The Times They Are A-Changin’

Posted on by

There were two special elections in Texas yesterday. In one, a Democrat won a runoff election to the U.S. House from a deep-blue Houston area district. In the other, a Democrat won a special election for a seat in the Texas state Senate in a district that voted for Trump by 17 points. And it wasn’t close. See G. Elliott Morris at Strength in Numbers:

Texas Monthly describes the district as a hub of far-right activism. In recent years it has swung from “a bastion of Bush-era conservatism into an uncompromising vehicle for their war on ‘woke.'” It was even redistricted awhile back to ensure a four-to-one Republican majority. Note that the quote below was written before yesterday’s election:

Legislatively, the outcome of the race is essentially meaningless: The winner will serve out the remaining term of Kelly Hancock, who resigned his Senate seat in June after being appointed by Governor Greg Abbott to Texas comptroller. A rematch is expected between Rehmet and Wambsganss during the November general election. (The Texas Legislature does not reconvene until January 2027.) But symbolically, one expert said, a Rehmet victory would represent a political earthquake—a stunning rebuke of a movement that has for years used the region as an incubator for far-right policies that are exported across the state and nation. 

“If he were to lose by six points, that’d be worth talking about,” Calvin Jillson, a political science professor at nearby Southern Methodist University, told me. “And if Rehmet were to win? You’d say, ‘Holy shit.’”  

What do you say when the district swung by 22 points? I take it this wasn’t necessarily a rebuke of Trump as much as a rebuke of the far-right Christian nationalist wackjobs that have dominated local government. But I’d say Democrats need to be looking to how Rehmet pulled this off.

As I understand it we are now in a shutdown, but it isn’t expected to last long. Remarkably, Trump called Chuck Schumer last week to initiate negotiations. As a result, most of the spending bill is expected to go to the House tomorrow. It’s expected that the House will vote on it on Tuesday. DHS funding has been held back in the Senate for two weeks for further negotiation. Conditions Dems are expected to push include “unmasking immigration agents, ending their indiscriminate sweeps and requiring them to obtain warrants as well as abide by strict use-of-force guidelines, among others,” according to the New York Times.

The NY Times also reported that before Trump called Chuck,

White House legislative affairs aides had reached out to some of the Democrats who had broken from Mr. Schumer last fall and crossed party lines in a vote to end a record-breaking shutdown. Would they like to attend a listening session at the White House to discuss a potential deal? They all declined.

News stories are calling this deal “fragile,” warning that it would yet break apart. The Dems have to stick together this time. See also the live reporting link at the NY Times.

Update: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

Update Update: Trump has announced that the [Bleep] Kennedy Center will be closed for two years, beginning in July, for renovations. “I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur, is to cease Entertainment Operations for an approximately two year period of time, with a scheduled Grand Reopening that will rival and surpass anything,” The Thing said. Most of the scheduled performers have canceled, although the National Symphony Orchestra and a few other random programs, including a screening of Sleepless in Seattle, were still listed as upcoming. I hate to see what kind of ghastly gilded atrocities he inflicts on the building.

See also ‘Their first instinct was to loot’: how Trump’s acolytes are plundering the Kennedy Center.

Stuff to Read: (In no particular order)

The Atlantic, ‘It’s a Five-Alarm Fire’: The FBI’s search and seizure of material from Fulton County election offices marks a major escalation.

Alexandra Petri, Hey you, hold onto your humanity. You’ll thank me later.

Heather Cox Richardson, January 31, 2026. I have to comment on this one. Stephen Miller posted,

“Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote. All visas are a bridge to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.”

HCR compares Miller’s comment to similar comments by antebellum advocates for slavery. But the “labor class” was more than enslaved people from Africa. Beginning in the colonial period and well into the 19th century, a lot of people from the UK and Germany came here as indentured servants and stayed after their contracts ended. Beginning in the mid-19th century Irish escaping the potato famine dominated industrial and construction labor for some time. When California became a state in 1850 there was already a substantial Chinese population there, which continued to grow. Chinese supplied most of the labor to build the intercontinental railroad. And when the bosses ran short of Chinese, they hired Irish.

In the early 20th century Southern and Eastern European immigrants supplied the cheap labor for factories and sweatshops. Nearly all of the 146 garment workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 were recent Italian or Jewish immigrants.  One of Stephen Miller’s great-grandfathers was a Jew who escaped poverty and oppression in Belarus, landing at Ellis Island in 1903 with $8 to his name. He made a living as a peddler and brought more of his family over.

I should note that European immigrants also imported the labor union movement, which IMO has benefited all of us. And their children who were born here went to public schools and assimilated and were citizens like everybody else. Was this ever a problem? Not that I’ve heard.

