Border crisis spawns excessive stupidity, hatred

-- "Obama heads to Texas with no plans to visit border".  A mistake.  Potentially a grave one politically, no matter that those compassionate conservatives at Fox News are furiously using that fact as yet another opportunity to brand Obama as... what exactly?  As cruel and heartless as the city council members of League City and the commissioners of Galveston County?

Yes, Henry Cuellar is all but a Republican himself, but he's also correct.  Obama is letting them tar him with this.  He could put a stop to it by simply going to South Texas.  Yes, he would have to endure being with Rick Perry for several hours, probably the worst punishment imaginable, but to just keep to his fundraising schedule is simply awful.  Not as awful as detaining children in crowded conditions with the threat of deportation... but everybody has to suffer a little now.

Update: When John Cornyn can be the blind hog finding an acorn, then you have to know it's bad.

Update II: The DMN files a report on this afternoon's meeting.  And the photo -- Juanita Jean has it posted -- is indeed priceless.

-- Then there's Louie.

“If he wanted to, he could do what Woodrow Wilson did — and he’s certainly not one of my favorite presidents,” Gohmert said on Tuesday. “But after Pancho Villa’s gangs came across, I believe in Arizona, and killed some American families, he said, ‘That’s it.’ He sent John Pershing with troops into Mexico. And you can read some different versions. Tens of thousands of National Guard were put on the border. And Dan, nobody came in that we didn’t want to come in.”

Gohmert was likely referring to a March 1916 attack by Villa and his supporters against a detachment of the Army’s 13th Cavalry Regiment in Columbus, New Mexico. The Mexican revolutionary leader carried out the attack in order to gain supplies for his military campaign against the country’s U.S.-backed president, Venustiano Carranza.

Eighteen U.S. residents were killed in the attack. In response, Pershing and 5,000 Army troops pursued Villa’s forces in Mexico for nearly a year, to no avail.

Need not be said: Louie Gohmert is no "Black Jack" Pershing.  On the other hand, maybe we could send him into Mexico on horseback for a year; just no guns, ammo, or other 'soldiers'.

One drone, Louie.  One unarmed drone flying over your head about twenty feet off the ground with a camera on you.  No missiles, not even a BB gun.  And a canteen of cold water.  That's all you get.

-- It's also a little disappointing that Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott are skirmishing about something else at this moment.  A very important something else, but not worth a bus tour across the state right now.  Thank goodness (I suppose) that Abbott keeps responding inappropriately to the mess of his own making.

The "driving around" comment made a train wreck out of two-car pileup.  Just ridiculous.  What's to stop the terrorists from driving around and asking which of Abbott's cronies are storing explosive chemicals in wooden containers?  Or does he know that we will all just be lied to about it?

Still, both Davis and Abbott might ought to have been invited to that meeting Obama and Perry and "evangelical leaders" (sic) are holding in Dallas today.  Or maybe they should be down at the border themselves.  That is if anyone was interested in seeing the scope of the challenge, let alone be motivated to actually do something about it.  Was it just a few weeks ago that Davis -- and a bunch of Republicans -- called for a special session on the humanitarian crisis?  That really picked up a head of steam.

This moral dilemma on the Texas-Mexico border just doesn't appear to be a problem any of our elected leaders can seem to solve.  Speaking as an atheist, I thought the Bible was clear on how to respond to thousands of hungry, displaced children.  Why, the words of the Son of God even appear in red print in my New Testament, presumably so that they can be easy to read.

Is it a comprehension problem, or 21st-century revisionism as Matt Bors pans above, or something else that makes conservative Christians fail their faith in this regard?

Obama drags sack through Texas but won't go near the border

I can begin to see Wendy Davis' point in avoiding DC Democrats when they display the political tin ear that the president is also showing off this week.

The White House on Monday insisted most of the thousands of unaccompanied minors flooding across the border will be deported.

The firm position came as President Obama was set to travel to Texas, the center of a growing firestorm over the nation’s inability to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country.

Obama is set to hold fundraisers in Dallas and Austin during the two-day trip, but he has no plans to visit the border, where officials have struggled for months to contain a wave of minors seeking refuge in the United States.

The president has come under criticism from members of both parties over the wave of immigrants, who have filled detention centers and overwhelmed a court system ill-prepared to handle the surge.

Yes he has, and that hasn't influenced him in the slightest apparent way.

Now before you think that I have decided to join Y'all Qaeda and make a run for the border... stop.  Those packs of crackers -- JMHO now -- need to be shot on sight themselves.  I mean to say hunted down and rounded up and beaten with hoses and fists by LEO and accidentally wind up dead, a few of them.  How else are we supposed to treat seditionists in America?  Shouldn't Joe Campos Torres get some payback after all these years?

All righty then, that's incited enough aneurysms in conservative brains (sic) for one morning.  But my work is not yet done here.

Obama's two fundraising stops in Dallas and Austin are to raise money for the DCCC (Congressional Democrats) and the DSCC (Senate Democrats) for the 2014 elections.

Officials from the Democratic National Committee say that the president will attend fundraising events on July 9 and 10 in Austin. As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Texas filmmaker Robert Rodriguez will host the first event on July 9 at his Austin home.

