Greg Abbott is a small government, local control, free trader.  Until he’s not.  Abbott is the worst kind of politician, one who doesn’t really believe in anything but his own power, who shifts his ideology to fit the situation that always advantages himself and his largest donors.  Texas has always been very independent where local control has been sacrosanct, and the governor’s office was designed to be a weak position.  No more.  It started under Rick Perry, but Abbott put consolidation of power on steroids aided by a state house full of ideologues who are either stupid, corrupt, or likely both.

Abbott has seized power away from municipalities and counties on everything from oil and gas development to environmental regulation to even trimming trees.  In good times the consolidation of broad local authority to a central point is bad policy.  The US Constitution recognized the role of the states in limiting the power of the federal government.  Abbott and Perry quoted that loudly and often with Barack Obama occupied the White House.  No more.  Now, Abbott cherry picks what he wants to control, like tree removals for some weird personal reason, and has done so again by abruptly ordering the reopening of thousands of businesses in Texas over the orders of municipal and county authorities all over the state.

What Abbott is doing is stupid; it’s not only stupid, he’s also doing it for precisely the wrong reasons.  He’s not rushing to reopen the state’s businesses because he believes it’s the right thing to do, he’s doing it to kick hundreds of thousands of workers off of state unemployment rolls.  The Texas Workforce Commission has already announced that if a business reopens and employees do not work ALL of the hours required by that business, the employees lose their unemployment benefits. Cisco Gamez, a Texas Workforce Commission spokesman even said that if an employee doesn’t feel safe working, they must refer their concerns to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, governed by the US Labor Department currently run by…wait for it…Eugene Scalia.  Yes, that Scalia, the son of Antonin Scalia.  The younger Scalia who’s made his career and is well known for undoing worker and safety regulations, was appointed by Trump to head the agency tasked with protecting workers’ rights (Yes, it’s a drinking game.)  Since Gamez’s statement, the Texas Workforce Commission “clarified” the policy that the state “may” allow some benefits to survive if a worker doesn’t feel safe to go to work.

The dangerous feature of Abbott’s idiotic orders is that he’s going to damage the programs that adults, like Lina Hidalgo and Sylvester Turner, have been implementing round the clock to protect those in Harris County.  The result is reduced cases here, but according to latest data from Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracking program, Harris County new cases are still growing at an average weekly rate of 13%, which is low compared to other counties like Tarrant County, location of Fort Worth.  That city is governed by Trump supporter Betsy Price, who has already ordered that churches can begin holding services and bars and restaurants can open.  Their case growth rate? 51% this week.  That’s right, THREE times that of Harris County.  And those are just the cases we know about.

Abbott, like Trump, is literally getting people killed.  And he’s covering it up.  To keep the numbers low, I’m convinced Abbott is dragging his feet on broad distribution of testing.  Like Trump, Abbott keeps promising millions of tests that never materialize.  Texas has tested just over 200,000 people or less than 1% of the population.  Every medical expert advises not to reopen businesses and public buildings until testing and contact tracing is massive.  Abbot clearly doesn’t want that because then it would be hard to justify what he’s doing right now.

Abbott’s plan is dangerous.  Overruling local officials who are actually listening to medical experts is nothing short of gross negligence.

The NY Times did a study of eight states’ US history textbooks including Texas, and it ain’t pretty.  Printed by the same publisher, the books differ in discussions of race, slavery, the Civil War, sexuality, and gun rights.  And if you guessed that Texas tilted the texts to far right ideology, you would be correct.

Enlightening (and depressing) read.

That Ted Cruz’s campaign logo is a map of Texas burning down?

You remember the story about the uncivil fellow who paid for the billboard on I-40 in the Panhandle telling “liberals” to keep driving and leave the state…Well, said billboard has been papered over after a nationwide brouhaha that arose after the photo went viral.  (We’ll take at least partial credit for our participation in that activity.)  Here’s what it looked like:

Here’s what it looks like now:

In response to the hateful billboard, a GoFundMe appeal raised over $4,000 to establish this billboard that’s gone up on I-40 in Amarillo.

That’s more like it.

The Texas State Republican executive committee voted on Saturday to censure outgoing speaker Joe Strauss for standing up for human and equal rights.  Hard right goons were very frustrated last session when Strauss stood in the way of Patrick’s asinine Bathroom Bill and other bills that did nothing to help anyone but homophobic white supremacists.  More amazing?  The censure vote took a 2/3rds majority to pass, and they got it.  One of those opposing the censure vote was Michael McCloskey of Cedar Park who said, “The Republican Party of Texas has changed into something most mainstream Republicans would not recognize.”

