Texas is already messed up enough on its own, thank you very much. Hardly a month goes by that we don’t read another story of the Texas mess. It would be a laughingstock among states, but these are not laughing matters.
One of their two republican senators rebounded from trump’s 2016 presidential campaign lies about the senator’s father and wife, only to smooch the offender’s rear end in apparent contrition for even having a father or wife.
In February 2021, the deregulated Texas power grid failed, leaving more than 4.5 million Texas homes and businesses without power during severe winter storms that killed almost 250 people and cost $195 Billion (with a B). The investigation attributed the failure to poor planning, ignored warnings, and insufficient system maintenance. Millions of Texans suffered freezing weather, food and water shortages, and no home heating. Except one Texan.
That same smooching senator skedaddled down to the warm comfort of Cancún, Mexico (you know, the country on the other side of the Rio Grande whose immigrants Texans bus to New York City and Washington DC). Said senator then realized the poor political optics of fleeing the hardship of his constituents and returned with a risible lie blaming his daughters for his misadventure. I’m not making this up; this is Texas’ finest.
No, wait. A state’s or city’s “finest” are traditionally said to be its police force. But we all know the unfortunate tale of mismanagement, dereliction of duty (even cowardice) up and down the ranks of Texas law enforcement exposed by the Uvalde massacre at Robb Elementary School. “Systemwide failures” they said. The same republican Texas Governor Abbott who wrongly blamed the power grid debacle on failure of renewable energy sources (and who ordered immigrants bussed out of Texas), also claimed Uvalde law enforcement officers engaged the gunman outside the school (they didn’t) and praised the “amazing courage” of police during the standoff (shown to be a lie). Texas’ finest and messed up.
Texas is an “open-carry” firearm state, meaning no permit is required for a person 21 years or older to purchase or carry handguns or long guns (with a few restrictions). This has made the state as close to the fictional Wild West as possible. In 2017 the deadliest shooting in an American place of worship (27 dead) was in Sutherland Springs. Then 10 died at a Santa Fe High School mass shooting in 2018. A year later 23 died (23 more injured) in an El Paso Walmart shooting and three weeks after that, eight were shot dead in a Midland-Odessa shopping center. That’s a mess of mass shootings.
Texas is a “must-carry” pregnancy state, by virtue of its extremely restrictive laws that restrict women’s healthcare autonomy, specifically the right to an abortion. Despite a recent University of Texas at Austin pole showing only 15% of Texans believe abortion should be completely outlawed, the republican-controlled legislature activated just such a “forced-birth” requirement based on apparent fetal heartbeat before most women even know they are pregnant.
This has led to some Texas-based companies expanding insurance coverage to employees and dependents who need to travel out of state for proper healthcare. Those companies have faced threats of new penalties from Texas legislators who, by the way, may be in session as little as 140 days only in odd-numbered years. What? Messed up.
Now we have the recent lawsuit against Texas media mogul Alex Jones, brought by the Sandy Hook School parents whose child was killed in 2012. To this day the parents continue to suffer personal abuse and threats resulting from Jones’ “InfoWars” megaphone lying they were “crisis actors” and their child was not murdered. Talk about adding insult to injury!
Jones’ company sometimes hauls in $800,000 per day in product sales from such conspiracy bilge and its total worth is estimated up to $270 million. The Connecticut parents sued Jones in Texas court (where his company is based) and won $4.1 million in compensatory damages for their economic loss plus pain and suffering. While a woefully inadequate compensation for the parents (maybe there is no adequate money compensation for loss of a child), the amount is clearly a drop in the “InfoWars” financial bucket.
Wait, you say! The Texas jury also awarded punitive damages of $45.2 million to punish the perpetrator and deter future activities. But, “No,” says Texas, “That’s too hard on a business.” Texas law caps punitive damages to protect businesses from “excessive awards.” Experts suggest Texas will cap the punitive damages award at about $16 million for a total liability to Jones of less than 8% of his company’s net worth. Not much punishment there, I’d say.
There are just so many ways Texas is messed up and dangerous to your health. Vote Beto!