Hey, Texas…

And that’s all I have to say about November 3, 2026.
Hey, Texas…

And that’s all I have to say about November 3, 2026.
Some whiny little idiot who voted for Obama (twice!) claims that her beloved Democrat Party has left [sic] her behind and transmogrified into the Raving Loony Party (RLP) — the latter being quite true, of course.
But what she’s really upset about (apart from Obama lying to her about “free” ObamaCare, of course) is that Republicans are just focusing on the craziness instead of giving “centrist” Democrats (like her, ha!) a good reason to vote against their party by offering policy alternatives instead of just mocking the Raving Loonies:
See, Republicans have a problem. They’re lazy. As a political institution, the Republican Party has developed a remarkable ability to avoid doing anything useful while pointing across the aisle and shouting: “WHAT, ARE YOU GOING TO VOTE FOR THOSE LUNATICS?”
And the infuriating thing is that this argument often works. Its working for me, now during the midterms. That pisses me off.
When the opposition is busy defending political absurdities, Republicans don’t have to work very hard to present themselves as the reasonable alternative. They don’t have to develop good policies. They don’t have to solve problems.
They don’t even have to keep their promises. They just have to be marginally less insane than the other guys.
This is not a healthy political system. It’s the electoral equivalent of two restaurants competing for your business, except one serves spoiled meat and the other serves cheap, frozen pre-packaged crap. The first restaurant doesn’t have to improve its food. It just has to point at the spoiled, smelly garbage the other place is selling.
I want Republicans to have to earn my vote.
I want them to have to defend their policies, produce results, and explain why their ideas are better.
I want Democrats to propose sensible alternatives that force Republicans to think harder.
I want genuine arguments about taxes, health care, education, individual liberty, national defense, and the proper role of government.
I want two political parties competing to persuade Americans that they can govern effectively, not two groups of increasingly furious people trying to prove that the other group is composed entirely of dangerous idiots.
Competition makes institutions better. Complacency makes them worse.
Okay, fair enough. Allow me, then, to offer what the Republicans are offering, policy-wise:
Taxes: lower taxes, for everyone (not just for “billionaires” like the RLP are screaming).
Health care: Abolition of ObamaCare which, as you have learned, is an utter failure, to be replaced by a proper, market-based system. Ask HealthSec RFK Jr. for details, if you can stop calling him Dr. Mengele for a moment.
Education: Closing down the federal Education Department altogether (because it has a longer, and worse record of failure than ObamaCare), and returning the business of education standards to parents and the states, where they belong — standards that include the protection of our children from Raving Loony policies like trannie concerts to 5-year-olds, and sex change operations to minors. Once again, if you can stop screaming that EduSec McMahon is a racist Nazi who hates children, ask her for details. One more thing: the teachers’ unions are a baleful group, more interested in protecting themselves than the children nominally under their care, and regard homeschooling like a vampire regards sunlight. Republicans will reduce their influence (as McMahon is trying to do), in favor of things like school choice.
Individual liberty: Let’s talk about our Constitutionally-guaranteed liberties, then. Ask yourself which party is more in favor of muzzling free speech (because of “hurt feelings” or other wokist nonsense)? Which party wants to take away Americans’ Second Amendment rights? Which party has tapped their political opponents’ phones? Which party has promised lawfare against their political opponents?
National Defense: Republicans want to make our military stronger. Given even the most cursory glance at history over the past two centuries or so, explain to me why this is a bad thing. Even more telling is that a strong military not only protects us as a nation, it allows for better, more muscular foreign policy than continuous appeasement of hostile states forced on us by a weaker military (as, for example, under the governments of Clinton, Obama and President AutoPen).
But, as the saying goes, that’s not all: there’s more.
