The full Gadfly Slate in Texas elections, 2026

First, now more than ever, I'm more and more comfortable with undervoting races rather than voting for someone from the left hand of the duopoly that is "meh." Or a hypocrite.

Let's dig in, going in order of my sample ballot in my corner of Tex-ass.

Senate: Undervote. I'd vote for independent Jade Simmons to play the piano for me — and maybe (yes, making a male observation) tickle my personal ivories. I don't need "centrist" candidates, though. Democrat? Here’s part 1 and part 2 on Talafreako the hypocritico.

Here's a Trib q-and-a with Talarico, Libertarian Ted Brown, and no-show (yes, for an emailed q-and-a) Kenny Boy being filled in from past statements. Statements by Talafreako that stand out? No, we don't need yet more Border Patrol. As for tech surveillance, the BP and the private companies that make it have played Alphonse and Gaston on the non-use of border tech designed to prevent immigrant crossing deaths.

Side note: I fault the Trib for running the absent Paxton's past-derived answers first. 

US House Dist. 26: 20,000 Mules Above the Desert (I see what I did there) couldn't make me vote for Brandon Gill. Libertarian Phil Gray, interestingly, believes in the government using ESG guidelines. Obviously NOT one of the Mises Mice. He also supports Medicare buy-in being offered. But, he spoils himself by being an anti-China Cold War 2.0 guy. And, I can't find an explicit position by either him or Democrat Steven Shook on Palestine and Israel, let alone Russia-Ukraine. Undervote.

Governor: Gina Hinojosa is a ConservaDem on reproductive choice and on other things. Libertarian Pat Gray supports vouchers. No Green here, either. Undervote.

Light Guv: Green Kevin McCormick never answered my emails on where he stood on 2025’s Proposition 4, and the Texas GP's executive committee backing it, per my latest callout of Texas Greens on this issue; I webmail contacted him last month. Three weeks later, no answer. Dem Vikki Goodwin wants to at least partially legalize cannabis, shockingly supports ranked choice voting, at least at local levels, and ALSO has in the past backed Texas joining other states and allowing citizen initiatives. Vote Democrat.

AG: Republican nominee Mayes Middleton is even nuttier than Kenny Boy Paxton. Nathan Johnson is at least somewhat on the left of Texas Democrats. That said, other than running as the anti-Paxton, he offers little. I may undervote; still not decided.

Comptroller? I have proof positive that Democratic Comptroller candidate Sarah Eckhardt is a squish on BDS. Texas Greens are generally dead to me right now over Proposition 4, but I will vote Green Shehla Fahzi in this race. Totally. 

Ag Commish: Democratic candidate Clayton Tucker has a boatload of bad stocks unethical investments, including multiple oil companies. Nate Sheets is a nutter accusing China of "agro-terrorism" and is even stupider than Mayes Middleton. The campaign has a recent interesting twist. Undervote.

Railroad Commish: Bo French is an obvious racist and Jon Rosenthal is anything but. That said, as a leftist, ex-Green and real environmentalist who knows we're in a climate crisis, I don't like that he doesn't talk about that issue himself, nor does he talk about the RRC doing more to promote solar, wind, and even geothermal. He does, like in an Inside Climate News interview, tout carbon capture. Gack. Undervote.

Land Commish: Dawn Buckingham has gone along with Dannie Goeb on politicizing the Alamo. The Land Office does to a degree have a climate change impact, but I'll probably hold my nose to a degree and vote Democrat Benajamin Flores.

State Rep. District 68: Undervote. I think incumbent David Spiller is a hypocrite on his school vouchers flip-flop as well as a wingnut, but, Jasmine Henderson? You're going to have to suffer for the PRO Gainesville stupidities of your sister, as of course she eventually did. 

Judicial races? I have rarely wasted time wading through most of them. To the degree drugs are at issue, I'm OK with supporting others pulling the Libertarian lever if they know the Democrat is not that good.

That said, I will say at least consider Libertarian Mark Ash for CCA Place 3. He supports jury nullification. I can't find his stance on the death penalty, though. Sadly, candidates generally seem to feel that they can't state an opinion on that, as that would be "discussing cases before the court."

