October 31st, 2014
Happy Halloween!
This week’s example of Democratic elected official defrauding a non-profit comes to you from Philadelphia congressman Chaka Fattah.
Democratic Representative Alan Grayson, the 17th richest man in congress, has cut off funds to estranged wife, and now both she and her kids are on welfare.
Former Obama champion Tina Brown now says he makes women feel unsafe.
Secret Service investigator into prostitution scandal resigns after his own prostitution scandal.
Marine veteran father banned from school after objecting to his daughters history assignment to “list the benefits of Islam.”
The war in Ukraine has cemented Putin’s dictatorship in Russia.
On the other hand, the ruble is crashing, despite rate hikes.
How’s that Chicago model working out?
High and trying to grab a cop’s gun is no way to go through life, son. Which goes a long way toward explaining why Michael Brown no longer walks among the living…
Japan may have a low murder rate, but as the follow chart from this piece on “haunted” apartments shows, their suicide rate dwarfs our murder and suicide rate combined.
Texas Tech student admits to filing false sexual assault charges. Under California’s new kangaroo courts, the student falsely accused would have already been convicted and expelled by now. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Fund managers are the fish in the game. They can’t leave the table.
Interesting piece on GamerGate. “The feminism of male demonization and female victimhood has become an insidious force that, despite its faux-progressive trappings, stands in the way of genuine equality. Whatever its flaws, GamerGate is a politically diverse movement of cultural resistance to this brand of toxic feminism. For that, it deserves at least two cheers.”
Dear Ridley Scott: Moses did not wear scale armor.
Links to this and previous years’ Fark scary story thread.
Now that’s what I call shag carpeting.
Tags: #GamerGate, Alan Grayson, Chaka Fattah, Crime, economy, Illinois, Islam, Obama, Russia, Secret Service, Texas, Texas Tech, Tina Brown, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Welfare State
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
October 30th, 2014
Early voting ends tomorrow in Texas. Plan accordingly…
Turns out that Hispanics are just fine and dandy with a Republican-controlled senate. So how’s that “all gay marriage and abortion all the time” thing working out for you, Democrats?
CBS buries its own poll showing that Democrats are about to get slaughtered. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke was fired from her own family company because her “my way or the highway” management style alienated employees.
Ironically, Harry Reid protecting Democrats from tough votes may end up dooming them for tying them too closely to Obama.
Want to increase the number of black voters? Maybe it’s not such a swell idea to keep repeating that Obama is not on the ballot.
Democratic South Carolina gubernatorial candidate calls Republican Governor Nikki Haley a “whore.”
Dr. Milton Wolf endorses bitter rival Pat Roberts in Kansas senate race. Should help. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
What better way to convince Iowans that Bruce Braley isn’t an out-of-touch elitist who sneers at them than having Joe Biden do a fundraiser for him in New York City?
Illegal alien amnesty is so unpopular even Karl Rove’s PAC is running ads against it.
Democrats offer up cunning direct mail come-on: “Accept Defeat.”
Tags: 2014 Election, Border Controls, Bruce Braley, CBS News, Democrats, Elections, Harry Reid, Kansas, Mary Burke, Media Watch, Milton Wolf, Nikki Haley, Pat Roberts, Wisconsin
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »
October 30th, 2014
From the Austin legal beat, Antonio Buehler was found not guilty of refusing to obey a police officer’s instructions while filming an arrest on January 1st, 2012.
Chalk up another small but real win for the right to monitor government employees doing their work in public.
Tags: Austin, Crime, First Amendment, police, Texas
Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | No Comments »
October 29th, 2014
Better late than never, Houston Mayor Annise Parker comes to the belated understanding that she was getting her ass handed to her on a plate over her subpoenas of church sermons by enemies of her Transvestite Bathrooms Initiative, and has dropped the subpoenas entirely.
However, the clue-by-four still doesn’t seem to have fully registered:
The move is in the best interest of Houston, she said, and is not an admission that the requests were in any way illegal or intended to intrude on religious liberties.
Snip.
