Poor Llano County. Some federal judge has just ordered the county to return twelve (yes, count ’em, 12) children’s books to their public library shelves. It seems that the books offended the sensibilities of some adults who object to the racial and LGBT+ issues that are raised in them.

So rather than complying with the judge’s order, Llano County Commissioners are considering an old and accepted recourse: the equivalent of filling in the swimming pool.

Rather than bend to the Feds, the Llano County Commission is studying on nose-thumbing (and nose-cutting/face-spiteing) by closing all of their county libraries.

It’s a really great solution, see. No one can blame them for depriving their children of learning about racism and gender issues if no one in the county can learn about anything at all.

It has worked before. Racists have closed and filled-in public pools rather than desegregate them. And it’s legit.

Or so said SCOTUS Justice Hugo Black back in 1971 when the Jackson, Mississippi city council closed all of its public pools, save for the one that they leased to the “YMWCA” (Young Men’s White Christian Assn.). Justice Black said “There was no evidence of state action affect­ing Negroes differently from white.”

True that. If you’re a racist like Justice Black was.

So instead of violating a child’s right to read these 12 books, Llano County may elect to deny the educational enrichment of the entire county instead.

Bless their hearts

I hope this doesn’t give you a shock but Republican State Representative and Baptist minister and Baptist Youth Director Bryan Slaton is accused of having and “inappropriate relationship” with an intern in his office.

I know. Surprising, ain’t it?

The Texas Tribune has the story.

The complaint came after an incident in which Slaton and the staffer allegedly met up at his Austin apartment last weekend. A separate staffer told The Texas Tribune that Slaton drank alcohol with an intern under 21 years old.

The intern, rightly so, ain’t talking to the public after reporting the event(s).

Slaton is back in Austin hiding behind his criminal defense lawyer.

As of 9:30 am Texas time, in downtown Louisville five people are dead and six others are hospitalized.  The shooter has been neutralized.

We have decided that this is an acceptable price for allowing mentally ill people to exercise their right to be a well organized militia of one with weapons of war.

Okay, this is a rumor. This is only a rumor. But, it’s kinda a weird one.

Texas State Represent Bryan Slaton represents north Texas and is a member of the freedom caucus.  In Texas the freedom caucus is two jumps crazier than the KKK.  You can read all about him right here.

Well, all of a sudden out of the clear blue Slaton quits showing up at work. And even quicker than sudden, there’s papers taped over the windows to his office and nobody is there, including the roaches other than Slaton.

According to Texas Monthly, Slaton had a pile of bills filed to gum up the works during the budget debate.  Here’s some of the fun.

Combating the “sexualization” of young people is an important legislative priority for Slaton generally; in HB 151, he would—among other things—remove an existing defense to child pornography laws that would prevent, say, a nineteen-year-old from being prosecuted for having explicit photos of her seventeen-year-old boyfriend. HB 4129, another Slaton special, amends language in the existing business and commerce code for an “erotic performance”; where it now says “an individual younger than eighteen years of age” is barred from seeing such performances, it would instead simply say “a child”— seemingly an attempt to remind Texans that seventeen-year-olds are children in the eyes of the law.

In HB 5212, he’d require that morgues established using funding from Operation Lone Star “post a sign indicating the designation as the Joseph R. Biden Morgue in a conspicuous place reasonably likely to be viewed by all persons” who enter.

He also wants to prohibit the wearing of masks, no matter what the emergency is, and wants to make abortion punishable by the death penalty. He wants Texas to withdraw from the Union.

I know, he seems like a real nice guy.

The rumor is, of course, that Slaton is in trouble …

For the two days prior to the three-day weekend, Rep. Bryan Slaton was absent and there are all kinds of rumors about where he might be and whether he is in some kind of legal trouble. Then late Friday night, a member of the Freedom Caucus publicly said that a legislator needs to resign because he’s a “sexual predator.”

Oh damn.  The guy has been a Baptist youth minister for a couple of decades.  According to him, he’s the most righteous person in Texas.

