Misogyny: Also Bigger In Texas

Texas Republicans have decided that if they can't ban Planned Parenthood in the state, they'll simply get rid of all the women's programs that Planned Parenthood helps to fund and provide.

If there was any hope that the state was seeking a compromise with the federal government over Texas’ Women’s Health Program, it’s fading fast. At the direction of lawmakers and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Texas Health and Human Services commissioner signed a rule on Thursday that formally bans Planned Parenthood clinics and other "affiliates of abortion providers" from participating in the program — something the Obama administration has said is a deal-breaker for the nearly $40 million-per-year state-federal Medicaid program.

"The Obama administration is trying to force Texas to violate our own state laws or they will end a program that provides preventative health care to more than 100,000 Texas women," said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. "This boils down to the rule of law — which the state of Texas respects and the Obama administration does not.

The rule, signed by Commissioner Tom Suehs on Thursday, takes effect March 14. Unless some last-minute agreement is brokered, the program, which receives $9 in federal funds for every $1 in state funds, will be either phased out or cut off by the end of March. At least 130,000 poor Texas women will lose access to cancer screenings, well-woman exams and contraception.

The goal of course was to end these programs all along.  This is why Republicans are fighting the contraception and Title X wars all over again, this is why they are suing the Obama administration over contraception rules, this is why they scream TENTH AMENDMENT and STATE'S RIGHTS and FEDERAL TYRANNY over this.  They don't want to help poor people.  They want them gone.

If red states make being poor, female, LGBT, and/or a racial minority so awful, and the legislative and social climate so hostile that people just leave the state, then the red states win.  That's what they've wanted all along.  They become some other state's problem.  It worked for the Jim Crow era.  It worked for Reconstruction era, it worked for the Civil Rights era, it's working again now.

Make it so awful not to be a white, Christian, straight male that everyone else says "screw it" and goes away.  And the more than do, the more political power these folks obtain in the state to turn the screws on the remainder.  Texas and Florida now have Republican super-majorities at the state level.  There's nothing Dems can really do at this point except wait for demographics.  Dick moves like this preempt that.  The Texas GOP now has enough power to basically end Medicaid in the state for poor women.  They want even more power.

They'll get it, too.