https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/greg-abbott-texas-border-stunt-supreme-court/677267/?gift=Je3D9AQS-C17lUTOnl2W8AEdpAOWerx8ZqSAhF4s9JA
Greg Abbott is taking a stand to protect his state’s right to let children die in the Rio Grande, and four justices of the Supreme Court are encouraging him to do so.
Jesus, I get off work and suddenly there are 20 reports on comments about Abbott being in a wheelchair.
Removing ALL of them. You want to make fun of him for being a useless fuck? Go ahead. Pick on him for being emotionally and intellectually bankrupt? Not a problem.
Going after him because he can't walk is low hanging fruit. Do better.
For the unaware: He’s in a wheelchair because a tree branch fell on him while he was jogging. He sued the homeowner where the accident occurred, won millions in the settlement, and even got the homeowner on the hook for lost future earnings. Abbott had just graduated from law school a few months prior to the accident, and argued that since he wasn’t able to work he should be compensated for his future lost earnings. So the homeowner has to pay him a wage of $14k/mo (an amount the judge decided would be fair for a lawyer to make if they were able to work full time) for the rest of his life. Abbott then used that money to kickstart his political career.
The only time it’s “acceptable” to make fun of him being in a wheelchair is when pointing out his hypocrisy, because one of his first acts as a lawmaker was to put a cap on his exact type of settlement, with an exception for himself. So nobody else can get the same kind of massive settlement he did. The dude is the very definition of “pulling up the ladder behind himself.”
Precisely. It’s textbook GOP “fuck you, I got mine” behavior and he should absolutely be shamed with it, if that degenerate had the capacity to feel shame.
168k annually isn't crazy for an attorney.
Fuck Abbot, and you can still practice law just fine from a wheelchair. But the valuation of the career isn't insane. If he'd actually been hurt in a manner that affected his ability to practice law, it wouldn't be as galling.
Thank you. That was pretty disappointing both how readily they were coming out and how thoroughly they were being supported. Taking a hard stand to not make that the norm is good for the community.
I wasn't here for that, but glad to see that you took it very seriously. Right on! No need to EVER shame someone for their body.
I see no such comments. I assume you're not n an instance that is federated with astroturfing propaganda.
Try not to make a joke. Try not to make a joke. Try not to make a joke. Try not to make a joke....
He literally waged a war on trees after this, overriding protections in Austin for heritage live oaks to try to allow developers to cut them down for parking lots. Abbott is a a psychopath who has no business holding public office!
It's all showboating from Abbott. Prick probably thinks he has a chance at being President one day.
There’s a million things you can fault him for, being disabled is like literally the one thing you can’t.
Any pretense of respect for disabled people leaving lemmings's bodies when they see a disabled person they don't like
I'll do both. Dude's a crippled Nazi that can't stand up for himself, and is running Texas into the dirt. Unfortunately, he's shown that he can roll with the punches.
I'm not taking shots at disabled people, just the one right now. I have shadenfreude from Paxton not being able to walk. If someone else that takes that as an insult, that sucks for them. If Paxton fell out of his chair and couldn't get up, and I was the only person around that could help, I'd laugh at him, tell him this is karma, and skip away, because I can.
I have a cousin in an electric wheelchair, she'll never not be in one. She intentionally runs into people on the street just so the normies apologize to her out of a misplaced sense of fault. She thinks it's fucking hilarious. If she has that good of a sense of humor, why can't you?
we are on the verge of civil war, a world-killing environmental crisis, and the return of fascism. your petty social justice concerns over words do not matter. take a back seat, kid.
I think that they'd all rather be Sarah Palin than Donald Trump. Get famous enough that you can spend the rest of your days as a Fox/OAN talking head and 'best selling' author.
The Astroturfing is strong here, does anyone actually believe that liberals are suddenly, with absolutely no warning, crawling over each other to mock his disabilities instead of his decisions, despite never having done so before?
Obvious setup is obvious.
C'mon, not every shit take on the internet is paid by Putin or whatever. If it was, I'd have enough money to do something else
The proper method is to call him a cripple and insult everything about him, proper fucken insult methods. Have some respect and do the job right I say.
I dont know if I should add an /s because im only half joking.
I'm weary af of liberals accusing all opposition of being russian plants, but it kinda wouldn't surprise me here. Maybe they're just the loudest, but the last couple weeks the only liberals I've seen have been doing shit like that, saying pro Palestinian protesters are Russian plants that should be executed, that anyone critical of biden is worse than a trump voter, lots and lots of abusive, thoughtless, maga tier shit. If I were Russia and wanted to keep leftists from voting for biden I'd hire a bunch of people to act like that. I still think liberals are just quickly devolving into magats, but maybe if I just touch some grass it'll be obvious that's not the case
Also liberals have always been bad for making fun of trump for being fat, this is completely within that wheelhouse, so I wouldn't take it as evidence of a psyop or anything
Trump being fat is fair game because he presents himself as being an ideal male specimen, surrounding himself (purchasing) beautiful women and running beauty pagents.
