Out of the clear blue sky Greg Abbott, the recently elected Governor of the once great state of Texas, decided to outdo his usually over-the-top tea party rhetoric the other day. I mean, is this right wing nuttery step really necessary at this point in time? After all, the Governor is not in the middle of a heated primary campaign in which he is fighting for his political survival among the far right fringe voters.
Nor is the Governor competing with TX Senator Ted Cruz as the most paranoid and Orwellian Republican Presidential candidate in 2016. Former TX Governor Rick Perry has already auditioned for this role as he and other Republican Presidential candidates nervously await the Koch boy's anointment of their chosen puppet.
So why did Greg Abbott insist that the state's militia must keep an eye on U.S. Navy Seals and U.S. Army's Green Berets who are training in South Texas? Why is Greg Abbott fomenting fake fear about a U.S. takeover of the state of Texas? Worse, why is the Governor of Texas insulting and disrespecting the military service of our fellow Americans?
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed "Jade Helm 15" amid Internet-fueled suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover.
The request comes a day after more than 200 people packed a meeting in rural Bastrop County and questioned a U.S. Army commander about whether the government was planning to confiscate guns or implement martial law. Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said "conspiracy theorists" and "fear mongers" had been in a frenzy.
Pape thanked Abbott for the letter to the Texas State Guard, which he believed helped emphasize the benefit of the military training rather than further fuel theorists.
"It's a sad when people's greatest fear is their own government," Pape said. "Think about the ramification of that. If Americans go to sleep at night worrying whether their own government is going to sell them out before morning, it'd be hard to sleep."
Suspicions about Jade Helm intensified on some conservative websites and social media after a map labeled Texas, Utah and parts of California as "hostile" for the purposes of the three-month training exercise that begins in July. Such war simulations aren't unusual, though the Army has acknowledged that the size and scope of Jade Helm makes it unique.
A former Tea Party Republican is so stunned by Greg Abbott's pander to their party's base of sociopaths that he couldn't sleep. Distraught, the former state Representative summoned the courage to
write to the Governor.
In his letter to the governor, Todd Smith of Euless, who retired from public office in 2013, said he is “horrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my Governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my Governor doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to those who do.”
He said he wrote because the thought that the U.S. military would be a threat to Texas is “embarrassing” and it is important “to rational governance that thinking Republicans call you out on it.”
“Is there ANYBODY who is going to stand up to this radical nonsense that is a cancer on our State and our Party?” Smith asked.
Smith is an attorney practicing in Euless and said in an interview that he was so disturbed by Abbott’s response that he laid in bed frustrated and unable to sleep.
He woke up this morning and decided to write Abbott the letter, which he also sent copies to the state House and Senate.
The governor’s office was not immediately available for comment.
Governor Abbott's pander to the freaks on the right has caused some consternation among others in the conservative Republican Party, outside of Texas.
Utah Governor: Jade Helm 15 training is standard training, not a military takeover.
The Utah governor's office says a war simulation in Utah and other states that has aroused suspicions is a standard exercise that is important for U.S. military training.
Marty Carpenter, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, said Wednesday the governor's office has been assured there will be minimal inconvenience to local communities because of the "Jade Helm 15" exercise. A map of the operation labeled Texas, Utah and California as "hostile."
Military officials say the areas were chosen because of similarities to overseas combat areas. Carpenter says the Utah governor's office has received 20 to 25 calls and emails from concerned residents.
Perplexed, I could not fathom why Governor Abbott would go to such an extreme as to even entertain the conspiracy theory delusion of a U.S. military takeover of Texas. At first I thought it could be a means to distract us from the cluster*uck called the Texas 2015 Legislative session. It seems that recently elected Tea Party Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, in declaring a new day for Texas, immediately tried to ram though his hyper conservative agenda, thinking it would sail through the House, just because he wanted it to. But apparently the Lt. Gov. forgot that Speaker Joe Straus rules the House. He refuses to dance with the Lt. Governor, apparently.
