Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) announced that he will retire at the end of this term, creating a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats in a district experiencing rapid demographic change.
That’s great but we need more Dem Senators.
. “Whoever the socialist Democrats nominate will be forced to defend their party’s radical agenda of socialized medicine and killing oil and gas jobs with the Green New Deal in a solid Republican district.”
Nice parroting there but if this 56-year-old’s district was so solidly Republican he probably wouldn’t be throwing away his rifle and pack and running off the battlefield.
He moved here from Virginia in 2007 to run for Tom DeLay’s old seat. That was TX-22 and he was my Congressman until redistricting after the 2010 Census. He’s not even a Texan. Good riddance. Edit to add: What he did in 2007 was buy a house in TX-22,have all the utilities and taxes,including homestead exemption,put in his name,get a Texas driver’s license with that address on it and change his voter registration to match that address. He never was a Texan.
Ooooh, rats leaving the ship, cracks in the wall…
One of my fondest hopes is seeing TX turn blue. After looking at the map from 2018, it may be happening sooner than you think.
About time.
Yup. But we’ll take more reps too.
Tom Emmer
blah blah blah
hold your breath till you see blue. lol
Whoever the socialist Democrats nominate will be forced to defend their party’s radical agenda of socialized medicine and killing oil and gas jobs with the Green New Deal in a solid Republican district.
I have to say that the GOP continually dazzles me with the breadth of assholiness that exists in the party
I know that facts are useless when dealing with Republicans, but I’d like to point out that “oil and gas jobs” are already seriously dead. Like “perfectly aimed roadkill” levels of dead. And the reason for that is US foreign policy, or I should say, policy from about four years ago (back when we had policy, and not random toilet tweets).
What most people don’t know is that OPEC originated as a market-stability mechanism. Oil is a hugely bulky product, there is no way to store significant volumes of the stuff. Oil delivered to shore spends about two days going through the system before being put in a gas tank, or otherwise consumed. It’s not physically possible to have a week of supply (the Strategic Reserve contains about three days of fuel, if it were used to supply the whole country). So when there’s an oversupply, and prices start dropping hard, the OPEC folks would cut back production. Providing a stable supply/price required direct intervention.
But a few years ago, the US and Saudi Arabia got together to talk about an oversupply problem. Realized that the countries responsible for overproducing were largely hostile ones, primarily Venezuela, Russia, and Iran. Also the ones who would be worst hurt by a price crash due to overreliance on oil income. So the Saudis sat back, did not cut production, and let the crash happen. (The US relies heavily on transportation, so dropping prices helps them while hurting the oil folk, and IMO the Saudis used it to push economic diversification onto their own people).
So the crash was bad. Price dropped so far that a lot of oil rigs cost more to operate than the oil was selling for. Jobs in that field went to hell along with. None of which has a damn thing to do with pushing green energy initiatives… heck last I looked US electrical demand was increasing faster than the entire renewable power industry is building.
Houston, the GOP has a problem. I’m sure the TX legislature will find a way to figure it out in their next shady redistricting efforts, no thanks to a recent decision by a three judge panel out of a Federal Court in San Antonio. It may just be a matter of time…or a short intermission.
Isn’t this Tom Delay’s old seat? He was really big on GOP redistricting shenanigans in 2003, adding 5 legislators to their state’s delegation. He also got in early from the ground floor on the grifting and gravytrain for Russian rubles through his campaign. Everything we see today, DeLay early on had a real grasp of conducting the kind of corruption we’re facing today on a much grander scale.
Let’s hope Dems can take Olson’s seat but I think if TX’s legislature remains as defiant as it has been and gets its way, it will be just a short interlude unless real voting laws protecting minorities are changed in TX.
Isn’t the GOP the problem?
Yes it is… sorta. TX-22 is DeLay’s old seat but much of what used to be in TX-22 is now in TX-36. I know. I used to be in TX-22,but have been in TX-36 since 2012.
That is a more accurate way to put it.
Minorities in Texas better get out and vote in larger numbers if they want better protection. They could absolutely swing Texas if they did.
Snark is cheap. Get Out The Vote.
Then please support the effort to take back the Texas House of Representatives next year. We need to pick up 9 seats (out of 150 total) for a majority that will be able to stop another gerrymander that will keep the Legislature and our congressional delegation majority ( R ) for another decade. It really is do-able, and I really wish it gets some national attention.
ETA: Even more important when you consider that Texas is going to pick up 2 or 3 new seats in Congress after the census next year, taking them away from red-trending rural states. If you don’t want to see those new seats in Texas get sliced and diced into majority-R territory, it is crucial to take back the Texas House.
Sadly, I think Texas is dead last in voting percentage. It’s so puzzling to me that people aren’t enthusiastic to take part in their own governance.
I’m guessing the solidly Republican chokehold on most statewide offices makes people feel they aren’t needed, but let’s hope all that is changing.
You probably heard about this.
Socialized medicine? He seems to be living in 2012 or so. Yeah, GOP, keep up that rhetoric. Dumb asses.
Yep, saw that a while back.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
I work in the energy industry… technology & automation has done more to kill oil & gas jobs over the last four decades than anything else. Field offices that used to need hundreds of people now have a handful because process controls are either fully automated or handled by people at HQ.
And of course, there’s also this: