Yeah, I just like anything that irks or hampers Carlson.
I’m with you there.
Wasn’t sure if this belonged here or in the “Stupid Republican Ideas” thread, but Trump enabler and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – who sued four other states after the 2020 Presidential election for the crime of certifying Joe Biden as winning their states – is in a whole heap of trouble. The Republican-led Texas House revealed that they’ve been investigating him over multiple offenses involving a campaign donor and illegally firing whistleblowers who reported him. The rumor is that they could vote for his impeachment as early as this weekend.
That would be remarkable. Paxton has avoided facing justice for his ‘alleged’ actions for far too long.
Why are they investigating him and revealing all of this? I mean, I like it, but politically what’s the upside for the GOP?
There’s only so long you can live with zero self respect?
It just reveals the crepulence. He’s not only corrupt, which may be ok, but he’s totally incompetent at it as well.
Rather than enriching the right people, he’s cost the state tens of millions of dollars at this point, been nationally embarrassing for the state/party, and cost the state/party lots of otherwise loyal, competent staffers.
It’s not like they’ll lose the AG position. If they clean up their act a little, the GOP can more easily hold onto those positions and advance their causes more easily, especially in the courts. If Paxton wasn’t the incumbent, the Republicans would probably have nominated George P Bush for AG last year, who has his own issues but isn’t a totally corrupt waste of space like Paxton.
Or crapulence. 
Well Greg Abbott would get to appoint his interim replacement, so that’s probably why you don’t hear him jumping to Paxton’s defense.
I, respectfully, disagree. These are legislators. Tens of millions of dollars is floor sweepings to them. As far as being embarrassing, these are Republicans we’re talking about. They cannot be embarrassed. As far as loyal competent staffers, they are the little people who can easily be replaced. There are literally tens of thousands of sycophants who would gladly commit felonious crimes of any sort to get the chance. As far as competence goes, again, we’re talking Republicans, here.
No, they are going after Paxton because he is getting too big and controlling. Texas politics is weird. Their constitution was written after years of the citizens being swindled by carpetbaggers and rotten politicians who really screwed the citizens of Texas. As a result, the governor has very little power. The Legislature has the power, but only meets once every two years. It was felt that state Representatives and Senators, being elected locally, would better control the state’s power. To prevent the Legislature from having too much power, their constitution specifies just about every single aspect of running the state. As a result, however, just about any change in the way the state operates has to be codified by constitutional amendment. For example, if the state wants to change how much tax money is transferred to the state highway fund, a constitutional amendment is required.
Paxton, as AG, has managed to consolidate power in the Executive Branch and is seen as eying the Governorship. While, by the constitution, the Governor has little power, he does control the AG. The Legislature feels the need to keep the balance of power they way it is, so Paxton has to go. Well, that and Paxton is a crook . While the legislature is majority Republican, over 40% of each house are Democrats, so it doesn’t take a lot to make it happen.
I dunno about all of that.
The limited power of the Governor was true a couple decades ago, but it’s changed considerably at the hands of Rick Perry but especially changed under Greg Abbott. Used to be the Lt Gov was the real power, but Abbott pretty much calls all the shots.
Paxton’s survived mainly due to his coterie of high dollar donors which are directly correlated to people voting for him. They trotted out George P Bush to challenge him last year but Paxton won the primary by 36 points.
My gut feeling is he survives this latest trouble. He may or may not get impeached by the Texas House but he’s still got a fair amount of support in the Senate and the appearance in-fighting may be less appealing to them than leaving a corrupt, incompetent AG in place.
Federal charges, on the other hand, may be harder to dodge, and those have been building for a while.
What are you talking about? The Governor has no power over the AG. The AG is an independently elected position. And I agree with @Great_Antibob regarding how Perry and Abbott have transformed the Texas Governor from one of the weakest to one of the stronger Governorships in the country.
18 years for oath keeper leader rhodes. more sentences to come this afternoon.
I have to admit, you are correct. It’s been over a decade since I lived in Texas and things have changed a lot. When I moved to Texas in the 80s, I was very confused about Texas politics. It was so different than what I had seen in other states I had lived in. It too, me a while to figure it out, and this was in the middle of the whole Democrats changing to Republicans thing.
I try to stay in touch, but I guess if you don’t experience it, it’s hard to see what is going on. I suspect that these changes are permanent, unfortunately, since a system that is changed to consolidate power rarely changes back.
Can we just stop for a moment and reflect on this?
18 years. 18. Eighteen.
Yeah.
Not really a sentence, more like a paragraph.
I for one am very happy about this. These militia groups must be squashed hard.
Yeah, not a slap on the wrist… like most are getting. I hope other Judges will follow with this example. For all of these clowns.
I worry what the US will be like in 18 years though. I might be around to see it.
There’s one sphincter that should be tightening at this news. Someone who may be more responsible still for what happened on January 6th.
DeSantis and Trump have both indicated that they would pardon at least some of the insurrectionists.