And in Maine:
Two candidates, very similar names: ballot shenanigans in Alaska?:
I’m not even sure what the right ruling would be, there. Allowing him to run or not allowing him to run would either one set a dangerous precedent.
The Republicans have done that before.
Bulwark: Talarico Deviates From the Beto Model
If a Texas, would I vote for Talarico if I was trans, or had a trans child? Doubt it. Not even if I wanted to avoid surgery for my child. It’s a lack of acceptance message.
Given that I don’t have a trans child, or a relative who was gunned down, would I vote for Talarico? I want to read the text of him debating Paxton, but, probably, yes.
Do I think Talarico is right to move to the center after winning the primary? Absolutely. Otherwise he is wasting his time running.
So, Talarico is wishy washy on that issue, vs Paxton would send the child to a “special” “camp” to be “cured”. Gee, if I had a trans child, which one would I vote for? Hmm, the evil man or the good man who is not perfect. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.
There are seven U.S. Senate candidates on the November ballot:
I agree in the rationality of voting for someone good but imperfect. I do not vote for the lesser of evils, except maybe in a local race where it really could be decided by one vote.
This is not saying Talarico is evil.
It isn’t only local races that sometimes come that close.
The number of votes cast in the biggest example in the link is roughly 1/80 of what Talarico will get, win or lose. And it is less than what the vote will be in any other 2026 U.S.Senate race.
Beyond that, I would have to get into a debate over the wisdom of strategic voting, something beyond this thread and not really worth a separate thread because it would be anti-strategic me against everyone else.
There’s an mistake in my last post with the editing window past.
I should have written:
Doesn’t pretty much everyone, including the relevant medical professionals, frown on gender reassignment surgery for minors, except in rare extraordinary circumstances?
Yup. Which makes it pretty stupid that it even needs to be said.
I guess it depends on how rare and how big a frown, but really — I lack expertise.
Talarico is conceding a bit of MAGA framing in order to win an election. I’m fine with that, especially if the issue is one of secondary importance to me, as here. You do not win in a state like Texas without going a bit further to the center right than where my head is nowadays.
What I do object to is making any candidate into a paragon who we should strain to avoid criticizing.
Conservatives in general and the Republican party in particular excel at making up bullshit stories to get outraged about and pass laws against. As examples, the illegal horde that was making its way across Mexico in order to invade the US with millions of them before the 2016 election and Haitians eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs in Ohio last election.
Litter boxes in classrooms so kids could pretend to be cats turned out to be there so they had a place to pee when the school is locked down over fear of some shooter… in the only country where this happens with any regularity.
So, even if you find some surgeon willing to do pediatric gender reassignment surgery are they going to to it in an afternoon, without the child’s parents’ permission, so little Tommy leaves in the morning with his tallywhacker and comes back that evening without it?
The stories deserve all the derision we can muster.
Those actually exist somewhere? I thought they made the whole thing up.
Do you have a cite? I’m curious.
The only known official instance of cat litter being placed in school classrooms for potential use by students was in the late 2010s by the Jefferson County Public School District in Colorado, where the 1999 Columbine High School massacre took place. Some teachers were given “go buckets” that contained cat litter to be used as a toilet in an emergency lockdown situation, such as during a school shooting.[13][37][38]
Snopes – Michigan, specifically. No lockdown mentioned.
Thanks.
Also not, apparently, a cat pan, but something more suited for a human to squat over. But I bet somebody did take that tiny basil seed and blow it up into a full sized oak tree.
The snopes artcle cited, by the way, doesn’t even mention that much of a seed; it reads that the woman either heard a rumor or joke from some unknown source, or just made it up.
Meaningless, There are just two- the MAHA bigot and the guy who didnt want to get dragged into a lifeboat issue. He is still in favor of LGBT+ rights. Paxton is against such rights.
Yep, and how does this make Talarico a transphobe?
Not really.
I would say that not mentioning the “except in rare circumstances” part is a small concession to MAGA framing.
Maybe, but since that is so very very rare, why get into that morass anyway? Should he really make his whole campaign over this issue? Because that is what the MAGAs and Paxton would want. Not to mention a Senator has little to do over that issue, it is more at the state or courts issue.