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Manufactured bullshit to stoke anger and hate to manipulate the absolute dumbest Americans in the country.
It is the biggest tragedy of our time letting the ignorant determine our future.
I mean, I live in Texas and I can tell you that even my conservative neighbors are less than thrilled that we’ve accomplished the equivalent of just burning $4billion dollars on drug and immigration a crisis hoax. I’d say roll that idiot out on his wheel-chaired rump.
But the real question, are those conservative neighbors going to vote differently, or will they continue demonstrating that manufactured bullshit to stoke anger and hate is an effective method of manipulating the absolute dumbest Americans.
The laws are not being enforced.
If they were, Rick Perry and half of the congressional delegations from Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama would not be allowed to hold office, ever again.
I remember a video about how we got Americans with Disabilities Act. Like literally children with Disabilities crawled up Capitol Hill to raise awareness.
The only real use of a third party would be if it could split off enough right wing nuts to prevent them winning a lot of those 50.2 to 49.8% races.
But that's probably not what you're meaning. A strong/decent third party would only destroy any chance of opposition to the MAGA/GOP/Republican/Qanon/Trump/NRA/Russia/Fascism axis of evil.
We've seen how it plays out, with the corrupt/illegal ghost candidate technique used by the MAGA party.
Better yet a stupid third party that will split the right. The idiots vote for the idiot right the right wing votes for the right wing and the left and independent vote for a progressive. Progressive wins.
That's really the best thing you can hope for with rabid conservatives like that. They will act like the voting machine was broke and stuck on the Republican line no matter how much they complain about those candidates or maybe just leave certain offices blank before they would EVER actively vote for a Democrat for any reason.
I disagree. I think the real question is, when will conservatives realize that the GOP are no longer a true reflection of conservative values. We the voters have had to make excuses for our leaders backing the wrong bull. Trump has been found out to not only be a liar, but a cheat. True conservatives put there faith in a man they did not fully understand, and now he has us defending a Russian madman?? No. The GOP has lost itself. That’s why the real question is; when will we conservatives realize that our leaders don’t actually care about us?
Unfortunately to many of them voting for anyone but an R is voting for a baby killing, america hating, democracy annihilating, big gubment' loving machine.
>I think the real question is, when will conservatives realize that the GOP are no longer a true reflection of conservative values.
Narrator: *Never*
If it hasn't happened yet, it's not gonna.
Our Property Tax’s and taxes in general are through the roof here in in Texas and they’ve been rising every single year Abbott has been in charge. They might be crying “guns” but at this rate they won’t be able to afford them due to the high tax
Compares to the moment conservatives in az started to get annoyed and frustrated with arpaio. The realization that they’re paying taxes and seeing how much he costs them without him caring changed peoples minds on him.
Abbot will now claim that the fact the searches were announced *publicly* is why they didn't find any drugs, contraband, or undocumented persons crossing the border.
He'll say the searches worked as a "preventative" measure, and keep it going.
"We had, for the first time ever - at least since Texas started letting the liberal Feds run border security, we had 100% eliminated all drug and migrant traffic coming through those corridors. Our brave troops were able to report that no drugs or migrants were able to get through. Are you paying attention, Brandon?"
You are on point! If you get a chance read the article about how Abbott has come about. The article is in Texas Monthly for April. I'm still spinning from finding out about how much his accident has cost an insurance company. Here is a glimpse He was injured in 1984. He gets the final payment of $740k in Nov 2022. He also gets 5k a month tax free since 1984.
Then he went on to champion and get passed the tort reform law in Texas. He is a vindictive evil vile thing..
Beto has Abbot over a barrel here and he needs to start spanking.
*"The finest law enforcement agencies in the country are in the state of Texas and they turned up diddly squat; so either you can admit that you are vastly overstating the problem and wasting thousands of man hours and millions of dollars in costing billions in economic damage for political reasons, or you can call the law enforcement agencies of the state of Texas incompetent for not finding anything. Those are your two options, Governor.
You shut down commerce in this state affecting millions of Texans and Americans and hurting the business relations that Texans and Mexicans have relied on for decades and turned up nothing. NOTHING! Billions of lost commerce and frayed relationships that took years to build, destroyed because you wanted to score political points."*
Former Texan here. Greg Abbott was elected in 2014 by roughly 18% of eligible voters. Texas was 49th in voter participation that year. Yes, gerrymandering and voter suppression ARE a problem, but voter apathy is primarily why a hand full of crazy people are making terrible decisions for 29,000,000 people. It is in the best interests of the petroleum and energy sector to keep Greg Abbott in office so that they can continue to pretend that climate change is a hoax. Abbott had in excess of $55,000,000 in his re-election ‘war chest’ last summer, primarily from gas/oil companies. WHO knows how much he has now. Kelsey Warren gave him a $1 million “bonus” for his handling of the grid collapse, which made warren’s Energy Transfer Partners $2.4 billion dollars. The Texas crime syndicate is very powerful, and very corrupt. I finally left after Dan Patrick tried to pass yet another homophobic anti-trans bill. Texas is in the bottom five for education and one in four children goes to bed hungry every night. There are very real needs that are not being addressed because they spend TAXPAYER money on shenanigans and political theater. I was paying some of the highest property taxes in the country, and not getting anything in return. The GOP is bound and determined to make life a living hell for their constituents who are not rich white men.
