Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Last Call For Time For Some Traffic Problems On The Border

Former GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's infamous "Time for some traffic problems" in Fort Lee email kicked off the Bridgegate scandal in 2014. Now 8 years later, GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is doing the same thing with all truck traffic entering the country through the state from Mexico, in an effort to cause massive problems for Joe Biden and for America.

 

A new Texas policy to have state officials inspect every truck entering from Mexico has prompted a massive protest among drivers, backing up cargo for miles and leaving loads of fruit, vegetables and other material sitting idle for days.

Freight operators are panicking about the ramifications of the delays, as much of the United States’ produce this time of year is imported from Mexico. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) last week said the “enhanced safety inspections” of all commercial vehicles were necessary because he alleged federal officials were not stopping drugs and criminals from entering the United States. Now, trucking officials say, little is entering the country at all.

“This isn’t a regional issue, or that the city of Laredo is not getting their produce at grocery stores,” said John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association. “We are seeing delays that will be felt across the country. There are a half a dozen divisions of trucking [affected]. There’s the refrigerated segment of trucking, there’s household goods, forestry, fuel tankers, commodities for trade goods — this is about General Motors, Ford and everything coming out of Mexico, our trade partner.”

Strawberries, asparagus, avocados, tomatoes and other spring favorites are sitting in lines of refrigerated trucks many miles long as growers and shippers scramble to reroute and grocers hustle to find products from elsewhere to avoid empty shelves.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Abbott’s “unnecessary and redundant” inspections of trucks at ports of entry between Texas and Mexico have disrupted food and automobile supply chains, delayed manufacturing, impacted jobs and further raised prices for American families. She said trucks are facing lengthy delays exceeding 5 hours at some border crossings and commercial traffic has dropped by as much as 60 percent.


“The continuous flow of legitimate trade and travel and Customs and Border Protection’s ability to do its job should not be obstructed,” Psaki said. “Governor Abbott’s actions are impacting people’s jobs and the livelihoods of hardworking American families.”

Abbott last week moved to impose the new border restrictions, alleging that the Biden administration had “open-border policies” that “paved the way for dangerous cartels and deadly drugs to pour into the United States.”

He said Texas “will immediately begin taking unprecedented action to do what no state has done in American history to secure our border,” which means each truck will be inspected by the Texas Department of Public Safety for human trafficking, weapons, drugs and other contraband.

The governor’s plan to have state officials scrutinize each truck means that up to 80 percent of perishable fruits and vegetables have been unable to cross since Friday, said Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.

This is causing losses of millions of dollars a day for employers and employees who have been idled, he said, with customers unable to load product from their Texas suppliers. It also means transportation shortages are increasing as available trucks are stuck waiting in line to cross the border, all of which will continue to drive up the price of produce at American grocery stores.
“These trucks are already inspected by Customs and Border Protection — scanned and X-rayed and drug-dog sniffed,” Jungmeyer said. “These new inspections are redundant. At numerous ports of entry, Laredo, Pharr, Eagle Pass and others, Mexican drivers are starting to protest.”

Abbott’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The line for trucks to cross at the Pharr bridge has been reported at up to 7 or 8 miles long, said Rod Sbragia, vice chair of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas and director of sales and marketing for Tricar Sales, a grower and shipper of Mexican produce. He said somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 trucks stand nose to tail waiting for entry. Refrigerated trucks, he said, have about six or seven days of fuel to run their refrigeration units. After that, spoilage is certain.
 
Which of course is the point. Abbott and the GOP are gleefully causing supply chain disruptions, empty shelves, and higher food costs for stores and restaurants, not to mention parts shipments for cars and trucks, clothing, and everything else. He's deliberately hurting truckers and shipping companies in an effort to drive them out of business, too.

Greg Abbott is going to try to seriously damage the economy, and then blame Biden for it. Given the flap over gas prices and inflation in general, Abbott's going to get away with it, too.

Republicans hate America so much that they are deliberately hurting millions of people in order to cause political harm to the Democrats, and they don't care how many suffer in their wake.


Case in point. Texas’ safety troopers have removed 646 trucks from service out of 2,685 inspected so far. But not because they found dangerous drugs or humans hidden in compartments or among the goods being hauled from Mexico.

Nope. The taxpayer-funded troopers instead are taking trucks out of service for violations that include “burned-out headlights or taillights, defective brakes or flawed tires,” according to The Wall Street Journal and other media reports.

Abbott, who’s made drug and immigration crackdowns top issues of his reelection campaign, has said that “cartels use vehicles, many of them dangerous commercial trucks, to smuggle immigrants, deadly fentanyl and other illegal cargo into Texas.”

That may be the case. But are Abbott and his people dumb enough to think the cartels would actually continue to use commercial trucks after he made a huge public circus out of his operation?

The governor and his people are, of course, mum now about the fact that their inspections have produced no drugs nor humans being smuggled into the country inside those trucks.
 
If these inspections were actually about completing Abbott's stated goal of "finding human trafficking or illegal drugs" then we'd be hearing it all over the news. Instead, Abbott is doing this all for show, with the added benefit of causing food shortages and inflation hikes on Mexican produce and food imported. Texans will be hurt first.

We'll see how long this keeps up.

Private (Slush Fund) Benjamin

As I said earlier today, there are some Democrats that are corrupt, but not the entire party like the GOP. Unfortunately, the bad Democrats that are absolutely corrupt are real doozies.

Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin of New York resigned on Tuesday, hours after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment implicating him in a brazen scheme to enrich his political campaigns with illegal donations.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who selected Mr. Benjamin to be her lieutenant governor less than a year ago, announced that he was stepping down immediately “while the legal process plays out.”

