"There is no way in the world that abortion is going to be abolished. It has been going on ever since man and woman lived together on this earth,” Barry Goldwater, father of modern conservatism, Aug. 6, 1992. On July 19, our indicted and under FBI investigation Attorney General Ken Paxton, with the support of eleven State Senators and sixty-one Texas House Representatives (all Republicans and only nine women), filed with the Texas Supreme Court a brief banning abortion. The never-before enforced law calls for up to ten years imprisonment for doctors who perform abortions. According to Quorum Report, the law could also allow for the prosecution of women who self-terminate with medication.
Two of the women legislators who signed on to Paxton's action have extensive backgrounds in women's health. One of them is a healthcare profiteer and the other one knows better. Therefore, we should assume that they both know what the 1925 law would do. Girls and women will die.
Yes. Women and girls will die. But at least Paxton helped to make one thing clear. Why we need an independent electoral revolt. To rid Texans of big and intrusive government!
Here's some butter for your independent political grits:
As I write, Texans are sitting in our homes in record heat, worrying about whether our AC will stay on in the "Energy Capital of the World." To make things worse, we continue to watch our communities get paved over and water polluted by tax-subsidized real estate developments while our property taxes skyrocket!
Not 40 miles from the Pink Dome rural Texans in House District 17 -- Bastrop, Burleson, Lee, and Milam counties -- have witnessed their water stolen from under them, with no end in sight. Last December, corporate giant Samsung received nearly $300 million in subsidies for their chip plant in Williamson County. Media outlets hardly reported how Milam County, already besieged by the Vista Ridge / San Antone Hose, got snookered out of a vast amount of its groundwater for the plant -- the biggest subsidy of all. We independents told you about it: -- more here from LIV.
Now we are hearing of 11 MORE plants for which Samsung is demanding MORE subsidies which will require a lot MORE water! (Austin-American Statesman.)
"They're waving a shiny object at us while their paymasters make off with the cash," responded my pro-life conservative GOP voting friend and public utility watchdog about the repeated calls by the GOP for NO abortions.
What is this abortion obsession about?
Suppose the father of modern American conservatism were alive today. I believe he would call Texas a "ninny state" – the nanny state gone off its meds -- for never-ending interference with something that is none of the government's business.
What is the government's fundamental business? To do for citizens what private businesses cannot. To levy taxes and provide select public services. Yet four of the Senators who signed on to Paxton's brief were in office in 2006 when the Texas Appraisal District Association blew the whistle on favoritism of corporations over Texas homeowners regarding tax valuations of property. The tax study by TADA revealed that, on average, large-scale commercial properties were undervalued a whopping 40% resulting in a $4 billion per year giveaway to big real estate.
Ironically, one of the Senators who signed the brief claims to be the property tax watchdog in the Legislature. On his watch, I figure we homeowners and renters are picking up the tab for more like a $12 billion per year loss in property taxes, subsidizing us into the poor house. And to be perfectly fair, most leading big municipal Democrats are also guilty as sin about this travesty.
It goes without saying that State Officials and the Texas Legislature should stop playing the busy body and mind its business; the business of open, honest and transparent government for all us Texans.
PS I am sure that if my Republican opponent, Stan Gerdes (Rick Perry's Poodle), were our HD17 representative today, he would sign on to Paxton's brief in a New York minute.
-- Linda Curtis, co-founder, Independent Texans, independent candidate for Texas House District 17.