THIS IS THE FIRST THREE: Read it and weep!!!!! The Texas GOP unveiled its platform recently, and it is one scary, feverish document. As Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker puts it: The thing is, the Republican Party of Texas has a dream. Lots of dreams: its platform, unveiled last week, has sixteen thousand words’ worth. The road it maps is anything but royal; these good people, after all, are republicans, albeit with a capital “R.” But the document does lead to the G.O.P.’s unconscious, or part of it: its fearsome, rampaging id. What is troubling is that, as much as wed like to, this document cant just be dismissed as coming from some crazy outlier group. This is the official Republican party representing the state from which we got our last Republican president, is bound to run some more, and is one of the biggest states in the Union, with lots of electoral votes. Yikes! Here are 34 other highlights of the 40-page document: 1. On nullification: • The Texas Legislature should nullify—indeed, “ignore, oppose, refuse, and nullify”—federal laws it doesn’t like. (Yes, you read that right, Texas Republicans want to be able to ignore or nullify federal laws it does not agree with. Note to Texas, the Supreme Court has shot down every states attempt to nullify federal laws since 1809. Then again, with todays court, you never know.) 2. On doing away with most federal agencies: • When it comes to “unelected bureaucrats”—i.e., pretty much the entire federal work force above the janitorial level—Congress should “defund and abolish these positions.” (There is a long laundry list of federal agencies that the Texas GOP would like to see defunded and abolished, many more than Rick Perry could not remember. But it does start with the EPA, because the right to pollute, and also for the Koch Brothers and others to be able to store dangerous chemicals in secret places and wherever the hell they want to even close to schools and communities, is sacred. 3. On not electing Senators: • The Seventeenth Amendment, which was adopted in 1913, be repealed, so that “the appointment of United States Senators” can again be made by state legislators, not by voters. (Senators should be appointed not elected. So, Texas should be able to repeal the parts of the Constitution that it does not agree with.)
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 14:23:12 +0000
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