Beware, America

Another Texas Train is Running

(This newsletter is the rebirth of a project I started in 2017. I was sending out dispatches from my website of the same name and getting good uptake. Feedback was terrific and several hundred subscribers signed up for the weekly report, and thousands were reading. But the standard required to make a small amount of revenue to cover time and expenses was daunting. And I was otherwise engaged with endeavors consuming an increasing amount of my time. I surrendered.

But along came Substack, which appears to be designed for what I was trying to achieve with my writing. My goal here is to offer information, insight, and maybe even entertainment. There will be personal experience included since I provide a point of view. But my focus is on this confounding state, its myths and realities. I will write about travel, literature, history, movies, politics, and just life its ownself under the Lone Star, and the broader influence of Texas beyond its borders.

It’s free to anyone who wants it, but those modest paid subscriptions, if you are inclined, can help fire the engines. Go ahead and be inclined. I’ll publish at least once a week, depending on interest, yours and mine. I will also post randomly with stories worth sharing and that are not part of the weekly newsletter).

“I felt like the luckiest kid in the world because God had put me on the ground in Texas. I actually felt sorry for those poor little kids that had to be born in Oklahoma or England or some place. I knew I was living in the best place in the world.” 

– Tommy Lee Jones, San Saba, Texas rancher, also actor with an Oscar

American Asshat

Hardly a presidential election cycle passes in the modern era when some Texan doesn’t think they are ready to become president, and the consequences for the country are rarely positive. We’ve given the nation two Bushes to sit in the White House and in return they produced two wars. One of those conflicts was against a country that did not attack us.

Of course, LBJ came down out of the Texas Hill Country and made his way through congress to become president and escalate the War in Vietnam, which ended up killing 56,000 Americans and an estimated two million Vietnamese, all for a concept called “containment.” Good lord, even former Texas Governor Rick Perry came within spitting distance of the GOP nomination until he could only remember two of the three federal agencies he planned to shutter.

And here we go again.

The current governor of Texas has gone goofy, or maybe goofier. Greg Abbott has always been politically aggressive on his favorite right-wing issues, but in Del Rio this past week he began the process of stepping into a potential financial and legal mess that may not have a very good ROI (Return on Ignorance). The governor said Texas is going to build a border wall. His splashy little trip was nothing more than a de facto announcement that he thinks he can be president, because, just look at me, I’m dealing with international border stuff!

Abbott’s office had convened what was branded a “Border Summit” in Del Rio, which was where he made his announcement about the Texas wall. A few key details, in fact, all of them, were missing from his latest pronouncement. The big challenges with such an endeavor, of course, are money and land. Nothing was said about how he planned to fund a wall. There are presently zero dollars in the budget just passed by the legislature that might designate spending for any type of barrier, which means Abbott will have to find the billion dollars he says the project will require.

The governor might want to consult his political muse on the challenges of building a border wall. Even with the Pentagon’s pocketbook and the eminent domain power of the federal government, Donald Trump managed to construct only 15 miles of a new promised barrier to run the full 2000 miles of the US-Mexico border. Joe Biden issued an order to stop all work on Trump’s wall the day he took office. The majority of the project completed by January of this year was 350 miles of replacement or secondary barrier with an additional 220 miles in various stages of construction. Trump, who proved to be much more skilled at destruction than construction, was probably waiting for Mexico to send that check he promised Americans would receive to pay for his twisted vision.

And, really, the wall ain’t a wall at all; it’s a fence.

Why Greg Abbott thinks he can accomplish what “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” could not, is a mystery. Hell, how he got elected is a mystery. If he hasn’t thought this through, though, the governor might end up looking as foolish as Trump, which he already does on a consistent basis.

The sources of potential cash for Abbott’s barricade are limited. He might turn to the state’s Economic Stabilization Fund, also known as the “Rainy Day Fund,” which held $8.5 billion dollars when legislators got to town in January for their five month session. Even in the midst of the pandemic with rampant unemployment, hungry and homeless families, and struggling small businesses, Abbott pumped the political brakes on dipping into the Rainy Day Fund and the budget bill that reached his desk made no use of the money. Hungry kids aren’t as important to him as a wall, though, so that might be the first place he goes if, in fact, he actually attempts to build a border barrier.

There’s always a tax that might be implemented to pay for it. Can’t see Abbott doing that, though, unless he can force immigrants to pay a fee when they are arrested, or, maybe, he puts an import levy on goods crossing from Mexico into Texas, which is really not in his purview and belongs to the federal government. States do not regulate international commerce, but, hell, Abbott might try. His most likely tactic will be to ask a special session of the legislature this summer to fund his baby barrier, but how they come up with the cash without raiding the Rainy Day Fund is a conundrum.

