Because he’s a Republican.
Republicans are religious zealots who want to expand the power of government to control your personal private life…and create a white nationalist fascist state. Greg Abbot, the Texas governor, dreams of killing people of the wrong color and wrong ideology.
Appearing on The Dana Show last week, Abbott declared: “We are using every tool that can be used from building a border wall to building these border barriers, to passing this law that I signed that led to another lawsuit by the Biden administration where I signed a law making it illegal for somebody to enter Texas from another country…. The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border because, of course, the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”
Oh, dear. He spoke the quiet part out loud.
raven says
What would jesus do?
I know.
Jesus would forgive them for their sins including murder because…they believe jesus is god. Once saved, always saved.
These right wingnut extremists claim to be xians. Maybe, but they aren’t good xians or good people.
Bonnie McDaniel says
These people want to fight the Civil War all over again (because that’s another pretext he’s using, that Texas immigration laws override the federal government’s) and win it this time.
feralboy12 says
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…
And we’ll open fire on them. Because America, goddammit.
To be fair, we Americans shoot each other a lot, too. It would seem many of us are more comfortable with violence than we are with sex.
How screwed up is that?
muttpupdad says
They know that they can talk big but as soon as they make any move towards Independence. their money trough from Washington is going to be cut off and they will have to pay for everything themselves.
wzrd1 says
Abbot got one thing wrong. Biden would charge him with murder, only to find him missing.
He’d find himself located with a bag over his head at the Hague, being charged with crimes against humanity.
Only the GOP thinks that summary executions are a good way to go, law and order types are for the Constitution instead.
Oh, a Texass National Guard major refused to allow border patrol through a state park to a border patrol staging area, requiring them to walk around the entire park grounds, on the god-governor’s orders.
That major should be thankful, if it was my detail, “OK, I’ll be right back” and show up with a hundred federal marshals and ask if he really wants to commit treason again. Armed, stopped the federal government from performing federal duties fulfills treason and mutiny, major would run the risk of lethal injection.
Although, POTUS could simply federalize the Guard and send in federal troops to supervise them. Again.
Matt G says
“Pro-life” is only for fetuses….
Doc Bill says
Three migrants drowned last night near where psychopath Abbott strung up razor wire barriers.
FINALLY, the Editorial Board of the Houston Chronicle spoke out.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/border-abbott-shooting-migrants-drowning-cuellar-18605910.php
stuffin says
The quiet part is no longer quiet.
Marcus Ranum says
He’s a tough guy. Ok, since rolling a wheel chair takes 2 hands, how’s he going to use that shotgun?
“Run her in close, cross her stern and bear up, run out the guns and we’ll fire a broadside!”
Republicans should be mocking their shitheads. Except for being white he’s what they hate.
cjcolucci says
Where is Richard Widmark when we need him?
robro says
“Because he’s a Republican.” And a Catholic. Ironically, he’s married to a Hispanic woman, tho native to Texas and not an “evil immigrant”, and an educator…but again, a Catholic educator.
That tree that fell on him in 1984 putting him in a wheelchair was a sign from above.
wzrd1 says
robro @ 11, it further proves, the Almighty is a shitty shot. Otherwise, He’d have dropped the house, erm, I mean tree on his head.
Wow, this is distracting! Wind has kicked up again, estimate around 35 – 50 MPH gusts, as my normally air tight window is wolf whistling at me. Never thought I’d have to get my window glasses…
ffakr says
His bluster begs the question..
“If Donald Trump is re-elected, do you plan on issuing orders to shoot people as they cross the border?”
wzrd1 says
I could just picture him ordering that, when grabbed and submitted to the World Court, Trump ordering the military to invade the world.
After all, he did want to nuke a hurricane…
Jim Brady says
Let me get this straight, if an American goes on holiday in Mexico and returns via Texas he can be charged with a crime? Or did he not quote his own law correctly?
nomdeplume says
These days in America there are no “quiet parts”.
Nemo says
The nerve!
feralboy12 says
So, next time Ted Cruz flees to Mexico to escape the cold, Abbot will have him arrested when he tries to return?
alfalfamale says
If you think this is fun, wait until climate refugees overwhelm the borders! Guard towers with machine guns pay-per-view! And when the novelty of that wears off — machine gun rentals!! AND we’ll pay you for every disease laden filth bomb you deactivate!
John Morales says
muttpupdad @4, I took a look. I think they can afford it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Texas
drew says
No, he did not say the quiet part. The quiet part is that if they allow the people in, they’re Texas’s problem. They’re forced to be Texas’s problem by the federal government. The federal government which isn’t doing anything to solve the problem(s).
