Greg Abbott « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Greg Abbott’

Federal Court To Biden: “No, You Can’t Have A National Guard Vax Mandate. Not Yours.”

Thursday, June 15th, 2023

Slowly but surely the relics of governmental overreach in the name of containing Flu Manchu are being rolled back. Texas Governor Greg Abbott finally announced he was letting his three year old emergency declaration lapse. (Are you sure you’re not rushing there, governor?)

Now a federal court has slapped down Biden’s vaccine mandate on the National Guard.

Just hours after Gov. Greg Abbott finally ended the COVID-19 disaster declaration, he announced that he won an appeals case against the Biden administration for attempting to enforce vaccine mandates on the Texas National Guard.

In January 2022, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden to stop him from forcing the Texas Army National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard to get coronavirus vaccinations.

Over a year later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued its ruling that the Constitution and laws of the United States deny Biden the power to punish members of the Texas National Guard if they refused to get injected with the vaccine.

Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham stated in his opinion that he rejects the president’s assertion of power over the members because they were not called into national service.

In this case, President Biden imposed and then repealed a mandate requiring State militiamen to take the COVID-19 vaccine. And now that the President has rescinded the vaccine requirement, he wants to retain the power to punish militia members who refused to get the shots while the mandate was in effect—all without calling them into national service. We reject the President’s assertion of power because it would undermine one of the most important compromises in the Constitution. If the Constitution’s text, history, and tradition make anything clear, it’s that the President can punish members of the Texas militia only after calling them into federal service.

In Paxton’s lawsuit, he argued that neither the president nor federal military officials can force the state’s National Guard to comply with vaccination mandates.

“Neither the President nor federal military officials can order the Governor of Texas and non-federalized National Guardsmen to comply with a vaccination mandate or to direct a particular disciplinary action for failure to comply,” Paxton’s office wrote in a press release. “President Biden is not those troops’ commander-in-chief; Governor Abbott is.”

There seems to be no constitutional limit statists won’t override in their eternal, all-encompassing quest for dominion over others. Eternal vigilance is still the price of freedom.

Tags:Andrew Oldham, coronavirus, Greg Abbott, Joe Biden, Ken Paxton, National Guard, Texas, vaccine mandate
Posted in Regulation, Texas | 1 Comment »

Abbott Gets His Slush Fund Back

Saturday, June 10th, 2023

Remember the old Chapter 313 program Texas used to dole out incentives to favored companies to relocate to Texas? It’s back under a new name.

House Bill 5, which author State Rep. Todd Hunter (R–Corpus Christi) calls the “Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation Act,” would create a new statewide economic incentive program to replace the state’s controversial Chapter 313 program, which ended after lawmakers declined to renew it during the 2021 legislative session.

Although both the Republican Party of Texas and the Democrat Party of Texas oppose corporate handouts in their platforms, State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R–Georgetown), has said “the majority of the Legislature does see value in a job-creating, economy-growing incentive program.”

HB 5 was a priority of House Speaker Dade Phelan (R–Beaumont) and approved by a vote of 120-24 in the House and 27-4 in the Senate.

However, Jeramy Kitchen, executive director of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility told Texas Scorecard the new law is a “contradiction and nothing more.”

“On one hand, he is telling Texans that he wants to see historic property tax relief and the elimination of the property tax, or more specifically the school M&O portion of the property tax,” explained Kitchen. “Both of those are things that TFR supports and encourages the legislature to take action on.”

“His signing of House Bill 5 however, points to a contradiction, as it ultimately will do nothing more than burden those same individual property taxpayers he purports to provide historic relief to, as large qualifying corporations receive a property tax abatement under the guise of economic development,” said Kitchen.

Like Chapter 313, HB 5 allows businesses to apply for a 10-year abatement—or reduction—of school district property taxes, which the state pays instead. To receive an abatement, the business would have to show it plans to hire a certain number of employees earning above-average wages for its particular industry.

Unlike the previous incentive program, HB 5 requires not just the applicant and school district to agree to the abatement, but also the comptroller, governor, and a seven-member legislative oversight committee composed of lawmakers from the state House and Senate.

This committee would have the final say on approving proposed projects and would provide periodic recommendations to the Legislature regarding which types of projects should be considered.

The problem with the old program was that it let government use taxpayer money to pick winners from the politically connected. Abbott has wanted the restoration of his economic incentive “carrot” ever since it expired. The new law even creates another level of politicos for businesses to suck up to get tax rebate goodies, and I bet competition to get assigned to that new “oversite committee” will be fierce.

