Look Into The Heart Of Darkness And Be Very Afraid

One of the newest publications in Texas is The Texas Tribune (Web-only). The editor-in-chief, Evan Smith, left Texas Monthly, but he brought a TM feature with him to the new publication: several times a month, The Texas Tribune hosts a series of conversations featuring prominent elected officials and other newsmakers at the historic Austin Club in downtown Austin. On September 15, 2010, a True Republican Woman who has represented District 151 (a north Houston 'burb) in the Texas House of Representatives since 2003 sat down with Editor Smith. Representative Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball) was named one of the five most conservative members of the House in a 2010 study by the Baker Institute at Rice University. Born in Houston, Riddle graduated from Waltrip High School and attended South Texas Junior College and later Southwestern University in Georgetown (with a degree from neither). She and her husband, Mike, have lived in the Tomball area for 30 years. This blogger has never seen an Inland Taipan of Australia — the most poisonous land snake on earth — but he has seen Debbie Riddle, True Republican Woman. Ol' Debbie may not be Godless, but she is brainless, poisonous, and vicious. If this is a (fair & balanced) warning about poisonous vipers, so be it.

P.S.: Click on the image to enlarge it. (Suitable for framing?)

[x TX Tribune]
Debbie Riddle On "Godless Liberals"
By Reeve Hamilton

Tag Cloud of the following article

able ago already answered audience cleverly comes conceded country cranky debbie denounce discussed disguised education elapsed everybody free godless hamilton heart hold liberal member overlap paso pit progress question quote r-tomball referenced riddle russia services session seven state tender thought times triblive true unexpectedly veered verbatim video wasn whatever years

created at TagCrowd.com

“I tend not to hold back,” said State Representative Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, at a Wednesday morning TribLive event. True to her word, she went on to denounce what she referred to as the “liberal, progressive, godless way.”

Riddle was answering a question from an audience member regarding her position on public education that referenced a quote from her freshman session in 2003.

She wasn’t holding back — she also conceded she may have been “a little tired and a little cranky” — when she discussed social services with [the] El Paso Times seven years ago. “Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever?” she said. “It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's not a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country."

Despite the elapsed time, she was able to recite the quote nearly verbatim as she answered the question from the audience. Her explanation — which this video joins already in progress — on why she believes such services weaken the state veered unexpectedly into a discussion of the overlap between liberalism and godlessness. She said of that connection, “I thought everybody knew about that.”

Take a look [the voice off-camera is TT editor Evan Smith]:

[x YouTube/TribBlog Channel]
TribLive Event, September 15, 2010
A Conversation With Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball)

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[Reeve Hamilton has interned at both The Nation and The Texas Observer, for which he covered the 2009 legislative session. Most recently, he has been a desk assistant at "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." A Houston native, he has a B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University.]

Copyright © 2010 The Texas Tribune

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Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves by Neil Sapper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at sapper.blogspot.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.

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