Derrick Crowe

The Texas primaries are coming up in just under 3 weeks-- followed by primary runoffs on May 22. And those primaries-- with so many vulnerable red seats and so many seats Republican incumbents are abandoning-- are crowded.

The Texas primaries are less than a month away-- March 6. And the races are crowded. Or at least the seats that look the most flippable are crowded, even after lots of candidates have dropped out. Texas has 36 congressional districts. The very last one, TX-36, southeast Texas in the Houston area, is so red, that the DCCC isn't even contesting it.

On Wednesday we talked about a new publication, The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt Cancellation, by Stephanie Kelton, Scott Fullwiler, Catherine Ruetschin and Marshall Steinbaum. Three progressive candidates-- Jenny Marshall (Winston-Salem and much of the Piedmont in northwest North Carolina), David Gill (central Illinois) and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (Albuquerque)-- explained why they back the concept of student debt cancellation.

Back in early December we were warning Democratic candidates to start inoculating themselves immediately from the sure GOP attack that is coming-- "my opponent" is a Nancy Pelosi puppet." Remember when God tried to kill scores of Republicans on the train last week?

Wednesday, the editors of the Boston Globe reminded their readers who are thinking about the government shutdown Trump seems to be engineering for tomorrow-- and pre-blaming on Democrats-- that "the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress and the presidency.

If more congressional candidates did this, many of the country's problems would vanishI was listening to NPR yesterday on a long drive and they were interviewing two dullard Beltway operatives, a dumb Dem and an even dumber Republican. The dumb Dem, when asked about Net Neutrality's salience as an issue said no one cared much about it. And the dumber Republican went one further to say no one even knows what it is.

I spent 4 years of college getting high-- very, very high. It was like my major. And then I stopped. Boom-- one day, sitting on the border between Pakistan and India waiting for paperwork so I could drive my car across the border, it was over. Barely out of my teens, my tortured prayers were answered.

The San Antonio Express-News reported that Lamar Smith probably would have been reelected in 2018. But they’re analysis was faulty. Romney took TX-21 with a healthy 59.8% win over Obama’s 37.9%. Trump seriously underperformed in 2016-- beating Hillary 52.5% to 42.5%. Of the 10 counties in the district Trump lost both the 3 biggies-- Bexar County (San Antonio) 54.5% to 41.0% and Travis County (Austin) 66.3% to 27.4%.

-by Jasper Ward

Ryan is so excited about being so close to passing his Tax Scam that he was talking about retiring from Congress this week.