That There Is Some Good Writing
The New York Times summed up Texas like they were living here. Enjoy!
I also wanted to let you know that your donations helped to pay for the final of three mailers from Sisters United. You helped pay for the Fort Bend part of it. It went to Democratic women who have not voted yet.
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I think I showed you the other ones before.
I’m feeling pretty upbeat about Beto and I also feel good about our local candidates, too, especially a young friend of Bubba’s who is running for DA.
Let’s flip this damn thing.
Go Texas, Go Texas Women, Go Texas Democrats!
1A very busy man and way qualified for just about anything he decides to do
2Mr. Charles R Phillips, yes indeed sir to all of the above! And, a Howard Dean yodel and shout out to ALL the disenfranchised voters in all 50 states and those of us who love them (Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, women, students and any other “perceived” group being attacked by the myriad of voter suppression efforts),- VOTE. Please do not allow all the snacilbupeR efforts to discourage you succeed.
This election really is all about small “d” democracy. With every House and Senate seat, each governor, and every “down ballot” race win, we improve our odds to end voter suppression.
Purple Texas, Nevada welcomes you. We feel your pain. 😀
3Thanks for posting that Times article, JJ. Yes, that there is some good writin’. I was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell ya, to find that the population of El Paso is nearly one million! It was about 100,000 when I first blew town. I still don’t know where all those people are finding work.
4“Pretty upbeat” makes my day.
5If I could I would add a pix of my mother and her mother, both of them hard working activists for women’s rights. Go Texas! Go Beto! Make Cruz sweat!
6I hope that Beto O’Rourke and all the other Texas Democrats outperform the slimy Repukes.
However, I took a critical look at the Texas Tribune tally of early voting in the 30 largest TX counties.
I paid particular attention the ones I’m most familiar with, the heavily Hispanic border ones listed in this report: Hidalgo, Cameron, Webb, Nueces (including Beto’s own El Paso County, which I haven’t been in in decades) that were on the TT list.
There has been NO apparent ‘Beto bounce’ in early voting in those Hispanic majority counties.
The turnout in them so far has been the usual very dismal typical Hispanic one: 26-32% of registered voters. Pathetic, as usual (my former home county, Cameron, had a 10% turnout some years back).
Maybe some of the other, much larger in population, likely Hispanic majority counties, like Harris, will make this deficiency up. Maybe.
I sure hope so, because that much talked about “Hispanic Blue Wave” ain’t happening in Texas’ most heavily Hispanic counties so far.
Yet again, this is a perennial Democratic pipe dream: ‘the coming Hispanic demographic salvation’. In software that’s called ‘vaporware’.
A contrast with heavily Anglo majority counties, like Comal, shows a huge early voting turnout, like in 2016. I’d wager that they are going overwhelmingly for the dark side.
https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2018/general-election-early-voting/
Examples from the report, Hidalgo and Cameron (roughly 92+% Hispanic populations).
Absolutely NO Beto bounce at all, even with that recent article here in the Salon about Beto’s ‘concert’ rally in Hidalgo County (at Edinburg or McAllen) recently.
Hidalgo County
McAllen is the largest city in Hidalgo County. There are 637,094 people over 18 in the county.
Early voting turnout compared to previous elections
YEAR REG. VOTERS VOTES PERCENT
2018 361,562 114,560 31.7%
2016 338,562 137,720 40.7%
2014 318,772 56,652 17.8%
2012 304,823 101,388 33.3%
Cameron County
7Brownsville is the largest city in Cameron County. There are 319,403 people over 18 in the county.
Early voting turnout compared to previous elections
YEAR REG. VOTERS VOTES PERCENT
2018 206,966 54,576 26.4%
2016 197,726 62,986 31.9%
2014 186,563 20,172 10.8%
2012 180,389 41,548 23.0%
This is just something I have heard (I have not voted yet), but if you select straight Democrat, some of the machines in Texas will switch some of the votes to the GOP candidate. US Senate is one of them. But if you go through and select the Dem in each race individually, then nothing gets flipped.
So be vigilant when voting. Check before you press the final button.
8@4 BarbinDC says: “…I still don’t know where all those people are finding work.”
Based on my sort of careful casual up close observations since the very beginnings of the utterly failed, so-called ‘War on Drugs’, a whole lot of people, many tens of thousands, are gainfully employed in certain…ahh errm… ‘import-export’ businesses.
(I am, have been, wrote a thesis on it, strongly in favor of legalization and regulation of all ‘drugs’. The so-called ‘War on Drugs’ has only made extremely wealthy and powerful some of the worst people in history. While the supply-side continues to increase exponentially.
9Simple ‘free market economics’.