The old program probably did incentivize a few edge-case businesses to move to Texas who wouldn’t otherwise, but Texas’ low-tax, low-cost and business-friendly regulatory environment already provides plenty of incentives to move here, as evidenced by the fact that businesses kept relocating here even in their absence.

At least there’s one improvement in the new version: “After Chapter 313 received much criticism for its funding of “renewable energy” projects, which Texas Scorecard previously examined in an extensive investigation, lawmakers also blocked such industries from receiving taxpayer funding through HB 5.”

Taxpayers are better served by keeping their own money than theoretically enjoying the down-the-line economic benefits of government functionaries showering their money on corporate welfare for businesses willing to do the requisite sucking-up to political figures in order to get paid to move here.

Tags:Charles Schwertner, Dade Phelan, Democrats, Greg Abbott, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Taxes, Texas, Todd Hunter, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans, Texas, Welfare State | 2 Comments »

Death Star Update: Preemption Bill Closer To Passage

Tuesday, May 16th, 2023

Remember the “Death Star” preemption bill designed to prevent left wing local governments from doing amazingly stupid things? Now it’s one step closer to Governor Abbott’s desk.

A landmark local government preemption bill cleared its second hurdle Tuesday as House Bill (HB) 2127 was passed by the Texas Senate, with a few amendments.

Dubbed the “Texas Regulatory Consistency Act,” the bill prohibits municipalities from approving regulations that exceed state law in nine different sections of code: Agriculture, Business & Commerce, Finance, Insurance, Labor, Local Government, Natural Resources, Occupations, and Property.

The bill states that any regulation specifically enumerated in state code is regulatable by municipalities, and anything else is not, a strategy called “field preemption.” Up until this session, the state had opted for “conflict preemption,” a strategy of addressing specific policies adopted by localities after the fact.

It’s the difference between blasting with a shotgun and firing with a rifle.

HB 2127 allows individuals or associations in the county of potentially offending regulation to sue the locality for abridging this prohibition.

The bill, authored by Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) and sponsored by Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), was passed by the House about a month ago, where it received eight votes from Democrats in the lower chamber. From there, it moved to the Senate Business & Commerce Committee, where it passed six to two.

On Monday, the Senate passed its version with three amendments; Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) was the only GOP “nay” on the bill. The vote was the same on Tuesday’s final passage.

Those amendments include a “loser pays” provision, placing the burden of payment for a frivolous lawsuit with the person or group who brought the suit; a limitation that a suit may only be brought against the offending political subdivision, not individual elected officials of that locality who were liable to be sued under the House version; and the tacking on of a prohibition against local governments halting evictions.

Plaintiffs must provide three months’ notice to the locality of an impending suit, intended as a grace period within which the potential violation can be revoked.

That eviction language comes from Senate Bill (SB) 986, which appears to have stalled out in the lower chamber. That bill is aimed at what big cities in Texas tried to do — but were stopped by courts — in ordering eviction moratoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Creighton said in a statement after the bill’s passage, “The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, the most pro-business, pro-growth bill of the 88th session has passed the Senate.”

“HB 2127 gives Texas job creators the certainty they need to invest and expand by providing statewide consistency and ending the days of activist local officials creating a patchwork of regulation outside their jurisdiction. Local governments acting as lawmakers in a patchwork of varying anti-business ordinances result in job killing outcomes.”

Gov. Greg Abbott has backed the bill, shedding little doubt over whether he will sign it into law once it reaches his desk.

Snip.

With the bill passed in the upper chamber, it now moves back to the House, where the members must either accept the Senate version with its amendments or reject them and trigger a conference committee.

From there, it moves into the friendly embrace of Abbott, who’s been chomping at the bit to sign it into law.

The sooner this is signed into law, the sooner the madness consuming the local governments in Travis and Harris County can be reigned in.

Tags:88th Texas Legislative Session, Austin, Brandon Creighton, Democrats, Dustin Burrows, Greg Abbott, Republicans, Robert Nichols, Texas
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Republicans, Texas | 7 Comments »

Austin’s Ongoing Policing Crisis

Thursday, March 30th, 2023

The term of Austin Mayor Steve Adler was so disasterous that it’s wrecking havoc on Austin even after he’s out of office. The massive scores of drug-addicted transients still plague Austin, and the defunding attempt that, at heart, was a massive cash grab for far leftwing activists. All that, and the election of Soros-backed leftwing DA Jose Garza, has brought about a crisis in Austin policing.

