.   Going to jail over something that is miscellaneous like this when you could be protesting much more important things like the economic and social issues then you are a lost soul truly.

Houston's mayor issues all encompassing executive orders including ethnicity, race, sexuality, and gender identity

According to the Houston Chronicle, Houston's first LGBT mayor, Annise Parker, has issueed 2 executive orders including all city employees from discrimination, slurs, or harassment including race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, and gender identity.  This order essentially extends the order issued by former Houston mayor and Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Bill White, which included all homosexual and bisexual city employees after Dallas.  This first order now includes transgenders city employees and the second one prohibits in form of harassment or intimidation based on the aforementioned category of groups.

However, all within Houston municipal government is showing much enthusiasm associated with the orders like City Attorney Arturo Michel, who said the city orders only extend to city employees only. This leaves individual citizens vulnerable existing ordinances which pretty much excludes transgenders.  Also the socially conservative community activist, Dave Wilson, who campaigned against Parker in last year's mayor's race because of the fact that she is openly gay, said he fears the executive orders may be “only the beginning” of city efforts to strengthen gay rights under Parker's leadership. 

Oh hell, oh well!  I mean Houston is now one of the 4th largest city in the nation, so if they are going to hold the title then it's best they act as if they are a major city.  The fact those naysayers are whining shows that the South still has a long way to go before as a whole it's a more progressive region although this is the 4th largest municipality in the U.S. 

Road rankings and Georgia still fairs better than Alabama

In the Readers' Digest ranking where they looking at the quality of roads and the most deadliest states for DUI, speeding tabulated from the Federal Transportation Administration from 2009.  According to the rankings, Alabama is the 9th deadliest state for roads in general and driving under the influence of a controlled substance and #1 for speeding.  The good news is Alabama has the 28th best roads in the nation based on the quality rankings.  However, our eastern neighbor, Georgia, has the 9th best roads based on the quality rankings, but is 20th deadliest state for roads overall.  Other Southern states are as followed: Tennessee was #19 for best roads, #15 for deadliest roads; Mississippi was #38 for best roads, 6th for deadliest roads and DUI, and 2nd deadliest for speeding; South Carolina was #35 for best roads, 3rd deadliest roads and deadliest for speeding, and 2nd deadliest for DUI; North Carolina was #36 for best roads and 17th for deadliest roads; Florida was 20th for best roads and 14th deadliest roads; Louisiana has the nation's worst roads (#50), 2nd deadliest roads, and 3rd deadliest for DUI; Arkansas was #31 for best roads, 5th for deadliest roads and #10 for deadliest for DUI; Texas was 29th for best roads, 16th for deadliest, 8th for deadliest for DUI, and 10th for deadliest for speeding; Oklahoma was 46th for best roads and 11th deadliest; Virginia was #9 for best roads and 40th for deadliest; Finally, Kentucky was 34th for best roads and  7th for deadliest.  The link for the full list is here.

However, the Southern states got mixed reviews, but the larger states were the ones with better roads than the smaller ones who seem to all rank poorly on the good rankings.

Oh, WOW! Step away for a week and all hell breaks loose...

In Virginia, Bob McConnell pretty much tells his own State Attorney General to STFU on the whole removal of non-discriminatory language from state colleges and universities.  McConnell's own words:  "It was very important for me... to say discrimination will not be tolerated, and there will be sanctions for anyone that engages in discrimination."  Now, that's what I call COMEDY!  He told Mr. Cuccinelli to shut his shit the fuck up on the political grandstanding against LGBTs in Virginia.  Also McConnell is covering his own ass so he won't be seen as an overt bigot but not as a "traitor" to the socially conservative cause. 

