Flowers keep my living room smelling so good!

 No, not floral scents.

But I just came into the room, and a few hours earlier I'd lightly watered them all. I try to do it a couple of times a week.

There was a wet earthy smell. So delightful.

All the plants were pulled from windowsills, while curtains and blinds were closed at night against the cold (7 degrees Saturday night) but sunshine Sunday morning meant opening to the light! Then back closed up that night too. But Monday there was sunshine, none on Tuesday or Wednesday, and Thursday was rain/snow to start the day.

The orange Kalanchoe is having more trouble blooming in the winter.

I just love this orchid...here's one branch of blooms...

The other branch also is full of blooms.

This purple/white orchid bloomed ages ago, and has lost a few of it's blooms, but somehow is still holding a few out to enjoy!

Three pink Kalanchoe plants are in the bigger pot...but the ones that have been behind the curtains have turned white. So I just rotated the planter, to see if the sun gives them pinkness.

Sadly, none of the flowers I'm growing have scents. With my allergies, that's probably for the best.

Sharing with Floral Friday Fotos!

And Thankful Thursday!

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Walk for Peace

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I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

MAYA ANGELOU

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"Please join me and many others in making the six compassionate vows of: 

environmental sustainability, 

gender equality, 

socioeconomic justice, 

participatory governance, 

cultural tolerance, 

nonviolence and peace."

Barb Rogers

(Thanks, Robertson Work for stating this first.)

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Sharing with Thankful Thursday

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In case you don't already read Jay Kuo's newsletters..."The Status Kuo." Here's a very moving piece he published to Substack yesterday about the Shadow Congressional Hearings about ICE.

Venezuelan war

 Here I am looking at blogs, a few emails, and just dealing with learning this that and another...when someone in an email says we're at war with Venezuela. 

NPR has  an article published at around 6 am.

I have another aural migraine now...stress anyone?

Here's what Jay Kuo said "Waking up to News of War."

We’re all waking up to the same sobering, disturbing yet somehow unsurprising news out of Venezuela. I posted some of the below on social media but wanted to share and expand on it briefly here, too.

Some things to keep in mind as we process news of the war in Venezuela:

1) This act of war is unauthorized, unjustified and unconstitutional, no matter what the near term “success” the White House claims in toppling a foreign government or capturing its president.

2) Regime change is always unpredictable and could lead to greater instability.

3) With such acts, we lose all moral authority to condemn other nations that similarly attack their neighbors or carry out illegal renditions of foreign leaders.

4) Trump wants Venezuela’s oil reserves for his friends and a war to distract the public. This was never about interdicting drugs.

5) We still don’t know how many people the U.S. may have killed or injured so far, and we must demand all hostilities cease immediately to prevent further loss of life.

6) Two things can be true. It’s possible both to despise Maduro for what he has done to Venezuela AND to oppose this war as an illegal invasion of another country to seize control of its oil reserves.

7) Expect the GOP in Congress to lay down again and surrender their constitutional authority. Some already have fallen in line.

8) It is unclear what the plan is should Maduro’s people not give up. Their government is illegitimate, so a lot will depend on what the opposition and the Venezuelan people do from here.

This is not how any of us wanted to begin the new year. Now that the U.S. has committed unauthorized acts of war, we can only hope that they are short-lived and that chaos and further violence does not ensue.

Stay tuned, more to follow.

Jay

Recently

 
Wednesday last, I captured a couple of quick shots of new murals in town.

Our little old fashioned Acorn Motel has bought out the next door motel, which used to be the Apple Blossom. I wonder...did the insurance settlement from the fire the Acorn had last year help at all? 

Now there's Acorn Building One and Acorn Building Two!

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The compassion of strangers

With threats growing each day from this administration, the public response is increasingly pointing toward a path of basic compassion. By this, I mean that people—total strangers, but also fellow residents and neighbors—are taking a stand, including against the injustice, aggression, and cruelty of I.C.E.

Witness what happened in San Diego outside the popular Buona Forchetta restaurant in South Park. When I.C.E. showed up in its vans to detain workers—not criminals, but workers—the community did not stand idly by. They began to fill the streets, block vehicles, and were eventually dispersed with flash bangs.

