Opinion

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There is a lot of hoopla coming from various places, spaces and faces proclaiming “this country’s more divided than it’s ever been.” It’s a strange statement when one considers what occurred between 1861 and 1865, but nonetheless, division is prevalent – and profitable – in the mass media sphere.

One of the major political parties seems to want to tax and spend the country into oblivion while the other seems to equate policy with holy war.

At the end of the day, those differences are only concerning policy/opinions, and all of the cats making laws and/or issuing commentaries on the cats making the laws put their britches on one leg at a time. They also, well most of them, anyway, spend time styling their hair some sort of way.

To that unifying end, a comedian and web content creator, Cam Harless, combined a certain beloved hairstyle with politics and the end result is nothing short of awe inspiring.

Harless used an AI-based art generator to create renderings of all 46 of our presidents, reimagined with that mack daddy of all timeless hairstyles, yes, you guessed it: the mullet.

Harless’s Twitter dispatches with the presidents, all bedecked in their tonsorial reimaginations, has gone viral, and rightfully so. In an interview with CNN, Harless spoke about the unifying power of the hairstyle synonymous with “business in the front, party in the back.”

“All it takes is a few mullets and a few pair of sunglasses and we’re more united than we’ve ever been,” he said

Short on top and long on the sides, the mullet has been famously sported by icons of music from David Bowie to Billy Ray Cyrus, to athletes, such as Steelers running back James Conner. Superman even sported a mullet in the early ‘90s.

Etymologically, the term “mullet” can be traced to those right-to-party fighters the Beastie Boys, who described the hairstyle in their 1994 song “Mullet Head.” The hairstyle, itself, has been depicted on figurines dating back to the first century AD.

If you’ve ever wondered what our founding fathers might have looked like with mullets – and nifty mirrored liquor store shades – then hop over to Harless’s Twitter, @hamcarless, and prepare to be amazed. The thread goes from present day all the way back to George Washington.

To start off with, Joe Biden looks, with his long blonde mullet, like a slightly less grizzled clone of Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Donald Trump with a mullet looks like he could tour as a frontman in a Molly Hatchet tribute band, while George W. Bush’s feathered mullet gives him a bit of a Chevy Chase-esque appearance.

Further back on the past presidential timeline is where some of the real treats emerge.

For some of them, it’s not hard to see how feasible it could have been for their heads to be mullet-ed, like Jimmy Carter, for instance, who doesn’t look too different. On others, however, it’s a near-totally different light. Richard Nixon comes off like a sleazy ‘70s-era record producer, while Lyndon B. Johnson looks like someone who’d play second-fiddle to Harry Dean Stanton in some cocaine-and-whiskey-fueled road-trip film about a couple of hitmen.

With Dwight D. Eisenhower’s bald pate, it was likely difficult for the AI apparatus Harless used to do anything, so he wound up with a sort of mohawk-ish ‘do.

As you might imagine, Teddy Roosevelt looks incredibly bad-ace with a mullet. His rendering might bring you mind of your cousin, who cuts the sleeves off all his shirts, has a Hemi under his hood and comes to your rescue with a tow chain when you’re stuck in the mud.

Then there’s Abe Lincoln. Honest Abe, with his tall, rawboned figure, stands out among all our past presidents, to start with, but Harless’s take has the sixteenth Oval Office-holder looking something like the late Cars leader Ric Ocasek – if Ocasek had been GQ cover material.

If Harless’s Twitter showcase I’ve described wasn’t enough, there’s also merch to buy. That’s right, Harless has printed up T-shirts with some of the mullet-ed presidents’ faces and familiar sayings, such as Biden’s “Listen here, Jack” and Trump’s slightly altered mantra of “Make beer cold again.” You can even get a shirt with Teddy Roosevelt shown, as I described above, with the phrase “Big Stick Energy” underneath the photo.

Those are available through his Etsy storefront, along with a poster depicting all of the reinvented presidents as the “Hell Yeah Edition,” for sixteen bucks.

God Bless Cam Harless for his awesome vision, and for reminding me to not forget to use my Rogaine.

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Under legislation prioritized by House Speaker Dade Phelan, every Texas school would have an armed police officer, and aspiring teachers would receive extra support.

The Dallas Morning News reported the bill would also provide $15,000 in annual funding for safety measures for each school in the state. Another bill would increase the annual allotment per student for safety measures from $10 to $100.

Another House measure is aimed at improving teacher retention and recruitment, The Morning News reported. The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, would create a new grant to help prospective teachers pursing special education or bilingual certification, and would increase funding for educator mentoring. Special education and bilingual teacher positions are especially hard to fill in Texas.

