MidTexHorn

From my experience with press coverage of any type on issues with which I have familiarity and can rate the accuracy of the coverage, I tend to assume that they get at least 30% of the story wrong on a consistent basis. I have seen quotes that were completely made up and I know they were made up because I was in the room when the discussion was taking place and heard every comment. That said, a free press is still vitally important to our democracy, inaccuracies and all, and I despise Trump's efforts to undermine the institution in an effort to save his skin or make himself look good or whatever it is he does.

I've been in a field level suite at Jerryworld a couple of times, once for our final Big 12 championship game against Nebraska and once for a Cowboys game. It's pretty fun and a very different way to experience a game. Good fit for folks who want to experience the atmosphere of a game, but don't really give a shit about seeing every play - in other words, most of the people who are in a suite to begin with. I would never want to view games from one on a regular basis, because you just can't see enough of most plays, but I can see why the richies would enjoy it. Hell, if you can afford a field level suite you can also afford additional seats elsewhere in the stadium if you want to actually watch the game. Accordingly, I'm all in favor of adding some of these as a nice revenue source.

Really good article. Sending that one around to a few skeptics in the family.

Just got back from a quick trip to Bar Harbor. Place was a bit of a traffic and crowd cluster fuck and probably won't get better until the end of the season. If I was you, I wouldn't waste time on this trip going that far. Traffic will suck and there are plenty of cool farther south places to get your Maine coastal experience. Hit up Kennebunkport and Portland. If you want to go north of Portland, Belfast and/or Camden is far enough.

Apparently the City Council just read my last post as they're talking about using the stick of eviction if PSV doesn't comply with the terms of a deal. Yeah right.

Man, if I was PSV I'd probably just agree to all of the non-monetary amendments and then just not comply with the ones I didn't like later on. Enforcement of a lot of that crap ain't going to be easy, and what's the City going to do, shut the stadium down once it's built and operational? Contracts are made to be broken, right? That's what I learned in law school.

Truly amazing

Something I've been thinking about lately that I'd like y'all's input on. I've noticed a lot of replies to Facebook posts from the local Midland newspaper from obviously Hispanic posters who seem to be every bit the crazy Trumpsters as the crazy Anglos who are posting. I haven't seen any stats on what Hispanic support is like for Trump, other than an email I recently saw from some Republican PAC saying that Trump is polling surprisingly well with them. I know there is a phenomenon of second generation Mexican immigrants who seem to think Mexicans from Mexico are trash and seem to be quite happy to pull the ladder up behind them. I've seen this type of attitude expressed by my secretary and I wonder if it's at play with the surprising level of vitriol I see with pro-Trump Hispanic Facebook posters. Just kinda thinking out loud here about whether that might play out in a negative way with Beto where he might not be able to draw quite the Hispanic turnout that we might assume he would. Cruz's Trump alignment on immigration issues might play better along the border than I'd like to think. Just tossing this out there as a discussion topic.

I think very very few people will intentionally punch the ballot for Cruz. I think the challenge is that there are likely so many straight ticket R voters that are a real challenge to overcome. I don't see flipping many of those people, but maybe we can get a few. The main thing to go after is the get out the vote for Dem leaners, undecideds, etc.

Pretty sure this qualifies me as a gotdamn Communist out here in Midland.

An old Air Force buddy of mine, pretty far right and appears to have bought into a lot of the Fox News bullshit, posted the following link last night with the caption "Is this stuff real? Asking for a friend" https://thegodofrage.wordpress.com/2018/06/06/beto-orourke-clean-cut-man-with-a-dirty-family-file-part-2/ It's shockingly poorly written and makes zero logical sense. It contains a couple of facts which it vaguely and confusingly attempts to conflate into a "Beto is dirty" argument that because his mother tried to cheat the IRS and he knows his mom and her stock broker works for him too he must be a crook. Whole chunks of sentences are left out and it looks like it was written by a non-English speaker and translated to English or was written by someone for whom English is not their first language. The blogger is an anonymous "person" from Pennsylvania. Can you say Russian disinformation? I haven't engaged with my buddy on it because his post hasn't drawn much attention and I suspect my response would draw way more attention to this stupidity than it's already received. I expect to see a lot more of this from Cruz and his Cambridge Analytica type folks in the next couple months.

I'm with ya man. He needs to go down bigly. The Trumpkins will never be fine with it, but over time they'll lose a lot of steam. The rest of the country needs to be absolutely and utterly convinced that he and his henchmen are crooks and deserved to be run out of town on a rail.

Yeah, we'll I'm surrounded by them out here in the Permian Basin. It's not a pretty thing and it will get really ugly if this goes where I think it's going to go.

