Yeah, What Texas Needs Is a Damn Army
I think Rick Perry is preparing for Armageddon because he’s assembling his army. News from the Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry plans to announce he will activate the Texas National Guard at a news conference Monday in Austin, said state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen.
Hinojosa did not have details of the effort, but an internal memo from another state official’s office said the governor planned to call about 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the Rio Grande Valley — at a cost of about $12 million per month.
Yeah, he’s storming the beaches of the Rio Grande River with a military force he commands. Since he’s using bullets against unarmed children, I suspect he’ll borrow Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” sign right before the Ohio primary.
There has already been a special surge of Department of Public Safety guards on the border, costing Texans $1.3 million per week.
And where is all the money coming from? Rick has that all figured out. Here ya go with a screen shot from my iPad last night.
Yeah, we don’t need no damn health care in Texas. Roads? Bridges? Screw that. Only wimps need roads and bridges.
I honestly fear for my Hispanic friends in the Valley, many of them with families who have been in Texas far longer than Rick Perry’s.
My conspiratorial friends think Rick is building an army for secession. I don’t think so. I think he just needs an excuse to ride boats up and down the river looking like George Patton or some damn thing.
Please give us Texas back. I really, really don’t like being Ukraine.
Oh yeah, more from the party of fiscal conservatism. pRick’s personal army, unfunded. Take from healthcare and transportation? iirc Texas doesn’t have funds for health care and transportation.
The cost of clothing, food and shelter for children and families would be a small cost in comparison to supporting pRick’s army. But, what’s the fun in seeing a child smile, when he can terrorize them. The guy is a colossal example of rectal cranial inversion.
* A few other thoughts omitted in deference to Mama.
1He’s just Jealous of the whole Ukraine/Russia thing…. Texas National guard have Anti Aricraft Capabilities????
2Ricky has a sad. Those kids don’t have an air force so he can’t pose with shoulder held missile.
3As someone who has been down to the Valley lately and also driven across the state and into New Mexico on I-10, I find it hard to believe that we need more military types down there. Have you seen the number of Border Patrol officers along the border?
4He just wants a chance to strut around in his Aggie suit again?
5Well, if he takes anything that might be left in the healthcare and transportation funds away, he’ll force everybody to get care and use roads from his corporate healthcare and tollway friends, and then everybody who is already rich wins. That’s the point, isn’t it?
6Lmao at Hannity’s limp wrist, hmmm, getting close to pRick’s!
7Very manly, pointing guns at children who have walked across entire countries to escape men who were pointing guns at them.
8Ricky is just trying to appear Presidential.
“Ordering up the Texas National Guard”
Just saying….
9Let’s see, around $17 Million per effen month ($12M + $1.3Mx4) of taxpayer money for a grandstanding political play (let a Democrat try something like this $$ expenditure, eh?).
Does this include lodging, meals, per diem, fuel, laundry, comms, equipment maintenance, etc. expenses?
Or just wages, with those other $$$ expense items off-budget? Either way the cost is exorbitant.
We doan need us no waisful infrastrumacallit, hehlth car, skool larnin’, or dat ‘tothr stuff, wee got us a frickin’ Armee an’ Navee!!!! Ana Are Farce two!!! Wooeee!!!
I don’t know if y’all have seen a full set of pictures of the DPS’ pRick Perry gunboat fleet, but those 33′ triple outboard engined, fully armed and instrumented puppies cost upwards of $200-300,000 each at a minimum, initial cost (throw in some sweetheart RP/GOP hankie-pankie and it might be $500K+/each).
And the operational expenses have to be astronomical.
Just one of those (~$25K) three outboard engines will get at best, ~3-4 miles per gallon*; so using all three engines gets you to ~1 mile traveled per gallon of gasoline (and I can see having two engines for redundancy, three is overkill).
*I know boats (been on them since around 4y/o), have a similar (smaller) center console offshore with an older 200HP outboard (1 only), and I’m lucky to get 2.2mpg from it. An 80 gallon onboard gas tank will get me about 100-150 miles (in rougher waters than the Rio Grande, it makes a difference), and I always carry jerry can reserves.
Any other comments I have will have to be self-censored per JJ’s rulz:
*&&@%%^@&**&%@%^**(@((@*^%%@*(*@I*&@*&^^*@*(@^^@*(*(@I(((@&^%$@$%@((#R@%@*@()@
∞² + ∞³
Nancy Jane Moore says: @#4–
10Yes, but the real BP/INS/La Migra build up took place under the Clinton administration in the late ’90’s, I saw it (despite Lil Bushie/KKKRove using the completely prevaricated “undefended” border issue against Al Gore in the 2000 Prez campaign).
