It’s 100° in May — and the Texas Legislature is Hell on earth. By The Barbed Wire

Howdy gang,

Brian Gaar, senior editor of The Barbed Wire, here. Anyone else sweating at their keyboard? Yes, it’s mid-May and Texas is already hitting 100 degrees — outside and inside the Capitol, where lawmakers are once again melting down over the existential threat of kids reading books or learning that slavery was, in fact, bad.

We’ve got Ken Paxton hunting down critical race theory like it owes him money, Dan Patrick introducing McCarthyism with a 2025 facelift, a drag queen teaching actual civic engagement better than your seventh-period government teacher ever did, and the power grid daring us to run the A/C. Let’s dive in before the heatstroke hits.

Attorney General Ken Paxton is dusting off the ol’ CRT panic button — this time targeting Austin ISD for allegedly exposing students to The 1619 Project. You know, that Pulitzer Prize-winning series that dares to suggest America’s founding wasn’t all freedom and powdered wigs.

Next up, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is here to fix education the old-fashioned way — by ignoring actual problems and rewriting history with a red scare flair.

Under a new bill he’s prioritizing, Texas students would be required to learn about the “ongoing threats” of communism, complete with lessons on propaganda and forced conformity. Because nothing says freedom like legislating what you have to teach in a free society.

And while Texas politicians are busy banning books and shaking their fists at those darned Commies, Austin queen Brigitte Bandit is giving folks an actual education — with rhinestones.

And finally, as if you didn’t already know, the heat dome is here early, and cities across Texas are about to break records and sweat through their jeans at the same time.

Austin could hit 102°F this week. San Antonio may see its earliest-ever triple-digit day. And the DFW area is poised to melt like a brisket sandwich on the dashboard. ERCOT swears the grid can handle it (this time), but maybe check your A/C filter and sacrifice a LaCroix to the thermostat gods, just in case.

Nothing Terrifies Texas Leaders Like Kids Learning Slavery Was Bad

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton targets Austin schools in his latest CRT show trial.

By Brian Gaar

It looks like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has dusted off his CRT-sensing goggles and set his sights on Austin ISD — a district he claims is sneakily indoctrinating children with Pulitzer-Prize-winning history lessons.

On Monday, Paxton’s office announced it wants to haul in Austin ISD’s superintendent and school board for depositions, all part of an investigation into whether the district is stealth-teaching that bogeyman of Texas politics: critical race theory (side note: CRT? C’mon, Ken, whining about that was so four years ago). 

Paxton’s evidence? Allegations of ties to the New York Times’ The 1619 Project, a body of work that dares to suggest America’s history might involve some uncomfortable truths about slavery and race.  

“It’s outrageous that Austin ISD officials think they can ignore state law to put woke indoctrination in Texas classrooms,” Paxton harrumphed in a release.

(Also, not to pull my “I grew up in Texas” card, but unlike Paxton, I did. And even in Wichita Falls, my football coach history teachers taught us that slavery was bad, even worse than failing to establish the run.)

Anyway, apparently that’s illegal now. You might remember that Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law in 2021 making sure The 1619 Project stayed far away from Texas classrooms — because nothing says “world-class education” like banning Pulitzer-winning journalism.

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