James Talarico is a boss

and Ken Paxton fucking sucks

May 28, 2026

Republicans are power-loading an endless series of diapers right now, because Texas Democratic candidate James Talarico has a pretty decent chance of defeating his MAGAfied opponent, the twentyfour-seven crime factory Ken Paxton — and I am so fucking here for it.

the Donnyverse has no clue how to run against a candidate who is young, energetic, articulate, honest, and full of ideas — and so they’re trotting out the same old tired bag of dumbfuckery they always lazily fall back on.

It's a huge problem for the Democrat Party that you take one look at the men they run for elected office and just know that they couldn’t name a single obscure wide receiver from the early 2000s.

really, hotshot? that’s what you’re going with? that Jimmy Tal isn’t sportsbally enough to be a senator from Texas? who in the hallowed name of Toxic Masculinity Jesus even thinks like this?

this is what it looks like when an entire political party has no ideas, no clue how to solve the problems it created, and nothing to run on. they’re reduced to making weird-ass arguments that have no bearing on the actual, important issues of the day.

seriously, are you telling me there’s some homey gassing up his car somewhere in Amarillo right now, going ‘sure, maybe this Talarico could do something about these high prices — but I really need to know more about these wide receivers.’

now, because I’m a Responsible Journalist and Everything™, I googled ‘who is an obscure wide receiver from the early 2000s?’ — and here’s what Google’s janky six-fingered plagiarism robot reported:

One obscure but notable wide receiver from the early 2000s is Peerless Price

BOOM! problem solved! look how easy it was to come up with an answer — and Peerless seems like a pretty cool guy.

now it’s your turn, GOP. here’s a question for you: how the fuck do we get the Strait of Hormuz open, lower the price of oil, and make basic consumer goods and services affordable again?

here’s a hint: the answer isn’t ‘Peerless Price.’

now look how far Preznit Fuckwit has fallen. he’s too weak and cognitively diminished to come up with any effective line of attack. he’s just phoning it in these days.

“This Weak on Crime, Open Borders Dumocrat, can never be allowed to represent the Great People of Texas. His ‘values’ are the exact opposite!!! President DJT”

come on. ‘weak on crime’ and ‘open borders’ are the same tired accusations that Donny makes against every Democrat. how about something new for a change? I hear that challenging people to name an obscure wide receiver is a thing now.

really, we’re going with comparing Talarico to Alfred E. Neuman? who came up with this idea? anyway, Donny forgot to thank us for our attention to this matter, so fuck that guy. let’s move on, because Nosferatu McGoebbels has something urgent to add to the discourse.

The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.

once again, the GOP has no actual issues the can run on, so they’re just going to make shit up. Talarico isn’t transgender — but even if he were, so fucking what? how would that affect his — or anyone’s — ability to be an effective senator?

it’s all stupid bullshit. maybe that crap worked back in the seventeenth century when Stephen Miller was roaming his castle in Transylvania, but these infantile attacks aren’t landing.

the thing is, Talarico could give a fuck about all this dipshittery. he’s super focused on his opponent right now.

reporter: “Ken Paxton has taken to calling you ‘Talafreako’”

James Talarico: “well, I think if Ken Paxton is worried about freaks, he should stop giving Epstein-style sweetheart deals to pedophiles. this is the guy who just released Adam Hoffman from jail, an admitted child rapist, after one of Ken Paxton’s wealthy lawyer friends got involved in the case. Ken Paxton even kept him off the sex offender registry. Adam Hoffman was supposed to serve 25 years to life, but instead he served less than a month. as of this week, he’s now back on our streets because of Ken Paxton’s corruption. Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America, and it is costing Texans, it’s endangering our children, and it must end. The Epstein class has no place in Texas.”

Texas Republicans really shit the bed when they picked the ethically compromised and morally bankrupt Ken Paxton over the merely awful John Cornyn. Paxton is so fucking easy to run against. he’s a perpetual motion scandal generator. he can’t help himself. every day it’s some new atrocity.

every word of what Talarico just said is true. Paxton is letting a confessed child rapist walk the streets of Texas through some sweetheart plea deal, just like the one Donny’s dead pedo bestie got in Florida.

what the fuck?

meanwhile, all Ken Paxton has to hit Talarico with is a ginormous bag of nothing.

“he’s a threat to our very way of life. I mean, he’s a vegan who thinks God is nonbinary and that there are actually six biological sexes.”

okay, Ken — show us on the doll where Talarico being a vegan (fact check: he’s not) threatens your very way of life.

hysterical much? and even if Talarico were a vegan, so fucking what? how in the world would that threaten Paxton’s ‘very way of life’?

it’s just performative clownfuckery and I’m so fucking tired of it. suppose all of it were true — what if Talarico were the transgenderest vegan who ever walked the face of the earth? none of that shit would affect anyone else at all.

oh god, the ‘six genders’ thing. someone told Dear Leader that Talarico identifies himself as cisgender, and the rotting old fuck misheard it as ‘six genders’ — and because the Emperor has no brain, all the loyal cultists have to repeat this dumbfuckery as if it were something Talarico actually said. it’s all so bone-crushingly idiotic that it makes my head hurt just to write about it.

fuck all that noise. let’s hear once again from Jimmy T.

“well, I’ve always had two simple rules for political communications. sometimes we overthink this stuff. my two rules are be yourself and tell the truth. my faith is central to who I am. it’s why I’m in public service. that said, I’m very cognizant of how organized religion has hurt a lot of people, and people have a lot of religious trauma and religious baggage, and I want to be sensitive to that. at the end of the day, there are a lot of agnostics and atheists who are a lot more Christlike than Christian politicians in the country.”

where is the lie?

holy shit, isn’t it refreshing to hear a politician in the year 2026 speak in complete sentences, and be honest about religion?

no wonder the MAGAverse is terrified of this guy. they should be.

meanwhile, Little Donny Fuckface had another playdate with his emotional support cabinet yesterday. the less said about it, the better. Donny was the same old burst trash bag of grudges, grievances, fever-swamp hallucinations, and outright lies.

there were just two things of note. first, he threatened to fuck Oman’s shit but good, because reasons.

“Oman will behave like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ’em up.”

Oman? what the fuck did Oman do? nothing, that’s what. they’re one of our oldest allies in the Middle East. Donny’s demented, drunk with power, and only has one tool in his box — bombs — so now he’s going dole out threats to whoever he imagines is looking at him funny.

perfectly normal stuff.

you would think that a US president threatening to flatten Oman would be front-page news, but you would be wrong.

thanks a lot, worthless scribblers, you’re really covering yourselves with glory.

the second notable thing about the cabinet playdate was that the narcoleptic fart factory fell fast asleep, right in the middle of the meeting, because of course he did. he’s decrepit.

and that’s just one day after Donny assuring us that he’s the perfect picture of health. yeah, right.

it’s eternally embarrassing. Sundowning Grandpa Befuddlepants is decomposing before our very eyes, he’s so befuddled and lost in an ever-thickening fog of dementia that he’s threatening to bomb our allies, and he can’t even stay awake in the middle of his own meeting.

I hope the GOP has some plan B in the works, because Donny’s shit is not sustainable.

let’s do some Daily Claudia.

here she is on the patio of the restaurant Harvest on Hudson, on May 27, 2013.

by the way, Ms Spouse was a really accomplished amateur photographer. we started working on a web site, but unfortunately never got very far before her untimely passing. someday I’ll have to finish it.

and here’s Katie with her mom on October 18, 2009.

have a great Thursday, everyone. try not to fall asleep in your own meeting.

here’s your daily reminder that I can be found on Blue Sky at this link.

this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.