Chris Wallace did a good job of grilling Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton yesterday, except for one thing: Wallace never noted Paxton’s blatant hypocrisy in demanding people have the right to kill others by spreading COVID germs while also denying women the right to make their own reproductive health care choices.
Wallace began the interview with a clip of White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “asking” Republicans who oppose vaccine mandates why they are “getting in the way of saving lives, getting in the way of us making sure that the economy is working as well and getting out of the pandemic.”
“How to answer that question, sir?” Wallace asked.
Paxton kept trying to weasel out of answering questions about Texas’ extremist laws by saying he’s not in the legislature – which never deterred Wallace. But Paxton seemed proud to display his pro-death-by-COVID agenda:
PAXTON: Well, first of all, I’m not in the legislature, so I can’t quite answer for our legislature. But I think that they want people to have choices over their own decisions as to their health care with their doctor’s advice. And so people have different opinions about what that should be for them and it shouldn’t be made by the federal government from – from Joe Biden’s desk.
Wallace played a clip of Paxton saying, “I would urge businesses, don’t listen to the president. He’s bullying Americans. He’s bullying businesses. And what they should do is take care of their own businesses, take care of their own workers.”
Wallace highlighted the hypocrisy of accusing Biden of “bullying Americans” while supporting Abbott’s bullying of Texans by banning any Texas business from issuing a vaccine mandate and banning school districts from mandating face masks. The two went back and forth. During the exchange, Paxton said this:
PAXTON: [Businesses] should definitely consider their employees because we’re in a situation right now with our economy where we can’t afford to lose transportation employees or health care workers or law enforcement officers.
In other words, we can’t afford to lose employees unless they die from COVID.
Eventually, Wallace moved on to Texas' recently-passed abortion law “that deputizes anyone, however disconnected from it … for suing anyone who assists in an abortion.
And guess what? Paxton doesn’t care a fig about women’s health care decisions. And even if you think abortion is murder, don’t forget Paxton is just fine with people spreading potentially fatal diseases for the sake of “choices over their own decisions as to their health care.”
PAXTON: I applaud the legislature for – for doing anything they can to protect human life.
Wallace pressed Paxton pretty hard to say whether he supports the abortion law and whether there should be an exception for rape and incest “as there are in most abortion laws in the country" but not in Texas.
Suddenly, Paxton is pro-life to the max!
PAXTON: I think it’s very important to protect life. I think this bill is defensible and I think we’re going to – we are going to do a really good defending it.
Somehow, Wallace missed the glaring double standard. But I also applaud him for confronting Paxton about criminal allegations against him. He has successfully delayed a criminal trial for securities fraud and, more recently, has been accused of bribery by some of his own former top officials.
Paxton did not deny any wrongdoing.
PAXTON: Look, I’ve been dealing with this kind of fight. When you go out and do the types of things that I’ve done, you’re going to be challenged. You’re going to have issues like this pop up. And – and I’ve – this happened seven years ago, almost seven years ago. I was re-elected when it happened. And I think we’ve done a great job defending the state of Texas. That's what I'm going to talk about, what my job is to do for the state of Texas.
You can watch the slimy hypocrite below, from the November 14, 2021 Fox News Sunday.
“Let’s stop expecting them to see reason and change. They must be exposed, humiliated and crushed* underfoot. You continue to do us all a wonderful service, dear Ellen.
*Figuratively, not literally”
The current Far Right SC allowed SB8 to go into effect specifically to make sure that the latter of those clauses could be inflicted. Had they stayed it before it went online, clinics in Texas could have operated. Since they allowed it to go on, Texas clinics really can’t risk operating unless and until SB8 is totally thrown out. So they’re done.
When the Dobbs decision allows the states to set their own deadlines, be it 14 weeks, 6 weeks or 2 days, the rest of SB8 will be able to stand. Texas will then be able to issue a new bill that just removes the obnoxious enforcement methods and goes back to the traditional methods. But by using those methods, Texas will have gotten away with having a ban in effect around 9 months before anyone else.
Paxton is also fully aware of his own hypocrisy. In reality, he doesn’t care at all about “choice” or “life”. Those have never been priorities for angry Right Wingers. He cares about putting women back in their place, and punishing Americans for not living in a Pollyanna world rather than reality. He cares about continuing to support the completely debunked Right Wing disinformation campaign about COVID – where a pandemic was considered an annoying hoax distraction to their frantic wish to re-elect the Pence White House. He cares about continuing to support the nonsensical lie that Pence’s childish former spokesman “won” an Election that he actually lost by a fair amount.
And of course Paxton cares about getting away with his corruption and being able to crow about how he can do what he wants and not face any consequences. Just as Matt Gaetz is hoping the same for himself. Because they learned the same lesson the rest of the angry Right Wing learned from the abomination of the Pence White House: If you’re Right Wing and enough of a bully, you can get away with whatever you want.
Apart from the absolute rubes at the bottom of the heap, they KNOW everything they spew out is lies. Sure, they speak in English (more or less) and constantly refer to justice, service to others, their unshakable faith, the ideals of the founders and thick, gooey patriotism, but it’s all a hollow sham. It’s all egged on by the selfish, -shadowy billionaires (like Murdoch) and shameless propagandists (also like Murdoch).
Let’s stop expecting them to see reason and change. They must be exposed, humiliated and crushed* underfoot. You continue to do us all a wonderful service, dear Ellen.
- Figuratively, not literally