Monday, June 29, 2015

IF YOU WON'T OBEY FEDERAL LAW, DO YOUR OWN DISASTER RELIEF

The attorney general of the state of Texas is encouraging defiance of the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage:
County clerks can refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on religious objections to gay marriage, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday.

Paxton noted that clerks who refuse to issue licenses can expect to be sued, but added that “numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs,” in many cases without charge....

Paxton’s opinion also noted that judges and justices of the peace can refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

“Judges and justices of the peace have no mandatory duty to conduct any wedding ceremony,” the opinion said, adding that couples cannot be refused on the basis of race, religion or national origin.
Texas likes to throw states'-rights fits of this kind. On the other hand, Texas is very willing to accept federal relief in the wake of major disasters -- fourteen in the past decade, including one just last month after a period of tornadoes, high winds, and flooding:
Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

Federal funding also is available to state, tribal, and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds and flooding in Cooke, Gaines, Grimes, Harris, Hays, Navarro, and Van Zandt counties.

Federal funding is available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.
Why provide this money to a state that doesn't think government employees are subject to federal law?

I realize that the U.S. government won't really withhold disaster relief if Texas needs it tomorrow, or next week, or next month. But the money should be withheld. These people regularly bite the hand that feeds them.

Personally, I'd like to close all the military bases in Texas and invite Texans to secede, as they're always threatening to do. But that's just me. At the very least, let 'em clean up after their own damn tornadoes.

6 comments:

Victor said...

Texas has 3 hands.

One that they hold up that denies Northeastern states like NJ, NY, and CT from getting relief for a hurricane like Sandy.

The 2nd, to hold up and deny gay rights, and a woman's right to choose.

And the 3rd, they hold open to greedily take federal bucks the minute something bad happens in their 'Grating" state of TexASS!

F*CK them!!!
Take out the military bases, cut them loose, and let them fend for themselves as "The Republic of TexASS!"

They'll be begging to rejoin the Union after a week or so on their own.

Again, with the food?!?!?!?!

Raymond Smith said...

Texas might think that it has the power to deny Federal Law but it will learn when it is smacked down hard by the denial of all Federal funds to the state. They well might get their prior stated believe in the Federal Government taking over the state if they keep trying this type of behavior. God knows it is well past time these Red states need to be held accountable for their actions of defiance and disrespect to the Untied States Government and the Commander in Chief.

Anonymous said...

Seems like at the very least, any FEMA employee assigned to Texas in the aftermath of a disaster should be able to opt out. Sure, they might be federally required to do their jobs, but federal requirements are optional in the Great State of Texas.

Feud Turgidson said...

Abbott's Texas GOP stances viz a viz the federal government are more in the nature of hyperbole and faux line-in-the-sand drawing than actually firm, and most of those and certainly the crazier-sounding ones get rather routinely 'clarified' within a few days with double-talk and weasel-speak to the point where no serious analyst can be confident of what they're up to. But in the meantime, the PR from the belligerent, crazy, seditious-sounding hyperbole works its way into the minds of conservative Republican Texas voters with little to no regard for the more 'nuanced' bafflegab that follows.

We got a representative example just today, on the gay marriage case from SCOTUS. Several aggressive-SOUNDING things were said out of the governor's office thru the day, but by the END of the day Texas was taking the position of actually inviting the US DOJ - which has lots of attorneys in Texas - CEDING to the district USA 'some would say', the practical matter of 'enforcing' the legal implications of the majority opinion from SCOTUS last Friday. Think about what that means: AOTs, it means the Texas state AG is NOT going to act 'positively' to advance that bullshit opinion he issued - or rather SUPPOSEDLY issue, in the form of a letter to the federal DoJ. The apparent reasoning is that Texas Republican voters will take from the hyperbole in the letter what they wish, and maybe even need emotionally, but once the dust settles, Texas state licensing employees will be issuing marriage licenses to LGBTQ couples, and most of those licenses will go issued without fuss, and what noise the public does hear will be made by private interest groups, not state employees asserting some weird extrapolation of that ridiculous Hobby Lobby decision.

The offices of the Texas governor in particular and to some extent the Texas AG as well are very much Big Hat No Cattle, with the real power being in the state legislature and the various state agency commissioners. It's been that way for decades, and it goes some distance in explaining the huge volume, in both senses, noise and bullshit, that gets into the news services about what Stupid Shit's been said by various state administrators, almost invariably the governor and one or two 'affected' agency heads,

Chai T. Ch'uan said...

Update: My man Sen. Rodney is on it, to smack all that defy-the-US-Constitution stuff upside the head with some straight up poetry.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/texas-democrat-doj-letter-same-sex-marriage

paulocanning said...

Er, isn't Texas supposed to be going blue like tomorrow? What happened to that story?