A crook any way you look Let’s start with the obvious, which is the “Why now?” question. A lot of people seem to be mystified. Why, after nearly a decade of Ken Paxton’s criming, did the House General Investigations Committee decide to go all scorched earth on him now? I’ve seen some theories about it having to do with the federal investigation into Paxton and Nate Paul being taken up by the Justice Department instead of the local US Attorney, with a Twitter thread that I forgot to bookmark speculating that the House signing off on the $3.3 million settlement would somehow make House members ..read more

It’s officially handed over to the Senate now. A crook any way you look The Texas House on Monday named 12 of its members to prosecute its case against impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state Senate. The House announced a Republican-majority board of managers to handle the prosecution, made up of seven Republicans and five Democrats. The group immediately left the House chamber to deliver the 20 articles of impeachment to the Senate. The House’s announcement came two days after it voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton, alleging a yearslong pattern of misconduct and wrongdoing. P ..read more

Worth keeping an eye on. TikTok sued the state of Montana Monday in an effort to overturn a first-of-its-kind law banning downloads of the app in the state. The lawsuit, which comes on the heels of other suits filed by Montanan TikTok creators, alleges the state’s law violates users’ freedom of speech and illegally singles TikTok out. If the law is allowed to take effect in January, the suit argues, it could deal a devastating blow to businesses and creators who rely on the app for their income. “We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our ..read more

The Texas Progressive Alliance honors and remembers those who lost their lives serving in the military as it brings you this week’s roundup. Off the Kuff was all over the impeachment proceedings against Ken Paxton. SocraticGadfly explained what the new short-term tweak to the Colorado River Compact does and does not mean. ================== And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs. Multiple sites and people paid tribute to the great Houston-based writer and Texas original John Nova Lomax, who died this past week at the age of 53. A sampling, from the people who knew him and t ..read more

Some more links of interest relating to the Paxton impeachment-a-thon. I suspect that as more reporters and columnists read the House General Investigations Committee’s report we will see more stories that zoom in on the particulars of his offenses. For instance, from TPM: A crook any way you look At the center of the allegations are Paxton’s relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor and contributor to Paxton’s political campaigns who fell on hard financial times. “The most senior members of the OAG believed in good faith that Paxton was breaking the law and abusing his of ..read more

We’re three weeks out, how are things going? Three weeks after Dallas was hit with a ransomware attack, city officials still haven’t publicly explained the full scope of the breach or the city’s progress toward restoration. The ransomware attack hit May 3 and though some functions, like filing a complaint to 311 through the city’s app or residents paying their water bill online, have returned, other functions are still impacted ..read more

There I was at the WalMart on Yale this week, with my parents, and what did I see but this: Yes, it’s a Cruise car, charging up in the parking lot. We knew that at least initially they will have backup safety drivers, who I presume are responsible for plugging in the recharge cables. You will note that this car is named “Cheese Blintz”. I for one did not know these cars would have names, but thanks to that bit of trivia I can give you a count of how many of these vehicles I encountered, because this is what we saw on the way back: Yep, two more cars, one of which is named “Brioche”. I saw th ..read more

“According to a new study in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, composting food scraps results in 38 to 84 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than tossing them in landfills. Unlike trash in landfills, compost heaps are watered and turned, which aerates the decomposing waste and prevents bacteria from churning out as much methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.” “New Ipsos poll suggests Trump and Christian nationalism have discredited religion in the eyes of many Americans”. “Medical students say strict abortion laws are driving them away from pursuing careers as doctors in states where the ..read more

For the third time in as many days, I say Wow. A crook any way you look In a history-making late-afternoon vote, a divided Texas House chose Saturday to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, temporarily removing him from office over allegations of misconduct that included bribery and abuse of office. The vote to adopt the 20 articles of impeachment was 121-23. Attention next shifts to the Texas Senate, which will conduct a trial with senators acting as jurors and designated House members presenting their case as impeachment managers. Permanently removing Paxton from office and barring him fr ..read more

The good news. Texas lawmakers have voted to reverse an expensive state law requiring election officials to replace all their current vote-counting equipment with technology that doesn’t exist. An unprecedented mandate the Legislature passed in 2021, without fully realizing its consequences, would have decertified equipment that counties currently use to count votes, to be replaced by machines on which data “once written, cannot be modified,” at an estimated cost of more than $100 million. The bill amending the requirement is now headed to the governor’s desk. It will allow counties to use t ..read more