Severely understaffed, defunded Austin PD on verge of retirement wave after city council ‘pulls rug out’ again

Police sources told Fox News Digital that 150 officers have made appointments inquiring about their retirement options

Austin police facing staffing shortages as 911 wait times soar…

Austin police officers past and present are warning Fox News Digital that the Texas capital’s police force critically depleted as a result of defunding in 2020 is on the verge of losing another wave of officers in response to a breakdown between the city and the police on a new contract.

An Austin Police Department source told Fox News Digital this week that 40 officers have filed their retirement papers following a 9-2 city council vote a few weeks ago to scrap a four-year contract that the city had previously agreed to in principle and instead pursue a 1-year contract that the police union’s board has rejected.

That move is believed by many to be due to intense pressure from anti-police activists in the city who look to hold off a long term deal until after voters decide on competing ballot initiatives dealing with “police oversight” that go before voters in May.

“It’s my opinion that the radicals and activists in the city have such a grip on our elected officials that at some point in time over the last year or so their plans changed,” the source, who is an Austin Police Department officer, said. “They said O.K. now we’re going to get signatures for this ballot initiative in May and switch gears and put pressure on city leadership to move away from a four-year deal to a one-year deal because the four-year is detrimental to what we are trying to accomplish.”

Dennis Farris, president of the Austin Police Retired Officers Association, told Fox News Digital he knows of 35 officers from the department that have filed retirement papers and at least six of them are “high ranking officers.”

“I fear we’re going to see a mass exodus of the senior people with longevity to where you’re going to have a department where maybe the average service time was in the high teens now and I think it’s going to drop into the low teens,” Farris said, explaining that departments without strong senior leadership often experience more problems due to “inexperience.”

Farris said that two waves of retirements, officers who have already filed and officers who will file when the contract officially expires at the end of March, could result in as many as 100 retirements. Two police sources told Fox News Digital that 150 officers have reached out to the retirement board in the last few days to discuss options.

The situation has gotten so bad that street racers felt no compunction about blocking off streets just south of downtown and doing donuts.

No wonder Dallas is trying to poach officers from APD.

Is there hope on the horizon? Some. Newly installed mayor Kirk Watson, though a Democrat, rejects Adler’s Social Justice Warrior “police defunding” policies. And Watson has helped forge a stopgap solution to the immediate crisis: Having DPS troopers assist with Austin policing.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) will supplement troopers to Austin Police Department (APD) shifts for assistance with the city’s staffing crisis.

The City of Austin announced the partnership with DPS on Monday, with Mayor Kirk Watson saying, “During my run for mayor, I promised we would make city government work better in providing basic services.”

“This is an example of that. It’s a common-sense, practical response to a serious need and arose out of a positive working relationship between the Capital City and the Capitol of Texas. I want to thank Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and DPS Director Steven McCraw for being willing to step in and work with us to ensure the safety of our shared constituents.”

DPS officers’ primary focus in conjunction with the agreement will be on traffic response, but may provide backup to city police during emergencies.

APD Chief Joseph Chacon added, “This is a wonderful resource and partnership that will provide relief to our APD officers and detectives who want nothing more than to focus on keeping Austin safe — whether that’s responding to domestic violence incidents, combatting DWI, or investigating criminal activity.”

Similar agreements have been implemented in Dallas and San Antonio, and Austin says it will come at no cost to the city. DPS has assisted APD before, including during last month’s breakout of street takeovers.

This is only a stopgap. The real solution is to immediately start recruiting and training more APD officers, and voting out Garza and all the pro-defunding, anti-police Austin City Council members who helped Adler get the city into this mess.

Tags:Austin, Crime, Dan Patrick, Democrats, Greg Abbott, Kirk Watson, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas DPS
Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

University of Texas Announces DEI Pause

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

A lot of conservatives have criticized Governor Greg Abbott’s anti-CRT/DEI/SJW initiatives as all show and no teeth. But there is at least some sign that those directives have had an effect on the people that run the University of Texas system.

The University of Texas (UT) System will pause all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, the board of regents announced last week.

The board chairman Kevin Eltife stated at the start of the meeting he had a comment that was “not an action or discussion item.”

“The topic of DEI activities on college campuses has received tremendous attention nationally and here in Texas,” Eltife said.

“We welcome, celebrate, and strive for diversity on our campus with our student and faculty population.”

“I also think it’s fair to say in recent times, certain DEI efforts have strayed from the original intent to now imposing requirements and actions that, rightfully so, raised the concerns of our policymakers,” he added.

