Just When You Thought Texas Had Hit the Crazy Wall, A Window Appears and …
Okay, I know I’ll have to provide a lot of links to this story because you’re not going to believe me.
The Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman is a doozy. In Texas, the Railroad Commissioner regulates the gas and oil industry and just by looking around Texas, you can see that Barry ain’t exactly the People’s Prince. If the truth is known, the man should have For Sale or Rent tattooed to his forehead.
So Barry decides that being a crappy Railroad Commissioner makes him totally qualified to be Texas Attorney General. The current Attorney General is running for Governor so the seat is wide open.
So, the pandering has started. First there was this:
Barry’s Facebook page suggested free handgun permit classes for all state employees because (1) Texas can certainly afford it, (2) the DPS at the door of the capitol isn’t enough but the Texas Historical Society ladies nixed building a moat around it, and (3) Barry needs that NRA endorsement. (Okay, so I made up #2. So sue me.)
But saying I Like Guns More That You Do isn’t enough. Barry has to prove that he can hold women down and force them to have babies.
So, this happens.
In a recent speech to an anti-abortion group on the economic impact of terminating pregnancies, Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, a Republican candidate for attorney general, said he believed many unborn babies “would have voted Republican.”
Oh yeah. He said that. That is *freekin’* weird.
You know how the kid in that movie could see dead people? Well, Barry can talk to unborn people.
Blakemore: Clown at the Goat Rodeo
His campaign manager, Allen Blakemore, who I have referred to as the Head Clown at the Goat Rodeo, comes rushing out to try to explain this so that we don’t have his candidate (read: paycheck) carted off to the Wacky Ward.
Blakemore interprets his clients crazyspeak —
Smitherman spokesman Allen Blakemore called the candidate’s statement a matter of statistics.
“Of course he was referring to the ones in Texas,” Blakemore said, “and we know that the majority of Texans vote for Republican candidates.”
Of course he was! Sure he was. That’s the story. Incidentally, does this mean that Blakemore is saying that mostly Republicans have abortions? That’s his explanation? That’s cool by me. I’ll spread that around.
But no, there’s more. At no additional charge you also get this —
He touted the economic benefits to societies with high fertility rates and cautioned against heeding the warnings of overcrowding from “the same people that believe in global warming.”
Smitherman and his wife have four children. “We’re doing our part,” he said. “But some people are not having enough children.”
I think he meant you. You know, you personally. And he would have called your name if he wasn’t drooling all over his list of name of women needing to have more babies.
Yes, that is why the economy is failing – you women aren’t having enough children, dammit!
And then as if to round out a perfectly insane rant, Barry describes what he saw me doing at the state capitol at the debate on women’s rights.
And he praised the recent passage of abortion restrictions by the Texas Legislature. Smitherman described proponents of the legislation as “civil and polite, but persistent,” and characterized their opponents as “satanic, evil and crude.”
Yep, that’s me – satanic, evil, and crude. Thank you, Barry, I tried hard.
I’m gonna tell you that with Texas Republicans playing musical chairs for statewide office this year, the winner is going to those of us who love political entertainment. Oh yeah, and political consultants making money by translating wild insanity into merely offensive.
Thanks to Texas Trailer Park Trash for the heads up.
Personally I like honest and crude. Beats dishonest hypocrites every single time. Keep up the good work.
But it’s really not totally all those aborted babies would have voted republican if they managed to survive past crappy food and health care. No education is a given. But another BIG reason, those are the kids that the war machines need to keep fueling the tanks. The kids that never had a decent chance even before they were born. And as far as the war business goes, the best ones, when they are used up mentally and physically they commit suicide and get out of the way.
1Molly Ivins said it best… “Texas Politics is the finest form of free entertainment ever created. It’s better than zoo, better than the circus.”
Gods, we could use another Molly Ivins in this state, if simply to help in pointing out the foibles and fallacies that befall our elected officials.
Although this place does a fairly decent job of that (and get occasional references on the Washington Post blog pages).
