The bizarre marriage of political convenience between religious fundamentalists and fiscal conservatives runs apace in Texas.

In a recent 2011 legislative victory, these moral visionaries cut $73 million from the budget for family planning services to poor women. Their reasoning followed the usual twisted path; we don’t like abortion, Planned Parenthood provides abortion, let’s cut funding to the state’s largest provider of non-abortion reproductive services (birth control, pap smears, breast exams, counseling) to impoverished women.

Imagine their dumfounded shock when births to poor women are projected to miraculously skyrocket over the next two budget sessions. The projected costs of delivering and raising these babies will fall squarely on the shoulders of Texas taxpayers, which now finds a few republican legislators furiously backsliding from their evangelical kissing cousins.

When state lawmakers passed a two-year budget in 2011 that moved $73 million from family planning services to other programs, the goal was largely political: halt the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics.

Now they are facing the policy implications — and, in some cases, reconsidering.

The latest Health and Human Services Commission projections being circulated among Texas lawmakers indicate that during the 2014-15 biennium poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than they would have as a result of their reduced access to state-subsidized birth control. The additional cost to taxpayers is expected to be as much as $273 million — $103 million to $108 million to the state’s general revenue budget alone — and the bulk of it is the cost of caring for those infants under Medicaid.

In a perfect world every baby would be wanted, viably healthy and born to responsible parents with adequate financial means. In this imaginary realm all people would take responsible, proactive measures to prevent unwanted pregnancy, including paying for their own birth control.

Since this ideal is not the case and because I am a realist, it is simply commonsense public policy to spend far less tax dollars providing comprehensive birth control for poor and underage women than spending substantially more money after the fact raising the results of their unintended pregnancies. I’m also not opposed to tax dollars being spent on abortions for these unprepared, predominately teenage, potential mothers.

It’s bad enough Texans have to suffer an evangelized state school board intent on teaching creationism in public classrooms alongside a syllabus of abstinence-only sex education, now they expect us to fund the immediate financial needs as well as the anticipated future social burdens (which turns the state’s projected $273M figure into small change) that will naturally result from their unrealistic, religiously driven, dogmatic view of human reality.

Texas Tribune source.

And they should know.

CNN: FBI and DHS assess with high confidence anarchist extremists will target similar infrastructure in Tampa and Charlotte, with potentially significant impacts on public safety and transportation,” according to the law enforcement alert.

Meaning, Black Bloc-type “anarchist extremists” on the government payroll ensure plenty of violence, precipitating more laws, more crackdowns and bigger budgets all round to fight “extremist anarchists”.

Amidst the flannel, and no doubt approved at the highest levels, some real election news: Romney’s economic advisor wants Bernanke to stay on.

Glenn Hubbard, economic adviser to Mitt Romney, said he would advise a possible President Romney that Bernanke should “get every consideration” to stay on beyond January 2014, when the chairman’s current term expires, reports Reuters.

“Ben is a model technocrat. He gets paid nothing for getting kicked around all the time. I think they ought to pat him on the back,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under GWB. Oh yeah, things are really gonna change under Romney-Ryan.

Quotation from a letter sent to the Telegraph by the ‘Defence Secretary’:-

SIR – As the London 2012 Olympics draw to a close, I want to express my heartfelt thanks on behalf of the Government and of the British people to the men and women of our Armed Forces.

Their efficient, friendly and cheerful intervention to deliver security to the Games has been one of London 2012’s great successes. Not only has it ensured a safe and successful Games, but it has been the largest exercise in defence engagement since the Second World War, putting thousands of troops in direct contact with the citizens who pay for defence through their taxes.

We have been reminded that we can rely on these men and women not only to protect us from our enemies abroad, but also to provide resilience to our society at home.

Philip Hammond MP (Con)

Explanation, translation & commentary:-

The Armed Forces’ presence was actually determined by the singular failure of Group Four Services (G4S) to supply the guaranteed number of ‘security monitor staff’ as they (G4S) had relied on the old idea of paying the minimum possible wage to anyone who signed up, who had gone through the ludicrous ‘training procedure’ without actually bursting into gales of laughter, and had the added indignity of having a CRB check done on their whole background. When the volunteer security teams did attend for a trial, they found no planning, no place to sleep, no uniforms, no idea!

As was foreseen by anyone with more than single-figure IQ levels, the recruitment process dissolved into chaos, and the over-paid senior execs. of G4S, this massive public company went running, sobbing, to the Home Secretary a week before the Games were due to commence, to tell them that they hadn’t got more than a third of the numbers required; and of course, the whole Cabinet, from Cameron down to the bottle-washers of the Lib_Dems, thanked their lucky stars that Hammond hadn’t actually fired all the soldiers, marines and sailors that he, along with his predecessor Liam Fox, had originally wanted to.

The Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen who served during the Olympic Games venues did not volunteer, they were ordered to attend: cancelling holidays, leave, family commitments, and they did so because they are trained to obey lawful commands: they demonstrated that the Military can do more than is required, but to state that their intervention was cheerful is to write the lie in red ink.