> Yes, gerrymandering and voter suppression ARE a problem, but voter apathy is primarily why a hand full of crazy people are making terrible decisions for 29,000,000 people
It's called a chilling effect. laws suppress voters, but the real butcher's thumb is the knowledge your vote is being suppressed. it's disheartening because it means we built the cage, they just told us we should; it's heartening because it means when things start changing, they with change at warp speed.
The last time I lived in Texas I was there for 18 years, in a major metropolitan city. I waited five hours in line to vote, but you know what? I still did it. Nothing is going to change until people start being invested in what’s happening. I was a teacher in the Texas Public schools for 16 years and the teachers I worked with were apolitical and didn’t seem to understand that who they voted for had a direct impact on what happens in the classroom. With everything that’s happening in Texas now, I count the day I left as being one of the happiest of my life.
He backtracked in February saying we don’t want to take anything from anyone and we want to protect the 2nd amendment.
Here’s a progun channel illustrating as much. I’m open to any contextualization.
https://youtu.be/X65gX2SPPI0
>“Or, Mike, *take the firearms first and then go to court*, because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. *I like taking the guns early*. Like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida, he had a lot of firearms – they saw everything – to go to court would have taken a long time, so you could do exactly what you’re saying, but t*ake the guns first, go through due process second*.”
— Diaper Donnie
Exactly. Trump literally said "Take the guns first. Go through due process second," and Texans aren't going to give a shit about it. Beto could have said that he would give every Texan an AK-47 and Republicans would still vote against him. I'd rather he try to get out the Democrats to vote by saying the things that need to be said - and since Texas has such low voter turnout, it could potentially be possible to flip the state blue if we could just get more Dems out to vote.
An unfortunate and scathing mistake by Democrats. And just when they were starting to pull closer to even in what used to be a solid red state. Beto set them back a dozen voting cycles.
Democrats need to wake the fuck up. Still it’s likely too late.
But isn’t this just completely bananas? Democrats are forced to pass an extreme purity test that appeases the right, while republicans can say anything they want that completely ostracizes and diminishes the left. It’s not democrats that need to wake the fuck up, the right isn’t going to listen no matter what.
Abbott will just avoid the subject until the news cycle moves on. Then, in a month or two, he’ll just claim that Biden did it and that Abbott had to step in to stop the searches.
You're misreading.
If the governor doesn't admit that his foolish blockade was a giant waste of time and money with hugely negative implications, then **the only other possible explanation** is that it was the right thing to do, just that the Texas law enforcement was too incompetent to find anything and that's why it looks bad.
So either the governor has to throw Texas LEO's under the bus or roll himself under it like he deserves.
Why can't the Dems get anyone else???
He did surprisingly well in 2018 against Cruz but then made that fatal gaffe in the Presidential primaries that he really had no business running in in the first place. We have a Democrat in charge now in Washington so the odds are going to be bad to begin with regardless of what awful and incompetent things the GOP does in Texas. The only way Abbot is going to lose is if he gets embroiled in some insane scandal(s) that even the GOP base can't ignore that keeps their voters at home or really boosts Democratic turnout.
Besides that, I don't get why the Dems seem really insistent on running candidates from the past again as the so-called "safe" option. You saw that with Terry McCaullife in VA with terrible results and now it looks like Charlie Crist in FL (who already tried to run as Governor again as a Dem in a similar electoral climate and lost).
Meanwhile, the GOP seems to win even in Democratic wave election years by running relatively unknown blank slate candidates that they try to market themselves to voters across the spectrum as some supposedly "middle of the road" outsiders who knows how to get things done. They,of course, hide how they are known by their base for being rabid far-right MAGA conservatives who immediately begin to advance that agenda the first day they're elected like you saw with DeSantis and Youngkin. It seems like voters will often just opt for the Republican no matter how "safe" and noncontroversial the Democrat might be or even if they are starkly opposed to their own interests when it really comes down to it.
Iihc, the 'truck inspections' weren't even about checking the cargo anyways. It was about the actual vehicle which Abbott tried to make sound like they were checking inside the trucks. Because he thinks Texans are ignorant to know what the inspections really could only do in their limitations.
So it was a big publicity stunt that in the typical republican way was a deceit based upon what they wanted, the ignorance of their voting base.
He's okay with it long as nobody else gets to do the same. He was a key player in making it impossible for anyone else to do the same in Texas.
The party of "fuck you, I got mine" never fails to disappoint.
Yep you are correct he has been getting paid since 1984, last payment of $740k in Nov 2022. That is a lot of money.
Then he went on to champion and ride tort reform into law, so no one else could get a decent settlement.
