The case of Francisco Oropeza recently brought some blatant border-hawkery out of Texas governor Greg Abbott. But on top of this
and his possible role in bringing the Robb Elementary Massacre about, there's one more thing about Abbott I can't hold in anymore. Everything I've read about his policy record tells me his governorship is good-for-nothing. RationalWiki
alone alludes to a rarely-precedented
17 problems he's accused of bringing about or exacerbating.
*Slashing funding for women's health treatments by wielding a federal anti-terrorism law during his time as an associate judge on the state supreme court while giving a cult named Operation Rescue a free pass amidst it. This was primarily reported in May of '012. Then, signing a law in September of '021 forcing rape and incest victims to carry to term by banning abortions at 6 weeks. Obstetricians and gynaecologists never expect their patients to even know they're pregnant that soon in gestation. One county's district attorney almost brought a woman to trial for performing an abortion, but a combination of national backlash, and an analysis that proved she didn't violate any specific Texas law, thankfully got her charges dropped.
*Blowing off the federal Constitution's establishment clause and the state Constitution's bill of rights in order to stir up atheophobic sentiment when some proselytizing banners were raised at football games in one school district. This was primarily reported in September of '012.
*Disrespecting an invitation which the state department extended to the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe by threatening to throw any of their observers in the slammer who tried to observe the gubernatorial election of October '012.
*Pandering to secessionist cults like the Texas Nationalist Movement by taking credit for all the conservatism in the nation surrounding Mitt Romney's '012 campaign for president, as part of a strategy to win the '014 Texas gubernatorial election, a strategy that further endangered all relevant democratic and national institutions.
*Artificially and falsely legitimizing the Jade Helm 15 conspiracy theory by publicly pressuring the Texas National Guard to tighten their monitoring on relevant military exercises.
*Attempting to keep the thoroughly debunked and profoundly dangerous practice of sexual orientation change efforts legal, coming into office as his party started systematically kicking anyone out who merely knows the dangers and ineffectiveness of orientation change efforts. If Abbott or the greater Texas GOP ever gets the opportunity, they will bring back straight-only marriage to state law. If Texas ever secedes, the Texas GOP under Abbott's leadership would be free to enact a Final Solution on LGBT-etcs therein, if the party should be bankrupt-of-conscience enough for that.
*Signing a bill into law in mid '015 that threatened to punish any city if they dared pass a local law to disallow fracking within their boundaries, blowing off a study by geologists in Oklahoma which linked fracking to earthquakes in places that aren't on tectonic fault lines.
*Trying to punish officials in various levels of governments and offices / departments who wanted to respond comprehensively to the '020 coronavirus pandemic and protect their citizenry. This was mostly by threatening to slash funding for every agency (except for nursing homes and assisted living facilities) if they didn't let the unvaccinated into their premises as they pleased. He threatened fines of 1 Grand, including against individuals at these various agencies, and against small businesses, if they required vaccination as a condition for access.
*Taking bribes from statewide energy and power utility corporations to exempt them from winterizing obligations. This drove up the power grid failure and
death rate in the blizzards that struck Texas in February '021.
*Loosening gun regulations against all expert advice, thus bringing about 6 massacres from '016 to the Robb Elementary Massacre in '022, followed by Oropeza's crimes in '023. Among various politicians, this is usually linked to taking bribes from Wayne LaPierre, Larry Pratt (Gun Owners of America), and Remington lobbyists.
*His specific response to the Robb Elementary Massacre, namely signing a bill that allowed people to carry handguns without permits or training, and by praising the Uvalde police department's fractally blown response to the massacre in progress.
*Offering 10 Grand rewards, plus the cost of attorney's fees, to everyone, even in other states, who presses a lawsuit against anyone who plays any role in helping sexual assault victims get an abortion at 6 or 7 weeks into pregnancy with the rapist's child, and wins such a lawsuit.
*Vetoing a state budget subsection which would fund the state legislature from 9-01-021 through 8-31-023 after Democrats fled out of state in May of '021 when the Texas GOP proposed another round of vote suppressors, then in July of '021, threatening to throw these Democratic legislators in the slammer like burglars and bank robbers if they didn't give Abbott the quorum he needed for these vote suppressors. That veto would've starved more than 2000 staffers of their salaries, possibly provoking the most talented ones to flee to other states, which would bleed the Texas state legislature's overall competency. Previously, in June of '013, Abbott had taunted the victims of a then-recent Supreme Court ruling which rolled back some of the Voting Rights Act's protections for marginalized citizens, making a big production of giving the Justice Department and then-Attorney General Eric Holder some of what white supremacists think was coming to them.
*Wielding power that state law never even grants a governor, to request a pardon for Daniel Perry in April of '023, the same month Perry was convicted, after Tucker Carlson complained about Perry's conviction on FOX News. Perry's crime was the murder of a Black Lives Matter protester on 7-25-020. After Perry claimed self-defence, hundreds of witnesses testified that Perry drove his van into the crowd of protesters long before anyone started beating up on the van, and that the victim either never fired his gun at all, or only returned fire at Perry after Perry fired the first bullets. Unsealed documents about Perry's social media postings since '019 promptly proved that Perry had violent colorbashing and Islamophobic mercenary fantasies, and at the time of Abbott's request to the Texas Parole and Pardons Board, the sentencing process was still incomplete, and the appeals process had not been exhausted. Even advocates for toughness on crime were disturbed by the selectivity therein on Abbott's part, and the special favors he's giving to far-right white power vigilantes.
*Issuing an executive order in February of '022 that automatically authorizes an investigation into any family in which a transgender child exists, attempting to prosecute every couple for child abuse who doesn't force their irrefutably transgender child into a cisgender life, and threatening to have every teacher, doctor, and caregiver fired from their jobs if they don't rat out a transgender child to Abbott's inquisition. This has led to a spike in resignations and a deeply urgent statewide staffing shortage. Abbott has also demanded a ban on medical transition for adults 18 to 20 on top of banning it for minors, and a ban on social and documentational transition for youth 16 and under. The latter is believed to most likely be a ploy to court votes from theocrats, theonomists, and other particularly extreme religious fundamentalists.
*Sending immigrants on buses to DC in April of '022, out of bitterness that the Biden administration had rolled back Trump Sr's coronavirus-era order to expel most migrants without considering them for political asylum. However, Abbott failed to make such a program mandatory nor override the wills of any cities and counties who weren't siding with Abbott.
*Giving an order to Texas' Public Safety Department in April of '022 to deepen commercial vehicle inspections as they cross from Mexico to Texas, inspections which federal-level authorities already conduct beforehand, just to further spite the Biden administration for spurning Trump's border hawkery. This brought average traffic on the Pharr-Reynosa bridge from 3000 to 1200, stifled the proportionate share of 60 to 70 Megadollars worth of goods and services per day, and exacerbated statewide and national resource shortages. A protest by truckers on the Mexican side of that bridge quickly got so bad that a fellow Republican, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, warned Abbott he was about to spark a statewide famine.
I wish I could minimize any bias I might be showing, but I'm really scrambling for any limit to Abbott's evil I can find.
