#Eagle Pass | Texas

[xtruss]

Close-Up Video Shows Texas Floating Barrier Has Circular Saws

— By Khaleda Rahman | August 9, 2023 | Newsweek

Migrants walk after crossing the Rio Grande River into the United States in Eagle Pass, Texas as seen from Piedras Negras, Coahuila State, Mexico on August 4, 2023. Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia has called the installation of the barrier "inhumane." Guillermo Arias/AFP Via Getty Images

The wrecking ball-sized buoys that make up the floating barrier that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott installed in July in the Rio Grande have circular saws between them, according to a video posted by Rep. Sylvia Garcia.

"Appalled by the ongoing cruel and inhumane tactics employed by @GovAbbott at the Texas border," Garcia, a Democrat, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, alongside the clip. "The situation's reality is unsettling as these buoys' true danger and brutality come to light. We must stop this NOW!"

Mexican authorities said last week that two bodies had been recovered from the river in recent days, including one that was caught in the floating barrier. One body was found stuck in the lines of orange buoys, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said in a statement on August 2. A second body was recovered about three miles upriver from the buoys, The Associated Press reported.

A repost of the video by Laiken Jordahl, a Southwest conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, amassed more than 8 million views.

The center is an environmental group where Jordahl works to protect wildlife, ecosystems, and public lands throughout the Southwest desert and U.S-Mexico borderlands, according to its website.

"Abbott has installed circular saws between the Rio Grande border buoys to maim or kill anyone who attempts to climb over," Jordahl wrote in the post. "Two bodies have already been found trapped in the floating barrier. He wants more migrants to die."

Jordahl told Newsweek: "Each day the floating wall, saw blades and concertina wire are allowed to stay up, more migrants will be injured or killed and more wildlife will suffer.

"Governor Abbott is turning this beautiful river into a death trap for people and wildlife. Our wildlands and communities will not be turned into war zones. Abbott must be stopped."

The U.S. Justice Department is suing Abbott over the barrier, after warning that it violates federal law and raises humanitarian concerns for migrants crossing into the country from Mexico. The lawsuit is asking a court to force Texas to remove it.

"We allege that Texas has flouted federal law by installing a barrier in the Rio Grande without obtaining the required federal authorization," Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement in late July.

"This floating barrier poses threats to navigation and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns. Additionally, the presence of the floating barrier has prompted diplomatic protests by Mexico and risks damaging U.S. foreign policy."

[unteriors]

Desolation Row, Eagle Pass, Texas.

[rednblacksalamander]

Tensions on the border escalate between the Feds (very very bad) and the Texas National Guard (somehow even worse).

[tomorrowusa]

Exactly what language is Trump speaking? Professional translators are often baffled. But we do hear echoes of 1930s Germany in his diminishing attempts at communication.

Trump echoes Nazi propaganda and pushes lie that ‘no one speaks languages’ of migrants in wild border speech

This vid includes Trump's pseudo-English at Eagle Pass.

If you're an English teacher, get your students to attempt to transcribe some of Trump's attempts at human speech.

[rabid-dog-steve-horn]

I Went To The Mexico Border at Eagle Pass. It Was Very Confusing. (Full ...

[joe-england]

Eagle Pass, TX Residents Sound Off on the Real "Invasion" | The Daily Show

[readingsquotes]

Abbott upped the ante again. The state of Texas would be building a military base near Eagle Pass, to host up to 2,300 soldiers on a permanent base, allowing Abbott and future governors to “amass a large army in a strategic area.” The state calls this a “forward operating base.” That’s War on Terror lingo: FOBs were the satellite bases constructed in-country during the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

....

To describe a base in Eagle Pass, though, it’s a little strange. It’s American soil. What is it forward of? It will have plenty of creature comforts, though. The base, The Texas Observer reported, could cost up to $500 million — on top of $10 billion already allocated to Abbott’s border security schemes in the last three years. The base will have “51 dorms, 15 ‘executive suites,’ three command centers, two motor pools, boat maintenance facilities, and a helipad,” along with “a host of amenities including a 15,000-square-foot dining facility with 24-hour service of ‘chef-driven meals’ and ‘buffet style meals,’ a fully equipped fitness center, a recreation center with a library and arcade, an outdoor basketball court, and a sand volleyball court.”

Even in a rich state like Texas, $500 million is real money. The state’s schools rank among the lowest states in per-student spending, and the state has one of highest uninsured rates in the country. The federal government recently offered the state money for free school lunches this summer; it declined, saying that the relevant agency was too busy throwing two million people off of the state’s Medicaid program to do anything else. Abbott has been governor for a decade, and it is difficult to say what he has succeeded in doing to improve the lives of his constituents. His legacy consists entirely of keeping a few people out, at fabulous expense.