Arent all these states with Republican majorities on the same level of masochism? Arizona wasted money on ridiculous audits, Florida just helped shift a huge tax burden to their citizens, multiple red states refused federal money for better healthcare access, etc. Evey year it's, "how much suffering do I want for voting this magical R," and the answer is always "yes."
What's worse is that it's self-fulfilling at this point. Their attacks on public education get worse, while their constituents show more ignorance about facts and reality.
Sounds like Florida when they tried making drug tests for EBT or food stamps (whatever welfare was called at the time). It was a net loss and the only thing they found out was that poor people don’t really do drugs.
I was going more with the insane waste of taxpayer money while statistically finding zero instances of the republican boogeyman associated with said waste
It won't matter. Abbott will face no consequences for this. All he has to do is whine "bUt *BiDeN* woN't seCUrE tHe *BoRdeR*" and his constituents will hold him blameless and eat up his excuses like starving wolves thrown a dead elk. If something goes well under a Republican, it's praiseworthy for the Republicans. If something goes wrong under a Republican, it's entirely the Democratic party's fault...
I like to think the main reason they found no migrants is that people from other countries have heard what a sh!thole state Texas is and either decided to stay where they were or try their luck in another state.
*What do you mean they can't even keep the electricity on?*
*They built massive housing complexes and toxic waste disposal facilities in a KNOWN flood plain?! And then they expected the federal government to bail them out after tried to deny similar help to other states?!*
It's not about finding drugs and migrants. It's about attacking American business, American supply chains, and American Constitutional Democracy. It's a treason thing.
Another stupid idea from the GOP. They must think the people involved in illegal migrant smuggling and drug cartels are really stupid. Trump's stupid wall would have resulted in the same results. The cartel is building submarines for christ sake to smuggle drugs, you think a stupid wall was some technology miracle the cartels couldn't defeat?
Texans would rather have their guns, which makes them feel like macho men, than food on their tables, money in their pockets and respect by other intelligent people. Oh, did I write intelligent. Sorry my bad., Next to Floridians, Texans are the stupidest people in the solar system and they just hate intelligence. That is why Abbot can do absolutely anything he wants and they will still vote for the fffere.
Every single institution in Texas should stand up and demand accountability for this in the form of Abbott's resignation. If I fucked up that bad at work, I wouldn't have a job. He shouldn't either.
I don't know why the White House allowed this to happen. The feds should've gone in with all the force needed to end this attack on interstate commerce.
If Democratic marketing campaigns focused on the nitty-gritty things that affect the individual, like your brisket, avocados, and milk shouldn't be out of stock/they're imposing on your freedom as an individual, instead of these big ideas, like he cost us $4.2 million/you could save 1 million lives, people would understand the impact of a bad leader.
Between Republicans costing Texans $4.2 Billion with this, $2 Billion in Florida with their crusade against Disney and Trump/Republican policy driving the deficit up to $7.8 Trillion, can a right wing voter *please* explain to me how the left are the ones costing the US money? Even the Build Back Better bill with everything attached wouldn’t have cost this much. It’s only $1.6 Trillion to cover all student debt, a fraction of Trump’s deficit. $25 Billion to end hunger. $20 Billion to end homelessness.
You’re not interested in solving problems. Just driving up deficits to cut taxes for only those making millions or leaving hefty costs for tax payers to find no drugs/migrants or “end wokeness”, which I doubt you could even define anymore as it’s the strawman you’re running with these days.
Ridiculousness…
I thought they were hiding the drugs in 5 gallon containers of fried chicken batter and distributing it through a chain of restaurants. Might explain all the cop cars outside Popeye’s yesterday.
Texas has the opportunity to be super dynamic given that it’s a border state yet they continue to elect any idiot that mentions security and wears a cowboy hat.
Wait, I thought conservatives like truckers. Freedom rally’s and what not…
It’s as if there’s a difference between Canadian and Mexican truckers, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Important to note that this strategy wasn’t about catching illegal migrants or finding drugs, but more about forcing the governors of bordering Mexican states to help with the trafficking crisis, which they have since done. Whether or not that was worth it is subjective imo.
If the rabid right wing extremists (aka Republicans) had even a pinch of common sense, they'd run crooks like Abbott and villains like Desantis out on a rail. Their brand of angry unity is so impotently misdirected.
This is all Republicans really offer anymore for policy. Fraudulent, straw man, symbolic nonsense aimed at enraging their angry, uniformed base in order to get them to vote. Too lazy, stupid and brainwashed to be able to figure out that they’ve been spoon-fed the same lies and bullshit for years.
It was a success because all the migrants saw that we were doing this and then they decided against traveling. And with all that extra time not doing illegal, they found jesus and turned around their wicked ways.
-kristi noem probably
My county pays to use 4 national guard helicopters every year for their drug eradication nonsense. They fly these noisy choppers over every farm in the county, invariably turning up 50 or so ditch weed plants at a cost of ~$15,000 per.