Eltife went on to announce that all DEI policies would be paused on UT campuses and he will be asking for reports on any current policies still operating.

“We will await any action from the legislature for implementation by the University of Texas system at the appropriate time, and if needed, the board may consider a uniform DEI policy for the entire UT system,” Eltife said.

This announcement follows many reported incidents of DEI policies on UT campuses.

In 2021, Texas Tech University announced it was hiring four new assistant professors for its Department of Biological Sciences. Its social media posts made clear the department’s commitment to DEI hiring.

The department released a rubric for evaluating new faculty candidates’ diversity statements about how well they understand and have knowledge of “dimensions of diversity.”

Texas Tech has already released a statement about its steps toward ending DEI hiring and its desire to “always emphasize disciplinary excellence.”

UT Austin has been accused of using DEI policies to “espouse a clear ideological agenda,” and other reports have shown the pervasiveness of DEI in multiple Texas medical schools.

A medical school applicant, George Stewart, has filed a lawsuit against six Texas medical schools for alleged willingness to “discriminate on account of race and sex when admitting students by giving discriminatory preferences to females and non-Asian minorities, and by discriminating against whites, Asians, and men.”

It’s one thing for the board to announce policies, it’s quite another for administrators and department heads to follow them. Right now I would bet some social justice warrior administrators at UT are busy telling their friends on Facebook how they’re going to ignore the board’s directives.

When we start seeing entire DEI pockets of resistance being laid off the way we’ve seen in Florida and in the private sector, then we’ll know it’s real and not just empty talk.

Tags:education, Greg Abbott, Kevin Eltife, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas Tech, University of Texas
Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 5 Comments »

2023 Greg Abbott Declares War On 2020 Greg Abbott

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023

Texas Governor Greg Abbott wants you to know he’s totally opposed to pandemic restrictions.

The most surprising component of Gov. Greg Abbott’s largely unsurprising slate of emergency items this session is a prohibition on COVID-19 restrictions and directives — not because of what the governor hasn’t done, but because of what he did.

During the pandemic’s height, Abbott, like many other GOP governors across the country, issued his own executive orders closing businesses, restricting the ingress and egress of persons, and mandating masks — the lattermost of which was announced only weeks after the office’s official position stated that “no jurisdiction can impose a civil or criminal penalty for failure to wear a face covering.”

A similar instance occurred in 2021 relating to vaccine mandate bans when Abbott’s spokesman stated that “private businesses don’t need government running their business.” A couple of months later, the governor expanded his vaccine mandate ban to include private companies along with governmental entities.

Abbott is now embroiled in a legal fight — to be featured at the Texas Supreme Court this week — with school districts who tried to preserve their own mask mandates well after the state ended its own.

The goalposts of pandemic policy across the country have moved constantly over the last three years, including in Texas — attributable in part to the giant uncertainty about the situation, especially early on. Mixed messages from officials were a common theme in the first few months.

“People didn’t know what we were dealing with with COVID, so there’s some grace that has to be extended,” state Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler), a frequent critic of the governor’s emergency response, said at The Texan’s 88th Session Kickoff in January. “I think there’s some grace that is extended to our leaders for getting through a chaotic period of time.”

Some grace is fine. After all, Flu Manchu was new and potentially deadly, and no one knew just how deadly at the start. It became evident very early on that Mao Tse Lung was not remotely as deadly as Ebola, yet Abbott still took six weeks of two weeks to bend the curve before he even started lifting the lockdown by a magnanimous 25% (remember the absurdity of tapped over restaurant tables you couldn’t sit at), markedly slower than many other Republican governors. Florida’s Ron DeSantis was notably faster at lifting all his markdown restrictions than Abbott was.

Finally, keep in mind that just renewed his own Flu Manchu disaster declaration February 13th. There’s never been a good explanation of how Flu Manchu lockdown restrictions were compatible with basic constitutional rights. So why has Abbott kept that disaster declaration going years after everyone else has moved on with their life?

The first target of Greg Abbott’s 2023 ire over “COVID-19 restrictions and directives” should be the Greg Abbott of 2020.

Tags:coronavirus, Greg Abbott, Regulation
Posted in Regulation, Texas | 9 Comments »

LinkSwarm for February 17, 2023

Friday, February 17th, 2023

Bit of a mini-LinkSwarm this time around, as this was a week that I almost caught up on stuff delayed by the ice storm.

Bidenomics: “Core CPI Rises 32nd Straight Month, Headline Inflation Hotter Than Expected.”

