Texas GOP wants to ban a bunch of books in schools

[wildcat09 29556]

Texas House committee to investigate school districts’ books on race and sexuality:

Quote

A Republican state lawmaker has launched an investigation into Texas school districts over the type of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or "make students feel discomfort."

State Rep. Matt Krause, in his role as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating, notified the Texas Education Agency that he is "initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content," according to an Oct. 25 letter obtained by The Texas Tribune.

Krause's letter provides a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books.

His list of titles includes bestsellers and award winners alike, from the 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Confessions of Nat Turner” by William Styron and “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates to last year's book club favorites: “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot” by Mikki Kendall and Isabel Wilkerson's “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”

But race is not the only thing on the committee chair’s list. Other listed books Krause wants school districts to account for are about teen pregnancy, abortion and homosexuality, including “LGBT Families” by Leanne K. Currie-McGhee, “The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to their Younger Selves” edited by Sarah Moon, and Michael J. Basso’s “The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality: An Essential Handbook for Today’s Teens and Parents.”

Krause, a Fort Worth lawmaker and founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, is running for state attorney general against Ken Paxton. Krause declined to comment and no explanation was given as to how these books were chosen.

Krause sent notice of the investigation to Lily Laux, the Texas Education Agency deputy commissioner of school programs, as well as some Texas school superintendents. His letter did not specify which school districts Krause was investigating.

Krause informs districts they must provide the committee with the number of copies they have of each book, on what part of campus those books are located and how much money schools spent on the books, as well as information on any other book that violates House Bill 3979, the so-called “critical race theory law”designed to limit how race-related subjects are taught in public schools. Critical race theory, the idea that racism is embedded in legal systems and not limited to individuals is an academic discipline taught at the university level. But it has become a common phrase used by conservatives to include anything about race taught or discussed in public secondary schools.

The law states a teacher cannot “require or make part of a course” a series of race-related concepts, including the ideas that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex” or that someone is “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive” based on their race or sex.

School officials have until Nov. 12 to respond. It is unclear what will happen to the districts that have such books.

The letter did not give a specific reason that Krause was launching the investigation, only that “the committee may initiate inquiries concerning any ‘matter the committee considers necessary for the information of the legislature or for the welfare and protection of state citizens.’”

Lake Travis Independent School District officials received the letter and are trying to figure out what the next steps are, a spokesperson said. Officials in that Austin-area school district are speaking with other school districts to figure out what this means for them. In nearby Round Rock Independent School District, the district spokesperson, Jenny Caputo, texted that it will "take significant staff time to gather the information to reply to this request." The district's legal team is still reviewing the request.

State Rep. Victoria Neave, D-Dallas, who is vice chair of the committee, said she had no idea Krause was launching the investigation but believes it’s a campaign tactic. She found out about the letter after a school in her district notified her.

“His letter is reflective of the Republican Party's attempt to dilute the voice of people of color,” she said.

Neave said she doesn’t know what Krause is trying to do but will investigate the motive and next steps.

The TEA and the rest of the Committee on General Investigating members did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said it doesn’t surprise him that Krause has taken initiative on a conservative item, especially since there is crowded field in the Texas attorney general race.

“He's not well known statewide, and so he needs to put down a pretty tall conservative flag to get notice,” Rottinghaus said. “As a political statement, it certainly conveys the clear message that the Republicans are watching.”

Rottinghaus said he doesn’t recall a time in recent memory when legislatures have taken the role of investigating school districts.

“The monitoring of this definitely is a political statement and so the fact that the legislature is attentive to it definitely implies that they're not going to drop the issue,” he said.

Jim Walsh, an attorney who often represents school districts, pointed out there is nothing in the law that says books must be removed and Krause’s investigation also doesn’t call for books to be removed. For now, it’s up to school districts to decide how they will respond, but what’s certain is that it will add more workload to Texas schools that are already struggling from the effects of the pandemic.

Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina said in a statement that the investigation is a “witch hunt” and that nothing in state law gives lawmakers the right to go after educators.

“This is an obvious attack on diversity and an attempt to score political points at the expense of our children’s education,” she said.

Krause’s investigation comes after several school districts across the state removed books from libraries because of parental outcry.

Earlier this month, the Carroll Independent School District board in Southlake reprimanded a fourth grade teacher who had an anti-racist book in her classroom after a parent complained about it last year.

Then, in a separate incident this month, a Carroll ISD administrator asked teachers to provide materials that presented an “opposing” perspective of the Holocaust in an effort to comply with HB 3979. The law, which comes with little to no guidance, has caused confusion and fear among teachers and administrators, who have seemingly misinterpreted the law.

In the Katy Independent School District, a school removed a book after parents claimed it promoted “critical race theory,” which the district later found to be untrue and reinstated the book.

Full list of books here. One of them is literally titled "The Year They Burned the Books."

I'd like to thank the "centrists" who spent the past few years hyperventilating about the illiberal left on college campuses being the real threat to free speech.

[atomheartbevo 90542]

"Real talk about sex & consent : what every teen needs to know"

So did somebody in Florida request that this book be added to the list?

[tantric superman 4668]

18 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I'd like to thank the "centrists" who spent the past few years hyperventilating about the illiberal left on college campuses being the real threat to free speech.

I'd like to give another thank you to the "GOP" which wants to ban a bunch of books. 

[atomheartbevo 90542]

I can picture them requesting that every book that contains this be banned as well.  Because the folks running Texas in 1861 really liked their slaves.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html

Spoiler

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former as one of the co-equal States thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slave-holding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harrassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that [of] a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holdings States in their domestic institutions--a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.

They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offences, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.

And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons--We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.

 

[atomheartbevo 90542]

Are we surprised they want to ban this book: "Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor"

[tantric superman 4668]

From the look of that list, they tryin to ban the flava.

May, I miss the 60s when some people actually cared about not being racist, or being labeled as racist.

You white people -- you're doing a bad job at policing your people.

[Brisketexan 106614]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I can picture them requesting that every book that contains this be banned as well.  Because the folks running Texas in 1861 really liked their slaves.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html

  Hide contents

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former as one of the co-equal States thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slave-holding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harrassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that [of] a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holdings States in their domestic institutions--a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.

They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offences, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.

And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons--We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.

 

Fake news.  Black people were happy to be enslaved, they were well fed and sang fun work songs.  Things didn't go badly for black people until the evil libs created welfare.  True fact, per the GQP curriculum.

[tantric superman 4668]

This thread making me feel all Annie-like.

[tantric superman 4668]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Fake news.  Black people were happy to be enslaved, they were well fed and sang fun work songs.  Things didn't go badly for black people until the evil libs created welfare.  True fact, per the GQP curriculum.

Counterpoint, wife actually scolded me for singing this too loudly when I was spreading some winter rye seed last week.  Told me "those songs aren't appropriate now".

 

[Pato del Muerto 53329]

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20834]

If there's one thing that will get a kid to read a book, it's trying to ban it.

[Macanudo 13253]

I am tired of living in this backwoods, redneck, small minded country.

[High Plains Drifter 11160]

 

I'm guessing that the average public school library in Texas has very very few of those books anyway. I'm sure this Krause dipshit knows that.

 

 

Anyway, If I was a school librarian, I'd buy as many of those books as possible before the ban comes, then put up a display that boldly proclaimed: "These are the books that our state leaders don't want you to read. Check one out today before they are banned".

 

 

Then I'd go look for a new job next school year.

 

 

[WBT 20879]

It's cute that y'all think kids still check out books from the library

[High Plains Drifter 11160]

Just now, WBT said:

It's cute that y'all think kids still check out books from the library

 

My daughter still checks out books from both her school library and the public library. She also still buys books from the annual book fair, which was doing a brisk business when I stopped by to pick her up after school one day.