2I remember Molly Ivins describing the Texas Railroad Commish as the one Texas acronym she could pronounce-Trainwreck. Hasn’t appeared to have evolved at all since Molly’s passing.
3Hot damn J.J. This guy’s hilarious. He should quit politics and go into comedy. But if he wants to be successful he will need to limit his entertainment to progressive, liberal, and college comedy bars where the intellect is higher than a rock’s. If he entertains at conservative bars the audience will think they’ve gone to another one of their political rallies!
We in Arizona have a few of these characters around the State Capital also. I’ve been thinking of requesting a government grant to see if I can establish a genetic/DNA link between these people.
4Again, he drinks! Just like all the other deranged critters who see women only as barefoot and pregnant. Gotta be it.
5Juanita, when you post about these amazingly amoral ridiculous cretins I have to keep commenting that I am speechless—or have no words. That gets boring and doesn’t add to the extremely witty repartee of this political organization.
But since I have no choice but to keep coming back here everyday ’cause you have your incredible wit on the neck of all of these morons; I’ll just keep posting the speechless and have no words thing.
6Sonya: I so agree with you about the war machine!!! I am a vet of the Vietnam war. Never saw combat and was an ignorant nationalist that felt we could do no wrong as a nation. I dropped out of high school to serve my country right after the Cuban Missile crisis. Got my GED and went on to get a degree from the UofA. Hated the anti-war demonstrations, but the hippies were right! I’ve spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours studying that war and our wars since. In addition, I’ve spent time studying the founders and founding of this nation. It’s not changed much from then – the founders were also the well bred, well read and well wed. They were also the elites looking out or themselves. They put together a great country, but they were basically looking out for themselves – their actions speak louder than their words.
My number one goal in what is left of my trips around the sun is to reduce the number of eligible members to the VFW (since you have to serve overseas in time of war to qualify).
7It’s fine for these people to be entertaining, but we have to make sure they don’t get elected. We’ve got enough problems now.
8you can’t make this stuff up.
9Juanita Jean, it isn’t that women aren’t having enough babies, it is that WHITE women aren’t having as many babies as those brown and black women (immoral sluts) and these cretins are worried about becoming the “new” minority. I firmly believe if they could figure out a way to allow black and brown women unrestricted, on-demand abortions, while denying all white women any chance at abortion, they would institute those laws today. (That is assuming of course, that those white women were carrying strictly “white” children.)
Evidently, George Carlin was right when he said “If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders”.
10First…
Yea, the anti choicers were civil, polite & persistent.
At the Stand With Texas Woman Rally In Austin, I was waiting in a hotel lobby when I witnessed an anti-choice woman berate a young front desk clerk because he “allowed” a car with pro choice soaped windows to be parked in front of the hotel where everyone could see it. She insisted it be removed immediately & threatened to contact the CEO if he didn’t act on her demands. She told this nice young man that she was a “businesswoman” & she would make sure her people picket the hotel & have him fired unless he had that car moved. He tried to explain it was a valet parking area & they are in charge of parking vehicles but she wasn’t hearing it. We had to leave at that point.
Later, when we returned, I asked him what happened & he said she kept yelling at him until her friends finally came & took her away for dinner. He told me he would have called the cops but they were busy with the protest up the street. We joked they were needed at he hotel more than at the protest.
Nice kid. Horrible lady. She probably started the feces rumor.
Second, I wonder how Old Barry feels about old non child bearing women? Are we allowed to come to Texas? Can we spend our money here? Will he take campaign donations from women like us? Can we vote?
Finally, as a non child bearing woman, I just want to point out that Barry reminds me of those pastors that get caught getting too close to small children.
I have no facts to back that up but…. hey, if Barry can make up crap….
11I have an acquaintance who absolutely believes that our economy is weakened by a low birth rate. He’s Catholic and he also believes that he portion of property/school tax should be refunded to him so he can use it to put his kids in private school. He’s a tea party republican, in case y’all hadn’t figured that out already.
