Hyper partisanship will sink our Republic, especially when one side has fully abandoned honesty, integrity and morality.
Hyper partisanship will sink our Republic, especially when one side has fully abandoned honesty, integrity and morality.
A sordid tale of Texas under the TX GOP
Easter morning, I saw two headlines that demonstrate, the utter shame the Texas GOP has fostered on the good people of Texas and our nation.
I planned to “sleep on it” before publishing but, want this to be in Greg Abbott and Michael McCaul’s inbox, when they first get to work tomorrow morning. This brief TAT may come off as fairly angry. That’s because I am angry. I frankly don’t know why anyone with a conscience isn’t. If people don’t speak out, the TX GOP can only be counted on, for the insanity and un-patriotic, far-right ideology of the Trump era.
1.
Gov. Greg Abbott backs call for pardon for Daniel Perry, who killed Austin protester in 2020
Friday, a Lyft driver in Austin was convicted of murder for shooting an armed BLM protester in downtown Austin, our capital. A jury of his peers convicted him in a 17-hour deliberation. Immediately, Greg Abbott, the disgraced, trump-humping governor of Texas, said he would parole the killer. Here is his quote as reported in the finest and non-partisan news media site, in Texas, the Texas Tribune. It is only one of several egregious quotes by Abbott, Lt. Gov Dan Patrick (Danny Goeb for those in NJ) and our indicted felon, AG Ken Paxton who also participated actively in inciting the Jan 6th armed insurrection and allegedly traveled there, on state tax dollars.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney,” Abbott added, repeating conservative criticism leveled against Travis County’s Democratic district attorney, José Garza.
-Greg Abbott
So, my friends, there it is, Abbott and his TX GOP, also who are legislating anti-constitutional laws on a variety of fronts, declares for all to see, that guns are more important than lives and the opinion of a “jury of our peers.”
These are also the same folks that expand gun rights after every mass shooting, including Uvalde and Southerland Springs. We expect this in Texas, and we are angry. Principled conservatives, the left and others in between have screamed bloody murder, but far-right extremism is the watchword for Abbott and his anti-patriots.
Radical gerrymandering keeps these thugs in power, despite slowly narrowing followers. Jim Crow 2.0 voting legislation a few years ago was almost instantly taken on by the US Justice department as discriminatory. Anyone who has but a smattering of civics and is fairly well-informed can read this for themselves in the 2022 TX GOP Party Platform. If you back this platform and these murderous thugs, check your patriot card at the door. You have lost your rights to the title. The party, in its current form is the anti-American values party.
I will leave this issue for now, but you will keep hearing from me, about the attack on democracy and morality by Texas Republicans. They, along with Missouri and Florida are the poster children of being un-American.
2.
McCaul calls Kirby’s comments on Afghanistan withdrawal ‘disgraceful and insulting’
Says the guy who voted to support Trump’s original withdrawal, four months earlier with far less planning and preparation.
Michael McCaul, a Texan GOP congressman, for a while now, has become exactly like every other GOP member in the US House of Representatives, subservient to the politics of the un-American, anti-patriotic MAGA movement. In short, he is a political hack who daily puts party over country. He’s also the richest congressman according to Forbes magazine. In this case, he’s whining dishonestly about the Afghan withdrawal, in another version of the traitorous Trump/ MAGA circus. He’s also inflicting considerable pain and suffering on Afghan Vets who know the truth, me included.
McCaul, who supported Trump’s “peace-deal” with the Taliban and the 01 May 2021 complete exit, is now condemning only the Biden administration and yes, with the utmost dishonesty. In fact, the SIGAR report on the withdrawal stated clearly, that Trump’s disastrous peace deal which excluded the Afghan government was the primary reason for the rapid collapse of security forces. How do I know this? It’s because like most Afghan Veterans, I have a deep emotional connection to the country. We are also emotionally connected to the majority of its people, now victims of both the Taliban government and far worse, extremist groups like IS-K, AQ and a long list of others, who no one would know if they didn’t serve there on the CT/ counterterrorism mission.
