It just passed.

Texas has the third highest rate of HIV infections in the country, but that didn’t stop lawmakers from passing an amendment that defunds HIV/STD prevention programs Tuesday. The amendment to the House budget proposal—offered by Rep. Stuart Spitzer (R-Kaufman)—diverts $3 million over the next biennium to abstinence-only sexual education programs.

Texas receives more federal funds for abstinence-only education than any other state so a Democrat asked bygawd how much money do you need for abstinence-only education.  We’re already #1.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Stuart Spitzer responded —

Spitzer responded that additional funds are needed as long as people are still having sex before marriage.

Well hell, let’s just give them all Start’s money.  No, seriously. He said that.

So what we need to do is to scare more people about sex so they will grow into happy, empathetic adults like Ole Stuart.  Stuart says that he was a virgin until he married his wife at age 29.  I’m gonna guess that wasn’t because of lack of trying.

And since gay people cannot marry in Texas, maybe they should go find out if Stuart’s wife has sex after marriage.

By the way, Texas has the highest teen pregnancy in the whole damn nation.

 Thanks to Karl for the heads up.

This is local stuff but it’s kinda fun.  What makes it fun is that the Tea Party made a mess of things in city government.  I have not hung up my professional big time media investigative skills and it paid off.

The fine city of Rosenberg is having a municipal election.

Over to the right you have a list of the single member district slots that are up for election.

You will notice that all slots have two candidates but District 3 has three candidates.  That means that if no candidate in that race gets more than 50% of the vote, we have to have a run off and run offs cost money.  I know you cannot put a price on democracy and I would be the first to shout that, but this case is kinda unusual.

Let me tell you why.

In that race, candidates Lisa and Joe are moderate Republicans. So, a local rightwing Republican precinct chair and current member of city council goes out to recruit a Tea Party candidate.  He finds Sergio J. Villagomez.  All the Tea Party is just wild about Sergio because, and I am quoting one of them here, “He’s all about liberty!”

Liberty.

Well, I guess so.  If you click right here, you will find a PDF showing that Sergio was arrested for possession of drugs in a school zone in 2004 and placed on probation.  In 2008, Sergio violated that probation and was sent to the pokey.  I do not know what he did to violate that probation but it must have been a doozy.  Liberty, for sure.

When you run for office you sign a statement saying that you are eligible to run for that office, which is amusing since Section 141 of the Texas Election Code says —

… have not been finally convicted of a felony from which the person has not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities;

A nice person I know informed Mr. Villagomez that he was not eligible to run for office in Texas until he gets a pardon, which may be forthcoming since Mr. Villagomez proudly voted in the Republican primary in 2014 so I imagine he’s on Governor Abbott’s screen.

While Mr. Villagomez can vote, he cannot run for public office.

Now here’s where this gets funny.  We didn’t discover this information until it was too late to have Villagomez’s name removed from the ballot.  That means that if one of the other candidates doesn’t get at least 50% of the vote, we have to have a run off because … Liberty.

This run off will cost the city money.  I personally think that since the Tea Party is all about the government saving money, they should pay the thousands of dollars this will cost.  That only seems fair.  They broke it, they should fix it.

And this is what I do with my time.  Holy cow, it’s great to be me.

There’s some real fun stuff happening with Indiana’s Don’t Feed The Gays law.

Best line all morning: A pizza parlor said they would not cater gay weddings.  Robert S. replied on their Yelp! page, “in all my queer life, I’ve never known a gay to cater their wedding with pizza.”

And then there’s Sean Hannity and Dinesh D’Souza discussing the issue.  Yeah, sure.  I really want to know what a convicted felon and a slickosexual think about this issue.  And they do not disappoint.

Duck!  Incoming Sharia Law!

Hannity speaketh —

“Gays and lesbians, they might disagree with me on gay marriage, or they might disagree with somebody — a religious person as it relates to their Christian views, but why are they so silent on the bigger issues of the day, which would be taking on radical Islamists?” Hannity asked, noting that gay people and women are mistreated under Sharia Law.

Wait, no Benghazi?  Sean is losing his touch.  A few years ago, he could have tied Benghazi, Hillary’s emails, and Obamacare to gay marriage.

The fella is slipping.  But Mike Pence comes to his rescue.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence swung back again Monday at critics of the state’s controversial “religious freedom” law, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Obamacare had made it imperative to ensure that “religious liberty is fully protected under Indiana law.”

Yep, Obamacare.

Thanks to Belle and Scott for the heads up.