George HW Bush; George W Bush; Dan Patrick; Ted Cruz; Allen West; Dan Rodimer; Chad Prather.  What do these individuals have in common?  First, they either held, hold, or are running for political office in Texas.  Second, NONE of them are actually from Texas.  HW and W were well known Connecticut blue bloods who wrapped themselves in the Texas flag to run for federal office.  Ted Cruz is from Calgary, Canada. Allen West, who was born in Georgia and went to Congress from Florida, was oddly elected chair of the Texas Republican party and recently resigned to run against Abbott for Texas governor.  That leaves Dan Rodimer, from New Jersey, and Chad Prather, also from New Jersey.  What a coinkydink.

You can correctly characterize all of these men as carpetbaggers; most were/are shitheads.  What separates Rodimer and Prather from the others, though, is that not only are they shitheads, they’re also posers, dressing up in cowboy costumes and talking with that fake gnarly drawl that those who are not from Texas believe is how native Texans talk.  While it’s true that many Texans do talk with that drawl, we also recognize a poser pretending to be from Texas.  And, it mightily pisses us off.  These two clowns really piss me off.

Rodimer is just your everyday weirdo who decided he wanted to be in Congress after he failed at being a professional wrestler, so he moved to Nevada where he ran and was beaten badly after allegations of domestic violence surfaced.  So, he had the great idea of moving to Texas, changing his voice, donning a cowboy hat and renaming himself “Big Dan” Rodimer to run again for Congress.  His chances faded pretty quickly when the Washington Post picked up his story and showed the ad he made pretending to ride a bull using a stunt double.  The ad was simply awful, even cringeworthy.

But compared to Prather, Rodimer is a minor leaguer of fakes.  Prather is the world champion of loudmouthed, boastful, smartass 5-inch-brim-hat-wearing fakes.  He styles himself as a comedian and a “fast-talking, observational humorist”, but has scrubbed his New Jersey roots from his online persona.  In fact, he’s damn near scrubbed all of his past from his online persona. Besides having an online gig on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze website, he’s a YouTuber, usually done from the front seat of his big I-Have-a-Tiny-Penis pick’em-up truck, and he’s a dynamic self-promotion machine.  His videos are a fast talking stream of bile delivered with a smile, whining about “libruls”, Biden, Pelosi, and everyone not Trump.  The most irritating thing about him is his boasting about being “Unapologetically Southern”, not understanding that those of us actually from Texas don’t consider ourselves southern, but Texan.  The South is NOT Texas.  He’s also more than happy to let you mistake him for a native Texan, which he most certainly isn’t.  He got my attention when he announced he was running for governor against Abbott because he got pissed off when Abbott mandated masks for 5 minutes last year before caving to Trump and dropping the mandate WAY too early, contributing to the 53,000 deaths in Texas from the virus.  Prather’s entire platform is made up of two planks: “I’m pissed off about masks”, and “I need to sell some T-Shirts”.  That’s it.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Texas is a most welcoming state and we love for people to move here.  But we need REAL people to move here who are respectful, hardworking, and sincerely wanting to put down roots.  Clowns like Rodimer and Prather are NOT who we’re looking for, and we goddam sure don’t want them trying to represent us in Austin or Washington.  Add Allen West and Dan Patrick to this toxic waste, and Texas looks worse if that’s even possible after the damage done by Abbott, Cruz, and Cornyn.  Here’s how bad it is in Texas Republican politics right now…the primary race is made up of a Trump Mini Me (complete with a failed Wall policy), and two carpetbaggers, West and Prather.  Jesus.