That said, more and more, I dislike partisan judicial elections, unless necessary in a retention election system. And on principal, I refuse to vote in Strangeabbott's new 15th Court of Appeals races.

(Another option for at least part of judicial selection is Missouri's, as described by Pro Publica: For appeals courts and the state supreme court, lawyers select a three-candidate group and the governor picks from among the three.)

That said, a final reminder: This Politico piece is right, not in the sense that polling is THAT far off, but in that many MAGAts continue to say "fuck you" to polling in general, or in some cases, may even deliberately lie to pollsters. 

 

 

Texas Progressives talk pre-election updates

Off the Kuff did a quantitative comparison of the polls for Senate and Governor's races in Texas, and found that the latter was closer. 

SocraticGadfly looked at the oil contamination in Johnson County and said it smaked of similar land pollution in North Texas back in the 1990s.

If Mayes Middleton says he wants to put god back in government, doesn't that mean that Kenny Boy removed god?  

South Texas may indeed be moving on from Trump, but I doubt it's moving toward any statewide Democrat. 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project says we’ve had a number of wins at Houston City Council in ‘26 & we’ll do the work for a more progressive and responsive council in ‘27.  

Before becoming a US Senator, Kansas' Roger Marshall was a loan-sharker cosplaying a doctor. 

Faux News has apparently benched Karl Rove for being kind of outspoken. 

Contra non-skeptical leftist, or better, pseudoleftists, like Max Blumenthal, not only did China have forced labor in Xinjiang in the past, it now does again, this time with fish farming. 

 G. Elliott Morris reminds us that the fundamentals are aligned with the polls.

Isabel Latz argues that El Pasoans can’t afford leaders who ignore extreme heat.

Murray Newman eulogizes First Court of Appeals Justice Kristin Guiney. 

Your Local Epidemiologist gives you the facts as they are known about that plague outbreak in Russia. (YLE could have noted that plague is still naturally occurring in the US. But did not. And, the book she points you toward is by nutter Annie Jacobsen.)

Leo XIV, show us the money, the Observer says

The Observer, reaching way outside Texas, calls on the Vatican to crack open its $73 billion gold mine. The author is triangulating off Leo XIV's recent "Magnifica Humanitas." The problem, or the reality, is tseveral-fold, without excusing Rome. First, not all of its assets are liquid. Second, at $73 billion, not trillion, that's one-tenth of what Elmo Musk or Bozo Bezos are worth, at least on paper. And, that's just the richest of plutocrats, not the whole schmeer. Third is that the author is privileging the United States, and possibly Mexico, when il papa rules Catholics around the globe.

Fourth, you're asking a man who wears ruby-colored, and perhaps ruby-edged slippers while carrying a gold crozier to do this?

Fifth, many of the assets that would be liquified to get to this point would be bought by plutocrats. That said, if the Vatican were to sell, say, the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that alone would bring more than $73 billion.

Sixth, you're asking a religious leader who runs a body that still opposes women in leadership, still opposes  women's reproductive freedoms and other things, to show the world "magnificent humanity" through money alone? 

The latest all things Kenny Boy Paxton as the election nears the finish line

The Monthly says Angela Paxton knows what she's doing without even mentioning the Tammy Wynette angle. Really? (Not on "she knows what she's doing," but on it not invoking the Wynette angle.) More seriously, exactly what IS she doing? Paxton's kind of a boat anchor and the state banned official straight ticket voting by voting machine lever years ago. Does she think Tammy Wynette will play well in the divorce court? Is she looking to a 2028 run for some other office? Hoping for a Strangeabbott appointment to something?  These are all possibilities, and I'm sure others exist; the Monthly explores none of them.

In a longform piece, Chris Hooks discusses snitches — three recorded snippets of Kenny Boy after the GOP midterms, but apparently from at least two different snitchers — bemoaning that he reportedly has no control over his campaign. Well, Ken, when you first decided to commit apparent securities fraud, second decided to diddle someone not named Angela and third decided to stick your head fully up Trump's ass to counter Nos. 1 and 2, you surrendered control. From there, Chris wonders who the leaker/s is/are, and speculates, by their target choices, they're DC insiders pissed the GOP is having to play defense for Paxton rather than pushing Big John Cornyn to the finish line.

