Abort Abbott
A year ago, Texas banned abortion in the dead of the night, without warning. The Supreme Court let the clock run out on Texas’s 6 week abortion ban, letting the law stand. Then the next night, after everybody had already gone to bed, they voted 5–4 not to block Texas’s anti-abortion law in secret. A woman who sought an abortion in Texas was a criminal and citizens could get a bounty of $10,000 to turn her in (the last time citizens were deputized by the government to work on its behalf for cash was before the Civil War when people hunted down slaves who escaped and returned them to their owners). Rapists could sue for custody of “their” baby. Victims of domestic violence could never break free of their batterers once forced to have a child with them. Women couldn’t get an abortion for any reason — incest, rape, life threatening ectopic pregnancies, poverty, immaturity, age (too old or too young), addiction, mental illness, college or career, or too many kids already. Doctors, priests, Uber drivers, psychologists, anybody who has talked to, transported, or provided medical care to a woman who has had an abortion could be sued. Women who don’t want or are unable to care for children won’t get any support from the state, which will force more children into foster care which is already beyond capacity. 30,000 kids in Texas already don’t have families. Businesses who help an employee go out of state to get an abortion will be fined $100,000. Republican state legislator, Bryan Slaton introduced a bill that imposed the death penalty on women who have abortions. Governor Greg Abbott banned mail order abortion pills. The penalty for abortion is worse than the penalty for rape in Texas.
Texas takes the lead in another abhorrent category, too. It’s #1 for mass shootings. In response to this ranking, Greg Abbott issued 8 executive orders aimed at thwarting mass shootings but none of them had anything to do with guns. He signed all 10 of the NRA supported pieces of legislation that made gun laws even looser in Texas which gave him an A+ rating from the NRA. Guns hold more value and respect in the state of Texas than people. Instead of making laws that keep mentally unstable people from getting their hands on guns that can kill a bunch of people all at once within seconds, Abbott made it easier for teens, insane people, criminals and wife beaters to get guns. The public got nothing but encouragement to buy guns to protect themselves. If your child gets shot at school, Abbott has made it easier for parents to identify their bodies by passing out DNA kits so they can find their child’s remains since they’ll get mixed up with other children’s remains after a shooter blows up a classroom. After 19 children and 2 teachers were gunned down by an 18 year old at Uvalde Elementary, Gregg Abbott avoided the parents. He didn’t attend a single funeral. He was more concerned with guns, gun owners, his donors, and the NRA. Guns are the second leading cause of death among children and teens in Texas. About 288 Texas children and teens get shot and killed every year. 4 out of the 12 bloodiest, deadliest and biggest mass shootings in US history have happened in Texas and there are only 2 reasons for that — too many guns and not enough gun laws.
Greg Abbott and the Republicans don’t want kids to know the truth about science and history, and they sure as hell don’t want them to be smart enough to figure out what they’re doing to democracy, so they’re dumbing the next generation down by banning books, and making laws that prohibit teachers from teaching about systemic racism and white supremacy. The Texas State Board of Education voted to erase Hillary Clinton from its history curriculum and added Moses as a founding father in its social studies curriculum. Schools must display posters with, “In God We Trust” in accordance with state law.
Public libraries have pulled books from shelves and fired librarians who refused to cooperate with state sanctioned censorship.
Texas bans books, but not guns. Texas regulates women’s healthcare, but not guns.
Abbott exploited the most vulnerable and smallest subgroup in his state for political gain — transgender kids. He made this group, which is less than 1% of the total population, a target by taking away their rights and accusing their parents of child abuse. Trans kids weren’t a political issue until Republicans made them one. As with rewarding neighbors, family members and co-workers with cash if they turn in women who have abortions, Abbott instructed all teachers, doctors, and caregivers to report trans students to the government. He took rights away from trans kids just like he did women and are forcing kids who are lucky enough to have supportive parents (most trans kids get kicked out of their homes and many end up committing suicide) into family-less situations just like unwanted babies born to women who can’t keep them, which leads to more suffering and neglect. That’s child abuse.
89,505 people in Texas have died from COVID since 3/6/20. Abbott is responsible for many of those deaths because he refused to enforce practices that would slow the spread. He banned masks in schools and issued an executive order prohibiting cities from requiring masks. He banned local governments from enacting mask and vaccine mandates which of course meant that COVID got out of control. He ended up begging health care experts from out of state to come to Texas after hospitals were over run with COVID patients and short on nurses and ICU beds (he told hospitals not to tell the media how bad it was). Refrigerator trucks had to be brought in to store dead bodies and the National Guard was called in to manage sorting and storage. 6 million Texans became infected with COVID. The highest infection positivity rate was 21% (1 in 5 people). Texas surpassed New York in total amount of COVID deaths and held the record for the highest number of child deaths. Texas doctors were forced to choose who would live and who would die. Abbott lied to the public and the media about how bad it was so he’d get re-elected. Like with prioritizing guns over public safety, Abbott’s priority was the economy over public health.
