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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: So they say there's the makings of a deal [1]

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Date: 2023-05-27

Speaking of Republicans, let’s look at GOP dystopia:

Texas Tribune:

Attorney General Ken Paxton faces impeachment. Here’s how that works in Texas. The Texas Legislature has never removed an attorney general. If the House votes to impeach, the Senate will hold a trial. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been at the center of several scandals, faces a possible impeachment. A Texas House committee voted Thursday to recommend the action, opening the way for the Texas House of Representatives to hold a hearing and decide whether to impeach the three-term attorney general. Paxton, the state’s top lawyer and one of its most powerful and controversial Republicans, has faced criminal investigations, legal battles and accusations of wrongdoing for years. But after he requested $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to end a lawsuit by former staffers who accused him of on-the-job retaliation, the Texas House General Investigating Committee began looking into accusations of wrongdoing.

The vote to impeach is today, and it’s by simple House majority. The article spells out what’s next.

x AUSTIN, Texas (@AP) — GOP-held Texas state House sets Saturday afternoon vote on impeachment of Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. — Jake Bleiberg (@JZBleiberg) May 26, 2023

New York Times:

How Fighting for Conservative Causes Has Helped Ken Paxton Survive Legal Woes With the Texas House set to vote on his impeachment, Mr. Paxton is counting on political support that he’s amassed as a Republican legal firebrand. Now, facing his own political showdown in the Texas House of Representatives on Saturday as the House prepares to vote on impeaching him, Mr. Paxton made the stakes plain for his Republican supporters. In a news conference on Friday, he reminded them that he was “leading dozens of urgent challenges against Biden’s unlawful policies” and said that the “illegal impeachment scheme” was playing into the Democrats’ longstanding goal of removing him from office. He then called on supporters to come to the State Capitol on Saturday “to peacefully come let their voices be heard."

Michael Hiltzik/Los Angeles Times:

A glimpse into the dystopian abyss of President DeSantis’ America Press interest has perked up lately, with DeSantis’ policy initiatives becoming more febrile as his announcement draws nigh. But the press hasn’t begun to devote sufficient attention to the curious experiment DeSantis has launched, based on the hypothesis that it’s possible to win a presidential nomination, not to mention a presidential election, by appealing exclusively to a bloc of racists, antisemites, gun nuts and other nightcrawlers of the far right. An America led by DeSantis as he has portrayed himself thus far would be a dystopian hellhole. Let the examination begin. It would be proper to start with scrutiny of DeSantis’ positions on the most important geopolitical issues of our time, if they could be detected.

Well, that’s disqualifying.

Mariano Alfero/Washington Post:

DeSantis says, if elected president, he’d consider pardons for Jan. 6 offenders Hosts of the conservative “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” asked DeSantis if he thinks Jan. 6 defendants “deserve to have their cases examined by a Republican president,” and whether he would pardon former president Donald Trump if he were “charged with federal offenses.” DeSantis said that on his first day in office, he would “have folks that will get together and look at all these cases.” “Now, some of these case, some people may have a technical violation of the law,” DeSantis said. “But if there are three other people who did the same thing but just in a context, like [the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020] and they don’t get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice, and so … we will use the pardon power.”

That, right there, is disqualifying.

NBC News:

Ron DeSantis administration officials solicit campaign cash from lobbyists The practice raises ethical and legal questions about state employees trying to raise campaign cash from lobbyists who have business currently before the governor. NBC News reviewed text messages from four DeSantis administration officials, including those directly in the governor's office and with leadership positions in state agencies. They requested the recipient of the message contribute to the governor’s campaign through a specific link that appeared to track who is giving as part of a “bundle” program. “The bottom line is that the administration appears to be keeping tabs on who is giving, and are doing it using state staff,” a longtime Florida lobbyist said. “You are in a prisoner’s dilemma. They are going to remain in power. We all understand that.” NBC News is not naming the specific staffers who sent the text messages because it could out the lobbyists who received the messages and shared them.

This is the way DeSantis runs Florida. It’s as disqualifying as his January 6th comments..

x Reuters: OATH KEEPERS MEMBER JESSICA WATKINS SENTENCED TO 8.5 YEARS FOR ROLE IN JAN. 6, 2021, US CAPITOL ATTACK — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 26, 2023

All of that is just a reminder that DeSantis is a pretty bad character, and in no way a ”better” choice for America than Donald Trump.

CT Mirror:

After long debate, CT Senate advances state voting rights act The Connecticut Senate on Thursday night advanced a landmark bill intended to protect historically disenfranchised communities from discrimination at the ballot box, including key protections once considered a stronghold of the federal Voting Rights Act before it was gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Senate Bill 1226, dubbed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of Connecticut — a nod to the late civil rights icon — passed on a 27-9 vote just before midnight, following hours of emotionally charged debate among lawmakers over what the proposal would accomplish. The Senate’s approval of the comprehensive bill marked the first time it passed out of either chamber since it was initially introduced in 2021.

Even blue states have work to do.

Jonathan Martin/Politico:

Are the Anti-Trump GOP Forces Starting to Implode? A mission-control breakdown for DeSantis and smooth launch for Scott bode ill for those hoping to thwart the former president. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Will this go down as the week that the grand plan to deny Donald Trump the nomination fell apart? For months, high-level Republican lawmakers, donors and strategists eager to block Trump have described, in separate conversations with me, an endgame to the presidential primary. When it becomes clear in the early state and national polling who is consolidating support, the most influential figures with ties to the lagging candidates will stage a sort of political intervention and tell them it’s time to quit and rally to the strongest alternative to Trump. Such a plot always struck me as a bit far-fetched, for starters because politicians aren’t known for putting party ahead of self. Yet the appetite among elite Republicans to move past Trump was and is so immense I thought there could at least be a do-the-right-thing effort. Yet as spring turns to summer, traditionally the period when presidential hopefuls consider whether they’re gaining any traction, this vision seems more fantasy than strategy.

x This has come up with some Republicans I talked to who don't agree 100% w DeSantis but support him over Trump. His FLGOP spent four years registering voters, giving Rs their first-ever FL registration advantage. https://t.co/RC1PWhGsiJ — David Weigel (@daveweigel) May 26, 2023

We don’t win based on merits alone. We win by doing the hard work (see Wisconsin).

Lisa Rubin/Twitter:

Tonight, the Manhattan DA’s office publicly released a list of discovery items it has produced or will soon produce to Trump. Those items include a number of recorded conversations, including one between a witness and Trump. But something else interests me more. In New York state, a defendant is entitled to receive all witness testimony before the grand jury and any and all other witness statements provided to the relevant prosecutor’s office. But here, the Manhattan DA’s office also attached this two-page list of books. Why? Because these books themselves may contain relevant witness statements. And it is quite a collection.

These are political books, gossip books and other books of interest included in discovery. Give the thread a read.

On a different topic, here’s Cliff Schecter on freshman Dan Goldman and his approach to Congressional BS:

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