On those rare occasions when he talks to reporters, Abbott never directly answers questions. This is why there is no understanding of his tortured logic on border policies. Perhaps, also, it’s because there is nothing logical in his thinking. His summit was also a chance for him to proclaim Texas would begin arresting undocumented border crossers and tossing them into county jails. The state’s authority to reduce transgressors to custody is also in doubt, however.

Immigrants landed on American soil without proper papers are not, technically, violating Texas statutes. Department of Public Safety troopers might be able to temporarily detain and hold immigrants until the Border Patrol can take them into custody for processing but arresting them and having them charged by district attorneys and tossed into jail seems like a legal process fraught with peril. Immigrant rights groups and the ACLU are almost certain to file lawsuits seeking injunctions to stop the state if it begins to act like it has federal jurisdiction on these matters.

And where does Goober Greg put all these detainees? Even though it’s unclear the state has any jurisdictional authority to arrest and charge immigrants unless they break local laws, the governor says there will be a lot more people thrown into jails. What jails? Border city facilities are already full of hometown criminals, many are rundown from a lack of funding due to conservative state and local politics not spending on repairs and improvements, and some overflow prisoner population from the feds has created stress. Is he going to build more jails? Where does he get the money for that massive project, which may be pricier than his silly attempts to construct a fence.

There are other big question marks on this latest bit of grandstanding. The central issue is where does federal authority end and state powers begin. Because most of the border is privately held land along the Rio Grande, how, precisely, does Abbott think he’s going to build his toy fence? It’s unclear what, if any authority, the state might possess to condemn private property to build a barrier, especially on land the federal government has already gone to court to access. Does Abbott think there is more than one route for a border wall? Landowners might want reduced immigration but having a big, ugly fence between them and their river frontage, and maybe the sunset, doesn’t seem the most ideal solution. Much of the right-of-way would also leave stranded many large sections of privately held land. How will a rancher or grower access those parts of their holdings if a wall is in their way?  

The governor made a cute little aside when he said the border is more than a photo op for members of congress. Yes, it is, it’s his primary backdrop as he tries for more and more national attention. No politician has used the plight of border communities as blunt force instrument more than Greg Abbott. He has created special surges of law enforcement and National Guard deployments and sent the signal that the entire la frontera is a danger zone that must be managed. Living on the border is taking on the same experience as being in an occupied territory held by a foreign military. How long before Abbott issues executive orders creating Green Zones? No-go zones? Forbidden zones?

He’s already about halfway there. Before heading to Del Rio, Abbott was, earlier in the week, visiting the Rio Grande Valley of far South Texas. The governor used the trip to issue a proclamation declaring the entire border as a disaster area, which, he says, opens it up to more state and federal money. If he’s looking for disaster cash from Washington, he has to get approval from the Biden administration for the disaster declaration, which seems unlikely since Ass Hat Abbott continues to blame the president for people coming to the border.

(Unsurprisingly, the governor was quiet about the border during Trump’s tenure, and the situation was, in many respects, more dire with Covid and kids in cages and separated families. Didn’t apparently worry Abbott).

Four different community groups in the valley weren’t taking Abbott’s BS silently. La Unión del Pueblo Entero, Angry Tias and Abuelas, Asylum Seeker Network of Support, and The Sidewalk School offered up a formal proclamation of their own that declared Abbott was a disaster. Dani Marrero Hi, Director of Advocacy and Communications for La Unión del Pueblo Entero, very neatly summed up the rationale behind the governor’s current scheme.  

“He has failed to find solutions to the serious issues that are harming and killing Texans and has ignored the real needs of border communities,” she told the Rio Grande Guardian. “Instead, he is stoking security fears in order to distract from his failure to keep Texans safe from COVID. He is dreaming up a crisis in order to move the news cycle past his failure to manage the storm that took the lives of 700 Texans. He is scapegoating immigrants in need of aid in order to redirect blame for his failure to help Texans get back on their feet after the pandemic. For his failure to lead through the pandemic and protect Texans from disaster after disaster, we declare his governorship a disaster.”

Texas Republicans keep trying to convince the general public that there is increasing support for their politics in the communities along the Rio Grande, but there is a parade of public officials that seem fairly upset about the Abbott administration’s policies. He hasn’t given any indication whether he spoke with the governor in Del Rio, but Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez said he intended to ask many questions of Abbott about the border surge and yet another layer of security, and he listed them for the Rio Grande Guardian.

What law enforcement agencies will be arresting these migrants?

What legal standing will these law enforcement agencies have in making arrests?

Where are those in custody going to be held?

Who will be paying the cost of holding these prisoners?

If state charges are filed, the defendants are entitled to a public defender if they cannot afford a lawyer. Who is going to pay for this defense?

