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"How were you feeling last Wednesday morning?"
(More answers to this question here.)
As of 7:30 p.m., most of the big counties are in except for El Paso and Harris:— Texas Election Source (@TXElects) November 7, 2018
SEN: O'Rourke 50.5, Cruz 48.9
GOV: Abbott 54-45
LTGOV: Patrick 49.3, Collier 48.8
AG: Nelson 49.4, Paxton 48.4
AGRIC: Miller 49.4, Olson 48.5
He needed to revitalize one of the weakest Dem state parties in the country; reverse demographic voting trends in one cycle; coattails for down ballot; and defeat a savvy incumbent in a very red state. He appears to have pulled off all of but the last.— Justin Miller (@by_jmiller) November 7, 2018
Harris County's blue wave washes out county judge, district clerk, county clerk, county treasurer and all GOP judges on the ballot.— Matt Schwartz (@SchwartzChron) November 7, 2018
Hearing from more Texas Republicans tonight that they think @tedcruz is under water. It is Saturday before the election #TXSen #txlege— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) November 4, 2018
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, says Democrats nationally — and in some parts of Texas — have unleashed the kind of intensity we used to see from the tea party.
“So the question of whether there is still that ability to motivate Republican voters on the other side is the big question going into this cycle,” Henson said.
Henson believes one reason the tea party’s galvanizing force has slipped in local and congressional races is that conservatives no longer have Barack Obama to target. And Donald Trump has taken over the role of chief agitator of conservatives.
Tea party-backed candidates have also been elected. In Texas, the movement has been changed by that success.
“I think once you have people who are part of institutions, it inevitably looks different, because you aren’t banging from the outside,” Henson said. “Like it or not, you are part of the status quo, and you are part of the establishment.”
In addition to the TV ads, Paxton’s recent campaign finance filings have indicated that Republicans in high places are tuned in to the race in its home stretch. In recent days, the attorney general has received a $282,000 in-kind donation from Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign; more than $350,000 in in-kind contributions from Texas for Lawsuit Reform, the political arm of the tort reform group; and $10,000 each from two of the biggest donors in the Republican Party: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.
Best Halloween costume- Beto!! 🎃 pic.twitter.com/PriAKrlxpQ— Carol (@casyr) October 31, 2018
Asked whether his group planned to deploy with weapons, McGauley laughed. “This is Texas, man,” he said.
(D)espite being the one-time Chairman of the Galveston County Democratic Party, a two-time Democrat nominee for the State Legislature and the once rumored Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. However, of late, Buzbee has been appointed to the Board of Regents of his alma matter, Texas A&M University, and become a key financial supporter of both Perry and (Gov. Greg) Abbott.
This annual block party in the historic Houston community of Magnolia Park honors the neighborhood’s cultural heritage by hosting a fre family-friendly celebration all can enjoy, highlighting the holiday of Dia de los Muertos and its traditions. In its fifth year, the party is going to be bigger and better than ever!
Enjoy these activities:
- LISTEN to live music from local artists Los Skarnales, Zenteno Spirit, Sister Sister Y Los Misters, Mas Pulpo, mariachis, and more!
- MEET & GREET internationally acclaimed artist Leo Tanguma, whose mural "The Rebirth of Our Nationality" at 5800 Canal St. has celebrated the East End's cultura for decades
- LEARN about the rich history of the Magnolia Park neighborhood in the exhibit "Magnolia Park, Houston's First Barrio"
- PARTICIPATE in traditional Dia de los Muertos altar-building and ofrendas-offering by bringing photocopies of loved ones you want to honor
- SHOP gifts, clothes, and more, from over 60 local vendors including apparel from Magnolia Grown and handcrafted accessories and jewelry from Las Ofrendas
- EAT amazing food from local restaurants including tacos, BBQ, desserts, more
- TAKE PHOTOS with your friends in our photo booth and the lowriders on view, courtesy of the Houston chapter of Texas Lowrider Council
Concessions available for sale by cash or card, and services for concessions offered in English and Spanish. Block party area is accessible to people with limited mobility. No outside food, drink, or coolers allowed. Bring lawn and tailgating chairs!
Working for better lives for Houston’s homeless animals is full of highs and lows. Finding loving homes for our furry friends is almost euphoric. Seeing them pass over the rainbow bridge after an amazing “adopted” life is bittersweet. We recently lost 2 beautiful former Barrio Dogs, Cleo and Holly. We will honor their lives this weekend at the 5th Annual Dia de los Muertos Block Party where we will have a special altar dedicated to our Barrio Dogs in heaven. Please come out and join us and take a look at our tribute.
