McAllen, Texas: One Bad Sneeze From Being Somalia
Texas Attorney General and Governor wannabe has found a whole new group of people to piss off.
In a recorded speech, he compared South Texas with a third world country. And not in the good way.
In an attempt to make a new punching bag for conservatives, Abbott claims that problems with law enforcement along the Texas border “resembles third-world country practices that erode the social fabric of our communities and destroys Texans’ trust in government.”
The McAllen Monitor was the first to jump high enough to catch geese with a net.
As we have said on our Opinion page several times before, this year’s election should not fall into that traditional zone of venomous nativist rhetoric that inflames the passions of white conservatives at the expense of the state’s growing Hispanic population.
Abbott has been guilty of such practices in the past and we need to declare as a region that we are tired of having Hispanics act as the bogeymen of Texas.
You know, I heard that Abbott’s new campaign slogan is “If it Ain’t White, It Ain’t Right.” I could be wrong about that. But, probably not.
Thanks to Web T. for the heads up.
Sounds like Abbott should listened to Rand Paul’s advice, and stop making comments that will alienate Hispanics, women and just about everyone who uses their head for something besides letting the wind blow through their ears.
1Maybe we should be putting up billboards about Abbott?
2Well now, the Repubes have been in power how long? And they let this happen and did nothing about it? And now they’re complaining about their own lack of action for letting it get so bad it looks like a 3rd world country?
Why should anyone bother electing them? They’ve proven in their own words that they’re not capable of managing anything at all.
3Where IS everyone? I figured there’d be at least 15 comments here by now.
4and I love the way Abbott is posed carefully in front of the TEN COMMANDMENTS. Surely he’s breaking a couple of them.
5Will try it one more time, Marge Wood. (Explaining life to Abbott isn’t easy.) He’s dumber than a box of gohmerts.
Dubya and Perry drove Texas into a ditch, then Dubya went on to drive the nation into a ditch. So quit whining, Greg. President Obama is too busy fixing all the Bush/Cheney messes to instantly fix Texas in his spare time. If you want something to really cry about, Greg, maybe President Obama can spare Eric Holder for a visit to kick some of the gohmerts out of Texas.
Want President Obama to work faster? Fine. Take Ted Scud missile, Loopy Louie and all your other gohmerts in the TX delegation out for a very long lunch on the moon with Mr Sanctity of Marriage, Newt Gingrich.
6A box of gohmerts. I love the way you use “gohmerts” so interchangeably. Not only is it hard to clean up messes left by others, we gotta try to stop the loopies running around lying about stuff we all worked for 35 years or thereabouts to get done. There’s this former Koch bros. writer named Thomas Pyle writing letters to papers all over the country, giving out misinformation about wind power. If you run across a letter or article by Thomas Pyle and the American Energy Alliance, you can know that your paper has been infected. Maybe Thomas Pyle is a gohmert in disguise.
7I just hope these latest outrageous remarks fire up that “third world country” to get their voters out en masse and kick those gohmerts out.
I have never witnessed a a more disgusting group than Texas Republicans. I hope you send them all the way back under the rocks they crawled out from.
I’m not only rooting for you, I’m donating to your awesome women candidates. Keep fighting!
8My, my, McAllen, Texas. Whoda Thunk It.
Granted my exposure to McAllen was when I was working for a conglomerate that owned franchise hotels, Hilton’s, Mariott’s and the like. And, of course, this was at least 30 years ago. I had to travel to them as a fixer and auditor, great job.
I remember, vividly, my first flight into the closest airport in Brownsville. My seat mate was a young long haired fellow who was very concerned about his package being unloaded . . . hint, hint, his ultimate destination was Padre Island off the coast of Brownsville known for its commune like living.
A lot of Snow Geese lived in McAllen, times sure have changed it would seem. For the better.
9I dunno, Lynne. Seems Republicans in lot of other states are close on Texas Republicans’ heels. South Carolina, North Carolina, Arizona, Florida and Tennessee are right up there and the peloton (to borrow a competitive cycling term) is not far behind.
10Currently the GOP is expressing verbal concern about its alienation from a number of key groups–Latinos, women, gays and their supporters, etc. But the concern is mostly verbal since they don’t want to change their core beliefs.
If Texas goes blue, or even pale purple, it will be interesting to see if that provides a little extra motivation for the GOP to actually change.
11Disclosure: Grew up in McAllen, McHi graduate ’63, still own property in McAllen, my grandparents moved to the Valley in 1918. I am so annoyed I could spit a river about this.
This story came out last week in BG Texas tweets, The Burnt Orange Report, and elsewhere, and I’ve been fuming and stomping ever since (I thought I’d emailed Juanita Jean about it, but could be I was so mad I punched the wrong key.) Got in a Twitterstorm about it late in the week with some rightwingnuts. Told em off but didn’t have time to do the full stomp and scrape-the-residue-off-my-shoe, as one likes to do with such idjits.
I grew up there; my mother and grandparents had roots in the Valley, and there’s more corruption in Austin when the lege has been in session 24 hours than McAllen could cook up in a year. Not to say it’s perfect–it’s not. (Recently a white ex-Marine got no jail time for “accidentally”–and you know what I think of that–shooting and paralyzing for life a Latino kid playing basketball with friends outside a high school. There is NO excuse for a Marine not to know how far his round can go and cause damage, NO excuse for shooting in an unsafe way. None. Zilch.)
And yes, the whole region is poor, very low average income and all the problems that come with it. But anyone who grew up there knows why–and it’s not because the people there are naturally bad or lazy; it’s because it was profitable to treat the Valley like the way coal companies have treated the Appalachians…take the profits and run.
There are wonderful people in South Texas, lots of them, and Greg Abbott is just another one of those north Texas white guys who should shut up and move to Oklahoma.
12Isn’t it odd how the people who are in charge of running the entire state have the nerve to criticize part of the state they are supposed to be responsible for? I mean, if South Texas has some issues, why hasn’t Austin addressed them?
Republicans. Good Grief.
13I am with you, Lynne. Be sure the bogeymen VOTE!
14marge Wood: I like your idea about the billboards, filled with the hate-filled quotes these jerks are constantly spewing. Time to get the lava flowing from the Latino volcano.
15I grew up down in the Rio Grande Valley. I really resent Greg’s claims. The Valley has really grown. I hope that these comments will be used against Greg in the general election
16I agree with Elizabeth. I never lived in the Valley but have family and friends there and spend a lot of time there. I hate what Abbott is trying to do, and I hate the damn wall Bush and his friends tried to build across a beautiful part of our state. Republicans in other parts of Texas and the country love to talk about drug violence “spilling over” into Texas even though there is absolutely no evidence of it. Just like all that “voter fraud” everyone is so concerned about.
17What worries me is no matter how stupid the Republicans act, so few people in South Texas vote that it won’t really matter. Like they say, Texas isn’t a Republican state; it’s a no-vote state. Please prove me wrong, Texas!
If it ain’t white . . . as in sheets? Good grief!!! Don’t tell me he is into Lady Pepperel!!
Ewwww!
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