And now the Lt. Governor is sulking. An incredulous Dan Patrick accused the Governor and House Speaker of picking on him.
The weekly kumbaya breakfast between the big three Texas lawmakers broke down today into a round-robin of recriminations that concluded with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick declaring he was tired of Governor Greg Abbott and Speaker Joe Straus “picking on me.”
The blow-up, confirmed by multiple sources, represents the boiling point of long-simmering disputes. The House has been upset that Patrick declared his inauguration marked a “New Day” in Texas and that he pushed a conservative agenda quickly through the Senate with expectations that the House would just pass his legislation. But, instead, most of the Senate’s bills on tax cuts, licensed open carry of handguns and moving the Public Integrity Unit have languished in the House without even being referred to committee by Straus.
The House instead has passed its own version of the same legislation, putting the Senate in a take-it-or-leave-it position. To pass the Senate bills now, the House would have to have an entirely new debate on controversial measures it already has approved.
As far as voters like me are concerned I hope all of these right wing bills languish and go nowhere except to the recycling bin or flushed down a toilet.
So the Senate, in what looked like retaliation on Tuesday, ignored a House-approved border security bill to vote on its own measure, putting the House into a take-it-or-leave-it position on border security – a measure that House Ways and Means Chair Dennis Bonnen had crafted to win support of border Democrats.
This may be Patrick’s New Day, but Straus’ Old Guard still runs the House.
Topping off that battle, Patrick’s grassroots advisory council sent out a letter Tuesday on its own letterhead attacking the House bill on pre-kindergarten education that was passed after a bitter fight. The legislation is part of Abbott’s signature set of legislation, but the Patrick advisory board of tea party activists claimed the bill would take children out of religious pre-schools and force them into “a Godless environment.” Patrick immediately put out a statement disowning the letter as “unsolicited and expresses the individual viewpoints of Texas citizens.”
The vast majority of Texans will be so much better off if these boys continue to hose one another. There won't be much time for any more bills from hell.
And yet, still perplexed by Greg Abbott's pander to the realm of the paranoid I sent out an email to the members of the Texas Progressive Alliance of bloggers. If it's not a distraction from the bickering and shooting matches taking place in Austin, perhaps the freak show is a ploy to make us ignore a potential scandal that involves our Governor?
Unlike me, most of the members of the TPA are native Texans. They are a lot more savvy about Texas politics than I am. So, I wrote to the group that essentially asked WTF?
As always, PDiddie provided the perfect explanation.
A fearful fiend.
Don't feed the conservo-trolls, Abbott
Quoting Glenn Smith:
"Abbott's pandering to paranoid, secessionist fools would be comical if it wasn't so costly and frightening," said Glenn Smith, director of Austin-based Progress Texas PAC, a Democratic Party group.
"Abbott has the state military confronting the U.S. military because some nut cases fear, what, armed U.S. takeover of Texas? Seriously? What next? Will Abbott call out the troops to protect us from alien abduction, abominable snowmen and Bigfoot, or should I say an invasion of Bigfeet? What will this bit of extremist theater cost Texas taxpayers? Abbott should tell us. Now."
Any conspiracy theory is a viable option these days among political cowards, crooks and narcissistic demagogues like Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott.
Of course Greg Abbott had to feed the freaks and trolls because he knew this is Dan Patrick's schtick. And if Dan Patrick continues to sulk about getting picked on, his tea party base will want blood. Greg Abbott is also afraid of getting tea partied b/c the mainstream media have depicted the Governor as a moderate voice. This characterization would be the kiss of death for the Breitbart hate machine.
As far as "moderate voices" on the Republican side of the aisle, there are none. To think otherwise is engaging in another fairy tale. The Tea Party wing and its hate machine won't stand for anything outside of right wing lunacy.
I wonder what the newcomers from New York and California think about all of this?
