"Faster than a sinking stock market! More powerful than many GM factories closing! Able to incite an international trade war and crash the economy in a single bound!"
Backlash as more radio stations ban "Baby, It's Cold Outside" over lyrics
"Faster than a sinking stock market! More powerful than many GM factories closing! Able to incite an international trade war and crash the economy in a single bound!"
“American energy production ... went up every year I was president. And ... suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer, that was me, people,” eliciting cheers.
More than 80 plants, terminals, and other projects are in the works up and down the state’s Gulf Coast, from Port Arthur to Brownsville, according to a Center for Public Integrity and Texas Tribune review of corporate plans. Companies have been laying enough pipeline in Texas in the last several years to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific three times over, more than 8,000 miles in all.
Heavy (petrochemical) industry pumps out greenhouse gases warming the climate, upping the risks of powerful storms that in turn endanger those same facilities and everything around them. Harvey, which dumped more rain than any other U.S. storm on record, damaged hundreds of thousands of homes in Texas last year, killed at least 68 people and, particularly around Houston, sparked industrial spills, air pollution, and explosions.
Although Paxton has presented (Rosa Maria) Ortega’s conduct as evidence that voter fraud is a genuine problem in Texas, her case bears no resemblance to the paranoid myth of immigrants covertly swinging elections. Ortega is a lawful permanent resident who was brought to the United States as a baby. She has a sixth-grade education and did not know that she could not legally vote. In October 2014, she sent a voter-registration application to the Tarrant County Elections Administration, in which she indicated that she was not a citizen. When the office sent her a rejection letter, she called to ask why. An employee, Delores Stevens, explained that Ortega had checked the “No” box for citizenship and could not register unless she checked “Yes.” Ortega mailed in a new application, this time checking the “Yes” box to indicate U.S. citizenship.
The office was fully aware of the discrepancies between her two applications. It still registered her to vote.
In inspections by state regulators, Greenpark has been cited for 48 violations over the past eight years, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News. The violations included keeping out-of-date drugs in stock, using improper procedures to prepare IV solutions, and inadequate cleaning of hands and gloves.
The event will feature speakers, including former mayor Annise Parker, and six honorary pallbearers -- two felons, two police officers. and two Alcoholics Anonymous members. But after, according to Hill's end-of-life caretaker Amy Morales, there's a free-for-all open mic in Hermann Square.
The deaths of Ray Hill and Bob McNair create an interesting juxtaposition about what it means to contribute to society— Evan the Maccabee (@evan7257) November 25, 2018
Many Texans may be paying attention to the stock market right now, as energy companies continue to lead a downward charge. In fact, the energy sector worldwide lost about $1 trillion in value during a 40-day period that began in early October, reports the Houston Chronicle. This means some energy companies may have a difficult time borrowing money, and hiring and retaining employees. For tens of thousands of Texans from Houston to West Texas, this impacts job security, retirement plans and confidence for buying homes, cars and holiday gifts.
James Osborne, energy reporter in the Houston Chronicle’s Washington bureau, says the market decline is simply due to plummeting oil prices.
“Production around the world has been pretty high lately,” Osborne says. “There’s a lot of expectation with Iran sanctions going back into place that oil would come off the market and it seems in some countries, producers were anticipating that and getting ready for it, but that hasn’t really happened. The Trump administration handed out a number of waivers to different countries so they could continue to import Iranian crude. There’s just a lot of oil on the market right now.”
Oil and gas companies have started to pump more oil out of the ground to maintain profits as supply grows and prices drop.
“That’s been the pattern again and again,” Osborne says. “When they get in these sort of situations they tend to get as much oil out of the ground as they can as long as they can. They’ve sort of been on shaky financial ground for a while, spending far more money than they’ve been taking in. They have been reigned in a bit by Wall Street lately. There was some concern that they were sort of overspending and could get themselves into a bubble situation.”
"Amy and I made a decision not to rule anything out."
O'Rourke's wife, Amy, said that the couple has not spoken with any political strategists, and said that the possibility of her husband running a presidential campaign was flattering and “scary.”“To me that just seems like you have to give up so much,” she said, according to the Washington Post. “I don’t know if this is a line that I or we really want to cross.”
Asked if his position on 2020 is different than it was before the November election, when he said he would not run for president, O’Rourke said, “Yeah, yeah it is.”
"I will not be a candidate for president in 2020," the El Paso congressman told MSNBC. "That's I think as definitive as those sentences get."
When the question (of a 2020 presidential run) was put directly to O’Rourke during a CNN town hall last month in the Rio Grande Valley, a crowd made up mostly of young college students cheered wildly. O’Rourke’s response was purposely brief:
“The answer is no,” O’Rourke said, citing strains of public life on his wife and three young children. “It’s a definite no.”
Pressed by CNN host Dana Bash as to whether “no” meant “never,” O’Rourke seemed to put a potential expiration date on his promise not to run for president.
“Let me put it this way,” O’Rourke said, “I promise you, and most importantly to the people of Texas, that I will serve every single day of a six-year term in the United States Senate.”
Then, making a not-too-subtle comparison to (Ted) Cruz, who launched his White House bid half-way through his Senate term, O’Rourke added, “I won’t leave the state to go run for president.”
“If I don’t win,” the three-term congressman added, “we’re back in El Paso” — his home town.
While party leaders were urging Democrats to remain focused on healthcare, taxes and other pocketbook issues, O’Rourke was calling to impeach Trump and abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, putting him at odds with even would-be political allies.
“I know right now people think of ICE and they think of immigration and removal, but ICE also does things like enforcing human trafficking laws,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, another rising star in Texas’s Democratic circles, said in a recent interview. “We’re not going to just do away with all those other functions.”
(T)hose close to O’Rourke say his denials are sincere. The congressman spent the better part of the last two years away from his wife, Amy, and their three kids as he traveled the dusty backroads of Texas. A friend said the separation had weighed heavily on O’Rourke, particularly in the final weeks, and that he genuinely had no appetite or deep ambition to embark on a campaign that would take him away from his family for another two years.
In an emotional moment on his livestream as he raced around the state in search of the last few votes, O’Rourke spoke of how much he missed his wife. He said he was dreaming of the moment where he could just sit down with a cup of coffee with her in their backyard and not have to be anywhere.
About one-fourth of Texas voters this month were white evangelical Christians. According to CNN’s exit poll, Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a faith-and-values Southern Baptist from Houston, won 81 percent of that vote.
Wilson, an outspoken anti-fracking activist, has advocated for better regulations to rein in the fracking industry, which utilizes horizontal drilling and fluid injections to crack open shale to release oil and gas trapped inside. But she no longer believes regulations are the answer because state and federal governments aren’t prepared to enforce them. “The only way to save the planet from climate change is to stop fracking now.”
one of the best nights ever. 🤘🏽#ASTROWORLD pic.twitter.com/1gDNItZmTp— ana (@anathemartinez) November 19, 2018