Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Paxton's win may backfire against Trump, because many believe he is far more vulnerable to Talarico than Cornyn would have been. Primaries are low-turnout elections where only party fanatics, and mostly older people, vote, so Paxton's huge win over Corny is not indicative of what will happen in the general election. Trump's core base of supporters love these firebrand, populist conservatives, and corruption doesn't matter, as long as they see the candidate as someone who will aggressively challenge liberal ideas and go after what they see as progressive agendas that are ruining the country. There is no doubt that Paxton has the Trump-supporter vote and a lot of the rural vote. Still, Texas is becoming more urban and purple by the day, so it will be interesting to see if he is truly competitive in the general election. My instinct is that it will not be a repeat of the Cruz-Beto matchup of 2018, since Texas has become even more competitive than it was then, and Cruz only narrowly won.

I hope your analysis is correct. Paxton rivals Trump on the corruption/sleazebag scale scale, well, nearly there but he has high aspirations...

I couldn't believe the interviews of the Texas voters on the news who said that they were going to vote for Cornyn but as soon as Trump endorsed Paxon, their minds and votes were made up for him. Absolutely pathetic.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Dude, we were talking about Rich, not you!

BTW, Jim, I thought you were actually working on a book, "The True Heroes of American Constitutional Originalism: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas". Soon to be on the New York Times bestsellers list...

About some of those missiles in some of those tunnels:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/27/world/video/investigates-iran-unearths-missile-arsenal-digvid

The underground drone facilities aren't shown and only a snippet of what appeared on Al Jazeera in regards to their missile capacity is shown in the above clip.

"In a 6-3 ruling on Wednesday powered by its conservative justices, the court gutted what scholars said was the last remaining pillar of the landmark law enacted after the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, Alabama with the aim of ‌preventing racial discrimination in voting."

"The decision, which blocked an electoral map that had given Louisiana a second Black-majority U.S. House of Representatives district, will make it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law."

"The ruling was issued with congressional elections looming in November, as President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans fight to maintain control of both the House and Senate. Trump hailed Wednesday's ruling and said he thinks Republican-led states would now want to reconfigure their voting maps."

"Supporters of the ruling, including John Yoo, who served as a Justice Department lawyer under Republican President George W. Bush, said it "continues the court's ⁠campaign to ensure that the government obeys a color-blind Constitution."

"The ruling was authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Roberts and the four other conservative justices. It said the focus of Section 2 must center on the Constitution's prohibition on intentional racial discrimination under its 15th Amendment."

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-under-roberts-takes-wrecking-ball-voting-rights-act-2026-04-30/

Gotta ensure the rights of all those poorly treated and discriminated against white people...

"The Bureau of Economic Analysis released data on the national debt reaching 100.2 percent of GDP on Thursday, noting that debt held by the public on March 31 was $31.27 trillion. GDP over the last year was $31.22 trillion."

"Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said the borrowing did not come from “a seismic global conflict, but rather a total bipartisan abdication of making hard choices.” 

“It’s happened — the national debt is now larger than the U.S. economy, about twice the historic average,” she said in a statement reacting to the news."


https://thehill.com/business/5857998-us-national-debt-gdp/

I saw a poll the other week on cable news that Republicans still have a 1 point lead over Democrats as being better stewards of the economy. Last I looked they control the house, senate and the WH. Must be Biden's fault, huh?....

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-tenure-history-ae7e6b941d021bcbeb7cf530501d6e9f

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Energy Exxon warns oil inventories will hit dangerously low levels in weeks, forcing prices to shoot higher

Exxon Mobil warned Thursday that oil inventories will fall to record low levels in coming weeks, forcing prices to spike and curbing demand.

“We’re approaching unheard of inventory levels,” said Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman at a conference hosted by Bernstein in New York.

“I mean really, really low levels,” Chapman warned. “You can debate whether that’s going to hit, those really low levels, in two weeks or three weeks. Once you get to that point, then you’ll see price shoot up.”

The price of physical Brent oil cargoes will spike to $150 to $160 per barrel when inventories hit all-time lows in coming weeks, the executive said. “When the price gets to a certain level, demand destruction brings it back into balance,” he said.

It's ok, James, the treasury department is gonna print a $250.00 bill with Trump's face on it so we can pay for it!....

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/28/nx-s1-5838002/treasury-department-prepares-250-bill-with-trumps-face-on-it

Encouraging to see Talarico ahead a bit in the polling at this time:  https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5902035-texas-senate-race-poll/

However, the betting market has Paxton favored to win at this point, too. 

Faux news and Jesse Waters have already started a propaganda campaign against Talarico by insinuating that he's either gay, vegan and anti-beef or "prebuicient" and not the manly alpha male type required to lead the great state of Texas. That, and all of the anti-Paxton campaign ads and/or criticisms of him prior to his win over Cornyn, have now been scrubbed by the GOP. So, while Talarico should be the logical preference by anyone who objectively looks at the choices, I remind myself of my past reading of what JFK told Jackie the night before he was assassinated in Dallas: "We gotta be careful, we're going to nut country tomorrow."

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

It's Texas, man. What did you expect?

That's my point...

Originally Posted by James Lacey

Probably meant "prepubescent," but still, the point is, the GOP is pulling out the usual school bully playbook, and name-calling, and taking all kinds of stuff out of context, and applying selective outrage to Talarico, instead of addressing anything substantive.

For further explanation, it's worthwhile to see what state propaganda media, aka Faux news, is doing in regards to disparaging Talarico:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGjMcSaWSnM

Note that Faux, by far, has much greater viewership than any of network/cable news outlets so their messaging reaches more people, 24/7. 

Expect to see the same themes espoused by Jesse Waters in the above video throughout the campaign. Frankly, that's unfortunately the level at which the typical Faux news viewer probably functions on at any given day. Given this propaganda pounding, day in and day out, it's not difficult to understand why Paxton has an excellent chance of prevailing come November...