Corruption and Scandal, Texas-Size

Can anything embarrass Republicans in 2023?

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in Washington, April 26. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

I am glad that The Dispatch has so many excellent politics-and-policy reporters on the job—goodness knows they provide an invaluable service. But the man we most need for our political moment has, inconveniently, been off the job for 160 years, having died in 1863. I mean, of course, Vanity Fair (the novel, not the magazine) author William Makepeace Thackeray, who remains unequaled in his skill for describing a world in which “everybody is striving for what is not worth the having.” 

Journalism is all we have to rely on in a world that is beyond satire.

Late last week, the political world was filled with great pith and moment as Democrats enjoyed a festive mood over the 37-count federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, while Republicans produced a whole Yoko Ono greatest-hits album’s worth of shrieking and wailing. 

At the same time in Texas, the feds were arresting a guy you non-Texans had probably never heard of: Nate Paul, a 36-year-old real-estate developer and political sycophant who figures prominently in the troubles of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican culture-war goof who has been impeached by the Republican state house in response to a long and complicated tale of political corruption, bribery, and retaliation.

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  1. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

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    Ben Connelly

    As usual, I’m reminded how lucky the Dispatch is to have you on staff, Kevin.

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    Will I Am

    “These losers know they are losers, and they want to be sanctified losers.” That may be the best explanation yet for the cultism of Trump. My wife and I regularly wonder how millions of otherwise decent people have been gaslit by that guy. And thanks for the explanation of the Ken Paxton case. His corruption needs to be known outside Texas, embarrassing though it may be. Sure hope the Texas Senate doesn’t cave. This Texan has had enough of that kind of garbage politician in this great state.

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    CarsonJ

    To add to hospital, hostel, and host, it's believed that from other branches of the Indo-European root that gave Latin those words also gave us guest, ghast, and ghost, according to some sources.

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    Msmerm

    Such good and helpful writing.

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  6. Pschneider_9332

    "I've heard people saying, ‘Look, if you break the law, you should go to jail, you should be prosecuted’ and the fact that other people break the law and aren't prosecuted makes no difference. But that is not how the law works. In every other instance, you can argue that whataboutism doesn't matter. So, you say, ‘Oh, Russia committed a war crime because they used that certain weapon here, cluster bombs or whatever’ and then someone comes along and says, ‘Well, the United States uses those weapons and Ukraine uses those weapons and the UK uses the weapon and Israel uses those weapons.” And then the response is, “Oh, that's whataboutism. Who cares if other people do it too? If Russia does it, it's wrong.’ And that's the kind of argument being marshaled here: who cares if everybody in Washington constantly leaks classified information? The fact that President Trump did it means he should be prosecuted. But that is not how the law works. The law is an extremely potent weapon. It can put you in a cage, it can deprive you of your liberty, it can seize your assets, it can even, in some cases, take your life. And so, for the law to be accepted in a society where the government has the power – through force – to come and take you and put you in a cage, it needs to have credibility out of the law. It needs to be something other than just a brute weapon that's used against political enemies. And the only way to ensure that the law has credibility it's if it's applied consistently and universally and not selectively. That's why in law, precedent is everything. How the law has been applied in other similar cases always guides how we view the law in this case and the fact that, as we're about to show you, so many people who were on the side of the establishment, who were judged politically favorably by the establishment, who did exactly what President Trump is accused to have done, but far worse, the fact that they were given slaps on the wrist or never even prosecuted, of course, sheds enormous light on the motives at play here and therefore the validity of the prosecution." https://greenwald.locals.com/upost/4141222/trump-s-indictment-upends-decades-of-lax-classified-docs-precedent-hillary-biden-more-let-of

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      Rochejaquelein

      *Glenn Greenwald*? Glenn Greenwald?

      My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.

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      1. Pschneider_9332

        He's one of the finest, AND most productive journalists in the world. Bar none. If you haven't read or listened to any of his work, intellectual integrity requires that you refrain from dismissing him.

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  7. Vaddeman

    Nappies. This needs to catch on.

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  8. Kgfroehle

    I mean, you can see the guy has obvious nose hairs. Enough said.

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  9. Gry.Solingen

    𝐴𝑛𝑛𝑜 𝐷𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖 is an ablative of time. Doesn’t require the Latin preposition 𝑖𝑛 or the English 𝑖𝑛.

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    1. Kgfroehle

      How do people know this? What is it like to think another way? Blasted American that I am, English rules?

      Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant. Although I discount the capital letters and comma.

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  10. DRJ

    As a fellow Texan who grew up in Lubbock, thank you for writing about our State. I wish we wouldn't elect people like this but most competent people here want to work instead of go into politics.

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