“He’s nothing but a bullshitter.”
Attributed to Barack Obama speaking of President Donald Trump.
How could any self-respecting real estate developer credibly deny that. It’s in the job description – “Must have line of excellent bullshit from here until next Tuesday.” A real estate developer without bullshit is like an artist without a canvas, a hitter without a bat, a taxi driver without a steering wheel, a teacher without a blackboard, a . . . well you get the picture.
Since 1946, when presidents are above 50% approval, their party loses an average of 14 seats in the U.S. House in the midterm elections, compared with an average loss of 36 seats when presidents are below that mark.”
Jeffrey Jones – Gallup
What about when they are below 40%? Oh wait a minute, no president has polled that pathetically in the weeks before a mid-term election.
Politico reports that Texas Republican Congressman Mike McCaul (more or less of Austin – although with his heavily gerrymandered district it’s hard to pinpoint an epicenter) has reported approximately 7,300 stock transactions in an array of industries over a two-year period. McCaul is reportedly the first or second wealthiest member of Congress with an estimated net worth of almost $300,000,000. Yet, that aint enough apparently. McCaul and his family are voracious stock traders bent on acquiring even more money and creating a potential ethical quagmire as McCaul surely must be voting on matters that affect his personal wealth. Red foolishly thinks that a Congressman should actually pay attention to the business of the nation more than his own pocketbook.
Now don’t get Red wrong here. Red admires McCaul as someone who got rich the old-fashioned way. He married well. Most of McCaul’s wealth is held by his wife, Linda McCaul, the daughter of Clear Channel Communications CEO and founder Lowry Mays. His skyrocketing overall net worth appears to be the product of generational wealth transfer. If only Red had been so smart he too could have been busy carrying water for his corporate masters in D.C. in his spare time after he finished his day-trading.
Shit. I know shit’s bad right now. With all that starving bullshit. And the dust storms. And we’re running out of French Fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution.
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.
Guess what Prez, you didn’t have it so bad after all.
The Texas Tribune reports that members of the so-called Freedom Caucus sabotaged more than 100 bills in the Texas House last night in retribution for not getting their way in attempting to restrict abortion rights even more, make sure that everyone has a gun and that good God-fearing white people are not abused. It’s all too complicated and inside baseball for Red to explain, but it does show that there is no Republican solidarity in Texas and that the ultra rightwing of the party is willing to do anything to inflict punishment on those who will not go along with their attempt to turn Texas into the largest Christian Church in the country where the good ol’ boy whiteys are running the show.
“He’s a showboat, he’s a grand-stander, the FBI has been in turmoil. You know that, I know that. Everybody knows that. You take a look at the FBI a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil. Less than a year ago, it hasn’t recovered from that.”
A showboat? Really? Trump could teach Comey a thing or two about being a “showboat” – not to mention running a place that is in “virtual turmoil.”
Donald Trump continues to violate the first rule of holes – stop digging! The latest Quinnipiac University Poll has Trump at a near record low 36% approval rating with 58% of the sample disapproving of the neophyte President. That news would be bad enough to cause most rational folks to look for the nearest life preserver. Not Trump, who seems to be in complete denial that a sizeable majority of the country pretty much hates him.
Instead, Trump is reported to be addicted to watching cable news where he is getting his head bashed in everywhere except at Fox News – which seems determined to either go down with ship (guns blazing) or hopefully be the hero if Trump somehow manages to turn this around (neener-neener). Red has a pretty thick skin, but a steady diet of really smart people talking all day about what a scuzbag he is probably would wear pretty thin within a couple of weeks. Trump is looking at another 3.75 years of that.
And unfortunately for the Donald, the unfavorable rating is only the tip of the iceberg of loathing and distrust that America has for him.
61 – 33 percent that he is not honest (who are these 33%?);
56 – 41 percent that he does not have good leadership skills (oh, come on!);
59 – 38 percent that he does not care about average Americans (it would help if he actually knew any);
66 – 29 percent that he is not level-headed (again, it’s the hair to blame);
62 – 35 percent that he is a strong person (can lift twice his weight in Pro-V1’s when the Viagra kicks in);
56 – 41 percent that he is intelligent (crazy like Fox News);
64 – 32 percent that he does not share their values (honesty, loyalty and integrity are so overrated).
Most shockingly, Trump has done what Red thought was impossible. By a margin of 57-31 percent, Americans trust the media more than Trump to tell the truth about the issues. Yes, Trump has made the media popular again. Who says the first 100+ days have been a complete failure?
CNN reports that life expectancy is widely variable depending on where you reside in the U.S. The county-by-county map is pretty interesting. Red counties have the shortest life expectancy followed by increasingly lighter shades of orange and yellow. The bluem blue-green and green counties are where life expectancy is the greatest.
Now let’s look at the county-by-county 2018 presidential election map shaded to show relative results. Dark red are the counties where Trump won by the largest margin and dark blue for Hillary. .
Notice any correlation?
It’s actually less than Red might have guessed. Apparently, only about 25-30% of the French (right at 35% of the 75% or so who voted) were actually willing to vote to return to the good old days of racist xenophobia, closing of borders, insularity and withdrawal from the larger economic world. Well, that’s France’s loss. But could it turn into a gain for Texas?
Red estimates that in Texas, Marine Le Pen would have gotten well over 50% of the vote based on her platform designed to appeal to the far right. A weenified and elitist proto-liberal banker and economic policy wonk who is married to a much older woman would have a tough time cracking 35% in deep Red Texas. She would have stomped Macron in Texas. He wouldn’t know what hit him – only that it hurt.
So MLP, here’s the deal. You want to actually get elected to something? Red has it all worked out for you. As Red sees it, yYou’re still relatively young and pretty good-looking and have a view that the majority of Texans just might take a cotton to (you would need to learn what that means – but Red is ready to help you). Give up on France, move to Fort Worth, work on your drawl, get some blue jeans and cowboy boots, get naturalized and in 5 years run for Governor on a secure the borders (by that Red means those with New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana) and secessionist platform. You might just pull it off. Red guaran-damn-ties you that you will pull in more than 35%.
YES! la Texas
In what can hardly be called news, the Texas Department of Transportation has revealed that 44 of the State’s most congested roadways are in – of all places – Houston. Even less surprising is that the stretch of the I-610 West Loop between I-69 and I-10 is the worst. Red thanks TxDOT for this valuable information, but is still wondering why nothing was done to relieve congestion when that part of the West Loop was rebuilt about a decade ago. Yes that entire stretch was rebuilt and not a single land was added – with the exception of additional entrance/exit ramps crossing the I-69 interchange. KHOU reports
The annual hours of delay per mile along that one stretch is more than 1.1 million hours.
We asked TxDOT, specifically, about what it’s doing to improve the worst stretch. For starters, connectors at 610 and the Southwest Freeway are being modified. And it plans to build elevated express lanes over the existing loop in the years to come.
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