This past week has been a difficult one and that is particularly in Texas. Kate Cox was a normal Texan with two children and she and her husband were hoping for a third. 20 weeks into the pregnancy something horrible happened. They were given the kind of diagnosis that no one wants to hear. Their baby was no longer viable and it would threaten her life if it were brought to term.

The Texas law prevents abortions that late into the pregnancy. Cox asked for an exception since the baby was not viable, her health would be in danger, and performing the procedure now would preserve her ability to have children in the future. The district court heard the evidence and granted the exception.

Ken Paxton in his own special way filed an immediate appeal and threatened to have anyone that assisted her prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Texas Supreme Court dragged their feet so Cox travelled to an unknown state and had the procedure done. Just to be thorough, the Texas Supreme Court then ruled that the district court’s ruling was null and void. There will be no exceptions.

As a cradle Catholic, I am really torn on this one. I tend to be against abortion in most instances. The key term is most. If the baby can be had safely and the baby is viable I much prefer adoption over abortion. However, I have to acknowledge two very important distinctions. The first is that all pregnancies are different and come with their own challenges. In Cox’s case, she wanted the baby, but that was no longer a legitimate possibility and the outcome was going to be crushing if not deadly.

Doctors and families are the ones that should make these calls. Is the mother’s life in danger? Is the baby in danger? Is this a case of the child having a abnormality that would impact its quality of life or will the child literally die shortly after birth? The fact is that no one carries a child to that point and chooses to have an abortion because the child is an inconvenience.

The second consideration is that abortion is a personal choice. I would never choose to have an abortion unless my life or the life of the baby were in danger. I will never be pregnant. It’s not my choice. If we believe in free will then we also believe that people ultimately have the choice to make decisions that we might think are bad ones. We may disagree with the choice.

In Cox’s case, that question is moot. The child wasn’t going to survive. So, what are we doing exactly? Why is Paxton being such a jackass? This was never about Cox. She had the means to go elsewhere to take care of her procedure. I think if you shot them up with truth serum they would admit that the law really wasn’t about her or women like her.

It was a signal to women in general. We have control over you. We control your reproductive health, your health in general, and your future. We make all of these choices for you because we can’t trust to make them on your own. It was a signal to everyone else that your situation doesn’t matter. You had your opportunity and you didn’t take it. The idea of prosecuting doctors for performing live saving care is beyond repugnant. You almost want to paint one of those curly mustaches on Paxton to complete the illusion that he is a megalomaniacal villain chortling in the background. We can do better Texas. We have to do better.

I’ve talked about scale before. Yet, the thrust on that day was the impressive math skills of Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. In that case, somehow dozens had turned into millions and millions had turned into billions. I suppose we can call that the politics of hyperbole or exaggeration. Numbers are confusing you know. They tend to point to facts and facts are so useless when you are crafting an alternative narrative.

In this case we have seen two news stories that are obviously related. First, Ken Paxton has launched yet another investigation into Texas Children’s Hospital. This is not the first time. It’s usually at this point where we would remind the studio audience that gender affirming care is not illegal in Texas…yet. However, that is about to change. We can easily go down the rabbit hole and debate this issue back and forth. I suspect that most of the readers here are on the same side. Why is the party of “personal responsibility” and civil liberty somehow in favor of taking away autonomy and limiting freedom? It’s obvious that the GOP is no longer conservative in any traditional sense.

Yet, that’s not the question for today. The question for today is why we are even bothering in the first place. Lost in the maze of cruelty, drastic overreach, and religious zealousness is the fact that this impacts so few people. I have been on my current campus for nine years. We graduate between 300 and 400 students every year. That’s eight graduating classes (the first year we only had up to 11th grade). We have three more classes right now of the same size. Basic math tells me that we have had between 3500 and 4500 students roll through this campus. Let’s make it an even 4000. I know of only a handful of students that have been openly transitioning. That’s one hand. That’s 0.1 percent of the students that have rolled through this campus. I have no idea if we are indicative of the entire population or not, but I can’t imagine it is that different.

I will grant that there are any number of students that are privately grappling with their identity. Obviously, the state of Texas and those that govern it aren’t helping. Still, we aren’t talking about a lot of people. It’s the same thing as those conservatives that want to fondle girls because they want to make sure that some girls are actually girls when playing sports. Beyond the abject horror of these ideas is the extreme impracticality of it all. Are you to tell me that there is nothing else going on Texas or your state that you need to spend time on this? How many girls are we talking about here? My daughter played junior volleyball from the age of ten to the age of 15. I counted one boy that played and no one cared.

The cruelty is the goal. It’s a feature and not a bug. Beyond that is the ridiculousness of it all. We aren’t solving problems. We are inventing them. There isn’t a whole hoard of boys dressing up like girls and going into the girls bathroom. There isn’t a hoard of girls dressing like boys and going into the boys bathroom. Of course, no one has a problem with that for some reason. I don’t know anyone that has even seen a drag queen story hour being advertised much less attended one. Yet, this is what we spend time on. These have become our legislative priorities.