The displaced people trying to enter are largely here because of US “foreign policy” (a very polite term for projecting capitalist hegemony via violence). It’s a federally-created problem and a few (mostly red) states are expected to carry the burden of the results. The real nonsense here is liberals and conservatives yapping about one another instead of opposing US corporations, the entities who seek to profit from “foreign policy.”
John Morales says
drew, best as I can tell, “the problem(s)” you perceive is that people come in to work for low wages and poor conditions to contribute to the economy.
(Terrible!)
John Morales says
Clueless people such as drew probably know fuck-all about demographic issues; they’re political animals.
FWIW: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-census-projections-show-immigration-is-essential-to-the-growth-and-vitality-of-a-more-diverse-us-population/
llyris says
Is that how he worded the law? Does Texas have an international airport? Not anymore, I hope.
rpjohnston says
People don’t usually say that, and there are stages to not saying it:
1. Because they find murder morally abhorrent
2. Because it’s socially unacceptable
3. because they’ll get put on a watchlist by the authorities
4. They DO say it because they don’t believe any of that anymore
5. They DO the murder because they KNOW nobody will do anything to them for it
devnll says
“The only thing that we’re not doing yet is we’re not shooting people who come across the border
becauseas long as, of course, the Biden administrationwouldis still there to charge us with murder.”Fixed that for ya Greggles.
Ian R says
Why, the nerve of that Biden administration! Being willing to charge people with murder for (checks notes) murdering people.
Fetch me my clutching pearls!
cartomancer says
Is it just me, or does he look remarkably like the mad vampire pirate Luthor Harkon?
Ridana says
Why is a high government official fantasizing about shooting people? I dunno, why is Trump fantasizing about “Alphonse” Capone beating one of his most faithful cultists (Lindell) to death for smiling wrong? “It would be very painful.” Directly addressing Pillow Guy in the audience when he says it? If I were Lindell, I’d take it as a threat, so I gotta wonder what prompted Cheetolini to threaten him?
StevoR says
So by his own admission, the only thing stopping the Governor of Texas from murdering people is the fear that Joe Biden will stop him and charge him with murder?
StevoR says
PS ^ And he thinks that reflects badly on Biden somehow not him and that people want to vote for a wanna-be murderer of people who is only kept fromkilling by the fear of being charged?
whywhywhy says
Another instance of where I like the description of the Biden administration that Republicans provide more than the reality. I would hope that Abbot would be charged with murder but I am not confident the Feds would actually do it.
Nemo says
cartomancer @28:
I dunno who that is, but it sounds like he was named after Lex Luthor, and the Harkonnens from Dune. (looks him up) Yeah, he’s from Warhammer, the same people that
ripped offtributed the “God-Emperor” from Dune. Seems like a thing with them.silvrhalide says
From the VF article:
Bad news, Greg: that razor wire isn’t doing jack shit to deter illegal migrants.
More than half of illegal immigration doesn’t actually enter the US on foot or even necessarily over the Mexico-Texas border–it comes in concealed cargo containers, compartments in box trucks, etc. Kindly explain how the razor wire is deterring them from entering the US.
More bad news: the razor wire isn’t deterring the ones who are actually coming in on foot either. Wire cutters are pretty much standard wear in any state that has a lot of barbed wire. Do you honestly think that the coyotes bringing illegal migrants across the Mexico-Texas border left their wire cutters at home?
@3 That’s because America, as an overall culture, is deeply bunged up about sex and, as a culture, is awash in guns (ie., gun “culture”). Do the math.
@21 So New York is a red state now?
Bad news Drew: NY and California–both blue states, in case you missed that one too–are perennially in the top ten states for number of illegal immigrants. And not because they come over the Mexico-Texas border either. California has plenty of coastline in which illegal immigrants come in by boat. New York has plenty of illegal immigrants that come in by boat, plane or down from Canada.
Texas needs to get over itself, pull its collective head out of its ass and get over its delusional thinking. And so do you.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/u-s-unauthorized-immigrants-by-state/
The Pew Research Center article is from 2019–ie., before the pandemic–and the data is from 2016. IOW, way before the deranged Texas dipshidiot started bussing and flying illegal immigrants to other states.
silvrhalide says
@27 [snerk] INDEED
nomdeplume says
@34 I can only imagine the damage that razor wire is doing to the ecology of the region.