Texas Senate passes first bill of session

The Texas Senate last week passed a bill that would close a loophole in state law that allowed gun sales to people between the ages of 16 and 18 who have been involuntarily hospitalized for mental illness. The Texas Tribune reported it was the first bill passed by the Senate this session.

Courts are supposed to report all involuntary mental health hospitalizations to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which then sends them to the FBI’s national background check system. However, problems with how existing state law was written led to those hospitalizations not being reported by courts.

The measure comes after an 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde with a history of mental health problems killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary last year. However, since that shooter was never hospitalized, closing the loophole would not have prevented him from legally buying two assault rifles.

Women sue state over abortion ban

Five women are suing the state, saying its near-total abortion ban resulted in them being denied abortions despite complications in their pregnancies that put their lives and fetuses at risk. The Austin American-Statesman reported the Center for Reproductive Rights filed the suit, which asks the courts to clarify what qualifies as a “medical emergency” exception in the law.

“Politicians in Texas are prohibiting health care that they don’t understand; they could do something but they’re not, and it’s killing us,” Lauren Miller, one of the plaintiffs, said. “It shouldn’t be controversial for an individual to make health care decisions for themselves in consultation with their doctor. But you can’t get that in Texas anymore.”

The Statesman reported that Miller was pregnant with twins when doctors told her one of the babies had a severe genetic condition and was not going to survive, which threatened her life and the life of the other baby. She ended up traveling to Colorado to have an abortion and is scheduled to give birth to the healthy remaining twin this month.

Rising car insurance rates causing sticker shock

Average statewide auto insurance rates are up nearly 24 percent over last year, according to a report by the Texas Standard. That is the highest increase in at least 20 years, according to the Texas Department of Insurance. That comes on top of increased costs for vehicles both new and used, and higher fuel costs.

Michael Schnurman, a business columnist with The Morning News, was interviewed on the Standard and had this to say, in part:

“There are several elements that play into it. One…is the higher values of cars and used cars in particular – they really shot up during the pandemic,” he said. “But the claims are also up a lot…When driving resumed, the number of accidents and the severity of accidents has really been a lot higher. If you look at fatalities, I think they were up 18 percent.”

Schnurman suggested consumers shop around for auto insurance and look for discounts for bundling it with homeowners’ insurance or multiple vehicles on the same account.

PUC recommends hefty fine against power company

The Public Utility Commission has recommended that the Texas-New Mexico Power Co. pay a $1.74 million fine for inaccurate estimates of its customers’ electric usage.

In a report released last week, The PUC said the power company failed to correct a violation of an order to install new meters that can be read remotely in a timely manner.

The commission said “TNMP’s new meter rollout was significantly delayed,” resulting in the utility “estimating thousands of meters for months on end.”

The investigation found that TNMP was given three-years’ notice that the “communication backbone” of its metering system was going to be discontinued by its third-party provider but failed to produce a plan until halfway through that timeframe. It also failed to have a backup plan in case its vendor could not provide the 170,000 new meters on schedule, according to the PUC.

Drought map spreads in parts of state

Drought conditions by the end of February covered 62 percent of the state, up nine percentage points from a month earlier, according to Dr. Mark Wentzel, hydrologist with the Texas Water Development Board. Drought-free areas include all of East Texas up to Dallas County to the west and Jefferson County to the south. The most severe drought conditions are in the far northern edge of the Panhandle, the counties surrounding San Antonio, and nearly all of South Texas.

“The latest seasonal drought outlook from the National Weather Service is optimistic for East and North Central Texas,” Wentzel wrote. “Through the end of May, that part of the state is expected to remain drought-free. Unfortunately, drought is expected to expand in the rest of the state.”

Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, and Cedar Park. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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By Tony Farkas
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The extended daylight granted on Sunday has given all of us the opportunity to see the state of things, and in particular, at least for me, the state of my “brethren” in the national media.

Recently, it’s been coming to light (see what I did there?) that all of the measures taken during the COVID crisis, which were perpetuated by our Clown Criers in the mainstream media, were in reality ineffective.

Also, more and more doctors are fessing up to the fact that vaccinations are not the panacea they were touted to be, masks, particularly designer and fashion masks made of cloth, did less than nothing, and the government mandates, which were largely responsible for the national economic meltdown.

Along those same lines, the “inflation” bill, the $3 trillion boondoggle which was supposed to right the economic ship and instead caused it to founder even more, was gushed over by anchors and pundits and not, as any good journalist should, researched well and written with quotes from both sides of the debate.

Let’s not forget the hyper-ridiculous special committee seeking the “full and unadulterated” truth about what happened in the Jan. 6 “insurrection to end all insurrections” at the nation’s capitol and the subsequent referral of President Donald Trump for criminal prosecutions.