Will local entities be reimbursed for costs typically associated with federal jurisdiction?

What are the healthcare implications in this time of COVID-19?

What resources will be available for testing and treatment of COVID-19 or other disease that may be found?

If Abbott couldn’t answer those questions for the county judge, he better come up with something palatable for the general public. The idea of the state building a wall is silliness that has no other purpose than Abbott’s “Look at me ain’t I presidential?” posturing.

Every move he makes, every moral he breaks, Abbott is trying to build a resume and profile for Trump conservatives he hopes to attract, if the former president does not seek to run again. In the process, he is dedicated to making a puree’ of the state and federal constitution with inane laws like his 1836 Project, which was a clear and cynical response to the New York Times “1619 Project.” The Times did a massive piece of historical reporting that took a more comprehensive look at the role of slavery in the rise of the U.S., and conservatives were livid. Abbott’s 1836 law is designed to “assure the continued greatness of Texas,” which is code for whitewashing the state’s history. It will be force fed to the public on pamphlets at state offices.

School districts will also be pressured to keep telling foundational myths through the eyes of white Europeans who settled the American West. The curriculum to be pushed will be something like this: Cowboys wore white hats, Indians were dangerous savages that had to be eliminated, and slavery had little to do with the economic grounding and development of Texas. Also, sing the national anthem, damnit. Abbott has put that into law, too, and almost got a series of measures passed that were designed to reduce voter turnout and help the GOP. Unfortunately, for the Republicans, Democrats waltzed out of the legislature and no quorum existed to pass the voter restrictions, and now some of those GOP lawmakers are saying they aren’t even sure how the language got into the final versions of the rejected bills.

Sure, they aren’t sure.

But Abbott is running for president, already, and his campaign informally launched at his “summit” in Del Rio, and any acquisition of national power he might acquire will be used to its fullest extent to undo freedoms fought for by generations of people demanding and dying for equality.

His vision of the future for this country is even more disturbing than Trump’s.

And here now, I give you the great Tom Russell with his song, “Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall?”

And God Gave Us Gohmert

Or maybe it was the universe, the improbability of the exact wrong sperm out of millions that managed to find the precisely wrong egg and begin the mutant cellular multiplication that became Louie. Chaos is the only real explanation for his existence; well, that and East Texas politics. Why someone with an IQ at least in the triple digits hasn’t taken on Goober Gohmert in a primary is baffling. How can the people of that part of Texas not be ashamed of his ignorance?

I think it reached a new nadir this week when he asked about a federal agency adjusting the orbits of the moon and the earth to deal with climate change. In a congressional hearing, Gohmert asked the associate deputy chief of the National Forest Service if the Bureau of Land Management could change the orbit of the earth or the moon to help combat climate change.

Yes, he did. Here are his precise words:

“I understand from what’s been testified to the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, you want very much to work on the issue of climate change. I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they have found the moon’s orbit is changing slightly, and so is the Earth’s orbit around the sun. And we know there’s been significant solar flare activity. And, so, is there anything the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate.”

It is profoundly cringeworthy to watch a man be such a public idiot as part of the American government, too.

The Forest Service witness, Jennifer Eberlein, paused just long enough to catch her breath and gain enough composure to not ask, “Are you fukking kidding me, congressman?” Instead, she said, “I’ll have to follow up with you on that one.”

Gohmert said, “If you figure out there’s a way in the Forest Service you could make that change, I’d like to know.”

Hey, if the Forest Service can accomplish that Louie, maybe they could also figure out how you became a member of congress. Gohmert got his degree in dumbass over the course of many years and his public stupidities are too many and manifest to enumerate, and the Internet is likely to soon bog down with data-choked lines because of the many lists of Louie’s looniness.

But my favorite one has to do with the dating habits of Alaskan caribou.

Way back in 2012, the pride of Tyler, Texas was testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee about the Alaskan Pipeline. There were questions about the constant flow of oil through the system and whether it was needed given the burgeoning energy reserves and a market flush with crude. Louie, who knows less about everything than any fourth grader you’ve ever met, insisted the warmth of the oil moving through the pipeline was important to the caribou, especially when they are getting ready to head out to party on Friday nights.

“So, when they want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline,” he told the committee. So, my real concern now, if oil stops running through the pipeline, do we need a study to see how adversely the caribou would be affected if that warm oil ever quit flowing?”

Gohmert was convinced the sexual heat of the pipeline had increased the population of caribou by tenfold.

“Hey babe, looks like you have horns, or are horny, just like me. Why don’t we head over to the pipeline and cuddle up? See what happens, if you know what I mean?”

Louie Gohmert’s most perfect natural role in this world is to be a wingman for male caribou.

Next Week: Brush Country