Who Dat?

 Finally heard somebody talking sense on Russia-Ukraine. 

This guy understands too.

Geoge P. Bush Shenanigans in Texas

A few days ago, US Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) sent a very public letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin requesting a full hearing concerning the FBI's conduct during investigations of politicians and candidates. This request is based on an internal FBI audit from 2019 that found nearly 750 rule violations during politically tinged investigations. I found the timing of Cruz's announcement significant. Those unfamiliar with what's going on in Texas politics might not. It just so happens that the Texas primaries were over on March 1st, but the runoff between the embattled incumbent Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton and George P. Bush is still to come on May 24th. Bush was propelled into the runoff by the late entry into the primary of one name pundits might recognize: US Congressman Louie Gohmert (R, TX). Gohmert and Paxton are two of the biggest Trump coattail riders in the business, so why did Gohmert choose to run against Paxton, especially so late in the election cycle that he was pretty much guaranteed to only play the role of spoiler? 

When Gohmert announced he was exploring a run, he said that he would only run if he received $1 million in funding within ten days. He received that funding, in large part because of $300,000 from one Mayes Middleton, a sitting Texas State House member who's net worth is around $2.3 million and was himself in a race of his own for a Texas State Senate seat. Shortly after Gohmert made this announcement, the previous candidate who attracted Middleton's money, another Texas State House member Matt Krause, withdrew from the race. Gohmert also received $250,000 from Krause's campaign fund. In other words, it's possible Middleton actually provided much more than $300,000 to Gohmert's campaign through Krause's campaign fund and behind the scenes requests to Krause. Krause is a conservative darling but has also expressed public support on multiple occasions for George P. Bush, including a ringing endorsement for Bush in Bush's last race for land commissioner which included Krause's own account of at least one personal discussion he has had with George P. Apparently, Krause has George P. on speed dial. Meanwhile, after leaving the race Krause immediately entered the race for a local DA's office that suddenly opened up for him after his retirement from the House. Interesting how people who do favors for the Bushes always seem to land on their feet. Why did Krause run against someone he supports wholeheartedly? The truth is Krause's only role in the race was as a spoiler. He's seen as more conservative than Bush, and so would be expected to take votes away from Paxton. Unfortunately, it didn't work, so Krause withdrew, and the Bush family of political accountants realized they needed more firepower to even get into the run-off with Paxton. Enter Louie Gohmert. Why did the maximalist Trumpian Gohmert run against a Trump endorsed candidate? 

The common theme here is Mayes Middleton's money, a man who attended the University of Texas Law school at the same time as George P. This is the same UT Law school that has endured pay-to-play scandals and accusations of favoritism when one of its regents, Wallace Hall, chose to be honest, go public, and try to reform it from a old boy credentialing business for aspiring politicians into a merit-based, real law school. A pretty reliable rule of Texas politics is the deeper you go, the more you start to doubt that anything is a coincidence. Middleton is also the man who has, according to several grassroots conservative House members, ruined the Texas State House Freedom Caucus. You know what else? Most of Middleton's personal wealth is due to his ownership of a small, independent oil business. Pretty easy for the Bush family to return the favor to Middleton once the hustle and bustle of the election cycle is over, certain in the knowledge that they have the FBI in their pocket. There will be no FBI investigation into soon-to-be Texas State Senator Mayes Middleton's finances. There will be no FBI investigation of Bush's conflict of interest when he directed Permanent School Fund investments to a business he founded. There will be no FBI investigation into Governor Greg Abbott's receiving five-figure donations from State Farm when it was involved in litigation against the State of Texas when Abbott was Attorney General. 