 

Don't believe the hype.

 

[SimonBolivar 11026]

1 minute ago, WBT said:

It's cute that y'all think kids still check out books from the library

Don't all schools pretty much require that their students check out books from their library or elibrary?

[Beau Vine 55816]

8 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'm guessing that the average public school library in Texas has very very few of those books anyway. I'm sure this Krause dipshit knows that.

 

I'm wondering what his process was for compiling that list?

[Guest Lobo]

Mark my words.  We are less than 18 months away from a mass book burning in Texas.  If one doesn't happen, I will pay everyone on here $50.

[Macanudo 13253]

2 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I'm wondering what his process was for compiling that list?

Well duh, they're in Krause's home library.   Dollars to donuts this guy is closeted.  

[hpslugga 4096]

4 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Mark my words.  We are less than 18 months away from a mass book burning in Texas.  If one doesn't happen, I will pay everyone on here $50.

I’m giving you advanced permission to keep it on grounds that you losing the bet only means it happened 1-6 months after you say it would have. 

[Js1 86926]

8 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Mark my words.  We are less than 18 months away from a mass book burning in Texas.  If one doesn't happen, I will pay everyone on here $50.

How else will we stay warm when the grid fails for the 4th time? 

[SimonBolivar 11026]

[Beau Vine 55816]

8 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Well duh, they're in Krause's home library.   Dollars to donuts this guy is closeted.  

I mean, this is really shocking -- he got his law degree from Liberty University.  Undergrad from some place called San Diego Christian College.

Also:

Quote

Matt was born to a pastor and a schoolteacher in Tyler. His father’s work as a pastor moved them to San Antonio when Matt was 6, and that’s where he sewed his Texas roots. Matt went on to graduate high school from Castle Hills First Baptist School, where his mother worked. Matt and his wife Jennie have five children. They live in Haslet and are active members of First Baptist Church of Keller.

 

[Macanudo 13253]

Oh yeah, he and Briscoe Cain are probably super friendly.

 

And I have ZERO issues with anyone gay.   But the self-loathing among the closeted is pretty high.   Or he's just a racist, bigoted homophobe.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Macanudo

[SimonBolivar 11026]

7 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I mean, this is really shocking -- he got his law degree from Liberty University.  Undergrad from some place called San Diego Christian College.

Also:

 

Good God

[High Plains Drifter 11160]

8 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Matt was born to a pastor and a schoolteacher in Tyler. His father’s work as a pastor moved them to San Antonio when Matt was 6, and that’s where he sewed his Texas roots. Matt went on to graduate high school from Castle Hills First Baptist School, where his mother worked. Matt and his wife Jennie have five children. They live in Haslet and are active members of First Baptist Church of Keller.

 

???

 

[wildcat09 29556]

Boy that sure looks like one really happy family.

[Macanudo 13253]

5 kids.   Assuming their his, wanna bet he's big on Dominion Theology?

[Guest Lobo]

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Boy that sure looks like one really happy family.

Not if you can read morse code.  The eyes of the kids and wife are reading "Help Us" 

[formermav43 4607]

27 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Mark my words.  We are less than 18 months away from a mass book burning in Texas.  If one doesn't happen, I will pay everyone on here $50.

Bookmarked. 

[Beau Vine 55816]

10 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

???

 

You've never gotten out your sewing machine and sewed some roots?

[RomaVicta 30499]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I can picture them requesting that every book that contains this be banned as well.  Because the folks running Texas in 1861 really liked their slaves.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html

  Hide contents

The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former as one of the co-equal States thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slave-holding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harrassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that [of] a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holdings States in their domestic institutions--a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.

They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offences, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.

And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons--We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.

 

The daily walk for any self-respecting Texan.

[SimonBolivar 11026]

15 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

???

 

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2153]

33 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

???

 

i feel like it is a triple miss.

he established some roots. he didn't sew them. but even if he did sew them, he didn't sew them, he'd sow them. but even if he did sow them, that's not what you do with roots. you do that with seeds.

