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Greg Abbott

How Texas Gov. Abbott Ruined Eclipse Bonanza For A Small Border Town

The local economy of Eagle Pass, Texas was all set to rake in a huge financial windfall this weekend, when the town was expected to play host to tens of thousands of visitors eager to be the first in the US to see Monday's solar eclipse. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's ongoing border standoff with the federal government ended up scaring most tourists away.

According to the Daily Beast, Aide Castano — the municipality's marketing and tourism director — told a meeting of the local Rotary Club last year that the town of 28,000 residents could expect to see its population temporarily swell to more than 100,000 people on the first weekend of April for the eclipse boom. The city scheduled a music festival to take place dubbed the "57 South Music Festival" set to last three nights, featuring 17 bands on two separate stages.

"If you’re a music lover and a celestial enthusiast, then there’s no better time to start planning your trip to Eagle Pass, Texas!" An advertisement from the city read.

"Mark your calendar for the eclipse, get your grocery shopping done, we’re gonna have 100,000 people in Eagle Pass, we’re gonna have millions of dollars in sales for downtown Eagle Pass," local resident Amerika Garcia-Grewell recalled Castano saying. In an interview with Texas Monthly, Castano said planning for this eclipse weekend first began in 2002, telling the publication that one of her coworkers said "this is like our Super Bowl."

"One of the real estate agents is like, ‘Airbnb will make $10,000 in the eclipse weekend,'" Garcia-Grewell recalled in an interview with the Beast.

However, Eagle Pass' economy became a secondary concern for Gov. Abbott, who heavily militarized the town's border crossing at the Rio Grande River center stage as part of his $10.5 billion Operation Lone Star protest of federal immigration policy under the Biden administration. Earlier this year, Abbott ordered a length of razor wire to be built along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass to deter immigrants from crossing. The Supreme Court ordered Abbott to take it down, stating that international borders were under the jurisdiction of the federal government, not state governments.

After federal agents cut the razor wire, Abbott retaliated by building even more, and ordering national guardsmen to stand by at the border crossing in a show of force. Former President Donald Trump commended Abbott for his defiance of the Supreme Court, and posted a call to action to his Truth Social platform encouraging Republican governors to likewise deploy their national guard troops to the Southern border in Eagle Pass.

Meanwhile, the intimidating presence of troops and razor wire at the Rio Grande ended up scuttling the original plans for the 57 South Music Festival in Eagle Pass for the weekend of the solar eclipse. The Beast reported that the location for the festival was moved to the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino, which is a 20-minute drive by car. As a result of the change, tickets for the festival dropped significantly in price. And at a March 14 town hall meeting, the town lowered their expectations for eclipse visitors from more than 100,000 to approximately 50,000.

Garcia-Grewell, the Eagle Pass resident, recalled to the Beast that she was told the city spent roughly $3.5 million on the festival, yet sold only 2,500 tickets. She further elaborated that the city would have had to sell tickets at $1,400 apiece just to break even when accounting for the total cost.

The 57 South Music Festival kicked off Friday afternoon, though crowds were sparse. Local music producer Tony Rodriguez said that he counted just 30 people at 4 PM local time, and only 150 people by 6 o'clock.

"The worst flop ever," he said.

Garcia-Grewell maintained that despite the swarm of soldiers and razor wire barrier, Eagle Pass was safe. Border crossings went from 2,000 per day in December to just a few dozen months later. While some of that could be attributed to Operation Lone Star, Mexico's government also stepped up their efforts to stem migrant traffic into the US.

"The State of Texas is making it look like a war zone, even though we’re one of the safest places in Texas,” she said. “And the city of Eagle Pass was not able to counter that. They won’t say anything against the state of Texas because Eagle Pass is so dependent on state funding."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

#EndorseThis: Conan Goes To Mexico, Faces ‘Extreme Vetting’

#EndorseThis: Conan Goes To Mexico, Faces ‘Extreme Vetting’

On last night’s episode of Conan, the fearless late night host packed a bag and took his show on the road — to Mexico. O’Brien’s goal: Use his comedic platform to build goodwill among our Mexican neighbors.

En route to his “Made in Mexico” special, a dusty O’Brien wheeled his suitcase directly to the border where he is stopped by Mexican border control. “Clearly they’re not sending us their best,” mused one guard as O’Brien showed clips of his show in an attempt to prove he really is a comedian.

In an obvious spoof of Trump’s proposed border control policies, the guards wondered aloud if he is one of those “bad hombres,” and decided that Conan will need to pass their “extreme vetting” test to enter the country.

You won’t want to miss what the guards find in Conan’s bag during their vetting process. Just watch.

Yes, Trump Intends To Build That Wall — Even If Mexico Won’t Pay For It

Yes, Trump Intends To Build That Wall — Even If Mexico Won’t Pay For It

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to begin signing executive orders aimed at curbing illegal immigration on Wednesday, beginning with a directive to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and another to boost personnel needed to crack down on illegal immigrants, congressional aides with knowledge of the plan told Reuters.

