We are having a special election in Texas for a State House seat vacated by a Republican who thought he might have problems winning again.  He was part of Texodus – Republican incumbents dropping like flies.

The special election is Tuesday, November 5th.  In Texas, a special election is a free for all – everybody runs and it’s winner take all. If nobody wins with 50% plus one, there will be a run-off between the top two vote getters.

Republicans are running six candidates. Six. In political science terms that’s officially referred to as a crap shoot. The sole Democratic candidate is Eliz Markowitz.  Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to believe that Democrats got our act together and fielded only one candidate so that the Democratic vote isn’t split six ways to hell and back.

I know Eliz personally and I am asking you to toss a few dollars her way.  She’s smart as the dickens and has all the right bright ideas. She’s hardworking and willing to do her part.  She’ll make you proud.

This is a flippable district and will give the winner a leg-up on the 2020 election.  Texas redistricting happens every ten years and 2020 is the year.  So, we have a real chance in this seat but she needs money now to get the vote out.  Send her some damn money.

Then email her with your best wishes and to let her know that you’re not some weirdo in Montana stalking her.  Eliz@Eliz4TX.com

Cecil Roberts, the president of United Mine Workers of America, said that the coal industry is not “back,” despite President Trump’s claims, CNN reports.

Said Roberts: “Coal’s not back. Nobody saved the coal industry.”

He added that coal-fired plants are closing all over the country, calling it a “harsh reality.”

Yeah, also gone are stream locomotives, horse drawn carriages, telegraph machines, and iron lungs to treat polio.  Nobody saved them either.

Okay, I’m gonna take you to West Virginia today to see Christian in Action.  Honey, the devil is loose and on the prowl at the New Life Apostolic Church in Oak Hill, West Virginia.

I need to let you know that this happened on May 11th, but news is slow getting out of West Virginia because … well, probably because they operate under the 1955 regulatory information act or something.

So, here’s the deal.  A long-simmering intellectual disagreement ensued between the wife of the pastor and the wife of the youth pastor. Apparently the trigger was something about a tee-shirt that the youth minister’s wife was wearing.

Now, not that I want you to take sides in this argument, but this is minister Earl Toney and his wife Melinda. Melinda is the Annie Oakley of fundamentalist religion. I just want you to know her if you see her. So you can duck.

So, while this tee-shirt argument was going on and the husbands were trying to get the wife to call down, Melinda just had all she could take and went out to the car to get her pistol. I think what she had in mind was for the Youth Minister’s wife, Lori Haywood, to get to see Jesus first.

Earl decided to go see if he could go pray with his wife in the parking lot and get the damn gun away from her. So right there in front of God and Sweet Jesus, a physical altercation began between Earl and Melinda. There was an “accidental” gun shot.

The bullet didn’t hit anyone because the parking lot was empty. So, three of the Christians went home that day and Melinda was toted off to the jailhouse for reckless endangerment.

Thanks to Craig for the heads up.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is an indicted felon for security fraud who has been postponing his trial for years in a legal dance that that puts the hula to shame.  He even got his wife elected to the Texas legislature and the first damn thing she did was try to change the law that he is accused of violating.  And he flat ass stole somebody’s expensive fountain pen and kept it for 15 months before he got caught.

His wife also wrote a song called, “I am a pistol packing Momma and my husband sues Obama,” and sang it all across the state.  Paxton sued Obama 48 times.  And apparently he did that because he had nothing better to do with his time, like this …

A report out Wednesday by the San Antonio Express-News found that a gun owner in Texas had sent more than 100 pages of racist and violent letters to the Texas Attorney General’s office threatening to kill undocumented immigrants over the course of a year and a half, and that nothing was done to stop him or to communicate the threat to local authorities.

Now Newsweek has found more evidence that Paxton just doesn’t give a big bear’s butt about the things he should care about.

“We will open fire on these thugs,” the white man who allegedly sent the messages wrote in an email to the office. “It will be a bloodbath.”

He didn’t write this to Paxton only once – he did it 100 times and Paxton didn’t think it needed tending to.  Neighbors say the guy has security cameras all around his house and that he often emerged holding a shotgun.

Ya gotta wonder what the fool tarnation Paxton is doing with his time this time.

Thanks to Vance Ex-Tex for the heads up.

It’s James Sensenbrenner now.

Wisconsin Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, the second longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives, will not run for a 22nd term, he said Wednesday.

Sensenbrenner made his first public announcement Wednesday on The Mark Belling Show on WISN-AM (1130).

In a separate interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he said, “I think the time has come to basically turn over the page in the 5th District.”

Oh Honey, that time came and went a decade ago.

It’s gonna be a rough year for Republicans. They know they can’t win back the House and fear that Democrats will treat them just like they treated Democrats.