Bravo! This is one of the most thorough run-downs of the current state of play in Texas I have seen. And, I am really happy that this race is being highlighted. It is a very technical regulatory agency and thus unlikely to hold the public's interest. It has always been very much of interest to the O&G guys who are, of course, Republican. The O&G industry has two factions - the small operations and the big corporations. The cognitive dissonance between the two factions' goals is big. The small operators correctly see an idiot like Bo French as being the willing puppet of the big corporations and small operators being therefore trampled.
At the Texas Democratic Party's convention in June, a small operator named Hawk Dunlap walked out on the stage. He is a dyed in the wool Texas Republican, so it was a little awkward at first. But, he soon had the crowd.
His speech is worth watching, not just because he endorsed Rosenthal, but because he laid out what a clear and present danger French is to small operators and the the health and safety of Texans because of uncapped wells. A puppet of the industry like French means leaving all the environmental destruction of uncapped wells un-mitigated when he says "cutting regulations".
Y'all can find Hawk Dunlap's endorsement speech at the beginning of Jon Rosenthal’s address on the Texas Democratic Convention's YouTube page and Mr. Rosenthal’s campaign website. Mr. Dunlap's speech is worth watching because it displays the very conundrum and cognitive dissonance discussed in the article. MAGA is a danger to Texans and many Texas Republicans are choosing Texas rather than MAGA. We won't win West Texas, but we just might cut Republican margins enough to win statewide offices. Y'all can fight me, but this native Texan Democrat thinks Republicans are in play. We're going for it.
So deregulation is his defense mechanism? Sounds just like Trump. Thanks, Cynthia, for this synopsis of the issue. Those of us not in oil country don't realize it's the family-farm syndrome all over again.
The Contrarian’s comment rules do not allow video attachments. I got Mr. Dunlap’s name wrong in my initial post. I have corrected that. A search should work a lot better now. 🫤Sorry about that.
What may put the brakes on voting for racism, misogyny, homophobia, and the resulting massive corruption is the realization that manufactured hate doesn’t pay the bills. Working class right wing Texans, and others, are being played by the Republican Party who has no plan to make their lives better.
I keep waiting for that to happen. But remember: "What's the Matter with Kansas" was published over 20 years ago. It outlined how wedge issues and culture war induced Kansans to vote against their own interests.
Magaloids may wake up and realize that they're being conned and robbed. But so far, the radical right-wing echo chamber has been massively successful in blaming "Lib'rulz" for their depredations. I mean seriously! They're still blaming Obama. The message is clear. Give magaloids something (or someone) to hate and they're yours, body and soul.
The one issue everyone is beginning to agree on is Data Centers. I asked a couple of MAGAs if they were Ok with Trump’s regime gathering their SS#, Driver’s License #, mortgage and/or credit history, voting record, employment history, marriage data, bank account #s, legal history, medical file, IRS record, on-line spending habits, and any other data that could be compiled. They looked perplexed. I mentioned all that information could be hacked and their savings wiped out. Also that the opposition could come to power and then have access to it all. That got their attention and they said they wouldn’t want that to happen. So there is an issue of security beyond higher utility costs and environmental concerns that unite us.
Thanks to you and the Contrarian for researching and publishing this obscure but immensely important story. As a gay ex-Republican raised in Dallas among friends and relations drenched in oil wealth and heritage, I am sickened to see this piece of Texas culture descend into ever darker spirals. The ghost of H.L. Hunt lives among the billionaires from West Texas to Highland Park in Dallas who support this candidate. They all need to be called on it.
I just have to pause and think. How does a person become that sick? I understand nature vs. nurture. I understand the profound and pervasive propaganda that is directed at these poor, benighted idiots. But I don't understand how, in a substantially judeo-christian culture, how so many people can be so loathsome. They claim that Jesus will return. They'd better hope not, because he'd seek them out simply to spit in their faces.
People become twisted from being raised in a culture where attitudes of superiority are passed down. Then, for the majority, it isn’t questioned. This prejudice is inculcated in mostly small, subtle ways from parents and sometimes grandparents, churches, school, coaches, siblings, and even friends. When someone does question the rationality of what they have been told they often get ostracized and viewed as weird. It takes a strong person to stand up and challenge long held, but wrong beliefs.
The need to "defend" oil and gas sounds like the need to free white people from that terrible oppression. How must it feel to be so empty and worthless that you require a false credo to live by?
People who breathe and support hate are egocentric, hypocritical, cowards! They are generally uneducated in the world of: culture, science, literature, history, etc…and are as fake as a three dollar bill. They are just scammers like rump: corrupt MFers who view money as winning and their source of joy. There have always been losers in life…Bo French is just another one of those!
Holy Texas, this reads like a movie! I can see the villains as plain as day, just like we here in the Twin Cities saw Kristi Noem help round up immigrants and kill US citizens in her cowboy boots with her racism and her dog-murdering gun. I am suddenly very interested in this Texas Railroad Commission and will be following Texas elections a little bit more closely. And Tim Dickinson, you have convinced me to care. Another wildly readable article making reading about politics great again.
Where is french from? Let's return him to whatever that country is. Because his family certainly wouldn't have been here before 250 years ago. So he wasn't here first.
Bravo! This is one of the most thorough run-downs of the current state of play in Texas I have seen. And, I am really happy that this race is being highlighted. It is a very technical regulatory agency and thus unlikely to hold the public's interest. It has always been very much of interest to the O&G guys who are, of course, Republican. The O&G industry has two factions - the small operations and the big corporations. The cognitive dissonance between the two factions' goals is big. The small operators correctly see an idiot like Bo French as being the willing puppet of the big corporations and small operators being therefore trampled.
