Screw Greg Abbott {Texas Governor}

The BBQ Pit
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Here is the reason Abbott opposes a mask mandate. In case you think it has to do with personal responsibility, public health, or even freedumb, it doesn’t. It’s about votes. Period. The voters he wants and needs don’t want masks and they don’t want to get vaccinated. So he’s singin’ their song while cases and hospitalizations rise.

…
A Hearst Newspapers analysis shows a strong correlation between the counties with the lowest vaccination rates for COVID-19 and counties that voted heavily for former president Donald Trump, whose supporters Abbott will need to win his primary next spring.

Trump won 80 percent or more of the vote in each of the 10 Texas counties with the lowest vaccination rates.

No county demonstrates that vaccine hesitancy better than King County (population 300) near the Texas Panhandle. President Joe Biden won just 5 percent of the vote in a county that only had 17 percent of people 12 and older vaccinated — the worst in the state, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

On the flip side, the counties with the highest vaccination rates in Texas almost all went overwhelmingly for Biden, led by Presidio County on the border in West Texas. Over 90 percent of the county’s 6,700 residents are fully vaccinated. Biden won 66 percent of the vote.
…

My bold.

His so-called policy is being driven by the “freedumb-ist,” most backward people in the state.

From the article quoted above:

Texas Republicans are tired of being told how to protect themselves.

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This won’t be tied up for years – the immediate issue is the temporary restraining order which the appellate court would normally deal with quickly. The underlying case could take longer.

Still, I do wonder if there’s some tacit agreement among Abbott, Paxton and judicial Republicans to slow roll this. The Texas SC slapped down a previous restraining order for mask mandates by counties in record time. The fact that they have not done so when the defendants are school districts says to me that they recognize the political peril of being held accountable should thousands of school kids contract coronavirus.

So the courts allow the mandates to stand by hewing to every technical requirement for hearing the issue (“Sorry Ken, you needed to file a 1086/C1 for that motion, this is a 1086/C1a. You’ll need to start all over again.”). Abbott and company get to rail against the mandates and scream about how they “fought for freedom” knowing that the ban won’t actually be implemented. Politically, it’s win-win!

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Bonus: They get to rail about activist judges.

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MCALLEN 一 On a late July afternoon, a director and an officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety met with Sister Norma Pimentel and Rev. Mario Alberto Avilés of the Brownsville Diocese to tell them that Gov. Greg Abbott’s new executive order meant that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley could no longer transport migrants.

The DPS officials told Pimentel that once Abbott’s order went into effect, troopers would constantly watch Catholic Charities’ shelter in McAllen, the largest in the area for migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., according to a brief the shelter filed in court as part of a federal lawsuit against the governor.

If troopers saw shelter employees and volunteers transporting migrants, they would pull over and impound the vehicle, the director told Avilés and Pimentel, the shelter’s executive director.

In the court documents, Pimentel said if the shelter couldn’t transport migrants to the nearby airport or a hotel, the shelter would become overcrowded — and increase the risk of COVID-19 if staff could not transport infected migrants to a hotel to be isolated.

“We would have to turn away mothers and babies who are seeking temporary shelter, food, and medical assistance,” she said. “If we cannot provide humanitarian aid, it is my understanding that these families would likely be left to their own devices on the street, without access to food, shelter and medical care.”
…

YES!! That is exactly what Greg intends to happen! :partying_face: :fireworks: :champagne: :clinking_glasses:

Meanwhile…

Abbott’s office is collecting donations to continue building barriers at the Texas-Mexico border. He has sent roughly 1,000 state troopers and Texas Rangers to arrest migrants on state charges, dispatched National Guard to help Border Patrol agents and turned a state prison into an immigrant-only detention center. His order to intercept civilian vehicles transporting migrants was temporarily suspended by a federal judge in El Paso until Aug. 27.

Some who actually LIVE and WORK in these areas are singing a different tune…

“If he would come and spend one day with us, just sit down at the table and eat with these people or come to church and pray with these people, he’ll see, these are not despicable people. These are not vermin. They’re not dangerous. They’re not nefarious, they’re sweet,” said Father Roy Snipes, whose Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Mission serves as an overflow shelter.

Stop spreading lies, Father! You are clearly in league with Satan if you think these people are sweet. They are disease-ridden murderers, drug addicts, and rapists (even the babies).

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I have heard snarky comments that Abbott’s plan is to take the fine money from school districts and counties, and send it for building that wall.

