Monthly Archives: February 2022

George Prescott Bush was just sixteen when he first took the political world by storm. The year was 1992, the setting the Republican National Convention at the Astrodome in Houston, where his grandfather would be nominated for reelection as president. On the third day of the convention, Barbara Bush, looking matriarchal and resplendent in a pearl necklace, invited her clan on stage, all twenty-two of them. There was P.s uncle George W. Bush. His dad, Jeb, and his mom, Columba, who had met in her native Mexico when they were still in their teens. And a lot of young grandchildren, including a tot wearing an Enron hat. But the speaking slot was reserved for just one family member: George P., our eldest grandson, from Miami, Florida.

Young P. had the awkward swagger of a sixteen-year-old boy, but he delivered his lines with conviction. In a presidential campaign, its hard for people to get a sense of what makes the candidates tick. The family is what makes my grandfather tick, he said. Later, after he finished reading excerpts from a letter from his grandfather, the crowd broke into a chant: George P.! George P.! George P.! Jeb beamed. Seconds later, P.named after his great-grandfather, U.S. senator Prescott Bush, from Connecticutwrapped it up, improvising Viva Bush! and a fist pump. A star was born.

The next decade would see the full flourishing of the Bush dynasty. George W. would parlay his tenure as Texas governor into the presidency. Jeb would become governor of Florida. And P.? By the time he spoke at the 2000 RNC, slipping Spanish into his speech as handmade signs in the crowd declared him a hunk, he had become the face of the familys future. He was young, bilingual, and handsome, with a world-class smile, and was the subject of gushing press coverage. His grandfather had been the forty-first president; his uncle was about to be the forty-third. Some family insiders would soon be calling P. forty-seven.

But two decades later, the Bush dynasty is hanging by a thread. George W. is spending his post-presidency painting portraits of military veterans and immigrants. Jeb is an almost-forgotten punch line from his humiliating 2016 campaign for president. And 2018 saw the death of George H.W., the paterfamilias whose passing occasioned nostalgia in some quarters for a more genteel era of Republican politics. The third or fourth generationbut whos counting?has not been as politically potent as previous ones. When Pierce Bush, P.s cousin, ran for a Houston-area congressional seat in 2020, he came in a distant third in the GOP primary. Barbara and Jenna and Jebby Jr. have evinced little interest in the family business. If there is a future for the Bush brand, it must be carried by the man H.W. once introduced as one of the little brown ones.

George P. Bush has been working for many years to position himself as the next Bush in the line of succession, said Bill Minutaglio, an Austin author who wrote one of the earliest books on the Bush family. Now he may be the last fading gasp of the Bush political dynasty.

After almost two terms as Texas land commissioner, a venerable but obscure statewide post, George P. is running in a chaotic, four-way GOP primary for Texas attorney generala race that his spokesperson calls a circus. Bushes have always been good at remaking themselves to suit changing political tides, but P. faces a particularly daunting task. He has staked his fortunes on convincing Republican primary voters that he is loyal to his familys number one tormentor, Donald J. Trump. He must count on voters seeing him as part of the GOPs future, rather than an irritating reminder of a kinder, gentler, more establishment Republicanism.

The stage for this somewhat Shakespearean drama is a tawdry one. The office is currently held by Ken Paxton, the states almost comically corrupt top law enforcement official. Elected in 2014, Paxton has been under indictment for securities fraud for the last six and a half years, charges hes managed to keep perpetually at bay through some nifty legal legerdemain. Hes also under investigation by the FBI for bribery and abuse of office after eight of his top aides went to the authorities with their concerns. Oh, and he cheated on his wifea fact that became publicly known after Paxtonsaides said he asked a wealthy donor at the center of the bribery scandal to give his lover a job.

But the incumbent is a survivor. Like Governor Greg Abbott, the attorney general before him, Paxton has used the office to relentlessly sue the federal government and please the right-wing Republican base. Most infamously, he ingratiated himself with Trump and his followers with a lawsuit in December 2020 aimed at tossing out election results in four states that voted for Biden.

There are two other challengers. Eva Guzman is a distinguished jurist with a compelling story of working her way up from poverty in a Houston barrio to the Texas Supreme Court. Leaning heavily on her legal credentials, she has raised more money than her competitors, though shes consistently polled in last place. The final entrant is Louie Gohmert, the wild-eyed, nine-term East Texas congressman whose name is synonymous with the angry, conspiracy-prone fringe. All three challengers have the same goal: hold Paxton under 50 percent on March 1 and get into a May runoff with the incumbent.

Bush, Gohmert, and Guzman are all warning that Paxton, if nominated, could face federal criminal indictment, potentially robbing Texas conservatives of a key battle station in the culture wars. The policy differences are slight. All four want to build the wall, crack down on the illegals, and banish critical race theory from Texas classrooms. These are largely hearts-and-minds campaigns, a competition to see who can conjure the MAGA spirit most convincingly.

Bush is in a tough spot. Trump has been insulting the Bush family for more than a decade. In 2013, as P. geared up his land commissioner campaign, the future president took to Twitter to call for no more Bushes! He repeatedly humiliated Jeb Bush in the 2016 campaign, dogging the former Florida governor as low-energy and a mamas boy and reducing him, at one low point, to pleading with attendees at a campaign event to please clap. He has mocked George W. Bushs failed and uninspiring presidency. As president, he bragged to Fox News about ending the Bush dynasty.

At first, when Trump emerged as a 2016 contender, P. seemed to put family first. Three months after Jeb dropped out of the race, P. was tapped to head up the Texas GOPs statewide election strategy. But when asked if he would endorse Trump, P. initially said he couldnt because of concerns about his rhetoric and his inability to create a campaign that brings people together. That summer, however, Bush changed his mind. In August, P. backed Trumps presidential bid, albeit tepidly. From Team Bush, its a bitter pill to swallow, but you know what? You get back up, and you help the man that won, and you make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton, he said.

In the years since, P.s stance has gone from awkward embrace of Trump to smothering bear hug. Fealty has had its rewards. Trump endorsed Bush during his 2018 reelection bid for land commissioner, and in 2019, at an event in Crosby, Texas, Trump enthused that P. was the only Bush that likes me. The quote resurfaced a couple years lateron koozies that Team Bush circulated at P.s announcement party for attorney general. The internet was not kind. This is Please clap in koozie form, said one wag on Twitter. For his announcement, Bush descended a staircase to greet his fansa tableau vaguely reminiscent of Trump riding down the escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential campaign. Bush didnt rant about Mexican rapists, but he offered a diluted version of Trumps obsessions. P. complained about open borders, promised never to apologize for backing the thin blue line, and bragged that he was the only member of the Bush family to endorse Donald J. Trump for president of the United States.