Just disgusting, both posing with a machine gun?? to protect the Nation from children? Really???
11I’m reminded of a little boy who doesn’t care about roads or healthcare but wants to parade around playing with guns.
Nice line, Dianne from PA, about pointing guns at kids who are trying to escape men with guns. We need an army to defend ourselves against these kids or else they’ll destroy Amurrica.
12Time to nationalize the Texas National Guard as Ike did when Faubus used the guard to prevent blacks students from Little Rock High School and later would not protect them from rioters.
Ike also sent in part of the 101st Airborne to ‘help’ the local troops. i.e.; make sure they followed the law instead of the racist local politicians.
13I bet Randy Neugebauer wants in on this too. He’ll rent them his yacht to patrol the Rio Grande & demand tax deductions for it. Also, Louie Gohmert will want a piece of the action. I suggest Rick use Louie’s shiny empty head as a balloon for spotters. Of course, PJ Boy Blake Farenthold is good for entertaining the kids, but only during the day. The poor kids don’t need any more nightmares.
Ya know, Rick could cover the whole cost of this himself if he would just stay in Texas instead of tramping all over the country looking for attention.
I hope a giant coyote eats him on a morning jog.
14I wonder what Hannity’s limp hand is reaching for….oh, wait….I don’t really want to know.
15O.K. I’m confused.
Aren’t these National Guard people “Weekend Warriors”?
16pRick and Shawn of the Dead are exactly the type who have to prove their manhood. The size of their gun corresponds to the size of their . . . well, you know. Its easy to see how anxious they are about that part of their anatomy when you see pix like this. Gads! Have they never heard of Xanax? or is it Zoloft? Whatever! They should down buckets of the stuff!
17Miemaw, many of these “National Guard people” got activated and sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. They never expected to be sent overseas, but they went. I don’t think you can just call them “weekend warriors” any more.
18maggie says: @ #17–
Fixed it fer ya’:
“The size of their gun corresponds to the size of their . . .”
The bigger the cannon, the smaller the winkie…with the GOP/teabaggers anyway.
19Sandridge, the DPS budget is public. You can probably find the operational expenses for the boats in the one presented to the Leg last year.
I think they were going for power, not economy, on the cruisers. They’ve interdicted a lot of drugs coming across the river and stopped some “splash down” retrievals from folks being chased from the U.S. with full truckloads of drugs. The “bad guys” drive them straight into the river where other “bad guy” divers were waiting to get the drugs back and try again. They get a tad testy when the DPS comes between them and their product. I don’t know the statistics for what they’ve kept from the U.S. market, but a PIO announcement goes out with those numbers a couple of times a year.
And lest you think the boats are only for currying political favor, every boat is named for a DPS trooper or Ranger who was killed in the line of duty. Since I work at HQ, I’ve gotten to see a couple of the commissioning ceremonies. The families are present and it is very moving.
20@Susan F.
That was war. They were “activated” by the President of the United States….. who is the REAL Commander in Chief of all the Armed Forces.
What the hell is this? El Macho Grande pRrick?
So, are they going to shoot…. or arrest….. toddlers?
Just curious.
21Ricky is just jealous of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ever since Vlad had a photo taken of himself riding shirtless on horseback.
22Didn’t think there was enough water in the Rio Grande for anything bigger than a canoe but what do I know.
23SusanF says: @ #20
I’ll put looking the numbers up on my ‘to do list’ (after I redo my Tor/? anonymizer, heh).
I understand the vessel power vs. economy aspect, but I’m familiar with the navigability of the Rio Grande (it varies a lot of course) and the choice of outboard propulsion doesn’t seem to wise to me. Given the average depth of water, and numerous obstructions, perhaps heavy duty jet drives (big water pumps) might serve better for shallow water riverine use.
I have no operational knowledge of their current use, but I would guess there is a lot of down time due to drive problems (u/w obstruction allisions, etc.) and maybe running aground (I’ve done it myself enough, and my sailboat draws almost 6 feet, so I’m extra cautious on it).
As far as the whole so-called “War on Drugs”, I’m sure you ‘believe’ in it, given your employment, but it is an abject failure. Whatever gets interdicted down on the river just gets made up somewhere else.
The entire enterprise is an absurdity, and I’ve been watching it since it began, from the Valley then. It has corrupted whole governments, our own LEO’s, judiciary, political system, and society, caused the needless deaths of many thousands, the pointless incarceration of many more, etc.
Let alone the total expense of it. I was watching an old cops&drugs movie from around 1950, and the narrator mentioned that the ‘illicit’ drug bidness was really big $$$ (thought he said $12 Billion), bigger than the revenue of the 25 largest American corporations then!
