As a news junkie, I don’t start my day without reading the Washington Post, I listen to NPR, and finish my day with PBS Newshour. But there are things that fly under the radar. I subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American. And I subscribe to Dame, which has started emailing a Friday round up of important news of the week that might have missed MSM. Today there was a piece that about knocked me off my chair. Well, actually, the cheap chair had a bad weld and almost collapsed on me but that’s another story.

Here’s the latest on the GOP War on Women, from the Rolling Stone. As if taking away our bodily autonomy and control of our reproductive health care decisions wasn’t enough. Poor tidy whitey righty podcaster Steven Crowder, his wife filed for divorce. Because she could. Texas is a no fault divorce state, just like the other 49. He is unhappy. She is OBVIOUSLY not happy with him for many reasons, but I don’t want to go there. He’s only unhappy because he can’t control her. He’s hoping the Texas GOP platform plank to eliminate no fault divorce becomes reality.

I’m old enough to remember when California (of course) started the no fault ball rolling back in 1969. I was a high school senior, more than a decade away from my first and only marriage (I like to say I sat out the first round). It only took 40 years for NY to be the last state to put no fault divorce on the books in 2010. Either party could initiate a divorce without having to prove abuse, infidelity, or other bad stuff in court. How civilized. Researchers have tracked impact of the reforms, showing decreases in female suicide and domestic violence, as well as decrease in spousal homicide. I had no idea, but am not surprised, that 2/3 of divorces are initiated by women, like Crowder’s wife.

So eyes wide open everyone. Coming to a state near you. It’s not just Texas. Louisiana is working on it, Nebraska only wants no fault if you have no kids. And don’t count on the TX legislature holding this back. In Texas, all they have to do is find a sympathetic judge. Gee, where could they find one who would understand the message????

I’m pretty darn certain that most of you recall the name of Alex Jones’ attorney, Andino Reynal, a man who can strut sitting down, which is especially talented because he ain’t got a damn thing to be proud about.

Reynal is the guy who became a late night talk show joke when he accidentally released the contents of Jones’ cell phone a few days before the trial.  The parents’ lawyer was able to crush Jones on the witness stand because of that mistake.

Well, the judge in the case, Her Honor Maya Guerra Gamble, ruled earlier this week, that the lawyer hisownself has to pay almost $100,000 to the parents for his hijinks in the trial. This is a rarity, but it is well earned. Click here to see the original order.

And click here to see the full story.

Reynal says he will appeal and I have it on good word that, considering the stiff penalty the judge added for wasting everyone’s time in an appeal process, the parents are hoping he does.

Just off the record and between us girls, a new acquaintance of mine who worked with Reynal in the past said he has always been lazy and thinks he can get by on his good looks and expensive suits. Y’all, he has a mullet haircut. And he almost constantly has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. You cannot be good looking if you look like you go home to the trailer park every night and wear a semi-clean wife beater shirt and scratch your hairy belly in front of decent folks. We have rules about these good-looking standards and that ain’t none of them. As far as the cigarette, bad accessorizing.

I was perusing social media when I came up on a video. I have to admit I don’t pay attention to everything the Texas State Legislature does. It would probably drive me crazy if I did. Well, I cannot ignore House Bill 1147. As someone that has been teaching for 25 years I definitely cannot ignore it. I’ll post the video, but I have to warn you, it will put you through the emotional ringer.

If you don’t think you can make it through the video, please allow me to summarize the situation. The bill would require all school campuses with students third grade and up to have at least one station where medical supplies would be readily available. Students as young as nine can be trained to essentially be combat medics. They would apply tourniquets, seal off chest cavities, and treat other severe bodily injuries.

I’m a grown ass man (sorry momma). When I signed up for this gig back in 1997 I knew what I was getting into. I listened to stories from my grandmother, parents, and older sister. Every day wasn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows. Some kids don’t want to learn or do what they need to do to earn the grade. Some kids aren’t the best behaved. More importantly, some adults aren’t as professional or dedicated as they should be.

I signed up for all of that. I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t get trained to storm Normandy. I didn’t get trained to apply the kind of critical aid needed to keep someone alive long enough for an ambulance to get there. I certainly didn’t train to do that AND dodge bullets at the same time. Of course we have been trained to do rudimentary first aid and I’m sure kids can be taught the same. Maybe they cut themselves on the swing set or they get beaned with a ball during recess. Maybe someone falls down a flight of stairs or twists an ankle. This training is not about that.

