#Wingnuts: Meet #GregAbbott - money waster in chief (regularly updated)

Now that we progressive types have said "adios, mofo" to El Jefe Mofo Rick Perry, speculation has begun about how Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has the definite inside track to replace Perry, will be better, worse or just different than Gov. Coyote Chaser.

(Unfortunately, we're learning that both are equally neck deep in crony capitalism with CPRIT, Texas Enterprise Fund, etc. More 

Well, we don't have to speculate too much. Mother Jones reminds us that the love child of Greg Abbott's war on any legislation connected with Barack Obama is the guy who guarantees Tea Partiers won't unite around Rick Perry — Ted Cruz. (For non-Texans unaware of it, Cruz used to be Abbott's solicitor general.)

The nut graf, for economic conservative poseurs like Abbott and their duped followers, is the last in the piece:

Abbott's anti-Washington record has been good for his profile, but it hasn't done much for Texas. He has won just 4 of those 27 cases outright (in a handful of other cases he dropped the suit after the circumstances changed), and the Associated Press calculated that his losing battles had cost the state $2.8 million. Which brings us to the great irony of his career. When Abbott left the Texas Supreme Court to run for attorney general in 2002, Abbott's main critique of his opponent, then-Austin mayor and former trial lawyer Kirk Watson, was a familiar one. You guessed it—frivolous lawsuits.

Bingo. That's probably an undercount, if anything.

And, it's only going to get worse.

I assume Texas redistricting will again get the state hauled into court, this time over Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. And, unless Johnny Reb Roberts and a majority of the Nine in Black give an even more egregious reading of Section 3 than they did of Section 5, Abbott, the state of Texas, and the taxpayers of Texas — wingnut and sane alike — will lose, lose, lose.

By the time Abbott is presumably elected, that meter will surely be past the $4 million mark.

And, given that his is how Abbott perceives his job as AG:

During his tenure as Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott has developed a bit of a routine: "I go into the office," he told a GOP audience in San Angelo in Februrary, "I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home." It's a line he uses in virtually every speech he gives and it has the benefit of being basically true.

And, this is how nutbar-principled he is on the ebil federal government in general:

Abbott's opposition to any form of federal control is so fierce he even went to court to argue that Texas cities should not be compelled to provide wheelchair access because he believed the Americans With Disabilities Act was unconstitutional—despite the fact that Abbott himself has been paralyzed from the waist down since 1984, when he was struck by a falling tree.

Any liberal types who think he'll be any more open to Obamacare-based expansion of Medicaid than Tricky Ricky was are deluding themselves.

Plus, with him as gov and fair-haired Ted still in the Senate (especially if a wingnut can upset John Cornyn in the Senate primary then win the general), Tea Party-types will work to build a real Texas GOP power base.

And waste even more money over frivolous lawsuits.

And, over workplace non-productivity from uninsured employees.

Update, July 16: Meanwhile, Abbott wants to be, by Tea Party lights, an even bigger money-waster while promising more money savings. Off the Kuff has the details on the start of what sounds like, so far, a Poppy Bush candidacy. The Texas Observer has more.

It sounds like he's already looking past the primary to the general election. Expect Tom Pauken to pick up on these issues, but how much traction will he get with Tea Partiers, let alone Texas media?

Update, July 28: And, Abbott's lost another one! This is his suit over the EPA taking over TCEQ's pollution permitting because the state simply refused to do any real regulating. This was lost at the D.C. Court of Appeals, and there's no chance SCOTUS will even want to hear it, let alone reverse. And yet, Texas' Head.Legal.Moron is talking about appealing.

Here's comment:

Bryan Shaw, chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, who has fiercely opposed the EPA’s rules, said it was ”remarkable” that the courts have repeatedly denied the state’s appeals. 

In response to the latest Circuit Court decision, Shaw issued a statement that claimed that ”the EPA has effectively re-written the Clean Air Act to impose its new standards, imposed severely restrictive timelines on the states to implement its new requirements, and then twisted the act to immediately impose its agenda on Texas.” 

No, what's "remarkable" is that you're dumb enough to believe this was winnable. And, the only re-writing has been done by your agency.

My question is, how much do the likes of Abbott and Shaw believe their own press clippings, or rather, their own lawsuits, and how much, inside themselves, do they admit they're making stuff up?

Update, Sept. 5: Federal appeals court in San Antonio confirms Abbott wasted more money over Texas Senate redistricting.

Update, Nov. 11: He's not just the state's chief money-waster, he's now a water cheat! 

Update, June 24, 2014: He's now lost to the EPA on greenhouse gas regulations, too. 

Update, Oct. 11, 2014: Per the mix of crony capitalism mentioned in parentheses plus general money wasting, Abbott sure has a lot of "friends" in white-shoe law firms.