But, as Gohmert openly floated during the few weeks he was an actual candidate, there may be an FBI investigation into Ken Paxton getting some window trimming done on his house by a contractor who, dontcha knowit, also works for one of Paxton's former political donors on occasion. This is the same political donor, Nate Paul, whose house and business were raided by the FBI with no charges ever being filed. On the campaign trail, Gohmert sounded like a vice presidential attack dog candidate. His entire pitch was anti-Paxton. He claimed that Paxton was only running for office because he knew he was going to be indicted and he needed to stay in office to avoid going to jail. (Sound familiar?) Gohmert's only pitch in favor of himself was some absurd claim that Trump personally promised to endorse him in the race before Gohmert decided not to run. Then Trump endorsed Paxton, only to not endorse Gohmert when he changed his mind and ran anyway, and now Trump won't return Gohmert's calls or something. Gohmert also claimed that according to some Texas law, he even cited the law by its name and number, candidates cannot be removed from the ballot before the general, and so if Paxton is indicted or otherwise embroiled in an FBI investigation, we would be unable to replace him on the ballot for the general election and the Democrat would win. It was a pitch tailor made for the conservative base by professional political consultants and aimed right at Paxton. The goal of both Krause's and Gohmert's candidacy was to siphon votes away from Paxton. Krause failed due to his lack of statewide name recognition, so they turned to Gohmert, who succeeded. The final tally:

Paxton: 43%

Bush: 23%

Guzman (who announced very early and has nothing to do with this): 17%

Gohmert: 17%

This comes after many grassroots Trumpist groups enthusiastically switched their support to Gohmert because he was deemed more Trumpist than Paxton, some of whom claiming that they weren't helping Bush because Gohmert would make the runoff with Paxton. Some of them even cited Paxton's exposed affair with a staffer, as though that would make any difference to them if it were it Gohmert or the man who singlehandedly destroyed all conservative credibility on morality in politicians' personal lives, Donald Trump. Obviously, Gohmert's entry into the race forced a runoff by stealing Trumpist votes away from Paxton, benefiting Bush. Bush's team of highly paid professionals, including the FBI, can now implement their plan to make Paxton's supposed crimes front and center during the runoff where Bush is the only alternative. The Bush family machine clearly outmaneuvered the conservative grassroots here, and now Senator Cruz is being called in to help with damage control. Hence, Cruz's push for a hearing on FBI malpractice during investigations of politicians. He is sending a message to the FBI that their forthcoming politically motivated investigation into Paxton had better have all its ducks in a row or there will be consequences, as everybody knows Republicans will soon have the majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Paxton is up 59-30 in the runoff against Bush. The Bushes must feel they have Paxton dead to rights to work so hard only to get into a race with that kind of uphill climb. I may be back commenting on this again when the fireworks are over.

Now that's whack.

Let it fly

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A Grief Observed

Now that I've successfully lost my dozens of readers by not posting for a year and a half, I can be comfortable writing some personal stuff. I apologize for the pretentious title. I just couldn't think of any other name. When C.S. Lewis wrote that book, he had just lost his 45-year old wife of only a few years, whom he deeply loved, to cancer. I just lost my nearly 99-year old grandpa with severe dementia to a hip replacement surgery. He had been declining for several years, but much more rapidly in the last six months, and it was a constant problem my parents had to deal with over that time. I'm not sure why it hit me so hard. I didn't feel this way when my Grandma died of Alzheimer's a long time ago. I think she lasted six years after her diagnosis. Maybe it was because I was closer to Grandpa than Grandma. Maybe it was because he lived with my parents and I got to see him almost weekly for several years. Maybe it was because his condition was much worse than Grandma's. Alzheimer's was almost a blessing for her. She wasn't grumpy or angry anymore. She suddenly turned into a nice, sweet old lady. Grandpa's decline was almost the exact opposite. 

Maybe two years ago he had told me nonchalantly that he was "ready to go" and then joked that there was some money in it for me. I was genuinely horrified and told him he'd live to be 110. I really thought he would too. He was always so active and healthy. He used to ski for free in Colorado because they gave free lift tickets to anyone over 70. He shot his age in golf; I think in his 80s, on a regulation course. He was a simple man, not very self-reflective like me. I remember one time he said, out of the blue, "I don't understand people who say they don't know who they are. How do you not know who you are?" He was genuinely confused by the question, lol. He cared about people, and he was so good at it that I didn't figure out his game for a long time. Human beings are pretty prideful, and Grandpa, the career used-car salesman, had learned that if he wanted to help someone, it's much easier if they didn't know he was doing it. I only started to see that near the end. 98, 99 years old and Grandpa was still cracking jokes to break up an argument and playing the fool about it, like he had no idea what he was doing. 

