Category: Schadenfreude

The guilty luxury of replacing anger at Trump voters with a little Schadenfreude

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Before the Biblical Divorce

To celebrate yesterday’s results in the Texas Republican primary, please grab your favorite snack and your preferred beverage and enjoy this 2016 musical offering from the then Mrs. Ken Paxton. 

The ex-Mrs. Paxton’s 2016 musings on her husband’s frequent absences are especially pregnant in light of allegations that Paxton’s current lover is a married mother of seven. 

The Paxtons’ “biblical divorce” is further explained here:

An Amusing Afterword

YouTube apparently decided that I would be interested in songs about love gone wrong. After viewing the ex-Mrs. Paxton’s 2016 musical offering, YouTube speculated that I would probably enjoy Norwegian chanteuse Heidi Hauge’s version of The Tennessee Waltz.

Indeed, I enjoyed it immensely, and hope you do as well.

It was a popular song—the English version that is, not the one in Norwegian—back when (in my father’s words) I was only knee high to a grasshopper.

My mother always said that, if you lose your Little Darling in the course of one dance, then she was probably never your Little Darling in the first place. 

Likewise, I am afraid that Ken was probably never Angela’s Little Darling. How sad to see love gone wrong. 

We have another two months—until the Texas Republican primary runoff—for John Cornyn to tell us all about what a lying, corrupt, adulterous son of a bitch he’s running against. 

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The Tariff Decision, Looking Forward: How Smart Was it for Trump to Hurl Vile, Hyperbolic Insults at Justices Gorsuch and Barrett and at Chief Justice Roberts?

As we have seen, the Learning Resources decision was 6 to 3, but there were three distinct factions:

  • the liberals, who thought that ordinary tools of statutory interpretation condemned Trumps IEEPA tariffs, and that the “major questions doctrine,” which they did not recognize, was not germane to the decision,
  • three of the rightwing justices, who cherished the “major questions doctrine” and thought it was of considerable relevance in ruling against Trump on the tariffs, and
  • the three other rightwing justices, who also cherished the “major questions doctrine” as a general matter, but who squirmed to deny its relevance to the case at bar.

In other words, at least for this case, probably for other tariff cases, and possibly for future cases on other topics, the six rightwingers have split down the middle into two opposed factions.

Justices Gorsuch and Barret, along with Chief Justice Roberts, are the swing votes. Who wins a future tariff case will turn on whether Barrett, Gorsuch, and Roberts side with the liberals or whether they side with the other three rightwingers. 

And, make no mistake, there will be future tariff cases. There will be future tariff cases up the wazoo. 

Trump’s post-decision hissy fit will do nothing to persuade its targets—who are, of course, the very three people he must persuade if he is to have an icecube’s chance in Hell of prevailing in future tariff litigation.

The hissy fit is also intended to threaten and intimidate, but I am persuaded that intimidation will not work either. Why? Because if Barrett, Gorsuch, and Roberts were going to be intimidated, I think we would already seen the effects of that intimidation. 

Call the ambulance.

He has shot himself in the foot again.

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There Seems to be a Trend Here

Louisiana state House of Representatives District 60 is a rural area south of Baton Rouge. In 2024, 56 percent of its voters cast their franchise for Trump, while 43 percent voted for the Democratic ticket.

In yesterday’s special election, the Democratic candidate won 62 percent to 38 percent. 

In other words, there was a 37 percent shift in favor of the Democrats between November, 2024, and February, 2026.