"This is a time when all evil people should unite"
Israel is under attack, so OF COURSE Texas Republicans should be making nice with Nazis...RIGHT???
“I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so."
"It may be Nature's provision for maintaining the balance of the species, sir.”
Wodehouse
I lived in Texas long enough (3722 days, not that I was counting) to lose my ability to be surprised about anything Republicans in Austin decided to do. There are few things screwier in this world than a cabal of Texas Republicans in a windowless room. Lord only knows what half-assed ideas will emerge and what they will have decided to inflict on the good, God-fearing citizens of the Lone Star State.
The old saw that holds there are two things one should never witness being made- sausage and legislation- is particularly true in Texas. Republicans are prone to pulling some dumbass stunts, but few top what led to House Speaker Dade Phelan and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick getting into a public pissing match.
FORT WORTH — Jonathan Stickland, the ultraconservative leader of a group that has donated millions of dollars to high-profile Texas leaders, hosted prominent white supremacist Nick Fuentes and other right-wing activists for several hours on Friday.
Acting on a tip, a Texas Tribune reporter and photographer observed Fuentes and others — including Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of homicide after killing two Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020 — enter a one-story office building in a remote business park just west of Fort Worth, Tarrant County. The building is the headquarters for Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm for right-wing candidates that is owned by Stickland. Fuentes arrived around 11 a.m. and left just after 5:30 p.m.
Of course, one could reasonably ask, WTF could a self-professed neo-Nazi like Nick Fuentes be doing in Texas along with Matt Rinaldi, the chairman of the Texas GOP?
And there would, of course, be no good answer…because none exists.
Matt Rinaldi, the chair of the Republican Party of Texas and an ally of Stickland, was also seen entering the building while Fuentes was inside. Reached by phone on Sunday, Rinaldi denied that he had any knowledge that Fuentes was on the premises, and provided screenshots of text messages from Friday morning in which he rescheduled a meeting for 1:45 p.m. at the Pale Horse office with Texas GOP Executive Director Jen Hall.
“We were just borrowing a conference room,” said Rinaldi, who arrived at the office just before 1:45 p.m. and left 45 minutes later.
Sure, that tracks. There wasn’t one available in, say, a hotel? Or perhaps a business or coffee shop that might have attracted less suspicion or attention from the media?
Or perhaps the Nazi Party of Texas headquarters?
When questioned by the Tribune, Rinaldi did say, “I completely condemn that guy and everything he stands for. I would never in a million years meet with that guy.”
And yet he was in the building at the same time Nick Fuentes happened to be there….
“Well, ya see…what happened was I was only there to light the guy’s cigar…and polish his helmet….”
AND Kyle Rittenhouse, the “acquitted” murderer and the GOP’s 2nd Amendment poster boy whom no college or university will touch. Oddly enough, no institution of higher learning wants its image sullied by being associated with someone who’s killed two innocent people.
Go figure….
Nick Fuentes, while not a murderer, certainly isn’t the type of person you’d bring home to meet the parents. An unapologetic Nazi and Christian Nationalist, he also believes women should be the property of men…which probably explains why he’s still single.
Ah, but I digress….
Fuentes is easy enough to disavow, but Republicans can’t seem to extend their disgust to their colleagues who willingly meet with this known Nazi. Rinaldi refused to “make assumptions” about Stickland or Pale Horse.
Stickland is also the head of Defend Texas Liberty, a far-right political action committee that donates millions to Texas Republicans, including Dan Patrick who accepted a $3 million contribution from the group during Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial. Phelan, who’s not a fan of the group, demanded that elected officials return “every single cent” they’d received from Defend Texas Liberty in support of Paxton. Phelan, who’s almost respectable, tried to hold Paxton accountable for his many and obvious alleged crimes and has condemned the equally corrupt Senate Republicans who acquitted [Texas Attorney General Ken] Paxton.
Phelan said Monday, “There is no excuse to keep tainted funds from an organization that provides a platform for hatemongers, sexual predators, racists and Nazi sympathizers.” He noted the awkward and repulsive timing of meeting with Fuentes “when we are witnessing heinous attacks on our Israeli allies by Hamas terrorists — the most egregious assault on Jewish lives since the Holocaust.”
This apparently shocked and appalled Patrick, who accused Phelan of politicizing the “atrocities in Israel” for his own “political gain” — again, that’s politicizing the “atrocities in Israel” by saying Republicans shouldn’t meet with Nazis.