As horrifying as this all is, it is the message behind it that is most horrifying. We know what is causing these events. We know how to stop it. Australia has done it. Most of the industrialized world has done it. The right doesn’t want to do it. I understand it on some level. Their base loves their guns. However, the different contortions we are going through to avoid addressing the issue is just beyond the pale. We don’t need kids to learn how to apply a tourniquet or stop their friends from bleeding out. We don’t need a damn tank in front of the school. We don’t need to reduce every school to one set of doors. We don’t need to issue every man, woman, and child a bullet proof vest. We just need to take the damn AR-15s. Period.

Okay, this is the most obscene and insane thing I have seen in print since Nixon left the White House.

Hours after the insurrection, Tucker Carlson poured out his heart, releasing an ooze of mustard-colored hate from of his fingers.

“A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington,” Carlson texted a producer. “A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living s**t out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.”

Tell me, Tucker, exactly how do white men fight?  When the hell did you ever fight honorably, Tucker? No, white men sit behind a microphone and call people names and ask other white men to go dirty their hands, or they buy military weapons and mow down little children trapped in their classrooms.

There were no Antifa kids at the insurrection. What you saw, Tucker, was white men beating up cops.

I you live in a foreign state, you probably don’t know the good news we have in Texas.

Colin Allred is entering the race fr senate against Ted Cruz.

Allred is a third term congressman who beat Pete Sessions in a red district. He’s giving up his safe seat to take on Cruz.

He attended Hillcrest High School in Dallas, played football for Baylor, signed with the Tennessee Titans for a couple of years, then went to law school at UC Berkeley.

I’m running for U.S. Senate because Texans deserve a Senator whose team is Texas. Ted Cruz only cares about himself.

Join our campaign today: https://t.co/2dROrrQrPV pic.twitter.com/9iz9yu1rFb

— Colin Allred (@ColinAllredTX) May 3, 2023

I know Colin. I’m gonna put his name in my front yard.

If anybody can beat Ted Cruz, it’s Colin. And I suspect Cruz will come off as a wimpy Canadian when lined up with Colin Allred.

Go give him $10. Or, mail it.

To contribute by mail please send checks made out to
Colin Allred for Senate to
PO Box 601631
Dallas, TX 75360

Successful electoral politics in the United States is ultimately about setting up successful dichotomies. There is you and your opponent and more people are like you. This is what all the “woke” nonsense is all about. The GOP realize they are on the wrong side of almost all of these issues. They are on the wrong side demographically and on just about every major domestic and foreign policy issue. The only way forward for them is to paint the left is somehow extreme and that they really are the “silent majority.”

If that phrase seems familiar to you it should. It has been a part of the conservative blueprint for more than half a century. It’s time to throw that whole sentiment on it’s ear. The basic campaign that Joe Biden needs to run is a run on basic decency. While certainly not a perfect man and not the ideal standard bearer for liberals, progressives, and leftists, Biden is easily the most decent person on the ballot. That is particularly true when compared with the entire GOP field.

A series of stories circulated this week that drive this point home. The first on my radar was the story of an assistant principal that was kicked so many times that she ended up having seizures and had to be hospitalized. The second involved a man that killed all of his neighbors after they complained about the loud gunfire at his house. The third story involved a man that shot a parking attendant over 40 dollars and then returned to the restaurant and completed his date.

I witnessed a hit and run on the way back home from a trip this past weekend. A truck had to stop suddenly because of traffic. He simply had to get somewhere quickly, so he quickly changed lanes and just shoved an SUV over so he could occupy the lane. He didn’t stop. He just kept going. These are four stories in the span of a week. Pick any seven day time span at any point on the calendar and you can either read or watch these stories unfold in fairly similar fashion.

Two of these stories involved guns. Two of them didn’t. Some involved young people and some didn’t. Some involved people of color and some didn’t. I point out that all of them involved men, but I don’t know if that is a relevant factor here. I wish I could say that all of them involved conservatives but that would be a stretch and would be irresponsible. What I can say is that they involved four different sets of people that were not decent people. Decent people do decent things. Indecent people do indecent things.

I can comfortably say that I’ve never done any of these things. I don’t see me kicking someone while they are lying helpless on the ground. I don’t own a gun, so the two gun stories are out for me. I’ve had accidents, but I’ve never fled from them. I would reasonably expect that most of you are with me here on those counts. I know some of you own guns, but I doubt you’ve shot anyone on a first date. I would guess that the vast majority of Americans are in the same boat. The MAGA crowd applaud these people. They are those people. Whether they would do it themselves or not is immaterial. They represent the indecency that has become MAGA. It’s time for the silent majority to vote out indecency.