My message to these posers?  Leave us alone and go back to wear you came from.  We have enough problems and we have to get Abbott out of office, but we most certainly don’t need any help from these fakes.  So, #NoPosersinTexas

Texas in the national news yesterday:

• Ken Paxton’s lawsuit to attempt ONCE AGAIN to repeal the ACA was tossed by Scotus.
• Greg Abbott commits $250 million of Texans’ money and then begs for donations to build Trump’s wall that takes private land to create a solution that doesn’t work.  Ask the Chinese about that.
• Abbott signs SEVEN bills that unravel 150 years of gun safety laws allowing any idiot to carry a firearm in public with no license, no background check, and no training.
• ERCOT asks us to reduce power usage due to normal summer weather.  This is after Abbott smugly announced that laws that he signed that will do nothing to fix our state power grid has fixed our power grid.

Like one person posted on social media yesterday:

“We are flying electric helicopters on Mars, but Texans can’t run their dryers.  That’s because scientists are in charge of Mars and Republicans are in charge of Texas.”

The day after asking Texans to conserve energy because our power grid was once again about to be over capacity, Abbott announced that $250 million will be pissed away for a border wall that will eventually be torn down if it is ever built at all. This is after refusing to fund upgrades to power grid and refusing to expand Medicaid so that Texans can get the health care they need.  He is a slimy sumbitch, isn’t he?

I am nuclear levels of angry after reading the Tribune’s article of his announcement. He’s basically using 250 million dollars to campaign for re-election. He’s even invited former President Trump to the border, apparently forgetting that Trump is a private citizen. I hope someone shows up with some children that Trump separated from their parents without keeping records so they could be reunited.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday began announcing details of his plan for Texas to build its own border wall, starting the hiring process for a program manager and providing $250 million in state funds as a “down payment.”

“Texas will build a border wall in our state to help secure our border,” Abbott said.

The governor did not specify how long the wall would be or where it would be built, saying that those decisions will need to be determined by a program manager after more research.

Greg has to woo the crazies, I guess. I’m so tired of conservatives acting like they’re such amazing stewards of budgets and the economy and then the second they need political advantages they just throw massive amounts of tax money onto projects that are going to be overturned by the courts anyway and cause even more spending on legal defense.

If Greg Abbott has been Governor of Texas for as long as he has and he still does not understand that he does not have the jurisdiction to build a wall between a state and another country, he’s too damn stupid to run for re-election. He will not hesitate to pull funding that helps women and children in the name of “fiscal conservatism” but he will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to double down on his hatred of our Mexican neighbors and the asylum seekers from Central America.

He’d probably win more votes if he just got the DMV to run so that Texans do not have a 5 hour wait – that is the standard wait time in these parts – unless you get an appointment several months in advance or drive several hours to a rural DMV (The rural DMV’s closer to the cities also all have wait times of several hours).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I do not understand why Texans continue to vote for these incompetent, shady, slimy, corrupt, two-bit asshats-with-less-sense-than-a-doodlebug Republicans.

Abbott did mention that he may crowdfund the wall, hoping for volunteers to give up their land and money to build his political pet project. When Trump’s buddy Steve Bannon did this, he then “funneled” aka stole hundreds of thousands of donated dollars and used them on his own expenses and “lavish lifestyle.” Trump pardoned him for this, of course. I imagine Abbott will use this crowdfunding for his campaign or will create a shell corporation and use that to buy all of his books or run attack ads on his opponent and steal the money that way. Or maybe he’ll use it to build a wall. I’m sure the people with land near the border will just be happy to give it to Greg Abbott.

It’s all a show, it’s political theater, and half of the state will fall for it. Voters have got to step up and say enough. If the ERCOT disaster didn’t do it, I don’t know what will. If this actually works and absolves him of wrongdoing, because Texans are happy that he’s being mean to brown people, well, what does that say about us as a people?

