Sunday, April 9: Pardon My Texas
(Insert quippy line about how guns are ok for some, but not for others)
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas and clueless geriatric, announced yesterday that he would do his best to pardon Daniel Perry, a man convicted of driving into a Black Lives Matter march in 2020. Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin on the night of July 25, 2020, when he ran a red light and drove into a Black Lives Matter march before stopping. When his car was approached by confused and angry protesters, he opened fire and murdered a protester legally carrying an AK-47. Interesting how the second amendment crowd is silent when it’s a Black Lives Matter protester exercising their legally-protected right.
Now we’ve all probably run a red light or two by accident, but this wasn’t that. Prosecutors in the case pointed to a series of social media posts and Facebook messages in which Perry made statements that indicated his state of mind, including saying, “might kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex.” Seems like a pretty open and shut case Sherlock, but this is Texas we’re talking about.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or progressive district attorney. I will work as swiftly as Texas law allows regarding the pardon of sgt. Perry.”
A jury unanimously convicted Perry on Friday, and he is yet to be sentenced, but could face up to life in prison. But before Perry even had a chance to appeal the conviction, the governor himself had already voiced his intention to pardon the charges. David Wahlberg, a former criminal court judge, said he cannot think of any other example in the state’s history when a governor sought a pardon before a verdict was formally appealed.
Side Items
Gun Deaths Go Up: A recent report from the Pew Research Center indicates that the number of children and teens killed by gunfire in the US increased 50% between 2019 and 2021. For those of you who struggle with visualizing statistics (me), that’s a massive jump in only two years. In 2019, before the pandemic, there were 1,732 gun deaths among children and teens under the age of 18 in this broken country. But by 2021, that figure had jumped to 2,590. The analysis studied the latest annual mortality statistics from the CDC and sadly we can be confident that the number will only go up as guns rights continue to take priority over the safety of kids
75 Years Ago: On this day in 1948, murderous Zionist militias tore through Palestinian villages, massacring villagers and expelling anyone who remained alive, paving the way for the creation of the modern apartheid state of Israel. An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed and another three quarters of a million fled their homes to live as refugees in other parts of Palestine or neighboring countries. This event is known by Palestinians as the Nakba, “the catastrophe”. The massacre began a cycle of violence that has been the norm ever since. Jewish forces have regarded any Palestinian village as an enemy military base, which intentionally blurs the distinction between massacring civilians and killing “combatants”