If there were any doubts about the power dynamics in the relationship, however, Trump put them to rest a few months later, when he snubbed Bush by endorsing Paxton. Many questioned why Bush had bothered prostrating himself. After all, Trumps warm embrace of Paxton made complete sense: the two men share a fondness for breaking norms and flirting with the outer limits of the law. Also, Trump had bragged about breaking the Bush dynasty. Was he really going to stand aside for its encore performance?

Paxton can certainly smell a whiff of desperation. In a recent fund-raising letter, headlined with Trumps ringing endorsement of Paxton, he painted Bush as a fortunate son. Referring to P. twice as Jeb Bushs son, Paxton wrote, Hes probably been told since he was a child that his destiny is to run for governor and then president.

Some of P.s earliest friends and supporters found the courting of Trump both disturbing and politically inept. Former Republican state representative Jason Villalba, a Dallas centrist who worked with Bush to recruit Hispanics into the GOP, said he counseled P. not to suck up to Trump too much. I told him, Youre never going to make those people happy. And even if Trump had endorsed him, I dont think it would have changed one vote in Texas from Ken Paxton to George P. Bush. Bushs response? He didnt say anything. When someone tells you the frank truth like that, usually you dont respond.

The Alcove Cantina, a Mexican restaurant and bar in the historic district of Round Rock, a big Austin suburb, has a comfy outdoor patio area, complete with a stage and architectural touches from when the building was an ice cream parlor during Prohibition. It seemed a perfect setting for a small political gathering on a warm January evening during the worst of the COVID-19 omicron surge. But the George P. Bush campaign opted to hold its event inside, to better highlight the way pandemic restrictions had hurt Texas restaurants and bars.

About fifty supporters were packed into the bar to hear from the 45-year-old land commissioner. The crowd was a mix of Texas General Land Office employees, local Republican pooh-bahs, curious voters, a law enforcement official or two, P.s wifes cousin, and a college kid who told me he was there just to seek an internship with Bush and lamented that the GOP has gone off the rails. The event was part of Bushs two-month cross-state push to connect with the grassroots and promote his Texas First agenda.

Bushs delivery was typically polished, if a bit stiff. During his stump speeches, he toggles from talking up somewhat technocratic points about veterans programs at the GLO to darkly accusing liberals of the wholesale indoctrination of our schoolchildren. Like his father, Jeb, he doesnt come across as having a tremendous fire in his belly, but the crowd was receptive enough to his promises to run the Texas attorney generals office as a conservative without corruption.

In keeping with the GOP playbook in 2022, Bushs not-too-subtle echo of Trumps America First nationalism spotlights a martial vision of law and order: full-throated support for law enforcement and aggressive pushback against what Bush calls deadbeat county DAs and liberal mayors. But its the border that takes center stage.

Were going to focus on securing the border first and foremost, P. said. Joe Biden campaigned on the idea that he wasnt going to build another inch of wall. Well, hes right. Were going to build miles and miles of Texas walland it starts on GLO acreage. In January Bush pledged to have 1.8 miles of border wall built on GLO-owned land in Starr County by the end of the month. (When I checked back with the campaign in early February, a spokesperson said the completion date had moved to June.) He vowed that as attorney general he would finish President Trumps wall, send attorneys from the AGs office to the border to assist with prosecutions of border crossers, and sue the Biden administration over its open border policies.

If P. feels any regret about so nakedly seeking Trumps blessing, he hasnt shown it. His campaign literature features a photo of the two men shaking hands at the 2019 Crosby event and disingenuously touts P. as an early endorser of President Trump. When I asked him whether Trumps snub stung, during a brief interview in Round Rock, Bush responded by saying, Trump is the center of the Republican party; hes the life of the party. As to the pluses and minuses of the family name, he deployed a line hes been using for two decades, one that his father used too: Im my own man. He elaborated: I obviously love my family, respect their service. They brought me into politics, the craziness of politics, but Im my own man.

If the Trumpist gambit is politically necessary, its also occasionally cringeworthy. One of P.s ads shows him driving a four-wheeler alongside a section of border wall, an awkward image that has just a whiff of Michael Dukakis on a tank. (Strangely, the ad inadvertently depicts the futility of the wall; it includes footage of two men easily scaling the structure while wearing what appear to be heavily loaded backpacks.)

George P. is Exhibit A of the challenge of being a legacy candidate in todays Republican party, said Mark McKinnon, a onetime close adviser to George W. Bush. He gets the advantage of name ID, but all the baggage associated with being part of a pre-Trump dynasty. Hes trying to thread the needle, but the eye just keeps getting smaller. Still, McKinnon added, hes got a lot of talent, and if anyone can pull it off, he can.

While some have painted P. as a family turncoat, theres another way of thinking about himas the latest practitioner of the Bushes talent for reinvention. George H.W. Bush left Connecticut, and his blue-blood roots, and moved to West Texas to make his name and fortune in the oil patch. He began his career in electoral politics by running for the chairmanship of the Harris County Republican Party to prevent the John Birch Society from taking over, only to bring the far-right, anti-communist group into the fold after he won. When he ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 1964, H.W. knocked the liberal incumbent, Ralph Yarborough, for supporting the Civil Rights Act, even though he privately regretted taking a position that encouraged racists. In the 1980 Republican presidential primary, he was sharply critical of Ronald Reagan and his voodoo economicsbut he moved to the right as soon as he got the nod for vice president. His son, hard-partying frat boy George W., became a brush-clearing born-again Christian, then governed Texas as a bipartisan champion of education before running the country as a staunch conservative.

Mark Updegrove, an Austin-based presidential historian who interviewed the two president Bushes for a 2017 book about their relationship, said the family has always hewed to an ends-justify-the-means political pragmatism. The Bushes do what they need to do in order to obtain political power, he said. But when they exercise it, they do their very best to reflect their core values as a family and as Americans.

Several P. supporters I spoke with shrugged off his Trumpian turn as just typical election-year politicking. What else was he supposed to do? And, of course, theres a chance P.s gambit will work. At the Round Rock event, I asked a supporter whether the Bush name did anything for him. I dont love dynasties, he said. And frankly, I dont think the legacy is a great legacy. With P. standing just a few feet away, he added, Little Bush was a fup, referring to George W. The idiot in Florida is still an idiot, he said of P.s father. But P., he said, doesnt seem like the predecessors.

The groundwork for P.s electoral career was laid over many years. After earning his undergraduate degree from Rice University, followed by a year teaching at an inner-city school in Florida, he received his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Then came brief stints as a corporate lawyer, real estate investor, and Navy Reserve officer with a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He and his family resided in Dallas, then Fort Worth, then Austin. In 2009 he helped start a political action committee, Hispanic Republicans of Texas, to cultivate Latino conservative talent. Along the way, Bush campaigned for his father and uncle and perfected his answer to the perennial question of when he himself would run. Its easy for a guy in my shoes to run for office, P. said in 2005. But I want to get there on my own merits, not just because Im part of the Bush family or because I carry the name George Bush.

Bush has claimed his earliest memory is from 1980, when he was four years old, standing onstage at some political event wearing a Bush for President T-shirt. (His grandfather lost to Reagan that year.) At age twelve, in 1988, he led the Pledge of Allegiance at the Republican National Convention. In 2000, eight years after his Viva Bush! speech, he hit the campaign trail for George W.the handsome face and bilingual voice of a new, diverse GOP. Im glad to be introduced by the man in our family, his uncle joked at a campaign event in 2000, el hombre guapo, el estrella. The press ate it up. People magazine named P. one of the nations hundred most eligible bachelors. He later did some modeling, and it became almost a media clich to refer to P. as the Ricky Martin of Republican politics. The Bush With Muy Guapo Appeal, proclaimed a headline from the Los Angeles Times.

Early on, young P. seemed to understand his dilemma. The Bush name opened doors, but it could also be a burden. Its a kind of unwritten law, I think, carrying the name George Bush, he told an interviewer in 2000. At times I ask myself, Am I going to be able to live my life the way I want to? Im cautious about doing certain things.

Caution is indeed one of P.s hallmarks. Though his longtime allies and friends describe him as the most conservative Bush, his policy preferences have often been maddeningly vague. While campaigning for George W., he generally embraced his uncles brand of Republicanism and declined to elaborate on what parts he disagreed with. On immigration, P. favored comprehensive reforma path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, plus stepped-up border securityand he occasionally expressed a trenchant critique of U.S. policy. In 2004, when he went to Mexico to drum up votes among American expats for his uncles reelection campaign, P. described Border Patrols use of plastic pellet guns as kind of barbarous and blamed it on immigration agents acting macho. In one of his first brushes with the gathering anti-amnesty forces on the right, Michelle Malkin excoriated him for impugning Border Patrol agents.

Lesson learned. Seventeen years later, in 2021, when immigration agents on horseback provoked outrage after they were photographed aggressively confronting Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Bush, who has been endorsed by the Border Patrol union, rushed to their defense. He told Fox News that the Biden administrations attempts to disparage our Border Patrol are out of control.

Bushs formal entrance into electoral politics was cautious too. In 2012 he announced that he would be running in two yearsbut for which office he didnt know. Trey Newton, a Republican operative who managed Bushs first campaign, recalls the moment Bush told him about his plans: It was kinda funny. He made this comment, Hey, I think Im gonna run. And I said, Well, youre a Bush; isnt that what yall do?

Late in 2012, his overeager dad perhaps jumped the gun by writing to supporters about P.s interest in the General Land Office. He concluded by asking the potential donors to write a personal check to his sons campaign.

The General Land Office oversees the $48 billion permanent school fund, various veterans programs, and Texas coastal issues. Once in office, Bush would take heat for self-deprecatingly comparing his post to dogcatcher, but entering politics at this level seemed to suit both his cautious nature and his long-term ambitions. He hadnt wanted to run in a competitive primary, and Jerry Patterson, the sitting land commissioner, was stepping down at the end of 2014 to run for lieutenant governor. Prodigious fund-raising and the surname Bush cleared out any Republican competition.

By then, with comprehensive immigration reform a distant memory and the tea party movement in full bloom, P. had learned to finesse his more moderate views, if not bury them. His campaign website made no mention of immigration. When pressed by the Texas Tribunes Evan Smith to state his position on immigration reform during a rare onstage interview in 2014, Bush explained that while he favored an overall solution, it was up to the feds to solve. When Smith kept pressing, he offered lukewarm support for in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.

Bush had plenty to say, however, about national issues far beyond the purview of the GLO. As he talked up private school vouchersa perennially pushed, perennially failed idea loathed by many rural RepublicansBush came up with a novel triangulation, a sort of half-pregnant formulation: Im a full advocate for private vouchers in limited instances. After conservative activists pounced on P. for seemingly acknowledging the existence of climate change, his campaign unfairly blamed a reporter for misrepresenting his views. None of it mattered all that much. Bush beat his Democratic opponent 6135.

His tenure of the GLO got off to a rocky start. Soon after taking over the agency, he launched an ambitious, high-profile redevelopment of the Alamo. He took over management of the site from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and partnered with the city of San Antonio on a plan to transform the site from a shabby tourist trap to a more respectful and historically informed destination.

For those deeply invested in the Alamo myth, the plan prompted about as much enthusiasm as Ozzy Osbourne peeing on the Alamo grounds. They saw the redevelopment as a harebrained desecration of the martyrs of 1836. In particular, a proposal to move the cenotapha 56-foot-high monument inscribed with the names of slain Texians and Tejanos, many of them misspelledincensed a cadre of modern-day Alamo defenders, some of whom launched heavily armed protests.

In 2018 Bush had to fend off a challenge from Jerry Patterson, his predecessor. He won comfortably, but the scandal soured P.s relationships with elements of the GOP grassroots. It confirmed, for some, a long-term suspicion: This guy isnt one of us.

The other big scandal on Bushs watch has arguably been more damaging: his handling of Hurricane Harvey recovery. In the aftermath of the 2017 stormthe most destructive in Texas history since 1900Governor Abbott put Bush and the General Land Office in charge of long-term rebuilding. It was an opportunity to elevate the status of the agency, not to mention P.s own profile, while doing something indisputably praiseworthy: putting Texans back in their homes and preparing for the next storm. But the recovery has been hampered for years by a series of controversial GLO decisions on how to distribute $2.1 billion in funds meant to build infrastructure to protect against future flooding.

Perhaps the most consequential came in May 2021, just a few weeks before the launch of P.s attorney general campaign. Leaders in Houston and Harris County, which were particularly devastated by Harvey, reacted in horror when they learned how much they would be getting out of $1 billion earmarked for flood mitigation: nothing. The same went for the counties covering Corpus Christi, Beaumont, and Port Arthur that had been hammered by the storm. Instead, the GLO proposed sending every dime to rural communities in southeast Texas, many of which had suffered far less damage. A Houston Chronicle investigation found that the agency had devised a funding formula that punished populous areascommunities that happened to be predominantly Democratic, poor, and non-white.

Bush eventually agreed to ask the feds to send $750 million to Harris County; the city of Houston and the other populous coastal communities, however, would still get nothing. Then, last month, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it was withholding nearly $2 billion in funding after civil rights and housing groups showered the agency with data they said showed that the GLO was discriminating against low-income Texans and Texans of color.

Bush has tried to variously blame the feds and Houston-area Democrats for the bad publicity. At the Round Rock campaign event, he said he had taken on deadbeat liberal mayors, an apparent reference to Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, who is facing accusations that he directed a Harvey-related housing contract to a favored developer. But Bushs defense has been undercut by the fact that the outrage was bipartisan. Also in January, the two Republican commissioners on the Harris County Commissioners Court joined the Democrats in signing a letter urging the feds to bypass the GLO and hand the funds directly to the locals.

Of course, the opinions of local officials dont count for much in todays GOP. Though hard-right criticism of Bush has been muted this campaign seasonGovernor Greg Abbott has attracted most of the ambient rage of the anti-masking, anti-immigrant crowdhe hasnt exactly inspired the activist element. His website lists over a hundred endorsements, about thirty of which are from relatively obscure local law enforcement figures such as Constable Mark Maddog Davison, Liberty County, Precinct Three. Virtually none are from the sort of hard-core grassroots leaders who propel the party.

Paxton, on the other hand, touts a solid list of endorsements from conservative clubs. For groups like the Collin County Conservative Republicans, the choice to support the incumbent was a no-brainer. Paxton has done his job and hes done it very well, and he makes liberals trigger, said Zach Barrett, the president of the group. They squirm every time he comes forth with a lawsuit. Bush was never under serious consideration. I dont care for George P. He tries to separate himself from his family, but Im done with the Bush legacy, I really am. The Bushes are really not conservatives. They are establishment Republican elitists.

But its not clear the establishment is fully showing out for P. Both Paxton and Guzman out-fund-raised Bush during the last half of 2021. Guzman led the pack with $3.7 million in contributions, followed by Paxtons $2.8 million. Bush raised $1.9 million from July through December, while Gohmert brought up the rear with $1 million.

A close inspection of Bushs most recent campaign finance report shows that the Bush family network is still active. Dozens of donors with business, familial, and political connections to George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Jeb Bush have donated to his campaign. Texas Monthly looked at every donor who gave $5,000 or more in the last half of 2021. All told, at least 62individuals and entities who either previously served in a Bush administration, donated to a Bush campaign in the past, or have direct business ties to the familyprovided at least 43 percent of P.s funding from July through December.

The preponderance of former ambassadors, consiglieri, and Bush 43 administration officials gives the report the feel of a stroll down memory lane. The legacy donors include folks like Ray Hunt, the Dallas oilman who was a major backer of George H.W., George W., and Jeb Bush. Hunt gave $50,000 to the P. campaign. Jebs network is in the mix too. Florida developer Sergio Pino, a longtime family friend and major Jeb and George W. contributor, donated $10,000. So did Rio Grande E&P LLC, a private oil exploration and drilling company active in South Texas, which was founded in part by Jeb Bush and his son Jeb Bush Jr. James Baker III, now 91 and still active in Houston civic life, kicked in $2,000. Uncle Marvin Bush? $5,000.

Mark P. Jones, a Texas politics expert at Rice University, said the relatively small donations suggest family loyalty more than deep interest in P. When I look at George P.s donations, I see, effectively, respect for the Bush family, he said. Theyre not giving money to George P. Bush. Theyre giving money to George H.W. Bushs and Barbara Bushs grandson.

Meanwhile, many of the biggest business-friendly donors in Texas are ponying up for Guzman. Her top donor by far is Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC, a nearly $18 million slush fund capitalized by millionaires and billionaires with stakes in construction, finance, oil and gas, real estate, and other industries. TLR previously bankrolled Paxton but had tossed $600,000 to Guzman as of the last reporting cycle. Richard Weekley, the Houston homebuilder and cofounder of TLR, chipped in $500,000. His brother David contributed $50,000. Dallas billionaire Robert Rowling invested a cool $500,000.

Jones has a theory as to why Texas business interests, a conservative but pragmatic bunch, are backing Guzman instead of Bush. Many of them have not been impressed with his tenure as land commissioner, and I think they also believe the Bush name is far too much of a liability in the Republican primary. The thinking, Jones said, is that while he may be able to do well, he isnt going to be able to win a runoff against Ken Paxton.

In a January poll of the race that Jones helped conduct, 37 percent of GOP voters said they would never vote for Bush. Only 11 percent said the same of Paxton. But Bush has consistently polled in second place, behind Paxton. And his supporters talk up his extensive outreach in the conservative Hispanic community. Hidalgo County chair Adrienne Pea-Garza credited P. with helping to build the Republican party in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley long before Trump made head-turning gains in 2020. It was hard for me to not support someone who has supported us so much, Pea-Garza said. George P. Bush has consistently invested in our community and our candidates. He doesnt just show up for election time. His concern here for the red wave is apparent.

So far, George P. Bush has won every race hes runthe two campaigns for land commissioner. In fact, hes the only one in his family to have won his first bid for office. For the next few weeks, P. will be doing everything he can to ensure hes not the first to come up short for the second office hes tried to win.

Read more here:

Will the Bush Dynasty Die With George P. Bush? - Texas Monthly

Latinos and their ancestors have lived in the Americas for 500 years, yet it feels like many Americans are perpetually in the act of discovering usespecially when elections are looming. We are instrumental to the emerging Democratic majority that Blue America longs for, that Red America fears, and that never quite seems to arrive.

Check out the full table of contents and find your next story to read.

The 2020 census showed that Latinos accounted for more than half of the countrys population growth over the previous decade; as a matter of math, we are indeed a large part of the countrys future. What this means for the countrys politics is less clear.

The conventional wisdom that Latinos are reliable members of a liberal coalition of people of color has never been exactly right: Between a quarter and a third of Latinos have voted Republican in almost every presidential election for the past half century. Donald Trump grew his share of the Latino vote in 2020 compared with 2016, and he may be growing his share still. A November Wall Street Journal poll found that Hispanic voters would be evenly split if Trump ran against Joe Biden in 2024. They were also evenly split when asked whether they would vote for Democrats or Republicans if the midterm elections were held that day. The survey pool was admittedly a small one, but the possibility of a continued rightward shift is shaking Democrats confidence.

Geraldo L. Cadava: How Trump grew his support among Latinos

How, I am often asked, can so many Latinos be willing to vote for Trump or his acolytes after he spent four years in office maligning them?

In some ways, its an insulting question, because it presumes that non-Latinos know our interests better than we do. I didnt support Trump, but my grandfather did. For a long time, Latinos like him have gravitated toward the Republican Party because of their belief in free-market capitalism, their opposition to big government, and their religious and cultural conservatism. Many appreciated the booming economy of the Trump years, and worry about inflation today. Its ridiculous to imagine that Latinos would all think, or vote, the same. There are more than 60 million of usrepresentatives of different national groups, with different accents, histories of migration, and cultural tastes. Has such a varied group ever formed a solid bloc?

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But Americas inability to wrap its head around a fifth of its population suggests a deeper misunderstanding. It has to do with an ignorance of Latino historya messy history of colonization that is far more important to grasping our political diversity than any poll result could ever be.

Too few Americans learn this history, in part because Latinos are rarely central to the ideological debates over race and racial justice in America. Or, more precisely, we are props in those debates, our story reduced to a simple tale of oppression consisting of the violent erasure of our Indigenous heritage, resistance against colonialism, and victimization by imperial powers. In this view, only Latinos who are unconscious of their own inheritance would fail to align themselves with the left. As Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York put it in an interview, Latino politicians often advance really problematic policies because they dont know who they are.

But who we are is complicated, and the future that many Latinos imaginefor ourselves and for our countrydoes not fit neatly into the prevailing culture war. To understand that, it may be helpful to pause the angst over which box Latinos will check on their ballots this year or in 2024, and consider what can be learned from the past.

Throughout history, Latinos have been both colonized and colonizers. By this, I dont mean simply the obvious: that Latinos are mestizos, the mixed-race descendants of Indigenous Americans, Spaniards, Middle Easterners, Africans, and other ethnic and racial groups. I also mean that Latinos have identified not only as survivors of imperialism and its ills, but also as supporters of imperial and national powers. As the historian Serge Gruzinski put it in The Mestizo Mind, the different groups that came together to forge Latino identity were like prisoners in a maze, bound to one another by the pain of conquest and the imperative to build new societies from the ashes.

From the September 2018 issue: The next populist revolution will be Latino

That pain, of course, was extraordinary. The spread of the Spanish and American empires was achieved through great violence against African and Indigenous people and their mixed-race descendants. They were slaughtered, enslaved, and raped, their cultures and religions destroyed. These are necessary and hard truths, and they became more widely acknowledged in the mid-20th century, when decolonization movements swept the world and more people began speaking out against the legacies of white supremacy.

When that happened, more Latinos began to identify with their Indigenous and African roots, in opposition to the old imperial powers. Some called for an Indigenous revival: Puerto Ricans claimed Tano identity, and the Young Lords, an activist group fashioned after the Black Panthers, fought for Puerto Rican independence. Chicanos referred to the Southwest as Aztln, the mythical homeland of the Aztecs. In 1972, Rodolfo Acua published his influential history Occupied America, which argued that Mexican Americans were internally colonized subjects of the United States.

Activists in the U.S. saw their histories and futures as linked to those of other colonized populations. They founded advocacy groups, ran for office, and argued that people of color should work together to build power. They have since shaped how Latinos are portrayed in the news and in popular culture.

As Latinos themselves, they are unimpeachable experts on Latino identity. But the punditocracy of Democratic politicians, strategists, and consultants has painted an incomplete picture of Latino history. Many Americans have ceded to them the representation of all Latinos, instead of seeking out more complex narratives.

They seem to have forgottenor dont want to rememberthat in the centuries since the initial collision of Europe and the New World, many Latinos have chosen to align themselves with the imperial and national projects of Spain, the United States, or the independent nations of Latin America. Across the 19th century, many Latin Americans viewed the United States as the economic and political model for their own countries, seeking alliances with, and maybe even annexation by, the northern colossus.

In the 1830s, Mexicans fought on both sides of the Texas Revolution. After the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, when the United States took half of Mexicos land, the overwhelming majority of Mexicans who lived in the former Mexican territory chose to stay and become U.S. citizens. In a bizarre episode from the 1850s, during a power struggle in Nicaragua, one faction invited the American mercenary William Walker to come civilize their country. He rigged the vote and got himself elected president for almost a year, until his supporters soured on him.

At the close of the century, after Puerto Rico and Cuba won their independence from Spain, some wanted the United States to remain involved in the governance of the islands, even if that meant freedom from one empire through absorption by another. A contingent of prominent Puerto Ricans tried, and are still trying, to convince the United States and fellow islanders that Puerto Rico should become a state. (In a 2020 referendum, just over half of Puerto Ricans said they supported statehood.)

Latinos who cast their lot with the United States had their reasonseconomic, political, and cultural. Many felt that Spain was tradition-bound and backwards-looking, while the U.S., a modern liberal democracy, represented progress. Some established businesses that relied on U.S. investment, sent their children to school in the North, treasured its social and religious liberties, and converted from Catholicism to evangelicalism. It is certainly the case that many of those seeking inclusion have been excluded from full citizenship or stymied by racism. But that experience hasnt always shaken their faith that the United States stands for opportunity and prosperity, nor has it blunted their patriotism.

The French West Indian philosopher Frantz Fanon, in 1952s Black Skin, White Masks, argued that colonized people identify with their colonizerswanting to walk, talk, and dress like them, and to have sex with thembecause of a colonial inferiority complex. His views are echoed by many liberal Latinos today, who consider their more conservative counterparts sellouts, as if they are somehow not real Latinos.

Watch YouTube videos of people revealing the results of their DNA tests, and the discomfort can be palpable. An Afro-Latina in one was taken aback because she wanted to be more Black, and didnt want to be a part of colonization. A man in another was trippin, he said, because hed learned that he was 31 percent Spanish. On a podcast, the journalist Maria Hinojosa said she had to come to terms with the fact that I have conquistador blood in me, but that she deliberately identifies more with her Indigenous heritage.

Many Latinos prefer to identify with a particular thread of their ancestry as a way of connecting with a culture that they feel was stolen from them, and theres nothing wrong with that. But no one thread tells the whole story. A contemporary of Fanons, the French Tunisian writer Albert Memmi, argued that the colonizer and the colonized are inextricably tied to each other and can even inhabit the same body. They define their struggles and desires in relation to each other. To be connected in this way has a psychological cost, but it is also a fact.

When it comes to Latino history, I find Memmis take more useful than Fanons. I have always been curious about my identity as a Latino. My dads family is Mexican, Colombian, Panamanian, and Filipino. My moms family is white, from Germany, Scotland, and England. They lived across the street from each other in the borderlands of Tucson, Arizona, in the 1970s, when both of my grandfathers were stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

My parents got divorced, and much of my childhood was divided between these two families. I was educated in the predominantly white communities of Irvine, California, and then Princeton, New Jersey, where my father worked as an English professor. Summers and breaks I spent in Tucson, where my moms brother called me green bean, because I was half gringo and half beaner. My paternal grandparents spoke to me in Spanish, but I began studying the language formally only when I was in middle school. My father schooled me more in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walter Benjamin than in those of Octavio Paz, Gloria Anzalda, or Sandra Cisneros.

In college and grad school, I tried to make up for what I had missed, and worked toward becoming a scholar of Latino history. Its possible that all of the reading and writing Ive done since has been an effort to understand both sides of my identity, and how my experience fits within the broader patterns of that history. If youre wondering whether my argument about Latinos as both colonizers and colonized is the result of my own identification with both, youre right. How could it be otherwise?

A design change in the latest census allowed people to more easily identify themselves as mixed-race. This helps explain why the percentage of Hispanics who said they were of two or more races instead of, for example, only white or only Black increased dramaticallyby 576 percent. At the same time, demographic and cultural shifts have meant that there are both more mixed-race Americans and more Americans who understand themselves as mixed-race. Those who believe that race is a pernicious and artificial construct should welcome the ways in which Latinos are embracing more complicated narratives of themselves and their country.

From the July/August 2017 issue: How the Democrats lost their way on immigration

Americans of all races are engaging in debates about our national origins because we sense that something is broken. I admire how the 1619 Project, from The New York Times, challenged us to reconsider U.S. history, with slavery and its afterlives as the cornerstone. One problem with the project, though, and with the Trump administrations answering 1776 Commission, is that the framing of each reinforces a Black-versus-white vision of American history. Addressing the legacy of slavery is vital. But adding Latino history (itself, in part, a history of slavery) to the story of American origins would help us think in brown, the color of impurity, as the writer Richard Rodriguez described it some 20 years ago.

America has always been many things at once. If we limit our understanding of the nations beginnings to the British colonies, then how could Latinos and members of other groups be anything besides outsiders and latecomers who should be compelled to assimilate? The slogan America is a nation of immigrants is supposed to make us feel included. But we are all original Americans, and we all shaped the United States before there was a United States.

By recounting this long history, I am not trying to suggest what Latinos should believe. I am only saying that when we vote, we arent just casting ballots about health care or education policy. We are expressing political identities that have evolved over centuriesfor and against expanding empires and nation-states; for and against more radical forms of egalitarianismin ways that dont always fit neatly into the rhetoric of the left-right divide.

This is why many Latinos support tougher border controls to limit the influx of undocumented immigrants, whom they may see as threatening their own privileges or sense of belonging as U.S. citizens. It is why many find the Republican Partys emphasis on love of country so appealing.

Understanding this history wont allow anyone to predict the Latino vote with pinpoint accuracy. But it would at least help free us from the myth that Americans vote according to ahistorical ideas of inherited guilt or innocence. And it should remind us that we are in some way bound to one anotherthat for better or worse, what it means to be Latino and what it means to be American are intertwined.

This article appears in the March 2022 print edition. When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

Follow this link:

There's No Such Thing as 'the Latino Vote' - The Atlantic

community, Coulton's Catch-up

On February 9, the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Market Bill was introduced to parliament. This Bill will create a framework to support new income streams for farmers, improved biodiversity, and international recognition of Australia's biodiversity stewardship credentials. The Bill builds on the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package, which aims to improve on-farm land management practices and develop a market-based approach for rewarding farmers to deliver biodiversity services. The Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package demonstrates that a market can deliver financial returns to farmers by piloting projects that deliver biodiversity outcomes alongside carbon and enhance remnant vegetation. The Australian Government is building on the success of these pilots to provide a long-term pathway to market for farmers. Australian farmers are amongst our most essential caretakers of the land - they manage 58 per cent of Australia's landscape. Access to public-interest journalism is critical to the health of Australia's democratic system. However, the economics of public interest journalism is challenged, especially in regional areas. The government will provide $10 million over two years for the Journalist Fund creating employment opportunities for cadet and trainee journalists and professional development opportunities for journalists working in regional news businesses. The Journalist Fund is an excellent opportunity for local news outlets to secure new talent, upskill existing talent, and ensure local stories are captured and reported. The Australian Government is ensuring residents have access to high-quality local content and regional coverage. The importance of streaming services investing in local content-ensuring that they continue to do so through the Streaming Services Investment and Reporting Scheme and asking the ABC to report on its regional footprint. For more information on the Media Policy Statement, including details on the measures, visit http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/2022-media-policy-statement. To view the Streaming Services Investment and Reporting Scheme Discussion Paper and have your say, go to: http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/streaming-services-reporting-and-investment-scheme Australia will reopen to all fully vaccinated visa holders, welcoming the return of tourists, business travellers, and other visitors from 21 February. These changes will ensure we protect the health of Australians while we continue to secure our economic recovery. Australia's health system has demonstrated its resilience throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, including the recent Omicron wave. With improving health conditions, including a recent 23 per cent decline in hospitalisations due to COVID, the National Security Committee of Cabinet agreed Australia is ready to further to progress the staged reopening of our international border. Visa holders who are not fully vaccinated will still require a valid travel exemption to enter Australia and be subject to state and territory quarantine requirements. The Saluting Their Service program has seen hundreds of worthy projects across Australia funded in recent years to help local communities pay tribute to Australians who have served during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations. The latest round has funded three projects in the Parkes electorate, Moree, Emerald Hill and Gilgandra. The North West Nashos will use this $9650 grant to construct a Moree Anzac Centenary Park memorial to commemorate all National Servicemen. Emerald Hill Progress Association will receive $2700 to remember local World War I veterans. Gilgandra Returned and Services League Sub-Branch will utilise $4207 to upgrade the Coo-ee March Memorial Park. This funding is part of the Australian Government's $32 million investment in the Veterans' Affairs grant programs.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/gQFChmftLwURjFztaywNzt/472dea54-1e13-4967-943f-df5cae7ab98b_rotated_270.JPG/r0_1870_4000_4130_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

February 13 2022 - 8:00PM

Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton, a proud supporter of regional media.

On February 9, the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Market Bill was introduced to parliament. This Bill will create a framework to support new income streams for farmers, improved biodiversity, and international recognition of Australia's biodiversity stewardship credentials.

The Bill builds on the Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package, which aims to improve on-farm land management practices and develop a market-based approach for rewarding farmers to deliver biodiversity services.

The Agriculture Biodiversity Stewardship Package demonstrates that a market can deliver financial returns to farmers by piloting projects that deliver biodiversity outcomes alongside carbon and enhance remnant vegetation. The Australian Government is building on the success of these pilots to provide a long-term pathway to market for farmers.

Australian farmers are amongst our most essential caretakers of the land - they manage 58 per cent of Australia's landscape.

Access to public-interest journalism is critical to the health of Australia's democratic system.

However, the economics of public interest journalism is challenged, especially in regional areas.

The government will provide $10 million over two years for the Journalist Fund creating employment opportunities for cadet and trainee journalists and professional development opportunities for journalists working in regional news businesses.

The Journalist Fund is an excellent opportunity for local news outlets to secure new talent, upskill existing talent, and ensure local stories are captured and reported.

The Australian Government is ensuring residents have access to high-quality local content and regional coverage. The importance of streaming services investing in local content-ensuring that they continue to do so through the Streaming Services Investment and Reporting Scheme and asking the ABC to report on its regional footprint.

Australia will reopen to all fully vaccinated visa holders, welcoming the return of tourists, business travellers, and other visitors from 21 February.

These changes will ensure we protect the health of Australians while we continue to secure our economic recovery.

Australia's health system has demonstrated its resilience throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, including the recent Omicron wave. With improving health conditions, including a recent 23 per cent decline in hospitalisations due to COVID, the National Security Committee of Cabinet agreed Australia is ready to further to progress the staged reopening of our international border.

Visa holders who are not fully vaccinated will still require a valid travel exemption to enter Australia and be subject to state and territory quarantine requirements.

The Saluting Their Service program has seen hundreds of worthy projects across Australia funded in recent years to help local communities pay tribute to Australians who have served during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.

The latest round has funded three projects in the Parkes electorate, Moree, Emerald Hill and Gilgandra.

The North West Nashos will use this $9650 grant to construct a Moree Anzac Centenary Park memorial to commemorate all National Servicemen.

Emerald Hill Progress Association will receive $2700 to remember local World War I veterans.

Gilgandra Returned and Services League Sub-Branch will utilise $4207 to upgrade the Coo-ee March Memorial Park.

This funding is part of the Australian Government's $32 million investment in the Veterans' Affairs grant programs.

Excerpt from:

Coulton's Catch-up | Bill to assist biodiversity - Daily Liberal

news, national, Valentine's Day, true love, farming, Farmer Wants a Wife, Valentine's Day 2022, acts of love, kindness, agriculture

Ahhh, love. As the reality television series Farmer Wants A Wife continues to prove, the concept of romance and agriculture are closely related. It tickles the heart, simmers the emotions, seasons life and knows what the correct tractor gear is without asking, in order to pull that downright stubborn ute that won't start again. Farmers and agriculture producers have long been the romantic types - all those Instagram-worthy rural sunsets, wide verandahs for deep conversations, and natural rugged beauty that comes from a life in the sun swallowing dust. But true love goes beyond red roses, sparkling jewellery and Hallmark poetry. READ MORE: Love is a verb, and nowhere is this more true than in rural production. With this in mind, here are 32 acts of devotion (if not exactly passion) from the paddock. 1. A meal dropped out to the header during harvesting. 2. Turning a blind eye to the mud off the boots through the kitchen. 3. Delivering on the requested manure for the rose garden. 4. Sitting through Escape to the Country. 5. Having the in-laws over for lunch at 12 noon, Sunday... during Landline. 6. Remembering the song from the bridal waltz. 7. Knowing how many sugars in the tea for the smoko cuppa. 8. Buying a copy of (insert favourite magazine here) while doing a town run for that o-ring. 9. Knowing the e-mail password but not deleting all those industry body newsletters until he/she has had a "proper read" of them. 10. Eating the undercooked meatloaf, with a smile. 11. Pulling the washing off the line before rotary hoeing that dry block beside the house. 12. Using the hat rack. For hats. (And maybe stockwhips.) 13. Taking all four kids to the sale while mum ducks into town. 14. A new saddle. 15. Holding hands at the races, in front of the crowd. 16. Remembering the golden syrup on the camping trip. 17. Answering the wife/husband's phone even when the number shows it's his/her mother calling. 18. Keeping the family photo as the smartphone background, even after purchasing the new ute. 19. "Getting" the gates without being asked. 20. Removing the dead possum out of the roof. 21. Not questioning a late arrival back from the shed. 22. A welcome hug despite the lingering smell of manure/fertiliser. 23. Pushing that last piece of vanilla slice across the table. 24. Sticking around until that critical lost bolt is found on the shed floor. 25. Offering to drive "that stretch of road". 26. Diplomatically delivering the news the best-loved jeans no longer fit. 27. Doing a leather treatment on the better half's boots. 28. Providing hints for, but not the clearly obvious answer to, that Wordle he/she is stuck on. 29. Tagging along to help pull out that sheep/calf stuck in a dam. 30. A coffee delivered to the yards. 31. Offering up the "good swag" first. 32. Jumping in to get the fecal samples.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/F96xjWybVc3FcQiiSwA3u6/374632bd-251a-456f-81ac-f77f1592045e.jpg/r0_127_3985_2379_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

February 14 2022 - 3:00PM

As the reality television series Farmer Wants A Wife continues to prove, the concept of romance and agriculture are closely related.

It tickles the heart, simmers the emotions, seasons life and knows what the correct tractor gear is without asking, in order to pull that downright stubborn ute that won't start again.

Farmers and agriculture producers have long been the romantic types - all those Instagram-worthy rural sunsets, wide verandahs for deep conversations, and natural rugged beauty that comes from a life in the sun swallowing dust.

But true love goes beyond red roses, sparkling jewellery and Hallmark poetry.

Love is a verb, and nowhere is this more true than in rural production.

With this in mind, here are 32 acts of devotion (if not exactly passion) from the paddock.

1. A meal dropped out to the header during harvesting.

2. Turning a blind eye to the mud off the boots through the kitchen.

3. Delivering on the requested manure for the rose garden.

5. Having the in-laws over for lunch at 12 noon, Sunday... during Landline.

6. Remembering the song from the bridal waltz.

7. Knowing how many sugars in the tea for the smoko cuppa.

8. Buying a copy of (insert favourite magazine here) while doing a town run for that o-ring.

9. Knowing the e-mail password but not deleting all those industry body newsletters until he/she has had a "proper read" of them.

