Pat Carlson, president of the radical-right group Texas Eagle Forum, has filed to run for the District 91 seat in the Texas House of Representatives. The Fort Worth Republican used TEF’s e-newsletter Monday to announce her run for the open seat. (Republican incumbent Kevin Hancock is seeking a state Senate seat.) Carlson told TEF activists:

“I am seeking this position to be a ‘citizen legislator’ going to Austin to hold back the overreach of government.”

“Overreach”? Well, considering her own fringe political views, Carlson should know the meaning of that word.

She claims, for example, that mainstream organizations like the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Federation are actually “radical environmental groups” that have “have brainwashed a generation of young people into believing the planet is in environmental distress.” (Yeah, never mind massive oil spills that pollute our water and beaches, smog that chokes cities and their residents, chemical and nuclear calamities, increasingly erratic climate patterns, and… well, you get the point. Carlson thinks concerns over those very real challenges are simply products of “brainwashing.”)

She also peddles anti-Muslim hysteria, ranting that mosques are centers of subversion in America and that “Sharia law is… Read More

This year the far-right faction that controls the Texas State Board of Education has been even more contemptuous of teachers and the law than in the past. Now it appears that in addition to bullying teachers, David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, may have a history of threatening at least one fellow board member.

Some of the board’s right-wingers — especially Bradley — have bullied teachers who dare come before them with suggestions and concerns about what our public schools should be teaching Texas children. This week the Examiner, a Southeast Texas newspaper, revealed that Cynthia Thornton, a former board member — and a fellow Republican — claims Bradley bullied and threatened her when she served on the board. As a result, Thornton says, the Texas Education Agency had to post armed security at board meetings.

“To make a long story short, every year it got worse and worse between Bradley and I, and everybody in Austin was watching the show. And I decided I’m not going to put up with this stuff and I flat told him off. The first time he grabbed me was when I made it plain that what he… Read More