Another Saturday, another mass slaughter in America, this time at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas. This one is bad enough that after four hours, the Texas cops don’t want to even give a confirmed fatality count, although the Allen Fire Chief let slip that his ambulance took nine victims to local area hospitals, so I can see why they’re stalling.
I’m sick to death of this sh*t, so I’m pulling privilege. After all, out here we’re double survivors. We had a deranged woman with her toddler in the car seat in back jump a curb and take off down The Strip at 40mph for two blocks, knocking pedestrians aside like bowling pins for two blocks before turning into a hospital parking lot and waiting to get arrested.
And then there’s the infamous Route 66 Music Festival massacre, where 59 country music fans were gunned down. If you’re a local, and you want a real wake up call, how about 59 white crosses with names lined up front of the Welcome to Las Vegas sign? Worked for me, we went there to pay our respects.
While Gutless Greg Abbott may not learn, his Chief of Staff sure as hell did. In the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, Abbott rushed down there to personally supervise the response. And gave a rushed presser that was so riddled with inaccuracies and outright speculation that within six hours his office had to retract or clean up almost the entire statement. Abbott held another presser where he raged at being misled, promised to Get to the bottom of this!, and fire a whole lotta people.
This time they put Abbott in front of his desk, and put chocks behind the back wheels of his chair to keep him there. It was The Governor’s Office that released a statement opening with Our hearts are broken, and with the people of Allen, Texas on the day of this unspeakable tragedy.
No Governor, the unspeakable tragedy here is you! You are such a soulless, heartless ghoul of a tool for the Merchants of Death that your words ring as empty and hollow as your own pathetic life. Your canned words have no more empathy or compassion in them than a used care salesman telling you on the phone that he’s so sorry that the engine on the As Is POS that he sold you blew up 50 miles from the used car lot. Common sense English language translation. Tough sh*t, fool! *snicker*
Not only is Abbott a blatant Death Eater, he’s also a pathological liar. Every time that his slobbering, *ss kissing legislature passes yet another law making it easier to get a gun in a state where some quadrupeds with advanced skills already own them, he touts it as a Tool in advancement for law enforcement, and that the bill makes life safer and easier for The Blue! Everything they’re doing is for The Blue.
Which is why everybody from the Texas Rangers, to the Texas Department of Public Safety, to sheriffs and police chiefs from all over Texas, to police unions have done everything but open fire on the Capitol itself to protest the last three insipid bills the legislature has passed, and Abbott has signed.
They point out that there are already far too many unlicensed, unregistered, unmonitored semi automatic weapons awash in the state already. How does it make it safer for law enforcement to give more semi automatic weapons to a bunch of goobers who light up cow chips and sniff the fumes, fer Crissakes?! From what I’ve heard, in Texas you can walk into a store, buy a gun without even showing an ID, buy ammo and clips, tuck the goddamned thing behind your belt at the small of your back, and voila!, we have another ticking time bomb walking down the street.
There is only one solution for Texas, and it ain’t on the national legislative level. It was announced today that former Democratic Texas US House member Colin Allred raised more than $3.8 million in the first 26 hours after announcing his candidacy against Cancun Teddy Cruz in 2024. As a former House member, as well as a popular former NFL linebacker, Allred is capable of giving Cruz the race of his life, and Teri and I will be donating after the primaries.
But when it comes to Democratic Texas politics, the grassroots power player in Texas is Beto O’Rourke. And I have a little advice for my Irish cousin. Leave Colin Allred alone and let him run his own race. What you need to do is to raise a sh*tload of money, call up the grassroots volunteers, fund them, and take the message to the streets. Not just Democratic strongholds, but to GOP suburban strongholds as well. And I’m not talking about flipping the US House, I’m talking about demolishing the GOP monopoly on the state legislature.
Because as grassroots gun control groups like Sandy Hook Promise have shown, due to national inaction from GOP/NRA control, the states are were the real change can take place. Blue states all over are passing new, restrictive gun control measures, like the assault weapons ban that Democratic Governor Jay Inslee just signed in Washington state. Jay Pritzker signed a similar one recently in Illinois. But those are blue states.
Which is why the grassroots Democrats have to take it local in the red states. And not the US House, but the state House and Senate. The majority of Texas voters, including Republican voters strongly support common sense gun control measures, with universal background checks being at the top of the list.
Most Texans were horrified in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, especially at the cowardly response of more than 100 police officers cringing in the hallway outside the schoolroom while the slaughter took place. The blowback on Abbott went on for weeks. And I’m betting that the shock and horror of nine more innocent lives is going to blow back on Abbott for weeks to some this time too. And that’s where the grassroots messaging comes in.
Because at its base level, it isn’t about Abbott! In the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, nobody went out into GOP suburban, and even solid GOP districts and educated them that To. make. change. requires. change. Nobody ever broke it down and told them that the entire Texas legislature, House and Senate is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA. Abbott doesn’t write laws, he only signs them. If these parents want safer schools for their kids, if they want to go to a movie with their family, or a Walmart without wearing Kevlar vests, then they need the legislators who will craft laws to control Texas’s rampant gun violence. And at the very least, stop Abbott from turning Texas any more into the wild west than it already is.
And that’s what the Democrats need to do in Texas for the next 17 months. They have to get out in the neighborhoods and meet people where they are, especially sane gun owners and families with children. They have to make clear that they can vote for anybody they want for the US House and Senate, and for President, but if they want safer neighborhoods, malls, schools, theaters, and parks, what they can’t do is to leave toe GOP in total control of the state legislature. Because it will only get worse.
