FYI: I learned today that HD121 Jonathon Taylor is not running. He is a professor at UTSA and told Michelle LoweSolis that he isn’t running. We need another candidate. Can anyone here help?
On another note: how do we convince voters that not all Democrats are alike? Too many people are feeling so betrayed that I feel this will screw us next year. 🤬
These bad apples might hurt us and it’s deflating.
🙏🏼 that the House holds! So this doesn’t pass. Does this take us back into a shutdown? I’m still learning.
Corporate donors = corporate democrats. We can’t let corporate Dems kill our party!
Remember the Tea party that high jacked repubs and turned the party Nazi? We progressives need to take back our party, continue the momentum from NoKings and last weeks elections and show that WE are the true populists. WE need to follow that polestar of the common good and common decency, and steal those voters back.
I ask the same question Eva asks above: how do we convince voters that not all democrats are weak?
How do we pull a tea party on those corporate shills?
Stuart Stevens is suggesting that Democrats use Contract with America from the 1990s as a strategic model (not policy model, obviously). He's discussed this in a number of substack videos, but the latest I saw was with Simon Rosenberg. The Tea Party was wildly successful with it in the 1994 midterms, I believe.
You are doing a great service to keep the fires burning, shedding light in the darkness. I hope you can continue writing. I will continue to read, even though I left Texas years ago. Grandson returned and I worry about his future. Rich S, Octogenarian and Contrarian
I posted this last night. A lot of people aren't really on Twitter anymore. I know you are, and electeds are, but it's a cesspool. Thanks for the update.
The Republican refusal to fund SNAP when the money was there feels like just another vicious MAGA tactic to put the opposition in a no win situation, using kids as pawns, to get Democrats to turn on each other. In any event, the shutdown wasn't for nothing because every federal employee, and every federal benefit recipient, and every ACA healthcare plan member, i.e. most Americans, now have their attention laser focused on the facts that (1) their benefits and/or incomes are going to be choked off and eventually disappear if the Republicans stay in power, and (2) their own Republican Congressional Reps. and Senators do not give a shit about them.
Yes! Primaries are the adversarial system which causes the candidates to test each other, forcing each candidate to be clear and firm about how they would react in hypothetical situations. Voters are then forced to think into the future and imagine something concrete they care about being on the line. Then, they are better able to compare and contrast the candidates. It is a much, much better way to get to real, meaningful representation. For too long, primaries on both sides have been vague platitudes coupled with a sensational, national narrative attenuated from the actual job at stake.
I have to imagine that if we had competitive primaries, "centrists" would be outed as the political hacks they are. That is, politicians who aren't for anything except a paycheck and the perks of office. The media has been failing to force candidates to answer questions which set up the real job description and reveal how that candidate might or might not be suited for the actual job.
Ultimately, and this was brought home by Schumer's recent stupidity, it is up to strong party leadership to whip recalcitrant party members into formation and to execute a plan leveraging power. We can never fill every seat with the most effective politician possible. A certain people-pleasing, wishy-washy, lack of assertiveness seems to go with the territory in politics.
It is the job of the legislative leader to leverage something the hacks need to encourage them to stay in line with the strategy. Say what you will about Pelosi, but she could control the delegation. I don't know what is going on in Austin with legislative the hackish Democrats, but my guess is they are just plodding along without real leadership.
So, if there is a little glimmer of a tiny silver lining here, the Schumer debacle clarifies the two elements of the problem here. One, political hacks who are too solicitous of corporate donors and two, a lack of clear-eyed, firm leadership in the legislatures. I think the people are completely on-board with not only progressivism (pretty much the only choice in the face of Trumpism), but also raring for a fight.
That lack of fight is why everyday Democrats are going to be so demoralized by the Schumer leadership vacuum. At least Texas Democrats are raring for a fight.
Texans, and all Americans, need to fully understand that the strategies of a foreign fascist dictator are being used against us, here in the US.