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I read that he wants to use COVID relief money.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Democrats-try-to-block-Abbott-from-using-COVID-16279105.php

WASHINGTON — As Gov. Greg Abbott tries to raise cash so the state can pick up building former President Donald Trump’s border wall, Texas Democrats are trying to keep him from tapping into more than $15 billion in COVID relief funding the federal government is sending to Texas.

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I don’t see that in the article, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the justification was to, “Keep them furriners out so them folks don’t infect us with all that Mexico disease.”

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he will use $250 million from the state prison budget to construct a border wall in South Texas. The governor has also hinted at using some of the billions in federal COVID-19 relief money to continue the project started by former President Donald Trump.

Todd Gillman, Washington bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, told Texas Standard that Abbott has not denied the possibility that the $15.8 billion in federal money could be used for the wall – an amount he said could “go a long way” toward its construction.

Texas Democrats have responded to that possibility with a plea to the U.S. Treasury Department, asking it to stipulate that COVID relief money cannot go toward the wall. Right now, the only restrictions are that states cannot use it for pensions or to cover budget gaps after a tax cut.
…

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/28/politics/greg-abbott-texas-border-wall-trump-crowdfunding/index.html

…
Already Abbott has sought to divert millions in federal funds intended for Covid-19 relief to the wall effort – and Texas Democrats are not happy about it. That’s on top of the $250 million “down payment” coming out of the state’s budget.
…

Do these references clarify? Or confuse?

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The impression I’m getting is that he doesn’t give enough of a fuck to even have an excuse.

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Hehe. Well, there’s that.

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While I know this thread is aimed at Abbott, his predecessor and progenitor in turning the Governor’s office into an elected dictatorship Rick Perry held a press conference at the Texas Capitol to shill for an anti-COVID air filtration system sold by a company he has an ownership stake in.

In a public building, he urged the Legislature and local governments to use public funds to purchase these devices based on unsubstantiated claims that they are, "the only proven airborne solution to catch and kill actual SARS-CoV-2.”

Repulsive.

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What the hell good is it being a 'lected official if ya can’t make money offen it, amirite? :cowboy_hat_face:

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That’s billion with a B.

…
“The rhetoric that we’re hearing is that people are fearful, they want to know when to shoot. They’re afraid of being raped or murdered or anything else,” she said, “These are nonviolent, nonpersonal offenses. It’s literally walking across somebody’s property.”

Some immigrant advocates told the panel that the state would be wasting money if the measure passes and would not actually make anyone safer because it has diverted law enforcement from more serious crimes to address a humanitarian issue.

“Passing this bill would be irresponsible, it would be shirking your duty to act as a check on executive power and it would be sponsoring fearmongering and race baiting and it would do nothing to keep your community safer,” said Amanda Wood, executive director for the Texas Fair Defense Project.
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My bold.

“Fearmongering and race baiting”? Yeah, so…?

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Abbott today issued an executive order banning vaccine mandates by any governmental entity – cities, counties, schools, universities, etc. He’d done something similar before with the excuse that the vaccine was still experimental, but now he’s made it clear that the ban applies to fully FDA approved vaccines as well.

I honestly believe that he wants people to get COVID at this point. His own brush with the disease has convinced him that it’s no big deal, and thinks we should all quit being such whinny babies about it.

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What do colts have to do with this?

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It’s mare-ly a fantasy.

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They think they will really pwn Biden and The Libs if more people die of Covid during Biden’s presidency than during Trump’s, and they are working hard on making that happen. It’s totally worth it if it denies the Democrats a talking point.

I saw a news story last night about a contentious local school board meeting regarding mask mandates - and some woman was screaming “This is the hill I’m willing to die on!” Yep, it’s now a literal death cult.

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Someone posted a video on Twitter of a woman speaking against mask mandates at a school board meeting. She led off by saying, “Science is ridiculous.”

She was wearing glasses, and I’m wondering how many pieces of science-enabled technology she has in her life.

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So today a reporter asked this subhuman being about his anti abortion law and rape and besides saying that he will just eliminate all rape in the state, he said it was OK because the woman would still have six weeks to get an abortion. The problem is that the six weeks is measured from the first day of the last menses and not from conception, which if it occurs at the time of ovulation is roughly two weeks later. So unless a woman knows two weeks ahead of time that she will be raped and get pregnant, she will have at best four weeks after her rape to obtain an abortion. He is not only cruel and evil, he is also apparently too stupid or lazy to understand the law he signed.

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It’s having Greg’s intended effect:

Complete headline:

Fearful of being sued under new law, three of four San Antonio abortion facilities stop offering the procedure

The facilities had a responsibility to patients who needed other reproductive services, said Jeffrey Hons, CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Texas.

And get ready for the THIRD special legislative session–