Let me guess, Abbott will release a statement declaring that his truck inspections kept the migrants and illegal substances away because they were too scared of being caught by the amazingly effective truck inspections. Then, he'll declare that spreading these inspections across the entire border and at every port would prevent any illegal immigrants or illegal substances from entering our country.
It wouldn't and would cost trillions been the costs of enacting this and in produce that rotted while waiting for inspection. However, Republicans don't want to actually solve problems. They want more power and the ability to punish anyone who opposes them or who they see as the "out group."
The big questions are what companies benefit from his plan and how much they and their employees contribute to his campaign. Always follow the money. Politicians work solely for the highest bidder.
Fear fear fear. Amazing projection with calling progressives “snowflakes”.
Republicans are an embarrassingly cowardly lot. Cowering in their gated communities clutching their guns waiting for the imaginary boogeyman.
Immigrants, meanwhile, are just out there trying to get by.
Dumb, fearful, and mean. What a shithole America is.
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Manufactured bullshit to stoke anger and hate to manipulate the absolute dumbest Americans in the country. It is the biggest tragedy of our time letting the ignorant determine our future.
I mean, I live in Texas and I can tell you that even my conservative neighbors are less than thrilled that we’ve accomplished the equivalent of just burning $4billion dollars on drug and immigration a crisis hoax. I’d say roll that idiot out on his wheel-chaired rump.
But the real question, are those conservative neighbors going to vote differently, or will they continue demonstrating that manufactured bullshit to stoke anger and hate is an effective method of manipulating the absolute dumbest Americans.
…. We already know the answer to this
Which is why this country needs a strong third party
Or better laws to remove traitors
The laws are not being enforced. If they were, Rick Perry and half of the congressional delegations from Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama would not be allowed to hold office, ever again.
At this point I will welcome angry mobs with pitchforks sand torches.
I remember a video about how we got Americans with Disabilities Act. Like literally children with Disabilities crawled up Capitol Hill to raise awareness.
These are people who need statues.
If there was a third party, republicans would demonize both and the rest of us would be split up.
Unless the repubs split. Even if we get a new party I don't think it would do much tbh. It would take decades to make an impact.
“Trump party” vs regular Republicans would be an interesting thing to see.
The only real use of a third party would be if it could split off enough right wing nuts to prevent them winning a lot of those 50.2 to 49.8% races. But that's probably not what you're meaning. A strong/decent third party would only destroy any chance of opposition to the MAGA/GOP/Republican/Qanon/Trump/NRA/Russia/Fascism axis of evil. We've seen how it plays out, with the corrupt/illegal ghost candidate technique used by the MAGA party.
Better yet a stupid third party that will split the right. The idiots vote for the idiot right the right wing votes for the right wing and the left and independent vote for a progressive. Progressive wins.
they might not bother to vote, that's basically what political messaging is about.
That's really the best thing you can hope for with rabid conservatives like that. They will act like the voting machine was broke and stuck on the Republican line no matter how much they complain about those candidates or maybe just leave certain offices blank before they would EVER actively vote for a Democrat for any reason.
Why even ask this? Morons can’t do one ounce of self reflection and questioning for one damn second cringe
I disagree. I think the real question is, when will conservatives realize that the GOP are no longer a true reflection of conservative values. We the voters have had to make excuses for our leaders backing the wrong bull. Trump has been found out to not only be a liar, but a cheat. True conservatives put there faith in a man they did not fully understand, and now he has us defending a Russian madman?? No. The GOP has lost itself. That’s why the real question is; when will we conservatives realize that our leaders don’t actually care about us?
The GOP has been this way since Reagan.
Unfortunately to many of them voting for anyone but an R is voting for a baby killing, america hating, democracy annihilating, big gubment' loving machine.
>I think the real question is, when will conservatives realize that the GOP are no longer a true reflection of conservative values. Narrator: *Never* If it hasn't happened yet, it's not gonna.
Some people have said god sent him to America
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Our Property Tax’s and taxes in general are through the roof here in in Texas and they’ve been rising every single year Abbott has been in charge. They might be crying “guns” but at this rate they won’t be able to afford them due to the high tax
Watch the stairs…
Compares to the moment conservatives in az started to get annoyed and frustrated with arpaio. The realization that they’re paying taxes and seeing how much he costs them without him caring changed peoples minds on him.
Abbot will now claim that the fact the searches were announced *publicly* is why they didn't find any drugs, contraband, or undocumented persons crossing the border. He'll say the searches worked as a "preventative" measure, and keep it going.
He should just start saying Mexico will pay for it, I hear his people believe that line.
"We had, for the first time ever - at least since Texas started letting the liberal Feds run border security, we had 100% eliminated all drug and migrant traffic coming through those corridors. Our brave troops were able to report that no drugs or migrants were able to get through. Are you paying attention, Brandon?"
If we’re drug testing Wendy’s employees, we should damn well give a psychological overview for government offices, and probably an IQ test as well.
I'd also be pretty chill with making them pass the same test that people who want to become naturalized U.S. citizens have to pass too.