The American opposition to Trump, and the MSM, prefer to attribute the destruction of the economy to the incompetence of Trump and his minions. But something much bigger, and darker, is the truth. The regime is deliberately destroying the economy and weaponizing hunger and starvation to control the population and consolidate control. Hungry people are too exhausted to fight back. Zev Shalev and Olga Lautmann, whose substacks focus on Russia, Putin, and Ukraine recognize this strategy as one used by Stalin, and now Putin, for 100 years, and is currently being used by Netanyahu in Gaza. Here is an excerpt from a Shalev post on the SNAP cancellation:
"After a judge ruled Trump must release $5.5 billion in SNAP benefits to 42 million hungry Americans, Trump defied the order and launched a social media tirade blaming Biden for the shutdown he engineered. But the cruelty goes deeper: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent intimidating letters to every grocery store participating in SNAP, explicitly warning that any store showing mercy—reducing prices or feeding people during the shutdown—would be removed from the program and prosecuted. Trump is actively implementing holodomor, Stalin’s Ukrainian starvation genocide, as American policy. He’s using hunger as a weapon against his own citizens because Democrats won’t let him gut Medicaid for 20 million people. When you starve people, they can’t protest, they can’t organize—they can only think about survival. Trump’s betting on economic collapse to consolidate power, willing to destroy mortgage markets and American livelihoods to get his way."
Holodomor refers to the man-made famine, engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin, that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933. The word holodomor literally means "death by starvation" in Ukrainian.
I have no doubt that Putin is whispering instructions into Trump's ear during their frequent, off-the-record telephone chats, with no translator, and no notes. The KGB, now the FSB, knows and understands American insitutions and political processes better than most Americans. They have a library full of textbooks, currently being translated and posted on Substack by Andrew Weiss, instructing how to infiltrate American institutions for the purposes of waging asymmetrical war on Americans.
All Americans need to realize that politics as usual is dead. We cannot collaborate with the regime in destroying the economy and weakening the people to bargain for an advantage that would have existed in our former democratic republic. There is no bargaining with a murderous, fascist regime that lies, steals, and kills Americans, particularly one that would starve our children as a weapon to bring us to our knees.
If anyone has any inside information here, my subscriber chat is open. It will be interesting to see how Talarico handles this. He had to come into this race knowing it was eventually going to be an issue that he took Miriam Adelson's PAC money in the legislature.
FYI: I learned today that HD121 Jonathon Taylor is not running. He is a professor at UTSA and told Michelle LoweSolis that he isn’t running. We need another candidate. Can anyone here help?
On another note: how do we convince voters that not all Democrats are alike? Too many people are feeling so betrayed that I feel this will screw us next year. 🤬
These bad apples might hurt us and it’s deflating.
🙏🏼 that the House holds! So this doesn’t pass. Does this take us back into a shutdown? I’m still learning.
Corporate donors = corporate democrats. We can’t let corporate Dems kill our party!
Remember the Tea party that high jacked repubs and turned the party Nazi? We progressives need to take back our party, continue the momentum from NoKings and last weeks elections and show that WE are the true populists. WE need to follow that polestar of the common good and common decency, and steal those voters back.
I ask the same question Eva asks above: how do we convince voters that not all democrats are weak?
How do we pull a tea party on those corporate shills?
Stay and fight.
Stuart Stevens is suggesting that Democrats use Contract with America from the 1990s as a strategic model (not policy model, obviously). He's discussed this in a number of substack videos, but the latest I saw was with Simon Rosenberg. The Tea Party was wildly successful with it in the 1994 midterms, I believe.
You are doing a great service to keep the fires burning, shedding light in the darkness. I hope you can continue writing. I will continue to read, even though I left Texas years ago. Grandson returned and I worry about his future. Rich S, Octogenarian and Contrarian
Yes, I plan on it, as long as I’m able.
I support Talarico, but to be fair Allred spoke out against the Democrat defectors calling it a betrayal and an outrage.
Where? I didn’t see it. I looked on his Facebook.
Allred said on Facebook today that the 8 Democrats sold out. Also Twitter posts.
I posted this last night. A lot of people aren't really on Twitter anymore. I know you are, and electeds are, but it's a cesspool. Thanks for the update.
The Republican refusal to fund SNAP when the money was there feels like just another vicious MAGA tactic to put the opposition in a no win situation, using kids as pawns, to get Democrats to turn on each other. In any event, the shutdown wasn't for nothing because every federal employee, and every federal benefit recipient, and every ACA healthcare plan member, i.e. most Americans, now have their attention laser focused on the facts that (1) their benefits and/or incomes are going to be choked off and eventually disappear if the Republicans stay in power, and (2) their own Republican Congressional Reps. and Senators do not give a shit about them.
Yes! Primaries are the adversarial system which causes the candidates to test each other, forcing each candidate to be clear and firm about how they would react in hypothetical situations. Voters are then forced to think into the future and imagine something concrete they care about being on the line. Then, they are better able to compare and contrast the candidates. It is a much, much better way to get to real, meaningful representation. For too long, primaries on both sides have been vague platitudes coupled with a sensational, national narrative attenuated from the actual job at stake.
I have to imagine that if we had competitive primaries, "centrists" would be outed as the political hacks they are. That is, politicians who aren't for anything except a paycheck and the perks of office. The media has been failing to force candidates to answer questions which set up the real job description and reveal how that candidate might or might not be suited for the actual job.
Ultimately, and this was brought home by Schumer's recent stupidity, it is up to strong party leadership to whip recalcitrant party members into formation and to execute a plan leveraging power. We can never fill every seat with the most effective politician possible. A certain people-pleasing, wishy-washy, lack of assertiveness seems to go with the territory in politics.
It is the job of the legislative leader to leverage something the hacks need to encourage them to stay in line with the strategy. Say what you will about Pelosi, but she could control the delegation. I don't know what is going on in Austin with legislative the hackish Democrats, but my guess is they are just plodding along without real leadership.
So, if there is a little glimmer of a tiny silver lining here, the Schumer debacle clarifies the two elements of the problem here. One, political hacks who are too solicitous of corporate donors and two, a lack of clear-eyed, firm leadership in the legislatures. I think the people are completely on-board with not only progressivism (pretty much the only choice in the face of Trumpism), but also raring for a fight.
That lack of fight is why everyday Democrats are going to be so demoralized by the Schumer leadership vacuum. At least Texas Democrats are raring for a fight.
Texans, and all Americans, need to fully understand that the strategies of a foreign fascist dictator are being used against us, here in the US.
The American opposition to Trump, and the MSM, prefer to attribute the destruction of the economy to the incompetence of Trump and his minions. But something much bigger, and darker, is the truth. The regime is deliberately destroying the economy and weaponizing hunger and starvation to control the population and consolidate control. Hungry people are too exhausted to fight back. Zev Shalev and Olga Lautmann, whose substacks focus on Russia, Putin, and Ukraine recognize this strategy as one used by Stalin, and now Putin, for 100 years, and is currently being used by Netanyahu in Gaza. Here is an excerpt from a Shalev post on the SNAP cancellation:
"After a judge ruled Trump must release $5.5 billion in SNAP benefits to 42 million hungry Americans, Trump defied the order and launched a social media tirade blaming Biden for the shutdown he engineered. But the cruelty goes deeper: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent intimidating letters to every grocery store participating in SNAP, explicitly warning that any store showing mercy—reducing prices or feeding people during the shutdown—would be removed from the program and prosecuted. Trump is actively implementing holodomor, Stalin’s Ukrainian starvation genocide, as American policy. He’s using hunger as a weapon against his own citizens because Democrats won’t let him gut Medicaid for 20 million people. When you starve people, they can’t protest, they can’t organize—they can only think about survival. Trump’s betting on economic collapse to consolidate power, willing to destroy mortgage markets and American livelihoods to get his way."
Holodomor refers to the man-made famine, engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin, that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933. The word holodomor literally means "death by starvation" in Ukrainian.
I have no doubt that Putin is whispering instructions into Trump's ear during their frequent, off-the-record telephone chats, with no translator, and no notes. The KGB, now the FSB, knows and understands American insitutions and political processes better than most Americans. They have a library full of textbooks, currently being translated and posted on Substack by Andrew Weiss, instructing how to infiltrate American institutions for the purposes of waging asymmetrical war on Americans.
All Americans need to realize that politics as usual is dead. We cannot collaborate with the regime in destroying the economy and weakening the people to bargain for an advantage that would have existed in our former democratic republic. There is no bargaining with a murderous, fascist regime that lies, steals, and kills Americans, particularly one that would starve our children as a weapon to bring us to our knees.
Since Lone Star Left doesn't have a subscriber chat that I have found, I'm going to drop this here:
https://www.levernews.com/the-bible-thumper-and-the-billionaire/
If anyone has any inside information here, my subscriber chat is open. It will be interesting to see how Talarico handles this. He had to come into this race knowing it was eventually going to be an issue that he took Miriam Adelson's PAC money in the legislature.
Bear with me, (naive?) newb here.
Could the acquiescing be a not entirely winning but also not losing tactic for the Dems?
We get SNAP funded and fed workers employed and paid. The ACA fight comes back before the midterms to use as a cudgel against the Pugs at that time?
Meanwhile, without access to healthcare, it's estimated that as many as 50,000 Americans will die each month as a result.
Can't wait to vote in the primaries!