Messing with Texas

Is it just me or is Texas full of the looniest people in America? The news seems to be filled daily with stories about Texans acting and talking crazy. From Tea Party darlings in Washington like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Louie Gohmert to the marketing CEO (a female) who says a woman can’t be President because of hormones and Biblical sound reasoning to the Texas mother who objected to the regular visits to her son’s public school of “Bible Man.” Her complaints about overt Christian proselytizing in a public school were met with death threats and a photo of a house burning down. She said, “We just can’t get over how much hate there is in their loving, Christian hearts.”

George Bush is a Texan. And let’s not forget the ever-quotable governor of Texas Rick Perry, the man who never lets anyone forget he hates Obama, guberment and gun laws. His positions include eliminating the federal income tax, ending the direct election of U.S. senators and allowing states to opt out of Social Security and Medicaid. He has also suggested that Texas might secede from the United States.

How bad is Texas? Here are a few indicators:

• Texas is 43rd in graduation rate
• Texas ranks 50th in adults with a high school diploma
• Texas ranks 46th in SAT scores
• Texas ranks 49th in teacher pay
• Tax Expenditures per Capita 47th
• Percent of Uninsured Children 1st
• Percent of Children Living in Poverty 4th
• Per Capita State Spending on Mental Health 50th
• Teenage Birth Rate 7th
• Rate of Incarceration 9th
• Texas ranks 38th in funding per pupil
• Texas ranks 43rd in voting age population that is registered and 45th of voting age citizens who actually vote!
• Texas is the biggest polluter in America, according to the EPA
• Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country

Sure, every state has its issues, but Texas seems to breed a particularly virulent strain of wackiness. Everything’s bigger in Texas, including its problems.

Please welcome the newest third-world country: Texas

Secession is today’s word. Since Obama’s victory last week, some 30 states have petitions out to secede from the United States. Although I don’t really understand this, apparently Texas has enough signatures on its petition that it now requires some kind of official response from the White House. Here is the response I wish President Obama would give:

Dear citizens of the great state of Texas,

Your petition to secede from the United States of America is granted. Please turn off all the lights before you leave, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

President of the United States

Texas Threatens to Secede. Rest of U.S.: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Austin, Texas — In recent statements, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has suggested that the state of Texas might consider seceding from the Union in response to President Obama’s national policies. The Lone Star State was once a republic, and Gov. Perry is threatening to return to that status “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people.”

However, in the rest of the country there is jubilation at the prospect of ridding the United States of Texas.

“It’s an albatross around our necks,” said Otis Meyers, a construction worker from Portland, Oregon. “I mean, what’s their contribution to America? The Bush family? Line dancing? Crappy beer?”

Janice Sterns, a police officer from Columbus, Ohio, agreed. “They think of themselves as another country already and speak a different language. I say let them have it.”

High school teacher Ken Eldridge of Denver, Colorado was also in favor of Texas leaving the Union. “It’s a good start. Now if we can just get the rest of the South to follow Texas’s lead, we’d be in great shape.”