The Three True Impeachment Articles Facing Ken Paxton

Topic: Perspective

Texas Attorney General and conservative firebrand Ken Paxton began his impeachment trial in the Texas Senate earlier this morning.  Paxton was impeached by the weak-kneed, spineless Texas House, which adopted 20 articles of impeachment and even received 60 votes in favor of from Republicans, back in May.

From The Texas Tribune:
The Texas House adopted 20 articles of impeachment against state Attorney General Ken Paxton in late May on a 121-23 vote, with 60 Republicans in favor as 23 opposed. Paxton was immediately suspended from office, without pay, upon approval of House Resolution 2377.

When the Senate adopted its rules for the trial, however, senators elected to hear evidence on 16 articles — holding four in abeyance that were largely related to 2015 criminal charges against Paxton for private business deals in 2011 and 2012. At the end of the trial, a majority of senators can vote to dismiss the four remaining articles, but if the motion to dismiss is rejected, the presiding officer will set a trial date on those four accusations.

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Now, here is a spoiler: Most serious analysts don’t believe Paxton will be convicted by the Senate, which would mandate removal from office and bar Paxton from running again in Texas.

As with everything in today’s political climate, one must read between the lines to figure out just what in the hell is going on here, and why things matter beyond the headline (and why they will still matter once the headlines read that Paxton will remain in office).  Most of these articles of impeachment read like the same jargon present in the indictments of President Trump, complete with legal terminology and fluffed-up language to make words like conspiracy, dereliction, abuse, and disregard leap off the pages and into the eyes of the gullible.  The bribery charges pertain to Paxton’s own relationships, one a business relationship, and the other a personal relationship (for the record, I suspect strongly that a majority of the Texas House would prefer to keep their own personal relationships personal, and not have them leveraged for political impact).

So, why is Ken Paxton standing for an impeachment trial in reality?  Try the following three counts on for size:

I.          The Empire Strikes Back

            Paxton has been a royal pain in the ass to the Texas Republican machine, which remains deeply influenced by big oil and neocon money, as well as the Bush political dynasty.  Americans, including Texans, hate political dynasties, and this fact was well demonstrated when Paxton defeated George P. Bush for the Attorney General nomination in 2022 in a blowout exceeding a 2:1 margin, then went on to win a third consecutive term in the General Election against standard Democrat fodder.

            Greg Abbott, the third-term Governor who has ridden the populist and establishment fence for the last five years, at minimum, has had little to say in defense of Paxton (to his credit, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has been vocally supportive of Paxton), and appears to have looked the other way as the Texas House, led by a repulsive weasel named Dade Phelan, waged war on Texas’s duly-elected top lawman.  Paxton was torpedoed just days after calling for Phelan to resign as Speaker for manning his post while either completely trashed, mentally impaired, or under the influence of some other substance, which likely came from across the porous southern border most Texas Republicans refuse to take seriously.

II.         Payback and Protection of the Sacred Elections Cow

            I did not hire President Trump to be my pastor, and I didn’t hire Ken Paxton for that role, either.  While I’m confident plenty of political chaff can be found that would dim Paxton’s star, he is the most serious Attorney General of a major state when it comes to the reality of election manipulation that is destroying our nation and has continued to discuss this with plenty of eyeballs on him.  Paxton won many lawsuits in the run-up to the 2020 election, which prevented Texas from delivering the same pathetic result that continues to be defended in Georgia.

            Paxton’s office is responsible for the lawsuit Texas v. Pennsylvania, which was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court while President Trump was still in office, and after the 2020 quasi-election had been certified in all states.  The case alleged that Pennsylvania’s maladministration of its own election, causing Joe Biden to carry its 20 electoral votes, disenfranchised Texas’s 38 electors, and made any potential proceedings a matter of equal protection under the law.  The case was a masterpiece, and 20 other Attorneys General signed on; unfortunately, the Supreme Court didn’t have the guts to take it up and dismissed it for lack of standing (don’t blame Clarence Thomas).

            While President Trump still carried Texas, he did so by a drastically reduced margin from what appears to be an easy win with a double-digits margin.  I believe, thanks to Paxton’s efforts, that Texas stayed in the Republican column because some integrity regarding mail-in balloting was preserved, unlike in the Peach State.  But it wasn’t supposed to, and that brings me to a third and final point:

III.        Guarding the Narrative

            Florida is long gone and has sailed off into the MAGA sunset.  Trump outpolls Ron DeSantis in a hypothetical General Election there, and it’s becoming impossible for Democrats to hold Pennsylvania or Michigan by legitimate means due to the crossover of non-college white voters to support America First candidates in those states with stagnant or declining populations.  Future election steals in those two states, especially Pennsylvania, will be about as believable as Democrats swiping South Dakota.  Working class Latinos and populist conservatives would have, by now, also put Arizona and Nevada firmly into the MAGA column if not for the open manipulation in the former, and the legal enshrinement of said manipulation in the latter.  Minnesota, like Nevada, is not even worth contesting in 2024 because of the legal reforms pertaining to that corrupt state’s elections.

            This crumbling Democrat coalition requires new blood, and blood with a high content of electoral votes.  Enter Georgia and Texas.  Yes, Joe Biden lost Texas in 2020, but had almost 600,000 more votes than Trump won Texas with in 2016, with the standard Republican cycle-to-cycle gain since 2004 hovering around 100,000.  No Democrat had ever garnered four million popular votes in any Texas presidential election, but Biden not only did the trick, but went a quarter-million over five million.  It appears to these analytical eyes that Trump was supposed to lose Texas as the big surprise in 2020, which would have crippled the election integrity movement from Day One.  Can you imagine me showing up in Wisconsin trying to say Trump should have won it, when Texas sits shaded in that disgusting pale blue shade at the southern end of our electoral map?

            Paxton’s impeachment circus, though it will likely end with him acquitted, will give fodder to the narrative that Texas is changing (it is, but not in the way the media claims), and that “former Republicans” are moderating their views to accommodate climate change, borders, and rapid urbanization (88% of the vote in Texas comes from urban or suburban voters), which is intended to support the (artificial) bluing of Texas.  “See, Republicans have had enough of Trumpism and are holding Ken Paxton accountable,” they will claim; meanwhile, this author believes Texas is the second most vulnerable Trump-won state for 2024, behind only North Carolina, and one that must not be taken for granted, either now or in the very near future as the battle for America rages on.

Conclusion

            Nothing is ever as it appears on the surface, and that goes for the Paxton impeachment proceedings.  Many of the alleged violations have already been shoved aside and debunked, and just because something may be immoral or reflect on the humanity of an individual, it doesn’t make it an impeachable offense that must put a stop to the political proceedings of the people.  Buckle up, get serious about Texas, and make sure you do your own research.