tvc184

I am wondering if the governor will sign it or allow it to become law. Then I wonder if a federal judge will issue a restraining order to keep it from being enforced until it has a chance to go through the federal system, Although Roe v. Wade is not absolute in allowing abortions, it seems to make it a requirement that the state allow abortions up to a viable fetus or one that can survive outside of the womb. If this does become law I think it will be almost immediately stopped and will eventually come to some kind of federal court ruling.

I suspect that most are not but for the ones that feel obligated to protest, they are offended that someone disagrees with them.

People that aren't Christians perhaps?

Illegal on both counts and the state will take action.

I kind of hear what you're saying however for the most part you're wrong. Fishing without a license is a state law and whether you could be arrested varies from state to state. In some states you cannot be arrested for an offense that allows for a citation. Immigration is under federal law per the Constitution and has absolutely nothing to do with state law as does fishing licenses. Illegal entry into the United States is seen much like trespassing. In Texas for example you're never trespassing unless you have been given proper warning as described by law. It is the same with entry into the United States. If a person comes over the border without proper documentation and is caught, he should be sent back by law and given a warning. If that person reenters the United States he has committed a felony. We have people they get caught time and time again. The problem is not the law but the person in charge not enforcing the law. Like many of these political arguments, the person writing them has no clue of the law. They make these memes/photos and post them on Facebook and get 10,000 likes… But the law they talk about is not factual. Go figure. So here is the answer. Texas (and other states) has autonomy to make it's own laws. . Texas have a law where you can go to jail for most things that can be issued a citation including things like no fishing license, having a burned out license plate light or not using your blinker when turning in the vehicle. The United States has a law that says you can be charged with a felony if entering United States illegally as long as you have been given that first warning. Texas law and United States law are independent and do not depend on each other. Any comparison between the two is a folly to begin with and one has nothing to do with the other. So I understand the complaint that the current occupant of the White House does not wish to enforce the laws that he does not like. That has nothing to do with Texas having the authority to arrest minor criminals or the United States having a law that allows the arrest of the illegal aliens but the guy at the top just doesn't like it.

I don't think so. I thought the education money came out of the general fund or in other words, from federal taxes paid. The state doesn't send them money per se just so they can send it back. The Constitution (I think Article I) says that taxes must be apportioned among the states. I believe that roughly means under the way it was written, equal. So if California sends in 5% of all taxes, they should get about 5% of anything given to states. Along came the 16th Amendment (I think because of some Supreme Court rulings making income taxes illegal) and part of that amendment was to officially allow income taxes and to end apportionment. Assuming that I am correct, that means that the US Congress can collect what they want in taxes and can give it out as they please without regard to who paid it in...... assuming they pass a bill that is signed into law by the president. I believe that by the Constitution, including amendments, allows the federal government to levy taxes and spend them where they wish. The key being there has to be a law. That is what I was talking about above where the federal government did pass a law allowing highway funds to be slightly restricted if the states do not go with the suggested drinking age but there is no federal law that requires restroom accommodations for transgender or gender identification.

I have killed many deer and eaten plenty of others where I helped clean it. I have never had a gamey tasting one. Almost every one that I have cleaned or been on scene were done within about an hour of killing and we don't usually gut the deer.... even while cleaning. Hang 'em by the back legs, strip the hide and but off the shoulders, back straps and hams. Dump the carcass and the meat goes straight on ice. Someone might not like the taste of deer but how it is handled might be everything. I know that my mother has served it at church and no one has ever mentioned it anything other than it tasting great. With roast, chicken fried and hamburgers......... she has never told them it was deer.

The only leverage the government has is to withhold funding. I cannot remember the case but at least once in the Obama administration they tried to withhold funding from a state for some reason. The federal court decided that they had no authority to withhold statutory funding because they didn't like something. They can withhold funding if it is a federal law allowing it within their taxing authority such as the national drinking age of 21 such as in the case of SD v. Dole. They cannot force the age law on the states but can withhold funding as the federal law states where a whopping 5% of funding can be withheld. In that case the federal law was upheld as passing the taxing authority of Congress and because it was no coercive and because it complied with a written law. There is no such law on the federal books and there is no mention in Title 9 of transgender or sexual orientation. Those are made up by this administration or amounts to legislating from the administrative branch which is unconstitutional. Nederland might not fight it but I'll bet that the state of Texas does as will other states and I can almost assure you that a federal court will toss it out. Then it will depend on the circuit courts and possibly eventually the SCOTUS.

