Have I made my opinion sufficiently clear, or do I need to spell it out for you?
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday said Texas will spend $250 million to begin building a wall along the Mexico border, picking up on where former President Donald Trump left off on his divisive campaign pledge.
The governor declined to speculate on how long the project could take or how much it may ultimately cost, saying only that it will be “much more” than the initial investment. His office launched a crowdsourcing campaign Wednesday that he said will be overseen by two state agencies.
[…]
Governors in other Republican states, including Florida and Oklahoma, committed on Wednesday to send law enforcement to South Texas to help boost border security. Trump is also expected to join Abbott in Texas later this month for a trip that the former president said will shed light on the “decimated” border.
Abbott said the $250 million will go toward hiring a project manager, who will eventually provide a full cost and timeline for the project. The money is being taken from funds already dedicated to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
See here for the background. Yes, “crowdsourcing” will be used to pay for this debacle. What could possibly go wrong?
New York federal prosecutors on Thursday charged President Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon and three others with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump’s border wall.
Bannon, 66, was arrested at 7:30 a.m. Thursday near Westbrook, Connecticut, on the yacht of exiled Chinese dissident Guo Wengui, according to two law enforcement officials. Federal agents, officials from the United States Postal Inspection Service and the United States Coast Guard, assisted, officials said.
Surely this is all for a higher purpose, right?
.
Is it legal to use state resources to build a national campaign contributor list?
https://feepay.txapps.texas.gov/oog/texas-border-wall/ #txlege— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 8:02 PM – 16 June 2021
But surely Greg Abbott’s motives are pure and uncompromised?
Gov. Greg Abbott wants to talk about building a wall between Texas and Mexico — a top concern for the Republican voters whose favor he hopes to enjoy in next year’s GOP primary and general election. He’s bringing former President Donald Trump to the state this month for a visit to the border, a way to showcase the problems there and also to show those Republican voters that their most popular national leader is pals with their governor.
But the weather is in the way. More to the point: Doubts about the reliability of the state’s electric grid — there to protect all Texans from the weather — is in the way. The grid seems a little too wobbly in the face of early summer heat, after it failed in cold weather earlier this year. Having elected officials patting you on the head and telling you not to worry is less effective when your electric company is urging you to move the thermostat up to 82 degrees.
[…]
It’s a trust thing. At the beginning of February, it’s safe to assume that most Texans had no idea what ERCOT is, what it does or why it’s important. And because the state’s electric generators couldn’t produce the power they were obligated to produce during that storm, forcing ERCOT to order blackouts, we’ve all got the fidgets.
What wasn’t even entering our minds a few months ago is now front and center. We’re not taking our electricity for granted at the moment. ERCOT’s forecasts for this summer were that heat-related blackouts were possible. Now the prospect is real: The heat and the air conditioners and our memories of February are making it hard for the governor to direct our attention to his efforts to deal with an increase in migrants at the border.
He insisted Wednesday — emphatically and in a raised voice — that his call for a border wall isn’t driven by politics, and that anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Texans might be distracted by thoughts of losing the flow of electricity that runs our coolers and fans, our homes, businesses, hospitals and all the other things that help keep us alive. But Abbott dismissed anxiety about electricity, saying, “The energy grid in Texas is better today than it’s ever been.”
See? All better.
Yeah. Now go read Perla Trevizo’s Twitter thread about that previous crowd-funded wall in Texas, which managed to be crappily built as well as a vehicle for fraud, and Keri Blakinger’s thread about the prison that is being emptied out to house a bunch of people who will presumably be arrested on such charges as “aggravated trespassing”. It’s almost not possible for this scheme to be sketchier, but I am confident they will find a way. The Texas Signal has more.
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