“Biden’s job growth is mostly immigrants working for low wages.” Also this: “The Department of Homeland Security has been issuing an unknown number of two-year work permits to illegal immigrants, which will keep them in the workforce suppressing wages and fanning the flames of discontent amongst Americans unable to find jobs until the next presidential election.” What the hell?

Auto repos hit new records.

California’s income tax revenues decline by 50%. Tax it, and they will leave. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

“Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media.”

The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.

The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.

“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”

GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.

The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.

GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.

Huge earthquake rocks Syria and Turkey. That was less than a week ago and already it’s pretty much out of the news…

Another huge story that the news media has done it’s best to ignore: a toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The blew it up to prevent a BLEVE and ended up releasing Phosgene gas. That’s carrying your World War I reenactment too far.

90-year California Democratic Senator old Dianne Feinstein to retire after 2024. But…

A few hour later she was evidently unaware she had retired. Increasingly, “crazy” or “senile” seem to be the two most common flavors of the Democratic Party…

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announces legislative priorities for the current session.

Cutting Property Taxes
End COVID Restrictions
Education Freedom (School Choice)
School Safety
Ending Revolving-door Bail
Doing More to Secure the Border
Addressing the Fentanyl Crisis

We’ll see if he follows through.

Followup: Transient encampment moved away from Headpsace Salon so they can go destroy someone else’s quality of life instead. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Dwight.)

Dumbass reaches for off-duty cop’s gun, with the expected results. (Hat tip: Dwight.)

Inside China’s livestreamer girl factories.

Updated contact information for the Austin City Council.

Not a Babylon Bee headline: “Catalytic converter stolen from Oscar Mayer Wienermobile in Las Vegas.”

I chuckled.

Biden Taken To Coroner For Annual Physical.

Tags:Austin, Austin City Council, Border Controls, Budget, California, cars, Chicago, China, DHS, Dianne Feinstein, Foreign Policy, Greg Abbott, homeless, inflation, Las Vegas, Microsoft, Ohio, Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, rape, State Department, Syria, Texas, The Global Disinformation Index, transexual, Turkey, Welfare State, Xandr
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 6 Comments »

A Tale Of Two Governors

Saturday, January 7th, 2023

If you want to know why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a leading presidential contender in 2024, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott is not, this story about DeSantis shaking up a college board of trustees provides a big hint.

Governor Ron DeSantis appointed six new members to the New College of Florida’s Board of Trustees on Friday, directing the new conservative majority to reorient a public university that has been led astray by progressive ideologues in recent years.

In 2001, the New College of Florida (NCF) was designated the state’s honors college by the Florida legislature. Since then, the school has increasingly embraced progressive ideological causes, such as expanding DEI initiatives, all while missing its 2022 enrollment goal by 45 percent.

DeSantis’s six appointees are Christopher Rufo, Mark Bauerlein, Matthew Spalding, Charles Kesler, Debra Jenks, and Jason “Eddie” Speir. Several are well-known conservatives.

Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and is best known for his activism against critical race theory in K–12 education, corporations, and higher education. Kesler is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and editor of the Claremont Review of Books, a quarterly conservative publication of political philosophy, history, and literature. Spalding is vice president of the graduate school of government at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C., and has published books on the Constitution and the Founding.

“Governor DeSantis is leading the nation in educational reform and post-secondary responsibility,” Spalding said in a statement to National Review. “I am honored by the appointment and look forward to advancing educational excellence and focusing New College on its distinctive mission as the liberal arts honors college of the State of Florida. A good liberal arts education is truly liberating and opens the minds and forms the character of good students and good citizens.”

While they must first be confirmed by the GOP-controlled state senate, the selections are on board with the governor’s plan to refocus NCF. DeSantis chief of staff James Uthmeier says the administration intends to convert the college to a classical model akin to that of Hillsdale College. The Michigan conservative bulwark rejects the neo-Marxist school of thought, including critical race theory and its contention that white supremacy is intrinsic to America’s national fabric and that positive discrimination is necessary to rectify historical racial injustice.

“It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South,” he told National Review.

I have no doubt that Rufo and the other new regents will do their best to purge New College of Florida of the poison of Critical Race Theory and other radical social justice teachings.

Has the Texas Governor ever appointed a true conservative reformer to a college school board? One: Wallace Hall, appointed to the University of Texas System Board of Regents, who dug deep into the scandal of the offspring of the well-connected receiving preferential treatment for admission into college administration programs.