I like duck and brussel sprouts..... and asparagus, broccoli, rutabagas, cilantro, sushi, tofu and so forth. There is little that I won't eat and most things I love. But I can't stand liver and I cannot develop a flavor for something that I cannot get down, I don't care how you cook it. It doesn't bother me what it is as long as it is blended enough that I can't get that distinctive liver flavor.

Change you can believe in!!

That is what people say about everything. I hate liver!! You haven't had it cooked right. I cannot stand wild duck. Gag!!! You haven't had it cooked right. Brussel sprouts are just plain nasty!!! You haven't had it cooked right. I hate............... No..... it just doesn't taste good!!

If it is anonymous, how can we even believe that it is really a Democrat or even a member of Congress? If could be a low level staffer or a person not even in DC. Unless the book names names and and can back it up with verifiable facts..... it is just another political spin paper. I could be completely true or it could be wishful thinking.

That is true. It is only true because of the likes of the NRA, GOA, Second Amendment Foundation and others. If you really think that Hillary and others of her ilk would not take guns if they could, you are living in an alternate universe. As an example I will offer not some political pundit or the tin foil hat crowd but Washington DC itself. In our nation's capital, handguns were banned even inside of your own home. Dick Heller was a licensed police officer and could not even own a handgun at his own home. As was brought up, he could lawfully carry a handgun into federally controlled buildings..... but couldn't own a gun in his home. Any long guns in DC had to keep a gun lock on it or be completely disassembled. Why would a city not even allow a police officer to have a handgun in his own home? Talk about insanity. Oh yeah, and these are the legislators that you don't think want our guns right or to take away guns? Heller got it all the way to the US Supreme Court in the case of DC v. Heller. In that case they ruled that the Second Amendment applied to individuals and not only being in a militia. Hmmmm..... you mean that a government entity in our capital city said that gun rights are not individual? You bet that is what they stated, you as an individual have no gun rights. Of course that goes directly against your statement about it being all puppet strings. But DC v. Heller wasn't good enough. Even though the Heller case showed that gun rights in the Second Amendment were for individuals (strangely enough, just like the other rights), the state of Illinois refused to issue handgun licenses and the city of Chicago, like DC, banned handgun ownership. Hmmmm...... Their statement was, Heller was about a federal district and we in Illinois and Chicago do not need to comply with individual rights and can still ban handguns and have crazy restrictions on long guns. So we get another case the US Supreme Court, McDonald v. Chicago. Again the Court ruled that the Second Amendment applies to everyone .... again strangely enough, just like the First Amendment, Third Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment and so on. Wow, what a strange concept, that the Bill of Rights actually belongs to the people in states also. So yeah, at this moment in time I don't think anyone will come for our guns. If you really believe that they wouldn't if they could, I have the Statue of Liberty for sale,.. cheap. I just named two recent cases (Heller in 2008 and McDonald in 2010) where cities and a state said that they could outright ban lawfully purchased handguns in your own home. These weren't some ancient history but recent decisions. Care to demonstrate why you think that won't happen if given the chance and if groups like the NRA weren't active.

I agree with one thing completely. You used the correct term of "a lot" instead of "alot".