The officials in Itawamba County, Mississippi, decided to cancel the main county high school's prom because of a lesbian couple want to attend together as a couple.  Now, unlike what went down at Thraptown High School in Franklin County last year in Northwest Alabama, these students both attend this high school, so the circumstances have a more internalized effect.  Whereas, the Franklin County situation was their "justification" of outside-of-district, but it was soon resolved when the lack of logic and rationale of the argument was exposed for the world to see.  However, in the case of Itawamba County in Northern Mississippi, the officials are standing by their guns so one of the teens has filed a lawsuit against the school district in federal court.  In all likelihood, she will win because the school isn't violating any real policies since they are both students of the school at an event just hosted by not an official event of the school. 

In Texas, a state that I've always considered a lost cause socially and politically, the state board of education has approved a referendum that would enforce an ultra-conservative curriculum in state public schools.  An ultra-conservative faction within the Texas Board of Education was successful in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.  They want to remove mentions of the Enlightenment period and Thomas Jefferson from the state curriculum and replace these with the discussion of John Calvin and the Judeo-Christian ideology of the nation.  Also mention the nation is not a democracy, but constitutional republic.  Now, that is true about the last part, but the rest is bologna.  However, I stand my statement that Texas is a lost cause politically because it is one of those places where you see more ignorance-based emotional foolishness pedaled than logic.  Let's be real, the only real election there is the Republican elections because outside of Dallas, Houston, and Austin, there is little to any progressiveness in the state, and even then I wouldn't waste my time trying to move there.  Honestly, Austin doesn't count because it is too damn whitewashed for politically because the non-white population is too small to make any real affect, so that "Keep Austin Weird" crap is for the birds.  It's a crazy state where you have to give the side-eye to altogether. 
 
Also in Oklahoma, another lost cause, the state senate has approved a bill that would become an amendment of the state constitutional allowing the law enforcement to chose not to assist federal officials in the investigation of hate crimes.  Here's some of the bill's language:  Under the new provisions of Senate Bill 1965, reports that were collected during investigations of possible hate crime that did not end in a conviction would be destroyed or kept by the Oklahoma Bureau of Invesigations.  The bill originally was to investigate the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association, but state senator Steve Russell, a socially conservative Republican from Oklahoma City and former army commander at Fort Hood in Texas, was the one who perverted the bill into its current form.  I'm going to take some words from Dr. Martin Luther King, "an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere".  Especially in a racially-aversive state like Oklahoma, where if you are non-white, LGBT/SGL, or anything out of the WASPy-ordinary then you are subject to be a victim of this ignorant law.

Meanwhile, here in Alabama, a caravan of idiots, OOPS!  I mean Birmingham City Council members, mayor, and some of their staffers are going to the National League of Cities conference in DC this week.  However, they are practically leaving the city without any really leadership.  The jackal, William Bell, just announced last week that the city is going to have to make cost-cutting measures such as delaying funding and contracts for the rest of the fiscal year, yet he along with the rest of the caravan of idiots are going to DC blowing $31,000 of city funds.  Now, Carole Smitherman is staying behind and politically grandstanding saying "somebody has to man the shop".  Yeah, the judgment is clear that all of the leadership in Birmingham is idiotic and irresponsible as hell as far as I'm concerned.  Who in the fuck goes on a trip and then takes their staffers as well to when you have a $77 million gaping hole in the budget?  Smitherman, you are just as irresponsible as the rest in my book because you knew what has been going on since jump and just trying to reconcile your reputation with folks, but it's tarnished so save the drama for ya mama.  SMDH

Oh yeah, the jackal and that xenophobic third-generation Greek immigrant mayor of Hoover, Tony Petelos, wanted to question the financing of the monstrosity that is being forced-fed on people in the Greater Birmingham area.  Here's a clue you two morons, why don't you flat out and oppose the thing instead allowing this bullshit to be constructed? Also the Battle Royale of 2 white women with power trips is amusing to me, Jefferson County Commission President Bettye Fine Collins and Jefferson County Treasury Jennifer Parsons Champion over the distribution of federal funds that were allocated from the federal stimulus package last year.  CUTE, BUT YOU BITCHES ARE BOTH STUPID...

That's what been going on that I want to talk about in the past week, and I'll be back to regularly posting probably this week...