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We TX dems have been beaten down pretty bad here, but just like you are seeing in this Alito deal, people who get kicked in the teeth enough eventually get tired of it. Official oppression can radicalize you.
The TX Dems figured out they could not win on the straight up debate and discourse method because our legislature had been hijacked by dirty-dealing, lying, thieving pond scum who tricked the Dems into thinking they were acting BI-PARTISAN (I still hate that fucking term to this day) when they really were illegally screwing us over in the dead of night. The Dems woke up bound and gagged and completely powerless....or so those fuckers thought.
They got a little more clever than DeLay and his minions and used parliamentary procedures (filibuster foreshadow) to stop the complete disenfranchisement of Texas Democrats. Under the cover of night, they fled the state, denying those bastards the opportunity to even hold a legislative session. And those Dems risked a HELLUVA lot for us!
OH MY GOD - IT WAS A THING OF BEAUTY TO BEHOLD!
Y'all would have loved it!!!! The swaggering repukes wandering into the state house, thinking they had laid the golden egg and wondering WHERE THE FUCK WAS EVERYBODY AT?????? Mass chaos! Hilarity ensued. Repukes flabbergasted and bumfuzzled, so pissed they were spitting nails. Televised in all it's glory. I was never so proud to be a Democrat in all my life!
Those brave souls held together physically, establishing their own Dem caucus in our MOST SUPPORTIVE neighbor to the north - Oklahoma (Thanks again Ardmore :hi: ). Tom DeLay wanted the OK rangers to ARREST our dems and drag them back to the state line. The wonderful sheriff told Tom DeLay to GO FUCK HIMSELF:
Local (OK) law enforcement agents greeted the Democrats with big smiles and warm handshakes.
"We're here to let them know we support them," Harvey Burkhart, sheriff of Carter County, Okla., said Tuesday. "Nothing's going to happen to them here. I can tell you we're certainly not going to put them in jail."
Alas! One did eventually get arrested by DPS (DeLay's jackbooted gestapo agents), and all were assailed of threats of locking up their aides, confiscating all their records, criminal arrest, heavy fines and of course, non-stop caterwauling, recriminations and other assorted fascist thuggery. And as you know, DeLay sic ced the FBI and Homeland Security on them as "fugitives".
Ultimately, we got stuck with the redistricting, but we're working on that and now that fucker DeLay is in a world of hurt all his own.
I will tell you this - those TX Dems have earned my eternal devotion, respect and admiration, along with a guarantee of my vote whenever they want it and financial support. The pressure they endured on my behalf was ENORMOUS.
And it wasn't the first time Texas Democrats stood up and took a "radical" step to protect their constituents:
"The walkout came 24 years to the month since a group of 12 Texas state senators defied then-Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby by refusing to show up at the Capitol.
Some of the "Killer Bees," as the 12 Democrats came to be known, hid out in an Austin garage apartment while troopers, Texas Rangers and legislative sergeants-at-arms unsuccessfully combed the state for them."
Say what you want about Texas politicians, but Texas DEMOCRATS will go to the mat (or the garage or Oklahoma) for you and I love them all for it. And while we are still fighting the oppressive repubs here, those repubs learned a few things about the Democratic spirit from a few embarrassing lessons they have not yet forgot. Now those Dems are Texan Political Legends.
Now, to our NATIONAL Democratic party - it doesn't have to be as hard as making a run for the border guys! Just do it!
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