The slashing of the Defence budgets is but yet another in the sins and signs which will be held against this stinking Coalition when at last they come to judgement at an Election, and it is also a judgement upon the voters of this Nation that one of the two main Parties will be returned to power, because those same voters do not think before casting their votes, but act like herded sheep, corralled by a mute sheepdog.

p.s. By the way, Mr. Hammond, the last time I checked, I am proud to own that I, along with you, are British Subjects of Her Majesty! If one accepts EU rulings, we may be termed ‘citizens’, but fortunately, not in my home!

‘His Majesty’  has now arrived.

This is the limousine which will chauffeur him on the ‘Zil’ Lanes to the Olympic Park. This is the hotel he and all his colleagues will be staying at during the Games, all totally free of charge; and this is the Diplomatic Passport he carries, which gives him total immunity from arrest or prosecution from all crimes including murder.

So you can maybe understand my bemusement when, whilst being interviewed, most respectfully of course on the Today Programme, he said the magic line:-

“We work very hard; because after all, we are just ordinary working people”

Update on those ‘ordinary working people’ …Just like these!

I glanced at the latest Internet craze, which is NeverSeconds, a Blog from a young schoolgirl who lives in Argyll. Seems that this enterprising young lady had decided to become a journalist, and therefore thought she needed writing practice; so wrote about her school dinners, including photographs. Her initial efforts were seen by a few, then more, until her photos of soggy croquettes and a stodgy piece of pizza went viral around the world. An unfortunate juxtaposition of a headline alongside a photo of young Martha caused the Council to ban her taking photographs of her food on School property. The reverse came within twenty-four hours as a torrent of abuse and comment landed foursquare on top of the Council.

So, all’s well that ends well? Not really, because I read some of Martha Payne’s blog postings, and you can see, within one small section of that unspoilt young lady’s prose, an underlying fear of the dead hand of officialdom, of legalistic bully-boys, of an autocratic elite who uses the Law to defend what they believe is theirs to control. She was maybe guided to write the words which she wrote by an adult, such as a teacher or her father, but the facts remain, she qualified her writing to avoid the possibility of upsetting or offending a group which should, in my own opinion, should not even be in existence.

The line which young Martha wrote, including the title was :-

Mini Olimpicz

If you think I have spelt Olympics wrong I haven’t! The word Olympics is copyrighted so the school would get a fine if we used it.

We here in these Dis-United British Isles have long been accustomed to ‘experts’ and other busy-bodies telling us what do eat, to drink, to wear, to drive etc., etc., because they, and they alone, seem to know what is going to be ‘good for us’.

We cannot smoke in bars, restaurants, offices, even bus-shelters because a bunch of well-funded clowns got a law passed which stops us from doing so because of the ‘perils’ of ‘second-hand smoke’! Don’t get me wrong, I used to smoke, heavily. But I stopped, on my own, and without any of the billion-pound anti-smoking products pushed by the NHS. I stopped because I wished to stop, because I benefited from not smoking, and incidentally because I saved a hell of a lot of cash by not buying cigarettes. But I would stress that it was my decision to stop, not because some Government-funded arsehole was insisting that I stop.

We are harried from morning to night by fools telling us what to do, whether it be eating the ‘wrong’ sort of food, or drinking incorrect quantities of alcohol. We already face the threat of the new Gestapo, the totally-politicised and thuggish British Police Service, ever eager to carry out their political masters’ wishes by crushing any dissent, except of course Muslim dissent. We face the days when the huge raft of anti-democratic Laws passed and active within the last fifteen years are already stifling free speech, in what is spoken, or written; and the day is fast approaching when what we think will probably be monitored as well!

And now of course the epidemic has reached the streets of New York, with yet another man who thinks he, and he alone, has the answer to the ‘Obesity’ problem apparently raging through the streets and homes of that wonderful city. God bless Mayor Bloomberg, because few others will!

I note that two things have occurred almost simultaneously, and would ask if ATW readers reactions are the same as mine?

As David has already noted the clowns have occupied St. Pauls, but I heard this morning that, when questioned on the Beeb when they would be leaving, this supreme tosser spokesman stated that they they would be holding a ‘General Assembly’, and this would be discussed.

Secondly, I also note that Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has also stated that there needs to be an ‘Independant Investigation’ as to whether Gaddaffi was executed illegally!

And they say that Irony is dead!

I have always favoured retribution, or possibly revenge, as the real prime mover in the sort of justice system I would like to see established in this overly-liberal country of ours. Many may disagree with me, some might think I don’t go far enough, but when you read of the perks which the average prisoner receives at most prison establishments, one often wonders why more aren’t queuing to get in!

However, all is not yet lost in the future penal system as it is envisaged by at least one member of the Opposition Front Bench.  Chris Grayling, Shadow Home Secretary is quoted as stating that ‘vandals’ in any Administration which he might run in the near future, would have their MOBILE PHONES taken away from them for a month. 

You can always rely on the Tories to provide hard-hitting policies for the future of our penal system!

So Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley believes that her client Binyam Mohamed is near to death’s door after his extensive foreign travel to seek enlightenment with islam, capture and subsequent confinement, vicious and continued torture, decison to go on hunger strike at ‘Gitmo, and general feelings of unhappiness!

Well, as I said in my heading, “We can only hope!!!”