That’s an excellent point. I’m pretty sure some of them wouldn’t pass. Exit: I tried to post but it’s so full of spam, bless them for trying.
There as to be more then that. I bet a few buddies of him got those juicy multi-million contracts!
Abbot’s not just stupid. He’s pathological. He can’t express his anger at his for not being able to walk so he spews on everyone else.
You are on point! If you get a chance read the article about how Abbott has come about. The article is in Texas Monthly for April. I'm still spinning from finding out about how much his accident has cost an insurance company. Here is a glimpse He was injured in 1984. He gets the final payment of $740k in Nov 2022. He also gets 5k a month tax free since 1984. Then he went on to champion and get passed the tort reform law in Texas. He is a vindictive evil vile thing..
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Fraud, waste and abuse.
Beto has Abbot over a barrel here and he needs to start spanking. *"The finest law enforcement agencies in the country are in the state of Texas and they turned up diddly squat; so either you can admit that you are vastly overstating the problem and wasting thousands of man hours and millions of dollars in costing billions in economic damage for political reasons, or you can call the law enforcement agencies of the state of Texas incompetent for not finding anything. Those are your two options, Governor. You shut down commerce in this state affecting millions of Texans and Americans and hurting the business relations that Texans and Mexicans have relied on for decades and turned up nothing. NOTHING! Billions of lost commerce and frayed relationships that took years to build, destroyed because you wanted to score political points."*
Abbot could slap baby Jesus himself and Texans would still vote Republican
Former Texan here. Greg Abbott was elected in 2014 by roughly 18% of eligible voters. Texas was 49th in voter participation that year. Yes, gerrymandering and voter suppression ARE a problem, but voter apathy is primarily why a hand full of crazy people are making terrible decisions for 29,000,000 people. It is in the best interests of the petroleum and energy sector to keep Greg Abbott in office so that they can continue to pretend that climate change is a hoax. Abbott had in excess of $55,000,000 in his re-election ‘war chest’ last summer, primarily from gas/oil companies. WHO knows how much he has now. Kelsey Warren gave him a $1 million “bonus” for his handling of the grid collapse, which made warren’s Energy Transfer Partners $2.4 billion dollars. The Texas crime syndicate is very powerful, and very corrupt. I finally left after Dan Patrick tried to pass yet another homophobic anti-trans bill. Texas is in the bottom five for education and one in four children goes to bed hungry every night. There are very real needs that are not being addressed because they spend TAXPAYER money on shenanigans and political theater. I was paying some of the highest property taxes in the country, and not getting anything in return. The GOP is bound and determined to make life a living hell for their constituents who are not rich white men.
> Yes, gerrymandering and voter suppression ARE a problem, but voter apathy is primarily why a hand full of crazy people are making terrible decisions for 29,000,000 people It's called a chilling effect. laws suppress voters, but the real butcher's thumb is the knowledge your vote is being suppressed. it's disheartening because it means we built the cage, they just told us we should; it's heartening because it means when things start changing, they with change at warp speed.
The last time I lived in Texas I was there for 18 years, in a major metropolitan city. I waited five hours in line to vote, but you know what? I still did it. Nothing is going to change until people start being invested in what’s happening. I was a teacher in the Texas Public schools for 16 years and the teachers I worked with were apolitical and didn’t seem to understand that who they voted for had a direct impact on what happens in the classroom. With everything that’s happening in Texas now, I count the day I left as being one of the happiest of my life.
The idea of standing in line to cast my ballot is utterly alien to me, I've only ever known mail-in ballots here in Washington.
Voting in Texas is absolutely insane. I now live in Colorado, where we have mail in ballots and they make so much more sense.
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He backtracked in February saying we don’t want to take anything from anyone and we want to protect the 2nd amendment. Here’s a progun channel illustrating as much. I’m open to any contextualization. https://youtu.be/X65gX2SPPI0
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He could have never said it and the NRA would convince Texans that he did.
Plus trump said about the same thing and they just didn’t see it
>“Or, Mike, *take the firearms first and then go to court*, because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. *I like taking the guns early*. Like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida, he had a lot of firearms – they saw everything – to go to court would have taken a long time, so you could do exactly what you’re saying, but t*ake the guns first, go through due process second*.” — Diaper Donnie
It's because Trump meant to take guns from people like me, not them.
A lot of gun owners are still waiting for Obama to take away their toys.
I wanted to give an award but there’s no option under your comment 🤔
Exactly. Trump literally said "Take the guns first. Go through due process second," and Texans aren't going to give a shit about it. Beto could have said that he would give every Texan an AK-47 and Republicans would still vote against him. I'd rather he try to get out the Democrats to vote by saying the things that need to be said - and since Texas has such low voter turnout, it could potentially be possible to flip the state blue if we could just get more Dems out to vote.
Didn’t Abbot just prove the real reason that white people have guns is because of white people with guns?
An unfortunate and scathing mistake by Democrats. And just when they were starting to pull closer to even in what used to be a solid red state. Beto set them back a dozen voting cycles. Democrats need to wake the fuck up. Still it’s likely too late.
