Texas independence provoking reaction?

The phrase Texas independence now can mean either of two things. Recently it began to stand for an overt secessionist movement, and the sentiment behind that movement. But it has always had a practical meaning of ways Texas really does act independent in certain contexts. For instance, Texas is the only State in the continental United States with its own electric grid. Recently a Texas Democrat collaborated with the infamous “Representativa AOC” to introduce a bill to abolish Texas independence in electricity. The leadership of the very real Texas Nationalist Movement called that par for the course. But Texas independence also found expression in Texas’ unilateral defense of its border with Mexico against migrant incursions. Now word comes of an Army Reserve JAG Corps drill that directly referenced current Texas leadership – as an evil junta.

Texas independence assertion on the border

Texas continues to assert its independence on the border, and has since the Supreme Court vacated an injunction against Border Patrol tampering with a physical barrier Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) put into place. Gov. Abbott has, of course, reinforced that barrier, and deployed the Texas National Guard to back it up directly. Last Friday (February 16), Gov. Abbott announced that he is building forward barracks in Eagle Pass, Texas. The worst migrant inflows were taking place at Eagle Pass, and that’s where the Border Patrol started its barrier tampering. The National Guard slowed that to a relative trickle, but this required quartering troops in people’s houses, local hotels, and in tented camps. Now the Guard has reserved 80 acres of land for a “forward operations base.” The Texas Tribune reports this will accommodate 1800 National Guard troops immediately, and perhaps 2300 later.

Laura Wellington, author of the Western Journal piece describing the new barracks, suggested Gov. Abbott might be Trump Vice-Presidential material. Three things militate against that. First, Gov. Abbott is not at all sure that Trump will win, or the Deep State will let him win. Second, Trump might prefer to keep Gov. Abbott in place and give him logistical and financial support.

A Texit study committee

Third – which Ms. Wellington didn’t mention – is that the Texas Nationalist Movement has been pushing secession since the crisis began. They want the Governor to summon the legislature into special session and pass a referendum to create a Texas Independence Study Committee.

Twice a sympathetic Texas House member has introduced a “Texit Bill” during regular session. Each time, unsympathetic Texas State Affairs Committee chairmen and House leaders “chubbed” it. (To chub, named after a local fish, is to delay a measure to death by whatever dilatory procedures are available.)

But times are changing. Rep. Dade Phelan (RINO-Orange and Jasper Cos.), Speaker of the House, has been a bitter enemy of TNM. Recently he drew censure for:

• Appointing Democrats as chairmen of key committees, and:
• The impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

According to The Texas Tribune, he is subject to primary challenge for the first time in his career. Every Texas government leader except Gov. Abbott has called for his retirement into private life.

General Paxton, for his part, now says publicly that the Texas Annexation of 1845 would never have happened, had Sam Houston known that relations between Texas and the federal government would come to the present pass. Newsweek covered his remarks, and the vituperative retort from American Bridge 21^st Century, a hard-left super-PAC.

Abuse of office, election conspiracies, and now talk of secession—Ken Paxton is a dangerous manipulator of the law who is more focused on his personal and vengeful politics than he is on defending Texans.

A search on recent posts on “immigration” at the American Bridge site indicates they prefer more immigration rather than less.

Benefits of Texas independence

Newsweek recently pointed out that Texas would have legal title to NASA’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Space Center in Houston. That’s only one of several NASA assets Texas could seize. Add the assets of SpaceX – which recently reincorporated in Texas – and Texas could have its own national space program. Dan Miller, head of TNM, knows this.

Texas has its own electric grid, and already manages that independently. But it has problems. Three years ago, bad planning – and possibly some misguided federal subsidies – brought about the Texas Deep Freeze of 2021. After that, four members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas – who did not even live in Texas – resigned. Now one company is building a natural gas power plant to replace – exactly – the coal-fired plant that shut down six years ago.

The U.S. Army Reserve war-games Texas as the enemy

But yesterday afternoon (February 18), at 1:00 p.m. EST, came a report from The Gateway Pundit about a legal-eagle exercise. This was no ordinary exercise – because it included a scenario involving JAG (Judge Advocate General’s Corps) officers and “legal office departments” (LODs) dealing directly with the Texas border issue.

