Hello and welcome to Words Matter from the DSR network.

Each week, Norm Ornstein and I will talk about the issues facing our countries

as we head into yet again another election cycle.

And speaking of election cycles, Norm, we have a couple of topics I know that you and I wanted to cover today.

And for our listeners, we're getting gearing up for a longer set of podcast.

Norm and I have been traveling and kind of ships and passing.

So we apologize in advance.

We're going to have kind of a combination members and public

abbreviated episode just for just for this week and hopefully we'll be able to get our

schedules in sync but we teed up there were so many

things that happened this this past ten days I'll say norm that it's hard to to kind of

highlight several but we wanted to cover, I had thought going into the week that we would be

talking about the Republican debate somewhat, but leave it to Senate Republicans talking about foreign policy issues and the unfortunate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just seems to always deliver and I think they're very relevant both issues

incredibly relevant for not just the election cycle but for the democracy as we'll dive into but

Norm how have you been I know you've been traveling how How have you been watching the last several days unfold?

And do you agree that Texas is a big deal for a lot of reasons?

And that what maybe the public is not aware about what's happening in the

Senate with Ukraine is also a big deal. So let's start with Texas. I don't think there is a more vile human being, soulless,

artless, disgraceful than Ken Paxton, the attorney general in Texas,

who was impeached by the Republican House and then because of millions of dollars going to the Senate from people who wanted to keep him and because Donald Trump endorsed him.

He was not removed from office despite the fact that his staff,

people who had worked with him, basically said he was corrupt and a liar.

...