Aināt no one reading all that Ted
We know youāre the Zodiak
History was made last night.
For months, we were saying that 2026 was the most consequential midterm election of our lifetimes.
Unfortunately, we were right. Sometimes history is to be celebrated; other times, it is to be mourned. Always, it must be reckoned with.
2026 was not simply a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami. It was an ass kicking. It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate-level repudiation. What happened, and why? What are the consequences, and where on earth do we go from here?
When all the votes were counted, the problem wasnāt turnout. Instead, our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, showed up and voted, and rejected our candidates, voting Democrat instead. Weāve lost the House. Weāve lost the Senate. When all is said and done, we will have lost eight to 10 Senate seats.
We lost in historically red states, like South Carolina and North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa. We lost in purple states, like Michigan, and New Hampshire, and Georgia. And we just barely won by just a single point in bright red states like Florida and Louisiana, and then thereās Texas.
Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas. In the Lone Star State, we lost every single statewide election. For weeks, I had been publicly warning on this podcast that we were in very real danger of losing everything in Texas. Far too few believed that was possible. I am very, very sorry that it came to pass. Texas has not had a Democrat governor since 1994. We havenāt had a Democrat senator since 1993. Now weāll have both.
Why were the results so overwhelming? Pundits and analysts will break down the results for weeks or months or even years to come, but several things are already evident today.
Years ago, the very best political advice I ever got was from Heidi. She said, āItās not about you. Itās about them. Itās about their kids, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their futures.ā Too many politicians forget that.
Take the state of Kansas, for example, a state that has not elected a Democrat senator since 1932. It just did. Hereās what exit polling showed were the top issues in Kansas.
Number one, cost of living, energy, and groceries. That was listed as number one by 30.6 percent of voters.
Corruption. Number two, 18.5%.
The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%.
The candidates are terrible, 7.9%.
The Canada trade war, 7.6%.
The GOP didnāt do enough to support Trump, 6.6%.
Republicans didnāt pass the Save America Act, 5.6%.
Trumpās focus on monuments, 5.5%, and data centers and AI, 3.8%.
The top issue, cost of living, is very real. Too many in politics dismissed it. They didnāt understand. They pointed to the macro numbers showing the stock markets soaring, median income at record highs, and poverty at record lows. Those data are true, but they donāt tell all of the story.
Here are some stats that are a lot more real and personal. Spam, Hormelās processed meat substitute, broke record sales, selling 113 million cans last year. That is nearly as much spam as was sold during the entirety of World War II. 29 percent of Americans have used buy now, pay later for groceries this year. Thatās double the share just two years ago.
In August, banks repossessed 42% more homes than they did last year. In 2024, car repossessions topped 2.3 million, above the 2009 peak in the middle of the Great Financial Crisis. In 2025, 6% of 401k holders took hardship withdrawals, paying penalties. That is a record, and triple the norm.
And hereās one thatās really stunning. Americans made more than 75 million paid plasma donations in 2026. Thatās another record. That means 200,000 Americans every single day, with a needle in their arm, just to pay for groceries.
That is very real pain from real Americans, and too many Republican politicians seem like they didnāt understand or they didnāt care. Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high.
Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end, and we should never, under any circumstances, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars.
Thereās a very real economic disconnect. Our K-shaped economy is a yawning divide. Last year, we saw the worldās very first trillionaire, a modern-day Thomas Edison, at the very same time that millions were struggling to feed their families. Data centers being constructed were turning billionaires into centibillionaires, while simultaneously the average Americanās electricity bill went up 30% in the last five years.
Understandably, people were pissed off, and elected Republicans didnāt do enough to address their very real pain.
So, what do we do now? We need to listen and respond. We need to champion economic policies that make a real difference in working peopleās lives, and we need to deal with the consequences.
Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter. But Texas, today at least, is blue. As we sit here today, I am the only statewide elected Republican who remains in Texas. Thatās not something I ever thought I would say.
We can be certain that the Democrats in Austin and in Washington will overshoot. In Texas, they will try to raise taxes dramatically. They may even try to adopt a state income tax, or even a California wealth tax. They will try to shut down the energy industry, destroying jobs across our state. They will embrace the radical transgender agenda. They will persecute those they perceive to be enemies, especially Elon Musk.
And in Washington, they will attack Trump every single day, constantly. Impeachment hearings, subpoenas, his family, cabinet members, business leaders, open persecution, and nonstop retaliation. Make no mistake. Nationally, the radicals are in charge. The communists and the Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party have now taken over the United States Congress. They will be unleashed.
Sadly, that means many Americans will be hurt. Texans will be hurt. Their assault on business will make Texas a much less attractive place to start or grow a small business. Texas will become more like California if they succeed in halting all new investment into AI.
The economic results will be dramatic. Over $700 billion in new projects are scheduled to start in the next year. If the Democrats shut them all down, our country will very likely go into a recession. That will suit the Democrats just fine. Theyāll just blame it all on Donald Trump.
In the next two years, we need to do two things.
One, fight the madness. I will work with Democrats when theyāre willing to be reasonable. Last night, I called James Talarico. I congratulated him on his very impressive victory. It was a pleasant conversation, and I told him that I looked forward to working with him to try to benefit Texas.
