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pyrohornIII

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by pyrohornIII

  1. I am anticipating that our rate goes up as more Sark years replace the Herman years. Lots of attrition in that transition. I would bet it's more Austin boat Parade than a Trump flotilla.
  2. The best thing that could happen locally would be to make all races county level non partisan. School districts and municipalities, service districts already are like that. Go with non partisan and ranked choice. The 134 PAC which is a Dem PAC west of 35 is pushing for ranked choice, but the parties won't support it. And your point about the ease of voting in the urban area holds water until you get into the historically blue sections of town. The recent election law changes have increased the hours and locations, but have not held the counties accountable for where they place the polling locations, nor for how many machines they put in them. And the Lege didn't grant any more funding to the SoS to pass down to the counties to pay for those new locations and hours, so they are having to cut early voting locations to fit the additional polling day sites into their budget. And finding additional election workers is a grind too. So it's kind of like micro gerrymandering. Your idea has merit and gets tossed around a lot, but there's still a loyalty to party that people have out of pride that keeps them from voting Red. They feel under attack and if and when they can vote, they will vote their party line out of protest and with the hope others are doing so. The strategy you suggest just isn't something they would ever think of doing.
  3. I agree with Bozo, it works better on a local level than it does statewide. The primary to replace Bryan Slaton, House District 2 had a 'jungle' primary. All candidates were on the same ballot, regardless of party. So that meant there were no individual party primaries. Texas does not register you as a D or R or L, that only happens when you vote in one of those parties' primaries. If you vote in the Dem primary this cycle, you cannot vote in any runoff other than a Dem one. And same for Red side. You cannot hold county or precinct chair positions or be a delegate to the state convention if you vote in a republican race. There are a few other implications, but those are the major ones. In a jungle primary there is no party association, so people can cross over during that primary. This happened in HD 2 where once the local Dem candidate, Kristen Washington, did not gain enough votes to make the runoffs, many of the local Dems went in and cast votes for Jill Dutton over Brent Money. Money had been endorsed by the 3 evil stooges. Money did not get sizeable donations from outside the districts, ala Dunn, Wilks or any others. I guess Abbott and his klan calculated their endorsement alone would win the day. So that was a short term win, and Dutton is no prize, but she's lengths better than Money. But now they are all on their party ballots again for the 24 primaries, and Dutton will serve out the rest of this term until 1/25 no matter who wins the primary now. Even locally like that, it was only like 100-120 vote difference. It will be interesting to see the results of a normal primary. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/30/brent-money-jill-dutton-texas-house-district-2/
  4. Fuck you. I generally always agree with your point of view, but you won't make me feel like some idiotic second-class citizen because I have to live in a rural county. This kind of talk that their votes don't matter has been driven into their minds by the urban elite so much that they believe it. Believe it down to the point where the votes don't matter because too many stay home, why should they vote? I get no funding from the state, none from national level and very little from local. Our volunteers out here in rural Texas pay with their time and checkbooks every time they travel to someplace in county for an event or knock on a door or two. It wouldn't have taken but a one or two percentage increase in rural turnout to make a big difference in the outcome of the 22 elections. But everyone insists that the urban vote will turn us blue and there is no doubt that's where our strength lies. But there are just as many if not more blue voters in counties like Harris that stay home too. And the bulk of all this funds you bitch about were spent in those locales. And the funding has targeted seats that can be flipped, and not all. It is hard to watch some local candidate run for HD or CD and they get no support from the state or DC if their races are considered long shots. They make the effort to run and know they won't win, but they do it anyway because they feel someone has to offer an alternative. But this kind of talk is just as harmful to our chances of winning, if not more, than underfunding. Our rural Dems are ridiculed and laughed down at by the Dunning Kruger assholes, some have their jobs threatened, their kids at school taunted and other slights just for standing up for the party of reason and empathy. It's not a hard decision to stay home and not vote. I don't have all the high level contacts you do, nor those experiences, but I do know rural Texas and the blue voters there, and the challenge of getting them to the polls to vote. I would appreciate you think about those people before you dismiss them as dumbasses from Possum Piss who don't mean shit when it comes to voting. Maybe just keep this logic to yourself, or modify it where you aren't denigrating a large base of voters. We have enough problems with turning out Texas Dems without having our own people telling them they are pointless.