These acts of peaceful civil disobedience may not stop detentions in the moment, but they accomplish three other very important things.

First, they show the nation—and our fellow residents under threat from I.C.E.—that others still have their backs, understand that what is happening is deeply wrong, and will put themselves on the line to help stop it.

Second, a public stand like this demonstrates what courage in the face of armed force looks like. That can spread quickly from town to town, city to city. If San Diego can resist, so can other communities. Courage is contagious.

Third, officials will understand that they will meet resistance and cannot assume a compliant citizenry. With enough pushback, they may choose to alter their practices—or, of course, escalate, which will only be met with greater resistance.

When people ask me what they can do today as ordinary citizens—beyond making phone calls and donating—I point to San Diego and say: “Get organized. Talk to your neighbors. Call a local community meeting and make a plan for peaceful resistance, including how to mobilize quickly. Know your rights, and come to the site of any I.C.E. raid prepared.”

I believe deeply in the goodness of people. I.C.E. raids are turning whole communities against this administration. There will be an electoral reckoning if we keep up the pressure and keep amplifying these stories..."

Jay Kuo and his two children

"... I know that America is still here, because I have seen and felt the power of its promise.

Have a great [Monday] (written on Sunday) and remember—each of us can play a part in making someone else feel safer and more secure.

Jay Kuo

Newsletter subscriptions to The Status Kuo are available on-line.

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Indivisible Black Mountain says: "I know everyone is excitedly gearing up for June 14. But let's not forget about Mondays! It looks like it will be beautiful weather for our weekly protest on the Town Square tomorrow, 5-5:45 pm!"

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Today's quote:

Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. -Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman (1800-1859)

Our non-government and some legal considerations

 It's not exactly politics. It's in the realm of it though.

Thanks, Jay Kuo (some excerpts from his The Status Kuo newsletter)

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To my mind, the greatest threat right now is this: Elon Musk and his goons have taken over critical payment systems at the Treasury Department. This is a DEFCON 1 moment for our government. An unaccountable private citizen, who is also the world’s richest man acting under authority of a would-be dictator, apparently has admin—not just read-only—access to the very lifeline of our Republic: the money.

With such access, Musk has effective control over trillions of dollars of payments each year, and he could terminate some or even all of these at the flip of a switch. This includes our entire social safety net of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. This puts tens of millions of American who rely on government support at great risk. Already he is threatening to selectively determine which programs are “wasteful” and cut off the money to them.

Yes, this is illegal.

Many lawsuits have been filed against DOGE, but I’m watching one closely. It’s by Public Citizen, filed on behalf of three plaintiffs: the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union. The suit alleges that the personal and private financial information of the plaintiffs’ members was illegally accessed by young Musketeer coders over the weekend.

The Public Citizen lawsuit names as defendants the Treasury, its Secretary, and the Bureau of Fiscal Services, which granted access and even admin rights to Musk’s team. This is smart. The lawsuit goes after these defendants in particular because, if ordered by a court, they are the ones that have the power to revoke the access they granted earlier to DOGE.

We aren’t powerless. We can understand, analyze, plan and resist, our eyes fixed squarely on the prize of keeping our Republic. Each of us can play a part in our own way. If you’d like to support my efforts to keep us moving forward, consider becoming a voluntary paid supporter.

Can Musk Be Stopped?
A high profile lawsuit by Public Citizen takes aim at the DOGE takeover at Treasury.

There’s a lot of activity by both Trump and his co-president Elon Musk these days, and it can feel overwhelming. Every time we turn around, there’s some new horror. (Wait, Trump wants the U.S. to take over Gaza?!)

Our natural inclination when bombarded with so much is to curl up, cover our heads and hope it ends soon. Rather than give in to this impulse, however, I want to help chart a path through. To do that, we need to prioritize among the many assaults upon our system and understand clearly what is being done and how we can help.

I don’t want to sugarcoat this. To my mind, the greatest threat right now is this: Elon Musk and his goons have taken over critical payment systems at the Treasury Department. This is a DEFCON 1 moment for our government. An unaccountable private citizen, who is also the world’s richest man acting under authority of a would-be dictator, apparently has admin—not just read-only—access to the very lifeline of our Republic: the money.

