The radical ideology of the Texas Fascist Caucus was on full display as they laid out their dangerous and divisive agenda.
Yesterday, the Texas Fascist Freedom Caucus held a press release regarding their priorities. Their name is very misleading, “Freedom,” because the principles and values they stand for have nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with control. While every Caucus has its priorities, it’s important that we specifically address the priorities of this Caucus, as some of the worst legislation we can expect this year will come directly from them.
The chairman of the caucus is Representative Matt Schaefer, who replaced Mayes Middleton after his election to the Senate. Schaefer began the conference, and in typical fashion, he spewed a bunch of lies.
Texas values?
Schaefer said that Biden laid out an agenda opposed to Texas values. (If you missed Biden’s speech, here is the transcript.) Instead, Biden spoke about bringing jobs back to America, lowering inflation, and building a modern infrastructure.
Do those things go against Texas values?
Obviously not. That leaves us all wondering what values the Fascist Caucus hold.
Schaefer claimed Biden wants to move us into policies that would lead us into energy poverty. That’s complete bullshit. Biden spoke about clean energy and lowering utility bills. Schaefer was shilling for the oil industry, but the funny thing is, he’s one of the few Republicans who doesn’t get big oil money.
Tax-payer-funded abortions? Abortions on Demand?
The only thing Biden said regarding abortions was that if Republicans in Congress passed an abortion ban, he would veto it. Did Schaefer even watch Biden’s speech? The opening of this conference was one lie after another from the East Texas Rep. But it doesn’t matter what they said because their base surely didn’t watch Biden’s speech. They’ll believe anything a Republican politician says.
Taxes, taxes, taxes.
Carrie Isaac is the new rep from the New Braunfels area. Isaac and the other women in the Freedom Caucus (Terri Leo-Wilson and Valoree Slawson) hold the distinct privilege of being in this caucus and part of the Texas Gilead Wives Club.
She didn’t say much other than, “the taxes are too damn high.”
But we all already knew that. Texas has some of the highest property taxes in America, inflicted on us over twenty years of Republican rule. Every year Republicans promise to lower our taxes, and every year our taxes go up. We shouldn’t expect that to change this year.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]School vouchers.
The new Denton Representative, Richard Hayes, said the Texas Freedom Caucus wants school vouchers (aka segregation).
The reason, he said, was because CRT and a sexualized curriculum are indoctrinating children. Neither of these is a real thing. Boogeymen made up in the minds of racist reactionaries to scare the uninformed to get behind school segregation.
Do school vouchers have a chance this year? It’s hard to say. Representative Brad Buckley has been appointed as the chair of the Public Education Committee and hasn’t made his stance on school vouchers known. On the other hand, there are still a lot of Republicans who support public education. We just have to hope there are enough to side with Democrats and block the Fascist Caucus from re-implementing school segregation.
The sexualization of children?
Now that James White is no longer in the Texas House, Matt Shaheen has become the Fascist Caucus’ new token brown person. It’s embarrassing because after he talked about the imaginary issue of children being sexualized, he shamed diversity.
According to Matt Shaheen, children in Texas schools are being sexualized by books.
This was a wink and nod for book burning. Check out the list of the books the right wants to ban. Most of them are about civil rights, equal rights, and race. We should expect to see more attacks on literature this legislative session.
If they want to stop the sexualization of children, they should start with Bryan Slaton and Nate Schatzline, who have both obsessed over trans children’s genitals. Their obsession is disturbing and has sparked a lot of conversation among Texas citizens.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide] [mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]What’s the real issue?
Steve Toth, the stand-out white supremacist of the 87th legislative session brought up a book that included rape. He was angry that children in schools have access to the book.
One in nine girls under 18 has experienced sexual abuse by an adult. In addition, females between the ages of 16-19 are four times more likely to be raped than the general population.
These are real problems that girls in Texas face. Unfortunately, whether they read a book or not that talks about rape isn’t going to stop the fact that young girls are constantly the victims of sexual abuse.
I’m not familiar with the book he mentioned, but teenage victims need to know it’s not their fault and they aren’t alone. If a book helps them cope, process, or relate, there is no harm.
Elections.
Valoree Swanson is the Paul Bettencourt of the House. Both are fixated on making voting harder in Texas, particularly for people of color.
Many of the oppressive voting restrictions last legislative session came from Swanson and leading up to the 2022 election, she participated in disenfranchising disabled people in Harris County.
They also plan on banning transgender college students from playing sports in Texas. Scientists and doctors have said and put out a multitude of studies that say that transgender athletes who are on hormones do not have an advantage over their peers. The Freedom Caucus isn’t pro-science, though, and bases its legislation on hate and bigotry.
Medical freedom? That’s laughable.
Brian Harrison is anti-vaccine and calls it “medical freedom.” He says it’s about liberty and the freedom to choose.
Brian Harrison, along with the rest of the Fascist Caucus, is also against the right for women to make their own choices about their bodies. Medical freedom? That’s not what he meant.
He meant that the Republican base are victims of Covid misinformation, and because of that, they’d rather spread disease and die than take a vaccine. Researchers have determined that 76% more Republicans died of Covid than Democrats because of vaccine misinformation. It’s sad, but as long as Republican legislators align themselves with Covid misinformation, their base will continue to die from Covid at a higher rate.
Terri Leo-Wilson parroted the want to burn books.
Last week Terri Leo-Wilson introduced a bill that would ban schools from teaching about the Civil Rights Era, the French Revolution, or the Vietnam Protests. Because of that, no one should ever take her seriously.
The Texas Fascist Caucus is racist. They made it clear multiple times throughout this press conference.
CRT, DEI, and book indoctrination, these are all dog whistles against racial equality.
Stripping more rights away from women.
Cody Vasut believed that the sun came up just to hear him crow. His arrogance beams every time he speaks.
According to Vasut, the Fascist Caucus plans to put more restrictions on women when making decisions about their own bodies. They plan on doing away with the 10-day rule and penalizing women who go to other states to obtain an abortion.
With this group, nothing is off the table. Birth control and medical privacy are all at stake if these legislatures get their way.
Children for sale.
High standards have been put in place for adoption to ensure permanency. For example, adopting a newborn baby will cost a family six figures, while adopting a waiting child in foster care costs less than $10,000.
Over the last several years, adoption rehoming has become prevalent in America. That’s when an adoptive family decides they don’t want their kid anymore and gives them away to someone else.
This has led to countless children being abused and trafficked. If Republicans lower the cost of adoption in Texas, this could open the door for a new child trafficking epidemic in our state. While good families with lesser means should have the opportunity to adopt children, we shouldn’t take the Oprah approach of, “you have a kid, you have a kid, you have a kid.”
During the last legislative session, most of the Texas Fascist Caucus voted against helping victims and children of trafficking. So it’s concerning that this session, they’re talking about bills that would make it easier for children to be trafficked.
Pro-guns, pro-violence.
Briscoe Cain was suspended from Twitter for an entire year for threatening Beto O’Rourke. So it’s not surprising that he’s leading the pro-violence charge in the Fascist Caucus regarding firearms.
According to Cain, they plan to introduce legislation prohibiting red flag laws or banning credit card companies from allowing gun purchases.
Since Greg Abbott took office, there have been 31 mass shootings in Texas, and gun deaths have soared by 44%. These statistics will only rise if the Freedom Caucus gets its way. What Cain is proposing is irrational and goes against common sense, but he is a Republican, after all.
Committees will begin discussing legislation soon.
Speaker Dade Phelan finally announced committee memberships yesterday. Next week when the House adjourns, they will assign legislation to committees, and then the committees will start scheduling hearings.
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