Ass Clown Special Award

Well, it didn't take long for me to see the need for the first out-of-cycle ass clown special award of the year. This is not a good sign.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, I hereby present 2024's first

Ass Clown Special Award

to

Texas Governor Greg Abbott

Mr Abbott, a three-time Ass Clown awardee*, leaped back into the front ranks of ass clownery last week as a result of his heartless and brutal treatment of illegal immigrants arriving at the Texas border.

Last July, Mr Abbott directed deployment of a floating barricade of buoys wrapped in razor wire in the Rio Grande River to deter migrants from crossing. Since then, he deployed the Texas national guard to help secure the border, and last Friday his guardsmen physically prevented US Border Patrol personnel from assisting a woman and her two children, who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande. He has also continued his practice of sending busloads of migrants to northern cities where they arrive completely unprepared for the brutal arctic temperatures. Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker asked Mr Abbot to 

“... while winter is threatening vulnerable people’s lives, suspend your transports and do not send more people to our state. Your callousness, sending buses and planes full of migrants in this weather, is now life-threatening to every one of the arrivals. Hundreds of children’s and families’ health and survival are at risk due to your actions.”

Rather than taking this action to save the lives of vulnerable migrants, Mr Abbot has continued to ship large numbers of people to northern cities now in the grip of frigid winter temperatures, and has blamed all attendant deaths and other problems on President Biden for not securing the border - which Congress has for years, under both parties, failed to take appropriate legislative action to do.

Make no mistake: there is, indeed, a migrant crisis at the southern border, and the border states have so far borne the brunt of dealing with it. However, simply loading people on buses and dropping them off unannounced at random cities in the dead of winter is not the answer. While it is easy to blame the President for the crisis, the simple fact is that Congress has for years ... indeed, for decades, refused for reasons of political expediency to update our immigration and asylum laws in ways that would help mitigate the crisis**. No one's hands are clean, but the shamelessly inhumane actions of Mr Abbott and his supporters has exacerbated the crisis and placed thousands of lives in danger.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the first Ass Clown Special Award for 2024 is presented to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a man who - quite literally - has blood on his hands.

Have a good day. Encourage your senators and your representative to stop acting like petulant children and fix the immigration laws. 

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* September 2021 Right-Cheek (joint award shared with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis); December 2022 On-Crack; and 2022 Ass Clown of the Year.

** You may recall that I have actually proposed what I believe is a workable plan. I've published it here many times over the years, most recently in May of last year, and I have sent copies of it to every President since George W. Bush and all of my senators and representatives during that time. If a cranky old retired guy can come up with a plan, why can't Congress?