In addition to letting people die from out of control gun violence and COVID, Abbott let people freeze to death during a winter storm brought on by climate change in February of 2021 that (officially) killed 246 people. This was another preventable catastrophe that was all Abbott’s fault. Texans had to deal with freezing temperatures and icy roads for the first time in their lives due to a statewide power failure. The government had blown off winterizing it’s infrastructure for a decade because that cut into profits. In 2002 the electrical grid in Texas was deregulated and privatized. The state’s electrical company, ERCOT (Electricity Reliability Council of Texas) oversees 90% of Texas’s energy production and they screwed up by putting profits over people and power. After their for-profit power grid failed, they couldn’t borrow power from another state (there are 3 power grids — east, west and Texas) so they lost profit. They recouped their profit by charging “customers” $1,000 a day for power once it was restored. People not only had no heat, electricity or running water, but they ran out of food and drinking water ON TOP of dealing with COVID. MAGAs complained that the long lines they had to wait in for gas, water and food was “what socialism is like.” They were completely ignorant of the fact that they were having to stand in lines because of unchecked capitalism. Abbott blamed it all on the “Green New Deal” which was absurd. There is no Green New Deal. It’s just an idea but MAGAs didn’t know that. People needlessly froze to death in their homes and went without water for a week during a pandemic made worse by Greg Abbott. Instead of taking responsibility for anything, Abbott blamed Biden for open borders.
Greg Abbott has been coordinating with the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, in getting media attention for “deporting” immigrants from their states into blue states. Illegal immigrants and open borders, high gas prices, and inflation are what the Republicans are running on for the midterms. They’ve got their voters convinced that millions of disease infested illegals are pouring across the border every day and they’re all rapists, murderers and drug dealers who are coming for their jobs. DeSantis transports migrants by plane and Abbott uses buses. He has spent over $12 million to transport 10,000 migrants across state lines to DC, New York City, and Chicago, all for political theater before the midterms.
Greg Abbott tweeted: First Texas bus drops off illegal immigrants blocks from US Capitol in Washington, DC. Biden refuses to come see the mess he’s made at the border. So Texas is bringing the border to him.
Greg Abbott sent one busload of 50 migrants, including a one-month old baby, to Vice President Kamala Harris’ home in Washington DC and left them there. Only Fox News knows when these inner state deportations will take place — not the Department of Homeland Security or local governments. He dumped these poor people on the street as a political stunt to benefit his re-election campaign, violating Section 274(a)(1)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act which makes it a federal crime to knowingly transport undocumented persons across state lines.
Greg Abbott tweeted: Texas dropped off two buses of migrants outside VP Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, D.C. today. We will continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities like D.C. until Pres. Biden & Border Czar Harris step up & do their jobs to secure the border.
Since the Texas border is the longest with Mexico, Abbott has taken full advantage of the Republican “crisis” to help him politically. He did a publicity stunt that backfired at the cost of $9 billion by making truckers wait for over 30 hours so their rigs could be searched for smuggled humans and drugs. None were found which pissed the truckers off who voted for him. It cost Texas $477 million per day. $240 million worth of food had to be thrown out because it rotted sitting in the trucks, and shelves were empty over Easter weekend. He did it for media attention and to drive up inflation because that’s what the Republicans are running on for the midterms. The idea was to hold up the supply chain line to jack up inflation so they could blame it on Biden.
Texas is #1 in another category — voter suppression. They are #50 in the nation for ease of voting. They keep passing restrictive voting laws in the middle of the night. It’s already the hardest state to vote in but Republicans keep coming up with schemes to keep Democrats from voting. It closed 750 polling places in communities of color after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Greg Abbott said that expanding voters rights with HR1, the For the People Act, would lead to “using cocaine to buy votes.” After Trump and the Republicans claimed voter fraud after the 2020 election, the Texas legislature created new laws that ban drive-thru voting, limits early voting in Democratic communities (while expanding it in smaller, Republican communities), gives power to partisan “poll watchers,” and criminalizes those who help voters vote. Republicans removed the voting center on Texas A&M University, the second of two blue dots in red Brazos County to keep students from voting because educated people don’t tend to vote for Republicans. Gerrymandered districts guarantee that Republicans win no matter how awful they are. Texas got 2 more districts after the last census. Even though they got those districts by a population increase that was 95% Latinos, the new seats don’t represent Latinos.
Greg Abbott is running for re-election against a very popular, young progressive, Beto O’Rourke, who grew up and still lives in a border town and is pro-choice, anti-AR15s, pro-kid, pro-immigrant, pro-everybody (except white suprmacists), pro-education, pro-LGBTQ, pro-voting, and pro-democracy. He can’t lose to Greg Abott who is none of these things.
Abort Abbott.
