Why didn’t someone tell me about this nut job?
The 87th Legislator’s regular session doesn’t actually start until January 12, but they started filing bills on November 9. Hundreds of bills have already been filed. Some good, some bad, but you know this is Texas. That means every legislative session is going to be full of RWNJ bullshit. Anti-abortions, guns for everyone, and healthcare for no one. You know, the standard Texas Conservative agenda. And for the standard Texas Conservative agenda, Valoree Swanson is trying to win that award.
You know, the Standard Texas Conservative Agenda Award is given out by a far-right leaning group that helps keep Texas Republicans rich and corrupt, probably Empower Texans or the Texas Federation of Republican Women. Who knows?
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Which leads us to this.
Living Blue in Texas already posts about the Dipshit of the Day, (whenever someone is deserving). Sure, yeah. Valoree Swanson is the Dipshit of the Day, but she’s also the inspiration for..
Living Blue In Texas’ very first Anti Awards©.
Texas legislators who are anti-women, anti-LBGTQI, anti-Black, anti-education, anti-healthcare, and every other anti that they shouldn’t be, will get an Anti Award©. On the very last day of the 87th legislative session, whichever legislator has the most awards, they will win be the Anti King or Queen.
There were 5.2 million Democrats that voted in Texas in 2020. Yet, Texas Republicans continue to leave us unrepresented and unwilling to even push a moderate and fair agenda.
Don’t let these idiots pat themselves on the back for beating us by 5 points.
So…About Valoree Swanson.
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!! WARNING !! BAD WORDS AHEAD !!
This picture you see here, to your right, is from Valoree Swanson’s Facebook page. Swanson, as it appears, does not like vulgar and obscene comments. In honor of Swanson being the Dipshit of the Day and the first recipient of the Anti Awards©, vulgar and obscene comments will be used.
That being said, let me tell you about Valoree Swanson
Valoree Swanson was one of the first Representatives out of the gate with filing bills. She filed a small handful on November 9th. Most of it is the standard rinse and repeat unconstitutional bullshit Texas Republicans try to shove down our throats every Legislative session. But some of the things Valoree Swanson is attempting to do is much more sinister than that.
What bills has she filed?
As of today, (11/19/20), Swanson has already introduced 16 bills. Of those, four are related to abortion, three are related to guns, and four are related to your child’s education. But our absolute favorite is HCR 2.
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HCR 2 is a concurrent resolution to recognize that pornography is a public health hazard. Not a joke.
HD150, the district which Valoree Swanson represents, has a population of 168K (2010 census count). I wonder how they feel that their elected official isn’t working to make their life better with healthcare, clean air, and water, economic growth, or fair wages. Instead, she’s trying to get porn recognized as a public health hazard…in 2020.
It’s probably a safe assumption that Valoree Swanson is not a sex-positive feminist. Check out this amazing article from Dissent about the history of feminism and pornography. While in the early days of the feminist revolution, feminists were anti-porn; over the last 30 years, sex-positive feminism has changed the way that feminists view porn.
Ellen Willis, who was America’s first pro-sex feminist, famously said “As we saw it, the claim that ‘pornography is violence against women’ was code for the neo-Victorian idea that men want sex and women endure it.”
Since Valoree Swanson used that very language in HCR 2, it would be safe to call her a neo-Victorian.
What do her anti-abortion bills say?
HB 42 is more of an anti-capitalism bill than it is an anti-abortion bill. Recently, we saw Ted Cruz come out against capitalism. It must be a new Republican trend because this bill dictates to private companies what they can or can’t do. It says if a doctor tells a pregnant woman that their pregnancy is unviable or has a fetal abnormality and recommend terminating the pregnancy; if the woman refuses and her insurance drops coverage, they will be subject to civil penalties of $1,000 a day until they reinstate the insurance.
Insurance companies are in business for the sole reason of making a profit for their shareholders. These middle-man companies are largely responsible for the broken healthcare system. If a doctor tells a woman her life may be at risk or that her fetus doesn’t have a heartbeat and it would be in her best interest to terminate, then she refuses, she’s putting herself at risk for high-cost emergency surgery or after care. That means the insurance has to pay more money, which completely goes against their business model.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]By Swanson wanting to force insurance companies to go against their business model, she’s also going against capitalism and the free-market system. Perhaps, instead of putting herself out there as an anti-capitalist, she could spend that same energy figuring out how all Texans can be insured, no matter what choices they make.
She also filed an anti-abortion bill regarding something she heard on fake news.
HB 44, is your pretty run of the mill posturing, as it is based on something that doesn’t exist.
What it says is that if a person violates code 107.002, they can be charged with a second-degree felony and fined up to $30,000. What is code 107.002?
107.002 says that no one may perform an abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy unless the fetus is not viable, the mother’s life is at risk, or the fetus has severe and irreversible abnormalities.
Since we already know that there is no such thing as a late-term abortion, this bill would essentially be useless. Valoree Swanson is being paid taxpayer dollars to file bills based on fake news she consumed. Even though, Trump’s lies (where this fake news originated from), were debunked well over a year ago.
No way anyone could be that fucking stupid. Let’s give Swanson’s intellect the benefit of the doubt and assume she filed this to posture for her special interest groups.