Yesterday, with great fanfare, Greg Abbott signed bills that would do virtually nothing to fix the power grid that massively failed during the Polar Vortex in February, knocking out the power in almost 5 million homes and causing the deaths estimated by some to be as high as 700.  Let’s be clear – the electrical power grid in Texas is managed differently than ANY OTHER STATE, and it doesn’t work.  It’s never worked, and never will work as long as incompetent politicians like Abbott stay in charge.  Texas is not connected to the national grid; the system is deregulated to the point where there are no requirements for minimum baseload generation; the system is designed to maximize profits for the generators and retailers and offers virtually no assurance of maintaining power for consumers during weather events such as hurricanes, extreme heat, or extreme cold.  AND, Texas consumers in the ERCOT system pay MORE for the privilege of having less reliable power than all those other poor slobs in the rest of the country who labor under the socialist thumb of regulated power companies that do their jobs and are held accountable. The Texas system is broken, and Abbott’s pronouncements yesterday that everything is fixed is simply false.  He’s lying to us, he knows he’s lying to us, but is lying nonetheless because that’s what is donors and base want to hear.  Period.

Here’s what the bills DIDN’T include: relief to consumers for gross overcharges of power during the Polar Vortex; any baseload power requirements; any weather hardening requirements with set penalties for not doing so; interconnections with the national grids; no minimum reliability requirements.  Here’s what the bills DID include: handing oversight board selection over to the legislature and governor.  Now the PUC and ERCOT are completely controlled by Republicans who HATE government oversight.  The bills also provided for generators and suppliers to issue state guaranteed bonds to pay for the exploding overcharges during the Polar Vortex.  Who pays for those bonds?  YOU DO, through surcharges to your monthly bill.  Yep, YOU.  The only positive in these bills is that floating wholesale style pricing for consumers has been disallowed.

The result of this new legislation?  Texas consumers in the ERCOT system are still at great risk for brownouts and blackouts during  extreme weather.  We’re still standing alone from the national grids with still no reliability requirements or programs to add generating capacity outside of the “free market” which actually isn’t free.  In short, Abbott and the legislature have once again shirked their duty to serve Texans while getting their pockets lined by those profiting from the existing system.  So, when you’re boiling this summer or freezing next winter with no power, remember who did it to you and maybe think about changing your vote at the next election.  After all, you get what you vote for.

Author’s note: Thank you to a number of our commenters for cluing me into this story in the comments of my last piece.

Back in the 1990s there was a whole national debate about whether the president should be given the ability to use a line item veto. The intentions were good at the time. Based on the legislative process, pork was beginning to run out of control. Of course, no one is quite sure when the pork problem really began.

One person’s pork is another person’s bacon. At least that’s what they say. The idea was that the president would veto the parts of bills that were wasteful and leave the good parts of bills intact. It seemed like such a good idea, but the constitutionality came into question. Furthermore, it didn’t seem like such a good idea in retrospect.

The problem is that it gives the executive too much power. The legislative process is like a dance. Legislators get to add stuff they want to any bill and fellow legislators and the executive have to decide whether they want to kill the whole thing to combat the bad additions. It’s a fascinating process for people that are political junkies.

The prospect of bypassing that whole dance to eliminate waste seemed like a good idea at first. Unfortunately, it bypasses the reason for the dance. It gives the chief executive legislative powers and that throws a whole monkey wrench into the separation of powers. Leave it to Greg Abbott to provide a first-hand demonstration of why the line item veto is a bad idea.

Recently, Abbott threatened to veto a portion of the bill that funded the legislature and their salaries. Legislator salaries are barely a thing. It’s more an honorarium than a salary. The biggest losers are the staffers that rely on those salaries to live. They lose all that if Abbott follows through.

The proponents of the line item veto never considered this possibility. Abbott says he is withholding their salaries until they do their job. What exactly does he think their job is? I am just a humble political science guy with but a Bachelor’s Degree in political studies, but it seems to me the legislature is there to pass and reject bills. Isn’t that what they did?

Naturally, that’s not how Abbott sees it. He is angry that the Democrats pulled a maneuver that prevented the voter suppression bill from passing. The governor will have to wait until the special session to keep more Texas citizens from voting. In the meantime, he wants to punish legislators and their staffs for the inconvenience.

In the meantime, we thank the governor for his demonstration. People on both sides of the aisle thought the line item veto was a good idea. It seemed like a creative way to keep spending under control. We never imagined a state or national executive would abuse their power this way. Thank you Greg Abbott for giving us an education.