...

What drives Abbott, I ask? I’ve been writing about him for ten years, and I still can’t detect much in him other than an insensitivity to other people’s suffering and an unfocused ambition that comes out mostly as a desire to see other powerful men bend the knee. Maybe that’s all there is, says Nevárez. He notes that Abbott has always been “very well protected” politically. “He basically was protected into the governorship,” Nevárez says. “They ran off other would-be challengers. He had a lot of people around to run a lot of interference for him.” Abbott rose almost purely by momentum to become the governor of what might be the most important state in the country, and wins reelection effortlessly. “What does that do to somebody, their ego, their ambition?” asks Nevárez.

Abbott’s political instincts are both “terrible and amazing,” he says. “These are all fucking awful things he does and says and promotes. They only seem to work for a small segment of the state. And they defy, you know, humanity and goodness on a lot of levels. They defy good government and fiscal responsibility.” He gives as an example the state’s foster care system, which regularly sees little kids — citizens, as if that matters — drowned and beaten to death because Texas can’t figure out how to hire enough caseworkers. “In the case of these foster kids, they defy morality at its core.”

“He’s suffered from none of it and probably will never suffer,” Nevárez continues. “These decisions he’s made are all fucking awful, but they’re incredibly effective — they work.” So far, the standoff in Eagle Pass has been effective too. Abbott’s approval rating in Texas is close to the highest it’s ever been, no small feat given how long he has been in office. Most importantly, the border standoff has helped him consolidate support among the right wing of his party, which has often been shaky in the last decade.

Ask Americans what they think about the border, and it’s a mess. There’s agreement that the border should be secure. But even Texans — much less folks in Michigan — don’t necessarily know what that means or how to get there. They may not know what asylum is. This issue isn’t in most people’s vocabulary. They may not know that many folks who try to cross the river are trying to turn themselves in to authorities. They may not know that the border was essentially open a few generations ago, and that it is more locked down today than it has ever been. The confusion makes this fertile ground for politicians like Abbott and Trump."

[circleandsquarecomic]

Circle is Diligent

[macwantspeace]

"We're on a mission from God." Uh huh. They started rolling from Virginia Beach with just a few "over 60 year olds". All the chatter is one after the other trying to figure who is a fed. What is that game? Among Us? Like that. I'm hoping to see some video of this convoy.

[xtruss]

Greg Abbott's Rio Grande Border Policies Condemned as 'Definition of Evil'

— By James Bickerton | July 18th, 2023 | Newsweek

Governor Greg Abbott's migration policies have been slammed as the "definition of evil" after a Texas state trooper claimed border guards had been ordered to push back migrants, including small children, into the Rio Grande, as well as denying them access to water. The allegations have been dismissed in part by the department, which insists there is no policy against handing water to migrants.

Democratic politicians have also hit out at the deployment of floating buoys in the Rio Grande, designed to impede illegal immigration, which one congress member said "are going to force people to drown."

Authorities across the U.S. are struggling to cope with a surge in unauthorized immigration, with law enforcement stopping a record 2.76 million migrants after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2022 fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Immigration is likely to play a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election campaign, with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump vowing to end "automatic citizenship" for the children of undocumented migrants "on day one" if elected.

On Monday, the Houston Chronicle published an email from a Texas state trooper, sent to a superior, who said migrants had been pushed back into the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, causing one 4-year-old girl to pass out from heat exhaustion, and denied water.

Migrants wave as they walk near concertina wire in the water along the Rio Grande border with Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on July 16, 2023. Reports of border guards being ordered to push migrants back into the river, and refuse them water, have sparked outrage online. Anne Cordeiro/AF/Getty

The trooper wrote: "Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well...I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane."

In response Travis Considine, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said law enforcement hadn't been instructed to deny water to migrants.

The unverified claims caused fury on social media, with progressive social media activist Jack Cocchiaretta sharing a post on Twitter blaming Abbott, who he described as "the definition of evil," to his 348,000 followers.

Nessa Diosdado, a Texas-based "Gen-Z activist," called on the president to intervene. She said: "Migrants are human beings. What Greg Abbott is doing at the border with children and babies is not what this country stands for. He must be stopped. We need President Biden to step in."

There was anger at Abbott from Democratic lawmakers at the placement of buoys in the Rio Grande, in a bid to deter illegal migration.

Speaking to CNN, Texas Representative Joaquin Castro said: "What he [Abbott] intends to put out are drowning devices. Those things are going to force people to drown. Children, disabled people, mothers, and others."

Representative Veronica Escobar, who also represents the Democrats in the House, tweeted: "The buoys being deployed by Greg Abbott in the Rio Grande will not stop desperate people; they pose a danger to Border Patrol agents and put migrants at risk of drowning."

