Assclown Alert: Tamping down on free speech to score political points with Texas AG Ken Paxton

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

In his latest foray into performative politics, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last week announced that his office is investigating watchdog group Media Matters for “potentially fraudulent activity.”

Paxton’s probe comes in response to a report by the nonprofit that X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, had been “placing ads for major brands next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party.”

Predictably, top advertisers including Disney, Lionsgate, Paramount and Comcast yanked their ads from X, and the social media company’s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, sued Media Matters in federal court in Texas. Musk alleges the watchdog played fast and loose with its reporting and did so to damage his platform’s ad revenue.

Legal scholars have pointed out that Musk — a darling of the far-right over his willingness to let Twitter devolve into a cesspit of hateful content — has little hope of winning the suit. Some have even characterized it as a publicity stunt.

Even so, that didn’t stop Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey — who shares Paxton’s penchants for grandstanding and sphincter-snorkeling former President Donald Trump — from nearly simultaneously announcing they’d assigned lawyers to look into Media Matters.

It’s a safe bet Paxton and his legal eagles turn up jack shit, but that’s never stopped these assclowns before. After all, this is the same baldly partisan AG who opened hundreds of investigations into supposed instances of voter fraud only to end up with nearly all of them petering out like wet farts. — Sanford Nowlin

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This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 12, 2023.