We all remember the disastrous (and laughable) Republican responses to the SOTU over the years.  Bobby Jindal’s and Marco Rubio’s responses were cringe-worthy, and Jindal’s 10 minute spotlight moment ended his career.  Well, last Thursday, freshman Alabama senator Katie Britt said “hold my beer”, launching into the weirdest SOTU response in history.  Typical for Republicans, they put her in a fucking KITCHEN while she breathlessly disclosed the horrors of the Biden administration like protecting women’s health and preserving the right to vote.  If it wasn’t so strange it would have been hilarious.

One of Britt’s blood curdling stories was one she recounted of a private conversation she had with one woman who had been sex trafficked by the cartel in the US after crossing the border during Biden’s presidency.  The story was truly horrific as she described being repeatedly raped and being held captive in a shoebox-sized room.  Simply awful…with the one exception that it was complete bullshit.  Not that the woman was raped and held captive – that story is likely true.  The bullshit happened when Britt pinned the whole terrible scenario on Biden and his border policies.  Tim-Tokker Jonathan Katz did all the work on this, so I’ll let him tell the story:

@katzonearth

This isn’t going to make her like TikTok more. #katiebritt #sotu #stateoftheunion #lies #politicians #biden2024 #trump2024 #immigration #traffickingawarenes #mexico #bordersecurity #fyp

♬ original sound – Jonathan M. Katz

So, the victim here, Karla Jacinto Ramiro, was a victim of child sex trafficking when she was 12.  In 2004.  When George W. Bush was president.  IN MEXICO.  Ramiro is now an advocate for victims of sex trafficking and is in her 30s.   Ramiro even told this same story in a congressional hearing in 2015.  So, Katie Britt picks up this tragic 20 year old story and recasts it to place blame on Biden who wouldn’t be president until almost 20 years after it happened.  That’s like Republicans blaming Obama for the great recession that happened under GWB or Biden for the disastrous response to COVID  and Afghanistan debacle that were caused by TFG.

Not only was Britt’s melodramatic and creepy SOTU rebuttal cringe-worthy, it was also nothing but vicious character assassination and pure bullshit.  AND she did it on national television.  With any luck, Britt will go the way of Bobby Jindal.

Mexico’s economic minister announce last week that a new railway from Mexico to Canada for international trade is no longer going to come through Texas, but will cross into New Mexico, 20 miles west of El Paso.  The reason?  Texas is no longer considered “a reliable trading partner” after Abbott’s idiotic stunt last month that caused weeks of chaos at US/Mexico border crossings, costing Texas about $4 billion in lost trade and spoiled produce.  Now Abbott (Mini Trump) has cost Texas billions more by losing a rail line that’s going to connect the port of Mazatlan in Mexico to Winnipeg in Canada.  Laredo and Dallas were scheduled to be on the route, but no more.

Thanks for nothing, Shithead.

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?

Jen Psaki doesn’t suffer fools, and does it in the nicest possible way.  She did it again this week.

UPDATED: Oh, this is good…

White House press sec. Jen Psaki: "We don't take our advice or counsel from former Pres. Trump on immigration policy." https://t.co/kdimldYgxN pic.twitter.com/ohsrECEXfZ

— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2021

UPDATE: There have been questions who the reporter was.  It wasn’t an actual reporter, but one of the propagandists for Trump on OAN (One America News) which is not really news.  Her name is Chanel Rion (actually Chanel Nmi-Dayn Ryan. She changed her name when applying for credentials in the Trump WH).  Here’s the whole thing with the Rion video:

REPORTER: Americans are saying immigrant surges are happening under President Biden's watch

PSAKI: Who are the Americans?

REPORTER: The former president

PSAKI: Former President Trump?

REPORTER: Yes

PSAKI: We don't take our advice or counsel from former President Trump pic.twitter.com/I5d0utFNs9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2021