May 10th, 2012
You know all those lovely jobs the free market has been creating in Williamson County? Well, they’re about to be salamandered:
The Williamson County Conservation Foundation is gathering a task force of various communities and stakeholders to try and prevent the endangered listing of several salamander species in Central Texas.
This has been churning away in the background for a while, but I’m hearing that it’s about to impact some local Williamson County Republican races. I don’t think I have a good handle on all the angles yet. I’ll try to post when I do.
Tags: EPA, Republicans, Texas, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Regulation, Texas | No Comments »
May 10th, 2012
It’s been a few days since I went down to the south capitol steps to watch the Tea Party Express featuring Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Ron Paul. It’s a bit late for me to do a comprehensive write-up of the speeches there. I caught all of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz’s speech, but could only stay for about ten minutes of Ron Paul’s, because I had to get back home to write my review of the Avengers. The crowd was friendly, enthusiastic, and about 75% Ron Paul supporters, with the other 25% there either for Ted Cruz or various other candidates, including Richard Mack and the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. 25th congressional district Betsy Dewey, who was running around in one of those Firefly cunning hats and has the virtue of being quite cute.
Rather than a blow-by-blow description of what was said, or an attempt to construct a coherent Venn diagram depicting conservatives, Libertarians, Republicans, the Tea Party, and Ron Paul supporters, I’m going to just put up some pictures:
As usual, click to embiggen.
Tags: 2012 Election, Austin, Elections, Rand Paul, Republicans, Richard Mack, Ron Paul, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race
Posted in Austin, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
May 10th, 2012
“Just four days before the start of early voting in the Texas Senate primary, the Ted Cruz campaign announced the endorsement of Governor Sarah Palin and her husband Todd Palin.”
In response to a letter from Ted Cruz, Governor Sarah Palin wrote: “We’re proud to join conservatives in Texas and throughout the nation in supporting your campaign to become the next Senator from the Lone Star State.”
“Your conservative principles, passionate defense of our Constitution and our free market system come at a time when these cornerstones of our freedom and prosperity are under attack,” Governor Palin added. “Our shared goal isn’t just to change the majority in control of the Senate, but to assure principled conservatives like you are there to fight for us.”
Palin is not only a superstar, she’s also a Tea Party kingmaker; numerous of the candidates she endorsed in 2010 won their primary and general election races over GOP establishment types, even when the challengers weren’t initially favored. Expect a lot of donors (both large and small) to look at contributing to Cruz, as well as a lot of on-the-fence Texas voters who hadn’t been paying attention to the race yet seriously considering Cruz. So this endorsement is just a wee bit more important than my own.
Team Dewhurst can’t be happy campers today…
Tags: 2012 Election, Elections, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race
Posted in Elections, Texas | 2 Comments »
May 9th, 2012
I know, dog bites man.
In the course of talking about a phony-baloney, Dewhurst-friendly poll, Paul Burka has proven, yet against, that he doesn’t understand Republicans in general and conservatives in specific. You have to scroll down a little to find out his reaction to Richard Mourdock terminating Dick Lugar’s senate career, but it exhibits the same keen insight we’ve come to expect from his political commentary:
I can tell you what I think of Lugar’s loss. I think Republicans have gone nuts. Lugar has been a distinguished senator for many years.
It used to be that Republicans could skate by talking like conservatives then voting like liberals. That was several trillion dollars worth of debt ago. Now Republican voters demand that their representatives actually do something about out-of-control federal spending and unconstitutional enlargement of a runaway federal government, and those that don’t will find themselves being sent home in short order.
When Burka says “a distinguished senator for many years,” what actual conservative voters (perhaps Burka should make the acquaintance of a few) see is someone who has become part of the problem: The get-along-to-go-along Republican establishment that was willing to let the federal welfare state grow indefinitely rather than fight to control it.
Either we get runaway government spending under control, or we go the way of Europe, where the cradle-to-grave welfare state is destroying economies across the entire continent and “unacceptable austerity” is reducing Greece’s budget from 9% of GDP to 7.5% of GDP.