The last anti-abortion bill she filed, HB 92, basically says if a person dies during a “late-term” abortion, their surviving family members can hold the doctor liable.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]What about the nefarious shit?
I’m glad you asked. HB 23 says counties with a population over 3.3 million, their department is subject to review by the Sunset Advisory Commission. Which Texas counties have a population of over 3.3 million? Here they are in order from largest to small:
- Harris County
To be fair, here is the same list, in order from smallest to large:
- Harris County
If it wasn’t terribly clear, Valoree Swanson wrote this bill specifically for the Harris County Department of Education. It’s funny, because it says, “The county department of education in a county with a population of 3.3 million or more according to the most recent federal decennial census is subject to review under Chapter 325, Government Code (Texas Sunset Act), as if the department were a state agency, but the department may not be abolished under that chapter. The review shall be conducted as if the department were scheduled to be abolished on September 1, 2023.“
Why would Valoree Swanson want the Sunset Advisory Committee to review Harris County Department of Education, but not abolish it?
That leads us to HB 31, a separate bill Swanson filed. This bill says, “Each county board of education, the board of county school trustees, and office of county school superintendent in a county with a population of 3.3 million or more is abolished effective September 1, 2023.”
Here is the list, one more time, of all of the counties in Texas that have a population of over 3.3 million.
- Harris County
Why would Swanson want to abolish the Harris County, school board? I went and looked back at her social media account, I was able to find a few articles she linked to The Texan, far-right leaning, Konni Burton’s website. Meaning, this is a frequently used new source for the same woman who wants to declare porn a public hazard and thinks late-term elected abortions are a thing. Unfortunately, it’s all behind a paywall for me and I never liked Konni Burton enough to give her money, but one complaint Swanson wrote on her Facebook, was the high salary the superintendent got.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Here is the Harris County’s Department of Education’s about page. Although I looked at Swanson’s social media and searched for old news stories, I can’t find any legitimate reason she wants to squash them.
What has Valoree Swanson’s previously done for education?
In 2019 she co-authored a bill that said teachers could post the 10 commandments in their classrooms if they wanted to, that bill was never passed.
However, she co-authored an education bill that did pass. HB 3 which cut $3.5 billion from the Robin Hood Recapture system. The recapture system makes public schools more equitable between districts. Meaning, lower-income, and minority-majority districts can be funded as well or closer to an upper-class district. Doing this helps close an education gap, which mostly falls across racial lines.
HB 3, essentially took funding (billions of dollars worth), from under-privileged children living in lower-income school districts. The majority of children affected by this are Black and Hispanic.
And if that doesn’t just chap your hide, the bitch is bragging about it on her own website.
Oh, Valoree, you really the term “deplorable” and decided to wear it like a badge of honor. You must be really fucking proud.
That’s not all.
She also introduced HB 26, which no way in hell would Abbott ever sign. This bill would eliminate the governor’s authority under a disaster declaration to control the sale, transportation, and use of weapons and ammunition. Like it’s not enough, that Texas has some of the laxest gun laws in the nation, now the kooks on the right want to make a law that would stop the governor’s disaster declaration authority.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Imagine this, a hurricane just tore the gulf to shreds, millions of people have been evacuated, and some criminal wants to go and loot their homes….but as with all hurricanes, there are plenty of people who stayed to “ride it out.” Mr. Criminal then runs up to the local guns and ammunition shop, during a disaster declaration and gets himself a gun and ammo. You know, in case any of those homes he plans on looting still has someone in it riding the storm out. Since in hurricanes, emergency services are usually not dispatched, Mr. Criminal could probably loot 10 homes and shoot 3 people before the storm has passed.
It’s doubtful that Swanson thought that far ahead, just like the typical Republican, the only thing she’s thinking about is, “pew, pew, pew, pew.”
Speaking of which…
Y’all have to check out her website. It’s hard to understand why Republicans keep voting for people like this. She says all of the fancy words they like, but other than the fact that she has an (R) next to her name, her ideology doesn’t align with the standard definition of Republican. Her ideology aligns with far-right extremism. It’s sad for the 168,000 people in her district, none of whom she will likely do anything for.
Ending sanctuary cities. Another thing she’s bragging about. There is plenty of data that backs up how sanctuary cities keep communities safer, but elderly, white Republicans have worked for years to stop safer communities.
Bragging about cutting funding from minority school districts, bragging about removing the safety from Hispanic communities sounds an awful lot like bigotry. It’s elected officials like Valoree Swanson who keep systematic racism alive.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]What else does she brag about?
Blocking low-income housing, because, you know, fuck poor people.
And defending the unborn. The UNBORN. WTF is the unborn? Is that like the undead? I’m sure she meant fetus, but perhaps in her fundamental soaked brain, she has her vernacular mixed up.
What do I mean by fundamental? There’s a rumor going around that she speaks in tongues and frequently tries to recruit other Republicans to go to her tongue-speaking church with her.
If you have video of this, please email it to me!
It is for all of these reasons, that Valoree Swanson is the honorary winner of this year’s first Anti Award©. Congratulations, Representative Swanson. We hope you’ll display this award as proudly as you display Standard Texas Conservative Agenda Award.
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