By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A member of my family, a highly educated man who lives in the Pacific Northwest, sent me an email today that asks: What the hell is going on down there?

I’m trying to figure it out.

He is referring to Ken Paxton, our state attorney general, who filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court that sought to give Texas the right to tell other states how to run their elections. The four states in question, I hasten to add, all voted for President-elect Joe Biden. Paxton sought to order the states to toss out those Biden votes and then endorse Donald Trump for re-election.

The SCOTUS said “no can do.” Paxton doesn’t have the standing to make that demand, justices said.

I would have hoped the high court’s dismissal of Paxton’s idiocy would spell the end of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Silly me. It ain’t happening … at least not yet.

Meanwhile, Paxton vows to keep fighting. For what, I have no clue. The SCOTUS is at the very tippy-top of the judicial chain of command in this country.

Now the AG is turning Texas into a laughingstock. Who out there is laughing? I mean, really! It ain’t funny, folks. Some of us in Texas are embarrassed beyond measure at what our state’s top legal eagle is trying to do.

Consider that he’s already indicted for securities fraud and is awaiting trial in state court. Plus, the FBI has subpoenaed records from his office as part of a federal probe brought forward by seven assistant AGs who blew the whistle on what they allege is criminal behavior by Paxton.

How in the world this guy, Paxton, got elected as AG in the first place is beyond me, let alone re-elected four years later.

My dear family member, I am sad to admit, has asked me a question for which I have no good answer. I do not know what the hell is going on here.