Texas Gov Ignores Jesus Christ Advice
with Migrant Busing to VP's Home in DC
Capitol Inside
September 15, 2022
Texas politicians who use the Bible for more than campaign advertising might do themselves a favor with a quick to the first book in the New Testament where they can read about the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus of Nazareth reportedly delivered on a hillside that towered over the Sea of Galilee with his disciples surrounding him.
“All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must do to them," according to Matthew 7:12.
That particular rule of conduct that Jesus espoused gave birth to the moral teaching known as the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Governor Greg Abbott and the Republicans in Austin aren't going to ban the Golden Rule in Texas schools like they did with critical race theory twice in 2021 even though they'd never heard of such a thing a few months before. It's probably safe to assume that the kids at Sunday School will still be allowed to sing Jesus Loves the Children - all the little children of the world - even though that appears to be CRT personified based on the GOP's ambiguous definition.
But a poll that was released on Wednesday might have given Abbott the impression that a majority of the Texas voters would just as soon scrap the Golden Rule once and for all from the Lone Star State vocabulary. According to the University of Texas survey that was taken over 10 days ending last week, 52 percent of the registered voters in the sample favored the busing of migrants from the border to other places in the United States. Fifty-one percent support the deportation of migrants without delay based on the Texas Politics Project poll's findings. A mere 39 percent opposed deporting migrants immediately while only 35 percent raised objections to the out-of-state busing hypothesis.
A monstrous majority opposed the Republicans' outright abortion ban in the UT poll - with only 12 percent of the voters in favor of the law that they they created in Senate Bill 8 last year. But that might have come as less of a surprise than the number of voters who want migrants out of the state enough to foot the bill for the travel costs to "bus foreign migrants awaiting their asylum hearings to other parts of the country" outside Texas.
But the pollsters didn't pose any follow-up questions on the Texas governor's immigration problems exportation service like whether the voters supported or opposed the dumping of migrants at Vice-President Kamala Harris' residence in Washington D.C. like Abbott did on Thursday. The voters in the UT survey didn't get an opportunity to say whether favored the Texas governor's creation of public emergencies in other states and cities like the two that terrorists attacked on 9/11 in 2001.
New York City Eric Adams warned on Wednesday that the Big Apple is at the breaking point as a consequence of Abbott's campaign theatrics. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker declared an emergency in his state on Wednesday due to the Texas shipping of migrants to Chicago in the past two weeks.
The UT poll in August and early September didn't gauge whether voters here had any problems with the bankrolling of campaign initiatives with taxpayer funds. There was no question on whether any of the voters here had entertained the thought of consequences for Texas doing its dead-level best to hurt other Americans in the nation's capital and largest citie just because they're not controlled by Republicans.
Would Texas voters favor childish stunts aimed for maximum attention and shock value as a way to get rid of migrants? The busing of migrants to the VP's home would seem to be taking that to a new extreme.
Abbott led Democrat Beto O'Rourke by 5 points in the UT poll with 45 percent support and 8 percent undecided. That's down one from a 6 point advantage in a UT survey in June. But the incumbent received an 8 point boost in support from independent voters with 40 percent telling pollsters that they plan to vote for Abbott in the general election on November 8.
Is it possible that the migrant busing plan is offsetting the damage that Abbott inflicted on himself with the state's failed response in a mass school shooting in Uvalde in May? What do the Texas voters think when their governor is portrayed as a fake Christian racist who's unAmerican, consumed with hate, mean and spiteful and shoveling challenges that he's too afraid to face to others? That's what the mayors of New York City, Washington D.C. and Chicago have said about the Texas governor in the past month alone.
Is Abbott doing to others what he would wish upon himself? What goes around usually comes around. But that's not in the Bible.
Abbott defended the targeting of the vice-president's home in Washington D.C. in a tweet on Thursday.
"Our supposed Border Czar, VP Harris, has yet to see firsthand the impact of the open border policies she has helped implement," Abbott said. "Texas will continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities like D.C. until Biden & Harris do their jobs to secure the border."
Award-winning journalist Mike Hailey composes the column Hailey's Comment as the founding editor and publisher of Capitol Inside |