This exercise, an Internet simulation using Microsoft Teams groupware, took place on Saturday, February 3. Jim Hoft provided this transcript from an anonymous tipster who took part in the drill. It involved a “fact pattern” the specified nationalization of the Texas National Guard by the Biden administration. Furthermore, it named Gov. Abbott as the “bad guy” in the scenario, holding him personally responsible for:

• Drowning of migrants in the Rio Grande (as alleged in Supreme Court briefs before they vacated that injunction), and
• The spectacle of a Texas National Guard effective shooting migrants in the river while bellowing “America First!”

The MOFWTS, or MEFWTS (Military Officer/Enlisted Familiar With the Situation), decried the violations of several rules in this scenario.

Army drills, per training standards, are to be fictional, a-political scenarios involving fictional countries/enemies and people. American citizens are never mentioned in these scenarios. In this case all these rules were broken.

Worse:

Looking on-line at the Trump Campaign site, under the topic of the “MAGA Movement,” “America First” is clearly embedded as language used in Trump’s campaign materials.

The fact that campaign material is inserted into a biased, derogatory fact pattern handed to Soldiers is a blatant and criminal Hatch Act violation.

Under the Hatch Act and the DoD Directive on point, Soldiers and Pentagon personnel are absolutely prohibited from using campaign materials in official spaces in any way, shape or form.

This scenario, sent down last minute by some un-hinged novice/lunatic in the Pentagon for training violated all the rules and was a criminal act as it violated Hatch Act prohibitions.

It is probably worth mentioning that one of the five LODs participating apparently refused to participate and dropped off the Teams call as it progressed.

That characterization is probably more accurate than that MOFWTS/MEFWTS knows. Here is the image of the scenario, as The Gateway Pundit received it:

It is the image of a fictional sworn statement that a JAG officer might have to handle. Here is the transcript:

I started my shift like any other day, not knowing the horrific terrors that were about to occur. It was the final day of working for the ICE Department, and I had recently just bought a boat and was daydreaming about the coming years of what new adventures I was going to embark on.

I had a haunting suspension that my co-workers were going to be planning a surprise going away party for me. As I sat on my patrol car facing the hot Mexican vistas, I saw a family cresting the river’s edge. It consisted of a middle-aged man, woman, and girl (no older that ten years old).

Then I saw an individual approach from behind the rear of my vehicle. It was a male and looked like he was in his twenties. He was carrying something with his left hand and near his side. I feared the worst.

As I began calling in on my radio the situation, that’s when I my realization came to life. The man from the back yelled “America First” and a filthy expletive and then began firing on the family coming from Mexico.

This wasn’t anything that I wanted to see, especially on the last day of work. I jumped out of my patrol car and yelled for him to stop. When he saw me with my handgun drawn, he dropped the weapon. I approached him and handcuffed him. But then when I heard the gentleman begin yelling for help. My teammates came as fast as they could and helped the family. I read the [suspect] his rights.

Who writes a sworn statement like that, knowing it will form part of an official report? Your editor has filed several affidavits, and none lend themselves to the kind of histrionics this statement features.

What does the Texas Nationalist Movement have to say?

The TNM has not yet responded to this report. Perhaps Mr. Miller and his colleagues haven’t had time to digest it. But it strongly suggests that the federal government intends a show of force against Texas for its border-security measures. That’s worse than ironic – for as TNM does note, this country is under invasion from an army of Chinese irregulars.

So starting work on permanent barracks is the smartest thing Gov. Abbott has done so far. But he might want to consider calling that special session for a Texas Independence referendum bill. Whether he knows about this war game is far from clear. What is clear is that putting such a referendum on the ballot for this fall’s election is definitely in order. Furthermore, the people of Texas need to know about that JAC Corps/LOD Army Reserve exercise.

On Saturday, TNM released a new Texas Independence campaign jingle.

Winning Texas independence will take more than a jingle. But Newsweek is talking about what Texas independence could mean, as if it could happen. As they have been doing since the border crisis began:

That’s an interesting sign in and of itself. Clearly all eyes are on Texas – for good or for ill.