Like my brothers and sisters in arms, along with thousands of contractors, NATO, and other partners, we bear scars that may or may not ever heal. We love and appreciate the hundreds of thousands of Afghans, who courageously served alongside us, and still work to get them to safety with their families. McCaul and his hyper partisan, dishonest and un-American MAGA colleagues who control the US House of Representatives are fully committed to any and every lie or conspiracy theory that will keep them in power, no matter who they hurt, Afghan, American, NATO or otherwise.
Now, in a finger-pointing exercise under the leadership of the MAGA crowd and their high-priest, Kevin McCarthy, they are pushing blame for what they did, onto everyone else. Do not get me wrong, there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. The real story is in the SIGAR report on the evacuation. SIGAR is the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction.
The first primary cause of what we all witnessed, from the report:
“SIGAR found that six short-term factors accelerated to the ANDSF’s collapse in August 2021. The first factor was the U.S. decision to withdraw U.S. military and military contractors from Afghanistan through the February 2020 signing of the U.S.-Taliban agreement under the Trump administration, and the withdrawal following President Biden’s public address in April 2021.”
SIGAR Report
Why the Afghan Security Forces Collapsed
February 2023
McCaul, a long-time and now leading member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for the MAGA crowd, knows the real truth or at least he should. Every person who truly understands the country and its diverse, rich, human fabric know what would happen when Trump booted the Afghan government out of the peace talks and ultimately, the signed peace deal. I count myself as one of those experts after spending part of 5 straight years, “in-country.” I also taught and mentored this critical human fabric to parts of my USSOCOM team, in between deployments. Frankly, McCaul is courting political advantage, based on dishonesty, on the backs of dead and at-risk US and allied veterans, IC and contractor civilians and especially, thousands upon thousands of at-risk Afghans. This is beyond un-American, it is soulless.
The large majority of the US, IC (intelligence community) never did understand the COG, center-of-gravity, in-country, was that elusive, difficult to understand, human fabric. This was part of the entire generation that we spent there. American and Western arrogance contributed badly to the chaotic scenes that would ensue.
Back to McCaul, he also leads a House investigation into the withdrawal, but for political reasons alone. He released an interim report last August and it was exactly as I described, dishonest, hyper partisan and a hack job to support the MAGA crowd, now in charge of the US House of Representatives. He should be ashamed but based on his 93.6 voting record with Trump, he’s too set in his dishonest ways to change.
His voting percentage, like the rest of the cowardly and immoral Texas Republicans, is exhibit A in his un-American, anti-patriotic existence in Congress. To see what I mean, click on the link in the last paragraph that shows his votes and on which bills. It’s shocking to me, who like McCaul, has sworn an oath to protect and defend the US and Constitution form all enemies, both foreign and domestic. My congress here in San Antonio, Tony Gonzales, a Navy veteran has sworn this oath in the military and in Congress and refused to stand for country over party. I am thoroughly ashamed of the whole lot of them.
I could do this all day, and never run out of evidence to highlight the utter and sordid, anti-American BS spewing from the Texas GOP, all the way up to and including all congressmen and senators, Cornyn and Cruz.
Y’all, America cannot afford to allow these greedy, dishonest, anti-patriots to remain in office. I’m not backing any party but will always vote against a Republican until or if, principled conservatives have the guts, to stand up for real American and Texan values and take back their party from Putin supporting, unconstitutional political traitors. At the moment, anyone voting R in Texas, is voting against the United States of America. Principled conservatives have either left the party, or are like their elected Republicans, terrified of doing the right thing and becoming a thinking Texan.
Finally, if you think this is a rant, it will get worse until our nation is no longer at threat from, one of its two major parties. I’m sworn to protect and defend, and that oath will expire, only when I take my last breath.
McCaul and company, don’t deserve a paycheck from the US Government.
Abbott and company don’t deserve a paycheck from the honest taxpayers of Texas.