Fool's Gold.

I have been following articles about Governor Gregg Abbott of Texas wanting over a billion dollars in gold returned to the State of Texas, so that he and his demented minions can start their own treasury.

Has someone put something in the water in Austin?  Are the members of the state GOP taking LSD nighty to see how crazy they can get? Or is absolute power corrupting absolutely, as Machiavelli suggested?

I think the answer is the latter. The power party in Austin has become intoxicated with its Tea Party fundamentals and the success it has had in passing most of them into law in the Lone Star State. They have become high on their victories and no longer display common sense.  After all, if you can put guns on college campuses, close down women's health centers, pass laws to protect pastors who are not endangered, and thumb your nose at federal law, what's keeping you from creating your own monetary system?

Abbott is just crazy enough of a zealot to try.  He thinks his knowledge of the law places him above it. The whole GOP does.  (Example:  our Attorney General is a FELON; a self-admitted felon at that.  But he would have to stand trial for his actions in his home country— Colin County — and the local prosecutor {also a Tea Partier} is a friend and will not follow up on the charges, even though the AG himself said, "Yeah I did it.") Talk about a disregard for law and order. Now that same AG is telling the University of Texas that they must allow a rouge board member access to all admissions paperwork because he said so...The felon says do it, so you better...he is above the law.

See the state of dysfunction the state of Texas has become.

And now, the GOP wants "its" gold back from the United States Treasury so that it can start its own, gold back treasury. Forbidden in the constitution.

But hey, why should these dimwits let a law stand in their way. And where did they get a claim that the gold in reserve in the Federal Treasury belongs to Texas in the first place? I know the GOP is trying to totally re-write the history books in Texas, but come on — this is ridiculous. Gold from the original Republic of Texas and from the Confederate State of Texas that was placed into the Federal Reserve after the Civil War does not belong to the state of Texas. It belongs to the United States of America. Call it the down payment for getting to sit at the big table of fifty states.

And no, you can't have it back.

And no, you can't print your own money or establish your own banking credit system.

And no your logic does not hold up.

What is the next damn crazy idea that is going to come out of right-wing talk radio and filter its way to the state capitol and to the governor's mansion?  Remuneration for lost slaves? I probably shouldn't have written that, for somewhere, some Tea Party idiot is reading those words and saying. "Yeah. That’s it. We want to be paid for our slaves or give them back to us."

God help Texas. And if you can't...just wash away the rift raff you've got trying to govern us.  Thanks.