Voting experts say actual instances of fraudulent ballots knowingly cast are extremely rare, leading to accusations that the effort is intended to intimidate voters.
"I think it's all politically motivated," said Greg Westfall, a Texas lawyer currently representing a Hispanic woman who was charged this month with voter fraud. "If you look at the timing, that's what's breathtaking."
[...]
"The fact that there is this concerted effort in Texas to prosecute these cases to the full extent – particularly against people of color – is supremely troublesome," (Beth Stevens of the Texas Civil Rights Project) said. "And then we know what happens in Texas goes to the rest of the country as a model."
Zenén Jaimes Pérez, the communications director for the TxCRP, said the attorney general's own numbers show that his office was tackling an issue that wasn't a growing problem, as shown by the small number of cases in the many years before the crackdown.
"They have prosecuted an average of around 30 election violations since 2004," Pérez said in an email. "To be sure, the AG started the Election Integrity Initiative in without evidence of increasing elections violations," Pérez said.
Looks like @trvisXX showed up at @BetoORourke early vote stop in Houston: pic.twitter.com/luTeISp1Pw— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) October 28, 2018
— Antonio (@AntonioArellano) October 28, 2018
Rogers’s mural has been defaced phrases like "El Paso gentrifier supports Israel" and "No hero” spray-painted onto the artwork in red and white.
If anyone is poised to spoil (yet another GOP) sweep, it’s R.K. Sandill, a long-serving Democratic district judge in Harris County who’s consistently outraised his opponent, Justice John Devine. In addition to an impressive cash-on-hand tally, an endorsement from the Houston Chronicle and victories in the Houston Bar Association and Texas Bar Association polls, Sandill faces perhaps the most controversial incumbent on the high court. Before being elected to the high court in 2012, Devine was sued for displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Devine has also boasted publicly that he was arrested 37 times protesting outside abortion clinics.
Earlier (last) week, the U.S. Border Patrol warned landowners in Texas that they could expect “possible armed civilians” on their property because of the news about the caravan. The exact details of when and where the militia would deploy are unclear, but one militia leader told the Associated Press that they would have upwards of 100 members guarding the Mexico-Texas border.
"I don't know how you walk up here and see five flags flying, the thin red line and the 13 that were injured and not understand that this is not the place to show your disdain and your vindictiveness toward Houston Firefighters," said Lancton.
[...]
At City Hall, Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is bankrolling the PAC and leading the fight against pay parity, stopped short of an apology.
"I don't know who put it there. I'm just saying whoever put it there, it's important to be respectful and not just of places, but family members as well," said Turner.
#ShakespeareSunday— Lizzie (@lizziecanttweet) October 28, 2018
"O heart, lose not thy nature, let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom." (Hamlet) pic.twitter.com/zzCEOSSucR
Cesar Sayoc, the Donald Trump-loving Floridian who was taken into custody in relation to pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats, was foreclosed on in 2009 by a bank whose principal owner and chair is now Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.
The documents used to enact the foreclosure were signed by a prominent robo-signer and seemingly backdated. Nonetheless, the evidence was good enough for the famously inattentive Florida foreclosure courts to wave the case through. Years later, Sayoc became a supporter of Trump, who came into office and appointed a treasury secretary who ran the bank that snatched Sayoc’s house.
[...]
In yet another irony, (billionaire Democratic donor and first pipe bomb target George) Soros was one of the investors in the bank that executed the foreclosure on Sayoc’s home.
Details quickly emerged about Sayoc and his apparent devotion to Trump. He drove a van covered in pro-Trump messages. He apparently hadn’t registered to vote until March 2016, pulled off the sidelines by Trump’s messaging. He was a “celebrity” at “Make American Great Again” rallies and protests in South Florida.
Earlier in his life, Sayoc went through a difficult period, and the experience intersects with people allied with his political idol — and some on the other side as well.
One researcher, Jonathan Albright, counted the number of times that Sayoc replied on Twitter to celebrities and figures with a meme about a Parkland shooting survivor being a “crisis actor” paid by George Soros: 59.
It’s a disturbing irony. Because as authorities continued to discover new mail-bomb targets on Friday, the right wing flooded media channels with suggestions that the bombs themselves were part of a Democratic hoax. It’s a toxic circle: Man falsely enraged by crisis actors allegedly sends bombs; conservative media falsely describes bomb targets as crisis actors.
In a Twitter thread, Albright chronicled how conservatives were able to reach a much wider audience with their hoax claims on Instagram, using various features of the platform. The right wing adopted the hashtag #Soros to share many of these memes, and Instagram helpfully organized the most-engaged posts algorithmically. It auto-populated suggested searches for anyone who began to search for Soros: “soros caravan,” “soros bomb,” “soros jew,” all of which could lead users to further misinformation.
