Marco Rubio’s Home = 3 Months Clinton Summer Rental

June 11th, 2015

A lot of blogdom has been talking about The New York Times‘s laughable hit pieces on Marco Rubio, in which they reveal that Rubio paid $550,000 for a home in West Miami (“The house, among the more expensive in West Miami, stood out from the aging homes nearby: It includes an in-ground pool, a handsome brick driveway, meticulously manicured shrubs and oversize windows.”)

The Times also slammed Rubio for spending $80,000 on a “luxury speedboat” that actually turned out to be a run-of-the-mill fishing boat.

Hot Air notes that his house is 2,700 square feet, which is precisely 12 square feet larger than my own Williamson County home in suburban Austin. I don’t have a pool, and I paid a whole lot less ($171,000) than Rubio, but that’s the difference between buying just off the floor of the Dotcom bust in Austin (2004), and buying near the peak of Miami’s real estate boom in 2005. It also takes a lot of damn gall for The New York Times to cluck over $550,000 for a 2,700 square feet home, when that amount would barely buy you a 800 square foot shoebox in Manhattan (if you’re lucky).

Of course, it’s instructive to compare Rubio’s home with Hillary Clinton’s:

Even more stunning: Bill and Hillary Clinton spent $200,000 a month for a summer vacation rental house in the Hamptons. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of spending $200,000 a month on your summer rental. And not in an exotic locale like Bali or Fiji, but the Hamptons. Why? So you can rub your nouveau riche in the faces of the all the old money? That’s pretty much “lighting your cigar with $100 bills” rich.

But I guess you’re not so picky about money when your entire lifestyle is underwritten by foreign dictators writing checks to your foundation.

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Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch | No Comments »

Round Rock Bass Pro Shop Opened Today

June 10th, 2015

Today at 6 PM was the grand opening for the new Bass Pro Shop in Round Rock. People who have shopped there assure me that this is a Really Big Deal.

At first glance the gun prices don’t look great to me, but maybe I can pick up some decent cargo shorts…

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Posted in Austin, Guns | No Comments »

“Come on America. Nobody has free speech any more. Why should you?”

June 10th, 2015

Pat Condell on that pesky First Amendment that keep oppressing progressives by hurting their precious feelings.

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Posted in Social Justice Warriors, video | No Comments »

“Those Who Count the Votes Decide Everything”

June 9th, 2015

Hey, remember how Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were collectively the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation?

Well, guess who’s going to be providing the technical infrastructure to tally vote totals for the Iowa Caucuses?

On Friday, the state’s Democratic and Republican partiesannounced a new system that will be used to count the votes cast by Iowans during the complicated election process. Authorized precinct representatives will use new apps to report results to their party headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa’s capital, when the election takes place early next year.

The system is powered by Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and was built by the tech giant in collaboration with its partner InterKnowlogy, which also made CNN’s Magic Wall election result reporting tool. It replaces a set-up that required precinct representatives to call into automated phone systems with no way of authenticating whether the person was authorized to do so and then record votes using their phone’s keypad. Representatives also mailed paper records to the party’s central office.

If I were one of Hillary’s primary opponents, I’d think I’d want to look at that source code before trusting those tallies to be fair and accurate…

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Waco Biker Shootout Follow-up 7

June 8th, 2015

Three weeks after the May 17th biker shootout, it’s still not clear who instigated the fight.

Evidently at least 50 of those arrested have been released after their initial $1 million bail was reduced. Several hundred bikers also peacefully protested the mass arrests following the Twin Peaks shootout. Somehow bikers in Texas seem to have gotten the crazy notion in their head that “peaceful protest” doesn’t include looting local businesses…

Members of different gangs give conflicting accounts of the shootout. Two bikers just released claim to be members of the Los Pirados motorcycle club, and claim it was the Cossacks, not the Bandidos, starting trouble. The piece also mentions three other motorcycle gangs or clubs present besides the Bandidos and Cossacks, including two (Sons of the South and American Legion Riders) that I hadn’t seen mentioned in previous reports. Combined with those listed from previous reports, that puts members of Bandidos, Coassacks, Scimitars, Vaqueros, Los Pirados, Leathernecks, Boozefighters, Sons of the South, American Legion Riders and Veterans on the scene of the shootout.

