Turkey Time 2015
We’re not trying to be mean. Wait. Yes, we are. Some folks need to be held accountable for their transgressions, from the simply selfish to the borderline illegal. For the rest of you yokels on our dubious list, we’re just happy to call you on your bullshit. Lord knows, someone has to.
Every year for the past decade-plus, we here at the Fort Worth Weekly have been “celebrating” the worst of our fair ville. Sort of like the anti-Best Ofs. But with a lot more hurt feelings. From a paranoid governor to college students’ racist tweets, underachieving shortstops to power-hungry highway patrolmen, North Texas –– Fort Worth, specifically –– is full of crap. Let’s grab a coffee and count the ways, shall we?
And to think, we’re a small operation with only a handful of staff writers. Imagine what a “real”/daily newspaper could underline or even uncover with this much angst. –– Anthony Mariani
Greg Abbott: Turkey-saurus Rex
It’s hard to imagine that any politician could be on the wrong side of history on so many topics, and yet good ol’ Greggy boy makes it look easy. Rick Perry is Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi by comparison.
Let’s run down a few of Abbott’s positions on some important issues. He is proudly against the Affordable Care Act, particularly against expanding Medicaid, which leaves about 1 million Texans without care, costs tens of thousands of new, good-paying healthcare jobs, and, according to most practitioners, the lack of adequate care continues to cost about 9,000 Texans their lives each year. Good call, Guv. So Christian of you.
Speaking of empathy, a recent newsletter from Abbott’s perpetual campaign announced that “Planned Parenthood will be completely cut off from Medicaid funds in light of recent undercover videos showing dangerous changes in abortion procedures to turn baby body parts into cash.”
That the videos have been completely debunked did not get in the governor’s way of doubling down his voting base: fundamentalist Christians with money, who probably neither know nor care that Planned Parenthood also provides cancer screenings, contraceptives, and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
“The gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed in Texas,” Abbott continued, “and the barbaric practice must be brought to an end.”
But Abbott –– like Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina and probably like many of our, um, most outspoken Christian social media friends –– is lying. Fetal tissue from aborted fetuses is sometimes collected and sent to research facilities — at shipping cost, no profit permitted. Not just from Planned Parenthood but from most hospitals as well. It’s used for stem cell research, mainly to grow skin for burn victims and to create vaccines. Republican presidential candidate and practicing physician Ben Carson worked with it. Former Governor Perry had stem cell work done on his back. It’s pretty important stuff. To Abbott, it’s just a campaign fund-raising tool.
Then there are the guns. Abbott recently signed into law a bill that allows people with concealed handgun permits to go out in public with their pieces strapped down on hips or shoulders. And then he signed another gun-friendly bill into law, this one permitting students and professors to openly carry guns on the campuses of public universities and community colleges, as well as in dorms and classrooms. Raging hormones, not fully developed reasoning skills, oceans of alcohol –– what could possibly go wrong, Greg!
Our governor loves guns, but he’s terrified of them when they’re in the hands of U.S. Special Forces in training. When Operation Jade Helm, a routine practice exercise, was announced early in the year, Abbott lost his mind. He tweeted, “I’ve ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor Jade Helm to safeguard Texans’ constitutional rights, private property & civil liberties.”
What he meant was, “Dear dumbass Texans, I’m gonna keep that Obama from taking your guns and making you a Muslim slave.”
Former State Rep. Todd Smith (R-Euless) was just one of millions of us to hit the roof. “Let me apologize in advance,” he wrote to Abbott directly in a missive that soon became public, “that your letter pandering to idiots who believe that U.S. Navy Seals and other U.S. military personnel are somehow a threat to be watched has left me livid. … I am terrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my governor doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to those who do.”
Then there’s climate change, which Abbott doesn’t believe is caused by man, and minimum wage, which Abbott claims is a “jobs killer,” despite the fact that 12 of the 13 states that have voluntarily raised the minimum wage have seen substantial employment growth since.
Then there’s illegal immigration, which Abbott regularly rails against, even to the point of forbidding babies born here legally to illegal aliens from getting their Constitutionally authorized citizenship. Oh, and let’s not forget Equal Pay for Women. Designed to make it easier to bring pay discrimination lawsuits in state court, the measure was vetoed by Perry in 2013, and when Abbott’s gubernatorial Democratic opponent, Wendy Davis, asked him if he would veto it if it came up again, what do you think he said?
Remember: Abbott is the former Texas attorney general whose female attorneys made roughly $6,000 less than their male counterparts.
And then there’s gay marriage. Three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed same-sex marriage throughout the entire country, Abbott sent a memo to all Texas department heads, directing them to “preserve, protect, and defend the religious liberty of every Texan.”
Translation: If you work for Texas and claim you don’t want to perform gay marriages, we’ll support you.
When we recently heard that “Texas” had become synonymous for “crazy” in Norway, we thought, “Why not Florida?” A split second later, we realized, “Oh, right. Greg Abbott is our governor.”
And, finally, Abbott recently told the federal government that Texas would not accept any Syrian refugees because, well, all Syrian people are fanatical terrorists until proven otherwise.
A Hardy Meal
When the Cowboys signed Greg Hardy to a contract during the offseason, fans hoped the team could unleash the Kraken. Well, the big defensive end did get loose, and now it’s his own team that’s a wreck. Instead of being diplomatic in his new start, the man found guilty of throwing his girlfriend onto a bed full of guns said to an interviewer that he hoped to come out “guns blazing.” Hardy also grossly flirted with Tom Brady’s wife and sister-in-law and got physical with a Cowboys coach on the sidelines. No. 76 is an idiot and a rotten human being, but his team posted that interview on DallasCowboys.com while owner Jerry Jones praised Hardy’s sideline violence as “passion” and “leadership” and tried to minimize things when photos of Hardy’s abuse of Nicole Holder became public. Jones even raised the possibility of extending the player’s contract. If Hardy goes Aaron Hernandez on somebody, Jones will probably install him in the Ring of Honor. To top everything off, the NFL, after some post-Ray Rice pledges to be a leader against domestic violence, didn’t even issue a statement in response to any of this. To Greg Hardy and his cadre of enablers in expensive suits sitting in the luxury boxes at AT&T Stadium, we give them some free-range turkey that’s been allowed to run out of control.
