Max Powers

Credit and Blame

Just a thought here.

Call it cognitive dissonance or whatever.

I just cannot see how a person who takes credit for something like a streetcar line, which involves tearing-up miles of street and requires a state agency to pitch in $100 million for said line, but then throws his or her hands up in the air when it comes to making an intersection more pedestrian friendly, or at that very least less lethal for pedestrians, and blame a state agency for inaction.  

It just does not add-up.  

You cannot claim you brought back the streetcar, but then say you cannot improve an intersection.  

That and it does not follow if you are streetcar person, and you are not advocating to make streets safer for pedestrian.

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Just my thoughts on Mesa...

Anything that increases congestion along Mesa between Executive and downtown, would go a along way to make the area much more pedestrian friendly.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hold The Line

When not looking for areas of Segundo Barrio to bulldoze to put his presidential library, failed senate candidate Beto found time to comment about the events in Tijuana.  

Which got me thinking.

Remember Silvestre Reyes?

Y'all remember when he ran for Congress?

What was his claim to fame?

It was not "Hug an Immigrant" in a concrete ditch.

No, it was "Operation Hold The Line".

And yes, El Paso's favorite son, Bill Clinton, was president at that time. 

And El Pasoans rewarded Reyes for his work.

Why bring this up?

Just to remind you all the reason why Beto never has to get his hands dirty is because someone else already did.

You do not have to secure your border when someone else already secured it for you. 

 

 

 

 

 

Climate Change - I Can Stop It

Environmentalism is hard.  

Why is it hard? 

Because if you do think we are contributing to Earth's destruction, well, the only sensible thing for you to do is to off yourself.  

But short of that, I have a couple policy ideas:

• Condoms and Empowering Women - The developed world's birth rates have come nearly to a halt.  Yes, the developed world does us more resources now, but long-term that will probably decline.  This is the inverse of the developing world.  It uses less resources now, but in the near future will soon use a lot more.  And the developing world's birth rates have not exactly come to a grinding halt.  So what to do? Carpet bomb the developing world with condoms.  That and improve education opportunities for women, and birth rates in the developing world will come back down to Earth thereby making the human race less of a burden on Gaia.
• Nuclear Energy - Deploy the shit out of nuclear energy.  Is it expensive? Sure, but if we are talking about how the very sake of humanity is on the line, then money is no object.  "But what about solar and wind?"  The process of producing solar panel themselves is chemical-heavy process and energy consuming one, and takes up a larger footprint than say a nuclear power plant.  Wind is hit or miss.

Now, what can you do personally to fight climate change?

• Don't buy shit you do not need. 
• Don't eat out as much, and do not eat as much packaged or processed food.  

There. 

Crisis averted.  

You're welcome.

 

Salvation May Have To Wait

When we are not getting our panties soaked watching Roberto Francisco O'Rourke slice off-cuts of meat against the grain, we are wondering when he will resurrect himself from failed senate candidate to the next Dear Leader. 

Speaking of off-cuts of meat, ever gone to a cook-out and there are fajitas, but then you are just spending hours upon hours munching on those fajitas...all because somebody did not slice against the grain.

But anyways.

So why isn't Francisco in Iowa already?  Given how small the state is, he could probably visit every county twice by Valentine's day.  

"Hurry up, Francis we ain't got all day!"

If there is one notable difference between Francisco's senate race and a potential presidential, it is other Democrats.

Francisco would have to go on a debate stage face-off with other Democrats.

He would have to face-off with folks with stronger party credentials and policy background than him.  

His happy-go-lucky schtick that almost worked in Texas probably will not work in a crowded Democratic primary... especially if you are considered the frontrunner.

For the first time in a political race, he would be the punching bag.  

And on other side of that same coin, he would have to punch back, but it would not be an unlikeable Ted Cruz or Silvestre Reyes that he would have to punch back this time. 

 

 

 

 

 

My Two Cents to Ted Cruz

I feel like as though I would be doing our Senator, Ted Cruz, a disservice if I did not least give him some of my half-baked opinions about what he needs to do going forward.