Reason has been critical the police response to the shooting, especially since “more than 115 of the 170 people arrested in the aftermath of a motorcycle gang shootout outside a Central Texas restaurant have not been convicted of a crime in Texas.”

A longish profile of the Bandidos, which offers conflicting accounts of their current level of criminality.

On the one hand:

“They tell you up front: ‘We live by our own rules. We have our own morals, code of ethics, and this is our world,’ ” said Carlos Canino, head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Los Angeles. He described the Bandidos as “a lot rougher” than the Hells Angels, but “not as outwardly sophisticated.”

“They’ll fight at the drop of a hat,” he said of the Bandidos.

Police contend the Bandidos have stayed involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and other crimes.

On the other:

Houston lawyer Kent Schaffer, who has represented Bandidos for more than 30 years, said there are more police officers indicted on felonies every year in the Houston area than Bandidos.

He said current members are not like the men of the 1970s, “when they all had long hair, beards, missing teeth and tattoos – some of the older guys look that way, but most look like mainstream society.” They are engineers, oil field workers, computer programmers, he said, with college degrees, short hair and khaki pants.

“Most of these people have respectable jobs, pay their taxes and don’t have felony records,” Schaffer said.

“Most don’t have felony records” would seem to be damning with faint praise…

Other relevant links:

  • Dutch police indicted 14 members of the Bandidos, seizing a number of weapons in the process, including five rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Now, I’m not an expert on Dutch firearms law, but I’m going to guess those are not legal in civilian hands…
  • The Republic of Texas biker rally, far and away the largest in Texas, is in Austin June 11 through 14. I’m betting the police presence will be even heavier than usual…

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    Posted in Crime, Texas | No Comments »

    Erdogan’s Islamist A.K.P. to Lose Majority?

    June 7th, 2015

    So say the tea leaves from early results. If it holds up, that would be pretty big (and good) news, especially since it would slow Erdogan’s attempts to fully Islamize Turkey, as well as thwart his attempt to change the constitution to give himself more power. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party is also on track to surpass the 10% voting threshold for representation, which is also good news.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for June 5, 2015

    June 5th, 2015

    Another Friday, another LinkSwarm!

  • Democrats believe illegal aliens should be allowed to vote. “The Obama Administration has lost faith in the electorate and has decided to appoint a new one.” (Hat Tip: Instapundit.)
  • The ObamaCare death spiral is still coming.
  • Doctors leaving practice due to federal mandates. “EHR is health care’s Solyndra.”
  • Vermont: A funny thing happened on the way to Socialized Medicine.
  • “If there’s a more renewable resource than Clinton lies, I’m hard pressed to think what it might be.”
  • Hillary’s event ticket sales: Not setting the world on fire. (Hat tip: Moe Lane)
  • Democrats panicking over Hillary’s sleaze contemplate breaking the glass case around Michael Bloomberg.
  • And speaking of old rich white male Democrats, Lincoln Chafee joins the Presidential race, comes out against drone strikes, for the metric system and belt onions.
  • Minneapolis teacher takes middle school students on field trip to sex shop. Bonus: “Gaia Democratic School”
  • America: There’s an App for that. Cuba: There’s a line for that.
  • Another day, another Islamist suicide bombing killing 10 in Nigeria. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
  • Professional pro-Putin Internet troll now suing her former masters.
  • France insists those damn elected representatives can’t be let anywhere near their precious global warming treaty.
  • Planned Parenthood goes ballistic over OTC birth control. It’s all about the Benjamins…
  • Consultants advise college applicants how to appear less Asian.
  • Did you know there’s a national egg shortage on?

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Jihad, ObamaCare | 2 Comments »

    Rick Perry is in the Presidential Race

    June 4th, 2015

    Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has joined the 2016 Presidential race and has a website up.