They have also become the battle lines we fight with family and friends over. We don’t fight over whether we should keep our democracy. We don’t fight nearly enough over military grade weapons killing our kids. We don’t fight to save the environment, pass true educational reform, overhaul the health insurance system, or combat the wealth gap. Nope. We fight over stuff that affects less than one percent of the population. Don’t get me wrong. We all know people we love and respect that deserve to be protected. They deserve to be themselves. They deserve their dignity. Sadly, many don’t agree. However, what we can all agree on is that government shouldn’t be spending time on any of this. Whether you think a girl should become a boy or vice versa is certainly a personal preference. Spending valuable time and resources litigating this in the public sphere is just proof the GOP isn’t serious about addressing any actual problems

There is a famous bit in the Peanuts cartoons that probably best describes what many of us are feeling at this point. Lucy Van Pelt repeatedly convinces Charlie Brown to try to kick a football. Each time she promises that she won’t move the football at the last moment. Every time he barrels full speed ahead and every time she moves the football. Charlie Brown will lose his balance and land on his backside.

On a seemingly weekly basis we are told that Donald Trump is about to be indicted. He has been sued well over 100 times in his lifetimes. Sometimes he is forced to pay a minimal amount, but he has never been held truly responsible for any his financial crimes. He has committed fraud, treason, and has been credibly accused of numerous sexual crimes as well. As we sit here, he has a grand jury looking at his “perfect” phone call where he blatantly tries to interfere in an election and strongarm the secretary of state into falsifying the results. Then, there was the theft of hundreds of documents he had no rights to. The Justice Department could charge him with illegally possessing those documents, obstruction of justice when he refused to return them, and probably much more. Then, there was the illegal campaign expenditure where he paid off a porn star and former playmate.

Of course, because he is a brazen jackass he didn’t stop that. He released a post on social media showing himself holding a bat next to a picture of the district attorney. Legal experts have said that this broke an additional four laws by itself. Obviously, apologists will argue that he really wasn’t being serious. That’s what they all say before someone actually attempts to harm the district attorney. He did the exact same thing when he called for his followers to storm the capitol. It wasn’t serious until it was.

Here in Texas we know this story all too well. Our attorney general has been under indictment every day of his term. He then was able to run for reelection and was given another term. He will never go to trial. Donald Trump will never go to trial. We know this too. In this situation we find ourselves being the sucker and shill. Yet, every week we see the reports that an indictment is imminent. The mainstream media is playing the role of Lucy Van Pelt and Charlie Brown at the same time. Even if indicted, there will be no perp walk. There will be no jail time. There will be no justice.

This is where we need to reframe and readjust. Partisan media will frame this as a right vs. left issue. Fox will point out all of the crimes that the Bidens have supposedly committed. MSNBC will continue to tell how a Trump indictment is imminent. Whether the Bidens have done anything wrong is not really the issue. The issue is that there has always been a two-tiered aspect to our justice system. Some are able to buy their way out of facing justice. The rest of us must face the music when we screw up. If the mainstream media focused on that and admitted what all of us know to be true then they could simply outline the crimes that the rich and powerful commit and just move on. They could look at the disparate results that depend on how much any one person has to shirk their culpability. Don’t cry wolf. Don’t hype up a possible indictment we know isn’t coming. It never does. That’s more the point.

A jackass at my daughter’s school has decided to call in bomb threats on two consecutive days. The local police are on the case. The sheriff’s office is on the case. The FBI is on the case. I’m sure every teacher and principal are studying the voice on the other line to see if they can identify him. There are all kinds of silly rumors as to why this kid is doing this. The answer is simple. He wants others to feel afraid because that somehow gives him power.

Calling in terroristic threats is a felony. This kid will be found and it won’t be pretty when they do. However, that knowledge in the background hit me when I heard an Eva Guzman ad again this morning. She is running for attorney general in Texas. She will presumably have to go through Ken Paxton and the infamous Louie Gohmert. You have to try really hard to out-slime those two.

Guzman’s ads tell us that she will tackle the immigration problem as attorney general. The only thing is that she doesn’t call it a problem. She calls it an invasion. As you might suspect, she also goes into the other stereotypes and misconceptions about them stealing our resources, committing crimes, and coming after you and your grandchildren. Democratic policies are making it worse and we are at a crossroads.

Except we aren’t. Illegal immigration is not a growing problem. Illegal immigrants are not committing crimes at the same rate. It is illegal for them to collect social security. It is illegal for them to get welfare. Hell, it is illegal for them to work at all. So, what exactly are we doing here? These ads are long on emotion. They want you to feel afraid. They want you to feel angry. They want you to hate. They just aren’t all that long on facts. Facts don’t help them. Facts just get in the way of a good story.

