Talarico Pander Bear alert: Gas tax holiday

I knew that Donald John Trump had proposed a gas tax holiday from federal fuel taxes to try to ameliorate his continued shooting of himself and Merikkka in the foot over the Iran war.

I somehow missed that Teenybopper Talarico had also proposed that, and way back on April 21, which is before Trump did, IIRC. The Observer has the details, along with at least a mild call-out of TT. 

Per that callout, what if the federal gas tax isn't restored in, say three months? Second, even three months, even if it comes back, and is indeed only like scrounging for quarters in a junk drawer, causes problems. Third, doesn't this just encourage national Rethuglicans to not really care about federal deficits until they're not in power? Fourth, doesn't this ignore that, in a non-punitive way, we do need some sort of federal, and state, road use tax for EVs? Fifth, speaking of EVs, doesn't it ignore something else?

Here's pundit Mark Jones:

“Especially here in Texas, they would prefer not to raise the climate issue, because that just opens the door to Republican accusations that Democrats are bad for the oil and natural gas industry,” said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University. “We’re increasingly seeing Democratic politicians fight fire with fire by engaging in populist rhetoric similar to that of Donald Trump, even if from a policy perspective it’s irresponsible.”

Amen.

The piece also notes that Dementia Joe, er, Uki-Tankie Joe, proposed a holiday in 2022. 

As an independent non-duopoly leftist, it's another reason not to trust Talarico, who talks about ending the Iran war while still not having a clear and unambiguous statement about the genocide in Gaza. 

Talarico fellation and religious inaccuracies from the Texas Observer

Fresh off him throwing secularists halfway under the bus (despite him having previously written about the secular movement) and not looking very deeply at the roots of Hanukkah in a piece at the Observer last December, which I eviscerated, TCU professor David Brockman now writes that Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is firmly within Presbyterian tradition.

The first big fail is pretending that the Presbyterian Church USA is the only Presbyterian denomination in Merikkka. Wrong. The PCUSA is the biggest, but even with setting aside splinter groups, it's far from the only one. Wiki has the details. It list the PCUSA at 1,045,000 members. The conservative Presbyterian Church in America, which split off from the southern half of the predecessor to the PCUSA, is at 400,000, or 40 percent of its size. Let another split of the PCUSA, the ECO, has 125,000 members. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church split off the Northern Presbyterian predecessor to the PCUSA back in the 1980s and also is at 125K.

OK, adding up the three main conservative groups and you're at 650,000, or 65 percent of the PCUSA. So, we've got a fail by Brockman right there. Or a lie by hand-waving. 

Now, the big differences, per this site which does not list the ECO, but does have a 1930s splitoff from the northern Presbyterians, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

PCA is men-only pastors; ECO and EPC, that's an adiaphoron. All three non-PCUSA believe in an inerrant bible. Homosexual acts are a sin.

Brockman claims Talarico is also within the mainline Protestant tradition. Wrong. While conservative Lutherans may not add up to 65 percent of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, they break 50 percent. Actually, they break 75 percent; I didn't realize, per Wiki, that ELCA membership has cratered in the last decade or so. (It's 55 percent, per Pew, if you talk about people who "affiliate with" the different wings.) The UMC, now entering the schism world, lost 25 percent of its US churches after its 2024 general conference.

Brockman also is a weasel-shit in another way.

He nowhere discusses Talarico's claim that the Annunciation in Luke is about being pro-choice, which I noted last month is bullshit. 

The three non-PCUSA churches in my link, and I will venture the ECO as well, all consider abortion wrong. 

Interestingly, per the "mush god" stereotype of librul Protestantism, he's a very easy grader and prof in general, per Rate MyProfessors. 

Look, Prof. Brockman, if you want to just say you're "chill" with Talarico from your personal religious perspective (he was at SMU before TCU, and says in one piece that he's "high church Episcopalian"), say so.

But, don't think you can bamboozle all readers out in the wild like freshman college students in a 100-level class. 

In 2022, for the Observer, he wrote about Southern Baptists facing up to a denominational history of sexual abuse. Actually, the denouement on that was sweeping it under rug and forcing dissenters out of the denomination, as much as possible. 

Observer has surprisingly non-sanguine take on Talarico odds

The Observer notes not all Republican pundits are afraid of Talarico swamping Paxton. This:

Brendan Steinhauser, a GOP strategist in Texas, isn’t so confident that Talarico’s theology will land with swing voters. While O’Rourke was, and Talarico is, a young, dynamic candidate able to make the Senate race highly competitive, Steinhauser believes Talarico will have a harder time maneuvering around his past. “O’Rourke was a much fresher face, like he had more room to define himself.” 

Since Talarico secured the Democratic nomination, Paxton has seized on past Talarico statements about trans kids and God being “nonbinary” to deride the Democrat as a fake Texan, fake Christian, and radical leftist. Steinhauser said that while Paxton should focus more on his accomplishments as attorney general, culture-war issues remain a strong motivator among the moderate to conservative base. “Those words are going to get played in a loop all the way to November,” said Steinhauser. That’s a standard Republican playbook: In 2024, Ted Cruz’s campaign plastered the state with ads attacking Democratic challenger Colin Allred—who ultimately lost by about eight points—on the issue of transgender kids in sports.

Is an interesting observation. 

For many "moderates," not just conservatives, transgenderism and transsexualism are a "third rail." State and national Democratic apparatchiks may not like that, but that doesn't change the fact on the ground. 

I'm already on record as thinking he doesn't do much better than Beto-Bob did against Havana Ted in 2018. 

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Meanwhile, the Pander Bear watch on Talarico continues. He promises to help farmers by reducing the federal tax on diesel. Gee, isn't Trump talking about that? He did also mention the war in Iran, but "somehow" avoided mentioning the country behind that.

Paxton's impeachment lawyer endorses Talarico

Dan Cogdell, who also represented Kenny Boy in his criminal securities fraud case, has done the switcheroo, as detailed here by NOTUS. The nut grafs:

Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.” 

“And unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now,” Cogdell said.

OK, let's look at the first.

Ken Paxton wasn't a choir boy when you represented him, so why are you switching now? Technically, the switch isn't totally new; the story says Cogdell donated to Talarico in March after the Dem primary. (He could have donated to Paxton as well, of course, and did so last year.)

The Trib weighs in with local background. Among that is that Cogdell voted in the Dem primary in Harris County.

That said, it also notes Cogdell has represented the East Plano Islamic Center. So, he's a gun for hire in his past legal career.

Side note: "Big John" Cornyn, he of VD Hooks' onetime bromance at the Monthly, attacked EPIC in the past just like Paxton. 

Anyway, this is "nice," but no more than that, as far as Talarico's election campaign.