Doc Bill says
As noted in the article from the Houston Chronicle and reported elsewhere in Texas and beyond, just this weekend a migrant mother and her two young daughters drowned while crossing the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass where the Texas National Guard has blocked access to the river to US Border Patrol. BP had been notified of people “in trouble” in the river, but the Guard prevented BP from investigating the report saying they, the Guard, “would check on it.” They didn’t.
Texas Department of Public Safety, those tight-shirted thugs with big, white cowboy hats, yeah, those DPS folks, 400 of them, who watched 20 kids get murdered by a high school dropout in Uvalde, those guys, said that “no procedures or policies were violated.” Remarkably similar to what they said about Uvalde.
Meanwhile, former Texas law enforcement guy and his brother are out on bail for shooting into a group of migrants in a field killing one and wounding another. They face manslaughter charges claiming they thought they were “shooting at deer.” From a truck. On a road. With an AK.
It is getting worse as each move made by the psychopath, his henchmen and supporters cross ever more moral, ethical and legal lines with no consequence.
silvrhalide says
@1 A Murder of Gods is still my favorite American Gods episode. (S1 Ep. 6)
@36 Well it is blocking the migrations of jaguars and mountain lions, among other endangered species.
Also the Mexican wolf and the red wolf’s original range included northern Mexico. So theoretically there could still be some red wolves left in Mexico.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2019/03/current-evidence-supports-classification-of-red-wolf-as-a-distinct-species-report-says-mexican-gray-wolf-is-a-valid-subspecies-of-gray-wolf
https://www.endangeredwolfcenter.org/american-red-wolves/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542544/
silvrhalide says
@37 What kind of spineless asshats are occupying the BP in Texas? Federal jurisdiction outranks state jurisdiction.
StevoR says
@3. feralboy12
Extremely screwed up indeed.
Emma Lazarusés 1883 sonnet summed up and symbolised the ideal of the United States of America :
Mother of Exiles by adalia tara
The Statute of Liberty, the iconic if French built symbol of the USA is the Mother of Exiles.
Blockquote>From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command.
The Repugs have literally become anti-American, representing the worst worts and opposite of what the USA should be.
@27. Ian R :
Thread won.
StevoR says
@21. drew :
Problem? Migrants are a “problem” are they? Not an opportunity? Not individul people? Not an economic resource that contribute massively to the USA’s economy and culture in the metaphorical “melting pot” of migrants that is the population of the USA ? (The Native Americans aside here natch.)
They’re not? Aren’t they? Guess too few people, drew included, are aware of this reality :
Source : https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/biden-executive-actions-immigration-first-year
(Bold original – headline.) As of 22nd January 2022. So very likely notably more by now.
Yes, break other countries, render them miserable and oppressive places. Put dictatorships or bad incompetent puppets in charge and, well, surprise, people will want and often need to flee those places. Where do they go then? To a place they see gives them the most opportunities and freedoms for a better, safer life. Not exactly rocket surgery and when you have some responsibility for creating the issue that means ethically you have some obligation to fix it too. Agreed I think?
Note that people wanting to come and live in your country is a compliment to it and a sign that your nation is doing at least some things right to be an attractive destination for migrants and ranks higher than other countries in at least some regards. I feel this is something the Biden admin (& Albo in Oz too among others) could be emphasising a lot more. It is the opposite of having a nation that is “fallen” or “broken” or not so “great” – and a very old Cold War argument over whether Capitalism was preferable to Communism from what I recall.
Are they? Really? As #34 silvrhalide has already refuted this, I’ll just add again that your emphasis on calling refugees a “burden” rather than noting they can actually make plenty of positive contributions seems backwards. Oh and, of course, whether a US state is “red” or “blue” or “purple” is also a matter of democratic choice and can change over elections.
Well, I’m not sure how that’s “nonsense” really nor do I like the chances of the “conservatives” presumably meaning the regressive hateful wing of extremists represented by the Trump Kult (nee Republicans) ever ever coming around to the idea of opposing US corporations. Except ones like Disney and Anheuser-Busch (Bud Lite) for being supposed “woke” i.e. not being utterly hateful. The opposite applies for the American liberals too since most of them already do oppose excessive Corporate power and profiteering with progressives especially doing so. What more exactly do you want who precisely to do here in this regard?
John Morales says
Why others emulate the Abbot knob regarding shooting being seen as murder eludes me.
For example, kneecapping (the IRA’s specialty back in the day) hardly ever results in death.
No murder charges for that, is there? At most, it’s grievous bodily harm.
brightmoon says
@42 Shhhhh, don’t give the MAGAts any more ideas