The problem is, Hall was appointed by Rick Perry, and Abbott essentially hung him out to dry, failing to take any action on the scandals he uncovered and failing to reappoint him when his six-year term was up.

From the outside, Abbott seems like a fairly conservative governor, and he is when compared to the likes of Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom. But at heart, Abbott seems to be a cautious, consensus-driven politician who is reluctant to rock the boat. When it comes to real efforts to sand-blast the social justice rot out of higher education, the contrast between him and DeSantis is night and day.

Tags:Charles Kesler, Christopher Rufo, Debra Jenks, education, Greg Abbott, Jason “Eddie” Speir, Mark Bauerlein, Matthew Spalding, New College of Florida, Republicans, Ron DeSantis, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, University of Texas, Wallace Hall
Posted in Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 6 Comments »

Texas Border Control Update for January 2, 2023

Monday, January 2nd, 2023

Some updates on Texas’ attempt to secure the border that the Biden Administration has intentionally left unsecured.

First, Texas Governor Greg Abbott started building a shipping container wall along the border.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that on Tuesday shipping containers were added to the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, serving as a blockade, as the city declared a state of emergency earlier in December to deal with the surge of illegal immigrants crossing into the US.

Abbott tweeted on Wednesday, “Texas is adding shipping containers to the US-Mexico border in El Paso. This is in addition to the razor wire and National Guard. Together, the strategies are causing illegal immigration at that location to plummet.”

As The Post Millennial reported on December 14, El Paso has seen an average of 2,460 illegal immigrants cross into the US daily. That figure surged in the preliminary lead up to the expiration of Title 42,, which gave officials the ability to expel illegal immigrants over health concerns.

On December 19, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a stay on the lifting of Title 42, originally scheduled to expire on December 21, and the pause has stalled the surge of border crossers entering the US.

Shipping containers may provide a decent stop-gap solution in highly trafficked areas, but fall far short of a comprehensive border wall solution.

Second, numerous counties in Texas have declared that an invasion is taking place.

At least 40 counties in Texas reportedly passed or considered resolutions last year claiming illegal immigration is an “invasion” amid a debate over how aggressively Gov. Greg Abbott should confront the federal government over border security.

The Center Square indicated that the following counties are included on the list: Atascosa, Burnet, Chambers, Clay, Collin, Ector, Edwards, Ellis, Fannin, Goliad, Hamilton, Hardin, Hood, Hunt, Jack, Jasper, Johnson, Kinney, Lavaca, Leon, Liberty, Live Oak, Madison, McMullen, Montague, Navarro, Orange, Parker, Presidio, Shackelford, Somervell, Terrell, Throckmorton, Tyler, Van Zandt, Waller, Wharton, Wichita, Wilson, and Wise.

Of those, only Terrell and Presidio are actually on the border.

Many of the resolutions were written to back Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, secure grant funding from the State of Texas, and pressure the federal government to take more aggressive steps to deter illegal immigration. Part of the funding, which was included in an appropriations bill passed in September 2021, is to help counties pay for additional law enforcement to respond to the increased criminal activity that accompanies illegal immigration.

Those who support border security measures focused on deterrence often say “every county is a border county.” Counties have cited fatal drug overdoses and concerns about human trafficking as part of the basis for passing these documents, even if many of the jurisdictions in question are hundreds of miles away from the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott embraced the characterization of illegal immigration as an “invasion,” but his approach to the strategy has been complicated.

In November, Abbott tweeted that he had invoked the “invasion” clauses of the federal and state constitutions and outlined border security measures that he had taken. Many news outlets reported the development as breaking news, but Abbott had instituted most of the measures he listed months earlier.

The U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to protect states against invasions. In addition, Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution authorizes states to protect themselves against the same.

“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay,” the provision reads.

Article IV, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution addresses how the governor is to respond if the state is invaded.

“He shall be Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the State, except when they are called into actual service of the United States. He shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions,” the section reads.

All of these may help stem the giant Democrat-encouraged flow of illegal aliens into the country, but not as much as the federal government living up to its constitutional obligations to defend the border.

Tags:Border Controls, Crime, Greg Abbott, Presidio County, Terrell County, Texas
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Republicans | 3 Comments »

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Greg Abbott’

Federal Court To Biden: “No, You Can’t Have A National Guard Vax Mandate. Not Yours.”

Death Star Update: Preemption Bill Closer To Passage

2023 Greg Abbott Declares War On 2020 Greg Abbott

Texas Border Control Update for January 2, 2023

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