Big deal or posturing?

Difficult to tell with politics whether it means something or not, but that's generally because in politics a lot of things mean what people want them to mean. What is happening with Texas right now is typical Greg Abbott, and very typical for Texas establishment style politics. Okay, not the establishment of the Republican Party, Jonah. This is why I should have written that post years ago explaining the term I use in my inner monologue for pols like Abbott: Godfather Republicans. What they do is take something extremely minor with near zero consequences, invent a fig leaf legal justification for it, then promote it as though it were world-changing. In Texas, that means dog whistling to the secessionists, even though everybody knows they are a tiny minority and Abbott would vigorously deny it were he challenged directly on his intentions, at least in private. Abbott has done this exact kind of thing for years, and he's very comfortable with it. 

But this sort of political brinkmanship to gain notoriety has the same sort of consequences in the end that Trump's lies about the 2020 election did, and continue to do. Texas pols for years have told voters that they will do something about immigration when every single one of them knows the Texas state government has no jurisdiction over an international border and immigration policy. I myself sat on a panel of candidates for the Texas state house at a tea party meeting and listened to the other two guys, both incumbents, one of whom was my primary opponent and the other a respected, even by me, conservative, tell that audience the Texas state government was doing this and that and the other thing in response to an illegal immigration question. But of course, all the things they said were within the legal jurisdiction of the state government...and had nothing to do with illegal immigration. I told that audience the truth. The Texas government has no legal authority over immigration policy. If you don't like current policy, you need to elect a federal executive who will enforce current law, because the Texas state government can't do a damn thing about it. This was in the early 2016 primary season. And you know what happened? The lone libertarian in the audience came up and shook my hand afterwards brimming with enthusiasm as though I had just advocated for open borders, and the moderator of the panel discussion came up and told me flatly something to the effect of, "If you want to make it in this business, blah blah blah." That's how Godfather Republicans think. Voters are idiots and cannot make distinctions like what are federal powers and what are state powers. So when you are asked about immigration in Texas you say something which is technically correct but sounds like you want to get tough on the border, even though you can't. So you promise the wind and hope voters won't blame you when it inevitably escapes your grasp. But you really, really need to make a big show about trying. And that's what Abbott is doing right now. But what happens when the wind reaps the whirlwind?

Twelve years ago, I wrote this about immigration policy in the book. People on all sides need to be very careful how they proceed. Posturing has consequences, and the really big problem I have with defenders of the actual establishment, Jonah, is that your guys have been doing the exact same things that you castigate Trump for doing for decades. They were just more eloquent and their fig leaves had enough surface area to cover the nasty bits. But they are just as responsible for promising things they can't deliver and frustrating the voter base as Trump has been, perhaps more so. And the fact that I wrote this in 2012, well before Trump, shows that he is not the only problem here. This supposed "responsible governance" that Godfather Republicans have been preaching for decades has never actually happened over immigration policy. They are constantly saying, "We need to govern." Well...they aren't, and they haven't been. Trump is a symptom of that failure to govern responsibly; not its cause.

"Quite simply, both political establishments have very good reasons for maintaining the status quo. The Democrats know that Hispanics vote approximately 70:30 in favor of them. Therefore it’s in their best interests to grow the Hispanic population in this country as fast as possible. Illegal immigration allows that. Even though illegal immigrants can’t themselves vote, their children born here will be U.S. citizens and can vote when they grow up. Democrats have worked long and hard to cultivate racial minorities, and any crackdown on illegal immigration would ruin their reputation, since of course they aren’t actually doing much in the way of positive help for the Hispanic community. Republican business interests, on the other hand, know that many of their businesses hire illegal immigrants because of their cheap labor. Illegal immigrants are already illegal. They do not have to be paid minimum wage. Businesses do not have to pay payroll taxes for them or comply with any other federal regulations required for legal workers. As a result, it is also in the best interests of business to get as many illegal immigrants here and working as possible. As a result we have two very strange bedfellows conspiring together to undermine the rule of law."

