Greg Abbott is trying to fix the damage of his history of neglecting the needs of Texans now that he needs the votes of Texas women. This time he offered up a video to explain away his refusal to take phone calls from a Texas woman owed $25,000 of child support by her ex-husband who is also a registered sex offender. This has been going on for four years. But not to worry, Abbott has a shiny new video in which another woman explains it only took one phone call to Abbott’s office to fix her problem with owed child support.
The last time Abbott had an image problem, he tried to fix it by running away from the press. That was when he was caught consulting with a white nationalist on his education policy.
Gotta give him credit, offering up a scripted response to an embarrassing report from a month ago is a tad better than running away.
Greg Abbott’s actions and record reveal he will do anything and defend anyone except the people of Texas. Campaign donors reaped $42 million taxpayer dollars from the Texas Cancer center for proposals that got low ratings if they were reviewed at all. In exchange for $100,000 Abbott assured the Koch Brothers that Texans would be kept in the dark about explosive and toxic chemicals in their neighborhoods. Abbott callously suggested that if people wanted to know about such hazards they could drive around looking for “signs” of dangerous chemicals, and if they just ask, companies will disclose information that they fought hard to keep from the public. When the chairman of a Texas hospital donated $350,000 to Abbott’s campaign, the Attorney-General of Texas protected that hospital in a malpractice suit brought by patients who were living with the consequences of a “sociopathic” neurosurgeon’s botched spine surgeries.
Abbott plans to spend August treating Texas voters to a video charm offensive. The first video tells the story of Ann Osborne who says she was disillusioned with the State’s child support system – that is before she reached out to Greg Abbott. You see, he helped her understand the process after she spent years struggling to navigate it and it only took one phone call.
“This would not be possible without Greg Abbott,” Osborne says.”How thankful I am to him for wanting to make a broken process better.”
The video comes a month after a Texas woman told a Fox affiliate in Houston that Abbott was MIA when she sought help from his office to recover $25,000 owed support from her ex-husband, John Blake Travis, a registered sex-offender. According to Karen Reddick, the A-G won’t even answer her calls. She describes her experience with the Attorney-General’s office as a “non-stop headache.”
Video:
According to the Fox report, Travis who lives in California, stopped paying child support for the couple’s daughter, now 18, when he quit his job.
While it may take “one phone call” to explain the process to Ann Osborne, Karen Reddick has tried for four years to get help collecting the $25,000 John Blake Travis owes their daughter. This is despite providing the Attorney-General’s office with court records and other documents – not to mention numerous unanswered phone calls.
She says after numerous calls and sending documents, including court records for four years and counting, “You don’t get answers. You don’t get through to anybody.”
Following Fox’s report, Karen Reddick offered her personal assessment of just how well Greg Abbot “fixed” the Texas child support system.
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Karen Puntil Reddick · Houston, TexasI completely agree. The system is messed up and needs to be fixed. I am hoping to meet with a Texas Representative next week to see what can be done to make changes in this system. I think it is time more of us stand up and let ALL AG’s offices know their lack of efforts is unacceptable. There is no logical reason that contempt charges and warrants cannot be issued.
So here we have contradictory stories from two women. One tells the tale of a Greg Abbott who fixed a broken system and helped her navigate it in a single phone call. The other is the story of a woman who provided Abbott with documents, including court records and made many phone calls to get his help and continues to seek help. She disagrees with the video’s claim that Abbott fixed the system.
Why would Abbott be ever so helpful to one women, but not the other? At first blush, one can attribute his lack of help to the complexity of Karen Reddick’s case. Her ex-husband is out of state, which means Abbott would have to work with the Attorney-General’s office of California. In other words, do his job.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the deadbeat dad owing $25,000 in child support also happens to be a registered-sex offender. Abbott vigorously defended his “blood brother” Ted Nugent, who also happens to be a sex-offender. So maybe that’s it. If the deadbeat dad is just a deadbeat dad, all it takes is a phone call to get Abbott to collect the money owed to a child. If the child has the misfortune of having a deadbeat dad who is also a registered sex offender, Abbott won’t answer the phone – at least until the local Fox affiliate starts asking questions.
Neither explanation bodes well for a man who claims to be such a concerned advocate for Texas children.
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