  5. Another problem is that a lot of counties have no Dems in local races, so if people in Possum Piss need to vote for cousin clyde for constable, they can't vote in the Dem primary.
  6. Abbott and Patrick won't be up for re-election until 26. So far the only Dem who is talking about either is Rep Vicki Goodwin of north Travis Co. She's in the same mold as Talarico, she's been instrumental in the voucher fight and other hot issues the past few sessions. It's hard to see these new brighter stars in the Texas lege because the media is constantly focused on the political theater Abbott and his ilk keep producing. There's a really good daily podcast of 10-15 minutes duration that gives you a rundown on things in DC and Austin affecting us. Progress Texas on Spotify and other platforms. Cruz is up this year and I like Roland Gutierrez. He's not apologetic about being a Dem and he's not pandering to the right side of the aisle to swing a few never trumper votes. And while a lot of his campaign focuses on the Uvalde massacre, he has some solid ideas for addressing other issues like immigration, codifying Roe V Wade, etc. He wants to expand the USSC to match the number of districts, which makes a lot of sense. Check him out.
  7. I was thinkin' tree fiddy. 🤷‍♂️
  8. I think a big part of the reason we can't get to sensible policy is that there is this huge push by a mouthy lot to install some sort of theocracy, which then puts some skewed Christian ideals as the centerpiece of our government. You said earlier that part of addiction is a spiritual problem and the government shouldn't be in the business of trying to fix that. I won't argue how much of it is spiritual or mental health as that line is hard to define in many cases. But my point is you can't get where you want to be by having all your considerations be judged by some accepted canon first. Safe sex mentioned earlier how many homeless start out as homosexual teens that are cast out of their homes and their support systems. By and large who condones parents to treat their children that way? The churches, who translate their own code of morals to fit their purposes. So if your government is based on those sorts of things, then they will see every issue through "God's" eye as they interpret it. That is too susceptible to change on the whims of a single small group, or even a single person who has the charisma to influence the masses. The government should be built and operated on a set of laws that are solid, based on facts that can endure from generation to generation. We've recently seen how it's been under siege by those who want to run things according to their feelings, instead of the rule of law. Now you have to figure out who set up that guiding light and why. Who is evil? I'd say the upper elite money people have been spurred on by their greed and competitiveness to turn a great deal of western society into brain dead consumers, and have used the pulpit to help people justify to themselves this move away from serving humanity and their neighbors, to serving the almighty dollar, which a great percentage of ends up in those uber rich pockets. They instill insecurities in us, then give us ways to feel better than others by introducing the notion it's ok to feel contempt for those different from us, or seemingly worse off. It's a lose lose for all but the puppetmasters.