So, if there are things like flood relief for the Hill Country, or trying to get the space academy to Texas, he and I will work together. But if the newly elected radicals push policies that hurt Texas, raising taxes, destroying jobs, opening the border, releasing violent criminals, threatening our children, undermining our constitutional rights, I will fight with all of my strength to defend Texas and to defend the Constitution.
And number two, we need to rebuild, getting behind policies that directly benefit the constituents we lost.
Thereās a complicated story, no doubt, of what happened on Election Day, but as I see it, the key constituencies we lost were blue-collar voters, what had rightly become the core base of our party, Evangelical Christians, who didnāt show up with the same numbers and fervor as prior elections, farmers and ranchers. Tragically, we alienated rural America. Young people, who excitedly had voted Republican in 2024, and who shifted hard blue this cycle. And of course, Hispanics.
For Hispanics, thereās a strong overlap with young people and blue-collar workers. In 2024, just two years ago, I was proud to carry Hispanics statewide in Texas by six points, and we swung the Rio Grande Valley red for the first time in a century. It can be done, but in this election, those Hispanic voters overwhelmingly went back Democrat. We have got to turn that around.
And for young people, we need to be the party of the future. We need to champion policies that expand their future. Our two single biggest legislative accomplishments of the past two years, Trump Accounts and the school choice tax credit, which will unleash tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships for kids, are generationally powerful. I was proud to author both of those transformational policies, and yet too few candidates all across the country ran on that record.
Too few voters were even aware of what weād accomplished for their kids and their future. But we need to build. We need to expand to continue creating a new investor class for hundreds of millions of Americans, help everyone, every American, become an owner, to have real skin in the game, to create new generations of capitalists ready to reject socialism.
People voted as they did because they were angry. Ironically, the Democrats that they elected are going to advance policies that will make affordability worse. The Democrats want gas prices higher. They want to ban gasoline engines altogether. Their extreme environmental mandates will drive up food prices and the prices of everything else.
But hear me now: we will bring Texas back. I am filled with hope and optimism. Texas will be red again. We have not suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing pinko commie liberals. That aināt us. Texas is still Texas.
We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives. The way we built the Texas economic miracle in the first place, and we will build and rebuild America as well.
When the zealots overreach, and they will, we will stand ready to lead in the direction of freedom, of prosperity, of safety, and security, and common sense. We will return to a new dawn of freedom in America.
It is dark right now, but it is always darkest before the dawn, and morning is coming. That is my fervent prayer, and that is my commitment to you.
Oh hell yeah
Texas' new attorney general Nathan Johnson has revealed that he composed the score for 67 episodes of āDRAGON BALL Zā as well as 5 of the Dragon Ball movies.
(Source: variety.com/2026/artisans/neā¦)
Man Iām so fucking tired of this
BREAKING: The U.S. has conducted defensive strikes on some Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official says. apnews.com/article/iran-us-tā¦
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
This is for the fools who think they know so much about aviation mocking the woman. The Lear jet fell from 35,000 ft to 10K ft in 1 min! This plane fell 7000 ft. Itās real easy to speak idiocy from a keyboard vs actually experiencing it.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The video uses real ATC audio from a 2009 Cessna 172 N9815L incident (VFR into IMC, spin recovery with Fort Dodge FSS help; pilot landed safely). Visuals are a Microsoft Flight Simulator recreation, not real cockpit footage.
youtube.com/watch?v=dh9bq0ā¦
youtube.com/watch?v=rnDmqgā¦
If you havenāt listed to this ATC audio yet, just donāt. I listened to it once yesterday and itās been on my mind since. Truly horrifying and sad.
āHoly f*ck, weāre out of timeā Heart crushing ATC audio captures the moments before a Learjet 60 crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, killing all 9 souls on board.
VIA: @thenewarea51
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
My thoughts on the Lear 60 crash here in Palm Beach country.
God bless the crew and passengers.
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
I've never blindly bet on a fighter because of their name, but if I ever did
SuperBest WinnerMuayThai would be my first
Mike fuckin Mallot wow, proper indeed
CANADA HAS A TOP 10 WELTERWEIGHT šØš¦
Mike Malott gets the HUGE knockout in R2 tonight!
[ #UFCEdmonton | LIVE on @ParamountPlus ]
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
Mi primer dĆa con el Tesla nitter.gq/ssssscca/status/211098ā¦
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
Chat are we cooked
š
A federal court told Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, and GM they can legally record and intercept your private texts and call logs the second you plug your phone into the car.
The infotainment system downloads everything. You canāt see it. You canāt delete it. Police can.
The judge said thatās not a privacy violation unless you prove it already damaged your reputation or your business.
You paid tens of thousands of dollars for a rolling wiretap. This is the surveillance state on four wheels.
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
El put0 loco este poniĆ©ndonos el trailer de la tercera guerra mundial estamos ante el mayor capĆtulo de black mirror de nuestra historia.
Nonoš„·š½ retweeted
UFC has ALREADY started REMOVING posts that are talking about Sean Sharafs octagon interview when he talked about FREE PALESTINEš
UFC also cut out Islam Makhachevs interview at UFC 294 when he said heās not celebrating because of Palestine. If you go look at his UFC 294 octagon interview on youtube, they deliberately cut that part out to keep awareness about Palestine low.
Itās so dirty how the UFC handles themselves. My post was at 500k and itās the first post of mine that was ever taken down.
































