Tag Archives: Greg Abbott

State news

Uvalde to be theme of 2022 Texas midterm campaign

Hey, this is just a hunch, but I’ll toss it out there to see if sticks to any walls, but I believe that the Uvalde massacre this week might become the central campaign issue in the Texas midterm election campaign.

It’ll dominate the races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, perhaps for the Legislature. Heck it might even play in some county commissioners court campaigns somewhere in Texas.

You know the story about the lunatic who entered Robb Elementary School and massacred 19 children and two teachers. About how Border Patrol tactical squad officers shot him to death. Now come the questions about how the gunman entered the building with relative ease — while packing an AR-15 rifle, the kind used to kill soldiers on the battlefield!

Beto O’Rourke crashed a press conference held by Gov Greg Abbott on Wednesday and said Abbott deserves blame for the deaths in Uvalde. O’Rourke is running against Abbott this year. Hold on with both hands, folks. Because this ride is going to get mighty rough.

Many millions of Americans are enraged at what happened in Uvalde. They damn sure should be. The question now becomes whether there can be a solution found to stem the violence. O’Rourke is correct to suggest that those in power should be held accountable for their inaction.

Thus, we have the campaign theme taking shape as we grieve the deaths in Uvalde.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Thank you, Beto

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Beto O’Rourke stood up and spoke for millions of Americans who are heartbroken, shattered and grief-stricken over the latest eruption of violence in one of our public schools.

The Democratic Party nominee for Texas governor stood before the man he hopes to defeat. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, and accused his foe of “doing nothing” to stop the violence. He was shouted down by others on the dais with Abbott and escorted out of the room.

But was it uncalled for? Did O”Rourke say anything inappropriate? No. He spoke from the heart and spoke for many Texans and other Americans.

Twenty-one people died Tuesday morning in Uvalde’s Ross Elementary School; 19 of the victims were third- and fourth-grade students. Children! The two adults were teachers who fought to protect them against the madman who opened fire.

Uvalde police officers and Border Patrol officers were able to kill the shooter.

This debate has exploded yet again. Beto O’Rourke correctly called Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and other legislative leaders for their abject failure to confront the issue of gun violence. Indeed, Abbott has actually boasted about legislation he signed this past year that allows people to carry firearms openly without so much as a certificate attesting their proficiency in handling a deadly weapon.

Abbott spoke about the need for greater “mental health” care for Texans, as if suggesting that residents of this state are somehow nuttier than anyone else.

We need tougher restrictions on gun ownership. We need common-sense legislation that honors the Constitution but seeks to prevent nut cases like the loon who stormed into Robb Elementary School to do the dastardly deed he carried out.

We need to find common ground among legislators of both political parties.

Why in the name of all that is sacred is that so hard to find?

Thank you, Beto O’Rourke, for standing up to the do-nothings whose inaction allows this carnage to continue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news

War eclipses everything

War has this way of overshadowing all other concerns that should be at or near the top of our minds. Here in Texas, one of them involves undocumented immigrants and whether the state should allow them to attend public colleges and universities.

Gov. Greg Abbott has this thing against people who are illegally, even when they come here as children — perhaps even as infants or toddlers. They know no other country than the United States of America.

Abbott wants to ban undocumented students from our public colleges, despite a federal law that requires states to provide the education for all residents. He is right, though, to suggest that the federal government should do more to help the states. That’s a fair request.

However, he need not demonstrate some sort of false machismo by declaring Texas’s public university and college systems should be closed to those students who came here only because their parents wanted to create a safe environment for their children.

That, I dare say, is inhumane.

It’s an issue that deserves our attention, except that we are so terribly worried and appalled at the inhumanity being brought to Ukrainians at the hands of the Russian invaders. Hey, I’m concerned about them, too!

I just want us to turn our attention — perhaps if only for a brief time — to the many other important issues that need repair.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Abbott shows smallness

You know, I wasn’t sure I should offer a comment on this, but what the hey …

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to the prisoner swap that brought Texan Trevor Reed home to his family didn’t contain a single publicly uttered word in praise of the Biden administration. Abbott did thank the Texas congressional delegation for the work it did to secure Reed’s release from a Russian prison, where he had been held for more than 900 days.