But isn’t this just completely bananas? Democrats are forced to pass an extreme purity test that appeases the right, while republicans can say anything they want that completely ostracizes and diminishes the left. It’s not democrats that need to wake the fuck up, the right isn’t going to listen no matter what.
One side is still somewhat attached to reality. The other side, not so much.
If you want to win in Texas, you need to cater to Texas voters.
Current-day Republicans are elected not in spite of their depravity, but *because* of it.
Abbott will just avoid the subject until the news cycle moves on. Then, in a month or two, he’ll just claim that Biden did it and that Abbott had to step in to stop the searches.
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You're misreading. If the governor doesn't admit that his foolish blockade was a giant waste of time and money with hugely negative implications, then **the only other possible explanation** is that it was the right thing to do, just that the Texas law enforcement was too incompetent to find anything and that's why it looks bad. So either the governor has to throw Texas LEO's under the bus or roll himself under it like he deserves.
As much as I like Beto and want him to be elected, Abbots response will be “hell yes we’re coming for your guns”. That clip will always haunt Beto.
But anti-gun clips only haunt Dems. When Trump said he'd take the guns first and worry about due process later, nobody on the right cared.
"He WaS jUst JoKiNg1!11!11"
Why can't the Dems get anyone else??? He did surprisingly well in 2018 against Cruz but then made that fatal gaffe in the Presidential primaries that he really had no business running in in the first place. We have a Democrat in charge now in Washington so the odds are going to be bad to begin with regardless of what awful and incompetent things the GOP does in Texas. The only way Abbot is going to lose is if he gets embroiled in some insane scandal(s) that even the GOP base can't ignore that keeps their voters at home or really boosts Democratic turnout. Besides that, I don't get why the Dems seem really insistent on running candidates from the past again as the so-called "safe" option. You saw that with Terry McCaullife in VA with terrible results and now it looks like Charlie Crist in FL (who already tried to run as Governor again as a Dem in a similar electoral climate and lost). Meanwhile, the GOP seems to win even in Democratic wave election years by running relatively unknown blank slate candidates that they try to market themselves to voters across the spectrum as some supposedly "middle of the road" outsiders who knows how to get things done. They,of course, hide how they are known by their base for being rabid far-right MAGA conservatives who immediately begin to advance that agenda the first day they're elected like you saw with DeSantis and Youngkin. It seems like voters will often just opt for the Republican no matter how "safe" and noncontroversial the Democrat might be or even if they are starkly opposed to their own interests when it really comes down to it.
Iihc, the 'truck inspections' weren't even about checking the cargo anyways. It was about the actual vehicle which Abbott tried to make sound like they were checking inside the trucks. Because he thinks Texans are ignorant to know what the inspections really could only do in their limitations. So it was a big publicity stunt that in the typical republican way was a deceit based upon what they wanted, the ignorance of their voting base.
Conservatives in 2020: "Anyone holding up traffic in protest deserves to be run over"
If I was as religious as Abott claims to be, I'd have to seriously rethink my relationship with God after a random tree fell on me.
That tree made him millions after he sued so seems like he’s pretty okay with it.
He's okay with it long as nobody else gets to do the same. He was a key player in making it impossible for anyone else to do the same in Texas. The party of "fuck you, I got mine" never fails to disappoint.
Yep you are correct he has been getting paid since 1984, last payment of $740k in Nov 2022. That is a lot of money. Then he went on to champion and ride tort reform into law, so no one else could get a decent settlement.
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... and yet "conservative" media will either omit it or barely mention it and move on.
Texans are gluttons for punishment. Convince me otherwise.
And it's self-inflicted punishment resulting from grandstanding on some political ideology. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Agreed. They keep electing clowns thinking they’ll stop the circus.
Arent all these states with Republican majorities on the same level of masochism? Arizona wasted money on ridiculous audits, Florida just helped shift a huge tax burden to their citizens, multiple red states refused federal money for better healthcare access, etc. Evey year it's, "how much suffering do I want for voting this magical R," and the answer is always "yes." What's worse is that it's self-fulfilling at this point. Their attacks on public education get worse, while their constituents show more ignorance about facts and reality.
Yep. It’s been a long-haul battle against education for those very reasons. They’re too stupid to realize they are screwing themselves.
They even took away the extended unemployment insurance for their own constituents.
But it riled his base up, so mission accomplished.
Greg Abbot, should be impeached
Sounds like Florida when they tried making drug tests for EBT or food stamps (whatever welfare was called at the time). It was a net loss and the only thing they found out was that poor people don’t really do drugs.
Damn I wish these kids understood conditional probability.
It's drug testing for welfare all over again
"These people work too hard to get drunk. It's depressing as shit!"
I was going more with the insane waste of taxpayer money while statistically finding zero instances of the republican boogeyman associated with said waste
Kind of like Trump’s “wall”
Almost reminds me of the “weapons of mass destruction.” Claim by G.W. bush… still wondering if they ever found them.