In a statement sent to the Houston Chronicle, Abbott's press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, defended the governor's policies.

He said: "Texas is deploying every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings between ports of entry as President Biden's dangerous open border policies entice migrants from over 150 countries to risk their lives entering the country illegally.

"President Biden has unleashed a chaos on the border that's unsustainable, and we have a constitutional duty to respond to this unprecedented crisis."

In a statement sent to Newsweek,Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa and Maverick County Democratic Party Chair Juanita Martinez called for federal intervention in response to claims migrants had been denied water and pushed back into the Rio Grande.

They said: "Greg Abbott and his political cronies in the DPS [Texas Department of Public Safety] reached a new level of depravity earlier this summer with their floating buoys in the river, intended to deter asylum-seeking migrants with the threat of drowning rather than legal repercussions.

"But today's uncovering of the borderline torturous activity against migrants—including all but intentionally drowning babies—deserves a swift and thorough investigation by the federal government.

"In addition, with this state-sanctioned violence against migrants, it's time for federal authorities to assert their constitutional duty and shut down Greg Abbott's unconstitutional rogue 'law enforcement.'"

Newsweek has also reached out to Abbott's press office for comment via telephone and voicemail message.

In June, Abbott said Texas had "bused over 23,500 migrants to sanctuary cities," including Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles.

[trexalicious]

Arizona next!! Stop the invasion!!

[rapeculturerealities]

Texas governor buys billboards warning migrants they'll be raped if they illegally cross border | San Antonio | San Antonio Current

How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?"

That's the English translation of one of the grotesque Spanish messages featured in a billboard ad campaign Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is spending $100,000 on in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the border.

Abbott unveiled the campaign Thursday in Eagle Pass, pledging to splash similar messages across dozens of signs in Mexico and Central America. Other slogans would read "Many girls who try to migrate to Texas are kidnapped" and "Your wife and daughter will pay for their trip with their bodies."

[therainingkiwi]

Train travel in The Lightning Thief/PJO TV season 1

Oh look, I'm overanalyzing fictional train travel because I'm one of Those neurodivergent people. Let's get into it. Warning for VERY minor book spoilers (just mentioning the names of all the cities our trio travels through).

TL; DR our trio's cross country travel route makes no sense at all.

In the first book/season of the Percy Jackson series, our main trio takes a cross-country trip from Long Island, NY, to Los Angeles, CA. In the beginning, it appears as if they've boarded a cross country bus that will drive them the whole way there (a trip that usually takes ~72 hours). However, they get derailed in rural New Jersey (presumably the northwestern part of the state).

After New Jersey, the action immediately skips ahead, and we next see our trio on an LA-bound train that's about to stop in St. Louis (and in the book, has a later stop in Denver).

So, just off the bat: the train route that the trio are taking doesn't exist IRL (assuming they board a train in Trenton, and that train stops in St. Louis, Denver, and Los Angeles). It's also impossible for a single person to travel that route for $200, much less three people. Chiron needs some up to date information about cross country travel prices.

If they were traveling a reasonable IRL amtrak route, they'd probably take the Cardinal from Trenton to Chicago, and then take the Southwest Chief from Chicago to LA. However, if they can get back to Penn Station from Aunty Em's, they could take the Lake Shore Limited from NYC to Chicago, which would be 7-8 hours shorter than getting to Chicago via the Cardinal.

They could also take a bus from north New Jersey to Chicago.

However, the Southwest Chief (most direct amtrak route to LA) stops at neither St. Louis nor Denver. The most notable cities along the route are Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff.

If they wanted to take a route to LA that had them pass thru St. Louis, they could take the Texas Eagle from Chicago to St. Louis to San Antonio, and then take the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to LA. There are 3 trains per week that make this two-leg trip without requiring travelers to transfer at San Antonio, so our trio are probably on one of those. Why they didn't take the (shorter, cheaper, and more frequent) Southwest Chief is a mystery, honestly.

Since Chicago is the USA Amtrak hub, most routes will pass thru that city. The only alternative route is taking the Crescent from Trenton to New Orleans and then taking the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to LA. This would take them nowhere near Denver or St Louis, but probably wouldn't have a significant time/price difference from routing the trip thru Chicago (assuming they travel direct from Chicago to LA rather than taking the Texas Eagle thru San Antonio).

Unfortunately, there are no trains in the USA that travel between St. Louis and Denver (or even between St. Louis and Colorado in general), so that leg of their trip would have been made via bus. Greyhound (the USA's main long-distance bus travel company) has buses directly from St. Louis to Denver that end in California (but in San Francisco rather than LA).