My question: Why couldn’t the governor have offered a good word for the work put in by the folks at the State Department, in the White House, and oh yeah … even by the president of the U.S.A. himself?

It just troubles me that Gov. Abbott appears to be so small-minded when it comes to these national triumphs.

I should add that another GOP politician, Sen. John Cornyn, took a moment to “applaud President Biden and the State Department” for their work in securing Reed’s freedom.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

business news, State news

Pro-business policy? Hah!

Let’s see. How does a politician who belongs to the political party that calls itself a “pro-business” organization justify a policy that stops shipments of goods and commodities and threatens so many businesses in the state he governs?

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pulled back his enhanced-inspection order on the state’s border with Mexico. He said he was looking for human traffickers and their “cargo” of individuals who were being smuggled into the United States.

Then he worked out agreements with two Mexican state governors and lifted the inspection protocol at crossings involving the states of Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua. The delay in delivery of food and other goods has crippled businesses across the state.

Now he’s called off the inspection crackdown. The damage has been done to many businesses in Texas … and to what end?

Greg Abbott has pulled off yet another political stunt. It’s not a business-friendly stunt at that!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Siding with Sid Miller? Wow!

Hell has officially frozen over! How do I know that? Because Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has done something I never thought possible: He has enacted a policy that has me agreeing with the state’s goofball commissioner of agriculture, Sid Miller.

The Stetson-wearing ag commissioner has criticized Abbott’s decision to stop trucks coming into Texas across the state border with Mexico, citing the harm the decision to inspect all those vehicles is doing to Texas farmers and ranchers.

Abbott had decided to double- and triple-down on vehicle inspections at the border on the hunt for human traffickers. The intensity of the search delayed truckers’ stay along border crossings for many hours.

The delay drew Miller’s ire, which by itself is saying something, given that the Republican ag commissioner usually stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the GOP governor on policy matters.

Not this time.

Good news, though, has more or less arrived. Abbott met with the governor of Nuevo Leon, a state in Mexico, and said he would ease the inspections at one commercial bridge at Laredo. It gives some relief at one critical crossing point.

Will it assuage the criticism coming from Sid Miller? Probably not.

The Texas Tribune reported: As part of the deal, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers will stop inspecting every commercial truck on the Laredo-Colombia bridge as long as Nuevo LeĂłn has checkpoints on its side of the Mexican state’s 9-mile-long border with Texas. The state inspections will continue for trucks coming from the other three Mexican states that border Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott eases state inspections at one border bridge | The Texas Tribune

Miller had complained that Abbott’s inspection order could result in grocery store shelves being emptied as products imported from Mexico are held up for unreasonable lengths of time.

This latest Abbott order looks for all the world like another grandstanding measure by a Texas governor with his eyes on the White House prize around, oh, 2024.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Beto has a shot?

You know, there once was a time — not many weeks ago — that I considered Greg Abbott a shoo-in for re-election as Texas governor.

That Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke didn’t have a Democrat’s chance in blazing hell of defeating the Republican incumbent.

Today? I am not so sure about that gloomy forecast.

Am I going to predict a Beto O’Rourke victory this November, breaking the GOP vise-grip on statewide elected office, ending the Republican dynasty at the top of the Texas political food chain?

Not … on … your … life!

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

However, I am going to suggest that the Abbott-O’Rourke contest well might become one of those races that the national media will be watching with intense interest.

This won’t surprise any readers of this blog, but my fervent hope is that O’Rourke defeats Abbott. The governor has become show horse, a guy who wants to elevate his personal political profile with an eye toward seeking the White House in 2024. Abbott’s idiotic pledge to send “illegal immigrants” to Washington, D.C., to hand the problem to the feds is an example of a politician looking to make headlines without offering the hint of a solution.

He doesn’t have a solution. Abbott has no interest in working with Democrats or seeking cooperation from President Biden.

