The head of a Texas House panel was aghast Tuesday after investigators laid out wide-ranging corruption allegations against scandal-soaked Attorney General Ken Paxton, calling them “alarming to hear.”
“It curls my mustache,” said Rep. Andrew Murr, a fellow Republican, who no doubt was already familiar with the accusations that have swirled around Paxton for years.
Paxton, a staunch conservative in his third term as the state’s top prosecutor, now finds himself facing possible impeachment proceedings—on top of an ongoing FBI investigation and a long-stalled indictment.
His response has been to attack House Speaker Dade Phelan, accusing him on Tuesday—when word of the probe emerged—of drinking on the job. On Wednesday, after the litany of allegations was unveiled during a three-hour hearing, Paxton claimed Phelan, a Republican, is a “liberal” who wants to “sabotage my work.”
The investigators led the House committee through years of alleged misconduct that they believe broke the laws Paxton is sworn to uphold.
At the heart of of the matter are claims that Paxton used his office to assist a donor—real-estate developer Nate Paul—who then allegedly helped him remodel his home and hired his mistress.
Four Paxton aides who flagged the AG’s intervention in Paul’s affairs were fired.
“Each of these four men is a conservative Republican civil servant,” investigator Erin Epley told the House committee. “Interviews show that they wanted to be loyal… and they tried to advise him well and strongly. When that failed, each was fired after reporting General Paxton to law enforcement.”
As the FBI opened an inquiry, the aides filed a whistleblower suit against Paxton, who asked the state to pay them a $3.3 million settlement. Phelan balked at that, and the committee investigation was launched in March.
Shockingly, Paxton was accused of crimes long before this episode. In 2015, the rookie AG was indicted on securities fraud charges in a case that has been tied up in appeals ever since; Paxton denies the allegations and voters re-elected him twice since his indictment.
Paxton has also been named in a lawsuit by the State Bar for Texas, which accused him of misconduct for claiming voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Joe Biden’s win in several states.
What happens next to Paxton is murky. The House Committee took no action, and the Legislature’s session ends on Monday.
Will he ever be held accountable? I doubt it. Texans re-elected this monster as Attorney General knowing that he’s a criminal. Apparently, that’s what they like about him.
Gingrich: One of Trump’s great advantages is he talks at a level where 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade educations can say “oh yeah, I get that.” pic.twitter.com/wigU4DJmHZ
An analysis of the President’s first 30,000 words uttered in office found Mr Trump speaks at a third- to seventh-grade reading level – lower than any other President since 1929. Mr Trump’s vocabulary and grammatical structure is “significantly more simple, and less diverse” than any President since Herbert Hoover, the analysis found.
The comparison is based on interviews, speeches and press conferences for every president dating back to 1929, compiled by online database Factba.se. Analysts at Factba.se studied the “off-script” remarks of all 15 men – essentially, everything but their prepared speeches – to compare and contrast their speaking skills.
The most explosive claims from a new book about Trump’s white house
Analysts ran the records through eight different tests for vocabulary complexity, diversity, and comprehension level. In every single test, Mr Trump scored the lowest.
Mr Trump averaged significantly fewer syllables per word than the last 14 Presidents, and used significantly fewer unique words. The gaps appeared when comparing all available remarks, and when comparing only the first 30,000 words of each presidency. Social media posts were excluded from the data.
“Compared to the 14 presidents who preceded him, by every measure, [Mr Trump’s] use of words when off script are significantly less diverse, and simpler, than all presidents who preceded him back to Herbert Hoover,” wrote Factba.se CEO Bill Frischling.
His favorite words are strong, powerful, unfair and hoax. That’s all his people need to hear.
These are the same people who think they should be personally dictating what’s taught in the classroom. If they don’t understand it, it’s got to be bad.
