Beto bullshit on teacher pay, and Beto the Pander Bear

As the Chronic chronicled last week, among part of Beto-Bob O'Rourke's attempt to get rural Texas votes is straight-up economic pandering.

No shit, sherlock, on the idea that Muleshoe teachers get $16,000 below national average. And? They don't live in New York City, or even in Dallas. Going by cost of living differences, a Muleshoe teacher should make almost $15K less than one in Dallas, if we took the full $15K in difference and applied it to teacher salaries. Even at 50 cents on the dollar, that's still $7.5K. (And, City-Data says that Dallas' cost of living is below the national average, in case you wonder.) The typical Muleshoe teacher knows that $35,000 there, after 7-10 years of teaching, is a shitload of money, relatively speaking — unless they want to go out in the oil patch.

I've called out media bullshit on teacher pay before; this is Beto bullshit.

It's bullshit for other reasons, too. Probably, the majority of teachers there are from that area. They WANT to be there. They're the part of the typical High Plains / Panhandle town that didn't leave. (Muleshoe itself is actually growing in population, largely due to "Uncle Earl" that R.F. now says he cares so much about.) Unlike a teacher in the Metromess, Helltown, the Big A, or maybe even a Waco or Tyler, the typical Muleshoe teacher also, in addition to knowing 35 large is good money there, has not a single activist bone in them, whether about what books are or are not in the city or school district library or other things.

Between this and his backpedaling on other issues from his 2020 prez run, we're clearly in Just.Another.Politician.™ territory. I'm still almost certainly not voting for Green candidate Delilah Barrios, so, that means I'm moving closer to the likelihood of undervoting.

And, since the Dems' Lite Guv candidate, retread Mike Collier, is even more of a Pander Bear to Rethugs than Beto is, forget about that.

Beto has also gone back to being a Pander Bear himself on oil. The facts on the ground, in reality, are that major operators are automating, automating, automating, and increasing the gap between themselves and independents on low overhead. This has nothing to do with renewable electricity, or with lies vs truth on "drill, baby, drill" Joe Biden or other things.

As for climate change backpedaling on the weak-tea Green New Deal that Democraps ripped off from Greens? The latest drought this year, even as Panhandle Texans continue to further deplete the Ogallala, is all real, Beto. But, if you want to be a Pander Bear?