I have no clue about how O’Rourke might handle this matter were he elected governor. I feel confident, though, in suggesting that O’Rourke, who hails from El Paso, knows plenty about border issues and he does not favor an “open border” policy.

Nor do I believe that O’Rourke is going to single-handedly disarm Texans by stripping us of our firearms. He knows better than to mess with the Constitution! That won’t stop Abbott and his cabal of demagogues from portraying O’Rourke as a soft-on-crime liberal.

I want this race to remain competitive. I want O’Rourke to make Abbott answer for the way the state handled the 2021 winter freeze. I want O’Rourke to offer a reasonable alternative to the Abbott posturing in the face of crisis after crisis.

What’s more, I want O’Rourke to tell Texans how he plans to govern and how he intends to end the state’s war against its gay residents, how he intends to make voting easier, not harder, for Texas.

And I want Beto O’Rourke to remain firm against the attacks that are sure to come from Greg Abbott.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Political stunts don’t solve anything

Political stunts get an occasional laugh or they might allow the individual who pulls it off to crow a little; however, they rarely — if ever — result in actual solutions to pressing problems.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has offered a doozy of a stunt. He intends to round up immigrants who come into Texas, place them on buses and then send them to Capitol Hill to give the federal government a chance to deal more directly with those Abbott said are creating a crisis on our nation’s southern border.

He blasts President Biden’s immigration policy and says if the president won’t protect our border, then states have an obligation to act.

I agree that the president has so far failed to come to terms with the immigration issue in Texas and other southern-border states. His policies aren’t working.

What’s the answer? It is not the trickery, chicanery and political stunt work that Greg Abbott is delivering.

If only the governor and his Republican pals in Texas would find a way to work with the Biden administration instead of trying to show ’em who’s got the bigger cajones.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Abbott plays stupid game

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said what? That he intends to send migrants who venture into this state on charter buses to Washington, D.C., to enable President Biden to “deal” with them?

Hmm. Abbott’s petulance is getting the better of him. He’s also embarrassing many of the Texans he governs. Such as me.

The Texas Tribune reports: “To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C.,” Abbott said in a press conference in Weslaco. “We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”

No surprise, to be sure, but Abbott was highly critical of Biden’s decision to roll back a pandemic-era emergency health order known as Title 42 that allowed immigration authorities to turn away migrants at the border, even those seeking asylum. The order was enacted during the Trump administration and it allowed immigration officials to manage the migrants seeking to enter the country.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/06/greg-abbott-texas-border-title-42/

The asylum-seekers are being caught in this game of political “gotcha” between Gov. Abbott and President Biden.

What puzzles me is this: What in the world is going to happen to these individuals once they are bused from Texas to the nation’s capital? If the feds can’t “deal” properly with them, where do they go?

It’s not enough to just wash a state’s hands of an issue by handing them off to the feds. After all, placing problems in the feds’ hands places those problems in all of our hands.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Where’s the ‘self defense’?

Another shooting broke out in south Dallas overnight. Someone was killed in an apparent drive-by incident; an individual fired a weapon at an individual and the cops are trying to investigate the cause of it.

OK. Now, let’s back up a bit. The Texas Legislature in 2021 enacted a law that Gov. Greg Abbott signed to make it legal for any yahoo in Texas to pack a firearm. No training required. Anyone can pack heat. Sure, they have to pass a background check and not have a felony conviction on their record.

The idea — if I recall it correctly — was to allow more guns on the streets to enable individuals to defend themselves against morons who open fire with these weapons.

What is disturbing and dangerous in the extreme is that damn few media reports we see and hear and read mention anyone firing back in “self-defense.” The shootings involve dipsh**s firing weapons while arguing with someone. We hear about the road rage incidents when someone pulls a gun and starts firing after being cut off in traffic.

If this open carry legislation is designed make us “safer” by enabling Texans to use these weapons to defend themselves and others, then why aren’t we hearing more reporting about it? I think I know why. It’s because it isn’t happening!

With that I want to offer a word of “thanks” to Gov. Abbott and the Legislature for putting us in even more danger … you morons!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com