Via Ed Kilgore, I learned this today:
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed “Jade Helm 15” amid Internet-fueled suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover.
The request comes a day after more than 200 people packed a meeting in rural Bastrop County and questioned a U.S. Army commander about whether the government was planning to confiscate guns or implement martial law. Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said “conspiracy theorists” and “fear mongers” had been in a frenzy.
(from the AP)
(See also Eyesbright's diary on this
earlier.)
Paraphrasing the now immortal words of Barney Frank: On what planet do they spend most of their time? I guess the planet of Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the NRA, Breitbart, et al. where, as Kilgore notes:
they keep telling people the purpose of the Second Amendment is to let them stockpile guns in case they need to resist “tyranny,” even as you are describing the president of the United States as a would-be tyrant leading an administration that is systematically robbing people of freedom and conspiring with “looters” and “moochers” to repeal the Constitution.
In other Texas News today, Hunter informs us that Rep. Bill Flores managed to link
gay marriage to the Baltimore Riots.
Look, I'm just an elitist, coastal, urban member of the Democrat Party and I suppose I just don't understand "gun culture." I may have even entertained thoughts at times that some people in Texas "bitterly cling" to guns and religion.
But a Governor sending the National Guard to "monitor" a Federal military exercise?
Peak wingnut will never be reached.