This former straight ticket Republican voter just made his first contribution to a political campaign ever for Beto. Also bought a sign, a t shirt and some koozies. I'm in.

Interesting stuff. Trump is a polarizing figure. My hard core Republican friends and family are strongly in favor of him and will no doubt turnout. But I've run into a number of folks who are more like me as well - folks who have traditionally voted Republican, view themselves as moderate or economically conservative/socially liberal. The folks I've talked to in this camp are horrified by not only Trump but by the fact that the Republicans are so supportive of him. It'll be interesting to see what happens with these folks over the next couple elections and beyond. For me, I've moved all the way over to the Dem side although I'll never formally join the party. For some, the move may be temporary and only last an election or two, which of course is what @bad_teammate seems to think is a fait accompli.

I think this conversation with @bad_teammatehas largely run its course and the ball is not being advanced. I probably fall somewhere between Group 2 and Group 4 in his proposed groupings, as I would say that I am a lifelong Republican voter (but never a party member) who has been falling away over the course of the past decade and now is a centrist who leans slightly left. I think the Dems are nearly as corrupt as the Republicans in many ways, but at this point in time I'll settle for rooting out the most obvious devil in front of us (Trump and the corrupt Republicans/NRA/etc.) with the hope that this process ultimately leads to a cleanup of the systemic ills for both parties. Money is absolutely destroying our political system and it's a problem on both sides, it's just that the Republicans have a lot of additional problems to go along with it. Just some very incomplete thoughts.

This aging white lawyer laughed

This exactly. Some of us have come around, and it started before Trump on a number of ideas. For some like me, Trump is the straw that broke the camel's back, but it's been in the works for a while. Some of us are actually capable of evolving intellectually and learning from our mistakes, believe it or not. @bad_teammate you're being a dick to the very people who you should be welcoming to your side. It's a mistake, try to learn from it.

Count me in on Team Patriot also. And as I said, previously despite a life-long history of voting Republican, I've come around and that will no longer be a default. In fact, if I don't see some drastic changes my default will likely be towards the Dems for the foreseeable future. This is not a temporary, feel good move for me. I have seen the error of my ways.

I'm 51 years old. Never a member of the Republican party, but voted straight ticket Republican most of my life until 2016 when I didn't like Trump or Hilary and voted Libertarian and mixed in mostly Dems and Libertarians down ballot. I will be voting straight ticket Dem for the foreseeable future, even though I'm not a big fan of that party. It's just that it's far better than what the Republicans have become. I'm very worried for my country.

We really enjoyed a hole in the wall seafood place called Claw for dinner one night. The Dublin Prawns were spectacular. Everyone else has it pretty well covered. Dublin is fine for a long weekend. Might add in a quick train ride up to Howth or Malahide to get out of the city for a few hours.

This is entertaining. Will Korea be Germany's Trinidad and Tobago?

Oh, forgot to mention that we discovered what may be my new all time favorite beer in Cork at the Franciscan Well Brewery - their Chieftain IPA. Holy shit was it good. It was a low alcohol (5.5%) and mildly hopped session IPA and we all fell in love with it. Found it at a few other places around Ireland. Gotta see if they export to the US, but I doubt it.

That wasn't me - never made it to Blarney Castle. Yeah, I'm bummed about missing the Gap. It was probably the top thing I wanted to do on my list, but due to my wife having some panic attack issues about the roads I had to make a last second decision to skip it. She's just not a very adventurous traveler. In hindsight maybe should've hiked and boated like you did, but everyone did have a blast biking around the lakes so it wasn't a total loss.

Couple more things I forget to mention: 1) Galway reminded me very much of an old European seaside version of Austin back in the 70s before half of California moved in and started turning the place into Dallas. One afternoon while drinking at the Salt House Bar (highly recommended), we struck up a conversation with a strikingly beautiful Irish girl who was on a one year sabbatical from her teaching job and had taken a part time position as a waitress in one of the local pubs. She had the lightest blue eyes I've ever seen, but I digress. She said Galway has been called "the town where ambition goes to die" and I can see why. If I was ever to drop out of the rat race and go become a professional alcoholic, Galway wouldn't be a bad place to do it. 2) We rented bikes in Killarney and rode around the national park there. Had intended to ride the Gap of Dunloe, but there's no way I was going to get my wife to bike those roads. Still had a blast though and it was a beautful way to spend a few hours. 3) Didn't get to see much of it while on the drive from Dingle to Galway, but The Burren was a really interesting area and we wished we'd been able to devote at least a few hours to exploring it. Very odd look to the place. 4) Otisdog - we did hit the Dingle Distillery tour and had a great and informative time with the old guy and enjoyed his take on the current state of US politics. Got to taste their gin and whiskey. My wife drank gin and tonics with the Dingle Gin for the rest of the trip.