I won’t even go into the war on science…
Ok this is 4 minutes that sums up what the actual stakes of the debt ceiling fight are. Please share! https://t.co/pEVWLkWhJ6
I know you are dying to hear more about today’s right wing worldview so I thought I would share this article from a 2022 Claremont Fellow and Federalist writer entitled:
Pride Month — formerly known as June — is right around the corner, and with that comes the annual rainbow lighting of the White House, heaping of praise upon people like the Nashville shooter, and the continued denigration of religious institutions by American corporations.
In this instance, and countless others, the public and private sectors work hand in glove to advance both an ideological and political agenda. When, recently, Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance said that “[t]here is no meaningful distinction between the public and the private sector in the United States of America,” he was describing situations like this, in which state and corporate entities move in lockstep towards common, predetermined goals with such strength and vigor that dissent becomes impossible.
Whether we call it economic fascism (stripping the 20th-century relic of its emphasis on national identity) or corporatism, the point remains the same: members of the managerial elite who fill out the ranks in government and corporate America alike use their respective spheres of influence to form a public-private regime dedicated to immanentizing a disordered eschaton.
For decades now, American institutions, ideologically captured by the left, have collaborated to establish a new system of social priorities while preventing dissent from challenging their grip on power.
Things like ESG scores, the Corporate Equality Index, the LGBT indoctrination of children by public schools and entertainment conglomerates like Disney, and pronoun struggle sessions at the State Department make this apparent. Wanting the same outcomes, these institutions invest their vast resources, time, and manpower to coerce the public’s behavior. Your business will have the same commitments as a Fortune 500 firm, your children will have the same worldview as Greta Thunberg, and you will be happy about it.
Sexuality just happens to be one of the more obvious instances in which these people have let their mask slip. Nevertheless, you must get on board or get crushed. You are no longer allowed to opt out; we saw this when Big Tech attacked Gays Against Groomers, presumably for the crime of highlighting the predatory behavior of pederasts.
Objectors to the outcomes of this synthesis of power are met with censorship, violence towards them is treated with nonchalance, and they have their careers and reputations ruined. Loyalty to the regime, of course, is rewarded — as we saw with Jen Psaki’s transition to MSNBC after her stint as White House press secretary.
Deeply entrenched federal bureaucrats worked with executives in Big Tech to astroturf political narratives benefiting the Democratic Party by throttling stories — notably Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” — that would benefit Republican candidates; the State Department knowingly used bogus intel provided by NGOs to monitor dissident online speech; and the most popular payment processor in the world, PayPal, is willing to levy hefty fines on users who spread “misinformation.”
There simply is no longer a distinction between the private and public sectors; they carry out each other’s goals and enforce them as though they are part of the same body — because they are different only in name. And only by spreading their message can you reap the benefits; opposing it drastically increases the odds you get your teeth kicked in.
Roughly 10 years ago, comedian Sam Hyde, adorned in plastic centurion armor, lampooned the self-important nature of TED Talk-style lectures with an elaborate prank in which he delivered a speech titled “2070 Paradigm Shift.” Throughout the bit, Hyde mocked the onanistic optimism of TED Talks by suggesting the audience should look forward to a tolerant era of “state-enforced homosexuality.”
Hyde’s remarks were tongue-in-cheek, but in today’s climate where the only truly acceptable choice is the endorsement of the public-private regime’s messaging, its embrace of “alternative lifestyles,” and denigration of everything else, they ring true.
The U.S. government is committed to flying LGBT pride flags at its embassies around the world except in places like Saudi Arabia, where it can’t afford to offend the local population’s cultural sensitivities. The Vatican, on the other hand, is fair game. Similarly, with the coming of Pride Month comes the annual changing of corporate branding to rainbow iconography in a show of solidarity with this agenda, but these corporate entities are sure to omit this initiative from their Middle Eastern marketing campaigns.
What’s the point of all this?
Clearly, it isn’t to destigmatize homosexuality in the West; that has already been done. It’s the same reason why the Anti-Defamation League says “grooming” — the normalization and cultivation of deviant behavior in impressionable people like 12-year-old drag queens who pantomime snorting ketamine — is a “bigoted lie targeting the LGBTQ+ community.”
It’s to stop you from saying no while the most powerful institutions in the history of the world — the federal government and corporate America — collaborate to force it upon you and your community.