With such access, Musk has effective control over trillions of dollars of payments each year, and he could terminate some or even all of these at the flip of a switch. This includes our entire social safety net of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. This puts tens of millions of American who rely on government support at great risk. Already he is threatening to selectively determine which programs are “wasteful” and cut off the money to them.


When I first heard about the lawsuit, the first question I had was, “What’s the legal hook?” By this I mean, what specific laws were broken, and under what statute or law would a court have the power to step in with an injunction?

That’s what I want to cover today. It’s important that we’re all on the same page about our rights as recipients of federal money and payers of federal taxes, and how Musk and DOGE have violated those rights and must be brought to heel.

The relevant facts

I want to first lay out the facts as alleged in the complaint and as updated with a bit of what we’ve learned since.

On the day of his inauguration, Trump issued an Executive Order that renamed the U.S. Digital Service a “temporary organization” called the U.S. DOGE Service (same acronym of USDS). Agency heads were directed to “take all necessary steps, in coordination with the USDS Administrator and to the maximum extent consistent with law, to ensure USDS has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems.”

Note the key words “to the maximum extent consistent with law,” a concept I’ll address later. If DOGE is not acting consistent with the law, then they are also outside of what this EO permits. Note also the word “unclassified,” which will matter more in other cases involving classified records at USAID. If DOGE gained access to classified matters, it is also outside the authority of the EO. But that’s a subject for another time.

Though Trump did not formally name Musk as the USDS Administrator, his leadership of DOGE is a matter of numerous public statements by Trump. , Not to mention, Musk has been acting like the administrator, so it’s really Musk we’re talking about here, as well as the people he has brought in from the private sector to help him carry out his takeover.

Sometime after Trump was elected, and continuing through his inauguration, DOGE reps approached Treasury Department officials seeking access to the payment system. A lifelong civil servant at the Fiscal Services Bureau named David Lebryk heroically refused that access. After Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was confirmed by the Senate, he met with Lebryk and put him on administrative leave. Lebryk then announced his retirement after 35 years of service.

On Friday, January 31, 2025, Bessent granted DOGE reps full access to the federal payment system. Musk brought in his people, which included a cadre of young programmers barely out of high school, and they took over the system entirely. They immediately had access to view the personal, private information of tens of millions of recipients as well as the tax return information of tens of millions of federal taxpayers.

But it went beyond merely having access to such confidential and private information. A report by Wired magazine confirmed that the DOGE group acquired not just “read-only” access but actual “admin” privileges to the entire payment system and are busily rewriting code on it. Musk himself indicated on Twitter that “the @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down” certain “illegal payments.”

That’s right: An unelected man is making decisions about which congressionally authorized payments should go through and which intended recipients should and should not receive the money they were promised.
...

Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall reported yesterday, the DOGE team at Treasury...

Phrases like “freaking out” are, not surprisingly, used to describe the reaction of the engineers who were responsible for maintaining the code base until a week ago. The changes that have been made all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked. I want to emphasize that the described changes are not being tested in a dev environment (i.e., a not-live environment) but have already been pushed into production.

I’m going to set aside the constitutional question of separation of powers for the moment. There are other cases addressing the big question of which branch of government, the executive or the legislative, gets to decide what to do with our tax money. The long-settled answer is that Congress holds the purse strings, and so it should be the case that Trump can’t just order the flow of money to stop, nor can someone like Musk do so on his behalf.

But here, Musk hasn’t actually done that yet. What he’s done instead is gain access to the information and has threatened to shut off payments. The injury to the public by Musk and DOGE, at least so far, is to our legal rights over our private financial information.

The Public Citizen lawsuit gets to the heart of this by alleging violations of the Privacy Act.

The Privacy Act was passed in 1974 and governs the collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of personal identifiers. We’re familiar with most of these. They are the kinds of things we’re taught never to give out to strangers, such as your name, date of birth and social security number. Generally when people try to get these from you, they’re trying to rob your identity or steal from you.

The Privacy Act, as the Public Citizen complaint notes, protects sensitive personal and financial information from improper disclosure and misuse, including by barring disclosure to individuals who lack a lawful and legitimate need for it.

The specific language of the statute prevents the disclosure of an individual’s record to any person or other agency unless the individual to whom the record pertains consents or some kind of statutory exception applies. Because there was no consent given in this case, the only question is whether some kind of exception kicks in.

