What does the Governor of Texas have in common with a pardoned felon? Exactly the same racist, attention seeking, grifting mind set, apparently. Greg Abbott is not the least bit concerned if Texans have the necessaries of life, as provided for and protected by the power grid, but he is yuugely concerned about taking up where Steve Bannon left off and building a wall on the southern border. That’s his top priority. Texas Tribune:
Abbott made national headlines with his announcement Thursday in Del Rio that Texas would build its own wall at the Mexico border, though he provided no further details and said he would lay out the plan this week.
In the meantime, Abbott has faced threats of legal action and a bevy of questions about where, when and how such a wall could be constructed.
Abbott said in the podcast interview that the donations to Texas’ border wall will go to a fund “overseen by the state of Texas in the governor’s office.” He promised “great transparency,” saying “everyone will know every penny in, every penny out, but the sole purpose for those funds will be going to build the border wall.”
Abbott’s plan would not be the first attempt to crowdfund a border wall. There was We Build The Wall, a private fundraising effort that raised more than $25 million after originally planning to construct 3 miles of fence posts in South Texas. Last year, four people involved in We Build The Wall — including Steve Bannon, the former adviser to President Donald Trump — were charged with allegedly defrauding donors to the effort. Trump pardoned Bannon before leaving office in January.
At least in Arizona, border security means something sane and not a ridiculous, overpriced wall that people can tunnel under or climb over with a ladder.
A closer parallel to Abbott’s plan may date to 2011, when the Arizona Legislature passed a law establishing a fund, complete with a fundraising website, to construct a fence along the state’s border with Mexico. The fund received almost $270,000 by 2014, and a state border security advisory committee decided to give most of the sum to a county sheriff in 2015. The sheriff instead invested the money in border security technology such as GPS systems and binoculars, according to the Arizona Republic.
Federal lawmakers have estimated that the border wall cost the Trump administration nearly $27 million per mile in some parts of Texas.
On Friday, one day after Abbott’s announcement, the White House renewed its call to end construction of the border wall, calling on Congress to cancel funds it previously appropriated to border barriers and redirect them toward other border management efforts. The White House also said the Trump administration paid up to $46 million per mile for some segments of newly built parts of the wall.
See this for precisely what it is: it is story fodder for Fox News and a right-wing talking point. Abbott couldn’t care less about the wall, but if he has something else to talk about to deflect from his own incompetence, as the first of many heat waves bears down on the Lone Star State while the world watches him do nothing, that’s the direction he’s going to scurry.
He needs to crowdfund de-icing devices to keep their power grid supplied with fuel in the winter.
Or maybe more generation capacity so people can turn their aircon below 78 degrees.
You forgot an option: Reconnect the state to the country’s main power grid system. I seem to recall energy experts suggesting that if Texas had just been attached to the main power grid, the blizzard’s effects would’ve been far less severe (not completely eliminated, mind you, but lessened so that people wouldn’t have been as likely to, you know, die).
It would really be nice if the usual suspects in the right-wing world who decry the use of “eminent domain” would speak out a lot more here. Since Texas has absolutely ZERO actual land borders* with Mexico, every single square inch of Abbott’s Folly–I mean, Wall–will HAVE to steal land from PRIVATE CITIZEN LAND OWNERS (under the guise of “eminent domain”) in order to be built.
Additionally, since the border between Texas and Mexico is INTERNATIONAL, it’s undoubtedly going to end up before the Supreme Court since *states* cannot constitutionally do anything involving international borders (either that or Abbott’s Folly will have to be built some distance away from the Rio Grande).
*At least, technically. Due to water usage of the Rio Grande (especially in New Mexico), the river’s stopped flowing beyond a trickle over the past 20 years from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico. And climate change has been pretty much behind that. Just imagine: If the GOPers hadn’t been so hellbent in preventing efforts to correct, or at least minimize, the effects of climate change over the past 30 years, the Rio Grande would flow normally and there’d be a good amount of water to deter (if not completely stop) all those “illegal immigrants” from crossing the Texas border.
abbot is running for president, trying to follow the trump model of trying to be cruel to as many poor people and people of color as possible. not that I am a fan but bush II ran as a centrist, supported immigration, education, bush II supported in state tuition for undocumented children. Now it is 10 minutes of hate every day on the republican channel with abbott leading the way.