Dan Patrick: “I am shocked, SHOCKED that gambling is happening here….
Ugarte: You despise me, don't you?
Rick: If I gave you any thought, I probably would.
Ugarte: But why? Oh, you object to the kind of business I do, huh? But think of all those poor refugees who must rot in this place if I didn't help them. Well, that's not so bad. Through ways of my.…
Rick: For a price, Ugarte. For a price.
Ugarte: But think of all the poor devils who can't meet Renault's price. I get it for them for half. Is that so parasitic?
Rick: I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one. (Wikiquote)
Of course, these folks are falling over themselves to publicly disassociate themselves from Nick Fuentes (agh…he’s Satan Incarnate!!) even as they privately try to access his contacts and the money they bring.
Lt. Gov. Patrick, a man whose ethical and moral standards are so low you’d need a shovel and a divining rod to find them, saw fit to condemn Speaker Phelan for somehow using the war in Israel for his political benefit. Right, like using what some have called “Israel’s 9/11” for political gain would fly…even in Texas.
“I didn’t think even Dade Phelan would stoop this low,” Patrick declared in a statement. “He has now absolutely hit rock bottom. His latest political stunt is disgusting, despicable, and disingenuous. With nearly 1,000 dead and over a hundred kidnapped, anyone who would use the war in Israel for their own political purposes is revolting, repulsive, and repugnant.”
Patrick demanded that Phelan resign in disgrace. He disavowed Fuentes, claiming his “antisemitic rhetoric” has “no place in the United States.” Yeah, OK, but Pale Horse headquarters is a place in the United States.
Like in Fort Worth, TX, to be specific.
Anyway, if you’re looking for some good news to ooze out of this repulsive morass, it would appear that Texas Republicans are in the midst of a full-on schism. It’s a verbal not-so-civil war between the too-fucking-crazy-let’s-burn-it-all-to-the-ground on the WAY Far-Right and the moderate but still extremely fucking crazy Conservative wing of the Texas GOP.
Both [Strickland and Rinaldi] are former state representatives who have attacked members of their own party, like U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan as insufficiently conservative
And both have been bankrolled by a trio of West Texas oil billionaires — Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks — who have given more than $100 million to a network of campaigns, nonprofits, dark money groups and media companies to push their ultraconservative religious and anti-LGBTQ+ views and oust fellow Republicans from power.
Stickland is also the president of Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee funded by Dunn and Farris Wilks that is a major donor to Attorney General Ken Paxton as well as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who received $3 million in loans and donations from Defend Texas Liberty before presiding over Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Texas Senate.
There are many reasons I miss Texas politics- the entertainment factor being #1 with a bullet. There are few places where you can watch certifiably crazy (and dangerously powerful) people have a greater potential for screwing up people’s lives than the Texas Legislature.
It’s funny…until it’s not.
I’m not saying that’s a good thing, just that it’s high in entertainment and comedic value. As legislation and impact on the lives of Texans, it sucks donkey balls…but Texans elect these assclowns, so they have precisely the quality of leadership they deserve.
It’s difficult to imagine their standards could be so abysmally low, but there you have it.
Once upon a time, Texas’ tourism slogan was something like, “Texas: It’s a whole other country.” (Who knew it was The People’s Republica of Dipshittia.)
Nothing could have more accurately described the Lone Star State, which is little more than an insane asylum with copperheads, rattlesnakes, and water moccasins. And the occasional javelina.
OMG, do I NOT miss Texas….
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The Casablanca exchange is one of my favorites, not only in that film but ever.
In both Italy and Germany, the traditional conservatives believed they could control and use the fascists in order to soundly defeat the (at the time) badly divided political left. The result, of course, was that the fascists swallowed both nations whole. It would appear that in our case, the neo-fascists failed to achieve hegemonic power before the honeymoon period ended.
Nutshell passage: "...it would appear that Texas Republicans are in the midst of a full-on schism. It’s a verbal not-so-civil war between the too-fucking-crazy-let’s-burn-it-all-to-the-ground on the WAY Far-Right and the moderate but still extremely fucking crazy Conservative wing of the Texas GOP." Yep, that's it, that's the Texas Republican Party, you nailed it. And we rational Texans are sadly the worse for it being correct.