So here they are:

• Jeff Roe - Don't listen to him.  Or at least push back on whatever he is pushing.  
• Posture - If we are being honest, Cruz has shitty back posture.  Now there can be legit reasons for this.  Maybe he had some back surgery or was born with a certain condition that affects his spine.  But if there are not, he needs to work on it.  It does affect his appearance and how people perceive him.  
• Weight - Lose a few pounds. 

Posture and weight.

This is one visible way you can show people that you are "changing".

"So you only care about looks?"

Everybody cares about it.  

If Beto was only as HAWT as David K, do you think Beto would pull $70 million and have all these kids and Highland Park yogis fawning all over him?

Probably not.

On the other hand, fortunately for Beto, he is not as HAWT as me.  Because I would have wasted time nailing Highland Park yogis rather than mining for votes by impressing kids at the local Whataburger.

By losing some weight and improving your posture, you are changing yourself for the better without necessarily having to change your values because let us be honest are we expecting Cruz to push "Medicare for All"?  Probably not.   But a healthier version of yourself just might make you little bit more approachable and likeable - even if people still don't agree with you -  and given how close the race was, you need all approachability and likeability you can get.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Morning Quarterback!

 

So what does Beto need to do now?

He needs to take a break and not do anything for a while. 

For nearly the last two years, he has put an incredible amount of stress on his body traveling across this state eating shitty food and getting minimal sleep.  

Although he may say he has no regrets about his campaign, I have no doubt there are things running through his mind that he wish he could have done differently. 

On one hand, Beto did better than Hillary.  

On the other hand, Ted did worse than Abbott.  

In the other statewide races, some of the Republican statewide officeholders probably did get a little bit of heartburn.  But in those races, Republicans were being challenged by some former Republicans.  

In other words, Texas ain't liberal.  

"But then why did Beto get so close tho?"

Well because the media has not let 2016 go, and Beto is a good-looking guy.  Don't kid yourself if you don't think Beto's looks did not help him. And good for him playing up his strengths by livestreaming everything he did.  But if he looked like, I dunno, I don't want to be mean, but if he look liked anybody else, the media would not have had as big as a hard-on for him.  

If you do not believe me on the looks thing, look at the other statewide races.  The uglier the Republican - Dan Patrick, and Ken Paxton - the closer the race.

But looks can only get you so far with...some people.  

So what else could he have done differently?

Beto probably could have done a lot more to encourage more Republicans to break for him, but he was too worried about losing a base that he was not going to lose. Impeachment talk probably did not help.  Medicare for all probably did not help.  This whole recent push for teacher shit...this was obviously something fed to Beto at the last moment.  He had not really talked about teachers for much of the campaign and all of sudden at the last minute...teachers!   That reeks of Democratic consultant hackery the kind Beto allegedly eschewed.  

And look, there are lessons for Ted Cruz. 

His late campaign start did him no favors.  That and his team around him was not prepared in any way to handle Beto.  They gave Beto way too much time to let Beto define himself.  To be fair, a lot of GOP consultants have not had much experience dealing with competitive general elections, but that is not an excuse for some of the weak ads that they produced and the lack of a ground game.  But you gotta hand it to whoever told him to mine for votes along the border.  In some of these more rural border counties, had Cruz spent some time there, he could have flipped a couple of those thereby putting Democrats in future cycles on the defensive in their own backyard.  

And that's all I have to say about that.  For now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prediction(s)

So what happens tomorrow?!??

I am calling the election for your next Senator, Roberto Francisco O'Rourke.  

Sure Democratic turnout will help, but the real difference maker will be Republicans.  

Even though Francisco has embraced positions that would normally give them heartburn, those Republicans will come up with a thousand reasons why they voted for him.

And all of them are bullshit. 

They are betting on the fact that he has married into money and that money will ultimately temper his liberalism.  

But with the guy running for POTUSA, he has no reason to temper that liberal streak. 

Some may argue that Francisco would be better off losing if he wants to run for POTUSA.

Bullshit. 

You gotta maintain momentum. 

And nothing maintains momentum better than winning.  

He wins, and the media has every reason to cover him.

He loses, and the media has to prop him up.

Look, you all think this talk about POTUS is media-driven, but at Francisco's primary party, people in the crowd were talking about it.  

But all this POTUSA talk and ideology aside, if those Republicans knew what a Francisco victory means - Deputy Chief of Staff Susie Byrd - then they probably would not have crossed over.