Toon: Messin' With Texas

Paul Berge Q Syndicate✒May 8, 2015 EditorialCartoonists.com

 

Deep in the heart of Texas, folks are all riled up that a U.S. Army training exercise called "Jade Helm" -- and apparently Walmart basements -- are somehow part of a government plot to overthrow the government of Texas. Accordingly, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-Naturally) ordered the Texas State Guard to keep an eye on them darn Yankees.

Some websites paraded a PowerPoint presentation — marked unclassified — as evidence that Army Special Operations Command was training to suppress American rebels in a coming military coup or civil war....
Theories have tied in elements beyond the slides depicting the exercise. "FEMA death domes" — purportedly being built as detention hubs for detained American insurgents — had already been absorbed into the martial law/coup conspiracy theory.
Some have now implicated Walmart, citing the retailer's sudden temporary closure of five of its more than 4,000 U.S. stores, including two in Texas. As noted Wednesday by Texas Monthly, some theorize the stores are being appropriated by the government for use as bases during martial law.

Meanwhile, the Texas legislature has also passed a bill prohibiting local governments from doing anything to regulate fracking in their communities.

Texas moved Monday to ban its own cities from imposing prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing and other potentially environmentally harmful oil and natural gas drilling activities within their boundaries – a major victory for industry groups and top conservatives who have decried rampant local “over-regulation.”

The bill last month overwhelmingly cleared the House, which Republicans control by a 2-to-1 margin, and passed the GOP-dominated Senate almost as easily Monday – sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law. ...

Lawmakers in America’s largest oil-producing state scrambled to limit local energy exploration prohibitions after Denton, a university town near Dallas, passed an ordinance in November against hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, attempting to keep encroaching drilling bonanzas outside their community.