    As longtime governor of the most economically successful state in the union, Perry should be a serious Presidential contender, especially since he has a more impressive (and recent) story to tell than Jeb Bush.

    The problem, of course, is his poor showing in the 2012 Presidential race, which included a nationally televised “brain freeze” due to him being hopped up on goofballs following back surgery. I thought Perry was the most viable conservative candidate in the race in 2012, for all the good that did either of us. That does not appear to be the case this time around, and my choice for President right now would probably be Ted Cruz first and Scott Walker second.

    Cruz, Walker and Marco Rubio all make the case for Perry more difficult. All outflank Perry on the right in ways that Huckabee and Santorum don’t, and Cruz in particular cuts into Perry’s fundraising base.

    So while Perry should be a serious candidate, he has a much tougher row to hoe than he did in 2012…and he lost in 2012. Maybe he’s counting on the GOP’s well-known “next time around is the charm” bias (see Reagan, Bush41, Dole, McCain, and Romney), but I don’t think he did well enough in 2012 to have that sort of cachet.

    Perry is a tough and tenacious campaigner (though probably not as indefatigable as Cruz), so it’s probably unwise to count him out entirely. Still, he looks to be an even longer shot in 2016 than he was in 2012.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Hillary So Old…

    June 4th, 2015

    Another Twitter hashtag I had some fun with:

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »

    Greece to Receive It’s Final Final Final Final Final Final Final Offer

    June 3rd, 2015

    Looks like all of Greece’s creditors have finally decided it’s put up or shut up time for reform. “Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is expected to face demands for tough reforms of Greece’s pension system, labor laws and other areas, as well as creditors’ insistence on painful budget measures to ensure that Greece runs a fiscal surplus before interest.”

    At this point Greece seems completely and utterly broke, unless there’s more upfront money in that still unsigned Russian pipeline deal than reports indicate (doubtful, given Russia’s own financial straits), or Tsipras finds yet another hidden money reserve to tap (“We can can pay pensions from the children’s bone marrow fund!”). So despite Tsipras’ insistence that they be allowed to keep spending other people’s money on their bankrupt welfare state, this time the jig may finally, finally, really, we mean it this time, for sure, be up.

    Here’s a piece that explains in terms of game theory why Tsipras overplayed his weak hand:

    Now, as long as the EU keeps Greece in the Eurozone then the Tsipras administration will find itself forced to either exit the Eurozone or apply the austerity it promised to end. Not only would such an outcome send a clear signal to other Eurozone nations that exiting was foolhardy, it would also indicate that radical, nationalist, anti-establishment and anti-austerity parties cannot deliver on their promises.

    The EU won’t force Greece to exit the Eurozone but it won’t offer anything to keep Syriza in power, either. The EU simply needs to keep negotiating without offering anything but strict compliance with what was already agreed upon, which is continued austerity in return for loans. In effect, to use a sports analogy, the EU just needs to “run out the clock.” In the end, it appears that Tsipras will either be forced out of office or forced to break up his coalition and form a new government with the mainstream parties, the outcome that EU and Germany have been angling for all along.

    (Though make no mistake: that “primary surplus” was always illusory.)

    A few more Greek debt crisis links:

  • Now Greece is threatening not to pay this week’s debt payment to the IMF unless a deal is agreed on. Once again, Tsipras is playing chicken with a Yugo, while his opponents are driving a Tiger tank…
  • Tsipras needs to stop making empty promises and get a clue. “He cannot expect Germans to volunteer the money Greece needs, so he can spend it on the kind of leftist economic fantasy that was discredited all over Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Just ask Argentina where default followed by populist economics leads.”
  • Germany has good reason to stop subsidizing Greece, namely their own crashing demographics: “Germany’s birth rate has collapsed to the lowest level in the world and its workforce will start plunging at a faster rate than Japan’s by the early 2020s, seriously threatening the long-term viability of Europe’s leading economy.” (Hat tip: Powerline.)
  • “A Greek exit is already priced into the euro.”

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    Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »

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