I just hate it when current events force me to talk about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.  And I do not for the  life of me understand why the national media leaves him alone. I don’t.

What’s he done now, you ask, to add to the top of the fact that he’s an indicted felon for securities fraud who’s slicker than snot on a doorknob and has postponed his trial for seven years? Seven damn years. He just waiting for all the witnesses to die.

So, here’s the deal, and I’m shaking so bad with anger that I could thread a sewing machine while it’s running.

Two years ago, Paxton’s four top staff members went public with accusations that Paxton was playing loose with state contracts in cahoots with one of his biggest contributors.

The whistleblowers’ allegations were first made public in late 2020, when eight former top deputies accused Paxton of abusing his office, accepting bribes and tampering with government documents to tip the scales at the attorney general’s office in favor of one of his political donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

The whistleblowers told authorities Paxton had tried to intervene in legal matters related to Paul, who donated money to the attorney general’s campaign, helped him remodel his home and gave a job to a woman with whom Paxton allegedly had an extramarital affair. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

Paxton admitted to the affair, which happened only because Jesus let him down again by giving him a loaded winkie in the presence of a cute female.

Okay, so Paxton fired the four top aides for blatant truth telling and assorted shenanigan watching. They sued him under the whistleblower statutes in Texas.

Just today, there was an announcement that a settlement hovers near the horizon.

Attorney General Ken Paxton agrees to apologize and pay $3.3 million to whistleblowers in settlement.

And do you know who is paying that $3.3 million? Not Ken Paxton. The taxpayers of the state of Texas are paying it. I think he’s also relying on us for the apology. If you’re a Texan I hope you bought some nice stationery and you’re working on yours.

I didn’t do a damn thing wrong in this situation but I gotta pay the punishment?

In case you’re wondering how all this has hurt his office, the AP did an investigation last September. It’s exactly what you’d expect.

Okay, so if I went into a bank and the guy who was ready to help me open a new account was wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, I dunno, but I’d likely think he wasn’t a real serious guy. I’d be highly unlikely to give him my money.

So, I’m gonna say something and I do not want to hear about misogyny. This ain’t that.

One of the reasons I cannot take Jim Jordan seriously is that he doesn’t take his appearance as a congressman seriously. When he is not in the actual capitol complex, I don’t care what he wears as long as it covers his private parts. I would add that I don’t think he should ever, in any place for any reason I can think of, dress in an attempt to look provocative. I do not know of any way Jim Jordan could look provocative but that’s just my opinion. Eric Swalwell, well that’s just a whole ‘nother thing.

Anyway, I wrote all that to talk about this:

Someone I know said that Kyrsten Sinema dressed that way to show her “independent spirit.” No, she wore that dress to show her “bad taste.” Honey, she should have left that dress hanging from the curtain rod.

And then there’s that woman who wore a white fur coat to remind everybody of the Chinese spy balloon.

Seriously, she thought she was embarrassing Joe Biden, but ended up scaring Dalmatians.

She really thought the balloon was going to be the big story of the night but discovered that if people were all that concerned about privacy they would unplug Alexia and destroy all their neighbors’ Ring.

Majorie Taylor Green spent $600 on a coat to look like a joke. However, she does a pretty damn good job of it for free.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” — Unknown

The above quote used to be attributed to Sinclair Lewis, but Politifact has stated that this was not his quote. Either way, this quote is prescient now. The large difference between the past and the present is that the quiet part is now being said out loud.

The notorious MTG has already called for a move to Christian Nationalism. Obviously, my commentary on religion has been a lightening rod. So, I won’t try to belabor this point too much, but the whole concept of Christian nationalism is a bastardization of Christianity.

In the gospel of John, a story is told about the woman at the well. Jesus approaches the woman at the well and asks for some water. The Samaritan woman has a conversation with Jesus and if you believe the wording in the translation, she convinces him that he is supposed to be the savior for the whole world.

So, how do we take a savior that is the savior for the whole world and somehow shrink him down to a savior of just your own country? Obviously, the answer is that those doing this and those listening to it have no earthly clue what the key point of Christianity really is.

Really this is about the love of team. The best analogy I could give is that of being a sports fan. Everyone wants their team to win the big game. Whether it is the World Series, NBA Championship, or Super Bowl you feel an immense amount of joy when your team wins. The problem comes when you are willing to sacrifice your personal beliefs and borders on common decency.