Instagram search results also auto-populated with a bunch of obviously fake Soros accounts, although many of them appear to have been taken down overnight.
On Twitter, a similar phenomenon played out, as Blake Montgomery charted at BuzzFeed. Hashtags, as usual, raced ahead of the truth:
But people on Twitter, including right-wing commentators with name recognition like Ann Coulter, James Woods, and Candace Owens, tweeted that the devices, described as being similar to pipe bombs, were a scheme concocted by Democrats to boost sympathy and turnout before the midterm elections in November. However, there is no evidence to support their claims. And neither the identity nor political affiliation of the perpetrators are known.
Still, #FAKEBOMBSCARE, #FakeBombs, and #FalseFlag — all dedicated to the conspiracy theory — trended alongside #BombScare. Many used #BombScare to tweet the theory as well, but the hashtag itself is not blatantly false like the others. #MAGABOMBER, a hashtag devoted to the idea that the bomber was a right-winger attacking the president’s nemeses, also trended, again with no proof.
In part, this is a now-old story about how social media spreads misinformation in the immediate wake of the crisis. But if Sayoc is indeed the bomber, and these social media accounts belong to him, it suggests something even more disturbing: a person steeped in conservative media, radicalized into violent action — at the same time the same echo chamber, all evidence to the contrary, dismisses a series of attempted assassinations as a hoax.
The platforms have their part to play in reducing the polarization that now consumes us. But as Albright wrote earlier in the week, in a piece about how a false meme spread alleging that Soros had funded the caravan of refugees coming to America, the infrastructure that promotes this misinformation is quite powerful. Whatever captures our attention, if we simply stare at it long enough, becomes real.
The would-be terrorist who failed to harm CNN and George Soros did succeed at one thing: ruining President Donald Trump’s week.
Trump had hoped to capitalize on growing Republican enthusiasm in the final weeks of the midterm campaign — stoking fears of a Central American migrant caravan and hoping his Thursday unveiling of a plan to lower prescription drug prices would hold the news media’s attention heading into the weekend.
But even Trump can’t shape the media narrative to his will amid an attempt at mass political assassination and a nationwide manhunt.
“It didn’t get the kind of coverage it should have,” Trump complained on Friday, speaking of his prescription drug proposal. “We’re competing with this story that took place, our law enforcement’s done such a good job, so maybe that can start to disappear rapidly.”
For Trump, the story could not have appeared at a worse time. “The pendulum was swinging back toward the Republicans thanks to the migrant caravan story,” a person close to Trump said. “This story definitely interrupts that positive news cycle for them [and] most definitely favors the Democrats politically.”
One former Trump administration official said the White House is expecting wall-to-wall coverage of the bombing story for three to four more days.
Trump had already vented his frustration on Friday morning, tweeting, “Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!”
What’s worse, Trump’s allies had been speculating without evidence that the failed bombings — which exclusively targeted Trump antagonists — were actually part of a “false flag” leftist plot to make Republicans look unhinged.
[...]
The prospect of right-wing political violence muddies an argument made by Trump and other Republican leaders in recent weeks, ever since demonstrations against Brett Kavanaugh created images of impassioned protesters over-running the Capitol: that Democrats are the party of mob rule, and Republicans the party of law and order.
A former senior White House official predicted right-wing political violence would now become a top campaign issue. “The Democrats now have a message going into Election Day,” the former official said.
Grits does not expect Beto O'Rourke to win. But if he were to pull off the upset, many other dominos could fall in succession as a result, with at least three Republican senators, Texas' Attorney General, and potentially even the Lt. Governor at risk. Another race likely to flip if Dem turnout goes that high is Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Incumbent Sharon Keller won her primary with only 52% of the vote, and CCA races have consistently been among the lowest vote-getters over the years among Republican statewide officials. There is no Libertarian in the race, so the Democrat, Maria Jackson, should get all the anti-incumbent vote. If, on election night, the US Senate race at the top of the ticket is competitive, or heaven forbid, Beto pulls an upset, check down the ballot for this race; it may flip, too.
Voters are reporting odd problems on both the Republican and Democratic side of straight-party voting in Texas.
Mickey Blake was one of the voters in those early voting lines in Houston earlier this week.
"I hit straight Democratic ticket," Blake said.
She says she expected all Democrats to come up on her screen, especially Rep. Beto O'Rourke, but when she got to the last screen to review her choices, she noticed a problem.