The Red State model of government embodied by Texas under Rick Perry is kicking the ass of the Blue State model represented by Jerry Brown’s California, much to the consternation of Burka and his fellow liberal MSM journalists. Low taxes, holding the line on government spending, and a business friendly climate do wonders for your state economy. Democratic control, high taxes, out of control spending, and powerful labor unions bleeding the state dry? Not so much.
If Republican elected officials won’t scale back the size and scope of federal power and spending, we’ll replace them with people who will. Republican voters have been sending that message to Washington loud and clear for the last three years, and even the Republican establishment has been forced to take notice. I think Texans will send that message at the polls loud and clear May 29, and Americans on November 6.
And it’s quite possible that Burka will be just as baffled by the results.
Tags: Media Watch, MSM, Paul Burka, Tea Party, Texas, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
May 9th, 2012
Over on Big Journalism, Joel Pollack makes a point I’ve been emphasizing in my EuroDoom roundups: Austerity hasn’t failed in Europe, it hasn’t even been tried:
The media insists on describing recent election results in Europe as a blow to “austerity,” when in fact Europe’s recent policies are anything but. Government spending has continued to rise across much of Europe, and even those countries that have made small cuts have not reduced government spending to pre-recession levels.
He in turn references this Veronique de Rugy piece at NRO (though the link is broken, so I had to go Googling) which also gives us this handy chart:
None of these “austerity” measures eliminated deficit spending, and none addressed the issue that’s driving all of Europe (and us) bankrupt, namely unwillingness to carry out structural reforms of the welfare state. The few tiny reforms that have been undertaken have been, as NRO’s Michael Tanner notes, ridiculously timid, and even those have been heavily weighted in future years. “So far, European governments haven’t even been willing to take a penknife to the welfare state, let alone an axe.” Plus a huge round of tax hikes:
It should come as no surprise that all those new taxes, combined with a lack of spending restraint, has threatened to throw Europe back into a double-dip recession. Is it any wonder that French, Greek, and British voters were anxious to “throw the bums out”?
Wait, this sounds familiar. Tax hikes on the rich accompanied by vague promises of future spending restraint, while refusing to restructure entitlement programs. That sounds a lot like . . . Barack Obama.
Actual austerity would mean (at a minimum) reducing spending to the amount of money actually taken in. As best I can tell, none of the PIIGS, or France, or the UK has undertaken such real austerity. That “severe” Greek austerity that just caused a change in government? It reduced Greece’s official deficit spending from 9.0% of GDP to 7.5% of GDP. They didn’t even want Greece to stop digging a hole, they just wanted them to dig more slowly.
I suspect that some 20-30 years hence, this mania for deficit spending will be seen as absolute madness, with future generations unable to fathom how politicians were so resolute in destroying their countries economies in order to maintain the welfare state, a folly for the ages. Hyperinflation is probably already baked into the Greek pie for its inevitable exit from the Eurozone, the only question is whether it will be Argentina 1999-2002 style hyperinflation, or Weimer Germany 1919-1923 style hyprinflation, and how much of Europe (and the rest of the world) will follow in their tracks.
Tags: austerity, Budget, Economics, Europe, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, hyperinflation, Veronique de Rugy, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Economics, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
May 8th, 2012
The challenge with covering the respective fortunes of Texas and California is where to cut off the news roundup. Here’s news of how California is sucking, and Texas isn’t, from the last month or so:
Texas is ranked number one for business. California? Dead last.
Why so many people are moving from California to Texas. “California may be dreaming, but Texas is working.”
The madness of California:
Things will only get worse in the coming years as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his green cadre implement their “smart growth” plans to cram the proletariat into high-density housing. “What I find reprehensible beyond belief is that the people pushing [high-density housing] themselves live in single-family homes and often drive very fancy cars, but want everyone else to live like my grandmother did in Brownsville in Brooklyn in the 1920s,” Mr. Kotkin declares.
Also this:
Middle-class workers—those who earn more than $48,000—pay a top rate of 9.3%, which is higher than what millionaires pay in 47 states.
California Governor Jerry Brown (his aura smiles and never frowns) is hiking state income taxes that were already the highest in the nation. (Hat tip: Prairie Pundit.)
The California budget process is still broken.
A California-to-Texas translation guide.
Destroying the California dream.
California not only has the five most polluted cities in the country, it has the top five most polluted cities in all three categories of air pollution (ozone, short term particle pollution, and year-round particle pollution).
That nugget above came from Will Franklin’s WILLisms, who also brings word that Texas created 32% of all jobs in the last decade, and 35% of all private sector jobs, with his usual skillfully executed charts:
Tags: Budget, California, Jerry Brown, jobs, Taxes, Texas
Posted in Budget, Texas, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
May 6th, 2012
Chances are good that Europe’s interesting Eurozone times are about to get more interesting still with elections scheduled across the continent today, including those in France and Greece. So what does all this mean? Well, for one thing, the French socialist candidate (who has a good chance to kick Nicolas Sarkozy out of office) wants to renegotiate the fiscal discipline treaty. Perhaps even a socialist can tell a rotting fish when he smells one. And in Greece, the anti-bailout parties are expected to make dramatic gains at the expense of the “center-right” New Democracy (Tweedledee) and “center-left” Pasok (Tweedledum) parties who managed to bring Greece to this lovely pass in the first place.
Opposing Tweedledee and Tweedledum are a motley collection of small parties, including the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. Now in Europe, everyone to the right of the Christian Democrats seems to be labeled a “neo-Nazi,” be they libertarians, Geert Wilders, or the British National Party, but Golden Dawn appears to be the real thing. Take a look at their flag:
The overall color scheme seems vaguely familiar. Where have I seen that before? Let me think…
Of course, Golden Dawn is unlikely to gain enough votes to be a real player in the Greek parliament, so we may be denied the irony of seeing neo-Nazis oppose Greece’s German overlords.
There are also elections in Serbia and Armenia, lower level elections in Italy, and in Germany, regional elections in Schleswig-Holstein. While “regional elections in Schleswig-Holstein” must be almost as exciting a topic to American readers as enhanced rescission authority, it might go a long way toward determining whether Angela Merkel will continue in her role as Europe’s Sugar Momma Dominatrix.
Could the ruling parties lose everywhere? Well, since the ruing parties have collectively lost every single election since 2009, yeah. Now, whether the Eurocratic elite are will to let a little thing like “democracy” derail their dreams for an integrated Europe remains to be seen.
Other Eurozone news from the last month or so:
Eurozone jobless rate hits record high.
Capital flight from the PIIGS continues apace.
The central bank of Germany will no longer accept bank bonds backed by Ireland, Greece and Portugal as collateral.
European manufacturing continues to decline.
Spain is still going broke:
With government debt expected to hit 80% of GDP by the end of 2012, Spain has become like a family with a big mortgage where the primary breadwinner has lost his job. Unless they find a way to increase their income, they are going to go bankrupt. It is only a matter of time.
If people want to know what life looks like in the “Prohibitive Range” of the Laffer Curve, all they have to do is to visit Athens. Greece is literally falling apart. Unfortunately, by raising taxes, Spain is making exactly the same mistake that the Greeks made.
And that’s despite putting a ban on cash transactions over € 2,500 in a vain attempt to cut down on tax evasion. They’re also considering hiking their VAT tax, which I’m sure will do wonders for their recession-stricken economy.
Of course, whatever the outcome of today’s elections are, we can be pretty sure they won’t do the one thing that might help get them out of the crises: rolling back the European welfare state.
The a persistent drumbeat among American liberals that in Europe austerity has failed. This is a myth. In fact, it’s never been tried.
