Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

We’re not going back!

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

We still have time to mess this up!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Republicans don’t trust women.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

You are here: Home / Politics / GOP Death Cult / Texas Terrorism Open Thread: Working As Intended

Texas Terrorism Open Thread: Working As Intended

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News broke last week:

EAGLE PASS — Razor wire put up by the state of Texas along the Rio Grande is blocking Border Patrol agents from reaching at-risk migrants — including families with infants and unaccompanied children — and increasing the risk of drownings, according to a Customs and Border Protection document obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

The warning is a new sign of escalating tension between state and federal officials over Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security program, Operation Lone Star, and it comes as the governor is putting a wall of buoys in the river despite concerns from immigration advocates that it will further endanger migrants…

The state has strung wire along much of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, a section of the border that has seen a surge of Venezuelan and Cuban migrants over the past year. It has gone up across gates that the Border Patrol uses to quickly reach the river, according to the document.

The wire is preventing agents from getting to asylum-seekers — some of whom have said they have been stuck in the river for hours and days, exposed to the elements with little to no help from Texas Department of Public Safety officers, according to the document…

The document was dated just days before four migrants, including an infant, drowned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. Officials have not said the wire played a role in the drownings. A Texas DPS spokesman has said the migrants were found floating along the river by state officials July 1.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, meanwhile, has effectively shut down key designated areas that CBP identified as staging points to get asylum-seekers out of the elements, including extreme heat, and process and transport them to detention centers, the document says.

CBP did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the memo. Asked for a copy of the full document, agency officials said the records were not under its “purview.”

“The absence of razor wire makes the job of Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers more dangerous and difficult,” said Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary. “The real problem is that President Biden’s open border policies have unleashed chaos on the border that’s unsustainable.” …

Poncho Nevárez, a former Democratic state representative from Eagle Pass, said he allowed the Texas National Guard to put wire up on his land more than a year ago and is “about to ask them to take it off.”

Nevárez said soon after the wire went up, he found a 17-year-old pregnant girl who had made it through to his land, barefoot and crying, carrying a 3-year-old child.

“Right off the bat, we saw how ineffective it was,” said Nevárez, a former chairman of the House’s Homeland Security & Public Safety committee…

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said Abbott has gone too far and is “interfering with Border Patrol’s ability to do its job and to save people’s lives.” He said the razor wire is already dangerous and now the state is putting barriers in the water that will make the situation worse.

On Monday, Abbott put a barrier of buoys and netting into the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing from Mexico into Texas despite legal challenges to the plan…

The Houston Chronicle just published the full original email from paramedic Nicholas Wingate.

Of course, this is absolutely horrifying — but I’m sure Governor Abbott considers it a win for him, and his supporters.

State Rep. Charlie Geren, who knows on which side his bread is buttered:

Those troopers from other states, they just don’t know our ways!

If it weren’t for hypocrisy, would these people have any ethics at all?

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Nothing says Christian values like drowning kids

  2. 2.

    bbleh

    Taxpayer-funded performance-hate, with thick layer of righteous victimhood and a sprinkling of outright lies.  Ladies and gents, your modern Republican Party.

  4. 4.

    Eunicecycle

    How pro-life of these horrible people. I may have to tap out on this one. When I thought the family separation policy was the most inhumane thing there would be, they had to show me wrong.

  5. 5.

    lowtechcyclist

    The nerve of that trooper, claiming that dirty migrants are people, and even made in the image of God!  How dare he!  Doesn’t he know they’re worthless scum, coming here to infect our country with God only knows what?!

    Gov. Greg Abbott joins my list of people I’d like to see tried at The Hague for crimes against humanity.

  6. 6.

    BellaPea

    I am starting to think that Abbott is seriously mentally ill. He is making cruelty the point. I feel sorry for decent Texans (although we’ve got our share of nut cases in Tennessee as well).

  7. 7.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @bbleh: Ladies and gents, your modern Republican Party.

    Contemporary. Ain’t nothing modern about ’em.

  8. 8.

    patrick II

    Texas Governor Abbot recently signed a bill forbidding local governments in Texas from requiring water breaks during the current Texas heat wave.  People have and will die from that, as he knows.  He couldn’t care less about a few Mexican kids caught in concertina wire.

  9. 9.

    Alison Rose

    Apparently Abbott has been watching putin and is like “You call that evil, bitch? Hold my beer.” What an absolutely malevolent monster. And he has the fucking audacity to claim to be pro-life.

  11. 11.

    lowtechcyclist

    Biden should have the Marines run boats up and down the Rio Grande and take out anything that interferes with their navigation.

  13. 13.

    cain

    @patrick II: he doesn’t even care about Texans – how many people died because of the failed electrical grid? I wonder if it is going to fail again?