And nothing has changed, we are still spending many billions on interdiction, prosecution, incarceration, etc., the suppliers spend billions on production and logistics for mega-billions worth of (desired) product. They get obscenely wealthy and powerful (the really wrong kind of people), and the idiotic “War on Drugs” marches on. And the gross $ numbers have to be astronomical today.
The very definition of (societal) insanity.
Let’s just legalize it all, and remove that 80%+ profit margin that drives it all. We would save mega-billions, and there won’t be any/many more users than right now. But of course some of those huge profits are ‘shared’, and many ancillary bizs prosper (like the prison industry).
(And no, I’m not a ‘user’, never have been–I don’t even have any sympathy for tobacco addicts/users– there’s a conundrum for the addicts of the legal stuff who chase the others, eh?)
As far as the ‘patriotic’ aspect, I’m a bit cynical. That said, it’s a tough job I have immense respect for (even after all those speeding citations, heh, used to drive a lot), except for one lyin’ corrupt SOB I encountered.
24I still remember an incident on Hwy 100 near Los Fresnos where three officers were killed- (one DPS, two local, IIRC) during a traffic stop (that incident changed all LEO stop/comms procedures), I was nearby (transited to SPI frequently then). I have also assisted officers with a few traffic accidents (I used to prefer driving at night), not something I’d want to do full time.
Sorry this went tangential a bit…
Is he going to keep the Sandinistas from conquering Harlingen?
25Remember that?
Anyway you look at GoodHair’s latest adventure, get a huge magnifying glass you can see the fingernail polish on both Hairbrain and Stupannity’s dainty fingers.
26OK, here are some much better signs and wonders:
http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/07/20/3461993/mcallen-border-rally-photos/?elq
27Good show,Zyx. I especially like the sign that all religions believe in justice. Except for wingnut kristians whose religion believes in just us. That way they get a larger share of the pie.
28SusanF and JJ’s Beauty Parlor clientele,
I Binged around and found a pretty good rundown on the DPS TMU boats that da boyz are posing on (did those bullet-proof vests have the optional codpieces? If so, what for?).
OK, those patrol boats are 34′ 8″ custom modded Yellowfins (a quality make, I guessed above at size and cost from a profile picture some time ago, and what I know of the market; still want a Blackfin- a totally different animal). They’re ten feet wide and draw about 22″ of water (their trailers will be around $15-20K each). Texas bought at least six of them.
The link to a pretty comprehensive article about them is here: http://www.marinelink.com/news/cartels-combat-boats364852.aspx
The regular fishing model is about $250K.
These special ones are $580K w/armoring, and I doubt that that includes all of the armament and instrumentation, which probably adds another $100-150K min.
I’ll assume the 3-300HP outboard engines might be included in the price (but with higher end fishing boats the outboard engine(s) are usually priced separately).
If the engines are separate, they cost about $30K/ea, so three of them will be another $100K+ (controls, etc. add to base price). Maintenance will be high (cooling water pumps and lower unit wear in that mud).
I’m guessing the total per boat is about $750,000-900,000 (three quarters of a million clams). There are 6 boats, so that’s about $4.5-6 million worth of vroom-vroom.
Hell, I’ll bet they cost more, like $1.4 million oysters each, fleet float away price– $8-9 million (pocket change for the average Rey del Drogas).
There are around 40 Troopers driving them, so at mebbe $70K/yr, another $2.8million+ in salaries, min.
Plus air cover, drones w/support, etc.
So we taxpayers are paying a medium fortune to splash around in the muddy Rio Grande.
And that river is rarely more than one or two hundred feet wide and shallow as rivers go (lots of people wade across, right?).
I suspect that the picture of da boyz above was composed to look along the river, and the distant bank is actually still an American shore. Since a straight shot directly across would reveal the Mexican bank to be within spittin’ distance.
I used to live down there very close to the river, and we crossed it once or twice a week, I drove the length of the Valley Hwy 281 along the river often, day and night (saw lots of fishy stuff, just put the pedal down and play dumb). I’m also one of few people who have actually navigated the Rio Grande itself, near its mouth, from the Gulf (legally anyway).
29Has Governor Goodhair made any clear statement of what he expects the Texas National Guard to DO?
30If Perry is the general in command then I’m pretty sure the kids will win.
31Let’s just remember, too, that when faced with a band of marauding children from foreign lands, the most the national guard can do is wave at them. By law, they cannot do the job of border control. So all that money for a deployment? It merely buys you a Perry ’16 campaign ad … at taxpayer expense, of course.
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