It is, in fact, state-enforced.
They are getting very excited over all the transgender bashing and it’s getting some traction. Right wingers threatened workers at Target over a Pride display and got Target to remove the merchandise in their stores. Florida’s DeSantis has banned all discussions of LGBTQ in classrooms and wingnut parents all over the country have decided it must be a taboo topic. This is happening right here in LA:
A group of parents at Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood are urging families to “keep your children home and innocent” on Friday, June 2, when the school is holding a pride-oriented assembly that will include discussion of LGBTQ+ parents.
The opposing parents plan to protest outside the school on June 2 at 8 a.m., according to posts on an Instagram page that expressed outrage that the school plans to teach children about LGBTQ+ identities during a book reading. Conversely, LGBTQ+ advocates are upset by the parents and support the school’s effort to educate students about different sexual identities.
According to a district spokesperson, the event at Saticoy Elementary will include a reading of The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman, which cites family types including multi-cultural families, multi-racial families, single parent families and — to the chagrin of protesting parents — families with LGBTQ+ parents.
The group called Saticoy Elementary Parents on its Instagram page says the school has a significant population of Armenian and Hispanic families who “share conservative values” and “don’t feel this material is appropriate to teach to the children.”
“We respect everyone, but some things are appropriate for children (of) that age, and some things are not,” Saticoy Elementary School parent George Dzhabroyan told KTLA on Tuesday, May 23. “Hopefully the message gets across and people understand that parents should be the primary contact of what their children should be exposed to and shouldn’t be exposed to.”
Noah Reich, a San Fernando Valley-based LGBTQ advocate and co-founder of the non-profit organization Classroom of Compassion, thinks the reading is a good way to introduce young students to the topic of sexuality.
“I don’t think anyone is ever too young to learn about a world that reflects and welcomes them,” he said. “I don’t know if there is a more innocent way to begin a conversation about LGBTQ+ people not only being parts of our family but also being worthy to create families.”
He was echoed by Kevin Perez, president and co-founder of Somos Familia Valle, an LGBTQ+ support group in the East San Fernando Valley.
“Even in the San Fernando Valley, there are a lot of LGBTQ+ parents. That is certainly what we need to accept,” Perez said.
When asked what he would say to parents who object to an assembly focused on the book, he responded: “I would say, ‘have an open mind and an open heart.’ There are many different family units that exist and have always existed. This is nothing new.”
An LAUSD spokesperson said the district is committed to creating a safe and inclusive learning environment that reflects and embraces the diverse population it serves.
“As part of our engagement with school communities, our schools regularly discuss the diversity of the families that we serve and the importance of inclusion,” LAUSD said in a statement. “This remains an active discussion with our school communities and we remain committed to continuing to engage with families about this important topic.”
Naturally, these are MAGA freaks:
The conservative parent group at Saticoy Elementary was also active in opposing the school district’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. In October 2021 about a dozen staff and parents held an anti-vaccine protest outside the school.
Luckily California isn’t going to ban pride events in schools just because some right wing nuts don’t like it. But you can see that this idea is percolating among the MAGA faithful. It’s not just trans. It’s LGBTQ in general. And we should have seen it coming.
I want to send this to every voter in America. They simply don’t know what this is about.
Here it is.
Here’s Ronna McDaniel on Fox News saying that a possible debt default “bodes very well” for the Republican presidential field pic.twitter.com/J6R9pPJVsf
He’s just a more boring version of exactly the same thing
Everyone says, “oh, at least he won’t try to overthrow the government.” Do we know that? Take a look at this:
During an interview on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, DeSantis was asked if he would consider pardons for Trump and other Jan. 6 defendants
“What I’m going to do is I’m going to do on day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons,” DeSantis promised.
“Now some of these cases, some people may have a technical violation of the law, but if there are three other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like BLM and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice.”
“We’re going to find examples where we have governments [have] been weaponized against disfavored groups, and we will apply relief as appropriate,” he added.
Sexton pressed the candidate about a pardon for Trump.
“And that could be from a grandma who got arrested and prosecuted too much all the way up to potentially Trump himself?” he wondered.
“I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big,” DeSantis confirmed.
That’s just a fancy way of saying yes, he will pardon Republicans and instruct his DOJ to go after Democrats. His plan is to search for examples of a rioter somewhere who broke into a grocery store or set something on fire and if they got a lower sentence than a January 6th insurrectionist, he will pardon the insurrectionist. And once he purges the DOJ of anyone, including career employees who don’t sign on to his agenda, as he has promised, it won’t be hard to do.
This is DeSantis setting forth an agenda that appears to be just as draconian as Trump’s. And considering what he’s done in Florida I would believe that he will do it. Say what you will about DeSantis, he tends to fulfill his agenda one way or another.
“Would you build the wall and would you use the military to go after Mexican drug cartels?” Florida’s governor was asked at a press conference this month, replying, “Yes, and yes.” He elaborated:
The border should be shut down. I mean, this is ridiculous what’s going on. You shut it down. You do need to construct a wall. …
We also have to come to terms with all the amount of fentanyl that’s coming into our country because of this border. And who’s doing it, it’s these Mexican drug cartels. They need to be held accountable. We can’t just let our people die. …
That’s a Day One issue. I mean, you’ve got to be really, really determined. You can’t let it slide, you can’t make excuses, you gotta go in and you gotta really go in with all guns blazing and using all the leverage that you have to be able to do it.
All the Republicans are saying they will send the US Military into Mexico if they are elected. Supposedly, they will only be “going after the cartels” but you can imagine that Mexico (and the rest of the world) will see this for what it would be: an invasion of a sovereign country. I mean, “you’ve gotta really go in with all guns blazing” may be a figure of speech but in this context it is really chilling.
Lawmakers in several states are embracing legislation to let children work in more hazardous occupations, longer hours on school nights and in expanded roles including serving alcohol in bars and restaurants as young as 14.
The efforts to significantly roll back labor rules are largely led by Republican lawmakers to address worker shortages and in some cases run afoul of federal regulations.
I’ve always wondered what the Republicans would come up with to fill a labor shortage since they hate foreigners. I assumed they would go to prisoner slave labor. We have millions behind bars, after all. I have to say that I didn’t think rolling back child labor laws was on the menu.
Maybe this is why they are so bent on destroying the education system. This way the children will have more time to work their low paying jobs.
Holy shit. Democrats just burst out laughing at Marjorie Taylor Greene as she’s presiding over the House when she told them to have “decorum.” She kept hitting the gavel and they kept laughing at her. (@acyn) pic.twitter.com/r3mhFgWOC6
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 24, 2023
You’ve likely seen the videos I will not link to here. Jerks throwing “manly” public tantrums is the latest in ice-bucket challenges for right-wing assholes. They’ve succeeded in intimidating capitulation from retailers rather than the summary execution now endorsed by MAGAs experiencing social discomfort.
It is sometimes said that corporate America is a battleground in the culture wars. This has taken on ugly new meaning in the case of Target, which just announced that it will pull some LBGTQ-friendly merchandise from shelves after experiencing threats that affected its employees’ “sense of safety.”
Target’s surrender — which came after concerted attacks from MAGA media personalities — points to a bigger story: The anti-woke right is increasingly wielding heavy-handed tactics — including state power and violent threats — to block corporations from making their own decisions about how to adapt to social change. Though the right is losing this battle at large, it is innovating and having some success.
It’s unclear which items Target will pull. But right-wing figures had claimed Target was selling “tuck-friendly” swimwear — as part of its pride month collection — to kids. As the Daily Beast reports, those figures labeled Target CEO Brian Cornell a “pervert groomer” and even called for Republican attorneys general to investigate him. One Arizona man threatened disruptions at Target stores, warning that LGBTQ people are “not safe.”
Perhaps if Target’s kids’ clothes bore yellow-shades-only rainbow patches?