    The guy veto’d a bill to allow those with disabilities the option to vote by mail.

    Yet, mysteriously, the man keeps getting re-elected. He’s completely incompetent – even in a red state – you’d think someone would have challenged him from the GOP side.

  15. 15.

    Eric S.

    I’m ready for Biden to send a northern state national guard to take control of the entire Texas government.

     

    In all seriousness, there’s no doubt this is violating some kind of federal law. Arrest up Abbott and some of his enablers and slow walk the entire hearing process. Let them get lost in some bureaucracy. Wait for his lawyers to file some habeus writs. Show these pieces of shit what the deep state really is.

  16. 16.

    Jackie

    @lowtechcyclist: “Gov. Greg Abbott joins my list of people I’d like to see tried at The Hague for crimes against humanity.”

    I’m right there with you.

  17. 17.

    Anoniminous

    … strung razor wire in the river to stop migrants. What he stopped was US Border Patrol from rescuing drowning kids

    MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  20. 20.

    MC

    Speaking of Christianity, I would like to call on God to do something about at least Donald Trump, ’cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.

  22. 22.

    Steve in the ATL

    Left wing hippie rag USA Today rated Texas as the worst state to live in, in an article earlier today.

  23. 23.

    Ocotillo

    Hmmm, I guess I missed the story from the grandstanding priest refusing communion to Abbott at his Catholic church.  Who am I kidding, the play for the camera priests only have one trick and that is refusing communion to Dems who support choice.

  24. 24.

    Cameron

    Greg Abbott….Ron DeSantis….the two mightiest anti-woke warriors in God’s Most Blessed Land….facing each other in the NO-HOLDS-BARRED, JESUSNMERKA RACE TO THE BOTTOM!

    ….except there is no bottom, just an infinite layer of sewage…

  25. 25.

    gene108

    The wire is preventing agents from getting to asylum-seekers

    From the OP article.

    Crossing the border to seek asylum is legal and in compliance with U.S. law.

    Gov. Abbott is terrorizing men, women, and children who are attempting to follow U.S.

  27. 27.

    gene108

    @patrick II:

    Texas Governor Abbot recently signed a bill forbidding local governments in Texas from requiring water breaks during the current Texas heat wave.

    It forbids water breaks for workers above whatever is already state law.

    A pointless crappy law passed by Texas.

  29. 29.

    Steve in the ATL

    @raven: yes, read all the comments (including yours) over at the Senator’s place while on the plane earlier!

    What’s the reaction in the Classic City?

  30. 30.

    Feckless

    Texas needs to be broken up into smaller states.

    Texas is too much evil under one roof.

  31. 31.

    laura

    @lowtechcyclist: Gov. Greg Abbott joins my list of people I’d like to see tried at The Hague for crimes against humanity.

    I’m a salty bitch, and Gov. Gregg Abbott is someone I’d like to see kicked in the head until the pink runs out and then tossed on a pile of concertina wire. I understand it is never going to happen, but it would be what Tex Ceausescu has worked so hard to deserve.

  42. 42.

    Jay

    Somebody needs to send a small flotilla of jet boats up the Rio Grande with grapnels and kevlar ropes.

    Drag all that shit out of the river and off the banks, let it tangle up as it’s dragged,

    and drop it all off at the entrance to one of Tex-ass’s major ports.

  43. 43.

    Tony G

    @Feckless: Unfortunately, that would backfire.  Each little state would be just as backward as Texas, and would have two senators plus at least one representative.  Maybe Lincoln should have let the South secede in the first place, but it’s too late for that.

  44. 44.

    West of the Rockies

    Come on, you guys, I’m sure Abbott is using super humane razor wire.

    I think Republicans must be constitutionally incapable of earnest self-reflection and assessment.  Otherwise,  they’d look in the mirror and see xenomorphs staring back.

  49. 49.

    JWR

    I’ll readily admit that I haven’t followed the buoys story very closely, but concertina wire?!! Jeebus!

  52. 52.

    Subsole

    @cain:

    Not even then.

     

    I do not say this lightly:

    The man is a goddamned sociopath. He gets a kick out of killing people.

    I say that without the faintest scintilla of snark, nor the slightest picogram of exaggeration. The man is evil. Damaged evil. He would absolutely work a person to death, just to watch them die.

  57. 57.

    Paul in KY

    @Tony G: No way! An independent South would have sided with Imperial Germany and/or Nazi Germany in the world wars and we’d all be wearing lederhosen now.

  58. 58.

    planetjanet

    I am in complete awe at that ad from Orange for the Women’s World Cup.  It is almost frightening as well, how video can be manipulated.  It should be shared widely.

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