Abbot isn't claiming he's a world class marathon runner.
Nobody is atroturfing Lemmy, a small niche community of social rejects that have less impact on societal dynamics than NTFs
Abbott’s neo-secessionist bluster, cheered on by GOP governors and Republicans in Washington, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, has set up a confrontation with the federal government over immigration policy. “We encourage all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals, and to remove them back across the Border,” Donald Trump wrote on Thursday.
Maybe I’m reading about this too much, but I’m in Texas and really starting to worry about how this all ends & what the next step is. I don’t want to overreact, but with Abbott basically telling the feds to fuck off and Trump encouraging other states to send their National Guard…you know how crazy that fanbase is, we saw it on 1/6.
I know Eisenhower nationalized the Guard when Arkansas tried to pull this shit with desegregation, and yeah Biden has some harder choices because it’s an election year.
I guess I just don’t know where this goes and I hate it. I fucking hate that this is where we’re at.
My tin foil hat theory is this is all a conspiracy to create another pain in the ass situation for Biden to have to deal with on an election year .
I don't think Biden will do anything really. He is already making concessions by trying to push an extremely bad immigration bill in congress. His strategy for dealing with this stuff seems to be to make concessions, sending cases to the courts, and just wait for Texas and Republicans to move their attention to something else.
I think Biden should activate the national guard and force them to stop their shenanigans, but I don't think he will.
The Dems are playing the political game like they're in the 1990s, and the Reps are playing the game like they're in 1930s Germany.
He should absolutely do nothing. Texas is stabbing itself in the ideological dick here. It would be a shame to interrupt that process.
Even SCOTUS is like "yo man that shit looks painful you should stop stabbing yourself in the dick."
Nothing is going to happen. Congress will pass a shitty immigration bill. Abbott will claim a victory for Texas and the whole thing will blow over.
The interesting thing is that Trump is trying to prevent congress from acting because he wants to campaign on the immigration issue. If Biden is able to get something through it will look like a victory.
Something will happen, and that's the point of Biden's remarks on Friday: If they pass the bill, they give him a victory on immigration he can campaign on. If they bend to the cheeto, he has an answer for the rest of the campaign every time they bring up immigration: You all voted against empowering me to close the border. Because the bill is already all over the news, Johnson's House doesn't have the option to do nothing. [And frankly I don't think it matters that much what Abbott does right this second.]
I half expect to see a repeat of what Biden did at last year's State of the Union re Social Security and Medicare, boxing the GOP in on an issue that's extremely important to them by making them choose between supporting him or taking an unpopular position that abandons their core constituents. If they don't pass this bill, the DNC should be shouting from the rooftops that the Republicans want Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe and open borders in Texas. If they pass it, then it's the biggest border security bill in a decade.
Biden is getting well up in years (and he's not alone in that), and he's no LBJ, but he's still a very capable politician. He's certainly got other campaign problems (ahem, the Israel albatross around his neck), but for the last few days, Joe Biden has basically done everything right on immigration.
You know what Texas already has? At least three Active Duty military bases. If every Guard wants to come driving down to say hi, you know what they need? Fuel.
And you can't find JP8 at Buc-ee's, so good luck using Cavaso's fuel point while on your way to flip off the feds.
Yes, the states can do what they want with their Guards but this isn't something to worry about unless you're worried about the waste of life and tax payers money.
Can’t Biden nationalize the Texas National Guard like Eisenhower did with Arkansas, as described here?
I suppose that coming to a head is what I’m worried about - Biden will issue the EO but the Texas National Guard will refuse to acknowledge it. And now there are convoys and shit joining them, so it will just be a standoff that goes on forever (not unlike the Bundy ranch saga) and potentially lead to a serious crisis within the military and the refusal to follow the ruling that SCOTUS handed down.
Secession will literally never happen. If they did, they'd be throwing 38 red electoral votes in the garbage and the Dems would win every national election for the next 3 decades easy, probably more.
IF they did (not even a big if, seriously, like i said above it will never happen). No need to fight a war over it, no need to even fire a shot. Let them take everything they want in the state. Cut off all trade, blockade their international shipping, seize all assets outside Texas of all businesses based there, then watch as they have to now come to terms with the fact that their only viable land based trading partner is the same country they have been trying to stop immigration from for over half a century.
