
The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives has just voted 121-23 to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Continue reading “Texas House Votes To Impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton”
Politics, pop culture and entertainment news of interest to the LGBTQ community
The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives has just voted 121-23 to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Continue reading “Texas House Votes To Impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton”
A Texas House committee recommended Thursday that state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) be impeached after hearing testimony from investigators who say Paxton broke several laws in order to help a political donor. Continue reading “Texas House Committee Recommends AG Ken Paxton Be Impeached”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has called on state House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) to resign, accusing him of presiding over his chamber “in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication.” Continue reading “Texas AG Calls On House Speaker To Resign After Appearing Drunk”
For at least 14 years now, the Austin Independent School District has held its own Pride Week which includes lessons on diversity, inclusion and acceptance amid some Pride flags and pronoun buttons.
But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) dispatched a letter on Tuesday to the school district declaring the weeklong celebration constitutes “sex education” and holding the event without the consent of parents would be “breaking state law.” Continue reading “Texas AG: School District’s Pride Week Is ‘Breaking State Laws’”
Conservative pundit Erick Erickson has had enough of the faux fawning by fearful Republicans over Donald Trump’s seemingly endless attempts to further embarrass himself and his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
The latest development to irritate Mr. Erickson is the laughable lawsuit Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, has filed which asks the Supreme Court to interfere in the handling of elections in four other states – states Trump lost.
From the New York Times:
The state of Texas filed an audacious lawsuit in the Supreme Court on Tuesday against four other states, asking the justices to extend the Dec. 14 deadline for certification of presidential electors.
The suit, filed by the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, said Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had engaged in election irregularities that require investigation, and it asked the court to “enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the defendant states’ legislatures.”
Of course, Texas has no standing to insist on how those four states determine their own elections. You might have heard of “state’s rights?”
Erickson calls out the bs:
Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, is under a federal investigation and would love a presidential pardon. His lawsuit is just more performative leg humping by someone desperate to curry favor with President Trump.
The various attorneys general who have joined his lawsuit all want to either get re-elected or seek higher office. Joining the lawsuit gives them some measure of ring kissing or protection from any rabid Trump supporters who wanted a “just fight” moment.
I personally think my company should pay me workers compensation for brain damage for having to read that lawsuit and related filings. It really is one of the stupidest bits of performative leg humping we have seen in the last five years. These attorneys general are willing to beclown themselves and their states all to get in good with the losing presidential candidate.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton |
Eleven states led by Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton have filed suit against the Obama administration regarding federal guidance that says transgender students are protected under Title IX – the federal law that bans discrimination in public education.
The Advocate has the details:
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, against the Justice Department, the Education Department, the Labor Department, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, reports The Washington Post.
The states joining Texas include Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, Georgia. The Arizona Department of Education, Maine Gov. Paul LePage, and school districts in Texas and Arizona are also plaintiffs in the suit.
The guidance issued by the Department of Education and Department of Justice detailed guidelines explaining the obligations that schools receiving public funding have to their transgender students.
These obligations include respecting the gender identity of transgender students by using the student’s preferred name and pronouns, and ensuring them access to sports teams, educational opportunities, and sex-segregated facilities that correspond with their gender identity, according to a letter sent Friday to public K-12 schools nationwide, as well as to colleges and universities that receive federal funding.
The letter from the Obama administration plainly defines a school’s responsibilities to its trans students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive any public funding.
“This prohibition encompasses discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status,” reads the letter. It goes on to explain that the federal agencies consider a student’s gender identity to be the sole determinant of that student’s sex, for the purposes of Title IX protections.
“This means that a school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity,” explains the letter, indicating that everyone has a gender identity, regardless of whether they identify as transgender or cisgender (nontrans).
The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement which read in part:
Today, HRC blasted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton regarding media reports that he will launch a shameful attack on transgender youth across the state and the nation. Paxton, who currently faces three felony fraud indictments for violating state securities laws, civil fraud charges, and a separate investigation from the Texas State Bar for encouraging clerks to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling on nationwide marriage equality, has repeatedly attacked LGBT people in an effort to score political points.
“Ken Paxton has already disgraced himself and his office by undermining the rule of law and shamefully encouraging state officials to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision last June. Now, he’s gone so far as to attack transgender youth, whom he has a responsibility to protect as Attorney General,” said HRC Communications Director Jay Brown. “Countless schools all across the country have policies in place that ensure transgender students are safe, protected from discrimination and can live authentic lives. Ken Paxton’s use of taxpayer resources to dismantle such protections is a reckless and expensive abdication of his responsibilities, and he should be held accountable.”