The complaint notes two of those exceptions, NEITHER of which apply to non-employees of the Treasury like DOGE who have no official duties:

“those officers and employees of the agency which maintains the record who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties”; or

the “routine use” of the records as described in the agency’s “System of Records Notice” or “SORN.”

The Treasury’s SORN, last updated and published in February 2020, covers at least three kinds of records that are sensitive and private: payment records, debts to the government, and electronic payments to the Federal Government. With respect to these, the SORN specifies that “routine use” refers only to “employees whose official duties require access are allowed to view, administer, and control these records.”

These records can’t be for the “routine use” by DOGE members, who aren’t employees with official duties at Treasury.

SORN are taken very seriously from a transparency standpoint. If an agency wants to make any change to its SORN, it must prepare a notice in the Federal Register “of the existence and character of the system of records.” And at least 30 days before publishing a SORN, an agency must “publish in the Federal Register notice of any new use or intended use of the information in the system, and provide an opportunity for interested persons to submit written data, views, or arguments to the agency.”

That of course didn’t happen here either.

IRS information:

The Treasury is subject to the confidentiality requirements of the Internal Revenue Code, which are laid out by statute at 26 U.S.C. § 6103. That section provides that “[r]eturns and return information shall be confidential” and cannot be disclosed by a federal officer and employee unless authorized by statute. As with the Privacy Act, the officers and employees of the Treasury Department may access return and return information if their “official duties require such inspection or disclosure for tax administration purposes.”

Again, not applicable to the DOGE crew.

The power to stop this

It’s one thing for defendants to be found in violation of the Privacy Act and the Internal Revenue Code for having granted Musk and DOGE access to our payments systems and all the personal sensitive financial information within them.

It’s another to take that violation and turn it into something the court can act upon.

Thankfully, Congress thought of this, too. In a general sense, the government is supposed to act by way of established administrative procedures. So it’s not surprising that there’s something called the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) that specifies what can happen when they don’t.

Under the APA, courts are empowered to set aside agency actions that are unlawful, arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion. If the court agrees that the takeover was any of these, it can order the Treasury to shut off access to the federal payment system to Musk and his team. In their complaint, the plaintiffs have alleged facts and laid out a solid legal foundation for why the takeover was all these bad things. From there the court can issue an injunction.

I was hoping by yesterday to hear that the plaintiffs have moved for a preliminary injunction. This is especially true now that Musk has ratcheted up his dangerous rhetoric and a planned migration of the system is set to occur this weekend, raising the risk of system failure given all the new code that was illegally added recently. As a bit of a legal primer, recall that a preliminary injunction will issue if the plaintiffs demonstrate a high probability of success on the merits, there is a risk of irreparable harm should an injunction not issue, the “balance of equities” comparing the harm to the plaintiffs versus the harm to the defendants, and if the injunction serves the public interest.

The law is on the plaintiffs’ side, and the whole nation is at risk because of the defendants’ actions. And when you think about it, for defendants, what real harm is there in preventing DOGE from having access while the case proceeds? That Musk won’t be able to cancel some more funding illegally? An injunction would maintain the status quo ante, which reduces the harm all around and serves the public interest.

While the parties prepare to battle it out in court, the public response is growing. Opponents of Musk and DOGE held a large rally outside the Treasury Department yesterday evening, where many members of Congress spoke out against this coup by the broligarchs. In government topplings of years past, takeovers involved seizure of government properties including TV stations and military command centers.

In the coups of today, the takeovers instead involve control of computer and payment systems, which would allow the plotters to hold the nation hostage and usurp power from other branches of government. This is precisely what has already happened as the executive has sought to impound congressionally authorized funds.

A federal district judge has yet to weigh in on the specific crisis at the Treasury, but it likely won’t be long before one does. Given the factual record, the applicable law, and the risk of real harm to the country, a preliminary injunction is probable in my view.

But what if this administration ignores the court’s decision? So far, the White House hasn’t demonstrated any willingness to defy a court order, choosing instead to rescind unconstitutional memos while still hollowly claiming victory. And it may not be willing to take things too far to help out Elon Musk, whose overreaching and bluster already threatens to outshine Trump’s.

