Monday, April 18, 2022

The Week That Was

How did we get here?

"What would you say to your critics who say that the policy that you put forward last week was a publicity stunt that blew up in your face?" he asked.

Abbott replied that his "goal" was to show people "the consequences of an open border."

By closing it?

In the Rio Grande Valley, no commercial vehicles have crossed the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, typically the busiest commercial crossing in the Valley, all week after truckers on the Mexico side on Monday began blocking north- and southbound lanes in protest of the new inspections. The inspections quickly led to widespread delays for cross-border trade after Abbott announced the program last week.

"Texas isn't going to tolerate it anymore!" Abbott said.

Abbott later bragged about Texas being the top state in America for business and dismissed the concerns of people "who may have suffered some hardship because it took a few extra hours to get something across the port."

A "few extra hours"? Not what I heard:

Mexican truckers in Reynosa, south of McAllen, and Ciudad Juárez earlier this week created blockades preventing cargo from coming into the United States as a protest against Abbott’s added inspections. Some truckers reported having to sleep overnight in their 18-wheelers because the state inspections were holding up lines, they said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which already conducts commercial inspections, has called the state inspections “unnecessary.” 

Even the GOP Texas Agriculture Commissioner (an elected office, not an Abbott appointee) thinks Abbott is an idiot:

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called on Gov. Greg Abbott to halt his recent policy of additional commercial inspections at the border, calling the measure “political theater” and predicting it will leave grocery store shelves empty within weeks.
...
“Your inspection protocol is not stopping illegal immigration,” Miller said in his letter. “It is stopping food from getting to grocery store shelves and in many cases causing food to rot in trucks — many of which are owned by Texas and other American companies. … The people of Texas deserve better!” 

Abbott has agreed to replace state inspections with some Mexican state inspections because....better? 

As part of the deal, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers will stop inspecting every commercial truck on the Laredo-Colombia bridge as long as Nuevo León has checkpoints on its side of the Mexican state's 9-mile-long border with Texas. The state inspections will continue for trucks coming from the other three Mexican states that border Texas.

It won't take long until deliveries grind to a halt, or are delayed because they have to come through New Mexico.  Either way raises prices and reduces supply; which Beto will happily blame on Abbott.

Update: it didn’t take long at all.

And then the week ended.

Two days after that reporter asked Abbott to his face: “How did you fuck up this badly?” Coincidence? I think not.

And just because he ended it doesn’t mean it’s over:

Our man on their side.  Keep it up, Greg!  You're doin' great!


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