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- Blue Tide Rising: If you think Texas can't turn blue, the final numbers from Tuesday's voting should send a shock wave through you. Look at these primary numbers since 2010. This is a bombshell of a big reveal, and is what we political experts call a "trend."
- Now is it possible, or even probable, that more Republicans than Democrats will vote in the general election in Texas this Fall? Sure. There wasn't a contested presidential primary on the Republican side on Tuesday which maybe suppressed the numbers. But it will very, very likely be the last time for Texas to be Red at the state-wide level for at least the next couple of decades. We all knew it was coming some day, and 2024 and beyond will be a different story. And a Republican presidential nominee can't win without all of Texas' electoral votes. (How's that electoral college thing sounding now?)
- The New York Times has a great up-to-the-minute tracker of new confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. Uh, speaking of trends. And look at yesterday:
- Breaking: Five new coronavirus cases confirmed in Houston.
- And remember last Saturday when Trump held the emergency press conference and (incorrectly) told us "we have a total of fifteen" people who had the virus in the U.S. and that "within a couple of days [that number] is going to be down close to zero." Transcript.
- Look, I completely stand by my original position that the coronavirus in the grand scheme of things is no big deal. But if I were President, I would have never of said that publicly.
- There were lots of headlines that read "Blue Bell Ice Cream Licker Receives 30 Days in Jail" yesterday. But when I read the stories, they referred to him as a 24 year old male. Wasn't the person involved in this whole brohaha a girl? The is answer is yes. He was just a copycat ice cream licker following the lead of juvenile female out of San Antonio.
This is the guy who got 30 days
This is the original licker - Chris Putnam, who couldn't beat Kay Granger despite drowning in special interest money to do so, finally spoke. He bowed at the feet of Trump and signaled he'll try again in two years. (Which makes you realize what a beating it would be to be a congressperson and have to run for re-election every two years.)
- Stay with me here -- this has a big payoff. What if the SuperPACs who supported Putnam would have had this strategy: He can't beat Granger head to head but if they could get another candidate to join the the race to just siphon off enough votes to force a run-off between Granger and Putnan, he might take her.
- But what if they couldn't find someone else to run? What other options would they have?
- What if they invented someone? Or, more specifically, what if they went out and registered a third person who actually exists with a great Republican sounding name without his consent. You know, like "Bubba Alamo Green?"
- They didn't need Bubba to campaign. They just needed his name on the ballot to steal some votes by people voting for a cool sounding name. It's the runoff between Granger and Putnam that they want.
- And what if Bubba on Tuesday did in fact siphon off enough votes to force a runoff between Granger and Putnam.
- Sound crazy? That may have exactly happened near Houston where long term State Rep. Harold Dutton now faces a run-off. The name of "Natasha Ruiz" appeared on the ballot in a district which just happens to have quite a few Hispanic voters. Ruiz, who didn't campaign, spend any money, and was never seen, still received 20% of the vote! And guess what? Dutton is now forced into a runoff with another guy.
- Here's the kicker: "On Wednesday night, ABC13 reported that the candidate in question, Natasha Ruiz, identified herself as 'Natasha Demming' when reached by phone and said she worked as a truck driver in Colorado. Ruiz told the Houston television station she did not know why her name would have been used to sign up to run for the House seat."
- “The more and more I’ve gotten into this, the more and more it sounds like something criminal went on, which bothers me a little bit,” Dutton told The Texas Tribune.
- Dear MSNBC, I don't think that's correct. (Watch it.)
- The NFL players will follow the lead of their inept and in-the-pocket-of-NFL-owners player reps and vote to approve the new collective bargaining agreement. They were given the full 456 pages of the proposed agreement yesterday. Go ahead, read all of it here.
- Let me suggest this might be a trap.
- Hmmm. Exxon announced that it anticipates "reducing the number of rigs in 2020 by more than 20%" in the Permian Basin.