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton |
With contempt of court charges looming, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has agreed to issue new guidelines regarding the state recognizing married same-sex couples in the Lone Star state.
Dallas Voice has the details:
Those guidelines include recognizing married same-sex couples for purposes of death certificates but also for purposes of birth certificates. Refusing to recognize a same-sex couple for purposes of a death certificate led to the contempt charges.
The birth certificate issue has been a problem for same-sex couples for years. Judges in only a few counties including Dallas will allow second parent adoptions, but the second parent’s name doesn’t go on the birth certificate. If an opposite-sex couple is married, the husband is presumed to be the father and his name goes on the birth certificate.
Now the names of a couple that adopts together will both go on the birth certificate, just as it does for opposite-sex couples. For gay couples who have children through a surrogate, both names of the married couple will go on the birth certificate. And for lesbian couples who have a baby and one of the women carry the child, both names of a married couple will go on the birth certificate.
Chalk up another court room appearance by beleaguered anti-gay Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as he has been ordered to appear in court next week on possible contempt of court charges.
The order comes via U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia regarding a request from former Conroe police officer John Stone-Hoskins, whose request to have his deceased husband’s death certificate amended to reflect his married status at time of death has been refused by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.
Garcia has ordered the state to amend the death certificate of James Stone-Hoskins showing John to be his surviving spouse. The state has thus far refused.
From San Antonio Express-News:
“The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether Defendants should be held in contempt for disobedience of this Court’s July 7, 2015 order, permanently enjoining Defendants from enforcing any Texas’s laws that prohibit or fail to recognize same-sex marriage,” Orlando said.
Neel Lane, one of the lawyers representing John Stone-Hoskins, said Texas officials did not agree that the ruling was retroactive.
“They (Texas officials) are not agreeing that it applies retroactively,” Lane said. “They want the court to decide it. To me, it already has and the Constitution is clear. They’re denying him his constitutional rights.
“If he were ‘Jane,’ the certificate would be changed as a matter of course,” Lane added. “The only reason they are doing this is because he’s ‘John.’”
In February 2014, Garcia issued a ruling in a lawsuit filed by other gay couples that said Texas’ refusal to recognize same-sex couples’ out-of-state marriages is illegal.
James and John, of Conroe, had been together for 10 years before a wedding in New Mexico in 2014, where it is legal. James Stone-Hoskins died in January 2015. At the time, the state listed him as being single on his death certificate, refusing to recognize the marriage because Texas’ ban on gay marriage was still in effect.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, John Stone-Hoskins has made a series of requests to change the death certificate.
John Stone-Hoskins wants the change immediately because he has been diagnosed with cancer and has been told he may die within 45 to 60 days.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was arrested and booked on three securities fraud charges.
Apparently during his time as a member of the Texas House, Paxton sold stock for Servergy Inc. In doing so, the indictment alleges that he failed to tell stock buyers he was compensated for his efforts with 100,000 shares of stock in the company.
The indictment also charges he was an investor in the company when it appears he was not.
Along the way, over $600,000 poured into the company due to his promotion.
You’ll note the smirk in his mug shot posted above.
The anti-gay Paxton has continued to fight against same-sex marriage in Texas despite the historic ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last month.
NBC-DFW has the details:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been indicted on three charges by a grand jury in Collin County, two people close to the case told NBC 5 on Saturday.
The indictments were issued on Tuesday and immediately sealed, the sources said, adding they are set to be unsealed as early as Monday in Collin County.
A Tarrant County judge has been appointed to hear the case, the sources said.
With help from the Texas Rangers, the grand jury and two special prosecutors have been investigating whether Paxton committed a securities crime by acting as a broker without being licensed.
Paxton admitted to the Texas securities board last year that he was not registered when he solicited clients for a friend, investment broker Frederick “Fritz” Mowery, who paid Paxton a fee.
Paxton paid a $1,000 civil fine. He has said he thought that the fine ended the matter.
Paxton’s relationship with a McKinney computer company called Servergy, has also come under scrutiny. Servergy, which claims to make an energy-efficient computer server, is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for possible fraud.
Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat who serves Arlington and Grand Prairie, also was critical.
“Three felony charges, resulting from a Texas Rangers investigation, are an extremely serious matter,” he said in a statement. “As the top law enforcement official in Texas, AG Paxton owes the public a full, candid explanation for these charges, as well as an explanation of how he can continue to do his job as he deals with three felony indictments.”
Paxton has been a virulent opponent of same-sex marriage in Texas.