Texas goes to war

The State of Texas, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and its own, is now at war. For the moment, it is at war with a loose coalition of drug cartels, human traffickers, and “people smugglers.” In fact Texas needs to act more aggressively in that war than it is now acting, especially against direct traitors. But with a few improvements in its infrastructure, Texas could actually go to war for its own independence.

Current state of the War of Texas Against the Latin-American Irregulars

Those whose sympathies lie with illegal immigrants – and likely consume the drugs the cartels bring in – don’t want to call this a war. Because if they do, they immediately support the rationale Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) has at last embraced.

No State shall, without the consent of Congress,… engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. Article I Section 10 Clause 3, relevant part

Gov. Abbott actually declared this invasion nearly a year ago, in November of 2022. But until today he took only limited measures to repel that “invasion.” At one point he strung razor wire along the Northern Rio Grande Valley, with the consent of some who owned land abutting the riverbank. Elements of the U.S. Border Patrol cut the wires to admit a relative handful of migrants. That incident got very little publicity, and officials gave every indication of wanting to handle the matter privately and quietly.

Two days ago, things escalated. Abbott ordered the stringing of more razor wire south of Eagle Pass, Texas. Eagle Pass is also where Abbott has strung ballards interspersed with metal disks with serrated edges, along the centerline of the Rio Grande. Those ballards (buoys) are now the subject of a lawsuit and an injunction to remove them.

A correspondent for the Center for Immigration Studies interviewed a sympathetic Border Patrol agent. This agent described how well-prepared these migrants seem to be:

Let the tanks roll

So Abbott’s troopers strung the razor wire – and the Border Patrol cut it away wholesale.

After that, Abbott ordered the Texas National Guard into action. They have replaced the razor wire (with a double portion!), and are deploying tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Elon Musk gave kudos to Gov. Abbott for doing what he’s doing:

They did this after news outlets documented a large flow of migrants walking into Eagle Pass with apparent absolute impunity.

How effective the tanks and APCs have been, is not yet clear.

A cartel colony in the heart of Texas? WTF?

But a certain real-estate developer is actually granting direct loans to as many as 200,000 illegal immigrants to built a city north of Houston! Colony Ridge, Texas, in Liberty County, is the brainchild of William Harris III, known as “Trey” from his suffix. (Whether he bears any relation to John Richardson Harris, of whom Harris County is the namesake, is not clear.) Harris likely is charging as much as 15 percent annual interest on these loans, which makes him a predatory lender. It could also mean that he hopes to wangle a bailout for himself or his borrowers from a sympathetic Congress.

Daily Wire correspondent Spencer Lindquist took video of what Colony Ridge looks like today:

Mr. Harris and his friends tried to refute the claims. Let the reader judge how convincing they were. More to the point they said a sitting governor had no authority over their development. If that’s true, that’s a boast they might soon wish they’d never made.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), speaking directly about the Colony Ridge development, said he would “end this.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Texas) vowed to ask Gov. Abbott to call a special session of the Legislature to investigate Colony Ridge.

Last night Gov. Abbott flatly accused President Joe Biden of interfering with his efforts to control the Texas-Mexican border.

That “interference” includes the latest razor-wire cutting incident, and presumably the lawsuit against the river ballards.

What do the secessionists have to say?

Thus far the Texas Nationalist Movement has said nothing about the current state of the war. But they said plenty after Attorney General Ken Paxton won acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial. (And also after House Speaker Dade Phelan lamented that acquittal, calling it a miscarriage of justice.) TNM suggested Phelan’s shepherding of twenty Articles of Impeachment through the State House bespoke

a level of dysfunction and antagonism toward the Texas people that we at the Texas Nationalist Movement have been sounding the alarm on for years, especially in our relentless push for TEXIT.

They are calling for the “primarying” of every Republican in the State House who voted to impeach, and of the two Republican Senators who voted to convict.

But the Paxton affair is not a specific grievance Texans might have with the federal government. The border crisis is. Another grievance might be the question of whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is deliberately forestalling a second test flight of Elon Musk’s super-heavy-lifting rocket ship, “Starship.” Elon Musk himself has made no complaint (yet) about federal officials being les friendly than State officials. But he did build his proving ground near Boca Chica, Texas, to avoid hassles from testing rockets at Cape Canaveral. As such this is a Texas space program, and perhaps TNM should look into advocating for it.

An infrastructure problem

Aside from Elon Musk’s SpaceX operations at Boca Chica, he moved Tesla’s main offices to Texas. He also built one of the largest automobile factories in the world in Travis County, outside Austin. More recently, he built a “big battery” near Angleton, a year after Texas suffered widespread blackouts from a “deep freeze.”

But this last illustrates a serious and pervasive infrastructure problem. Texas has its own electrical grid that covers most of the State. Only the eastern lands, the El Paso corner, and the northwestern half of the Panhandle are on non-Texas grids. The Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is supposed to manage the grid. In February 2021 came the Deep Freeze. This summer came a dead-flat calm that idled T. Boone Pickens’ big wind farm. This is the second time that wind farm has gone idle and created blackouts throughout the State.

And those blackouts kill – and this last part struck close to home for CNAV. Your editor’s father lost his life refueling a portable gasoline powered generator he installed on account of this summer’s blackouts. The resulting fire, in addition to killing him and one of his dogs, destroyed the house and all its contents.His widow and their other dog literally escaped with nothing but the clothes (or fur) on their backs. Station KXAS-TV (Channel 5, NBC, Dallas-Fort Worth) has some of the details, after the first responders of Plano, site of the tragedy, raised money for the widow and the surviving pet.

Things Texas should start doing

After the Deep Freeze, four ERCOT members, none of whom even lived in Texas, resigned. Maybe it’s time for more resignations – and a re-examination of policies that emphasize feel-good environmentalism over common sense. Whoever manages that grid, needs to put it on a fully independent footing. They then should extend it to all parts of the State it does not already cover.

Dan Miller of TNM is right: Texans should throw out anyone who does not have the best interests of their State at heart. That might include Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-8th), who took three “maximum donations” from Trey Harris, developer of Colony Ridge. Gov. Abbott needs to shut down that development, using the same war powers he should have after declaring an invasion. Building a six-figure-population city for drug cartels, their mules, and God knows whom else, is tantamount to treason. (And nothing to boast about!)

Abbott has spoken of Texas building its own wall. He should start now and not wait sixteen months for an election and an Inauguration. Apart from the immigration issue, Tim (Sound of Freedom) Ballard tells us that physical barriers make human trafficking more difficult. (If Tim Ballard doesn’t become a Senator from Utah, maybe he could try to “primary” John Cornyn in 2026. Or else he could become Commandant of the State Guard and run the border garrison.)

Texas needs to do more, to prosecute the war against the cartels, and to prepare to fight for independence, should that become necessary.