Edited October 27, 2021 by OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys

[JimmyJames 12271]

46 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I mean, this is really shocking -- he got his law degree from Liberty University.  Undergrad from some place called San Diego Christian College.

Also:

 

The untucked shirt is a nice touch. 
 

Damn. Me and my family are pretty damn white but these people win the white off fo sho. 

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2153]

also, i'm barely literate so i haven't read any of those, but i do like seeing lists of suspect books with titles like

 

"Equal Rights"

 

"Geography Club"

 

"Inventions and Inventors"

 

"You Are The Supreme Court Justice"

 

Some things are just too subversive for teen brains.

[Guest Lobo]

Geography Club?  
 

"You know, we talk about Geography.  Properties of Geography.  At the end of the year, we have a banquet."  

[Genco 3053]

10 minutes ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

i feel like it is a triple miss.

he established some roots. he didn't sew them. but even if he did sew them, he didn't sew them, he'd sow them. but even if he did sow them, that's not what you do with roots. you do that with seeds.

And he was born in Tyler. WTF was he doing those first six years that he couldn't start sewing until he moved?

[conVINCEd 21477]

1 minute ago, Genco said:

And he was born in Tyler. WTF was he doing those first six years that he couldn't start sewing until he moved?

Fine motor skills are a little underdeveloped when you’re 3 years old.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2153]

17 minutes ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

 

"Equal Rights"

 

Uh.... yikes.  I gotta be honest.  I don't like the sound of my kids reading stuff like this:

Quote

Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, each book in this thought-provoking series focuses on one area of human rights, such as freedom of speech or workers' rights. Providing both historical information and modern-day case studies, titles in this series examine how human rights are put into action-or are ignored-in today's world, encouraging discussion and debate.

 

[atomheartbevo 90542]

58 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Boy that sure looks like one really happy family.

He's the only one who looks like he wants to be there.  Taking pages from the Rafael Cruz playbook.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Bunch of pussyass snowflakes.

“It tells districts to disclose the existence of any books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”

Poor white men and boys. So persecuted. So oppressed. Don’t want them to be uncomfortable.

[David Dennison 19440]

Awwww, wypipo got their fee fees hurt.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2153]

28 minutes ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

 

"Inventions and Inventors"

 

 

Um. . . woah.  I had no idea we were putting this filth in front of children.  Children!

 

Quote

This new addition to the Magill's Choice series examines 160 of the most significant inventions of the 20th century, and the people behind the inventions. The overall selection of topics has an appealing, eclectic quality. Essays cover such diverse subject areas as High-Tech, including computers, compact discs and cellular phones, to common Household Devices such as polyester, Tupperware and Velcro, and Medical Advances including heart-lung machines, artificial kidneys, and mammography. Articles vary in length from 1,000-2,500 words, each opening with a brief summary of the nature and significance of the invention, followed by a clear analysis of the invention's history and impact. Further study notes at the end of each article will point readers to at least three other published or online sources on the topic.

 

[tantric superman 4668]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Mark my words.  We are less than 18 months away from a mass book burning in Texas.  If one doesn't happen, I will pay everyone on here $50.

@loveyou-longtime-1

[Brisketexan 106614]

1 minute ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

 

Um. . . woah.  I had no idea we were putting this filth in front of children.  Children!

 

 

To be fair, entry #127, "the wireless, bluetooth vibrator," did raise a few eyebrows when it was included, but upon thorough review of the product by a blue-ribbon committee of VERY happy librarians, it made the cut.

['stache 22115]

Can't make white kids uncomfortable.

From the people who call others "snowflakes." 

[WBT 20879]

[Beau Vine 55816]

16 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Bunch of pussyass snowflakes.

“It tells districts to disclose the existence of any books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”

Poor white men and boys. So persecuted. So oppressed. Don’t want them to be uncomfortable.

[WBT 20879]

What's stronger - Texas roots or Polynesian ties?