And so I will close where I started, with Gutless Greg Abbott. F*ck you, Greg! F*ck you and anybody who even looks like you. You sold your own soul for money and power, and as a result, innocent souls suffered for your craven cowardice. There’s a special place in hell for scumbags like you, and it’s between the freight elevator and the noisy ice machine. Enjoy your stay.
the number of times I have written to greg to tell him to fick off and stop sucking trumps and tuckers cick has not changed his behavior. We are so much worse off in Texas under greg and his cicksicking ways. I never thought I would give up, but I am actually thinking about abandoning Texas.
But if you can flip at least ONE chamber, or at least get rid of his super majority, you basically cut his nuts off…
On your way out, shut off his lights.
Nothing will change in Texass because they have some of the most ignorant and bigoted voters. I’ve lived here since 1982, with the exception of living in California for 18 months taking care of my ill sister. My kids and grandkids asked me to come back and I did for them. Now I am looking elsewhere to live. I am so sick of Texass and the people.
“Which is why everybody from the Texas Rangers, to the Texas Department of Public Safety, to sheriffs and police chiefs from all over Texas, to police unions have done everything but open fire on the Capitol itself to protest the last three insipid bills the legislature has passed, and Abbott has signed.”
Then maybe it’s time for all those folks to go to the State Capitol and open fire as their protest against the NRA-enablers. As the right-wing keeps liking to spout “It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun” but what happens when the “bad guy with a gun” IS an otherwise “good guy with a gun” and he decides to use his gun to put an end to all these insane “let’s arm everybody to the teeth–as long as they’re acceptable*” laws from getting passed and signed.
*Because you just know that these laws aren’t designed to help Black and brown people get easier access to firearms. I would love it if there were some statistics showing that gun store owners are a bit more likely to “look the other way” when selling to white customers and more likely to “follow the letter of the law” when it comes to POC customers. Or that white folks are held to lower scrutiny than people of color when it comes to appearing armed in public. (We know the lawmakers–or, more accurately, “law fillers-in-the-blank of the ALEC-designed paperwork”–have to keep the wording from being openly racist and discriminatory but the intent is always there when it comes to putting the laws into practice.)
Voters get the pols they vote for. Until the voters stop putting reactionary morons into public office this obscenity will continue. I have a very difficult time pitying people in a state who do nothing to change the the pols causing the legislative problems.
Except a whole lot of us vote for the other side. We are still outnumbered.
Excepting, those people with guns also travel to other states.
Without the trail of paperwork, does anybody know how many of the (mostly) handguns purchased are then sold to gang members in states with much stricter gun laws? Strawman purchases are being done for the sizable profit and lure of easy money.
It would be really hard to compile those statistics, but I’m sure they’d be VERY revealing. I can tell you for a fact that the strong gun control laws in California were Not started by hippie-dippie libruls, but by good ol’ Ronnie Raygun in order to get firearms away from the Black Panthers. The Panthers made what I think was a foolish mistake. They went up to one of Ronnie’s events in Sacramento with all their long guns, and told him that they were keeping an eye on the fuzz when they came into the hood. As soon as they left he grabbed his buddies in the state legislator and said, “Write me some laws to get the guns away from these n*****s.” (you know he used that word) And now all the 2A wackos in other states make fun of our “commie, librul” laws.
Burn in hell, Ronnie.
What would you expect from a 30″ tall, mentally ill, crippled, punk “governor” and the felonious incompetents that the little punk surrounds himself with?
The punk loser built his reputation on suing the government. Look at the fascist now.
It must be noted that at the massacre at the country music event in LV, hundreds of people were shot, and many have serious, permanent disabilities. There are always “forgotten” victims of mass shootings who aren’t mentioned because they survived.
I’ve come to believe that we will never have serious gun law reforms until the economic cost of mass shootings becomes too high: when we see a steep drop in business at malls, restaurants, concerts, etc. But maybe people will get used to the idea of staying home and having everything delivered, rather than venture out into a dangerous world. Such is now the state of our nation.
Show the videos. Show the pictures of half a head gone – or the whole head gone. AR’s don’t kill – they destroy. Show the pictures to the public and especially state legislatures, the House and the Senate. It’s too easy to say there’s been a mass shooting. Blah blah blah. Tots and pears. Emmett Till’s mom had it right – show the damned pictures!!!
I totally agree. It is time for people to see the truth. The Vietnam war was ended with a single picture which is why government tries to stop the press from showing the truth now. If people saw the actual horror, change would come really fast
That tree had one job…
^^^^^^^THIS!!!
All I can say Greg is, if you, or your gop minions, ever catch a bullet, I’ll leave the thoughts and prayers to others.
I am in Texas, just outside of Houston. Every weekend, count on it, more parties where people got mad at each other and the fight started. It used to be black eyes, maybe a broken nose etc. But, oh no, thanks to Abbot and the horrible legislature, now all these people have guns. And they use them. Instead of black eyes, they end up dead. Sometimes with “collateral damage “. Like a stray bullet through the wall with someone injured or killed. Sometimes that someone is a child. oh well, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers……isn’t that enough? Change the age requirement? The need for every gun buyer to have a background check? no, thoughts and prayers should be enough, right?
It really is at the point where you have to be looking over your shoulder no matter where you are.
The “pro-lifers”? The ones in government are disgusting liars without conscious or soul. As long as their donors are safe, they don’t give a flying flip about the rest of us and they never have.
Disgusting hypocrites of the worst order. Hopefully they will find their rightful place with the one in eternal fire. I really don’t believe in that but I will make an exception just for them