Bringing up the immigration status of innocent shooting victims with Gov. Greg Abbott

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

After repeatedly trafficking in racist comparisons of border crossers to “invaders,” Gov. Greg Abbott is now under fire for identifying the victims of last week’s mass shooting in Cleveland, Texas, as “illegal immigrants.”

On Friday, an intoxicated man shot and killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, after his neighbors dared ask him to stop firing off an assault rifle while a baby was trying to sleep.

In a subsequent statement, Texas’ Republican governor offered condolences to the families, but not before identifying the innocent victims as “illegal immigrants.” He also announced a $50,000 reward for the suspect, who remains at large at press time.

“Five human beings lost their lives and Greg Abbott insists on labeling them ‘illegal immigrants,’” former Mayor Julián Castro tweeted in response.

Meanwhile, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) blasted the governor’s statement as “dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

The ILRC added: “The victims here were your neighbors. They were your friends. They were your colleagues.”

What’s more, several Twitter users shared evidence suggesting that at least one of the victims may have been a permanent U.S. resident.

In reality, no one should be surprised to see Abbott react with such callous disregard.

After all, this is the same assclown who lied during a 2021 San Antonio press conference that migrants were causing “carnage” at the border, adding that “people are being threatened with guns daily.” He offered no supporting data for either claim because there was none.

This is also the same assclown who, during the heat of last year’s election campaign, repeatedly invoked “invasion” rhetoric similar to that in a fundraising letter he sent out a day before the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting that left 23 people dead. Before that rampage, the shooter posted a hate-filled screed about striking back against immigrant invaders.

There’s no reason to expect an authentic display of empathy from Abbott, a leader who’s repeatedly shown his willingness to grovel for the votes of white supremacists and those in the throes of anti-immigrant hysteria. — Sanford

Nowlin

Two of the eight defendants sued for allegedly harassing and intimidating a Joe Biden campaign bus driving north out of San Antonio during the buildup to the 2020 presidential election have agreed to settle. Former state Sen. Wendy Davis and three others traveling on the Biden bus brought the lawsuit two years ago, arguing that the Donald Trump supporters who penned in the bus with their vehicles and slowed it almost to a stop violated Texas and federal law. The case against the six other defendants is scheduled to go to trial next April.

Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia is calling for an investigation into the closure of Texas Vista Medical Center, the South Side’s primary hospital. Steward Health Care, the hospital’s owner, has said it’s closing the facility because of the cost of operating in an area where many patients can’t pay for their care. But in a secret audio recording from a March leadership meeting, hospital CEO Jon Turton said Steward is “trying to get out of lease obligations.”

The federal government last week temporarily blocked Elon Musk’s SpaceX from launching another rocket after the last exploded and rained particulate matter on South Texas Environmentalists and activists have repeatedly raised concerns about the effect of SpaceX’s operations. The company now must coordinate with state and federal agencies to analyze the impact of its latest launch and come up with environmental mitigations efforts.— Abe Asher