But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, hopefully before Musk has burned it down. If you’d like to help Public Citizen right now in its courageous fight to save our democracy, you can donate using this link. https://donate.citizen.org/page/59137/donate/1?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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AOC is correct that Trump is very much like the Wizard Oz — a great deal of his power is in the myth. Ezra Klein says for Trump to be the King he wants to be — he needs us to believe he has that power. Ezra's encouragement: Don't believe him. (The Irish Prime Minister said it another way, in response to Trump's floating the atrocious idea of seizing Gaza, "I always adopt the approach when it comes to the U.S. administration of: judge them based on what they do and not what they say.")

"They wanted to intimidate me, but this is important work"

So said  Lidia Martinez, an 87-year old retired educator who helps elders in San Antonio register to vote, after 9 officers of the law entered home, "seven of them men, some with guns in their holsters."

Here are two sources of information about Texas' attorney general Ken Paxton. 

Heather Cox Richardson posted this in her newsletter Letters from An American on Monday Aug 26 (same day as the article I quoted from The Status Quo below).

Voter intimidation is underway in Texas, too. On August 18, Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo, who was a key figure in promoting the Big Lie, posted a rumor that migrants were illegally registering to vote at a government facility west of Fort Worth. The Republican chair and election administrator there said there was no evidence for her accusation and that it was false, but Texas attorney general Ken Paxton nonetheless launched an investigation.

In addition to feeding the narrative that there is voter fraud at work in Texas, the investigation led Paxton’s team to raid the homes of at least seven Latino Democrats. No one has been charged in the aftermath of the raids. Latino rights advocates call them a “disgraceful and outrageous” attempt to intimidate Latino voters and have filed a formal complaint with the Department of Justice.

Today, Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that since 2021, Texas has removed more than one million people from the state’s voter rolls, and said the process will be ongoing. Abbott’s office said those removed are ineligible to vote because they have moved, are dead, or are not citizens. But more than 463,000 of those on the list have been removed because their county of residence is unaware of their current address

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An interesting editorial in The Status Quo Newsletter from Jay Kuo, who incidentally is about to become a father!

Texas Is Terrorizing Voters State Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office raided Latino Democratic candidates’ and activists’ homes under the false pretense of election security. Jay Kuo Aug 26

In November of 2020, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, an ally of then President Trump and a staunch election denier, sought to overturn the results of the national election. That effort failed spectacularly, but that didn’t stop him from putting his finger on the scale of Texas elections. 

Paxton’s “Election Integrity Unit” next went after alleged election violations, filing dozens of bogus criminal claims of election fraud, including false claims of ballot harvesting. The state’s highest criminal court threw most of those out.

Now Paxton has shifted his mode of attack, enlisting the help of a Republican DA who “referred” a case to his office. I’m curious to know on what grounds, and whether there was any coordination at work. Paxton has now used that referral as a pretext to conduct raids on the homes and offices of Latino voting activists claiming “voter fraud.” Among the targets are Democratic leaders and election volunteers. They’ve had their cell phones, computers and documents seized, and ordinary citizens are now embroiled in costly criminal cases.

Make no mistake: The charges are political and are intended to intimidate and to suppress votes under the guise of “secure elections.” Latino civil rights groups have asked the Justice Department to intervene.

Ken Paxton: Enemy of Democracy

Paxton’s long history of criminal charges, ethical complaints and impeachable offenses (he narrowly escaped conviction after impeachment by his own party earlier this year) could fill an entire government ethics course. For purposes of this discussion, I’m going to focus on his election-related abuses of power.

For some important context, Paxton is a hard-core election denier. He spoke at the January 6 Ellipse rally and has spread false election conspiracies. As Texas Attorney General, he filed a wildly inappropriate and baseless lawsuit in December of 2020, enlisting a group of red state AGs to challenge the election results in four blue ones, claiming they had failed to follow the law. That meritless suit got tossed by the Supreme Court in short order, and the Texas State Bar sought disciplinary action against Paxton for even filing it.

Paxton is also a superspreader of election lies. His office even screened a showing of 2000 Mules, the widely debunked, depublished and discredited film about supposed election fraud by convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza. 

