TX Gov Greg Abbott Wants QUORUM WARRANT To Make Dems Come Vote Themselves Out Of A Job
Another five-alarm-fire for Democracy!
Let us check in on Texas, home of the Confederacy’s last stand, where Republicans are in-your-face illegally trying to re-district away five Democratic seats from the US House of Representatives. There are about 4.2 million more registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters than Republicans in Texas, so the odds of Republicans winning without cheating are seemingly not in their favor. And so six days ago they rushed through a new redistricting map for the state, just because they think they can. Subtle!
And 51 Democrats fled Texas rather than let the Republicans have the two-thirds attendance required for them to vote on their gerrydoodled steaming cow pie of a map. Republicans need at least 12 more warm, breathing Democrat bodies present than they have now, and they’ve been getting more pig-biting mad and desperate over being denied them with every passing day.
Then, on Monday, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows issued civil arrest warrants for the lawmakers, empowering the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms, Walker, Texas Ranger, and/or Matt Damon playing a Texas Ranger, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, and Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn to ARREST HIS POLITICAL OPPOSITION and drag them to their seats to be forced to watch the Republicans vote to eliminate their districts.
As US House Rep. Greg Casar put it: “Imagine for a moment, in another country, if there was a corrupt president that was trying to drastically change the election laws right before an election, and then his political ally threatened to remove all the elected officials from an opposition party in order to get it done. We would say that in that other country, democracy was on its last legs. But that’s not happening in another country. That’s happening right now in America.”
Yes it is.
Except, as Houston Rep. Jolanda Jones noted, “He has no legal mechanism and, if he did, subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York — so he’s gonna come get us how?”
They will try with lawsuits! On Thursday Texas state AG Ken Paxton, the guy who tried to get his wife to hide him in a Chevy Tahoe to avoid being served a subpoena, sued in Illinois state court to try to demand that Illinois go and arrest the Democrats for them. Except …
And yep, Gov. Abbott has filed an EMERGENCY petition in the Texas Supreme Court to remove Dem House Caucus Chair Gene Wu from his seat, calling him the Democrats’ “derelict ringleader.” Not like how Mike Johnson is the derelict ringleader of the US House who adjourned rather than let the House vote on Epstein Files, though. That was being very brave. And then Ken Paxton sent his own letter to the court, saying that Abbott may not have the legal authority to take action against the legislators, but he as AG does, and filed his own separate actions Friday afternoon in the Texas Supreme Court to remove 13 Democrats — including Wu —from the legislature.
In their response, Democrats pointed out that not only is quorum-breaking not a crime, it is enshrined in the Texas constitution, and has happened lots of other times in Texas history without anybody screaming EMERGENCY! FBI ARREST!
But not to be outdone, Texas Senator John Cornyn, whose seat Paxton happens to be running for, said that he’d been talking to FBI Director Kash Patel, and he is going to track all those Democrats down like a little Scrappy Doo. KA$H can’t arrest the legislators, at least not until Ken Paxton or Pam Bondi finds some actual crime to charge them for, like maybe BRIBERY if Illinois Governor JB Pritzker offered one of them a spare toothbrush, or if (((GEORGE SOROS))) bought them some pizza.
But while Patel is trying to figure out what crimes were surely committed, Cornyn says Patel will be on the quorum-breaking Democrats like stink on a polecat. Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Public Safety also harassed a representative’s family member at home, a KGB kind of touch. Patel may not be able to suss out a single name on Jeffrey Epstein’s client list, but they will find any Texas Democrat’s cousin at any Hampton Inn waffle bar within two thousand miles, you bet!
And though the plan was that Democrats would stay out of the state until the session is over on August 19, Abbott says he’ll keep on demanding the Texas legislature hold special sessions, over and over, until 2028 if he has to, until the Democrats come back and vote. We shall see who wins this standoff.
Republicans getting away with this move in Texas would make a horrible precedent, and, but, also, a rattlesnake that could bite them in the ass. They’ve already re-districted as radically as they’ve been legally away to get away with, while Democrats, with some exceptions, have been fighting by Marquis of Queensbury rules. But no more of that shit, say Nancy Pelosi and blue state Democrats in California, New York, Maryland and elsewhere. If Texas gets away with this, the governors of those states are planning to try to do some re-districting of their own, so goodbye, maybe, douchebags. Republicans will eat their own if it might starve somebody else!
But then Donald Trump wants to declare a new Census that just counts the red hats, or maybe he’ll just “fix” the last one with some new math, just like he fixed unemployment and inflation to not be down any more, and then he will re-district everybody’s redistricting.
YESTERDAY!
It’s all a lot to get done before the midterms in 2026. But you know if the Republicans can find a way to do it, and the Supreme Court can find a way to help them, they will.
This is endgame for democracy.
Last word to Gene Wu!
I cannot wait until that sour assed bellyache Greg Abbott is six feet under. He is a wretched, mean spirited little man.
OT: America, goddamn! You're so droolingly fucking stupid.
In a Yahoo comments thread about how Trump is changing the NSF/NIH approval process for federal awards, a gentleman is doing a yeoman's service of posting *exactly* what the current, multi-step, completely oversighted process is.
People in the comments are replying to these *FACTS* with stupid shit like, "Oh, so they get a blank check with no oversight?" "Peer review doesn't work. Their peers are just as corrupt. Just because they are experts means nothing." "They take all the money and the taxpayers get no benefit. Like my neighbor who lived off of fake grants for decades until he was caught" (Sure, Klan. Sure.) "Democrats have been giving money to projects that mean nothing." *destroys multiple objects*
My God how did we let our fellow citizens get this stupid without knocking them on their fucking drooling asses? These are chuds who have likely NEVER SET FOOT ON THE PROPERTY OF AN INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION!
This is utterly shameful. Just shameful.
It has been within my lifetime that people were murdered en masse just for wearing glasses as a marker for intelligence and book-learnin'. I think about that A LOT now. A LOT.