The 64,000 pound elephant in the room hits you squarely across the chest when you realize that Eva Guzman (and those like her) are using the exact same tactics as that kid calling in a bomb threat. The reality of Guzman’s threats are about as valid as the boy’s threats. There’s no bomb. There’s no invasion. The world isn’t going to hell in a ham basket because someone came across the border or because a boy decided to become a girl or vice versa. Oh, it might be going to hell alright, but it won’t be because of any of those things.

The hell we fear is a hell of our own creation. It was one that spins out of our fear. It is one that comes from the notion of life as a zero sum game where everything someone else gets is something that we don’t. It’s a fear where we point at people that aren’t like us and turn their desire just to exist into an existential threat to our humanity and culture. Be afraid. Be very afraid and while you’re at it why don’t you try on this hate for size. It fits you well.

Every once in awhile, something invades my sacred space. Eva Guzman has done that in the mornings. I listen to local sports radio in my 15 minute drive to school every morning. Now, they are playing her ads as she attempts to unseat Ken Paxton from the role of attorney general in Texas. Paxton is the symbol of GOP excess in Texas and possibly the entire nation.

When we teach our students about irony we often bring up Paxton. He has been under indictment for nearly his entire term. You add in the obligatory example of an arsonists as a fire chief and a crook as the chief of police and you have yourself a perfect example. The fact that the number one law enforcement officer in the state is under indictment has to be a joke. The fact that voters knew he was and voted for him anyway is the cruel part of the irony. That and the fact that his trial might occur before the apocalypse.

So maybe Guzman is a better choice based purely on the fact that she hasn’t been credibly accused of a crime yet. Maybe I’m giving myself away and revealing my bias when I say yet. All I know is that 6:30 in the morning is way too early to hear about Joe Biden’s “radical agenda.” Biden has been called a number of things in and out of Democratic circles and radical comes nowhere near any of those things.

Republicans are good for two things. First, they somehow manage to label themselves as the law and order party when their politicians seem to be responsible for 90 percent of the indictments, convictions, and jail time. I suppose white collar crime doesn’t count. It is a tradition as long as life itself. Find a dedicated Q zealot and you’ve probably found yourself a pedophile. Projection is their spirit animal.

The second thing is that a Republican will call any Democrat a radical whether they be moderate or progressive. The Virginia race proves that, but we didn’t need any proof. If we are going to be saddled with the radical label whether we are radical or not then we might as well go for it. We spend half of our time muting ourselves. Obviously, they don’t have the same issue.

So, Guzman is the flavor of the month. Paxton is the perfect MAGA stooge. He is willing to do anything the master wants and he already seems on his way to jail as soon as the courts get off their duff and actually hold his trial. Why shouldn’t he be the number one law enforcement officer in the state? So, keep trying Guzman, but just lay off the commercials early in the morning. 6:30 is way too early to get my daily dose of bullshit.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is scheduled to go to trial on charges of securities fraud on May 1st.  He’s hurrying some good press until then.

Last December, Paxton joined in supporting the right of a school aide in Killeen, Texas (between Austin and Waco) to hang a poster with a bible quote on the wall of the school.

After the principal told the aide to take the poster down, Paxton wrote to the Killeen school district: “These concerns are not surprising in an age of frivolous litigation by anti-Christian interest groups … Rescind this unlawful policy.”

Here it is three months later and Paxton is still defending the right to proselytize.  Unless, of course, you’re not a highly discriminated against Christian.

Liberty High School in Frisco, Texas (North Dallas), has a prayer room.  Muslim students have used it for 7 years instead of leaving school and driving home to pray.  Buddhists students use it for mediation. Nobody has objected or say anything about it.

Without warning to Liberty High School or even asking a question, Paxton tweeted this —

Paxton contends that students of other faiths have been excluded from the prayer room.  And the reason he knows that is that a 11th grade student told him so.

And totally untrue, according to Frisco Independent School District officials, who say state officials didn’t even ask them about the prayers before the letter ended up in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s tweet.

“This ‘press release’ appears to be a publicity stunt by the OAG to politicize a nonissue,” schools superintendent Jeremy Lyon wrote in reply to the state. “Frisco ISD is greatly concerned that this type of inflammatory rhetoric in the current climate may place the District, its students, staff, parents and community in danger of unnecessary disruption.”

Publicity stunt?  No, not Paxton.  Not a month before he heads to trial for cheating people out of their money.

And there’s this –

A week before the attorney general’s letter, Liberty High’s principal had welcomed all students to use the room in an interview with KERA public radio.

You know, there ought to be a law against an attorney general needlessly stirring up hate in a public high school right before his trial on state felony charges of securities fraud.  Probably wouldn’t stop Paxton, though. Laws have never actually applied to Paxton.