Y’all remember when Rick Perry’s solution to the drought was to pray for rain?

Well, the same people who came up with that bright idea decided that getting your child the measles vaccine is like an insult to Jesus.  You’re supposed to pray that your child doesn’t get measles.

Please meet Dr. Kenneth Copeland and his lovely wife.

Dr. Copeland and his family run Kenneth Copeland Ministries.

He’s far from the most vocal proponent of the discredited theory that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism, but, between his advocacy of faith healing and his promotion of the vaccine-autism link on his online talk show, he’s not exactly urging his flock to get their recommended shots.

Well, apparently to make up for the rain never coming, measles did.

The Texas Department of Health has issued a warning.  And where is the epicenter of his outbreak?  In Tarrant County where The Eagle Mountain International Church, shepherded by Kenneth Copeland’s daughter Terri, stands tall against sin and measles and all manner of other crap.other crap.

Now if you go to their website, they are stepping backward so fast that it’s amazing they aren’t in China by now.  For all I know, maybe they are because this internet thing goes a long ways.   I suspect they are also lawyering-up pretty quick.

I’m gonna tell you something I know for a fact.  Sweet Jesus really hates it when you jack with children.  Do not do that.  Sweet Jesus has a bit of a temper and had there been people jacking with children at he temple instead of moneychangers, there would have been blood.

I’m just warning you, Kenneth Copeland.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

The good folks in Michigan have come up with an idea.

Since we are testing the h-e-doubleL out of our kids in school, why not test the legislators and education committee members to see if they can pass the tests.

A bill in Lansing would put to the test the elementary school-level skills of Michigan’s 110 state representatives and 38 senators, as well as the governor, state superintendent of education and state Board of Education.

All would be required to take standardized tests required of Michigan’s third- eighth- and 11th-grade students under the proposed Mandatory Public School Test Validation Act. Their results would be posted online.

Remember Texas State Representative Jodie Laudenberg who thought emergency room rape kits “cleaned out” a rape victim?  And who had to have escorts to the podium when she was answering questions after that?

Honey, I not only believe that she couldn’t pass it but I think they’d have to have someone show her which end of the pencil to use.

I ain’t making any bets about David Dewhurst or Rick Perry either.

Thanks to Mike for the heads up.

Can a master debater who wore a paisley bathrobe to creepily stroll by the women’s wing of the dorm be the next president?

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Thanks to John A. Kwitkoski for great stuff.

It’s reassuring to us Texans when some foreign state’s Republicans lift the Stoopid Load off of Texas.

Vicki Marble: Pass the Chitlins

There’s Colorado, where Colorado State Senator Vicki Marble seems to have lost hers.

Prepare yourself.

“When you look at life expectancy, there are problems in the black race,” Marble said during a meeting of the legislature’s Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force. “Sickle-cell anemia is something that comes up. Diabetes is something that’s prevalent in the genetic makeup, and you just can’t help it. Although I’ve got to say, I’ve never had better barbecue and better chicken and ate better in my life than when you go down South and you, I mean, I love it. Everybody loves it.”

Now, mind yourself, because this is a woman who is on the state’s “Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force” and she thinks sickle cell anemia comes from fried chicken.

But she is not content to racially stereotype just African Americans.  No, siree, she’s on a roll.

Marble continued, “The Mexican diet in Mexico with all of the fresh vegetables, and you go down there and they are much thinner than they are up here. They’ve changed their diet. I’ve read studies on that.”

And when even her fellow Republicans reacted poorly to her statements, she was not backing down.

“My comments were not meant to be disparaging to any community,” she said. “I am saddened they were taken in that regard.

She didn’t say anything wrong, and now she’ll obviously have to add fried catfish and tortillas to her list of foods that cause people to misunderstand things.

Thanks to Brian for the heads up.

Texas Tea Party member Christina Katok was all over Barack Obama in 2008 because he was not a natural born citizen.  She believed he was born in Kenya and there ineligible for the job of President.

And here is Ms. Katok today:

Fast forward six years and another freshman U.S. senator, Canadian-born Tea Party firebrand Ted Cruz of Texas, is being mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate. But Katok, who would vote for Cruz in a heartbeat, doesn’t have any concerns about his eligibility.

“As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil,” she said. Katok said she was more disturbed by Obama’s “strong ties to Kenya,” the African country where his father was born.

You know, because there’s white people there.

Then there’s Sue Tiemann who freely admits that she thought Barack Obama would not be eligible to be President unless he was born in this county thinks Ted Cruz is eligible.

Tiemann, who said she has no doubt that Cruz is eligible to be president, acknowledged that party affiliation might have something to do with her evaluation of the circumstances.

“You are always going to have that issue between Republicans and Democrats, [who] always look at it with a different way, a different eye,” she said.

No, no, Honey.  It’s not about a different eye.  That’s why Lady Justice is blind.  If it’s wrong for Barack Obama, it’s wrong for Ted Cruz.  Lady Justice doesn’t see color.     The law is the law.

Except, of course, if you’re white and very greedy.

Thanks to Irene for the heads up.

I would trust a two year old with a set of felt tip markers alone in a room of priceless art before I would trust Texas Republicans with elections.  At least the two year old doesn’t know they’re harming anything, but Texas Republican know damn well they’d put a bullet between Thomas Jefferson’s eyes before they’d want a fair election.

It appears that the Department of Justice is aware of that, too.  Accordingly, they sued Texas yesterday over Voter ID and they also asked the court to authorize appointment of federal election observers in Texas.  You know, like some third world state banana oilfield republic.

So, our goofy Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is the kind of guy who can read but not to the end of the sentence, issues a frothing reply.  You can just picture little spittle things running down the sides of his mouth while writing this —

“Just days after the U.S. Department of Justice arrested a Texas woman for illegally voting five times in the same election, the Obama administration is suing to stop Texas’ commonsense voter ID law. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter ID laws do not suppress legal votes, but do help prevent illegal votes. Voter IDs have nothing to do with race and they are free to anyone who needs one. Eric Holder’s outrageous claim that voter ID is a racist plot to disenfranchise minority voters is gutter politics and is offensive to the overwhelming majority of Texans of all races who support this ballot integrity measure.

You know, I’d be doing a fire dance around the beating drums, too, if any of that were true.  It ain’t.

The case involved absentee ballot fraud and the Attorney General’s silly little voter ID law would do nothing about it.

According to the indictment against Solis, she voted in the names of Samuel Pedraza, Francisco Pedraza, Cynthia Pedraza, Dannie Vargas and Issic Guerra in that primary runoff by absentee ballot.

Holy two year old with felt tip markers.  You do not have to show a voter ID to vote by absentee ballot.  See what I mean about Gregg Abbott not being able to read to the end of a sentence?  His vicious law would do diddle squat to stop this.

And as far as picture ID’s being free, that’s true.  They are free as long as you have $21 for a certified birth certificate and all day to stand in line at the DMV.

And this isn’t just about minority voters.  My sweet Momma doesn’t drive nowadays and she doesn’t have a certified copy of her birth certificate.  There she is, a member of The Greatest Generation who has never missed voting a day in her life, even when there was a poll tax in Texas, and she has to order a birth certificate, pay $21 and have me take her to the DVM and stand in line.  Momma doesn’t want to vote by mail.  Momma has earned the right to vote in person because it’s important to her.

The Department of Justice is defending Momma’s right to vote in person in her neighborhood as she has done every election in her sweet life.

Thank you God and the Department of Justice.

Thanks to Kyle for the heads up.