PS: The 1920’s Volstead Act, Prohibition, was also an utter failure. But was recognized as such by smarter people than we have today, and ended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volstead_Act#Enforcement_and_impact)
If the d’s manage to take the house first investigation should be of, Elaine Choa, present Secratary of Transportation.
10rip her life wide open. inspect family finances. Dig out all records of the time she was on Enron board.
Subpoena all records that she has including time on the twits cabinet.
Strip her of her citizenship.
Oh since she is the wife of turtle mcconnell this should upset the r’s head legislative traitor as well.
I wonder how he will feel with rabid, ruthless, merciless D partisans rummageing through his wifes life, and by extension, his.
Put her in front of a committee for 12 hours and then require her to return very next day for another marathon.
Treat this trash the same way they treated hillary and bill.
No congressional courtesy allowed or extended.
Let the thuglicans know that there is no more nice liberals. Go for the political, social and economic throat.
That should start the next congress with a quiet innocous shot across the turtles bow.
Second investigation should be of melania’s questionable immagration and work record.
11If she is found lying about anything, her age, her weight, the natural color of her hair, her foot size anything no matter how minute strip her of her citizenship, and her childs as well no anchor babies for demented donnie, and deport her after having her sit in a tent city in the desert for 6 months eating nothing but bologne sandwiches.
Do the same for his first wife, and children, as well.
If the doddering donnie pardons her hang this illegal immagrant around his neck. Easy comparison to human trafficers who smuggle in women to work sleaze clubs, bars and brothels.
@Sandridge: About 20 or so years ago, an article in the WaPo estimated that 20% of the population earned its living from the drug trade. I didn’t believe until the FBI staked out a house across the street from my parents and eventually arrested the guy who lived there. He was apparently a fairly big-time operative in the trade. Shocked everybody on that street–which was full of retired military people like my Dad.
Still, back in 2002, when we were cleaning out my mother’s house to sell it, one of the women helping us lamented the fact that so many people were graduating from UTEP and leaving town. Certainly neither I nor any of siblings found interesting work to do there or a reason to stay. I’ve just never understood why the place kept growing like a weed (so to speak).
12The line in that story about Cruz’s preference for Toby Keith over Willie Nelson when Keith is from Oklahoma, with Oklahoma in italics, is a Richard Linklater commercial just waiting to happen.
13I’ve received three phone calls with the person claiming to be Ted Cruz, one from Las Vegas, one from Arizona, and one from Oklahoma. None of the people had Cruz’s accent and the pitch of each voice was different, yet all claimed to be Ted and said nasty things about Beto and urged me to vote for Ted. He is such a sleeze!
14Sue G: it is an inherent property of slime that it cannot be held in one place.
15Sandridge, I agree that there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of a Hispanic wave helping the Dems in early voting. OTOH, the “little children” may save democracy. Several things I’ve read suggest that Millennials are voting well ahead of the low levels seen in prior elections. My 24 year old son asked for Tuesday off so he could drive friends to vote. Here’s hoping for blue surprises.
16slipstream: The problem is that it can’t be nailed to the wall either.
17When the voting machines crash in Georgia, in particular in black and democratic districts, kemp will now point at his accusation of democrats hacking to cover his okole from the failure of his office to fulfill its duty, at least on paper, to run a fair and clean election with an accurate count.
18When inreality he will have succeeded in disenfarnchising thousandss and 10’s of thousand voters who, just coincidentally, are people of color.
That was the job he signed up for and drove his staff to complete.
Then when the hacks on the supreme court decide everything in georgia was on the up and up, no matter the evidence or facts, he can continue to further trash that traitor state.
No. No. No. Please, do NOT vote straight ticket. If you do, you are voting for Ted Cruz. Read the previous stories about this. Vote individual races. It doesn’t take that much longer.
19Again, I respectfully disagree. Instead, we are stressing a straight ticket and asking voters to carefully check their final ballot before pressing the VOTE button. We have an exceptionally long ballot in Texas and not voting a straight ticket seriously hurts our down ballot candidates. It also hurts turnout. The Texas Democratic Party is asking people to vote a straight ticket and then carefully check their final ballot.
20Ms. Juanita Jean Herownself, my appeal to my millennial brothers and sisters would be “patience Grasshoppers.” Here in NV one can literally hear the grinding of the voting machines. Ya can’t vote faster than the machines allow. So, slow down and please do as Ms. Juanita Jean Herownself has described how the Texas Democratic Party is asking people to vote.
21Yes’m, Miz Juanita Jean. Cruz was the one that flipped here. Correct it or others you think are wrong and then vote. I went ahead and mailed in my ballot and hope nothing goes wrong.
22