"It's all Democratic except for Ted Cruz was checked," Blake said. So she backed up and did it again. And again. "I tried it a third time and the same thing happened," she said.
The same thing happened to Cordell Hosea in Fort Bend County.
"When I got to the end, I just so happened that I glanced at the screen, I saw Ted Cruz was selected as my senator," Hosea said.
He too voted straight ticket Democrat.
But it's not just a Democrat problem. Voters who select straight-party Republican unselect Sen. Cruz and wind up voting for no one. Either way, officials say it's a rare issue that happens, but not to everyone.
It's popped up across Texas often enough for the Secretary of State to put up a statewide advisory on Monday to every Texas election advisor.
The Secretary of State calls it 'operator error.'
"We've heard from voters over a number of elections about this," said Ft. Bend County Election Administrator John Oldham.
Oldham says it's a problem he's seen for years.
He even told the Secretary of State about it years ago and it's still happening.
"It's not a glitch, it's a user-induced problem that comes from the type of system that we have," Oldham said. "I think both sides could be equally hurt."
It's unclear how widespread it is.
"As long as you don't hit the red button to cast, then you can get some assistance from the poll watchers," Hosea said.
Oldham tells us he recalls the problems for at least six years and says he's talked to the Secretary of State more than once about the problem. It has not been fixed aside from signs provided by the Secretary of State to warn voters to check their selections.
Oldham also said he was able to replicate the issue in his offices after multiple attempts.
"I'm really disappointed with the State of Texas," Hosea told us.
Sam Taylor, at the Texas Secretary of State's office, tells 13 Investigates the problem is "user error" and not something their office could fix. Taylor suggests a vendor could or should handle any upgrades, but the state has not asked vendors to do so.
Oldham and another election expert tell 13 Investigates that in some states, pop up screens warn straight ticket voters if they purposely or accidentally select a candidate of the other party. Texas has no such electronic warning.
Oldham in Fort Bend County told us it is most likely caused by voters simultaneously twisting the selection dial and pushing the enter button. It may not even be purposeful, but done by voters in a rush who don't realize they are still interacting with both.
To sum up: New UT/TT poll has @tedcruz by 6, @KenPaxtonTX by 12, @DanPatrick by 18, @GovAbbott by 19#txsen #txgov #txlege #tx2018— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) October 26, 2018
Latest @UpshotNYT #TX07 poll, Oct. 19-25:— Jasper Scherer (@jaspscherer) October 26, 2018
—@johnculberson 46, @Lizzie4Congress 45, +/-4.6
—Trump: 47 approve, 48 disapprove (was 43/51 in Sept. 14-18 poll)
—Prefer R or D control of the House? 49-45, respectively
—@BetoORourke 49, @tedcruz 47 (prev. 51/44)https://t.co/eelMQkJ3N0
#AngryMob #Antifa #JobsNotMobs #BuildTheWall between Americans #BuildTheWallNow #BuildTheDamnWall #LockHerUp #LockHimUp #LockThemUp #LockThemAllUp without due process. #RestoreTheConstitution says @tedcruz #FakeNews @CNN should be blown up, I suppose. https://t.co/C9H9916WuJ— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) October 24, 2018
— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) October 24, 2018
— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) October 24, 2018
One more #FalseFlag by the Libs to gain the Sympathy Vote for the midterms. Such an #AngryMob. #BuildTheWall around Democrats and stop them from voting #ByAnyMeansNecessary. #MigrantCaravan full of #IllEagles will try to #VoterFraud https://t.co/Q8WhonkGZY— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) October 24, 2018
— More Powerful Than Putin (@PDiddie) October 24, 2018
Reporting #FakeBombs have flaws that stop them from going off. via #MSNBC - #CNN #MAGABomber #PipeBombs pic.twitter.com/3lAIpRPIgy— Paul Baldovin (@PaulBaldovin) October 25, 2018
(MSNBC's Chuck) Todd brought up the breaking news to the Texas senator, who claimed that the bombs were part of a Democrat scheme while blaming the media for focusing too much on Donald Trump.
“The media always focuses on the president,” Cruz said. “There are too many Democratic politicians that are actively encouraging this.”
If your news coverage of the caravan doesn't include a map like this, front and center, you're doing it wrong... pic.twitter.com/s026JJYoov— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 23, 2018
In scripted remarks at a Wednesday night rally in Wisconsin, the president vowed to catch the perpetrator, while calling on the media to end "constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories".
(Trump) also called for more civility in public life, saying: "Those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective.
"No one should carelessly compare political opponents to historic villains, which is done often."
However, the president made no specific reference to the intended recipients of the packages.