Everyone who understood @Buck_Godot 's point, raise your hand 
Ken Paxton steals $1000 pen
A thousand dollar pen?? Does it write by itself or something?
Just a note that the alleged theft occurred about 13 years ago.
Though from what I know about Paxton, I don’t doubt it’s true.
It was a Montblanc fountain pen. Definitely a luxury item, at least for folks who still go for fountain pens. The type where they will have a ritzy store (just for pens!) near a neighborhood you can’t afford to live in
But I believe the ads are current.
Yes, they are. Talarico is bringing it up in the current ads.
And I don’t fault him for it. Paxton is a crook, and it’s another example of him being a crook.
I just wanted to point out that this isn’t some new incident (the theft), but you are right that the story about it is relevant to the current political situation.
One of the worse things about it is the theft of a fountain pen is one of the more benign of his sins.
He’s just a terrible human being and even other Texas Republicans knew it. But he had just enough pull with the right people to hold off a very serious attempt within his own party to oust him.
After that, he had a clear lane to nomination, but he’s so awful that he wasn’t going to coast even if this wasn’t a challenging year to be a Republican. He may still win (it’s still Texas) but the race is going to suck a lot of money and attention the national party could have spent elsewhere. So, that’s at least a silver lining, no matter how it turns out.
Eh, it started reasonably and then took a sharp right into mocking sarcasm. It would have benefited from a eyesprain-inducing 
.
Having done 3rd through 12th grade (+undergrad, but that was very different) in Texas, you may say this as a joke, but it is my lived experience. School administration with absolute sincerity and conviction not understanding why an in school prayer to God is wrong, because the prayer is acceptable to Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and even Catholics.
Freedom of religion means you can be Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, even Catholic, and I guess Jewish if you insist (but we won’t really trust you).
A Reagan-appointed judge (yes, he’s 87) ruled a Texas law unconstitutional. The law, among other things, specifically banned drag shows.
The judge’s ruling contained some extremely common-sense language:
In the ruling, Hittner also had advice for “those who find such activities as described in this case offensive.”
“The solution is relatively simple … just don’t go,” he wrote.
One that I find annoying is some sort of proposal by our dumb-ass Governor for Texas universities to offer some kind of 3 year bachelor degree.
As if somehow this won’t make our universities look bad by granting half-assed degrees.
Texas Gov. Abbott pushing for 3-year bachelor’s degrees | kvue.com
And I’m a bit confused about what “high demand” degrees there are that are in such demand that we’d want to shorten the educational requirements in order to create more graduates?
Seems to me the way to save tuition for deserving students isn’t to force universities to do this nonsense, but you know, actually subsidize tuition or grant more financial aid.