You recall when Dan Patrick, pandering to His Orangeness, offered $1 million in bounties to anyone reporting actual voter fraud.  Up until now, not a dime was paid, but now that’s changed.  Patrick’s campaign has paid out a $25,000 bounty to a Pennsylvania poll worker, and DEMOCRATIC poll worker, for reporting a man voting twice in the general election, once for himself, and again in a disguise for his son.  The poll worker, Eric Frank, denied the voter, 72 year old Trumpist named Ralph Thurman, who voted for himself and then asked to vote for his son.  Frank turned him away, but he returned later wearing sunglasses and voted again.  Frank reported it when he saw him and tried to confront the Thurman as he fled the building.  Thurman was charged and later pleaded guilty to felony voter fraud.  He got a slap on the wrist of 3 years probation and banned from voting for only 4 years instead of permanently.

Anyhoo, Patrick ponied up the $25k bounty for Frank catching Republican voter fraud, and I guess that’s something.

Former NE Tarrant County Tea Party president Konni Burton succeeded Wendy Davis as a state senator for one term before beaten by Beverly Powell, a Democrat.  Her short time in the state senate was notable in two ways; first, Rice’s Baker Institute rated her as the most conservative in the senate, and second, she pissed off Trump over her confiscation reform bill (you know, where police take assets away from someone suspected of criminal behavior even if they were acquitted).  Trump threatened to “destroy” her career for disagreeing with him.  Apparently he succeeded, since she lost to a Dem.

Burton started looking for a new gig, and in 2019 started The Texan, an online “news” source she touts as:

“Dedicated to providing readers with fact-based news regarding issues, policies, elected officials, and campaigns, The Texan is the alternative to the narratives and spin that is so pervasive in news media today.  Seven out of ten Americans, when polled, believe the media knowingly spreads misinformation at least some of the time. The Texan is here to counter that misinformation and provide you with news you can trust.”

Before you burst out laughing at that statement, here’s their stated plan for the “news” service:

“The Texan provides straight news reporting so you can be an informed citizen.

• We do not publish political opinion
• We do not endorse candidates in any political elections
• We do not have an editorial board to publish editorial opinion”

Of course, she’s staffed her “news” service with Republican operatives for editing and reporting, and makes no secret of the “spin” she doesn’t like.  Not on the list of her targets for derision are Fox Noise, OAN, or Newsmax.  Her reporting is 100% rightwing, masquerading as serious objective reporting, just like her competitors.

This is just a Mini-Me of Fox Noise that also used to claim “fair and balanced” which is most certainly is not.  It doesn’t take long to unmask this thinly veiled attempt to camouflage a radically partisan effort to spin the news – all you have to do is peruse Burton’s open sewer of a Twitter feed. Where she tweets and retweets all the normal MAGA talking points.  The only good thing about The Texan is that they don’t take advertising, so it’s not cluttered up with ads for gold coins and prepper supplies.

Just what we need…more toxic bile and partisanship as if we don’t already have enough of that in Texas.

The post election audit Clown Show of Maricopa County ballots has been a complete disaster from the first moment it was conceived.  Ordered by Senate Republicans in March, said 60 day audit is now going on 6 months and has probably set the state GOP back, oh, say to the Reagan era.  Everyone associated with the “audit” have made fools of themselves in front of the entire nation, and Trump has happily led them down this primrose path dropping hints of “they can’t believe what they’re finding” when in fact they’ve found nothing.  In the process, God knows how much damage they’ve done, and the elections commission for the county has already said they’ll have to replace all the voting machines after they were compromised by the “auditors”.

To pour gasoline on the fire of incompetence, the report of the results of this months long fiasco has been once again delayed because…wait for it…the CEO of Cyber Ninjas and some of his key staff are “quite ill” with COVID.  Dollar to a donut that none of these idiots were vaccinated because, well, they’re idiots, and Karen Fann, the Arizona Senate President didn’t answer the question if they had been vaccinated.

You just can’t make this up.

Yesterday, the DOJ ruled that Alabama representative Mo Brooks, whose fiery rhetoric at the Trump rally that incited the attack contributed to the insurrection, is NOT immune from lawsuits for that rhetoric.  Brooks had argued that his rhetoric, which amplified The Big Lie spread by Trump, was part of his duty as a US Representative; the DOJ said no, this was campaign activity and not protected.  US Representative Eric Swalwell has sued Brooks and others accusing them of incitement to stop the Electoral College certification on January 6th.

Boom.

Not surprisingly, Trump has endorsed criminally indicted and federally investigated Ken Paxton for yet another term as Texas AG.  The irony is so thick that you can cut it with a knife.  Paxton belongs in the top law enforcement spot as much as beans belongs in Texas chili.  Uh, uh.  He has so far avoided trial on his original securities fraud charges for over 5 years and is now under federal investigation after his staff blew the whistle on him for everything from bribery to garden variety corruption.  With all of his troubles, it’s not surprising that he’s being primaried for the 2022 election.  What’s surprising is that George P. Bush, hoping he saw a weak target, threw his hat in the ring to do that.  Worse, he also decided it was a really good idea to humiliate himself and embarrass his own family by publicly kissing Trump’s ass to do it to earn the MAGA vote.

Well, that didn’t work.  Yesterday, staying completely in character, Trump endorsed Paxton probably because of his criminal indictments and his embarrassing performance in , rather than P, who’s just an opportunistic lightweight.  And according to a Trump confidante, Trump reveled in P’s ass kissing, saying,

“…George P. has played this exactly right, and he’s definitely more conservative than his dad, and Trump knows that,” said one Trump confidante who discussed the race with him recently. “But I can tell you the president enjoys the prospect of knowing how much it kills Jeb that his son has to bend the knee and kiss the ring. Who’s your daddy? Trump loves that.”

I’ve always thought that P was a lightweight and a cynical partisan taking advantage of Daddy’s last name. But I never thought he was just a dumbass, but a dumbass he most certainly is.  Not only has he humiliated himself, he actually allowed Trump to weaponize his weakness and stupidity to hurt himself, his father, uncle, and grandfather.  Hopefully the electorate will see these facts and send him packing back to Florida or wherever.  He definitely has no business holding any elected office, especially in Texas.

It’s all out war right now in Arizona, specifically Maricopa County, where Republicans have been presiding over an audit shitshow of the 2.1 million ballots from the 2020 election.  We’ve talked about the sham that was cooked up by the Arizona State Senate, where they decided that it would be a really good idea to pander to Trump by pretending to count ballots and look for Chinese bamboo in the paper.  The Arizona secretary of state has opposed the audit from the beginning, and now the Maricopa Board of Elections has weighed in with an open letter to the senate demanding that the audit be halted immediately.  The letter was sent after Karen Fann, president of the senate, accused the board on Twitter of deleting the entire data base from the 2020 election, which, of course, is completely false.

Jack Sellers, the chairman of the elections board, both in public statements and in the letter ripped Fann, senate Republicans, and especially the “auditor”, Cyber Ninjas, for their incompetence.  He also has refused to answer any more questions and demands.  Here’s a quote from Sellers in that regard:

Jack Sellers, chair of Maricopa county board of supervisors, ends meeting by saying he is not responding to any more requests from state senate on Arizona audit. "Finish your report and be ready to defend it in a court of law," he says.

— Sam Levine (@srl) May 17, 2021

I had the opportunity to read the letter today and it’s a long, but fantastic read.  Once choice paragraph I reproduce here: