Texas Reporter

The Texas Reporter (TR) is not to be confused with the Texas Country Reporter (TCR). TCR is a weekly TV show that highlights cool places and people around the state of Texas, now run by J.B. Saucedo. TR is an online presence that describes itself as follows:

News, views, and insights from every corner of Texas and over 99 nations. Travel, national, and global coverage with a Texan perspective.

The main person behind TR is still mostly anonymous. I've read many of his articles, which are often left-leaning, but still don't know his name. Hateful radical terrorist right-wingers target people like him continually. 

Texas is far from a one-party state. Of the 17 million Texans who are registered to vote, 46% are Democrats and only 38% are Republican. Another 16% are registered as Independent. Even with figures like that, the last time a Democrat was elected to a statewide office was November of 1994. How is that possible, I hear you ask. My suspicion is that the Republicans (who control the machinery of voting) have been suppressing Democratic votes and have flat-out been cheating. Do I have proof? Fuck no. If I did, I'd be screaming it from the rooftops. Another factor is that Democrats simply do not vote in high percentages like the Republicans do. That would do it.

Maybe this year we will finally elect another Dem to statewide office, like James Talarico to the Senate to take John Cornyn's place. It's looking good so far, and there will be no pop-up sexual allegations against Talarico as there were against Graham Plattner of Maine. Talarico's opponent, current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is almost as corrupt and bad a person as Trump.

Below is a recent column published in TR, and what follows that is another column published as a defense for the first one. 

Sign hanging from a building in Tehran, Iran.

I do not support political assassination. I do not wish death on anyone.

But Americans need to stop acting shocked when people in other countries hate the leaders who bomb them.

We attacked Iran. We fired missiles into their country. We have threatened to “obliterate” them. We talk about ancient civilizations like they are disposable, inferior, or somehow less human than us.

And Iran is not some empty spot on a map. It is one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. It is Persia. It is Cyrus. It is Xerxes. It is poetry, architecture, scholarship, faith, history, and culture stretching back thousands of years before the United States existed.

I’ve read about pre-revolutionary Iran, post-revolutionary Iran, the Iranian Revolution, and Operation Ajax, when the United States and Britain helped overthrow Iran’s elected government in 1953. That history matters.

So no, I’m not celebrating anyone threatening to kill Donald Trump.

But I also understand that when the head of state of the country bombing you and threatening to destroy you is viewed as a terrorist by the people being bombed, that anger did not come from nowhere.

You do not have to endorse violence to understand cause and effect.

You do not have to support the Iranian government to recognize the humanity of the Iranian people.

And you do not get to bomb people, threaten their country, mock their poverty, interfere in their politics, sanction their economy, and then act confused when they hate you. 

And then we have an addendum

Every time I post something about Iran, I get comments asking some version of the same question:

“What about ‘Death to America’?”

Fair question. But I think too many Americans stop there and never ask the next question:

Why?

I’ve spent a lot of time reading about Iran. The Iranian Revolution. The Shah. Operation Ajax. U.S. and British involvement in overthrowing Iran’s elected government in 1953. The SAVAK secret police. The events that led millions of Iranians to conclude that foreign powers had too much control over their country’s future.

You don’t have to agree with the Iranian government to understand why that history matters.

So let’s put the shoe on the other foot.

Imagine a foreign country helped overthrow the U.S. government.

Imagine they helped install a ruler many Americans viewed as a dictator.

Imagine they trained and supported the security forces that monitored, arrested, intimidated, and sometimes tortured political opponents.

Imagine that went on for decades.

Then imagine Americans eventually rose up and overthrew that government.

Do you think Americans would have warm feelings toward the foreign country that helped create the mess?

Or do you think there might be a little resentment?

Maybe a lot.

Understanding that doesn’t require supporting the Iranian government. It doesn’t require agreeing with every slogan, policy, or action that came afterward.

It simply requires recognizing that history did not begin yesterday.

One of the biggest problems in American discussions about foreign policy is that we often view other countries only through the lens of what they have done to us, while ignoring what we may have done to them.

If we’re going to have an honest conversation about Iran, we should be willing to look at the entire story, not just the chapters that make us feel comfortable.

History is rarely as simple as good guys and bad guys. And nations, including our own, are rarely innocent spectators in the events that shape the world.

Texas Reporter

God

Trump Turns Fountain To Shit

Everything he touches turns to shit.

GOD JUL 8

Dear Humans,

HOLY SHIT! Donald Trump has now ruined another American reflecting pool. 

Before we begin, please bless the little heart on this post so the Epstein class billionaires accidentally show it to many more people.

And if this newsletter makes you laugh, join today as a paid subscriber and help keep the #1 Humor publication on Substack independent, growing, and fighting back hard. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

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1. Trump Turns Fountain To Shit

Jesus turned water into wine. 

Donald turned water into shit. 

Trump has spent weeks bragging about the historic fountain at Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C., where his administration spent millions of dollars “fixing” the water, only for the whole thing to turn brown. 

He must’ve hired Brownwater Services.

Honestly, this shit fountain is THE ultimate metaphor for the entire Trump administration. 

Everything he touches turns to shit.

The White House grounds. The Capitol. The economy. Gas prices. America’s alliances. The Justice Department. The military. Christianity. The National Mall. The first reflecting pool. America’s 250th birthday. The US Soccer team. This fountain. 

You name it, he turns it to shit. 

The man is a Shit Tornado.  

He doesn’t have the Midas touch. 

He’s got the Mierdas touch.

Oh. he’ll arrest people. He’ll blame Algaefa. But we all know it’s his fault.

Here is some video of Trump’s Great American Shit Fountain from a good man on the scene:

2. Speaking Of Huge Rivers Of Shit...

Scott Jennings would like everyone to believe he had a perfectly normal twenty minute phone conversation with Mitch McConnell.

Apparently every right wing influencer got an email from the Kremlin telling them to say they spoke with Mitch McConnell for about 20 minutes. 

Then Kasie Hunt asked Scott Jennings on live TV if McConnell would be willing to call in to CNN. 

Jennings was squirming HARD.

He’s obviously lying. After all, he gets PAID to lie for American Hitler. And he’s not even good at it. He is just SO mediocre.

Scott Jennings is a bad person and he’s going to Hell.

3. An Important Message From God

They are lying because they think they can get away with it.

They think if they repeat the lie enough times, you’ll shrug.

You’ll move on. You’ll stop paying attention. You’ll stop fighting. And on that day their lie will become the truth. 

They’re counting on your exhaustion.

Good. Let them.

Because every time they tell another bald-faced lie, another decent individual out there blinks their eyes and wakes up.

We have to defeat these fascist liars.

And I believe we shall win in the end.

I have to believe.

And if you’re still here with God now, you believe too.

Because they cannot win.

4. Join the Rebellion

Scott Jennings gets paid to tell lies. I get paid to speak truth to power.

Scott Jennings gets paid to fellate fascists publicly. I get paid to shame people like Scott Jennings back to hell from whence they came.

Letters from God is now the #1 Humor publication on Substack. That didn’t happen because billionaires helped us. It happened because we are relentless.

Paid subscribers are the reason we can keep writing letters, making videos, doing live shows, and building cartoons. They help us tell the truth while billionaire media corporations keep paying people like Scott Jennings to lie to your face.

This is how we keep growing. This is how we keep fighting.

So if this post made you laugh, made you feel less alone, or reminded you that these people are not invincible, join our community today as a paid subscriber.

Get 25% off forever

We’ve built something real.

Now let’s make it impossible to ignore.

Love,

God

Formatting! Bah! Humbug! I am a big follower of God. The online, real one. Not the imaginary one. Online God (OG, for short) is pretty funny, and pretty liberal (natch) whereas the imaginary one is pretty damn capricious, and you never know what shit he/she/it/they might pull.

Mitch McConnell

So Mitch McConnell (Republican Senator from Kentucky) has been in the hospital for a few weeks now. Some reports say he is brain-dead. Others insist that several people have spoken to him for "20 minutes" or so. Surely not everyone is lying about talking with him? We know that Trump and his gang of grifters use AI when they feel like it. Another aspect of this "artificial" intelligence is deep fakes, not only video but audio. All you really need are a couple of samples of someone's voice, and you can make them say just about anything you want, and it's very hard to distinguish between the actual voice and a copy. 

The GOP is capable of anything, including the destruction of the United States, and it would not surprise me at all if they had sampled McConnell's voice and have had him "talk" to various people while he is still actually brain-dead. This, to keep him "alive" long enough so that a special election would not be needed. His seat would simply remain open until the November election, and McConnell is not running for re-election.

The following is a writing from another online friend of mine I will identify as L.C. He is a retired doctor and he knows what he is writing about.

About Mitch

I mean the turtle, of course. If you have read my rants, essays, and musings over the years, you will probably remember that the percentage of individuals who survive CPR at age 80+ is in the single digits - probably 1%. Of that number, an even smaller fraction leaves the hospital alive and neurologically intact. It isn't that CPR doesn't work or that first responders are incompetent, it is that we simply aren't designed to survive a prolonged period of cardio-pulmonary arrest - especially not in our later years.

It's because of these realities that I have for decades said that if I collapse from cardiac arrest, please leave me the fuck alone so that I may die in peace. If you want to hold my hand or stroke my face as I lie dying, thank you for that kindness. Just don't be breaking my ribs, blowing your bad breath into my lungs, and all that other "lifesaving" shit. I don't want it. I have already led a long and fulfilling life. Don't screw it up for me.

Mitch, on the other hand, got the "full resuscitation Monty," of course. It should come as no surprise to anyone that he is lying in a hospital bed probably on a ventilator with diffuse anoxic brain injury. That's what would happen to me or maybe you - if either of us were so fortunate as to have lived into the eighth decade of life and then had a cardiac arrest.

So, maybe Mitch still has a heartbeat. I don't know. But he sure as hell isn't going to be voting on any bills or floor motions. He was 84, and that was a good run. Too bad that he used the time he was allotted to run afoul of the Constitution chasing power over justice and democracy.

Mitch, what has happened to you, is going to happen to all of us. I just hope that when it happens to me, I will not be as hated and reviled by my fellow humans as you are after you have taken your last breath. AMF!

no link

Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden (Joe Biden's son) has an X account and has been using it a lot lately, punching at Trump and his greasy gaggle of grifters. Hunter got a pardon from his dad before Joe left office, so....he could actually run for office? At the least, he should speak up repeatedly. Trump and family are just greedily feeding at the trough, while all of the elected Republicans turn and look away, while blaming Biden and Obama for EVERYTHING. Had no idea the GOP hated America so much.

Hunter Biden

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I know 
@realDonaldTrump and family did. 

250 years ago we declared independence from a king who ran the colonies as a family business. In just 18 months the Trumps have made King George look like an amateur.

A $620 million Pentagon loan, the largest in the program’s history, to a company Don Jr.’s firm bought into three months before.

An Air Force drone contract to a startup the princelings took public through a golf course company they own a piece of.

The Army’s largest drone motor order ever, to a company where Don Jr. sits on the board and holds millions in stock.

A $24 million Pentagon robotics contract to the company that employs Eric as Chief Strategy Advisor.

A stake in the largest undeveloped tungsten deposit on earth, in Kazakhstan, backed by $1.6 billion in US government support.

Jared’s fund seeded with $2 billion from the Saudi crown prince, now $6.2 billion, 99% of it foreign money from Gulf governments. Over $110 million in fees collected from the Saudis alone. He negotiates American foreign policy with the governments that pay him.

$2.3 billion from crypto ventures their father regulates. More than a million people bought in and lost $2.3 billion. The money didn’t grow. It simply moved from the subjects pockets to the crown’s coffers.

And the next one is already drafted. A proposed ATF rule that will allow guns to be shipped straight to your front door. The government’s own estimate is 3.3 million home gun deliveries a year. Don Jr. sits on the board of the online gun megastore built to cash in. He holds 300,000 shares.

And that’s only the fraction they’ve allowed us to see. Not one subpoena served. Not one search executed. Why hide anything when you own the investigators?

Me? They searched a laptop for six years. Federal prosecutors. Grand juries. Subpoena power. Congressional hearings. They found nothing. I made about $200k a year selling paintings when my Dad was President, and they made my paintings part of an impeachment inquiry.

For six years they’ve asked Where’s Hunter? What about the laptop?

Wrong questions. The right one is 250 years old. Does America belong to a family?

They’ve given their answer. Long live the King.

worst ever

I was hoping that Trump would join the three other US presidents who died on July 4. Alas. The three are John Adams (1826), Thomas Jefferson (1826), and James Monroe (1831), all among this country's "Founding Fathers." Trump doesn't quite (ahem) compare to those three, no matter how many lies they tell about him, but it still would have made the 4th even better than it was.

You know why Donald Trump will almost certainly go down as one of the worst presidential mistakes in United States history?

His supporters.

Forget who they voted for. It is what it is. The issue isn’t just that they voted for him — it’s that they don’t hold him accountable for anything. They just move the goalposts, make excuses, and believe whatever drivel he sells them.

Back in 2016, key pillars of his campaign included having Mexico pay for a border wall, a “great” plan for healthcare, passing congressional term limits, and “very easily” reducing the national deficit and eliminating the national debt.

Yet he did absolutely none of that.

Mexico didn’t pay a single penny for the roughly 52 miles of new wall he built (which equates to barely over 10 miles a year). He never had a plan for healthcare and still doesn’t. He hasn’t mentioned term limits for members of Congress since his 2016 campaign. And he not only ballooned deficits — he added trillions to the national debt.

They don’t care. They’ll make excuses.

Additionally, he called the monthly jobs reports “fake” up until he was sworn into office. He then proceeded to take credit for every single one of them, including the one released less than two weeks after he took office, even though they came from the same sources, were calculated the same way, and reflected essentially the same economic growth he previously called “terrible” under Obama.

They don’t care. They’ll make excuses.

He’s literally on video saying he wouldn’t have time to play golf because he would be working so much. Except, of course, records show that he has played more golf during his first five years than Obama did in eight — even though Trump frequently attacked the former president for playing golf.

They don’t care. They’ll make excuses.

Even the 2024 election: after spending much of Election Day pushing lies and conspiracies about “mass voter fraud,” those comments magically vanished once results started moving in his direction and it became a very real possibility he was going to win.

Amazing how that works, isn’t it?

There he is — the person these folks wanted in charge of the country — pushing one conspiracy after another, laying the foundation to deny election results if he were to lose, then suddenly stopping (and seemingly no longer caring about the “voter fraud” he claimed was happening) once it looked like he was likely to win.

Which, of course, is presented as evidence proving that when Trump wins it’s “fair,” but anytime he loses, he claims it was “stolen and rigged.”

They don’t care. They’ll make excuses.

Now there’s his current presidency, where he promised to lower prices on Day 1, end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, lower the national debt (again), pass healthcare legislation (again), and be the one person who wouldn’t get us into a war with Iran — the opposite of every single one of those things has happened.

Prices continue to rise, as inflation has hit three-year highs and wasn't any better before his war than when he took office. The war in Ukraine is worse today than it was when he was elected. The national debt is growing at a record pace. He's still never produced a comprehensive healthcare package, just legislation that stripped it away from millions of Americans. And he started the war with Iran he spent 10+ years saying he was the one person who never would.

But they don’t give a damn. They just make excuses.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of his supporters don’t hold him accountable for anything is why he’s able to lie, cheat, and get away with whatever he wants. And that’s exactly why I believe he will be remembered in U.S. history as one of the worst presidents this country has ever had — twice.

Not just because he's absolutely awful, but because MAGA never holds him accountable for anything. They just buy his bullshit and make more excuses for him.

Allen Clifton