Preposterous-ness! A Local Texas Water Cop Argues That Since "He Rarely Sees Boats On The Rio Grande"... It Is NOT A "Waterway"?!

Well, we knew that Texas GOP Gov. Abbott would clutch at straws, to argue to keep his "Cold War Berlin-style" razor wire barrier on the Rio Grande, in a transparently unlawful move.

He clearly knows he's lost, as overnight, he offered a local water cop's opinion that he rarely sees boats (other than swamp runners / low bottoms / air-boats -- which he himself admits he sees pretty often!) chugging along in the Rio Grande near El Paso.

That is -- of course -- entertaining, but the black letter federal law of nearly 150 years now. . . says NOTHING about how many watercraft are observed on a FEDERAL waterway per day. [And it says nothing about it being okay if the barrier is "colorful or well-marked"! Damn -- how stupid is this?!]

Not a peep.

Moreover, WHY these Texas hooligans placed it there (even if we were to credit Abbott's bleatings) bears exactly zero relevance under the federal statutes. One simply cannot obstruct a federal waterway. There is no "guilty mind" standard here -- it is simply the sole province of the feds to deal with federal waterways.

And to belabor the obvious, some local cop, beholden to Abbott, even if it is his genuine (and genuinely stupid) opinion. . . matters not a whit, to whether Abbott's monstrosity may be razed by federal agents. It may -- and will -- be, shortly.

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