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Okay, hook ‘um low today.
Texas Attorney General and Governor Wannabe Greg Abbott has a former field representative named Lorenzo V. Garcia. Lorenzo is an Idea Man.
He declared to to be Catch an Immigrant Day at the University of Texas in Austin.
The press release states “There will be several people walking around the UT campus with the label “illegal immigrant” on their clothing. Any UT student who catches one of these “illegal immigrants” and brings them back to our table will receive a $25 gift card.”
Now that’s just a whole mess of fun, ain’t it?
Nice Hispanic outreach, Abbott.
Thanks to everybody for the heads up laced with total disgust.
UPDATE: Greg Abbott’s answer.
So wait, it’s Wendy Davis’, President Obama’s, and shenanigans fault? Did you see what he did there? He made he cringe. Yes, he did.
There is a story that when the Nazis forced Danish Jews to wear a Star of David, other Danish citizens began to wear a Star of David as well. Hopefully a lot of U of T students will pick up the torch and wear an “Illegal Immigrant” label tomorrow.
1A superb idea, Rick!
2Ver es creer.
3What could possibly go wrong? Some nutjob with a gun might decide to bag an illegal and turn them in D-E-A-D!! Maybe an old time shoot-em out will ensue and pretty soon hundreds of students are dead and wounded. Great fun,what?
4I say we bombard the campus with these labels . See what happens when a couple hundred are turned in…
5So liberals are the people who resort to underhanded, morally offensive and legally questionable behavior. A few examples come to mind: Watergate, waterboarding, voter repression, gerrymandering, toe-tapping in mens’ rooms, Iraq, Citizens United, government shutdown, the Recession, bank fraud, Wall Street fraud, election fraud…oh, wait…those are the purvey of the Repuglicans.
6Is that sign:
Fast Cars
Firearms
Freedom
It’s a Texas thing
his campaign slogan?
7Does he have that, “hail Satan,” thing on tape? Because if he doesn’t, y’all should call him out. He’s AG yet doesn’t know there are laws against libel and slander?
8Obviously, the Devil made me say this.
John Peter Henson is right–everybody who wants to, wear a label.
Also put up posters advertising next month’s event: Catch a Bigot Day.
9Liberals made the conservative group on campus concoct their “game?” Good try Greg Abbott! But certainly not as good as when Bullwinkle would turn to squirrel and say, “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”
10Thanks, JJ. Here’s a link to the University of Texas statement in response to the “Illegal Immigrant” game:
http://ddce.utexas.edu/news/2013/11/18/statement-from-dr-gregory-j-vincent-regarding-yct-game-scheduled-for-nov-20/
Apparently all the University is going to do is frown on this event and call it “counterproductive”. There was a similar event in 2007 at my alma mater New York University. I thought the university had called a halt to it at the time, but I re-read an article about it today which said that the university issued a statement against it, but there was no official action taken. I think these universities need to step it up and intercept these unapologetically racist events swiftly and strongly. Sharply-worded letters are meaningless.
For those of you who missed it, here’s the article at the end of the link in the Lone Star Project email that says “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” — another creation of the Young Conservatives of Texas:
http://nbclatino.com/2013/10/02/conservative-students-at-university-of-texas-austin-hold-bake-sale-against-affirmative-action/
11Please, please, please somebody start an “I am an illegal immigrant too” campaign!
12I will happily agree that the Young Conservatives of Texas’ publicity stunts are repugnant, and their mothers should wash their mouths out with soap and put them in time out until they know how to behave like grown ups. Unfortunately, their moms apparently aren’t available.
I will defend their right to make public fools of themselves…which probably makes me a weak librul in their eyes, but so be it. Silencing people you don’t agree with is also one of their stock items in trade, and I for one am not willing to give them the whining room. Rick and JP are right – call them on their stuff and put out more labels than they ever thought possible. Sunlight is a great disinfectant.
13Oh, really? Texas Democrats were shouting “hail Satan!” at the Capitol? Why would they be hailing Republican Greg Abbott?
14Watch this guy – Lorenzo – he’s going places! He says he once campaigned for Ted Cruz. Maybe when Teddy kicks off his run for president, Carnival can hire Lorenzo as Cruz Director.
15I think we just did start it. Go find an old cardboard from a shirt and a marker. Write ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT on it. Wear it everywhere tomorrow. I plan to wear mine to South Travis United Democrats’ meeting tomorrow evening, Nov. 19, 6pm, at Brick Oven, Slaughter at Brodie, in way way south Austin. Oughta be a great conversation starter.
16This must be making a lot of Texas Democrats very, very happy.
Now if only these students could incorporate a way to offend women too.
17@LynnN If you notice the sign in the article at this link:
http://nbclatino.com/2013/10/02/conservative-students-at-university-of-texas-austin-hold-bake-sale-against-affirmative-action/
… On the “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” sign, the students wrote on the right-hand side: “25c OFF ALL WOMEN”. So they did try to “incorporate a way to offend women too”.
