Greg Abbott Invoked Mental Illness After the El Paso Shooting. Where Is Evidence?

Greg Abbott Invoked Mental Illness After the El Paso Shooting. Where Is Evidence?

Hours after a white gunman walked into an El Paso Walmart on Saturday and killed nearly two dozen Hispanic shoppers, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott addressed a room full of reporters in the border city and expressed grief and support for the community.

As high-profile mass shootings continue to erupt across the country — three of which occurred in Texas in the last two years — a reporter asked the governor what he planned on doing to ensure one doesn’t happen again.

Abbott, a Republican, hesitated, then spoke at length about how the state Legislature reacted to the 2018 high school shooting in Santa Fe, eventually focusing on what he said was the most agreed-upon need: addressing mental health issues.

“Bottom line is mental health is a large contributor to any type of violence or shooting violence, and the state of Texas this past session passed a lot of legislation and provided funding for the state to better address that challenge,” he concluded, referring to bills aimed at improving children’s mental health care.

Behind him, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso, visibly stiffened, shaking her head slightly as Abbott connected mental illness to what appears to be an act of domestic terrorism fueled by a white supremacist ideology.

The next day, before a downtown El Paso vigil for the victims, she put into words what had been apparent on her face.

“I would also call on those who use mental illness as an excuse to please stop. Please stop,” Escobar told reporters, to light applause from those beginning to arrive for the service. “It further stigmatizes those who truly suffer from mental illness, and the fact of the matter is people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violent crime, not perpetrators.”

“This tragedy is not in vain if we can finally have a reckoning in this country as to what is really going on,” she added.

White Nationalist James Fields Jr, Heather Heyer's Charlottesville Assassin Sentenced To Life In Prison

White Nationalist James Fields Jr, Heather Hyer's Charlottesville Assasin Sentenced To Life In Prison

James Fields, Jr., the white supremacist who murdered Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others driving his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 has received a life sentence in federal prison.

Prosecutors had argued that Mr. Fields’s racist, anti-Semitic beliefs motivated his decision to attend the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and use his automobile in an act of domestic terrorism. Thomas T. Cullen, the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said after hearing the sentence that the case set a precedent for future instances of domestic terrorism.

Mr. Fields was one of hundreds of young white supremacists who swarmed Charlottesville in August 2017, marching with tiki torches shouting “The Jews will not replace us.”

Bannon Promises That Feminism, Not Toxic Masculinity, Is Responsible For America's Demise

Bannon Promises That Feminism, Not Toxic Masculinity, Is Responsible For America's Demise

The mere fact that Harper's Bazaar would feature an article on the topic of toxic masculinity tells you the degree to which the female mindset in America is changing. Even the fashion industry is concerned about toxic masculinity. Oh yes. The Trump male posse can descend on us -- throwing stink bombs and calling us libtards -- but the facts are the facts in their non-factual universe. The jigs up, gentlemen.

When Trump was elected, Mr. Brexit Nigel Farage proclaimed: "The alpha males are back." That may be so, but large numbers of alpha males -- are the very definition of toxic masculinity -- and it's a masculinity that kills, no matter how the alt-right dresses it up.

More than other countries in the developed world, the American culture worships men with guns. They are conquerors of 'weaker men' and women are eager to have sex with them. In reality, men who commit mass shootings do not have the respect of the larger culture, but their "catastrophic sense of male entitlement" gives them admiration in their own equally toxic communities. 

Antifa Joins White Nationalists In National Spotlight As Media Explores Domestic Terrorism

PROTESTERS IN BLACK, ASSOCIATED WITH ANTIFA, SHOWN AT A "NO-TO-MARXISM" RALLY AUG. 27 IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. THE RALLY HAD BEEN CANCELED, BUT STILL ATTRACTED ATTENDEES AND DEMONSTRATORS TO MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. CIVIC PARK ALONG WITH SCORE OF POLICE IN RIOT GEAR. | M. SCOTT MAHASKEY/POLITICO

Antifa Joins White Nationalists In National Spotlight As Media Explores Domestic Terrorism

White nationalists are not the only domestic terrorists in America, although America's neo-Nazis aren't currently classified as such. In mid-August, after Charlottesville CNN explained:"While Congress chose to define "domestic terrorism," it did not actually create a crime of domestic terrorism. The punishment for committing an act of "terrorism" under federal law only covers crimes that either occur outside the United States or are initiated by people outside the United States. That means an act of pure terrorism that occurs right here at home, without foreign involvement, can't be prosecuted as terrorism under the law."