Abbott Touts Nuke Power Revival in Speech
that Escalates War on Woke and Foreigners

Capitol Inside
February 2, 2025

Governor Greg Abbott ignored the potential impact of President Donald Trump's new tariffs in a State of the State speech on Sunday night when he designated seven emergences while directing his wrath at Venezuelan gangsters, cyber piracy, squatters, foreigners and woke agendas in Texas government and schools.

Abbott turned the biennial address to Texas legislators in a big-league production at a private company in Austin where he selected the members of an audience that contained several hundred people who'd been invited to attend. Dozens of state lawmakers including some who are Democrats were on hand at the Arnold Oil Company for the Republican's governor presentation that concluded with the assertion that the state of the state's health had never been better.

The setting for the 37-minute presentation may have seemed ironic in light of Abbott's call for nuclear power renaissance in Texas. Abbott may have caught the audience a bit off guard when he tagged life and career training as a legislative emergency complete with a plug for a teenage Texas welder whose work had been shown on the hit television show Yellowstone. But the lion's share of positions that Abbott declared were predictable with a vow to bring an end to woke agendas in Texas education and government with an expansion of a DEI prohibition in higher education and its application to public schools here.

With an eye on a presidential campaign at some point, the Republican governor sought extend his appeal beyond the far right with a pitch for a teacher pay raise and a $500 million package designed for school security. Abbott labeled the compensation boost for educators as an emergency for lawmakers to confront without delay.

The list of Abbott emergencies included $10 billion that he proposed for property tax relief just two years after signing a record reduction of advolerm levies at the local level into law. Abbott also declared water as an emergency with a call for a significant increase in funding for new and old sources with a plan that he said would meet demand here for the next five decades.

The governor revived a push for bail reform in the list of emergencies that he expects the GOP-controlled Legislature to tackle immediately. Abbott also slapped an emergency tag on a Texas Cyber Command that he proposed to safeguard Texans against sophisticated hackers on the Internet from places like China and Russia.

Abbott said that State Senator Tan Parker of Flower Mound and State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione of Southlake would take the lead on the cyber security legislation. Abbott identified State Senator Charles Schwertner of Georgetown and State Reps. Keith Bell of Forney and Gary Gates of Richmond as the sponsors of the career training plan in the emergency marching orders that he issued for lawmakers tonight.

Abbott received the loudest ovation for the school choice proposal that's been his signature priority for more than two years. The governor spent millions of dollars in an attempt to elect Republican state representatives to replace GOP members who'd teamed with Democrats to kill the school vouchers bill in special session in late 2023. Abbott says he has the support to pass school choice this time around.

The governor proposed bans on the participation of college professors in employment decisions and elective service for people who aren't U.S. citizens. The governor appeared to be choked up and fighting tears for a long moment at one point near the end of the speech when he recognized a family with a young female member who'd been killed by a migrant with ties to the Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela.

more to come ...

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

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