Idk I'm eager to watch a bunch of riled up Gravy Seals with $5000 AR-15 kits fly to Texas thinking they can take on the feds
Can we PLEASE, in the Trump / Brexit era, recognize how baseless accelerationism is? Have we not learned the lesson of
"Once these people do this terrible, stupid thing, they will realize how terrible & stupid it is"
-is completely false? And in fact tons of people will double down on the stupid terrible thing? They'll double down so much that they'll gladly swallow horse dewormer & bleach, and not get vaccinated, and literally die drowning in their own fluids before admitting that maybe that wasn't such a good idea?
I live here, in the thick of it, and honestly you could probably just tell most of them succession happened and it worked and everything is fine now and they'd probably believe you, and the crazy part is, they'd never notice because they likely expect nothing to change in their completely unaffected by anything ever in their entitled as hell daily lives
Also, this Texas Monthly article from late 2022 is an excellent read on the subject. It can never happen, because a post-Civil War law from 1869 makes a state's unilateral secession from the union illegal. There can be no secession, nor even a referendum. No wonder these drama kings are so confident.
Which is pretty whack. I don't in any way endorse what the Texas government is doing with the border, just to get that out of the way. The idea that a state isn't free to seceed is completely ridiculous. One can not rightfully claim the U.S. is a free country if the states are not free to leave the union. This idea that once you're a part of the union, you're apart of the union forever is a gang mentality that has no place in a free society.
A unilateral secession is illegal. If the others state agree to let you go, you can. Exactly the same as joining: the current states have to vote on whether to let you in. It makes a lot of sense. States joining or leaving on a whim creates major instability for the nation government. Having a fairly high bar for it is a good idea.
Right, so you can only leave if we say you can leave mentality, which is a kind of gang mentality. To say that a state that feels it's membership in the union no longer aligns with its values (whether you agree with their reasoning or not) cannot choose on its own to leave in no way aligns with the values of freedom and autonomy.
If you want to advocate for such a system, fine, but it would be dishonest to then turn around and say that this system is one that values freedom.
At it's most basic, freedom is the ability to say no and to disassociate with those you no longer wish to associate with.
You're applying personal freedom to a state of millions of people, which is nowhere near the same thing. People can do whatever the heck they want. States can't, because they're infrastructure for millions of people's lives. Infrastructure does not get stalk angrily out of the room in a huff.
I would have to disagree. States are just groups of people. They can hold all the rights that people hold, but cannot hold any rights people don't hold (since those people cannot grant a right they themselves do not have).
I struggle to see how it can be deemed acceptable to tell a state they can't leave because it may have a negative effect on the rest of the union. This is saying that once you join the union, you are a hostage of the union. Any negative effect this has on the rest of the union is not the responsibility of that state. If the union would benefit from continued use of infrastructure in the departing state, they can try to work out an agreement around that, or the union can figure out a way to fill the gaps left in infrastructure, but it makes no sense to hold the state hostage for the sake of saving the union from the hardship.
i, for one, would love to see conservative states get spanked into submission like they did 150 years ago. they need to learn to shut their fucking mouths and do as they're told.
You're aware hundreds of thousands were killed during the Civil War, right?
I, for one, would love to see a resolution without bloodshed.
One side of the political spectrum has proven that they are willing to kill to get what they want.
Not sure how it will turn out but there's already bloodshed.
The question is how much bloodshed are we willing to see before we do something about it.
That's precisely the reason a peaceful outcome should be reached. Rather than advocating for an extreme escalation in violence to "own" the other side.
I would love to see our national problems solved peacefully but the same republicans pushing for civil war in Texas are the same people who also have been obstructing Congress from doing the will of the people for the last 15 years. They're the same people who tried to overthrow the government when Trump lost to Biden.
Have you been living under a rock, or just idealistic? It might be time to get a bag ready.
If advocating against a civil war makes me idealistic, then so be it.
Anyone who thinks a civil war is necessary and appropriate is ignorant of the cost of war. They should honestly ask themselves if they would truly back up their words with actions, or do they only hold those feelings behind the safety of a screen.
If I'm going to get shot at by some AR-toting bigot, or I'm going to get shot at by an AR-toting bigot that I'm returning fire on, I'll take the second choice 10/10 times. These people have proven that they are willing and able to use violence to accomplish their goals. Waiting calmly for them to do so is a recipe for dying without anything to show for it.
we're dooming untold generations yet to be born if we don't take quick decisive action. i'd sacrifice 10 million to save 20 billion.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots from time to time.”
I’m quoting this as though I’m brave enough to go die in some urban street combat.
I'd rather see them secede and watch how quickly Texas and Florida get tired of having to carry the rest of the red states without federal money from blue states. We'd be fine or perhaps better of without them, but I don't think the reverse is true.
