Steve Toth takes his transphobia all the way to TMZ

Because no serious news outlet will pay attention to these clowns, Steve Toth (R-The Woodlands) and Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth) did a joint interview with TMZ today regarding SB3817 filed last week by Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress): A person commits an offense if the person knowingly makes a false or misleading verbal or written statement to a governmental entity or the person's employer by identifying the person's biological sex as the opposite of the biological sex assigned to the person at birth. An offense under this section is a state jail felony.

If passed, it would amend the Texas Penal Code to add a new form of fraud related to gender identity.

According to the bill, a person would commit "gender identity fraud" if they "knowingly make a false or misleading verbal or written statement to a governmental entity or the person’s employer by identifying the person’s biological sex as the opposite of the biological sex assigned to the person at birth."

I’m not going to clip any of these fools’ comments, but it’s the same as always: men are dressing up as women in order to assault women. Toth says: “We have thousands of people on the sex registry list — tens of thousands in the state of Texas — they could tomorrow change their name and gender on legal documents and we would have no way of tracking them!”

The bill is not expected to pass, but it’s a very good example of moving the Overton Window. It is also one of almost 100 anti-trans bills that have been filed so far this session. It’s sickening.

Speaking of Schatzline:

"Thank you, moms and dads, for being patriots and making sure that we're not giving experimental vaccines to our children and we're protecting medical freedom," Schatzline said. "Let's keep going for faith, for family, for freedom."

ANYWAY.

The measles outbreak has now infected 223 people, mostly unvaccinated children. Here are some interesting facts about healthcare infrastructure in Texas, something that could be improved through legislation — the thing some Texans apparently hired Schatzline to do — but Republicans are too busy posting to do anything useful.

Some 64 Texas counties don’t have a hospital, and 25 lack primary care physicians, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture. Twenty-six rural Texas hospitals closed between 2010 and 2020, according to a rural hospital trade organization, and although closures slowed in the years since, those still standing are often in crumbling buildings with few medical providers.

Swaths of Texas have scant resources for public awareness campaigns. And they lack sufficient medical staff with expertise to provide the one-on-one education needed to encourage vaccination and regular visits to the doctor.

Today the House has been debating HB3, the House’s school voucher bill. It’s currently 8 p.m. and it’s still going. Earlier today there were three overflow rooms full of people there to testify — largely against — the bill. It’s been fairly boring, to be honest. I don’t know what it is about the Senate, but their hearings move along much faster and attract more crazy people than the House, as far as I can tell.

This was the only moment I’ve caught so far that veered into weird territory:

Free the children from public schools? And Elon Musk do what? This man’s shirt is cutting off circulation to his brain, he’s not on message. The message is that Republicans DON’T want to defund public schools, they just want FREEDOM to play with taxpayer MONEY, but I’m pretty sure defunding public schools is exactly what this guy wants.

In “Thank you, Lauren Ashley Simmons” news, her bill HB1989 received some press today:

Maternal deaths, and the committee that reviews them, have been in the spotlight since Texas banned nearly all abortions. At least three women have died and countless others have come forward with stories of medical care delayed or denied due to confusion or fear of the strict laws, which come with up to life in prison for performing a prohibited abortion.

For a decade, the Department of State Health Services has been excluding deaths related to “voluntary or therapeutic termination of pregnancy” from the pile given to the committee to review. This exclusion was written into the original statute, but members of the committee only became aware of it last year.

Two bills have been filed by Democrats that would require the committee to review pregnancy-related deaths, regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy. HB 3121, filed by Fort Worth Rep. Nicole Collier, and Simmons, HB 1989, would both also allow a larger swath of deaths to be reviewed to determine whether they would qualify as pregnancy-related deaths.

Thank you, Lauren Ashley Simmons.

Three Good Things:

1. I went for a walk this afternoon and met some new robins.
2. Mustard, the finest condiment.
3. Mountain Goats’ “No Children”