[...]

Tickets for the Rodriguez-hosted fundraiser range from $5,000 to $32,400. Jessica Alba, Demi Lovato, Rosario Dawson and Danny Trejo are slated to make appearances at the event, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The president will stay overnight in Austin and appear at a July 10 fundraiser and roundtable discussion hosted by Aimee Boone Cunningham at her home. Cunningham serves as the assistant secretary of the Center for Reproductive Rights. Tickets for this event are $32,400.

And all of that money will be spent to help elect Democrats in places other than Texas.  Oh, perhaps Pete Gallego might get a few bones thrown his way, since he's in a tough race.  But that's it.

What might be even worse than the fact that Texas keeps getting milked like a rented goat is that there are wealthy Lone Star Democrats  who are willing to write five-figure checks to the DNC, but suddenly develop alligator arms when statewides like Davis -- and Van de Putte and Mike Collier and Sam Houston and on down the line -- could use just a little bit of that help.

Let that sink in for a moment: millionaire Democrats in Texas writing five-figure checks to DC Democrats don't think that Texas Democrats are worth writing a check to.  It's more important that a Democrat get elected to Congress in Ohio or Maryland or California than it is for a Texas Democrat to get elected to anything.

Folks, that's what's wrong with Texas, the Democratic Party, and our campaign finance system in this country as the three dysfunctions can be most perfectly photographed together.

Forget the fact that Latinos understand that Wendy Davis feels the same way as Obama AND Rick Perry, for that matter -- "send 'em back".  Overlook that she has already exhibited electoral weakness in south Texas in her primary even as Greg Abbott practiced early outreach to them.

But hey, this is supposed to be a rant on the president.

As Obama’s trip approached, the White House insisted Monday it was “not worried” about the optics of the president raising cash with Texan donors without going to see the developing crisis firsthand, even as Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) pressured Obama to go to the border.

“The president is very aware of the situation that exists on the southwest border,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.

Obama has the difficult task of arguing that he does not “have to be there in order to see the problem and deal with it effectively,” said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson.

“They have to work the optics as best they can because going to the border with Gov. Perry would provide him an opportunity to grandstand, which he would almost certainly do,” Jillson said.

What?!  Governor Conspiracy Theory would demagogue for the cameras in front of several thousand hungry brown children?!  Say it ain't so.

So yeah, it's a no-win situation for everybody involved.  Except for a few Democratic candidates running for office somewhere besides Texas.

Update: The Dallas Morning Views is kinder and gentler and still says the same as me.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance has been driving around asking about incendiary chemicals as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff reports on the petitions turned in by opponents of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance to require a repeal referendum on the ballot in November, and the determination of the ordinance's backers to defend it against such efforts.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos is sick and disgusted to report another chemical explosion like that in West, TX last year is a strong possibility. Why? Because Greg Abbott has a Koch problem: why Texas residents are essentially powerless.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson shows that Greg Abbott's chemical problems makes clear that the GOP in Texas is Corporate-Owned.

While PDiddie at Brains and Eggs finds a great deal to be enthusiastic about in recent developments for the Blue team's chances in November, it's not all peaches and cream for Texas Democrats.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme knows Greg Abbott loves profits for his cronies over worker safety and Blake Farenthold loves cronies so much he's eased up a teensy bit on the usual republican Hispanic bashing. It's oligarchy first for the GOP.

The Supreme Court ruling giving Hobby Lobby the right to deny contraception health services was a surprise to many Americans. But given how ecstatic Greg Abbott was about the decision, Texas Leftist is left to wonder just what surprises he'd have if elected governor. Would Abbott try to ban birth control in Texas??

===============

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

No Border Wall and Que Fregados have heartbreaking reports from the scene in South Texas, where thousands of children escaping violence in their Central America homelands are streaming across the Rio Grande.

CultureMap Houston reports on the Concert Against Hate, bringing eight Houston theater companies together to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

jobsanger also wondered why Wendy Davis chose to run away from national Democrats at the state convention, while Socratic Gadfly mused as to whether jealousy was involved.

Fascist Dyke Motors has chapter one of the Totally True Tales of Dana.

Paul Kennedy and many other defense attorneys in Harris County protested the actions of a criminal court judge that was "encouraging" defendants to do their business before him without being represented by a lawyer.

Texas Election Law Blog analyzes True The Vote's ability to intervene in the Thad Cochran/Chris McDaniel election dispute.

Texas Clean Air Matters celebrates the recent SCOTUS ruling that confirmed the EPA's authority to address climate pollution, while State Impact Texas says that if it seems hazy in Central Texas lately, don't worry.  It's just Saharan dust in the wind.

Greg Wythe shows us what signing in on Election Day may look like in the near future.

SciGuy reassures us that we are not likely to be eaten by a shark.

The Bloggess researched fireworks options so you didn't have to.

And finally, Lowering the Bar isn't a Texas blog, but as a legal humor blog targeting Greg Abbott for his pathetic performance in the redistricting legal fee dispute with Wendy Davis, they're welcome to be in this week's review.

Sunday Funnies