Admit It

Happy Birthday today to State Rep. Carol Alvarado who may I add is feeling pretty good this morning after last night’s huge ‘Stros win!

Don’t look. How many pitchers did the Dodgers use last night?

Overstated? Is Texas really going down the toilet? Are we punching our ticket on the Titanic? Check this from the Trib:

House Speaker Joe Straus unleashed a political earthquake Wednesday when he announced he would not seek re-election next year. 

The policy aftershocks could be felt for years.

“This is really an earth-shattering event for politics,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones. “It’s tough to overstate the relevance of this for Texas politics. The political center of the state collapsed today.”

More than any other Texas Republican with real power, Straus was seen as a voice of moderation. On issue after issue, he and his team alone stood in the way of the kind of runaway populism that Donald Trump championed and major statewide Republicans endorsed.

Here is the entire Trib read: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/25/straus-earthquake-could-shake-texas-politics-years/.

From the Chron:

“It’s huge, the biggest political change we’ve seen in years,” said veteran state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and one of the longest-serving lawmakers at the state Capitol. “This ensures that politics in the House and in the state generally will move in a more partisan direction – a conservative Republican direction.”

Here is the Chron piece: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Joe-Straus-departure-a-political-earthquake-in-12306902.php.

Some folks or observers or pundits are acting like this is the end of Texas as we know it. If that is the case, why is Speaker Straus walking away. I think the doomsday scenarios are a bit overstated. Commentary looks at it differently. If the new Texas House Speaker let’s a lot of the Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick agenda become law, then it makes it likely that Dems will return to power a lot sooner. Maybe now a lot more of the state’s business community political campaign donations will go to Dems – maybe. Stay tuned.

This is why I have faith.  Abbott said yesterday his next goal was to get the Longhorns and the Aggies back on the football field together.  Glad to know that school finance is fixed and the post Harvey rebuild is complete.  What a leader.

I will admit it, will you? After falling behind 3-1 after 6 innings last night, I thought we would have to return to The Yard to pick up our first World Serious win ever. I left Carol’s watch party so I could be at home licking my wounds. I admit it. I thought we were goners. I thought the bats were never going to come alive. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Marwin’s blast to tie. Altuve and Correa back-to-back. A #SpringerDinger!

The Serious is even!

The Dodgers used 9 pitchers last night of course and we used 5.

It looks to be an exciting baseball weekend in H-Town