Tags: Angela Merkel, Budget, Elections, Euro, Europe, European Debt Crisis, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, UK, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Elections, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »
May 5th, 2012
You may have heard of the Obama campaign’s attempt to use an imaginary woman named Julia to convince women to embrace a cradle-to-grave welfare state. (And looking at European demographics, we can only assume that’s more grave than cradle.)
Naturally, conservatives have had fun on Twitter with #Julia, including the observation that her male counterpart would naturally be named “Winston.” Also: “#Julia died at age 78. She voted Democrat until age 92.”
But, as usual, IowaHawk nails it.
Some other Julia tidbits:
What was left out of Julia’s story: She’s not a taxpayer, she’s not married, and she’s not religious.
The Heritage Foundation reimagines her life.
Paul Ryan calls it creepy and demeaning.
Ad “Twitter” to the list of things The New York Times doesn’t understand. (I know, it’s a long list.) Hey NYT, it isn’t the “Republican Response Machine,” it’s the swarm. The reason I named this blog “BattleSwarm” was after the Rand Corporation’s Swarming and the Future of Conflict: Dispersed, autonomous units come together at a point to concentrate their firepower. It’s the army of Davids. It’s the future of media. It means that the MSM has lost control of the narrative and there’s nothing you can do to get it back.
Tags: #Julia, 2012 Election, Elections, Iowahawk, Media Watch, Obama, Paul Ryan, Twitter, Welfare State
Posted in Media Watch, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
May 4th, 2012
Just because I endorsed Ted Cruz doesn’t mean I’ve given up doing Texas Senate Race Updates, it’s just that I have other fish to fry this week.
In Ft. Worth, a Democratic precinct chair candidate is indicted for vote fraud.
Also, former Democratic state Rep. Jim Solis has been debarred for professional misconduct. “Solis pleaded guilty in April 2011 after admitting to involvement in the extortion scheme of former state District Judge Abel C. Limas, who pleaded guilty to racketeering in March. Solis’ sentencing is scheduled for August.”
CNN ratings hit ten year low.
The “most open Administration ever” has abolished press conferences.
Charles Krauthammer on our divider-in-chief.
I may have posted this before, but it bears repeating: the “Texas only creates low-paying jobs” myth debunked. “It turns out that the opposite is true. Since the recession started hourly wages in Texas have increased at a 6th fastest pace in the nation.”
Elizabeth Warren and the tragedy of modern liberalism:
Warren is playing an important role in our political discourse: she is the ghost of liberalism future. Warren’s alleged use of affirmative action, if true, would have to be the most egregious abuse of the system at the expense of minorities we’ve seen yet. Elizabeth Warren is, as a white woman, statistically speaking very much a member of this country’s majority. The only category in which she is a true minority is wealth: Elizabeth Warren is very, very rich… If Warren, a rich, white, Harvard professor, is a victim, everyone is.
Why does this matter? Because it reveals that the left thinks affirmative action is a joke, another cudgel with which to attack political opponents at the expense of minorities who might, thanks to liberalism’s insistence on keeping students in failed school districts, actually put the policy to some good use. And because if Elizabeth Warren is unable to advance coherent liberal policy arguments, then there may be none to advance.
Blue Dot blues takes a look at Parent PAC.
There’s a Tea Party Express event in Austin on the south Capitol steps at 2 PM Sunday, May 6th, with Ted Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul, and Rep. Ron Paul. I will try to attend if my busy schedule permits.
Today’s amusing Twitter mem de jour: #progressivestarwars.
Tags: Affirmative Action, CNN, Democrats, Elections, Elizabeth Warren, fraud, Jim Solis, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Obama, Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Ted Cruz
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »
May 3rd, 2012
You can watch it here, or live on-air at various PBS stations around the state. From the poll found here, I’m assuming the candidates will be Ted Cruz, David Dewhurst, Tom Leppert, Craig James, Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard.
I might watch if I get some other stuff done, but I won’t be liveblogging it.
Tags: 2012 Election, Craig James, David Dewhurst, Elections, Media Watch, Paul Sadler, Sean Hubbard, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