Like anybody, he had his tragic side, but he kept it to himself most of the time. He told me several times he loved to run in high school and was really good at it. He actually did run to school and back every day. His cross country coach wanted him for the team, but Grandpa told him he needed to talk to his dad, because it wasn't Grandpa's decision. His dad said no. Grandpa regretted not being able to do that, even eighty years later. His dad made Grandpa work in his car shop for free. I was never certain of the exact timeline, but this must have continued after Grandpa came home from three years in the Pacific theater in WWII. When Grandpa finally left his dad and started his own shop, his dad essentially disowned him. He even took Grandpa out his will, a part of that story I only heard a few days ago. But I had known a long time he'd had a troubled relationship with his own father. But he never moped about it. One time I asked him directly about whether he hated his dad for making him work in a car shop for free, and Grandpa straightened his shoulders and exclaimed, indignantly, "He taught me a skill!" If you want to know what the problem is with the generations that came after the Silent Generation, it's wealthy parents. When you raise kids for emotional reasons instead of economic reasons, those kids are going to be fucked up, guaranteed. 

Grandpa sometimes lamented that he never got to go to college. He blamed the Army for that. He said when he got back from the war it was time to make his own way. He didn't have time for college. He got married and started his own successful small business and retired in relative comfort. I never understood the working, business side of Grandpa. I don't think I ever saw it. I saw the chores around the house kind of work. I heard him say he hoped there was work in heaven, whereupon I decided he was totally insane. He used to take power naps, basically actually sleeping for 45 minutes. Not a minute more, he used to say, or you'll be useless the rest of the day. 

Grandpa hated the Army. I'm sorry but it's true. We are all remembering his military service now, but the simple fact is I really don't think Grandpa would've wanted to be remembered as a soldier. I don't think he believed he was a good one, and I don't think he wanted to be. He had no choice. He did his time. He got out alive. He achieved his goal. The one story I heard the most about his time in the war was about how he was the only one who knew what he was doing in the motor pool but they refused to promote him, so he transferred to be a corpsman. I know exactly what it's like to be too good at your job to get promoted. He liked being a corpsman because he had his own jeep. He didn't talk much about the time he watched a friend of his die on a beach somewhere. I don't even remember if I heard that from him or someone else. Like most of those guys, Grandpa didn't like to talk about the war part of war. 

I'm not sure why I never even considered the military. I loved military history growing up. I have this whole soapbox about the old kind of military history, written by generals trying to figure out how to win wars, and the new kind written by historians trying to sell books. The former has casualty figures, logistics information, maps, troop movements and all sorts of stuff. The latter tells stories about the tragic tales of real front-line soldiers' personal experiences. Vietnam changed more than just the map of Southeast Asia. 

I remember one of my favorite things to do when I was younger was to have my mom drop me off at the downtown public library for a whole Saturday. I could bike to the one near my house anytime, but they didn't have the huge nonfiction section the downtown one did. I could spend hours up there without seeing a single person. I'd end up with ten books checked out, reading one when my mom came to pick me up. I would finish maybe five before the late fees got too much to ignore. But that library had shelves full of the old kind of books. Books by people who cared about getting it right. People who cared about the truth. People who had no agenda, or at least were naive enough to believe they didn't. Whatever happened to that kind of person?

These last few years watching Grandpa decline, I've wondered if there will be any difference in the world when the last World War II veteran dies. Whatever difference that is, I'm sure it's already happened prematurely. Grandpa's was the last American generation that knew what actual poverty is like. Today we invent fairy tales of suffering in a land flowing with milk and honey. Grandpa never had to do that, and he never understood it. Neo was right when he told Agent Smith he was always right.

"Human beings as a species define their reality through misery and suffering."

Pain is a gift. It tells you what's real and true. If you don't have it, you don't know where the boundaries are. I wonder if there will soon be another American generation who won't understand why anyone would invent grievances or not know who they were. Rest in peace, Grandpa. You earned it. We didn't. 

Now that's whack.