10. Eating the undercooked meatloaf, with a smile.

11. Pulling the washing off the line before rotary hoeing that dry block beside the house.

12. Using the hat rack. For hats. (And maybe stockwhips.)

13. Taking all four kids to the sale while mum ducks into town.

15. Holding hands at the races, in front of the crowd.

16. Remembering the golden syrup on the camping trip.

17. Answering the wife/husband's phone even when the number shows it's his/her mother calling.

18. Keeping the family photo as the smartphone background, even after purchasing the new ute.

19. "Getting" the gates without being asked.

20. Removing the dead possum out of the roof.

21. Not questioning a late arrival back from the shed.

22. A welcome hug despite the lingering smell of manure/fertiliser.

23. Pushing that last piece of vanilla slice across the table.

24. Sticking around until that critical lost bolt is found on the shed floor.

25. Offering to drive "that stretch of road".

26. Diplomatically delivering the news the best-loved jeans no longer fit.

27. Doing a leather treatment on the better half's boots.

28. Providing hints for, but not the clearly obvious answer to, that Wordle he/she is stuck on.

29. Tagging along to help pull out that sheep/calf stuck in a dam.

30. A coffee delivered to the yards.

31. Offering up the "good swag" first.

32. Jumping in to get the fecal samples.

Originally posted here:

32 acts showing true love on the farm, for Valentine's Day - Daily Liberal

Canadian truckers opposed to a COVID-19 vaccination mandate used their rigs last week to block the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, the busiest international land-border crossing in North America.

This latest act in a week-long show of civil disobedience is more akin to political life in France or the U.S. That it happened in restrained Canada is a signal to the political class across the West: Large swaths of humanity are done with COVID-19 restrictions, mandates and excessive meddling in their lives. They want to go back to making their own health-risk assessments.

The Ambassador Bridge, which carries some $323 million in goods daily in cross-border trade and an estimated $137 billion last year, reopened Tuesday morning. Yet truckers continue their protest in Ottawa, which is disturbing the peace and worse in that usually peaceable Canadian capital.

The truckers should be prosecuted if they break the law, as we argued for Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matters protesters on the left. But as the Omicron virus shows itself to be less lethal and positive test rates fall, the truckers are sending a message to democratic governments that its time for the pandemic emergency orders to end.

For two years the truckers were classified as essential workers and therefore exempt from vaccine mandates. An estimated 85% of them are vaccinated. Yet Liberal Party Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who heads a minority government, has chosen this moment to order that truckers be vaccinated if they want to cross back into the country from the U.S.

The Canadian left is sneering at the truckers and their supporters, suggesting theyre nothing more than right-wing Trumpians. Mr. Trudeau has smeared them as a few people shouting and waving swastikas. But the push-back against COVID-19 overreach has gone global. In January police fired water cannons at an estimated 50,000 European protesters in Brussels registering their exhaustion with restrictions and mandates. Since December protesters have gone to the streets elsewhere in Europe and in New Zealand and Australia.

A majority of Canadians dont support the Ottawa protests, according to polls. But a recent survey by the Angus Reid Institute found that a majority favors lifting restrictions, suggesting the Trudeau mandate, which went into effect on Jan. 15, was a political miscalculation. By energizing a significant part of the electorate, until now less present in public discourse, he has set off a backlash, deepened Canadian polarization, and raised the stakes in a showdown with the truckers.

Mr. Trudeau insists he has the power to require that truckers show vaccination at the border and will therefore stand his ground. Meantime, Canadas provincial premiers are gradually easing COVID rules. On Tuesday Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced that the provinces vaccine passport, negative test requirement and mask mandate will be lifted by the end of the month. Also on Tuesday, Joel Lightbound, a Liberal Party member of Parliament from Quebec, criticized Mr. Trudeau for a COVID-19 agenda that he said is dividing the country and damaging public confidence.

The lesson for the COVID-19 police is that when youve lost even Canadians, arguably the most law-abiding people on the planet, youve lost the political plot. Time to adopt a new strategy more tolerant of the need to return to life not dominated by pandemic fear and government commands.

The rest is here:

ANOTHER VIEWPOINT: The message of trucker's protest - Daily Journal

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Read more from the original source:

The BC Government Tapes: Pipelines and Reconciliation - TheTyee.ca

news, national, news, tourism, australia

Australia is home to one of the 10 most beautiful villages in the world. That's according to online "comparison company" Uswitch, which has used social media posts as the barometer for its rankings. Posts to Instagram and Pinterest were used to elevate Mission Beach, between Townsville and Cairns in Queensland, to Australia's best. Well, certainly one of the most photographed and shared to social media, that is. Mission Beach has a regular population of about 3500 people living in banana and sugar country but there's no doubt it is very popular on the tourist trail. The town is squeezed between hills and the coast, Dunk Island is just four kilometres offshore and it is surrounded by World Heritage-listed rainforest. Of course, there is the beach itself, 14km of white sand with private coves and secluded spots. There's plenty to photograph. That's why Uswitch recorded 608,703 Instagram posts from Mission Beach in its survey. And for those thinking to buy a weekend getaway, or even to move there the real estate prices really depend how close you want to be near this famous coast. Blocks of land a five minute walk away are selling for $170,000 apiece and quality homes in the premier spots are selling for more than a million dollars. Uswitch's top 10 best most beautiful:

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/39XqhrgY6riNnQBs6VEtc8R/ab3d6bc5-fe33-42dc-aa20-14b29ed0de3f.jpg/r0_252_3200_2060_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

February 12 2022 - 10:00AM

Australia is home to one of the 10 most beautiful villages in the world.

That's according to online "comparison company" Uswitch, which has used social media posts as the barometer for its rankings.

Posts to Instagram and Pinterest were used to elevate Mission Beach, between Townsville and Cairns in Queensland, to Australia's best. Well, certainly one of the most photographed and shared to social media, that is.

Mission Beach has a regular population of about 3500 people living in banana and sugar country but there's no doubt it is very popular on the tourist trail.

The town is squeezed between hills and the coast, Dunk Island is just four kilometres offshore and it is surrounded by World Heritage-listed rainforest.

Of course, there is the beach itself, 14km of white sand with private coves and secluded spots. There's plenty to photograph.

That's why Uswitch recorded 608,703 Instagram posts from Mission Beach in its survey.

And for those thinking to buy a weekend getaway, or even to move there the real estate prices really depend how close you want to be near this famous coast.

Blocks of land a five minute walk away are selling for $170,000 apiece and quality homes in the premier spots are selling for more than a million dollars.

Uswitch's top 10 best most beautiful:

Go here to see the original:

One of the world's most photographed spots on our doorstep - Daily Liberal