Energy policy. What Republicans are proposing is the loosening of the absurd eco-mandates forced on us all by the Green (and since debunked) policies of past Democrat governments. This creates a huge strategic industry of oil extraction and -refining, which not only generates considerable export revenues, but also brings down fuel prices domestically, which in turn automatically relieves price pressure on consumer goods. (Ask yourself which party has fantasized publicly about bringing European-level gas prices to America, for instance.) Also, cheaper oil and expanded refining capacity means cheaper prices for consumer goods such as, oh, plastics, lipsticks, lubricants (of all types), medications, packaging and still many more I couldn’t be bothered enumerating. Republicans are also proposing an expansion of nuclear power generation which, despite the ravings of the eco-lobby, is still the cleanest (and cheapest) energy source available. (Ask your good friends the Germans about the consequences of shuttering their nuclear power plants.)
Next, let’s talk about the proper role of government. Of course, the recent policies of the current Republican administration have resulted in a massive reduction in government bureaucracy, and less intrusion into people’s businesses and private lives. This, the Republican Party is pledging to continue — whereas under a RLP administration (as with socialist governments everywhere) the opposite would occur: bigger government, clogged bureaucratic processes, more-arrogant officialdom (ask the Brits or Europeans about that little issue) and all the inefficiencies that stem from that.
Now let’s talk about the most important role of government: the protection and security of our nation’s borders. Right off the top, please don’t even mention the RLP’s support for “open” (i.e. no) borders because at one time, even Bill Clinton supported a robust border enforcement (unless he was lying, which is always a possibility). And Republicans promise to correct the previous Democrat administrations’ dereliction of duty — some might even call it active sabotage — with regard to border security. Republicans are promising to roll back that laxness and restore the United States to a nation of citizens. If you’d rather go back to Biden-era floodgate-opening of unrestricted immigration, you’re not going to want the Republicans to stay in power. As we are seeing in Europe right as we speak, untrammeled immigration is not an ideal policy.
And in passing, Republicans are trying to clean up the criminal activity involved in the voting process — i.e. allowing (or even encouraging) non-citizens to vote, as happens in practically every Democrat-controlled state, and has happened at every election since the Civil War. That Democrats — and especially the RLP — are crying about the iniquities of voter ID cards, ask yourself if you are against the simple Republican proposition that voters should be citizens, alive and eligible to vote (geographically). If you are against those three simple precepts, then the Raving Loony Party has a ballot (or two, or three) for you.
The above, then — and not only them — are the Republican alternatives to the Raving Loony Party’s intentions. If Democrats like yourself can just bring yourselves to stop screaming Hitler!Hitler!Hitler! all the time, you might actually see that the benefits of the above far outweigh the negatives.
Oh, and by the way: stop allowing and encouraging anti-Semitism (under the guise of “anti-Zionism”, which is specious bullshit). We can debate Israel’s actions and policies — that’s a valid activity — but when American Jewish students are hassled, intimidated or even attacked on college campuses by foreign anti-Semites (and their American Useful Idiot supporters), all bets are off. And yes: historically and morally, Israel has a right to exist. That, at least, is not a topic for “debate”, and support for Israel’s existence is very much a Republican position — and always has been. (And on a related note, if you can’t see the absurdity of platforms like “Queers For Palestine!” — as Republicans see all too clearly — you shouldn’t even be voting, for anyone, because you’re fucking stupid.)
There, then, are the Republican policy positions. Feel free to make your decision tomorrow, but if those are not sufficient to “earn” your vote, then the problem may not be with the Republicans.
So you’re a well-known libertarian think tank, and you decide to publish a study which ranks the various states (and their governors) according to various “freedom” factors: economic, medical, guns etc. etc.
So far, so good.
Then you collate your results, and something happens which would make one think that somewhere, your research methodology may be flawed. Consider Cato’s rating of state governors, in terms of their “overall” support of freedoms:

