In a cowardly move that should surprise no one, Republican lawmakers are lining up behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s Senate race, endorsing a man whom many were very recently calling an amoral crook who belongs nowhere near the United States Congress.

The first to throw their support behind Paxton was none other than Sen. John Cornyn himself, the longtime Texas Republican senator who Paxton beat in Tuesday’s primary runoff.

“I’ve spent most of my time in the Senate building the Republican Party in Texas and in the U.S. Senate, and I’ve always supported the Republican ticket, and I intend to do so again in this general election,” Cornyn told reporters on the night of his defeat.

Your first thought may be that it’s hard to fathom how Cornyn could immediately throw his support behind someone he and his allies spent more than $100 million in ads against, slamming Paxton for everything from having been impeached by the GOP-controlled state House, indicted on felony fraud charges, cheated on his wife, and for making Texas less safe by giving sweetheart deals to pedophiles.

In fact, Cornyn continued to bash Paxton even on the runoff day, when it was already clear Cornyn was going to lose.

“He’s gotten away with so much for so long and not been held accountable for it, but I think he is an embarrassment, his misbehavior. And he’s completely unrepentant,” Cornyn told CNN.

But then you remember that Cornyn also backs President Donald Trump, the even more corrupt and amoral fraudster, and it becomes clear that Republicans like Cornyn will throw away their morals and convictions in order to hold onto power.

Other Republicans have equally fallen in line.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that not only backed Cornyn’s reelection but actively campaigned against Paxton over his conduct, has now endorsed Paxton’s bid. In fact, the NRSC Scott runs has now deleted its past criticism of Paxton from its website, though as any tech savvy person knows, the internet is forever.

“There’s been no better warrior for our party than John Cornyn. I was blessed to have served with him and I look forward to his continued fight for our great country. But now I stand united with President Trump, Ken Paxton, and Texans who want to protect our Republican Majority,” Scott wrote in a post on X.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who begged Trump for months to help push Cornyn over the finish line, also quickly backed Paxton’s candidacy, telling right-wing bootlicker Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday that he will “pivot and go all in” for Paxton.

“Losing is not an option when it comes to the state of Texas and what it means for our majority in the Senate,” Thune said.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) also endorsed Paxton, writing in a post on X, “A vote for @KenPaxtonTX in November is a vote for a safer, stronger, and more prosperous America. He has my endorsement and support.”

Of course, while they endorse him now, the millions in attack ads Republicans spent to try to prevent Paxton from winning the nomination can now be repackaged and used by Democratic nominee James Talarico. Like this ad Cornyn’s campaign ran highlighting a disgusting plea deal Paxton gave a sex offender who abused a child. Or this one pushing the same message.

In fact, Talarico has been bringing up the pedophile attacks since Texas Republicans made Paxton’s nomination official.

Ultimately, Paxton’s abhorrent behavior and checkered past puts Texas’ Senate seat in play, with political handicappers moving the race to a more competitive rating now that Paxton is the nominee.

Republicans are praying that their quick acceptance of a man they all said is not fit to serve will be emulated by their base.

If not, blue Texas could become a reality this fall.

With their House majority in peril, Republicans appear to be resorting to dirty tricks.

Aside from trying to gerrymander their way to victory, Republicans also seem to have created a shady PAC to prop up less electable Democratic candidates, in an effort to take competitive seats off the map.

The ads come from a group called Lead Left, a name clearly intended to mislead viewers into thinking they come from a Democratic-run group when, in fact, the newly formed entity has ties to Republicans.

Currently, Lead Left has spent nearly $1 million to prop up candidates like Maureen Galindo, an antisemitic kook, over Johnny Garcia, the candidate national Democrats are behind, in Texas’ 35th District.

That seat shouldn’t be competitive. Texas Republicans redrew it last year to give it a GOP lean. However, it is a heavily Hispanic seat, which poses problems for Republicans since Hispanic support for President Donald Trump and the GOP has fallen off a cliff thanks to Trump’s cruel immigration agenda and his poor stewardship of the economy.

GOP operatives told Politico that having Galindo as the nominee could help avoid losing a seat they purposefully drew to favor their party.

“None of these seats are easy wins for Republicans,” Vinny Minchillo, a Texas-based Republican operative, told Politico. “If we could get [Galindo] in the general, it would be a great opportunity.”

Democrats, meanwhile, have condemned Galindo after she posted a batshit-crazy statement to Instagram last week in which she said she wanted to convert an immigration detention facility into a prison for “American Zionists” and pedophiles, who she said are also Zionists.

At the same time, Democrats pointed out that Republican-tied groups, like the shadowy Lead Left, are running ads to try to boost her campaign in the May 26 runoff.

“House Republican leadership must immediately cease propping up this antisemitic candidacy,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

Garcia is even making Lead Left’s ratfucking attempt an issue ahead of the Tuesday runoff, running his own ad exposing Galindo for being a lunatic whom Republicans want to face off against because she is unelectable.

But Texas’ 35th District isn’t the only place Lead Left has meddled.

The group also ran ads in Pennsylvania’s Seventh District, trying to prop up no-name and underfunded Democratic hopeful Lamont McClure over labor leader Bob Brooks, a populist Democrat backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and the DCCC.

However, those efforts failed. On Tuesday, Brooks easily won the primary, while McClure took third.

Meanwhile, Lead Left and another conservative group, American Action Network, ran ads against Democrat John Cavanaugh in Nebraska’s Second District, attacking him for supposedly being aligned with Trump.