That statement wins the day for the most understatement.

We’ve been getting some interesting responses to our post earlier this week about flood ravaged Little Cambodia and how two “citizen organizations” took over, and announced that FEMA was not welcome.  Yes, you, Rick and Cowboy (officers of the motorcycle club Confederate Riders of America), you said it.  ON TELEVISION.  YOU determined YOU were in charge and the YOU were having a meeting with FEMA because, “They came in here blind.”  So, guys parading around in black leather vests covered in white supremacist imagery declared themselves in charge.  Teamed up with Portland Oregon militia group American Freedom Keepers, fresh off their mission of “protecting” racists and white supremacists in Charlottesville Virginia, with CRA just up and decided who was going to get help and when, and when the federal government could come in.  I’ve been wondering who died and put them in charge?

We’ve been getting some pretty lively feedback on our post from some of these folks and their supporters, acting shocked and saying things like, “…there’s not a racist bone in my body…” and other such declarations, exactly as we said they would in the original post.  Essentially, it’s “How can we be racists?  We’re helping Asian people.”  Of course.  And we’re supposed to ignore your statements and actions immediately prior to this disaster.

There are several issues here –

• First, and let’s be clear…these people desperately need help, and these organizations are helping.  Houses are getting cleaned up, some supplies are making it in.  However,
• They have clearly delayed federal response by at least a week, maybe longer.  They’ve delayed residents getting federal aid. They’ve taken up time with law enforcement.  FEMA representatives felt threatened, and I’m betting they weren’t scared by the muddy streets.
• Third, who the hell put these guys in charge?  That’s the weird thing about these goofy citizen and militia groups.  They somehow believe that they can show up with rifles slung, declare themselves in charge, and just take over.  Like one of our readers said, it’s like watching one of those old westerns where the evil rancher shows up with a bunch of his ranch hands and just takes over the town.  These goofballs do this all the time…they think they can put on some camo and body armor, whip out their AR-15s, wrap a shemagh around their necks, put in an earpiece, and all of a sudden they’re “peacekeepers”.  Yes, peacekeepers who get in the way of actual police trying to keep the peace.
• And last, but not least, when you dress in racist symbols or paramilitary gear, openly carry weapons, support white supremacist demonstrations, do YouTube videos about “protecting our southern heritage”, so and and so forth, you can’t then be shocked when normal people make the observation that maybe, just maybe, you actually are a racist.  Feigning shock at that glaring fact is not convincing.

Yeah, yeah, and I’m not going to listen to your  bullshit about how being the “Confederate” Riders is not racist.  The entire confederacy was about the belief in the superiority of the “white race” over the “lesser race” and the “permanence” of this superiority.  It’s especially odd that some groups, like the CRA, wear BOTH the American flag and the Confederate battle flags.  You do know that the Confederacy rebelled against the US government, right?  You know they committed treason, right?  Oh, and they also lost.  How inconvenient.  So, you can’t honestly say you’re for your “Confederate heritage” AND support the Constitution.  Those two things are mutually exclusive.  Oh, and before you blather on about the Confederacy being about states rights and your “heritage” let me just interrupt you with a direct quote from declaration of secession made by the State of Texas, February 2, 1861:

“She [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery–the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits–a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy.” (emphasis mine)

So, I’m not going to allow you to blather unchallenged about you not being racists.  Oh, and one last thing.  Let’s look at some pictures and we’ll let people judge for themselves whether you “fine folks” are racist or not:

Confederate Riders Patch

Nazi Cross

Skinhead Cross

White Supremacist Black Saltire

KKK Cross

Confederate Battle Flag

Remember the white supremacists chanting “Blood and Soil!” during their march in Charlottesville?  The chant is part of the German Nazi tradition of , “Blut und Boden”, based on blood descent and inherited land.  In other words, the right of the white race to dominance in their homeland. In Nazi and White Supremacist symbolism, the red represents the Blood, and the black represents the Soil.  The similarities between these symbols and the CRA patches are striking and certainly don’t look simply circumstantial.  If they are, you can certainly understand the confusion of normal people when we see them.  So, if the shoe fits…

You guys want to really help?  Take your guns and put them in the truck.  Pack up your camo and black leather.  Act like normal people wanting to help and cooperate with local and federal officials.  We’re not Somalia where it’s every man for himself.  We’re also not a military dictatorship. We’re a civilized society.  I suggest you join it and put all that self-righteous “peacekeeper” and “southern heritage” BS aside so these people can get back on their feet (and you can then go home and leave us alone).