Those referrals, by the way, were made even though the “select” committee did not watch the video evidence. Didn’t stop them, nor their willing cohorts in the press, from lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks.

Speaking of prosecutions, more and more there are stories touting the blatant partisanship of the U.S. Justice Department and its armed investigative group the FBI. We heard countless tales of the evil pastor who “assaulted” a woman outside of an abortion clinic, but not really a peep about Hunter Biden and his Laptop of Destiny being actually real and actually full of information, some of which could be prosecutable.

We’re not really hearing this from the Alphabet networks, the CNN-MSNBC cabal or the New York Times or Washington Post. Nor are we hearing anything remotely as ownership of the terrible reporting and propaganda cheerleading that was done.

Water under the bridge of truth, I guess.

It’s because of these kinds of things that I never wanted to rise up the ladder of journalism, opting for the sense and enjoyment given by local, community-driven journalism. Taking pride in the accomplishments of people who you have known for generations, watching as the latest crop of students become amazing adults, and seeing into the future through the eyes of the people elected to keep the faith for small towns and counties.

All of the newspapers in the Polk County Publishing family follow this same premise — local news, local facts, and no slant or bias around. And if you feel something like this exists, let us know, and we’ll fix it.

And that, of course, is the truth.

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It’s time to spring forward! Daylight Saving Time began this weekend. I hope you remembered to set your clocks forward Saturday night.

Here are five things happening around your state:

Bill filing deadline

Friday marked the end of the bill filing period for the 88th Legislature. No more general law bills can be filed. There are exceptions for local bills. After the deadline, the legislature and the public will have a good idea about the total number of bills filed and what they do. Then, the real work begins. More bills will be voted out of committee and begin to make their way through the process. From now until May 29, we’ll be hearing and voting on legislation at a rapid pace.

Senate school safety legislation filed, referred to committee

Last week, I filed Senate Bill 11 which builds on the work of previous legislatures on school safety. The bill is based on the work of the Senate Special Committee to Protect All Texans,which I chaired. There are six main components of this legislation: increasing the school safety allotment by creating a per campus funding formula, establishing the Office of School Safety and Security, delineating responsibility between TEA and the Texas School Safety Center, creating School Safety Review Teams, enhancing truancy prevention tactics, and allowing districts to share discipline records for students who transfer schools. During our committee hearings, we heard from school districts that the current school safety allotment rate of $9.72 per student per year was insufficient to meet their needs. For districts that get little funding, maintaining a high standard of safety and security depletes already limited funding for their classrooms. In the bill as filed, each district would receive $15,000 per campus in their district. On top of that, districts would receive $10 per student per year for school safety. The creation of School Safety Review teams is another essential piece to school safety. The team would work with districts on school safety and physically go to each campus and evaluate the school’s safety and security. These important reforms will help enhance our children’s safety at school.

Supplemental budget bill heard in committee

This past week, the Senate Finance Committee heard Senate Bill 30, the supplemental appropriations bill. The supplemental appropriations bill is used to close out the previous biennium budget process and appropriate any leftover funds. Included in the supplemental appropriations bill is $3.8 billion to pay customer rate relief charges associated with Winter Storm Uri, $2.3 billion to expand inpatient mental health care capacity, $600 million for school safety and security grants, and $1 billion for a benefit enhancement for retired teachers, among other things. The funds come from a mix of federal and state dollars. The bill was voted out of committee and will go to the floor soon.

First bills voted out of Senate

This past week Senate Bill 372 and Senate Bill 728, both by Sen. Joan Huffman, were voted on the Senate Floor and sent to the House this week. This marks an important milestone in the legislative session. Senate Bill 372 creates a criminal offense for the unauthorized disclosure of non-public judicial opinions and judicial work product. In the summer of 2021, someone working at the U.S. Supreme Court leaked a draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an opinion which overturned Roe v. Wade. This bill would protect Texas judicial opinions from being leaked. The other bill, Senate Bill 728, brings the state in line with the federal Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This bill would require clerks to report certain information related to juvenile mental health records to the Department of Public Safety, which reports information to the National Interstate Criminal Background Check System (NICS). These records will be part of the background check conducted when a person buys a firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensee.

THECB offers newlow-interest loan option

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is now offering a new low-interest loan option for Texas students. The Future Occupations and Reskilling Workforce Advancement to Reach Demand (FORWARD) Loan Program is designed to help students who are seeking to obtain a high-value credential in a high-demand occupation. The loan should help reduce the debt burden on students by allowing students to repay the loan over 10 years. The loans are open to students that will be able to complete their program in two years or less and are in high-demand programs like technology, nursing, teaching, supply chain/transportation and logistics and energy.

Sen. Robert Nichols represents Senate District 9, which includes Polk County, in the Texas Legislature.