By now, Texans have grown accustomed to Gov. Greg Abbott rummaging around in the culture-war grab bag anytime poll numbers drop or headlines turn inconvenient.
But even by his own KKKlown-KKKar standards, the Republican governor’s latest stunt — ordering state troopers to “investigate” the Muslim civil-rights organization CAIR, along with mediation groups that help resolve disputes in Muslim communities — deserves its own wing in the Museum of Political Stupidity.
CAIR — or the Council on American-Islamic Relations — for the uninitiated, is a nationwide nonprofit that spends most of its time doing things Abbott pretends to like, say, advocating for civil liberties, educating communities and keeping extremists — of all flavors — out of public spaces.
And the mediation groups?
They’re conflict-resolution groups who seek to calm arguments instead having them escalate into costly court cases or worse. For the record, there are also Christian and Jewish dispute-resolution organizations active in the state, but those haven’t drawn Grumpy Greg’s ire. Gosh, wonder why?
But Abbott, never one to pass up an opportunity to pick fights with imaginary villains — anybody remember the Jade Helm debacle — insists he’s working to root out “individuals or groups who unlawfully impose Sharia law.”
Right. Because nothing quite says “existential threat to Texas” like protecting civil rights of law-abiding members of the state’s Muslim community or neighbors trying to solve disagreements without lawsuits or fistfights.
Let’s be clear: there is no “Sharia takeover” happening in Texas. Instead, we’ve seen Abbott and his cronies continue to lean further into racist innuendo and crackpot conspiracy theories as they seek to shore up support from the far-right fringe of their party.
Abbott’s latest spasm of Islamophobic grandstanding is a distraction, plain and simple. From a dangerously sagging power grid, state maternal mortality rates more in line with those of developing countries and a cash-strapped education system worsened by his own plan to fund rich families’ public school tuitions by siphoning money from public coffers.
While Governor Supercuts tilts at Sharia windmills, Texans are left without reliable electricity, without health coverage, without decent schools and increasingly without patience. If this bottom-feeding assclown wants to hunt for extremism, he should start by looking in the fucking mirror.
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