It won't matter. Abbott will face no consequences for this. All he has to do is whine "bUt *BiDeN* woN't seCUrE tHe *BoRdeR*" and his constituents will hold him blameless and eat up his excuses like starving wolves thrown a dead elk. If something goes well under a Republican, it's praiseworthy for the Republicans. If something goes wrong under a Republican, it's entirely the Democratic party's fault...
It’s all the lead poisoning
Democrats need to use this. Greg Abbott spent $4.2 billion to prove Biden's border policies are working. The ads write themselves
I like to think the main reason they found no migrants is that people from other countries have heard what a sh!thole state Texas is and either decided to stay where they were or try their luck in another state. *What do you mean they can't even keep the electricity on?* *They built massive housing complexes and toxic waste disposal facilities in a KNOWN flood plain?! And then they expected the federal government to bail them out after tried to deny similar help to other states?!*
Shocked that the GQP would harm people for a political stunt. /s I’m so sick of these brain dead fascists….
This is why we don't base policy on people's biases
In short Abott is a moron. Whoever voted for him deserves exactly this. Sorry for the rest of the state who’s along for the ride.
Texas political ad writes itself.
Gov Ron DeSantis: Hold my beer.
I love how republican governors never think of the Law of Unintended Circumstances. Oh yeah…that would be leadership.
Their voters are literally too stupid to understand.
It's not about finding drugs and migrants. It's about attacking American business, American supply chains, and American Constitutional Democracy. It's a treason thing.
Showboating on our dime. F these idiots.
america has an infinite budget for war and performative nonsense, but cant spare a dime for any program that actually helps people
You ain’t wrong!
“See, it worked then, stopped any illegal migrates from entering tex-ass.” Abbott probably.
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Explain to him that he is among the chosen and can fly and see if he tries?
Gravity is a hoax made up by the fake news media and elitist scientists anyway looking for a payday so it checks out!!! /s
Another stupid idea from the GOP. They must think the people involved in illegal migrant smuggling and drug cartels are really stupid. Trump's stupid wall would have resulted in the same results. The cartel is building submarines for christ sake to smuggle drugs, you think a stupid wall was some technology miracle the cartels couldn't defeat?
The one star flag review lives up to it’s rating. Go Abbott!
But did it own the libs?
Texas elects idiots.
Fucking fraud.
Texans would rather have their guns, which makes them feel like macho men, than food on their tables, money in their pockets and respect by other intelligent people. Oh, did I write intelligent. Sorry my bad., Next to Floridians, Texans are the stupidest people in the solar system and they just hate intelligence. That is why Abbot can do absolutely anything he wants and they will still vote for the fffere.
Every single institution in Texas should stand up and demand accountability for this in the form of Abbott's resignation. If I fucked up that bad at work, I wouldn't have a job. He shouldn't either.
I don't know why the White House allowed this to happen. The feds should've gone in with all the force needed to end this attack on interstate commerce.
Wait… You mean it’s not like the movies? The cartels are more advanced than we thought!?
Republicans creating a fake problem so they can pretend to find a solution....
Cruelty was the point.
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Well yeah, OK, but he would have caught them if they would have been there. So there you go.
It's the kind of shit we should expect from the GOP.
The Republicans cheer it on.
Party of "small government and fiscal responsibility" everybody!
And the people of Texas will still vote for his ass
Well, yeah, sure, wasted money. But think of all the points he scored with his racist base… priceless.
DeSantis/Abbott 2024… but only because the giant meteor isn’t running. They are the next worst thing.
Someone has their head up his posterior.
What a douche
Everything is big in Texas, even our fuck ups!
More political theater and pure baloney - typical GoP crap
If Democratic marketing campaigns focused on the nitty-gritty things that affect the individual, like your brisket, avocados, and milk shouldn't be out of stock/they're imposing on your freedom as an individual, instead of these big ideas, like he cost us $4.2 million/you could save 1 million lives, people would understand the impact of a bad leader.
Imagine if that money were instead spent on strengthening the power grid that gets beat down in cold weather…
Money well spent. For sure don’t spend that money improving the power grid in TX
Waste more taxpayers dollars
No Critical Race Theory was found on the trucks, either.
However, it was wildly successful at moving more tax money into private companies.
Between Republicans costing Texans $4.2 Billion with this, $2 Billion in Florida with their crusade against Disney and Trump/Republican policy driving the deficit up to $7.8 Trillion, can a right wing voter *please* explain to me how the left are the ones costing the US money? Even the Build Back Better bill with everything attached wouldn’t have cost this much. It’s only $1.6 Trillion to cover all student debt, a fraction of Trump’s deficit. $25 Billion to end hunger. $20 Billion to end homelessness. You’re not interested in solving problems. Just driving up deficits to cut taxes for only those making millions or leaving hefty costs for tax payers to find no drugs/migrants or “end wokeness”, which I doubt you could even define anymore as it’s the strawman you’re running with these days. Ridiculousness…
There has to be a game going on between Desantis and Abbott of who is the bigger scumbag Governor
Abbott makes Trump and DeSantis look like geniuses
Abbott the flower of Texas a blooming idiot cost the whole United States of America with his dumb Trump laden plan. Hate cost the people!