In the coming days, Trump is expected to limit the number of refugees admitted to the United States to 50,000 a year, down from 100,000, and to impose a temporary ban on most refugees.

Trump, who took office last Friday, will begin signing the orders at the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday. On Twitter on Tuesday night, Trump reiterated his promise to build the border wall, which was a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and which he has promised to make Mexico pay for.

The border enforcement order includes plans to hire 5,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents used to apprehend migrants at the border and to triple the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents used to arrest and deport migrants living in the United States illegally.

The Customs and Border Protection agency has already struggled to meet its hiring mandate, with a little more than 19,000 agents on the payroll, out of a congressionally mandated 21,000.

Immigration enforcement away from the border is also expected to be strengthened by seeking an end to “sanctuary cities” where local law enforcement officials refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Trump will call for an end to this practice and may instruct the federal government to stop providing certain funds to cities that refuse to comply.

Later in the week, Trump is expected to suspend the issuing of visas to people from countries where it is deemed that adequate screening cannot occur. Immigration experts expect those countries to include Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen.

A review will be conducted by the Trump administration to determine what screening must occur before travel for citizens from such countries can resume.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Franklin Paul and Frances Kerry)

IMAGE: People in Mexico wave at U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border fence near San Diego, California, U.S., November 10, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

5 Things Politicians Think They Know About Ebola

5 Things Politicians Think They Know About Ebola

Ebola

AFP Photo/Inaki Gomez

Three weeks ago, Thomas Eric Duncan became the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. He died in Dallas, TX on October 8 and shortly after his death, two of the nurses who treated him were diagnosed with the virus. This series of events brought the issue of Ebola close to home for Americans, and sparked a strong reaction from U.S. media sources and politicians — regardless of how well they knew the subject.

Whether they were alarmists, whipping up public fear, or using the occasion for their own political advantage, here are five of the noteworthy assertions politicians made about Ebola:


Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)

Rand Paul 427x321

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Rand Paul thinks that the government has not been taking the Ebola virus seriously enough, so he is here to scare the living daylights out of you.

In a CNN interview, Paul explained his theory that “if someone has Ebola at a cocktail party, they’re contagious and you can catch it from them.”

Although this new information flies in the face of the facts that the Centers for Disease Control has distributed (the disease is spread only though direct contact with bodily fluids), Paul would like you to believe him: After all, he’s a (self-certified) doctor. Time to cancel your cocktail parties, folks.


Scott Brown (R-NH)

Photo: Talk Radio News Service via Flickr

Photo: Talk Radio News Service via Flickr

Scott Brown knows the magic cure for Ebola. And it is Mitt Romney.

Brown appeared on Fox News radio last week, and told an anxious nation that if Mitt Romney had been elected president instead of Obama, we would not be dealing with an Ebola outbreak.

According to the former senator, Romney “was right on Russia, he was right on Obamacare, he was right on the economy. And I guarantee you [that if he were president] we would not be worrying about Ebola right now.”


Governor Nathan Deal (R-GA)

Photo courtesy of the city of Marietta.

Photo courtesy of the city of Marietta

Nathan Deal revealed some surprising news that you might not have known about the Ebola virus.

Speaking to The Marietta Daily Journal a week ago, Deal suggested that the disease can be treated simply by washing your hands.

“The most comforting thing that I heard from [Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health] was that water kills the Ebola virus. I’ve never heard that before. I thought it was something that was so contagious there wasn’t much you could do to prevent it or anything else, so her advice was ‘wash your hands.'” Why bother with hazmat suits when you can arm yourself with a standard garden hose instead?

After hearing that water can kill the virus, Governor Deal felt much better about Georgia’s readiness for an Ebola outbreak. “We are in pretty good shape here in Georgia,” he said. Stock up on your bottled water, Georgians.


Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX)

Photo via Wikicommons

Photo via WikiCommons

Representative Blake Farenthold ever so subtly invoked the politics of fear in his statement about Ebola, when he publicly stated that “every outbreak novel or zombie movie you see starts with somebody from the government sitting in front of a panel like this saying there is nothing to worry about.”

NBC’s White House Correspondent Kristen Welker blasted Farenthold for his I Am Legend vision of reality, noting that “some Republican candidates eyeing wins in the upcoming midterm elections are stoking public fears.”


Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

Photo Via Wikicommons

Photo via WikiCommons

Marsha Blackburn, a U.S. representative from Tennessee, knows that we need to close the border to contain Ebola. She’s just confused about which one.

In a House of Representatives panel on the government’s efforts to keep the contagious virus stateside, Blackburn misunderstood the statement made by CDC Director Thomas Frieden about flight restrictions between the U.S. and African countries.

She interpreted his response, which referred to the porous borders of Liberia, to mean that we need to “worry about having an unsecure southern and northern border. Is that a big part of this [Ebola] problem?”

No, congresswoman, it is not.

AFP Photo/Inaki Gomez

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