So, you have to ask yourself if you are willing to root for a scumbag on your team. Are you willing to root for Deshaun Watson? Are you willing to root for Trevor Bauer? Are you rooting for Kyrie Irving? What happens in fascism is that the team becomes more important than any personal feelings on morality and decency.

If we make this portable to the political world then this becomes very clear. There are Democrats that are scumbags. There are Republicans that are scumbags. Yet, these scumbags are members of our team. So, we are going to root for them to succeed even though we know they are horrible people.

If you have any doubts about this, just check out the number of people that call themselves a patriots or have a bunch of flags around their name. Are they not all rabid conservatives? You will notice that anyone that comes across them on social media and states something wrong those people will not politely invite you to leave the country.

People that have to say they are patriots are just like the people that feel the need to tell you they are nice guys or that they are smart. How smart and how nice are they really? If you feel the need to tell me you love America then how much do you really love America? You love a certain part of America which means you hate other parts of America. That’s when we get to another of the pillars of fascism. Stay tuned…

When you go to different museums chronicling World War II you will occasionally see different examples of propaganda. This was particularly true in the Holocaust Museum. One of the things they included were the fourteen signs of fascism. I’ll list them below.

• Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
• Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
• Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying cause
• Supremacy of the Military
• Rampant Sexism
• Controlled Mass Media
• Obsession with National Security
• Religion and Government are Intertwined
• Corporate Power is Protected
• Labor Power is Suppressed
• Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
• Obsession with Crime and Punishment
• Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
• Fraudulent Elections
•  

These can probably split into two categories just like the people that are involved with it. Some of these are absolute prerequisites for fascism to take hold. Others are more just side effects that happen to occur with fascism. All of them sound scary in the extreme and yet we can see the seeds of these things now.

The same is true for people. Some people genuinely want some of these things in moderation and are really not fascists personally, but may be fascist adjacent. Others know exactly what they are doing and know exactly the direction they are headed. So, over the next few weeks we will take a longer look at each of these individually.

Well, I know you guys like freaky things on candidates’ campaign and expenditures accounts and here’s one you can use about Ted Cruz, as if you need more.  But, this one lets your imagination run wacky.

VOLUME SOCIAL CLUB LLC
1834 WESTHEIMER RD UNIT 1/2
HOUSTON, Texas 77098
12/31/2022
PERSONNEL/SERVICE EQUIPMENT
234.00

New Years Eve – Volume Social Club in Houston.

Your guess is as good as mine.

My wife watched a play this week chronicling some of the goings on under Pol Pot in Cambodia. The play mixed in music in a creative way of telling the story. It essentially, followed a man who was in a rock band before the revolution and what had happened to him. Like most productions it included plenty of literary devices we teach our students. In this case, it including foreshadowing when the band was discussing what they would do if the worst occurred. Some discussed fleeing Cambodia. Others discussed hiding in the countryside. One essentially said he was in favor of Cambodia and would fly whatever flag or do whatever was asked to get by.

As you might have predicted, he ended up doing horrible things so he could stay on the “right” side. It was a singular moment in an otherwise poignant play about a very dark time in history. It is these stand alone moments that seem to grab my attention more than anything. One of the principle characters in the play was a math teacher and family man before he turned into the administrator of a prison camp. The prison camp ended up being more of a death camp than a prison camp. Naturally, the character justified himself by saying that he did not personally beat or kill any prisoners. The guards had done that.

Fascism never begins with the horrible. Decent people never do the horrible at the outset. They convince themselves they are for the state. They love the state. Their belief system gets coopted with the state where we start calling it “Christian nationalism” as if that’s even a thing. You are either for the state or against the state, so we should be for the state. That’s of course until the state begins to do terrible things. By then it’s too late. Decent people have begun to do very indecent things because the country demanded it. The signs were all there. Some out in the wilderness even said it was coming, but they didn’t listen. They allowed their focus to be on the team instead of the ideals that team was supposed to represent.

Orthodoxy in all of its forms is a dangerous thing. It requires strict adherence that is all-consuming until it is too late. The band mate that became a tool of the state really wasn’t a bad guy at heart. The math teacher turned monster wasn’t a bad guy to begin with. Yet, they became the very worst version of themselves. If we pay close enough attention it could be a cautionary tale for all of us.