“It is clear to both of us that he cannot continue to serve as lieutenant governor,” she wrote in a statement Tuesday evening.

The five-count indictment charging Mr. Benjamin said that while he was a state senator, he had conspired to direct $50,000 in state funds to a Harlem real estate developer’s charity. In exchange, the developer gathered thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to Mr. Benjamin’s 2020 Senate campaign and his unsuccessful 2021 bid for New York City comptroller, the indictment said.

Mr. Benjamin, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, was also accused of offering to help the developer, Gerald Migdol, obtain a zoning variance if he made a $15,000 donation to a separate fund for State Senate Democrats. The developer was arrested on federal charges in November and pleaded not guilty at the time.

“This is a simple story of corruption,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference before Mr. Benjamin’s resignation. “Taxpayer money for campaign contributions. A quid pro quo. This for that. That’s bribery, plain and simple.”

The resignation of Mr. Benjamin could prove to be a serious political liability for Ms. Hochul, who took office last year after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in disgrace. Although she was not implicated in any of the allegations against Mr. Benjamin, the indictment of her handpicked No. 2 threatened to undercut Ms. Hochul’s vow to turn the page on an era of scandal in Albany.

The indictment — the result of an investigation by federal prosecutors, the F.B.I. and New York City’s Department of Investigation — accuses Mr. Benjamin of engaging in a “series of lies and deceptions to cover up the scheme,” including falsifying campaign donation forms, misleading city authorities and giving false information as part of a background check to become lieutenant governor last year.

Mr. Benjamin entered his not guilty plea at a brief appearance in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, and was released on a $250,000 bond under terms that require him to get special permission to travel to Albany. He left the courthouse without comment.

Ms. Hochul can select a new lieutenant governor in the coming weeks, but it will be far more difficult to replace Mr. Benjamin on the Democratic primary ballot in June. Because he was designated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, election rules stipulate that his name can only be removed at this point if he were to move out of the state, die or seek another office.

Mr. Benjamin said last week that he had been cooperating with investigators, after news outlets, including The New York Times, reported details of the investigation. Accompanied by his lawyers, he met with prosecutors last week, according to a person who was briefed on the meeting and not authorized to discuss it, and his top aides were privately reassuring allies that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing.
 
So there's a really good chance that Benjamin's bribery scandal leaves him on the ticket, something Republicans are going to have a field day with in November, and it might very well put a racist asshole like Rep.Lee Zeldin in the Governor's Mansion come 2023.

Dems, do better. Please. The country can't afford more Republicans.

The Wrath Of Ravnsborg


The South Dakota House on Tuesday impeached state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg over a 2020 car crash in which he killed a pedestrian but initially said he might have struck a deer or another large animal.

Ravnsborg, a Republican, is the first official to be impeached in South Dakota history. He will at least temporarily be removed from office pending the historic Senate trial, where it takes a two-thirds majority to convict on impeachment charges. The Senate must wait at least 20 days to hold its trial, but has not yet set a date.

Ravnsborg pleaded no contest last year to a pair of traffic misdemeanors in the crash, including making an illegal lane change. He has cast Joseph Boever’s death as a tragic accident.

In narrowly voting to impeach the state’s top prosecutor, the Republican-controlled House charged Ravnsborg with committing crimes that caused someone’s death, making “numerous misrepresentations” to law enforcement officers after the crash and using his office to navigate the criminal investigation. A Senate conviction would mean Ravnsborg would be barred from holding any state office in the future.

“When we’re dealing with the life of one of your citizens, I think that weighed heavily on everyone,” said Republican Rep. Will Mortenson, who introduced the articles of impeachment.

Ravnsborg said in a statement he is looking forward to the Senate trial, “where I believe I will be vindicated.”

Meanwhile, Tim Bormann, the attorney general’s chief of staff, said his staff would “professionally dedicate ourselves” to their work while Ranvsborg is forced to take a leave.

Ravnsborg, who took office in 2019, was returning home from a Republican dinner in September 2020 when he struck and killed Boever, who was walking along a rural highway. A sheriff who responded after Ravnsborg called 911 initially reported it as a collision with an animal. Ravnsborg has said he did not realize he hit a man until he returned the next day and found the body.

The Highway Patrol concluded that Ravnsborg’s car crossed completely onto the highway shoulder before hitting Boever, and criminal investigators said later that they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.

The House rejected the recommendation of a GOP-backed majority report from a special investigative committee, which argued that anything wrong he did was not part of his official duties “in office.” But even Republican lawmakers who argued his actions did not meet constitutional grounds for impeachment said Ravnsborg should resign.

“He should have stepped down, should have done the honorable thing,” said House Speaker Spencer Gosch, who oversaw the House investigation and voted against impeachment
.
 
Observations:
 
  1. Jason Ravnsborg killed a man.
  2. He should be in jail for vehicular manslaughter, because he killed a man
  3. He should, at the bare minimum, resign from public office.
  4. That public office is Attorney General, resignation here is a requirement.
  5. He lied to the cops about it. I know prosecutors lie to cops all the time, but he's AG.
  6. So yes, he now deserves impeachment, removal, and disbarment from public office.
  7. He won't be convicted and removed because Republicans are the party of corruption.
  8. Resignation months ago would have saved the state GOP a lot of hassle, apparently.
  9. But Ravnsborg is going to make people remove him.
  10. Finally, he's not running for reelection in November but he still can in the future.

 

 Republican make laws that don't apply to them, enforced selectively by them, and in every case used to enrich them. Some Democrats do that too, but not the entire party.