Worshippers of The Free Market and American symbology are a fickle lot. They stand foursquare behind their “values” only so long as theirs go culturally unchallenged. Lessers (even corporations now) who don’t know their places and who step onto what the right considers its cultural turf now face threats and intimidation from insecure reactionaries. Free Markets be damned. Real Americans™ have chosen moral panic as a lifestyle.
Discomfort subway passengers and right-wing extremists feel entitled to execute you. Discomfort customers and Target associates will politely ask you to leave and remove rainbow displays straight, white men find so threatening.
This is part of a trend. Right-wing activists and Republican politicians have repeatedly sought to make it harder for corporations to embrace liberal social change. Recently, for instance, the right opened fire on Bud Light for prominently sending a personalized beer can to a transgender influencer. The company put the executives behind the move on leave.
On another front, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis openly used government power to retaliate against Disney’s opposition to DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law restricting classroom discussion of sex and gender. Other Republicans across the country are trying to use government power to limit investors from adopting social considerations in their investment decisions.
As in law, now in business it’s freedom for me but not for thee.
“[T]he American right wing is trying to create a Hobbesian state of nature where violence and fear of death is everywhere and the rule of law is increasingly meaningless,” writes Chauncey DeVega, Salon’s senior politics writer. Who needs random squads of brownshirts when everyone, everywhere is armed, anxious, and primed to go to guns at the slightest provocation? That’s “primed” in the psychological sense. As a political tactic.
DeVega walks readers through how German legal philosopher and political theorist Carl Schmidt’s views of “sovereign authority.” Per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Legal norms, Schmitt argues, cannot be applied to a chaos.” Thus the need for a sovereign. In post-Weimar Germany, read “dictator,” who might rule this “state of exception.”
That’s not unlike the book of Revelation’s return of Jesus at Armageddon. It’s something that makes Christian nationalists and a self-described “Leninist” like Steve Bannon shiver with antici … pation. Exception justifies all those guns stockpiled by coup plotters in preparation for the reign of Donald Trump. As I’ve written time and again, they are at heart royalists not small-d democrats. They hunger for a strongman to guarantee their dominion over perceived enemies. Chaos paves his way:
Social psychologists have repeatedly shown that the political decision-making of conservative-authoritarians is largely motivated by fear and death anxieties. The Republican Party’s opposition to effective gun control is a strategic decision because they know that more death and more killing from guns and other causes (such as COVID) enhances their power and control over their public – including support for a fascist leader or other demagogue such as Donald Trump.
The Republican Party’s and “conservative” movement’s policies are deeply unpopular with the American people. Thus, the Republican fascists and larger white right and “conservative” movement have increasingly concluded that violence is a necessary and required (and legitimate) way for them to impose their will on the American people in the name of “defending traditional values” and “real America” (which is not subtle code for “White America” and “White Christianity”).
To that end, the Republican fascists and “conservatives” and the larger white right possess a deep attraction to and affinity for vigilante and other extra-legal and illegal violence as committed most recently by the likes of Daniel Penny (who choked a mentally ill homeless black man to death on a New York subway), Kyle Rittenhouse aka “the Kenosha Kid”, George Zimmerman (who killed a black teenager Trayvon Martin for the “crime” of walking home and refusing to comply with a wannabe cop’s orders) and too many others. Police officers who kill unarmed and otherwise vulnerable Black and brown people are also valorized by the American right wing.
Conservative stands in quotes because there is nothing traditionally conservative about a reactionary right movement that, DeVega argues, wants Americans “sick and terminally ill with such violence and all the misery and death it causes.” That chaos is the “pathway to unlimited power for all time and their dream-nightmare of a new American plutocracy.”
Or white-Christian-nationalist “dominion.” Same thing.
Bill Lueders, editor-at-large of The Progressive, writes at The Bulwark that bloodlust is an animating feature of the extremist right. Men like who kill the “Other,” like Kyle Rittenhouse or Daniel Perry (convicted for the shooting death of a 28-year-old Black Lives Matter protester in Austin, Texas shooter), are treated as heroes. Reactionary figures such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have lavished praise on Penny. He was a Good Samaritan, says DeSantis. “This is what a hero looks like. The world needs more men like Daniel Penny,” said Greene.