I think when you are angry at someone you tend to look at them in the lowest common denominator possible for criticism. A person might have absolutely nothing against women but I can think of some pretty crude terms to speak of one if I was angry at her for any reason including politics. In fact the person uttering such words might in fact be a woman. Does that make a person a sexist or just crude? Obama has to be considered one of the wimpiest and weakest presidents ever. His crowning achievements in almost 8 years in office are Obamacare which appears to be a disaster and at the very least burdened the average working American which huge increases in healthcare and the killing of Bin Laden when he gave consent to the UN Navy to do the job that it was trained to do. There is a lot in between to criticize. Is it really based on his skin color for a majority of his detractors? James White is the representative for the 19th House district in Texas. He isn't just black but graduated from historically black Prairie View A&M. White in in a district with a white population of almost 80%. This is a part of Texas where you can almost hear the banjos playing when you drive through part of Newton, Jasper, Hardin, Tyler and Polk county yet the overwhelming majority white population voted for him. Is race a factor? Maybe it was because.... he was a military veteran, believes in strong gun rights and pushed hard for and voted for open carry? What about Mia Love from the US House and from Salt Lake City, UT. Her district has the massive black population of.... just over 1%. Hmmm...... race didn't seem to deter her. Skin color in many cases is an excuse on both sides of the coin for being far or against someone. The notion that there is racism out there is almost stupid to bring up. Sure there is. If we could view the future 300 years from now I would be you can find that people still hate people based on skin color, religion, national origin, regional hatred, etc. It goes in all directions and many times, within the groups in question. In a country of more than 320 million people, will we get a bunch of crude comments? You bet. Currently about 72% of this country is white. That comes out to about 230 million white people. If on 5% are really troubled by race, that means that about 12 million people are out there to fill bulletin boards with trash. Of course we could go to 10% and make it well over 20 million and so on. It is to the benefit of some people to dwell on those people which may be very many in number but very small in percentage. Are there people that detest Obama due to race? Absolutely. Did he win an election in a country two times with a black population of only 13%? You betcha. Are there blacks that are elected on the Republican ticket in overwhelming white districts? Yes there are. Do a LOT of people hate Obama due to his race? I doubt it percentage wise but certainly in raw numbers as I pointed out. Also the reason that I brought up his record above is because I think he has a lot there to hate and it isn't the amount of melanin in his skin. Hillary is about to get the Democratic nomination with probably the lowest favorability rating for any Democrat nominee in history. Is it due to her sex? The only other person in the race that can match her in historically low numbers is Trump. Maybe they hate him because he is white or rich.....................

There sure must be a lot of rednecks..............

You need to keep up. bigdog asked who is funding Haynes. GMCPats said that maybe some teacher's union if she is a member. I said that have no unions. They certainly have no unions with any bargaining power which is what I was referring to. GMCPats retorted that teacher have some associations that have no bargaining power but they like to refer to them as unions. I wrapped it up (so far) saying that when people typically refer to unions they are talking about collective bargaining rights and teachers and I believe no other public sector workers have a true union.... except police and firefighters. So a union is not funding Haynes but some other professional association may be. That is what is has to do with her.

I wasn't.

How many? I would venture to say very few. I would go as far as saying that the general public's knowledge of laws (even fairly common ones) it as times dismal. It is when you "think" you know a law that tends to get you in trouble. What is the old saying, a little knowledge is dangerous? I had a guy call me in the office this week asking about something on self defense and he mentioned that he was sometimes open carrying and told me how. I told him that what he had just told me was in fact a crime and not legal carry if he was seen doing it. The guy told me that he had a CHL and knew that TX just passed open carry and he had been told that it didn't matter how he carried openly. Ooops! He has not been to the update but was correct that the old CHL license did automatically go to an open carry license also but only if the handgun was in a belt or shoulder holster. So much for that little bit of knowledge........... I have repeatedly heard at gun counters at local sporting goods stores that you can carry a handgun in your vehicle with or without a license but it has to be visible. That is exactly the opposite of the law and a handgun has to be concealed. I could go on but an sure you get the picture.

Perhaps. It is according to where you are merging from. Let's say there is a three lane highway in one direction like IH-10 going to Houston. The car in the left lane that is merging into the lane to his right (middle lane), he has the right of way over another vehicle that is merging into the same lane from the left. .... just to be difficult.

But he is likely to be replaced by the snakette in the grass who may be worse.

