Ag Commish race gets sharper elbows

As Clayton Tucker and Nate Sheets tangle for Ag Commish, Tucker finally admits he's a hypocrite for owning Energy Transfer stocks, something I had already called him out for, though it's worse than I thought. Energy Transfer is providing natural gas for a data center in his backyard, per this piece. 

Tucker's response? This:

“Do I plan to divest from Energy Transfer? Probably, yeah,” Tucker said. “Again, when I bought it two or three years ago, I was not aware it was related to AI. But to say you have to completely divest of stocks, I mean, you’re basically telling every American with a 401k to sell 40% of it right now.”

Erm, really?

First, you should know, and probably do, that ethical mutual funds exist. Yes, a 401(k) is usually a company retirement investment, not an individual one, but I'll bet ethical 401(k) accounts also exist. You should pressure your company. 

Second, it appears you actually mean something like a personal mutual fund, albeit structured as a personal 401(k) for retirement. I'm sure such things exist.

Third, you surely knew who Energy Transfer was when you first bought its stocks. 

And, as with Jill Stein, I don't have a problem calling out the hypocrisy. 

As for the data centers themselves? Oh, the irony in the Observer's piece about this race, with Tucker talking about the noise from data centers disturbing livestock. 

Maybe that's one of those claims:

Tucker’s campaign makes walk the line between conspiratorial or, at the very least, dubious. One alarming claim on his website about Flock cameras connecting to personal phones through Bluetooth cites only a Reddit video posted on r/diabetes as evidence. Even anti-Flock activists have called this out as false. And the site’s stated opposition to proposed 765-kilovolt transmission lines in Texas lines warns misleadingly plays up the threat of “electromagnetic radiation.”

Per the Observer story.

And, if we're worried about electromagnetic radiation under high-voltage lines, is Tucker also concerned about 5G cell phones? 

And, while the Observer's story is about Tucker as populist, and focuses on his would-be ties to Jim Hightower, it notes that nationally, the term applies to everybody from Sheepdogger Bernie Sanders to Dementia Donald Trump. And, yes, some of the claims sound Trumpian, like stuff he's said about wind farms. 

Finally, the story notes that Tucker has been missing an opportunity to talk about farmworkers as well as farms.

Maybe it's not missed but deliberate oversight. We all know Tex-ass is a low-voting state even more than a Republican state, and Hispanic farmworkers, even if citizens eligible to vote, aren't a big voting target. 

Beyond the story, I looked at a few of his Facebook videos. Kind of silly, like the one claiming Folgers was overcharging for coffee. First, the price itself, as marked, is the controlling factor. Probably the price-per-ounce is "wrong" because it wasn't updated when the actual price went up. Second, weights and measures issues aren't under the remit of the Texas Department of Ag anyway.