"The social consequences for our country if we fail to deal with this problem could not be more severe. If not dealt with, the illegal immigration problem and the chaos on the border could destroy everything recognizably unique about the American dream. Illegal immigrants looking for their promised land will only find themselves murdered and exploited by drug lords in the midst of political upheaval perpetuated by Democratic race- baiting and Republican exploitation. The sly subversion of law will allow the cartels to slowly overrun and control large portions of the United States filled with people far more loyal to their country of origin, their race or the cartels than a legitimate government or the American nation. The melting pot will be destroyed, and the United States turned into a fractious and simmering bowl of barely suppressed violence and crime. Two different kinds of citizen will exist, legal and illegal, in a country whose founding document declares all men are created equal. No one can forget what happened when we failed to deal with the slavery problem in a responsible manner. Expectations created but irrationally and unjustly withheld spell out a recipe for total political and social disaster. There is a solution to all this, but it will require a leader with the cajones to see it through. If we make the hard choices now we can solve this problem before it gets completely out of control. We have no choice. It must be done or the United States of America will rip herself in half."

Israel Should Administer Foreign Aid to Gaza

 ^This. 

Israel should tell the whole world that if they want to send any kind of aid to Gaza, they have to send it to Tel Aviv. Israel will distribute the aid into Gaza directly to the Gazans themselves. Israel can make a very strong case for being a much more reliable and honest distributor than Hamas or UNWRA. They can point to the grift and corruption that has been involved in aid distribution in addition to security concerns where aid has been used against Israel, like the water pipes Hamas turned into rockets. If anybody objects to this, Israel has the rejoinder that if they don't like it, than their other option is to accept Palestinian refugees. Israel should put hard power behind this and forcefully prevent non-authorized foreign aid from coming in. Authorized foreign aid is turned over to Israeli authorities at the border, including Gaza's border with Egypt, and becomes Israel's sole responsibility at that point. Again, if anyone doesn't like it, they don't get to send aid.

The real reason for this is to build trust and good will between the Israelis and the non-Hamas Palestinians. Palestinians will see the Israelis are not evil, and in fact are more responsible adminstrators than Hamas was. Israel will be able to ensure, at least to a greater degree, that no aid goes to bad actors. 

In general, Hamas did charity work in Gaza in order to remain in power there and keep the people behind them. They famously do not care about the well-being of Gazans, so why did they run schools, hospitals, mosques, etc.? Because Hamas understands that being the one who distributes goods to people gives you power. Israel needs to eliminate Hamas AND take their place as the power in Gaza. That means Israel needs to take control over the distribution of foreign aid there.

Test Case in Gaza

Israel appears to be following my plan for ISIS almost to the letter with the Gaza strip. My first clue was when Netanyahu stated that Israel was at war, but he emphasized that it was not other things several times. Precisely how I phrased it in my blog entry. Then I found out that Israel had distributed a map of zones within Gaza where noncombatants were supposed to go in Arabic, another thing I explicitly spelled out in my plan. One thing missing was that Israel was not announcing that they would kill anyone who stayed where they weren't supposed to. I figured, "Nah, Israel would never do that." Then tonight I saw some reporting that had gotten hold of text messages being sent to Gaza residents which read simply, "You stay. You die." Three elements of my plan laid out so closely to what I argued that it seems a bit more than a coincidence. Anyway, glad somebody with some power is listening. If I am right, then Israel is not going to massacre innocent civilians. They are simply trying to get them to move away from Hamas' defense of the strip. They'll adhere to their already high standards for not killing civilians, but they won't hesitate to do so if it becomes necessary, also spelled out in my plan. 

 

Another element of my plan was to give a timeline, which was six months. That is probably not going to happen here for several reasons. Gaza is much smaller than Syria, so it shouldn't take as much time for things to shake out there. There's the political necessity of immediate action before Israel loses global support. Then there's the imminent security threat to Israel itself that requires fast action, not to mention the hope that maybe they can save some of the hostages. But the most interesting reason is one thing that I didn't include in my plan: the cutting off of water, food, and electricity, especially the water. Gaza gets 80% of its water from Israeli sources. Cutting off that much water means several things: Israel is going to argue to anyone that they don't have any responsibility to provide anything to Hamas after what happened. But if Israel holds fire too long, Gazans will begin dying of lacking basic necessities. This will move world opinion against them and also result in foreign aid likely reaching Gaza and negating the effect. So the effect of suddenly removing access to water will be temporary. 