Dan Solomon spins on the first and second to talk about the weirdness of new Paxton ads. Solomon's talking only about teevee/streaming ads. This doesn't include the weirdness of Kenny Boy's direct mail flyers, which seem to indicate Commies, led by Uncle Karl himself, are hiding under every small-town bush to push Talarico over the finish line.

Sorry for the wingnuts wanting "proof of life" from Talafreako Talarico while ignoring the person BlueAnon calls Moscow Mitch, but Talarico is alive, well, and back on the campaign trail. 

If Mayes Middleton says he wants to put god back in government, doesn't that mean that Kenny Boy removed god? 

Kenny Boy certainly did NOT remove the grifting, including at least $3.3 million in security detail grifting. 

We're way past the original timetable for the first of three debates allegedly originally planned between Kenny Boy and Talafreako, past the date for the second, and just past the date for the third, with early voting starting next Monday. Conclusion: No debates. Per Dan Solomon talking about Kenny Boy's nervousness even while being asked softball questions in an interview, he's probably decided that looking chicken is less bad than looking like a fuck-up. That said, how, and how well, does Talafreako exploit this? My guess? Not all that well. He said nothing when the first deadline passed, was sick when the second passed, and said nothing Monday when the third passed.

To me, this would be easy. All Talarico has to do is say something like:

I'm leading in the polls and have had a steady lead for the past two weeks. Ken Paxton must really be afraid of something if he won't debate me.

There you are. 

Meanwhile, while he still leads, per a story from Yahoo, the latest MR/Recon poll shows he has slipped back to inside the margin of error, by half a percentage point. More on the poll, which also includes the gov's race, here.

USDA announces record price support payments like it's a good thing

This came out last week:

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced that the Farm Service Agency’s Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) will generate approximately $13.8 billion in gross payments to eligible agricultural producers for the 2025 crop year; the largest annual payout by far since these key safety net programs were established in the 2014 Farm Bill. 

“President Trump has been the biggest champion for American farmers, and today's announcement delivers nearly $14 billion in funding for rural America,” said Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. “Last July 4th President Trump signed the Working Families Tax Cuts Act into law and today we are acting on it, this will strengthen reference prices to better reflect today’s farm economy. This historic economic support provides producers critical liquidity to cover operating costs, prepare for the next crop year and invest in their operations. Thank you to all the Republicans who unanimously voted for this law and put food security and rural America first.” 

The 2025 crop year stands alone in the history of ARC and PLC since Congress created the programs as key components of the commodity safety net in the Agricultural Act of 2014. Since 2015, no previous crop year has generated payments approaching this level. While ARC and PLC payments total $13.8 billion, producers are reminded that this does not account for payment limitation reductions and the 5.7% sequestration rate required by statute that will be applied to all ARC and PLC payments.

And, no, Brookie, it's NOT a good thing.

It means that, in various ways, our current agricultural system is more and more broken.

It's broken by increasing income disparity in the agriculture world, like elsewhere.

It's broken by bribery to accept fallout from Trump's tariffs.

It's broken by a system with structural problems, such as dairy price supports versus Canada's provincial quota system, which was already being attacked by Trump 1.0.

And, of course, it's broken by climate change. 

Wrong national parks move, Congress

So, Chiricahua National Monument, which gets only 60,000 visitors a year, is going to be upgraded to a national park?

WHY?

First, contra the tourism pushers (Grand Junction, Colorado area with Colorado National Monument comes immediately to mind), yes, an upgrade does cost money, and not just changing the signs.

You want this because you think an upgrade to national park status will bring more tourists.

And, assuming it does? That means the upgraded national park has to hire more rangers, both for general assistance, and for things that national parks visitors expect, like interpretive programs, evening ranger presentations and such. It has to hire more roads and facilities maintenance staff for the increased wear and tear. It has to hire more law enforcement rangers for increased problems.

And?

That all costs money.

Stop lying.

Second, doing this while still refusing to address a massive maintenance backlog, an issue on which Democraps are 75 percent as bad as Rethuglicans, is a mix of hypocrisy and abuse of the National Park Service. 

And, it's more proof that the left hand of the duopoly doesn't really care about real environmental, ecological and land management issues.