18Took me a bit as I have been busy, but I remembered something my late husband told me years ago. He was born and raised in Louisiana. What AG-butt thunk up is in its own way to what my husband knew as a small child as “Lynch a ****** today.” His own family was staunchly anti-racist and if they hired help at all, that help also got Social Security on top of a living wage. Somebody in the U.S.Justice Dept. should get word of this freak show AG-butt is running.
19Would love to ask the YCC how well merit worked getting dumb bass dubya into Harvard and Yale (daddy was an alumnus) when the U of Texas Law school wouldn’t touch him because of low grades. Dubya clearly benefitted from such programs and then went on to deny them to others. Just like A-But and Perry. Merit works rilly well for affluent white rethuglicans. Need I mention the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war?
20Good thing it’s not “Catch a Cracker” day – they’d run out of gift cards.
21This isn’t quite at the level of Hitler Youth—but it is damned sure as close as I ever want to see it on the campus of my beloved university. Absolutely stomach-turning. And why am I not surprised that Abbott has turned up in it?
22I’m reading that young Mr. Garcia has announced the cancellation of this ugly little publicity stunt. Too little, too late, Lorenzo. You’ve embarrassed my university, and you’ve set off the Texas-haters (and there are legions of them) coast to coast. Thanks for absolutely nothing.
Given Greg Abbott’s connection to this whole sorry mess, I’m giving more money to the Wendy Davis campaign. Those of you who are able, please do likewise.
23There’s now a letter from the Young Conservatives having a pity party for themselves. You can see a photo of it in Evan Smith’s tweetstream, or here’s the link:
https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/402799512072101889/photo/1
I have fired back a few blistering tweets at this privileged brats, pointing out that they got to give their opinion, and then others got to give their opinion of the YCC’s opinion and that is what free speech is like.
e pluribus onion I am with you on all those points. I CLEARLY remember the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war, and why the Pentagon insisted on changing the rules for deployment after it. ‘Course, they had to accept loss of the draft, because Congress was just not going to put their own sons at risk, not no more.
24@Elizabeth #24 Thanks for that Twitter link. I just retweeted it to my followers. Lorenzo Garcia, the leader of Young Conservatives, has the brass to characterize as “disgraceful” other people’s reactions to his racist “game”. This is an example of someone who apparently grew up insulated from the reality of racism. All I can say is: This arrogant young man will one day learn the hard way about the dehumanizing effects of racism.
@SteveTheReturned #22 Yes, this is heading into Hitler Youth territory. The “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” was truly in keeping with “Aryan vs. Non-Aryan” thinking.
@daChipster #21 You heard me thinking — I was calling them “Young Crackers of Texas” in my mind — Except that the leader, Garcia, appears to be Hispanic. He said he got called an “Uncle Tom”. Does he even understand what that means? I doubt it.
25U of T threatened to expel YCT if they went ahead with this stunt.
26Greg and company are getting silly. The latest is that they are blaming Wendy Davis for problems with the Texas voter suppression/voter id law http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/texas-gop-blames-davis-voting-problems
Keith Ingram, Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) hand-picked choice to serve as the state’s director of elections, recently made the case that state Sen. Davis pushed a provision onto the state law that “required persons whose name was not an exact match but was ‘substantially similar’ to sign an affidavit that they were the same person and be allowed to cast a ballot.”
And that, Ingram and Texas Republicans argue, is the source of the current voting difficulties for so many Texans.
MSNBC’s Zachary Roth took a closer look and concluded, “It’s hard to conceive of a more deliberately misleading way of describing the situation.”
Until Republicans passed a voter ID law, known as SB-14, in 2011, photo ID wasn’t required, so the issue of mismatched names didn’t arise. The law as drafted by Republicans provided no recourse for the massive number of voters – often married or divorced women – with slightly mismatched names. That raised the very real concern that people in Calhoun’s position could be barred from casting a regular ballot.
As a result, Davis sponsored an amendment to allow voters with mismatched names to cast a regular ballot, after signing an affidavit. It passed unanimously. Texas’ election this month showed the value of Davis’ measure: Some precincts reported that as many as one in five voters or more had to sign the affidavit because of name mismatches. Both Davis herself, and her likely GOP opponent in next year’s governor’s race, Attorney General Greg Abbott, had to do so.
In other words, it’s true that Davis was responsible for the affidavit. But the letter’s clear implication is that without Davis’ measure, Calhoun and other voters with mismatched names could have voted with no problem. In fact, they might well have been barred from voting entirely.
27I can appreciate why Texas Republicans would want to blame Davis for voting problems they created, but in this case, there’s no reason to take the complaints seriously.
Good grief. The parents of these Young Republibaggers are wasting their money on a college education.
Just send them to Evil Clown College. They won’t even have to study.
28@Amanda Matthews “Evil Clown College”! lol
29That’s exactly what they did Rick!
30http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/14401/hundreds-of-students-rally-at-ut-in-solidarity-with-dreamers