UPDATE: Just yesterday, the Texas House made it mandatory for professional sports teams to play the National Anthem before all games.  This pressing issue was a legislative priority of Radio Disc Jockey Dan Patrick, along with voter suppression and bathroom access supervision.

ORIGINAL STORY: This year, Texas has faced historic challenges – the global pandemic, the Big Freeze, and The Big Lie.  Add that to existing problems like a teetering education system, a failing healthcare system, crumbling infrastructure, and now a housing crisis, the governor and TXLege had their plates full.  So let’s have a look at that they did to address these issues:

• The Global Pandemic – Abbott, urged on by the Know Nothing wing of his party, played down the risk.  Abbott took away the authority of local leaders to protects their citizens, lifted science driven guidance for social distancing and quarantine recommendations way too early, and slashed recommended unemployment payments to Texans who were suffering.  He also dumped distribution responsibilities for PPE, and later vaccines, on local authorities in his own version of The Hunger Games, making cities/counties compete against one another.  All this caused untold sickness, suffering, and death.  What did the TXLege do this session?  Nothing.
• The Big Freeze – Over 20 years ago, Texas decided it was a good idea to have a “free market” for powering its grid, so the TXLege unwound the state’s regulatory framework, making the power regime in Texas “voluntary”, with no deliverability requirements and no penalties for failing to deliver power.  State air quality standards were also made voluntary.  This system was put in place on a grid that was already mostly disconnected with the grids in other parts of the country, so when it failed in February, no one could come to our aid by delivering power.  Over 200 people died and billions of dollars were lost.  What did the TXLege do to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again?  Nothing.
• The Big Lie – We all saw what happened after months of Trump’s ridiculous lie that an election that he had decisively lost was stolen from him.  When the US Capitol was stormed, hundreds of people were injured and 5 people died.  Trump actually attempted to overthrow the US government in order to stay in power.  Everyone with a hint of insight knows The Big Lie is false is corrosive to our democratic system.  What did the TXLege do to address The Big Lie? They amplified it, repeated it, and used it to pass the most restrictive voter laws in the US to make it harder to vote and to protect their minority power.
• Failing Healthcare System, Crumbling Infrastructure, Teetering Education System– Texas ranks 48th among the states in access to healthcare. Our education ranking is similar. Our crumbling roads, and poor public transportation systems rank among some of the worst in the country.  Under more than two decades of single party rule, our state has steadily declined in a number of measures, but especially healthcare.  Today, race, economic standing, and geographic location are predictors of healthcare outcomes, and the suffering from the pandemic followed these predictors.  The poor and minorities suffered greater infection rates and worse outcomes from the virus which compounded the other issues caused by lack of access to competent healthcare.  What did the TXLege do to address these inequalities?  Nothing.

So, what did the TXLege spend its time on this session? Here’s its list of accomplishments:

• As stated above, pushing the most restrictive voting measures in the US supporting Trump’s Big Lie.
• Passing a new abortion law that bans virtually all abortions, ignoring health, rape, or incest.
• Pushing criminalizing healthcare treatments for transgender kids.
• Passing unqualified carry legislation, making it legal for any idiot to carry whatever firearm said idiot wants to carry, making it virtually impossible for law enforcement to protect citizens from mass killers.
• Abbott criminalized mask requirements which imposes a $1,000 fine on any public official requiring masks, no matter local health conditions.

This is what you get when a minority party has cemented itself into power, taking away accountability to the public.  The GOP has had an iron grip on Texas for over two decades, aided by radical gerrymandering, lack of term limits, lack of spending limits, and lack of ethics laws.  The governor and the TXLege are now totally corrupt and pledged fealty to a criminal who so far has evaded prosecution and continues attempts to overthrow our democratic system of government.  Until The People wrest power away from such corruption, this state, among many other red states, are lost for the foreseeable future.