While Cavanaugh narrowly lost the primary to Democrat Denise Powell, the outcome there may not dramatically change the race this November. Unlike Galindo and McClure, Powell is a serious candidate who raised enough money to compete. And Nebraska’s Second District is a Democratic-leaning district that political handicappers have said has a good chance of flipping.

Ultimately, Lead Left’s meddling is a desperate ploy from Republicans to try to hold onto power and yet another instance of how big money is corrupting our politics.

But sunlight is the best disinfectant, as they say. The more people know about who is behind the ads they watch, the less effective they may be.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Emboldened by his successful efforts to oust multiple GOP lawmakers who defied his orders, President Donald Trump now has a new Republican target—and it may be his dumbest yet.

On Wednesday, Trump turned his ire to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, threatening to go after the Pennsylvania Republican who has come out against Trump’s corrupt slush fund to give reparations to traitorous rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump’s attacks came after Fitzpatrick’s fiancee, Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, tried to ask Trump a question about Israel that he apparently didn’t like.

“Her husband votes against me all the time,” Trump replied to Heinrich, though Heinrich and Fitzpatrick are not yet married. “I don’t know what’s with him. You better ask him what’s with him. Her husband—she’s married to a certain congressman. He likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? It doesn’t work out well.”Fitzpatrick is one of just three House Republicans who hold districts former Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election. Harris won Fitzpatrick’s 1st District seat by less than one percentage point in 2024, while former President Joe Biden carried it by nearly five points four years earlier, according to data from The Downballot.

It’s in districts like these that Republicans need the leeway to deviate from their party’s immensely unpopular leader in order to secure reelection.

Fitzpatrick has marginally done that. He was one of two Republicans who voted against the cruel “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which ripped healthcare away from the poorest Americans in order to make room for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich. And now Fitzpatrick is slamming Trump’s $1.8 billion fund to compensate Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

“A massive discretionary fund, with no oversight or approval from Congress, represents a dangerous backsliding in the transparency of our institutions and our commitment to the American taxpayer,” Fitzpatrick wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday, demanding answers on questions about where the money is being diverted from and if people convicted of crimes will receive money.

That has angered Trump, who demands fealty and loyalty at all costs.If Trump ramps up his attacks on Fitzpatrick, it could keep some Republican voters from backing Fitzpatrick this fall. And that would be devastating in a competitive seat like his, where he not only needs near-universal support from Republicans but also to convince Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to vote for him. That will be hard when polls show Democrats and independents are chomping at the bit to punish Trump and his party.

Cowardly Republicans, afraid to get on Trump’s bad side and risk their political futures, anonymously slammed Trump’s revenge tour.“It seems like he’s given up on holding the majority and focusing on loyalty in the minority,” an unnamed House Republican told Politico.

The only ones who spoke publicly about the idiocy of Trump’s revenge campaign are those who are not running for reelection and thus have nothing to lose by speaking their minds.

“I believe that there are people in the White House who couldn’t care less about what happens in November,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who last summer announced his retirement rather than run for reelection because he said he could not vote his conscience and win a primary at the same time, told Politico. “And that goes to show you how stupid they are, because if they don’t get Republicans reelected, they’re going to create the most miserable two years of this president’s life.”
Tillis may be angry, but I, for one, can’t wait to see Trump squirm when Democrats win the House majority—and possibly even the Senate.

With six months to go until Election Day, the White House seems to have already accepted that Republicans will lose control of at least one chamber of Congress.

A Washington Post report on Monday said that lawyers in Donald Trump’s White House are privately briefing Trump political appointees about how to handle congressional investigations—which Democrats are sure to launch if they flip the House, Senate, or even both in November’s midterm elections.

“It’s obvious to everyone that it’s very likely” Democrats will win the House, an unnamed Trump administration official who attended one of the briefings told The Washington Post.

The official added that the briefing on how to handle Democratic-led congressional oversight “was a sober-eyed conversation.”The Post went on to report that “At least some staff members have considered the briefings preparatory, given the growing sense across the Trump administration that the Republican Party is in trouble and that the time has come to prepare for worst-case scenarios.”

This is just the latest sign that Republicans have entered the acceptance phase of the stages of grief.

For example, Senate Republicans were publicly nudging aging right-wing Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to retire before the midterms, as the GOP may not have a majority next year to confirm Trump’s nominees if a vacancy arises.

Senate Republicans were also urging Trump to fire the Cabinet officials he’s sick of now, because confirming replacements if the GOP loses its Senate majority would be difficult if not impossible.

On the House side—where Democrats are clearly favored to win control after November’s elections—Republicans are also showing tangible signs that they know their fate.

For example, Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is refusing to set an election date to fill the vacancy created by skeevy Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales’ resignation—likely because the race would be competitive and his party could lose the seat in a special election. That would put Democrats one seat closer to the majority, and deal a major psychological blow to GOP donors and voters.

And Republican lawmakers are retiring at a massive clip, with the number of GOP departures rivaled only by those from 2018. That exodus is a tell that Republicans know they would be returning to Congress in the minority, and thus chose to hang it up and leave rather than suffer that indignity.

Meanwhile, Republicans are desperately rushing to pass new, gerrymandered congressional maps to try to stave off losses in the midterms—a corrupt move blessed by a Supreme Court that Trump and the GOP stacked with partisan hacks.

However, even if their gerrymanders succeed, Republicans are still likely to lose the House. In fact, the redrawn maps Republicans passed to try to rig the election for their candidates may not even work. Trump’s coalition is falling apart as voters turn on him over the war he launched in Iran that is spiking costs here at home.

And gerrymandering cannot save the GOP’s Senate majority, which is now at risk due to Trump’s unpopularity.

Ultimately, the midterms are going to be a disaster for the GOP—and they know it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos