Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he'd sign a bill banning citizens and foreign entities from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from buying land in Texas. Predictably, he got a taker in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature.
Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, filed just such legislation days later, arguing that she's pushing back at "growing ownership" of Texas land by foreigners.
The open-ended proposal drew quick condemnation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which warned of collateral damage to legal residents and others. "It would violate the fundamental rights of not only citizens of other countries regardless of their relationship to their governments, but also Green Card holders and possibly dual citizens," the group said in a statement.
State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, warned that Kolkhorst's bill would worsen anti-Asian sentiment, which has been on the rise amid the pandemic and rising U.S.-China tensions. He also pointed out the arbitrary nature of the targeted countries.
"We oppose communist countries, right? Where's Cuba? Where's Venezuela? Where's Vietnam?" Wu told the Texas Tribune. "You say that we oppose countries that are hostile to our country? Great, where is Saudi Arabia? Where is Afghanistan? Where are all these other places that have caused our country harm? It becomes a real slippery slope."
As evidenced by Abbott's willingness to throw billions of dollars at his open-ended Operation Lone Star border mission, the governor isn't particularly concerned about slippery slopes. Nor, apparently, is Kolkhorst, the assclown who authored the failed 2017 bill that brought national embarrassment down on the state for proposing to ban transgender people from public restrooms.
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