  9. Well for some of them, yeah it's our fault, as a collective country. Many of those homeless druggies are veterans we gladly welcomed into the arms of our military to serve and protect our country. There's a myriad of reasons these people end up with the short end of the stick, but it maddens me how as a country we ask people to serve, put them in difficult situations, then turn our backs on them once they leave active duty. Our VA is magnificently underfunded while our defense contractors get fatter and richer. Then you turn the television on and get hit with a Wounded Warrior commercial. Excuse me, but isn't that the goverment's job to take care of these people? So yeah it is partly our fault, and one of the reasons many of us look upon the homeless and addicted with compassion, because maybe we (our country) put them in a vulnerable position and refuses to help them when the gamble went south. https://treatmentsolutions.com/treatment/rehab-guide/veterans/homeless-veterans/
  10. (CNN) — A Jackie Robinson statue that was cut off at the ankles and stolen Thursday from a Little League baseball field in Wichita, Kansas, has been found in a trash can at a different park – burned and in pieces, police say. Officers responded to a call Tuesday morning about a trash can fire in Garvey Park, Wichita Police Department spokesperson Andrew Ford said at a Tuesday news conference. “Shortly after extinguishing the fire, the fire department saw what appeared to be pieces of the Jackie Robinson statue, which is not salvageable at this time,” Ford said at the news conference. League 42, a nonprofit that provides low-cost baseball registration for children, had raised $50,000 for the life-sized statue at its field, according to CNN affiliate KLBY. The league was named after Robinson’s jersey number, honoring the legendary athlete who broke the Major League’s color barrier as a Black player. The theft occurred shortly after midnight Thursday, police have said. The theft and arson remain under investigation. On Monday, police said they found a truck believed to be connected to the theft. “There will be an arrest but we’re going to make sure that when we do, we will have a solid case,” Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan said Tuesday. The statue “was a symbol of hope” in the community, Wichita City Council member Brandon Johnson told CNN on Sunday. On Tuesday, Johnson described the discovery as “heartbreaking.” “I hate to see that the statue was not in one piece,” he told reporters. “I do want everyone to know we are undeterred to make sure that statue gets rebuilt and put back there for our community, for League 42, for young people, that symbol of hope will be only gone for a short time.” League 42 will move forward with creating a replica of the statue by the late James Parsons with the same material, director Bob Lutz said at the news conference. “Fortunately, the mold from his work is still viable, and the statue that reappears at McAdams Park will be the work of John Parsons,” Lutz said. A GoFundMe organized by Lutz has so far raised over $19,000 to replace the statue. The GoFundMe is up to 156,000/175,000. https://www.gofundme.com/f/replace-our-stolen-jackie-robinson-statue
  11. I don't think JJ going room temperature will make much difference with his imbecile spawn taking charge. The only way the Cowboys return to winning form is for the Jones family to sell them to someone else.
  12. That halftime show with Phyllis George sure brought back memories. Some good, some bad.
  13. The Hill was a good story, but done in that cheap Hallmark sappish kind of way. But the story was good enough to warrant sitting through the poor production. A story about a kid from Texas who fights off a lot of disabilities to make it to the Majors. Just don't expect Brenham to look like Brenham.
  14. Say what you will about Sarah, but she's been a bulldog after the O&G industry on abandoned wells, saltwater mishandling, pipeline leaks and other negative environmental issues.
  15. Well, we are where we are now with our primaries set. Allred leads in funds collected, but Gutierrez is working the campaign trail hard and gaining recognition and support every day. I have met 6 of the 9 candidates, and Allred isn't one of them. I'll just say he hasn't been as available as most of the others. I really admire those I have met and all would be a step up from Cruz, but to be practical it will come down to a runoff between Allred and Gutierrez. Gutierrez reminds me of Beto with a personality. He is humble and available and speaks with a genuineness that Beto seemed to lack. Allred is running a Hegar type campaign it seems. Maybe it will pick up, but I think he is saving his treasure chest for the runoff, and then the general. I really suggest you get out to see Roland when he gets into your neck of the woods. He's a good speaker. I feel he and Talarico are two of the best rising stars on the Texas Dem bench presently. Watch for the debates. There is one hosted by the PAC134 already online. PAC 134 Texas Dem Senator debate Most senate hopefuls made it, but Allred and Gonzalez both missed. There is one coming up sponsored by the AFL CIO, and it will be streamed on their Facebook page.
  16. Here is the link to his Plan Alamo. Dead solid perfect fascist. He's justifying all this by predicting that the Texas border will be invaded by armed masses of immigrants, organized in some sort of Pancho Villa uprising, I suppose. https://commanderfurman.com/plan-alamo/
  17. And it's doubtful we will in the future, due to all the legislators who have roots in A&M.
  18. Hebrew Hilton, right across from NoMan Hall
  19. Guess if they included the money they had to raise to make Jimbo's payoff down payment, it might be close. That was the veer Bowden taught them.
  20. You can't get more rural than this without getting into west Texas. Something along these lines is coming. There are distance learning companies already with the curriculum. They just need a network of "proctors" throughout Texas to make these pods work.
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