Both Parties Have Turned the Border Wall Into a Death Trap
Decades of bipartisan policies have turned the border into an ugly and dangerous laceration.
https://truthout.org/articles/both-parties-have-turned-the-border-wall-into-a-death-trap/
Not ableist, that's a rule 6 violation. Removed.
"No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning"
I am seriously of the opinion that the United States is too large and needs to split into at least four independent nations. Mind you that the United States has completely perverted the definition of a "state" as that term normally refers to an independent entity, not part of a larger hole. Really, we should be 50 independent nations, but have chosen to follow the mandates of a higher authority, which could be removed.
Too large
I'm not sure that's a justification.
Don't other nations have the same thing?
Canada and others have territories, some are divided into other sub government entities, etc. they all still function. Just semantics.
I'm a fan of states setting their own environment. Some legalized recreational drugs. Others said they was crazy, doom and gloom. Prove it. Let them try, let's see the proof.
States have certain subcultures. I want them to compete. Compete for education, jobs, etc.
Nothing illegal however, shouldn't have to state that.
One of the key issues here is laws being or not being enforced, and interpretation.
Most people here, in my view favor, more open immigration, Texas seems to be insisting the current law isn't being followed.
Sounds like politicians can't get their jobs done and fix it. But hey, they are all still getting paid, and their health care coverage, and their retirements, and legal insider trading, and getting future employment opportunities, etc etc etc rant rant rant. I don't like politicians.
The real answer to all of this is just decentralization - this was the intention of the Constitution, I believe, and the very model of American government.
I'm autistic, I get called that enough to use it. Nice argument though, my point is invalid because I said a word you don't like, very cool. Almost as cool as how you singled me out for using a slur that applies to me while ignoring the thread full of assholes making fun of people for being disabled. I'll still delete bc it's against the rules ig (nvm mod got to it first)
Eh i removed mine too. I was being a bit tongue in cheek and you have a good point. I'm neurodivergent as well, and my dad suffered a traumatic brain injury when I was 7.
I like to think most people here are piece of shit shaming. Trump is a piece of shit who happens to be obese and pretends that he isn't. Abbott is a piece of shit who happens to be in a wheelchair. I think people are grabbing the low hanging fruit.
Ye, I understand the urge to go after low hanging fruit like that, especially on people like Trump who fatshame people all the time. As a queer person I don't even mind people joking about Putin being gay for similar reasons (especially bc I've heard it actually really bothers him), but don't take that as permission to do that around other gay people or anything, bc the general consensus is that gay people don't want to hear straight people making fun of homosexuality, no matter the context. Same is true of how most fat people feel about fatshaming trump, or how most disabled people feel about the shit in this comment section. Most of the time that bigotry doesn't even matter to the person being insulted, just the group being made into a punchline. Imo even calling them a hypocrite for stuff like that is fine. Trump's called women fat and ugly, nothing wrong with pointing out how silly that is, as long as you're not just calling him fat and ugly for its own sake
I think this is fair. I'm fat, queer, and disabled. My (neurodivergent) son calls me grandma and it's funny because I know he means it lovingly. However, if my boss decided to do something similar, I'd spit in his eye. It's a case-by-case basis.
Make fun of Caitlyn Jenner for being a entitled, right-wing murderer? We're good. Make fun of Caitlyn Jenner for being trans? We've got a problem.
Who is saying it and the intention behind what they're saying matters quite a bit.
I guess I've also learned over the years to be less sensitive. For example, I'm in recovery. I used to have a very serious problem with heroin, cocaine, etc. And I used to get very offended when people would joke about crackhead, junkies, etc. I'd correct them and try to make them feel bad. But now I realize that most people don't have malice in their hearts. Just like most people know someone who is fat or queer, most people probably also know someone with a substance abuse problem. So I've learned to appreciate the humor and let it go. Crackheads do some silly shit after all, and I'm sure I was no different in those days.
The internet edgelords aren't going to agree with you, but you're 100% right. Conservatives will insist they're not racist while talking about how X minority can't speak right, liberals will insist they're not ableist while literally joking about a disability rather than all his actual flaws. They've internalized that "racist/ableist" is a bad thing to be, but instead of thinking about how those issues manifest and steering clear, they just know they're not bad, so they couldn't possibly be the bad thing. It's the same fundamental disassociation of the word from actions, just shifted once over toward the liberal end of the spectrum.
Removed, rule 3. I'd have allowed it until you hit the Jenner crack and calling other users cunts.
"Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (perjorative, perjorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (perjorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!"
Dang I was literally just about to edit that part out, fair enough. What was wrong with mentioning Caitlin Jenner? I was comparing transphobic remarks against her to the fatphobia in the comments, if I wrote it in a way that sounded transphobic I definitely didn't mean to
Edit just read what you actually said it was removed for, I assumed it was for the lib***d remark
