The state of the GOP in Texas

The last frontier of ignorance and meanness in the country:

With President Barack Obama a strong supporter (of SCHIP) and bipartisan Senate support precluding the possibility of a filibuster, many GOP members of Congress who had previously opposed the program joined the majority. ... No such rethinking of previous partisan positions was evident in the Texas delegation, where 20 Republicans voted against the SCHIP bill. The state leads the nation in percentage of uninsured children, with Harris County having the largest rate of unprotected youngsters.

That’s why the continuing opposition of Houston-region GOP representatives John Culberson, Pete Olson, Kevin Brady, Michael McCaul, Ted Poe and Ron Paul is so unfathomable. The Southeast Texas medical safety net is already stretched to breaking by the burden of treating uninsured patients in overcrowded hospital emergency rooms and absorbing the costs of their care.

In opposing SCHIP on the grounds it is socialized medicine, too costly and subsidizes illegal alien health care, the lawmakers are ignoring this fact: Taxpayers already bear the cost of treatment for the uninsured. Every child covered by the state-supplied private policies is one less expense for area health care providers, who otherwise pass the cost of indigent care on to insured patients.

Maybe they're taking advanced asshole lessons from John Cornyn:

“I think he has decided that the only chance Republicans have is to be very aggressive,” political scientist Larry Sabato said of the Texan, who
came to Washington six years ago as a defender of President George W. Bush.

Don't you wish he was half as aggressive about his dental hygiene?

New York Gov. David Paterson, who appointed Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand as Clinton’s successor, called Cornyn’s maneuvering “grandstanding and self-promotion.”

And some Republican Senate colleagues want less partisanship and more collaboration. As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., put it: “The message that the American people are sending us now is that they want us to work together and get to work.”

...

And Cornyn pointedly challenged Reid about alleged ties to lobbyists. A Reid spokesman dismissed the criticism by Cornyn as having “everything to do with raising money.”

The article goes on to acknowledge Cornhole's White House aspirations, perhaps as early as 2012.

Bring. It. On.

Texas public education WILL evolve

... whether the Christianists want it to, or not. Kathy Miller of TFN sent this late yesterday:

Just hours ago, the State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 8-7 to reject efforts by creationists to reinsert into draft curriculum standards sweeping language -- "strengths and weaknesses" -- used to undermine sound science education. If this vote stands, a key weapon creationists have used to attack evolution will be swept from the standards.

But creationists on the board managed to sneak through other changes that complicate important parts of the standards. One change would have students question a core concept of evolutionary biology, common descent. It was a stunning display of arrogance, with the board's far-right faction pretending to know more about science than the teachers and scientists who crafted the standards draft.

So the Young Earthers rose up to strike at the rising moon with their rocks and clubs and spears, but were once again beaten back by the forces of intelligence and rational thought. It was awfully close, though. There will be a rematch in the spring, when the final SBOE vote on science curriculum standards will take place.

Muse has more, as does North Texas Liberal.