In a development on which, frankly, it’s wild there hasn’t been more reporting, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is helming the construction of a military base in Eagle Pass, Texas, in support of the deadly $10 billion dollar political stunt Operation Lone Star. We’ve covered Eagle Pass before—it’s the town whose residents have been saying that their own governor has been using them as pawns, and have been calling on the National Guard to get out. It’s also where two migrants drowned recently, specifically because the Texas National Guard prevented federal emergency response from arriving in time to save them.

Now Abbott, instead of heeding his own constituents or the Supreme Court’s mandate for him to allow CBP to remove razor wire from the area, has announced that he’s building a giant military base there. The base will hold up to 2,300 troops. Abbott refuses to give any specific numbers regarding the cost of this base, but says it will pay for itself in the long run and allow him to “amass a large army” to fight the migrant “invasion.”

Besides the deliberate disregard for human life and human flourishing, this move seems deliberately provocative, as if Abbott wants to force a showdown—with the federal government as much as with vulnerable children and adults seeking a better life. How fascist.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)