 

This might be a calculated measure to force the Gazans to hurry up and leave for all the aforementioned reasons. Intentional or not, cutting off that much water significantly moves up the timeline from six months any way you slice it. The question is how long. Everyone seems to think that Israel's ground offensive is imminent. I think they will wait several days. They've got to give the Gazans time to leave, but also it's to their advantage to wait until Hamas' supply problems become desperate. That also will lead to more people leaving, as Hamas is likely to monopolize supplies by force. (They've already followed my prediction of ordering Gazans to stay in place.) All this is to Israel's advantage, but they can't wait six months. I predict a week or two starting from the initial attack. That means no Israeli ground incursion until Friday or Saturday this week. By then water shortages will be severe and hopefully will have cleared out at least the combatant areas specified by Israel. 

 

There are, however, some concerning differences between Syria, where I had initially suggested this, and the Gaza strip. Gaza is far smaller, and there are far fewer places for noncombatants to go. There are only two places really, one being Israel, which for obvious reasons they cannot go. The other is Egypt, which has closed its border with Gaza and has consistently refused to accept refugees for years. So the small size of Gaza and limited options for where people can go makes this much trickier than Syria. It will still result in the same dynamic of Hamas trying to force people not to go to the designated zones. I'm quite curious to see what kind of combat power Hamas still has in Gaza, and what they will do if the messaging works and civilians actually do go to the designated areas or force their way into Egypt. There was a strike on a crossing to Egypt earlier, but Israel claimed it was against a tunnel. I suspect it may have been to eliminate Egypt's border security so Gazans can get through. If not, it should be. Israel should continue striking Egyptian border security using that as an excuse, with the real goal being to make it easier for Gazans to enter Egypt. 

 

The real problem though is going to be the population density and the fact that many Gazans intuitively don't believe they have anywhere to go, and so they simply won't leave. The other thing playing into that is Gazans are far more ideologically unified than Syrians, and not in a good way. Many, if not most of them are just as committed to Hamas' goals as Hamas is. A very large portion of Gazans may simply stay even if they believe they will die for ideological reasons. That's a problem, and the only solution would be to hold the blockade for much longer than two weeks, weathering the inevitable global outcry and also forcibly preventing foreign aid from reaching them. That's a bad option, but it might be better than going in sooner and having most of Gaza's 2.4 million residents still there. Hopefully, Gazans will be less likely to stay if they face death from thirst than an Israeli bomb or bullet. Israel may have to simply play this one by ear by monitoring how many stay versus how many leave, and how Gaza's supply situation develops. That may be why there's no countdown. Precisely when they go in will be based on those factors which aren't known yet. Timing on this will be absolutely crucial.

Who Dat?

 Finally heard somebody talking sense on Russia-Ukraine. 

This guy understands too.

Geoge P. Bush Shenanigans in Texas

A few days ago, US Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) sent a very public letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin requesting a full hearing concerning the FBI's conduct during investigations of politicians and candidates. This request is based on an internal FBI audit from 2019 that found nearly 750 rule violations during politically tinged investigations. I found the timing of Cruz's announcement significant. Those unfamiliar with what's going on in Texas politics might not. It just so happens that the Texas primaries were over on March 1st, but the runoff between the embattled incumbent Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton and George P. Bush is still to come on May 24th. Bush was propelled into the runoff by the late entry into the primary of one name pundits might recognize: US Congressman Louie Gohmert (R, TX). Gohmert and Paxton are two of the biggest Trump coattail riders in the business, so why did Gohmert choose to run against Paxton, especially so late in the election cycle that he was pretty much guaranteed to only play the role of spoiler? 

When Gohmert announced he was exploring a run, he said that he would only run if he received $1 million in funding within ten days. He received that funding, in large part because of $300,000 from one Mayes Middleton, a sitting Texas State House member who's net worth is around $2.3 million and was himself in a race of his own for a Texas State Senate seat. Shortly after Gohmert made this announcement, the previous candidate who attracted Middleton's money, another Texas State House member Matt Krause, withdrew from the race. Gohmert also received $250,000 from Krause's campaign fund. In other words, it's possible Middleton actually provided much more than $300,000 to Gohmert's campaign through Krause's campaign fund and behind the scenes requests to Krause. Krause is a conservative darling but has also expressed public support on multiple occasions for George P. Bush, including a ringing endorsement for Bush in Bush's last race for land commissioner which included Krause's own account of at least one personal discussion he has had with George P. Apparently, Krause has George P. on speed dial. Meanwhile, after leaving the race Krause immediately entered the race for a local DA's office that suddenly opened up for him after his retirement from the House. Interesting how people who do favors for the Bushes always seem to land on their feet. Why did Krause run against someone he supports wholeheartedly? The truth is Krause's only role in the race was as a spoiler. He's seen as more conservative than Bush, and so would be expected to take votes away from Paxton. Unfortunately, it didn't work, so Krause withdrew, and the Bush family of political accountants realized they needed more firepower to even get into the run-off with Paxton. Enter Louie Gohmert. Why did the maximalist Trumpian Gohmert run against a Trump endorsed candidate? 