If this rumor is true, I will not be surprised.

Late yesterday afternoon, a Trump judge in Amarillo decided it was a really good idea to take Mifepristone off the market, a drug that has been safely used to induce medical abortions for 20 years.  The lawsuit he ruled on was filed by an anti-choice group that wasn’t happy that the SCOTUS decision to take away the constitutional right to healthcare from millions of women didn’t go far enough.  They wanted to take away the right to abortion from ALL women in the US.  The group venue shopped, taking the case to a radical judge Amarillo and got the result they wanted; for the first time in US history, a federal judge interfered with the FDA’s authority by banning the drug. The plaintiffs lied that the drug was untested and dangerous, which is bullshit.  Of course, since their case was bullshit, the judge bought it and banned it.  Another judge in Washington State almost immediately issued a contradicting order, which will likely throw the case straight to the SCOTUS.  Recall that the SCOTUS, which now has a 6 -3 ultraconservative majority gained by cheating, could likely generate a nationwide ban on the drug.  Even though the SCOTUS threw the abortion issue to the states, I have no confidence the court will remain consistent by throwing this back to the states, since their rulings are now controlled by ideology, not the law.

Here’s a solution to the Mifepristone ban, and it’s pretty straightforward – we need a lawsuit filed that bans Viagra and all other ED treatments.  If a federal judge can intervene in the FDA’s decisions over women’s healthcare, certainly another federal judge can to the same thing men’s healthcare, right?  Besides protecting men’s health, banning Viagra will prevent millions of pregnancies, which is a huge side benefit.

After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

We have a group of dedicated readers here in the salon. So, before we begin this exercise I’m going to reiterate that what is said in this piece is really not for them. If you are a regular you already know this. This piece is for anyone else that might stumble along and see this.

The point is pretty simple. Cancel culture really isn’t a thing. It is what we call freedom of speech or freedom of expression. I suppose shows get canceled and there are always backlashes against certain people and certain things. It has always been that way. The point can be illustrated through one very straighforward tweet.

Other artists who are deleting Anheuser-Busch products from their hospitality rider might not say so in public for fear of being ridiculed and cancelled. I have no such fear. https://t.co/YgjO9P03tR

— Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) April 6, 2023

Here is the ultimate irony. Travis Tritt is attempting to cancel Anheuser-Busch. Basically, this is a direct plea to his fans that Budweiser isn’t cool with him anymore and shouldn’t be cool with them either. So, in one sentence he manages to attempt canceling Budweiser and then accuses them of doing the same. Some people are just blessed without self-awareness.

So, let me repeat this for those blessed without self-awareness, Freedom of speech means you have the right to say what you want as long as your speech doesn’t incite a riot or is demonstrably false and damaging to a particular individual or business. Yet, that means that people can also react to your speech. They can speak against it or even shun you or your products. That’s always been a thing. It will always be a thing. This new-fangled notion of cancel culture is really a buzzword that means nothing.

I don’t buy Anheuser-Busch products. I don’t buy Coors products. It has nothing to do with wokeness (whatever that is). I don’t buy those beers because they aren’t good. Occasionally, we go to the Spec’s in downtown Houston and it always flabbergasts me when people buy crappy and cheap beer at a store that sells virtually every beer marketed in town. You can buy beer flavored water anywhere.

I don’t own any Travis Tritt albums. I don’t like country music. I know a lot of people do and if they enjoy his music they should avail themselves of it. I know a lot of people like Bud Light and Coors. Great. You buy what you want to buy and listen to the music you want to listen to. This is how freedom works.

The fact is that too many people misunderstand freedom of speech. It protects you from being arrested or silenced by Congress. It doesn’t protect you from the negative impacts of a bad take. It doesn’t protect anyone from their employer reacting badly to their speech.  It doesn’t guarantee you a microphone or platform. You have a right to speak. With that right to speak comes consequences. Some of them may be good or bad. It has always been this way and it will always be that way.