12Great post, rockheadedmomma!
13Edith – I went to a catholic college and there was a chemistry professor there who had 21 kids and wanted more. The married men in the class were always talked down to if they didn’t have any children. Of course his wife died from having so many children, so he married a younger woman so he could have more. everyone thought the man was a disgrace to mankind.
Al in AZ: You rock! “My number one goal in what is left of my trips around the sun is to reduce the number of eligible members to the VFW (since you have to serve overseas in time of war to qualify).”
14I can’t say as I know much about Barry Smitherton or the duties of the Texas Railroad Commissioner. But I’m gonna guess that not running off the tracks is pretty important in his line of work. Doesn’t seem like he’s figured out how to do that after, how many years on the job?
15I’m wondering. Is the choice for “Railroad Commissioner” on the Republican side this idiot…. and the “Bush idiot”?
Is there a Democrat on the ticket, and if not….. why not?
Just askin’
16There are over seven billion people on this planet and more every second. By August 20 we used up everything the Earth is going to produce this year, so we’re cutting into the capital instead of living on the interest, and that Overshoot Day gets earlier every year. Anybody who thinks we need more people has his head where the sun don’t shine and needs to pull it out and pay attention to reality.
17Dear me Bernard, is Rick Santorum related to that prof? Sure sounds like it!!
18Ok, can you go get your blades? I can finished at 330 and ready to go at 4
19So is this weasel Smitherton or Smitherman as his poster says?
20It’s Smitherman. My oops. Mornings are not kind to me. I went back and fixed it.
21Loony Tunes has nothing on this guy.
22That reminder of Overshoot Day did it for me. If these pro-natalists are really all that sincere why don’t they legislate that fetuses get 3/5ths of a vote when mom pulls the lever. Oh, wait! We did that 3/5ths thing already. Didn’t really work! mumble . . . mumble … mumble
23There are possibly hundreds of thousands of committed,loving Gay and Lesbian couples that would love to have children,but Abbot and rwnj would sooner eat their offspring than allow people who really want them to have them. Someone should ask the “dungheap” if he knows why there is a shortage of turkey basters in local stores. There isn’t,but the panic on his face would be priceless. OMG,Gays are procreating with turkey basters all over the place,even in front of straight peoples.
24rockheadmama kudos on the call out for George Carlin. He was the master word smither if there is such a thing. We all miss his presence immensely. A new breed of whitty progressives will come along they always do. I have to admit my conversion to the more open mindedness would come from Richard Pryor. As a young teen for some reason he struck a cord in me and his sense of humor got me.
25Help me out here! Is this the same guy who ran for office and demonstrated something by peeing on an electric fence? I know he was one of our Texas varmits.
26All these “we need more babies” folks are pushing a Ponzi scheme. There’s this inconvenient truth called the First Law of Thermodynamics: Mass/energy cannot be created – only its form can be changed. (Conservation of mass/energy). This means that there’s only so much carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, etc. on the planet Earth.
They can quack about technological fixes all they like, but nobody has been able to create new matter yet – and modern physics suggests that they never will. This puts a hard limit on the number of humans that can exist on this planet – especially if those humans would like something to eat besides either each other or their own waste.
The folks pushing ever-expanding populations as the key to growth are thus engaged in a classic pyramid scheme. It works in the beginning, but one rapidly runs out of the resources needed to sustain it.
In the case of the world’s population – we’re running out of fresh water to drink and arable land to grow food on. We can drill deeper and deeper wells in the Ogallala aquifer – but at some point the water will be gone and the crops will dry up. Desalinization requires energy, as does pumping the water uphill.
We’re reaching the bottom of the pyramid, folks. In a financial-type pyramid scheme, the folks at the bottom lose their investment. When the natural resources pyramid scheme reaches bottom, we’re all likely to get very hungry and thirsty.
27From over here, it looks like just another day in Texas and another day I’m so very glad I don’t live there anymore.
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