The common theme here is Mayes Middleton's money, a man who attended the University of Texas Law school at the same time as George P. This is the same UT Law school that has endured pay-to-play scandals and accusations of favoritism when one of its regents, Wallace Hall, chose to be honest, go public, and try to reform it from a old boy credentialing business for aspiring politicians into a merit-based, real law school. A pretty reliable rule of Texas politics is the deeper you go, the more you start to doubt that anything is a coincidence. Middleton is also the man who has, according to several grassroots conservative House members, ruined the Texas State House Freedom Caucus. You know what else? Most of Middleton's personal wealth is due to his ownership of a small, independent oil business. Pretty easy for the Bush family to return the favor to Middleton once the hustle and bustle of the election cycle is over, certain in the knowledge that they have the FBI in their pocket. There will be no FBI investigation into soon-to-be Texas State Senator Mayes Middleton's finances. There will be no FBI investigation of Bush's conflict of interest when he directed Permanent School Fund investments to a business he founded. There will be no FBI investigation into Governor Greg Abbott's receiving five-figure donations from State Farm when it was involved in litigation against the State of Texas when Abbott was Attorney General. 

But, as Gohmert openly floated during the few weeks he was an actual candidate, there may be an FBI investigation into Ken Paxton getting some window trimming done on his house by a contractor who, dontcha knowit, also works for one of Paxton's former political donors on occasion. This is the same political donor, Nate Paul, whose house and business were raided by the FBI with no charges ever being filed. On the campaign trail, Gohmert sounded like a vice presidential attack dog candidate. His entire pitch was anti-Paxton. He claimed that Paxton was only running for office because he knew he was going to be indicted and he needed to stay in office to avoid going to jail. (Sound familiar?) Gohmert's only pitch in favor of himself was some absurd claim that Trump personally promised to endorse him in the race before Gohmert decided not to run. Then Trump endorsed Paxton, only to not endorse Gohmert when he changed his mind and ran anyway, and now Trump won't return Gohmert's calls or something. Gohmert also claimed that according to some Texas law, he even cited the law by its name and number, candidates cannot be removed from the ballot before the general, and so if Paxton is indicted or otherwise embroiled in an FBI investigation, we would be unable to replace him on the ballot for the general election and the Democrat would win. It was a pitch tailor made for the conservative base by professional political consultants and aimed right at Paxton. The goal of both Krause's and Gohmert's candidacy was to siphon votes away from Paxton. Krause failed due to his lack of statewide name recognition, so they turned to Gohmert, who succeeded. The final tally:

Paxton: 43%

Bush: 23%

Guzman (who announced very early and has nothing to do with this): 17%

Gohmert: 17%

This comes after many grassroots Trumpist groups enthusiastically switched their support to Gohmert because he was deemed more Trumpist than Paxton, some of whom claiming that they weren't helping Bush because Gohmert would make the runoff with Paxton. Some of them even cited Paxton's exposed affair with a staffer, as though that would make any difference to them if it were it Gohmert or the man who singlehandedly destroyed all conservative credibility on morality in politicians' personal lives, Donald Trump. Obviously, Gohmert's entry into the race forced a runoff by stealing Trumpist votes away from Paxton, benefiting Bush. Bush's team of highly paid professionals, including the FBI, can now implement their plan to make Paxton's supposed crimes front and center during the runoff where Bush is the only alternative. The Bush family machine clearly outmaneuvered the conservative grassroots here, and now Senator Cruz is being called in to help with damage control. Hence, Cruz's push for a hearing on FBI malpractice during investigations of politicians. He is sending a message to the FBI that their forthcoming politically motivated investigation into Paxton had better have all its ducks in a row or there will be consequences, as everybody knows Republicans will soon have the majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Paxton is up 59-30 in the runoff against Bush. The Bushes must feel they have Paxton dead to rights to work so hard only to get into a race with that kind of uphill climb. I may be back commenting on this again when the fireworks are over.

Now that's whack.