Sunday Funnies, "Stand Your Ground" edition

Parker backs off her ordinance outlawing sharing

Mayor Annise Parker on Tuesday canceled a scheduled vote to regulate the feeding of homeless people in Houston following an outcry from people and groups that the proposed rules would criminalize simple acts of charity.

The rules had caused a fury from the moment they were introduced early this month. On Tuesday, the backlash continued as dozens of speakers criticized the regulations at City Council's public session. A coalition that included clergy, a tea party activist, a longtime property rights advocate, an immigrants rights leader and volunteers who feed the homeless held a news conference behind City Hall to criticize what they said were the rules' infringement on religious and personal liberties.

"To be told when and where and what time we can feed people goes directly against our creator. When the spirit moves us to go ahead and feed people, to check with the city first before we can go ahead and do that (is unacceptable). We're really opposed to this ordinance," said Manuel Sanchez, outreach director at Ecclesia Church in Montrose.

So there's a few Bible verses that address this: "I was hungry and you fed me", etc. I don't want to go all Godly about it though. I just want to note something that I have been considering for awhile about what motivates our mayor to take up all these conservative causes.

From my observation it appears Mayor Parker is imbued with that good old "pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps" mentality. I perceive that she is one of those people who feels as if the fruits of her success are the direct result of her having worked hard for them (no luck, favoritism, or charity was ever involved) and correspondingly those whom she perceives as not working very hard, or hard enough, draw no sympathy from her.

This would explain why she 'nudged' those lazy, filthy Occupants out of Tranquility Park; it's why she would choose to aggressively over-regulate feeding homeless people much like Republicans have passed laws restricting voting because they think there's voting fraud.

In her public attempts to sell the changes to city ordinance, Parker had spoken of the need to protect the homeless against food-borne illness, but had no data to indicate it was a persistent problem. She emphasized that it would promote coordination of charities so that several groups would not converge at a park by chance and have to throw out food for lack of takers.

Just as Republicans would take the route of hyper-regulating women's reproductive choice out of legal existence, so Mayor Parker believes that if you make things harder to get, the people who need them will move along and look elsewhere for them.

It helps us understand why she would rather terminate the employment of park workers and garbage collectors -- and essentially refuse to fund the pensions of firemen -- than raise taxes to address the city's budget deficit.

It reminds me of the time in college when I first heard this band play this song.

Hard times in the land of plenty;
Some got it all and the rest
ain't got any.



The difference these days, of course, is that the "some" don't want "the rest" to have any. And they want to make certain they don't get any.

Really and truly, I am of the mind that Annise Parker is one of the best, most moderate Republican mayors this city could ever hope for.

Yeah, both sides do it

I'm looking forward to whatever false equivalency conservatives can manufacture after yesterday.

At least two fire bombs were thrown at the Fort Worth office of state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) on Tuesday night, according to the Star Telegram. [...]

“It’s unfortunate when things like this happen in the public arena,” she said. “It reminds us of how important it is for us to remain very civil in our discourse and to work not to foment this kind of anger in our community as we discuss things that are challenges that we all face and care about.”

Senator Davis, still on the rise as one of the most powerful progressive women in Texas -- and thus of greatest danger to Texas Republicans -- honorably takes the high ground here. But we all know there aren't any Republican offices getting fire-bombed, or Republican Congresswomen shot in the head at townhalls outside of supermarkets.

Even Republican women refuse to understand the War on Women has become an actual shooting and bombing war.

We're way, waaay past the point of being able to expect a reasonable outcome just by telling people to tone down their rhetoric.

Texas Liberal and TruthHugger each have a similar take from a different POV, but as Off the Kuff noted a couple of weeks ago, it's time to go on offense. These are our wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers under bombardment, and those of us who care about them have to stand up and fight for them.

Update: Whoops, missed. I neglected to anticipate that the most extreme of Republicans, aka HouChron commenters, would rush to construct a frame -- as they did with the assassin Jared Loughner -- that the arsonist was a crazy liberal. I'll try not to make that mistake again. 

'Conservatives preach personal responsibility but never actually take any'.  Check.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance has a spring in its step as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff wrote about the forthcoming end of the Women's Health Program in Texas.

John Coby ay Bay Area Houston finds a press release from Austin: "Texas Governor Rick Perry calls for reforms to men's prostate exams".

The US Department of Justice refused preclearance on the Texas GOP's Voter ID law this week. WCNews at Eye On Williamson calls it a victory for voting rights in Texas.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is Guilty of being a Woman in Republican Theocracy.

The Green Party of Texas fielded 56 candidates for federal, state, and local offices, and because the Texas Democratic Party did not in two statewide races, the Greens are virtually assured of ballot access in 2014. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the news.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know -- amid all the talk of the Republicans' war against women -- why a judge let a man convicted of sexually assaulting a relative for years got probation?

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw explains why Rick Perry is No Mighty Mouse . It seems Texas' contribution to the War on Women does not include Governor Oops playing the hero. Check it out.

The more BlueBloggin listens to Rick Santorum and Grover Norquist, the more they believe that America is at risk of losing its elder generation: Republican Formula, America's Elderly Reap The Whirlwind.

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about a number of posts this week about how the Texas forced sonogram law is state-mandated rape. In one of these posts Neil discussed the three Texas state Senate Democrats who voted for this law, and about just why this law is state-mandated rape. It is up to each of us to work hard to oppose and repeal this cruel law.

Slightly Funnier Sunday Funnies

(You really should click on this one to read it all.)