Texas Lege's Comedy Hits

Perhaps you've been missing The Daily Show as it's been on a two-week hiatus.  I know, lately they're taking almost as many breaks as our US Congress.  But fear not:  the Texas State Legislature continues to offer can't-miss comedy in its place.

You hardly ever get the opportunity to read a blog post titled, Tampons don't kill people. Republicans do.  So I would like to thank that great Texas blogging duo, Margaret and Helen, for alerting me to the latest comedy accomplishments of the Texas Legislature, in their work to rid the world of intelligent democratic debate.

On Friday, during their routine ransacking of women's handbags, security guards confiscated feminine hygiene products.

You are probably going to want to read that last sentence again.  Go ahead.

Apparently, Texas lawbreakers -- I'm sorry, lawmakers -- were concerned that women might use tampons as projectile devices.  I guess most members of the Texas lege don't have much contact with menstruating women and their hygiene products, and so thought that a maxi-pad hurled from the stands just might knock out a member of their august group.

Meanwhile, it is a-okay to carry a gun, unless, I suppose, you're a woman.

More from the Planet of Texas

I really, really think that Molly Ivins should be around to see what's going on in the Texas Lege.  I had thought masturbating fetuses was about as dumb as a Texas republican could get, but then I heard about Representative Jodie Laubenberg, who testified that cutting the number of abortion clinics in the state would not be a hardship because  in the case of rape, ER's are equipped with what you call your "rape kit" which cleans a woman out:

Really?  Coming from South Carolina, I am reluctant to poke fun, but I get the opportunity so seldom.

I suppose it could be worse.  Ms. Laubenberg might have imagined that a "rape kit" was a DIY item used by a rapist.

Texas' Fact Challenged Child Protection Act

They actually are calling it the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" over there in the Texas State Lege.  But the testimony by the gaggle of heart-thumping supporters of forced pregnancy truly makes one wonder just how gullible they think we are.

In 2012 it was called the Women's Health Defense Act, and I just wonder why that bill didn't fly.  So this year, much in the way the tobacco companies bought scientists to prove that smoking was not harmful, but without the scientists, the evangelists of the Texas Lege lined up this year to bemoan the pain that fetuses feel at 20 weeks in a bill comically calling 20 week old fetuses "pain-capable."  Which sounds to me like an extra feature one could have installed for a small additional cost.

And as if this simple-minded, fact-free argument, that fetuses can feel pain, wasn't enough, Michael Burgess stepped up to the plate to argue that fetuses also feel pleasure, and that he has seen fetuses masturbate.  Do we really even need to travel into the recesses of that mind?

This is not a funny topic.  If you've read anything I've had to say about our legislators need to force women to carry pregnancies to term, you know I don't think it's funny.  But there comes a time when the only way to address the absurd is to laugh at it.

Which leads me to Molly Ivins.  She was the hero reporter for the Texas Observer, where she wrote on the Texas State Lege.  She loved those lunatics, and she painted them with the clear strokes of reality, in their full crazy plumage.  If you haven't yet, read the book of collected essays that brought her to national attention, entitled, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?  The story of the title is worth the price of admission.  Hint:  It began with an article in which she had written of a local congressman, "If his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day."

So you can see why I'm wishing Molly were here now to enjoy and comment on the idiots in the Texas Lege.  She would have a laugh riot over her favorite group of idiots as they continue to prove that they can indeed continue to get dumber.