To keep the myth of election fraud going, he targeted the Latino community with scores of criminal cases using the false claim, ginned up by Trump and Fox, that persons who are here illegally are voting in high numbers. This has no basis in fact and also defies common sense. After all, why would someone who is here illegally commit a crime that could have them deported? And why would they do so while leaving a paper trail for the government, complete with their identification and address where they could be found?

Of the some 100 cases charged by his office, only four wound up even being prosecuted at a cost of $2.3 million. The rest were tossed on grounds it was unconstitutional for Paxton to unilaterally pursue the charges. His efforts are part of a larger push by Republican DAs and AGs to aggressively prosecute alleged voter fraud, with simple harmless error being charged at the maximum felony levels to try and intimidate and make examples of voters.

Paxton’s latest deplorable move

With the courts telling him he couldn’t pursue election fraud charges on his own, Paxton shifted gears. He enlisted the help of Republican District Attorney Audrey Gossett Louis in the 81st Judicial District in Texas. That includes Atascosa and Frio Counties, where some of the recent raids were conducted.

The New York Times published an account of some of the raids. Some raids were conducted on actual candidates running for office:

On Tuesday…officers raided the home of Cecilia Castellano, a Democrat running against Don McLaughlin, the former mayor of Uvalde, for a state House seat, taking her cellphone.

Ms. Castellano described her experience as “very frightening” and said she still did not know why she was targeted. “This is all political,” she said.

Police also broke down a door and raided the home of Manuel Medina, a consultant for Castellano’s campaign. Medina is also chair of the Tejano Democrats, a group advocating for greater Hispanic representation in the Democratic Party.

Elderly residents were also targeted, including Lidia Martinez, an 87-year old retired educator in San Antonio:

Nine officers, seven of them men, some with guns in their holsters, then pushed open the door and marched past a living room wall decorated with crucifixes, she said.

“I got scared,” she recalled in an interview on Sunday, speaking in both English and Spanish. “They told me, ‘We have a warrant to search your house.’ I said, ‘Why?’ I felt harassed.”

Ms. Martinez said that the officers told her they came because she had filled out a report saying that older residents were not getting mail ballots. “Yes, I did,” she told them. For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of LULAC, the civil rights group, helping Latino residents stay engaged in politics. Much of her work has included instructing older residents and veterans on how to fill out voter registration cards.

“I go to a lot of senior events; I explain to them what they have to do,” she said. “I’ve been involved in politics all of my life.”

Reactions from Latino elected leaders have been swift and, understandably, full of outrage. State Senator Roland Gutierrez could barely contain his anger, claiming “Crooked Ken Paxton” had targeted and terrorized seniors in his district. He called for an immediate investigation in the following clip posted to Twitter:

Leaders of LULAC and elected officials will hold a news conference on Monday to demand answers. LULAC has also asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation into Paxton’s misuse of his office to conduct a sprawling set of raids on Democratic activists and leaders in the Latino community.

Fascism, Texas style

It’s important to recognize this for what it is. A party like the Texas GOP using the power of government to intimidate the opposition and suppress its democratic efforts is what we see in places like Russia, Hungary and Venezuela. It is fundamentally anti-democratic, particularly when it is conducted so close to an actual election. 

Paxton can tie down the other side using state charges, forcing them to spend money and time on legal defense against entirely bogus charges, while handicapping their get out the vote efforts by seizing their electronic devices and computers.

Someone like Paxton who has a long history of abusing his office shouldn’t be given any benefit of the doubt here. And conducting these raids in the name of “election security” is an Orwellian level of government speak that not only furthers a false narrative with no evidentiary basis but also undermines faith in our democratic systems generally.

When people ask me whether Texas will flip blue, either in the Senate or the Presidential race, I often say it might, but it is a voter suppressed state. The deck is stacked against Democrats there in many ways, including now open intimidation tactics and rampant abuse of government authority by Paxton.

While it’s important for the Justice Department to take an immediate and aggressive stand against such abuses, it’s even more important for Latino activists, politicians and voters not to be cowed by Paxton and his goons. In this there is a glimmer of hope. As the New York Times reported,

Days after the raid, Ms. Martinez said she still felt shaken. But she said she remained committed to the cause.

“They wanted to intimidate me,” she said. “But this is important work.”

Editing is a mess, sorry about that.