Wait, what? That turd Polis outperformed both DeSantis and Abbott?
This creates what we one-time statisticians might characterize as this:

Even I might be tempted to reexamine my methodology. (Although to be fair, NYGov Kathy Hochul — a.k.a. the Wicked Witch Of The East — was rock bottom, as expected, and the others in the bottom 9 are the usual suspects — but Fatboi Pritzker of Illinois somehow managed to avoid the basement, making one even more suspicious of the study’s methodology.)
Here’s the whole study, for your delectation and review.
Things like this make me want to weep — or, alternatively, start setting about me with Ye Olde Clue Batte™.

Saith the normally-rational Steve Kruiser at PJMedia:
No, Really — There’s a Silver Lining If Dems Steamroll the Midterms
Let’s say that the Democrats get their wish and get their blue wave. Hey, never underestimate that power of the combination of voter stupidity and the Magic Mail-In Ballot Machine.
Sure, everything will probably hit the cosmic toilet with the Democrats in control of Congress, but that’s actually the silver lining.
A huge Dem victory next month could very well be a boost for the Republicans’ chances in the 2028 presidential election. The Democrats are running purely on hatred for Trump. Yeah, they’ll blah, blah, blah a bit about healthcare, but the Trump hate is really all they’re selling.
Giving them the keys to the majority will lead to an impeachment frenzy, a lot of grandstanding, and precious little in the way of anything that looks like leadership. A couple of years of that — along with the resurrection of the J6 dead horse — will remind voters who abandoned the Dems in droves in 2024 of just why they did that.
The problem with the above line of thinking is that it ignores the basic tenet of today’s political environment:
You never, ever, hand the keys of power to Democrats.
Let me list just a few of the reasons:
A Democrat-controlled Senate means that Trump will never be allowed to nominate conservative judges to the various benches. We have already seen how many of the current Administration’s initiatives have been blocked by the scumbag Obama- and Biden-appointed judges. Long-term, that dooms any chance of any Republican president’s attempts to reverse the tide of global Communism and its attendant horrors (open borders, Swamp Government, rule by bureaucrats, etc.).
I don’t share Kruiser’s belief that a Democrat-controlled House will only result in a flood of silly impeachments. The problem with that alone is that there would be no decent legislation coming from a House of Commies and a Socialist Senate: it would be all
…that would set the country back years, and make us more like Europe and the UK — i.e. totalitarian socialist. The only immediate recourse to the above through 2028 would be the Presidential veto and Executive Orders, but the problem with both of these, especially EOs, is that they can all be overturned by the next Socialist asshole in the Oval Office or stymied by Socialist judges.
The main problem with all this, as we’ve seen since 2015, is that most of an incoming Republican Administration’s time is taken up with undoing all the mischief that Democrats have previously inflicted on the country, before beginning to implement an agenda which would actually improve our situation.
Here’s the simple point: there must never be another Blue Wave, no matter how attractive the “long term” prospects (which I don’t share) might appear to be.
And the only way we can ensure that this never happens is to create our own Red Wave: not in far-off 2028, but now, right now, next week.
This is no time to engage in foolish blue-sky thinking [sic] of the Kruiser kind. There are no silver linings and no happy times to come in the future. There is only now, and the unfinished business of righting our national ship of state.
And we’d be incredibly stupid not to recognize that fact.
So wannabe-Texas Senator James Talarico (Raving Loony Party) has been conspicuous by his absence from the campaign trail recently, and we’re supposed to be surprised by this?
Allow me to explain why we shouldn’t be.
Talarico has distinguished himself by making statements — sometimes off prepared speeches and sometimes by off-the-cuff remarks — that are in turn breathtakingly stupid, vapid, childish, muddled and offensive: and sometimes all five simultaneously.
So of course the Democratic-Socialist-Muslim-LGBTQ-Green candidate has to be hidden from view before the November election, lest his positions (such as they are) piss off Texas voters to such an extent that they give him a severe thrashing at the polls.
May I remind y’all that this was the same reason that the comatose Joe Biden was once likewise secreted from public view, lest the voters see just how vegetative the senile then-President really was.
And it almost worked.
It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. And before anyone thinks that, like Biden before him, Talarico can get elected through massive voter fraud, let me remind everyone that we’re not talking about Illinois or California here.
Talarico is going to get whipped in November. Texans are many things, but they ain’t stupid, and certainly not that stupid as to elect a hopeless no-regard nutcase like Talarico to the U.S. Senate.
“The people who once gave us $6 per gallon diesel now want to be elected because diesel is $6 per gallon.” — Luis Gonzalez
Follow the link to find the real reason for today’s high gas and diesel prices.