U.S. agriculture has a long history of depending on migrant labor from Mexico, going back at least to 1910. During World War II there was such a shortage of farm labor the U.S. ran a formal guest worker program. This program ended in 1964 and was replaced by the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program, and I don’t know how that works. I’m seeing the ag industry wants significant reforms. But this is one reason we’ve enjoyed an abundance of food at reasonable prices (until recently) here in this country.

Does Stephen Miller seriously know nothing about U.S. history? Maybe he thinks White immigrants are different, somehow, but the Irish and Italian and other immigrants of the 19th and early 20th century faced a whole lot of discrimination for a long time. And by now a lot of ethnic Chinese Americans are more generations removed from China than Miller is removed from Belarus. And Black Americans have been part of U.S. history all along, even though their contributions were long ignored in the history books. But if you treat people fairly and give them opportunities to work and assimilate, most of them will. It doesn’t have to be a problem.

16 thoughts on “The Times They Are A-Changin’”

  1. Yes.  Flooding the zone with problems that are imaginary and/or created is why the White House is a mess (So is the building but that is not the topic).  Overwhelmed by its own tactics.  Also overwhelmed by ignorance of many disciplines including history.  Unwilling to listen to anyone who might know more than they do or worse yet do not share their primitive ideology.

    It is good to see that voters know they are failing.  At least a solid majority of them.  

    2
    Reply ↓

  2. The big news of this post IMO is the ID of the two Border Patrol agents who murdered Alex Pretti. It's interesting that the thug who murdered Renee Good was also Border Patrol, not ICE. And they were all veterans with years of service, not recent ICE hires. Minnesota will put the cops, all three of them on trial. There's enough evidence on the Internet, though the source(s) will have to be validated. I don't know WHEN charges will be filed – you can't try them twice. I understand that the attorney who handled the George Floyd murder are working for the family of Alex Pretti. 

    All three killers have enormous legal exposure because they are identified. ICE thugs have not shown they are particularly bright, but it should have occurred to them that if there's serious trouble, they are not protected and anonymous.  This fact should be pushed hard – we know who you are and we WILL see you in court. It's time to take the fun out of joining Trump's Gestapo.

    3
    Reply ↓

  6. Trump sent Gabbard to Fulton County with the FBI "agents" to take 2020 election ballots, documentation, etc.  From on the scene she arranged a call between Trump and the FBI.  Speculation ran wild; what was the conversation?  Thats easy. Trump told them:  "I want you to find me 11,741 votes, just one more than Biden."

    1
    Reply ↓

  8. Crypto falls but no one says much.  The WaPo has the death rattles.  MBS wins again with Jeffie wielding the bone saw.  We seem way beyond the eve of destruction.  Camelot no more.  

    Let us see if we can pull out of this spin by November.  

    It is a bit of a bad sign when the only thing on the rise are cases of Measles.  Yes, at one time we thought that was only a problem of the past.  So, no sign of Camelot and Measles is back. Did someone change the meaning of great?

    Reply ↓

  9. This is the way I see the Epstein files release. Diaper don has released 3 million documents yet there is not an obvious accusation of wrong doing for any of the people involved. There are "embarrassing emails, photos' etc" but nothing that could be construed as definitively pointing towards abuse. There are thousands of victims but apparently no abusers? So this is what has happened. Epstein was running a blackmail scheme (with Putin as his master), he collected dirt on the rich and famous and the politically connected in this country. He suddenly commits suicide while in custody at diaper don's federal lockup. Now diaper don's DOJ has custody of all the kompromat (thanks Merrick Garland) and has released everything but the really bad stuff. So who is doing the blackmailing now?

    Stump like his pal Epstein is working for Putin, he is dismantling our democracy and weakening our county and our alliances right in front of our eyes. All of the centers of power are being dismantled and or used against the American people the DHS, DOJ, HHS, DOE all of it. All of our international interests the UN, USAID, WHO. Just ask yourself who benefits from all of this? 

    1
    Reply ↓

  11. No one trustworthy and fear running amok in the crypto world.  A crypto favored by you know who is down over 20% today alone.  It was highly recommended as a holding for the US Treasury by he who has poor judgement and got big donations from the currency holder.  

    Prediction markets seem to be part of this play, and grand sums are being made and lost.

    From the CNBC website:

    The truth is: For many crypto advocates, buying them was ALWAYS about making some serious money to the upside.

    Despite protestations to the contrary, it wasn’t about it being a store of value in a world dominated by fiat currencies. It wasn’t a safe haven. And it certainly wasn’t about a means of exchange. Now though, a lot of those stated rationales for owning have faded as margin calls and leverage fallibility expose the most aggressive risk-taking.

    In short, don’t ever underestimate the power of the Zeitgeist. In the case of silver and prediction markets, it’s a mix of a centuries-old trade and a new way of trading, which the purveyors of bitcoin, for now, are failing to match.

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *