Rolling Stone: How nutcase wingnut extremists took Texas over (back)
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/lone-star-crazy-how-right-wing-extremists-took-over-texas-20140701#ixzz36EWd87CT
[font size=5]Lone Star Crazy: How Right-Wing Extremists Took Over Texas[/font]
In today's Texas, which is falling into the hands of gun nuts, border-sealers and talk-radio charlatans, George W. Bush would practically be considered a communist
By Mark Binelli
.... But Republican primary voters in 2014 weren't interested in hearing about jobs. Instead, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican running to replace Perry, used Ted Nugent for campaign appearances a month after the singer referred to President Obama as a "subhuman mongrel." One of the lieutenant-governor candidates, Texas agriculture commissioner Todd Staples, ran a television ad in which he declared, "Mr. President, you are not a king, and Texans bow to no one" – followed, chillingly, by footage of Staples hoisting a rifle at a gun store. Meanwhile, Cathie Adams, the former chair of the state GOP, suggested in a speech that Republican anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist might actually be part of a stealth jihad because he is married to a Palestinian and "as you see, he has a beard." ....
(Rethug nominee for Lt Gov. running against Dem Leticia VAN DE PUTTE, Dan) Patrick, 64, grew up working-class in Baltimore, the first member of his family to graduate from college. He moved to Houston in 1979 and became a popular sportscaster, infamous for sub-Ron Burgundy shenanigans like allowing a pair of cheerleaders to strip off his shirt and paint him blue before an Oilers game. Then he bought a couple of AM radio stations (which he would later sell to Clear Channel for millions) and began hosting his own conservative drive-time show, where he attacked Bush and Perry as too liberal, while still embracing his old penchant for stunts (including having an on-air vasectomy).
While establishment Republicans have warned about the importance of reaching out to minorities and women, Patrick, elected to the state Senate in 2006, doubled down on his craven appeals to the right-wing talk-radio id. He boycotted the Senate prayer when it was led by a Muslim, spearheaded a bill requiring women seeking abortions to first receive a sonogram, and warned of the "illegal invasion" of undocumented Mexicans. ,,,,
Nowadays, the City of Hate (Dallas, c. 1963) era has grown so distant that hate has been allowed to return as a winning campaign slogan in Texas. The portrait of right-wing Texas painted by authors Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis in the recent book Dallas 1963 will sound unsettlingly familiar to anyone who has read the preceding pages. Fliers were passed out before JFK's trip to Dallas with a picture of his face and the words WANTED FOR TREASON; LBJ was spat upon by protesters during an earlier appearance. Then as now, the pot was stirred by reactionary preachers, wealthy string-pullers (in 1963, it was the oil magnate H.L. Hunt, the richest man in the United States), political opportunists (Gen. Edwin Walker ran for Texas governor in 1962 on an anti-civil rights, anti-Communist platform) and organized interest groups (the John Birch Society then, the Tea Party now).
Come November, Patrick will be a difficult man to beat. When I ask Harold Cook, the Democratic strategist, if he thinks Patrick really believes the stuff he says or treats the whole exercise as an extended performance, Cook says, "Look, he knows how to put on a show – he knows how to make an ultraconservative Tea Party Republican get a little stiffy. Is he for real? Honestly, at some point, what's the difference? If you're a pro wrestler for long enough, you forget the deal is rigged and you start to believe you have superhuman strength. I don't think there is a Dan Patrick, except that which exists to get Dan Patrick elected." ....
This story is from the July 3rd-17th, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I live in the belly of the beast and it is stifling.
I am making plans to leave here in the near future...not sure which direction that I am headed but looking at several options.
While I am actively helping in Van de Putte and Wendy's campaigns, in the dark parts of my mind I know that they are not going to win.
I firmly believe that mechanisms are in place here to assure that that does not happen.
I admire anyone in this state that has any optimism that things are going to end well here.
I don't see it happening. 
K & R 