I understand and that is what I was referring to. I guess five guys can buy an insurance policy and/or have a law firm on retainer and call themselves a union. Even joining AARP, NRA or many other organizations give legal benefits including in certain cases, lawyers. Therefore if you join the NRA I suppose you can say that you are part of a union. I think that most people think of unions or unionizing as not merely a group of similar people but as bargaining committees/collective bargaining rights. That means contract negotiations for specific rights and working conditions including salary and other monetary benefits. Teachers do not have that. Before my police department had collective bargaining rights through a vote of the public in an election, some officers in our department (including me) had a police association affiliated with Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas/CLEAT. It provided insurance legal representation for internal discipline and criminal charges if job related. We never called ourselves a union because..... we weren't. When we since unionized and gained collective bargaining and CLEAT still represents us but now in collective bargaining. Neither teachers nor any other TX public workers (I think) are not in contract negotiated unions. They have no bargain rights. That was my only point. I believe that many or even most people think that everyone has the right to unionize and that simply isn't true in TX for any public employees (city, county, state, school district, etc.) except the police officers and firefighters. It does not even cover police/fire department employees such as secretaries, ID Techs, Lab Techs, dispatchers, etc. and only the officers and firefighters themselves. There are no district union contracts or collective bargaining agreement that protects Haynes. She might be a member of an organization that has lawyers on retainer as can anyone including individuals.

Stop calling felons, felons. Stop calling convicts, convicts. It makes you wonder why even people that are liberals or support the Democratic Party will continue to defend "their team" for that reason only. The funniest part is how far they will go for political correctness. Now it will be an "individual who was incarcerated" or a "person who has committed a crime". Are a murderer? Are you a rapist? Are you a child molester? No, I am a person who has committed a crime. Change you can believe in...............

I don't think that teachers in TX have unions or collective bargaining. I believe that is only allowed for police officers and firefighters in the public sector.

In most jurisdictions and elections, to win you have to get the "most votes" or as it means in elections, more than 50% of the vote. When you do, you win. Donald Trump may or may not get there. If not it goes to a runoff much as we are currently doing in Jefferson County in the sheriff primary. Zena Stephens got the most votes (by almost 1,000) but Joe Stephenson was in second place. Even though she got the "most votes", she is not the winner. We now have a runoff for the final spot in a few days. Should Zena just be given the win because she got the most? I wonder if the second place finisher, Democrat Joe Stevenson agrees with Ted Cruz or is he willing to simply quit in the runoff because Zena got the "most votes"? Even our presidential election has the same rules. If no person gets more than 50% of the delegates (electoral college) then it goes to a runoff in the House of Representatives. Bear in mind that the primary elections are not part of the government run election system. It is a political party that can choose anyone in any manner it wants. Any party can place a person in nomination for the presidency. In fact every election several parties place people on the ballots in at least some states. Within the law as set out in the Constitution (35 years old and natural born citizen), anyone can run. A party gets to set its own rules on how it wants to choose its candidate. If a person doesn't like the rules of a party, he/she can feel free to run elsewhere or get enough people in the party to agree to change the rules. A party gets to choose in the manner that it sees fit to choose its candidate that it wants to represent it. Who the "establishment" wants to win can be whatever it wants. So much is made of the fairness of the two biggest parties, Republicans and Democrats. For example, what if fair about so many super delegates in the Democratic Party? In the spirit of true democracy it isn't fair but a party is not part of the government. If the Democratic Party wants to try insure that a Bernie Sanders kind of person doesn't win, that is their business.The primary elections and party conventions are to select a person that the party thinks can win under the rules that they get to set. Just like the presidential election and just like the runoff in a few days in Jefferson County for the sheriff race, the "most votes" means 50% are more and not simply a plurality. It works the same in the RNC and the DNC just as it does for most other elections in this country. To think or say otherwise is a smoke screen for someone that either doesn't like the results or simply wants to trash a person or party..... when in fact the person that is supported by the person making the claim is under the same rules. When someone in the RNC get the most votes (more than 50%), they will be the winner. Ted Cruz is entirely correct just as the DNC will do, just as the presidential election will do and just like we will do in the Democrat runoff in Jefferson County to see who will be on the ballot in the general election this coming November.