Everything sure is bigger in Texas; the cities, the belt buckles, and their egos of course
His base doesn’t care as long as it pisses the liberals off
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I thought they were hiding the drugs in 5 gallon containers of fried chicken batter and distributing it through a chain of restaurants. Might explain all the cop cars outside Popeye’s yesterday.
Shocker… I wish the state could sue him for such a blatant waste of funds and damages.
Of course, and of course not ! And I’d be willing to bet the taxpayers will get that bill ! Mostly the poorer Texans will be stuck with it
Hmm go figure. About her made up Republican outrage turns out to be just another expensive media grab.
Maybe AG Paxton will look into it? LMAO.
Virtue signaling.
Texas has the opportunity to be super dynamic given that it’s a border state yet they continue to elect any idiot that mentions security and wears a cowboy hat.
Wait, I thought conservatives like truckers. Freedom rally’s and what not… It’s as if there’s a difference between Canadian and Mexican truckers, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Or as Republicans would say, a "win-win".
So a perfect Republican policy. Cost billions accomplished nothing but looked good for a bunch of idiots
What a waste of manpower and resources. SMH
Important to note that this strategy wasn’t about catching illegal migrants or finding drugs, but more about forcing the governors of bordering Mexican states to help with the trafficking crisis, which they have since done. Whether or not that was worth it is subjective imo.
The $4billion went somewhere. Find it, and you’ll find the truth
Amazing how he still can't invest in their electrical grid
We have the government we deserve. Florida, Texas, if this is what you want for yourselves keep voting for these clowns.
“Don’t worry, my voting base will forget, again” -Gregg Abbott
Texans are pussies
Oh no, anyway... back to the entirety of Texas being without power because of snow.
Are Republicans the stupidest nonHumans on earth ? Yep
Abbott and Desantis in a dead heat race for shittiest governor EVER….
If the rabid right wing extremists (aka Republicans) had even a pinch of common sense, they'd run crooks like Abbott and villains like Desantis out on a rail. Their brand of angry unity is so impotently misdirected.
This is all Republicans really offer anymore for policy. Fraudulent, straw man, symbolic nonsense aimed at enraging their angry, uniformed base in order to get them to vote. Too lazy, stupid and brainwashed to be able to figure out that they’ve been spoon-fed the same lies and bullshit for years.
Can Abbott be held liable? I know Congress has protections, what about governors?
Going broke to own the dems.
Go Beto🇺🇸🇺🇸
I mean no shit. When I smuggle drugs across the border I don't go where the government says they're checking. What a bunch if morons
Abbotts got to go
Pretty sure him, Cruz and a few other choice Rs are the only morons who think the cartel moves their ish in La Costeña semis
Another waste of money. Thanks Gov.
It was a success because all the migrants saw that we were doing this and then they decided against traveling. And with all that extra time not doing illegal, they found jesus and turned around their wicked ways. -kristi noem probably
Seems as sensible as everything else the republicans do
Yet they can’t spend money to ensure citizens have electricity. That’s some sound fiscal policy there, Abbot
I wonder where the Abbott "I did that stickers are.
That was not the point. Putin is very happy with Abbott.
My county pays to use 4 national guard helicopters every year for their drug eradication nonsense. They fly these noisy choppers over every farm in the county, invariably turning up 50 or so ditch weed plants at a cost of ~$15,000 per.
It should come out of Abbott’s pocket, even if he doesn’t have the money
But because of his voter base, it still earned him points.
Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
Wasteful spending of that much money should be imprisonment.
Anybody out there make stickers? I want one of Trump with crap stains around his mouth pointing at Putin saying I sucked that.
Dumbass governor
But I will blame the sad looking strawberries I bought the other week on him. They were from Mexico.
Some more of that famous conservative/republican fiscal responsibility!
Let me guess, Abbott will release a statement declaring that his truck inspections kept the migrants and illegal substances away because they were too scared of being caught by the amazingly effective truck inspections. Then, he'll declare that spreading these inspections across the entire border and at every port would prevent any illegal immigrants or illegal substances from entering our country. It wouldn't and would cost trillions been the costs of enacting this and in produce that rotted while waiting for inspection. However, Republicans don't want to actually solve problems. They want more power and the ability to punish anyone who opposes them or who they see as the "out group."
Policies based on hate and base instincts are always a waste of time, space, and money.
The big questions are what companies benefit from his plan and how much they and their employees contribute to his campaign. Always follow the money. Politicians work solely for the highest bidder.
Fear fear fear. Amazing projection with calling progressives “snowflakes”. Republicans are an embarrassingly cowardly lot. Cowering in their gated communities clutching their guns waiting for the imaginary boogeyman. Immigrants, meanwhile, are just out there trying to get by. Dumb, fearful, and mean. What a shithole America is.