At the Texas Democratic Party's convention in June, a small operator named Hawk Dunlap walked out on the stage. He is a dyed in the wool Texas Republican, so it was a little awkward at first. But, he soon had the crowd.
His speech is worth watching, not just because he endorsed Rosenthal, but because he laid out what a clear and present danger French is to small operators and the the health and safety of Texans because of uncapped wells. A puppet of the industry like French means leaving all the environmental destruction of uncapped wells un-mitigated when he says "cutting regulations".
Y'all can find Hawk Dunlap's endorsement speech at the beginning of Jon Rosenthal’s address on the Texas Democratic Convention's YouTube page and Mr. Rosenthal’s campaign website. Mr. Dunlap's speech is worth watching because it displays the very conundrum and cognitive dissonance discussed in the article. MAGA is a danger to Texans and many Texas Republicans are choosing Texas rather than MAGA. We won't win West Texas, but we just might cut Republican margins enough to win statewide offices. Y'all can fight me, but this native Texan Democrat thinks Republicans are in play. We're going for it.
So deregulation is his defense mechanism? Sounds just like Trump. Thanks, Cynthia, for this synopsis of the issue. Those of us not in oil country don't realize it's the family-farm syndrome all over again.
Why not just include the link?
The Contrarian’s comment rules do not allow video attachments. I got Mr. Dunlap’s name wrong in my initial post. I have corrected that. A search should work a lot better now. 🫤Sorry about that.
Well, how typically Texan. And how typically fascist.
No surprise there, but perhaps Talarico can put a stop to Paxton.
Maybe. But can he put a stop to the Texas mindset?
What may put the brakes on voting for racism, misogyny, homophobia, and the resulting massive corruption is the realization that manufactured hate doesn’t pay the bills. Working class right wing Texans, and others, are being played by the Republican Party who has no plan to make their lives better.
I keep waiting for that to happen. But remember: "What's the Matter with Kansas" was published over 20 years ago. It outlined how wedge issues and culture war induced Kansans to vote against their own interests.
Magaloids may wake up and realize that they're being conned and robbed. But so far, the radical right-wing echo chamber has been massively successful in blaming "Lib'rulz" for their depredations. I mean seriously! They're still blaming Obama. The message is clear. Give magaloids something (or someone) to hate and they're yours, body and soul.
So I hope you're right. But I'm not optimistic.
The one issue everyone is beginning to agree on is Data Centers. I asked a couple of MAGAs if they were Ok with Trump’s regime gathering their SS#, Driver’s License #, mortgage and/or credit history, voting record, employment history, marriage data, bank account #s, legal history, medical file, IRS record, on-line spending habits, and any other data that could be compiled. They looked perplexed. I mentioned all that information could be hacked and their savings wiped out. Also that the opposition could come to power and then have access to it all. That got their attention and they said they wouldn’t want that to happen. So there is an issue of security beyond higher utility costs and environmental concerns that unite us.
They'll blame data centers on Joe Biden. And the MSM will dutifully report it.
Let's hope with all those companies moving to Texas, there are enough non-mAgas coming in to begin a change in the political climate.
Thanks to you and the Contrarian for researching and publishing this obscure but immensely important story. As a gay ex-Republican raised in Dallas among friends and relations drenched in oil wealth and heritage, I am sickened to see this piece of Texas culture descend into ever darker spirals. The ghost of H.L. Hunt lives among the billionaires from West Texas to Highland Park in Dallas who support this candidate. They all need to be called on it.
I just have to pause and think. How does a person become that sick? I understand nature vs. nurture. I understand the profound and pervasive propaganda that is directed at these poor, benighted idiots. But I don't understand how, in a substantially judeo-christian culture, how so many people can be so loathsome. They claim that Jesus will return. They'd better hope not, because he'd seek them out simply to spit in their faces.
People become twisted from being raised in a culture where attitudes of superiority are passed down. Then, for the majority, it isn’t questioned. This prejudice is inculcated in mostly small, subtle ways from parents and sometimes grandparents, churches, school, coaches, siblings, and even friends. When someone does question the rationality of what they have been told they often get ostracized and viewed as weird. It takes a strong person to stand up and challenge long held, but wrong beliefs.
The need to "defend" oil and gas sounds like the need to free white people from that terrible oppression. How must it feel to be so empty and worthless that you require a false credo to live by?
I keep hoping for better. But I suspect that Texas will freeze over first.
They don’t hide their racism.
Who irons his white hood?
People who breathe and support hate are egocentric, hypocritical, cowards! They are generally uneducated in the world of: culture, science, literature, history, etc…and are as fake as a three dollar bill. They are just scammers like rump: corrupt MFers who view money as winning and their source of joy. There have always been losers in life…Bo French is just another one of those!
Holy Texas, this reads like a movie! I can see the villains as plain as day, just like we here in the Twin Cities saw Kristi Noem help round up immigrants and kill US citizens in her cowboy boots with her racism and her dog-murdering gun. I am suddenly very interested in this Texas Railroad Commission and will be following Texas elections a little bit more closely. And Tim Dickinson, you have convinced me to care. Another wildly readable article making reading about politics great again.
He has called Native Americans “third world savages” and argued they should be “denaturalized and deported.”
Deported to where??? They are truly Americans; they were here first.
Where is french from? Let's return him to whatever that country is. Because his family certainly wouldn't have been here before 250 years ago. So he wasn't here first.
Remember the Alamo.
Tom, great writing! Thanks!!!
Bo French represents a dying Texas MAGA sycophant. Look up Jon Rosenthal for RR Commissioner.
Bo French is a MAGA model for the Texas hard-line right.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/16/texas-railroad-commission-general-election-bo-french-jon-rosenthal-social-issues-oil-gas/