Injured combat veteran runs against Texas tea party congressman who wouldn't meet with her

Nope. Only one party is supporting creating gulags in the state for children. None of this both sides bullshit anymore.

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Didn’t see where any of that was there.

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Good for her; that ad was was very well done.

Too bad that “good and decent” is rarely on the ballot, if ever; whereas “less evil” always occupies at least one spot.

Perfect is the enemy of good,” because it doesn’t even exist.

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wasn’t Jill Stein on the Green Party ticket last go-round? sure, she would have been SUCH an improvement. yeah, no more of this “both sides are equally bad” nonsense.

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She definitely sounds better than the current congressman: honest, straightforward…
Comes from the military background, so that’s where her fellow dems will try to go first: vote for more military spending. I wanna see someone who will want to spend less money on wars and more money on education, roads, healthcare,…

Pathetic.

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I think the majority of Rs and Ds aren’t much different. Obama’s policies, despite the GOPs propaganda, weren’t much different than many of Bush’s. While he wasn’t making camps for “illegal” immigrant children, they were having 5 year olds represent themselves in immigration court. Then you go escalated drone use, the fact that deportation increased under Obama, and a whole slew of other examples. And as others pointed out, they are just as beholden to lobbyists.

Certainly Trump has just tilted this whole concept over on its ass, but before that I wouldn’t really call the idea “nonsense”. Perhaps used too frequently as an excuse?

On a separate note, while I applaud this ladies campaign for creating opportunities of combat roles for women (and roles for injured vets who want to continue their service), I do find it a bit… odd… the enthusiasm some have here to support her efforts. It seems to me the general attitude of the modern US military is to callously “kill brown people”. Expanding more roles to women wouldn’t change that.

Though to be fair, I am sure her platform is more than just this issue.

Cruz and Cornyn are Senators. Gerrymandering has nothing to do with it. Texas being partially full of redneck morons is the reason they are in office. Please read a book on United States civics.

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The Green candidate in the last election was an anti-vax nutjob in bed with Putin (just to name a few negatives). Why would you vote for her?

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Tell you what. Let’s all agree that we should be spending infinitely less money on our bloated military and shitty not-even-clandestine empire building. But maybe let’s acknowledge that if that’s going to keep happening no matter who gets put in charge for the time being, we could at least elect people from the party that’s not actively trying to destroy the other things on your list. That way, we can put more energy into focusing on fixing the military bloat thing without also having to fight over whether or not stealing children from their parents and leaving entire states territories to rot after a hurricane is acceptable behavior.

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FALSE:


In bed with Putin? Because she went to Moscow once? OK then…

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Please go talk a long walk off a short plank. I am fully aware that they are senators. They are also senators for that self same area.
Further, as a Texan, I can tell that you have no idea how politics in this state works. We have a HUGE democratic voting block but we are broken apart by gerrymandering in this state.
So please take your prejudicial views about the people in my state and blow.
Please go read a book on civility.

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Gerrymandering has no impact on Senate elections. I lived in Texas. Note I said partially full.

"While the state-wide nature of gerrymandering would make one think that it has no effect, it certainly could.

Elections are run at the state level, so a state-gerrymandered election could alter that balance of power in the state legislature, which would effect things like voter-suppression measures, enactment and enforcement of campaign finance regulations, and the ability of elections to be monitored and for rules to be enforced by non-partisan (or partisan) entities.

In Wisconsin, this was, in part, the basis of their gerrymandering case/challenge that will now be heard by the Supreme Court. In 2012, Democratic candidates got the majority of State Assembly votes, but the GOP won a huge majority in that lawmaking body. The GOP enacted voter ID and other restrictive measures, that have been struck down, then reinstated, by different levels of the courts.

It would be difficult to claim this did not have an impact on state-wide results. Those in power (regardless of party) tend to favor policies and practices that perpetuate their power." ~ PoloHoleSet

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Yeah, it does. It’s just not the direct effect most people think of. You see, the democratic party spends less money in this state than the size of the electorate might dictate. Why would they do this? Easy, Texas voters are easily swayed to be on the “winning side”. So, when districts are heavily gerrymandered to the right, the left has so little change of winning, that the people view themselves as being in a republican state. Democratic voters are disenfranchised and disheartened to the point where they barely even go out to vote because they know what the result will be. Compound this for a few decades and you get voter turnouts that don’t so much reflect the state as it does the power of right wing religion, influence, and control not to mention the bandwagon effect in this state (for more on this, just look at how we root for the Cowboys in this state. Are they winning? We love em and always will. Are they losing? They suck and always have) our loyalty is to the winning side.
So what do we get during a senatorial race? Media outlets telling us how the democrat has no chance and democratic candidates with no money and little chance of winning going up against republican candidates with massive campaign chests. If you don’t think that effects the outcome, you might be made of spare parts.
Now, I’m glad you had a chance to live in this state but seeing how you speak about it now, I think we are better for you having left. Nothing is made better or improved by your insulting the people of this state and nothing can be learned by listening to such a shallow understanding how how elections in this state actually work.

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I feel like this conversation has been had here before. While I strenuously object to the vast majority of the ways in which our military has been and continues to be used in modern times, I also think that it’s vital that our institutions provide fair and equal access to everyone who wants to participate in them and is capable of meeting the requirements for doing so, where applicable. To that end, I will happily salute the efforts of her and others to make the armed forces a better and more accepting institution for women, just as I happily salute the efforts of those who fought for decades to overthrow DADT, and the order from President Truman directing the military to desegregate. Equality is equality, and it must be practiced everywhere. Even in organizations that I would like to see diminished overall.

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I like her because she has shown more balls, resilience, and fortitude that any current republican in congress. I’ve read over her platform, and while she doesn’t mention gun control, or health care (my two hot buttons), I get the sense that she wants to do the right thing.
https://www.mjfortexas.com/

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Meh - MJ looks solid to me and if I was in her district I would love to vote for her. But the DNC is the same crooked outfit it always was. If supporting the latest greatest neo-liberal that has brought the world to brink of war, distopia, and the creation of an elite ruling class, I’ll just pass.

“LESS FUCKING EVIL” is still evil.

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I’m always uncomfortable with the implications that veterans, especially wounded ones, get to be in a special warrior class (along with police, etc.) that is given extra benefit of the doubt in many areas, regardless of whether or not they were actually protecting our country. Like special consideration for elected office. Congratulations for making a sacrifice I didn’t ask and didn’t want you to make; lots of people fit that category so why does that make you special?

I’d cast the side-eye a lot less hard if the headline were “Woman who fought for expanded roles for women in the military running against Texas Republican blah blah blah” or something like that.

The ways of which she should have been plenty aware of when she signed up, at least for the pilot portion (wikipedia says she joined AF in '99 and worked in maintenance, but switched to Air National Guard for pilot training in 2004, by which point no one can claim ignorance about the kinds of national endeavors one enables by joining up).

That said, I just have to highlight this fine retort:

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Not just campaign donors. Contributions to the party, earmarked in the politician’s name, buys them seats on committees where the real power-dealing happens.

And if you’ve ever wondered how some Luddite is the chair of a technology committee, now you know.

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