In conclusion, I propose a new Amtrak route called "The Lightning Thief" that travels from New York-Penn Station, down the Northeast corridor thru New Jersey, and then turns west, making major stops in St. Louis, Denver, and Las Vegas, before terminating in LA. It doesn't stop in Amtrak's Chicago hub because all hub-and-spoke transit systems should have rim routes, and because Chicago isn't mentioned in The Lightning Thief.

Also, in conclusion, the USA needs better rail infrastructure and I'm a fucking nerd.

Amtrak map below for reference.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo:

Celebrations turned to horror in New Orleans as the driver of a pickup truck plowed into a crowd of revelers in the French Quarter of the city in the early hours of New Year’s morning. A total of 15 people are dead and around three dozen injured, some very seriously. The nation was just processing that attack when a Tesla cybertruck exploded outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas later that same morning. The vehicle’s trunk contained large firework mortars and gasoline and camp fuel canisters. The driver was killed and seven people in the blast zone were injured, thankfully none seriously. Many Americans are understandably concerned about the threat of violence, terror and how the incoming Trump administration will handle such incidents. As I’ll discuss below, there are some important questions that remain unanswered about the attacks, and the response to them from the right is a disturbing preview of what we can expect.

Organized terror?

After a police shootout that killed the New Orleans attacker, identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, investigators found devices resembling homemade bombs in and near the truck and elsewhere in the area. This has understandably led to questions over whether Jabbar acted alone. [Update: Authorities now believe Jabbar did in fact act alone.] Jabbar’s public statements also suggest that law enforcement should look further into whether he was a sole attacker or part of a group or cell. Hours earlier, he had posted videos to Facebook indicating he was inspired by the Islamic State, and investigators found an Islamic State sticker on the trailer hitch of the rented truck. By these acts, it’s clear Jabbar fully intended his allegiances to be known once he completed his attack. “By carrying an ISIS flag with him during the attack, the suspect wanted to show that he was a true believer, aligned with the ISIS cause, and perhaps hoping to trigger others into following suit,” said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst interviewed by the Times. [...]

A terrorist that few suspected

We’re beginning to learn about Jabbar’s background, and it doesn’t seem to fit any easy patterns nor raise immediate red flags. Contrary to initial right wing claims that he was a recent migrant, Jabbar was born in Texas and was raised as a Christian but converted to Islam long ago, according to his brother. Jabbar served almost eight years in the army, deploying to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010. He became an Army Reservist after leaving active duty in January 2015, then left the reserves as a staff sergeant in July 2020. He received several awards including the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal, the Army Achievement Medal and a National Defense Service Medal. [...]

The Tesla bomber suspect

Less is known about the perpetrator of the other attack. A local Denver news outlet, Denver7, reported that the suspect in the Las Vegas Tesla explosion is Matthew Livelsberger, who has multiple Colorado Springs addresses associated with him. There are some unsettling coincidences between the two attacks that have police investigating whether there could be any connection between them. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger was a former servicemember. According to a LinkedIn profile bearing his name and image, Livelsberger was a Special Forces Green Beret as well as an intelligence, operations and communications specialist.

[...]

Politicization of the attacks

Right wing media, Donald Trump and other radical politicians immediately sought to exploit the New Orleans attack, insinuating falsely that Jabbar, a former Christian born and raised in Texas, was somehow a migrant who had recently arrived in the U.S. The first culprit was Fox, which falsely reported that the vehicle driven by Jabbar had crossed the Southern border at Eagle Pass two days before the attack. Fox has since corrected its reporting, but not before Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) picked up on the misinformation and amplified it. She has not taken her post down. Donald Trump also jumped in to insinuate that this attack was due to migrant crime. In typical Trump form, he talked first about criminals coming into the country, claimed falsely that the crime rates in the U.S. are at levels never seen when they have in fact fallen sharply, then went on about the New Orleans attack as if migrant crime and the attack itself were related, when they are not at all.

The Las Vegas attack is also coming under political scrutiny. After the identify of the Tesla cybertruck driver became known, MAGA loyalists leapt to portray Matthew Livelsberger as anti-Trump by (checks notes) accusing his wife of being a Trump hater. This was based primarily on (checks notes again) a Facebook comment from 2016. Rather than give much oxygen to these absurd efforts, I note simply that it appears the two have been divorced for some time, that she is now remarried, and that Livelsberger’s politics aren’t clear but are being scrutinized to assess a possible motive. [Update: A close family member of Livelsberger told The Independent that Livelsperger was “100 percent” a patriot who “loved Trump” and was a “Rambo type.”]

Jay Kuo’s commentary on the two terrorist attacks on New Year’s Day 2025 is so spot-on. Imagine Kash Patel leading the FBI under such scenarios? It would be a nightmare.

See Also:

Let's Address This: MAGAs Exploit Atrocity to Incite Hatred