Thank you for doing what is right, protecting victims.
Thank you for you’re selfless act!
Doing the right thing is not a crime.
God Bless U S A and God Bless Daniel Penny
Daniel Penny you did the right thing. The city on NYC should be sued.
A hero who wanted to help protect lives on the train when the city of NY does nothing to keep criminals off trains and tranist riders safe.
I hope you turn around and sue the city and DA for what they’ve done. The are culpable and to blame for making citizens the ones that have to protect the people.
AFTER THIS IS OVER YOU SHOULD LEAVE NEW YORK CITY, The city doesnt deserve to have citizens like you: its a sewer.
The Left is destroying this country; your inditement is just another example.
Looks like there is no justice system anymore. Thanks for teaching me to NEVER GET CAPTURED, NO MERCY ON ENEMY COMBATANTS (every single person blocking your car) in the future. God bless!
That is: chaos, exception. Bring on the sovereign!
“Leading hopefuls in the Republican presidential primary,” Lueders notes, endorse extrajudicial killings by vigilantes.
Stephen Crowder of “Louder with Crowder” weighed in on the killing of homeless Jordan Neely on a New York Subway, declaring, “The second that you are engaging in an activity where someone else is forced to make a decision to save their life or a life of their loved one, completely, by the way, not of their own volition, you’ve put them in that scenario, you forfeit your right to live.”
In essence: When in doubt, take them out.
Lueders concludes:
This is pure rot. Neely did not attack anyone. No one was forced to choose between killing and being killed. That Penny’s decision to put Neely in a chokehold for so long that it killed him is being cheered on by people who long for opportunities to administer lethal retribution—and who believe that the election of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis may bring the glory days where this can be exacted on the notice of a “second”—should frighten us all.
Perhaps it is time to view the spread of “stand your ground” laws and open carry in state after state as more than a result of heavy lobbying by the gun industry. The Republican Party’s policies are, as DeVega notes, “deeply unpopular with the American people” and unlikely to prevail in a pluralistic democracy. Democracies fail. Sometimes all it requires is a little push. Reactionaries convinced democracy has failed them are open to much darker alternatives.
That’s what happened. It glitched and went silent and people lost connections and they left and then they started a new “space” and only a few people stuck around so hardly anyone heard this catastrophe of an announcement speech.
You couldn’t make up a better metaphor.
also lol to musk being like we're making history and breaking the internet…this is like barely cracking primetime cable viewership numbers and this isn't even tv — it's freeconferencecall dot com pic.twitter.com/BDvLaBDqGJ
When they got it back up, this was an example of the discussion:
here's audio of DeSantis in his Twitter Space suggesting that previous Black government leaders in Florida were there because of "identity politics" pic.twitter.com/IXvviPiuzF
Okay, here’s my take. Obviously the tech snafu at the beginning is going to be the irresistible headline. A major fail. The announcement he read was a mess. Once they actually got down to talking, DeSantis is fairly good at talking about the issues that matter to him. But the issue is what matters to him. This is a way way WAY online minded campaign. And really lives within the keyboard warrior world of the right. What are the issues a winning GOP presidential campaign is going to run on? Border, Inflation, weakness abroad, etc.
They hit on the border a bit at the end, sort of realizing they’d all but ignored it. But almost the whole thing was fluffing Musk for buying Twitter, the freedom fighters who were left back on Twitter, the mainstream media, and then at the end DEI and “gender ideology.”
This is super niche stuff that most of the country doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. I noted that just a short time ago Sacks said DeSantis would be like a “cool headed ruthless assassin” turning back to the woke mob. To most people that sounds kinda nuts.
Something that comes off 4Chan and weird mass slaughter chic. Anyway, DeSantis did get his stride. But again, this is almost all within the conversation of the Twitter far right. That’s not where the country is.
“A cool-headed ruthless assassin” for president. Booyah.