The plaintiffs’ attorney in the lawsuit, Andy Taylor, called Parker’s announcement a “head fake,” and challenged her not only to pull down the subpoenas but to drop the city’s defense of the lawsuit and put the ordinance to a vote. The city last summer ruled opponents’ petition to submit the equal rights ordinance to a repeal referendum fell short of the legal requirements spelled out in the city charter, prompting the lawsuit.
“The truth is she’s using this litigation to try to squelch the voting rights of over a million well-intentioned voters here in the city of Houston,” Taylor said. “It’s very simple why we filed a lawsuit: Because they won’t do what the city constitutional charter requires them to do.”
Ms. Parker is obviously what we call a “slow learner.”
Tags: Annise Parker, First Amendment, Houston, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Texas | 1 Comment »
October 29th, 2014
Has there ever been a campaign with as much national hype behind it as Wendy Davis’ that ended up doing so poorly? Maybe Edmund Muskie’s Presidential race in 1972, Ed Koch’s Governor’s run in 1982, or Gary Hart’s abortive 1988 Presidential run. But all those were already major political players before running smack into Nemesis, and Muskie and Koch still had careers after their debacles.
Perhaps McGovern’s 1972 general election campaign comes closest, with one disastrous decision following another and a healthy streak of bad luck to boot. (Which only compounds the idiocy of Nixon’s dirty tricks team monkeywrenching an election that was already in the bag.) But the McGovern 1972 team can rightfully claim to have displayed real tactical brilliance in winning the nomination in the first place. And McGovern was already a Senator.
Davis doesn’t even have that going for her. This was her first (and undoubtedly her last) statewide race. After this horrendous showing, I’m not sure Democrats would even nominate her for the Railroad Commission.
Various media outlets are already busy writing Davis’ political obituary:
“How Wendy Davis became the Todd Akin of the 2014 midterms.” (Ouch! That’s gonna leave a scar.) “It turns out that the electorate can be just as unfriendly to bumbling liberal candidates who are identified almost exclusively with social issues.”
Michelle Malkin in National Review: “Wendy Russell Davis is on fire. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I mean it in a five-alarm, set-her-own-skirt-aflame, billowing-human-torch kind of way. To say that Davis is smokin’ hot is not a compliment. It’s a campaign incineration status update.” More: “Militant gender-identity politics [can] only get you so far.”
The Houston Chronicle‘s Patrick Svitek: “If Democrat Wendy Davis loses the governor’s race next week, there’ll be no shortage of commentary on what may have led to her downfall — early stumbles in conveying her life story to voters, coming across as too poll-tested and stage-managed, going too negative too early on Republican Greg Abbott.” He also notes Davis’ singular failure to grapple with border-security issues. That’s understandable, since Democrats keep crowing that Hispanics are their ticket to regaining majority status, and are notably hostile to securing the border for fear it might keep out future Democratic voters via their desired illegal alien amnesty.
And to top it all off, no one is buying Davis’ book:
Despite enormous levels of media buzz, Nielsen BookScan numbers provided to Slate by a publishing source show only 4,317 copies of the memoir, called Forgetting to Be Afraid, have been sold since its Sept. 9 publication.
Nielsen BookScan doesn’t include all book sales, notably sales at many independent retailers, so the actual number of copies sold is probably higher, although still likely below 6,000. As a point of comparison, Elizabeth Warren’s memoir, A Fighting Chance, sold more than 70,000 copies in its first few months on shelves. And David Limbaugh’s book Jesus on Trial, which was published the day before Davis’, has sold about 65,000 copies, including 6,778 just last week, according to BookScan.
In some cases, selling 6,000 hardback books would be a good number. For a first-time novelist, for instance, 6,000 hardbacks would be a pretty good number. (And it’s more than all but one of this year’s Booker Prize nominees sold in the UK.)
But for a book with a $132,000 partial advance? Not so much…
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Democrats, Edmund Muskie, Elections, Gary Hart, George McGovern, Texas, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
October 29th, 2014
I just got a Breitbart direct email solicitation from a “Conservative Action Fund” talking about David Perdue’s race against Michelle Nunn in Georgia.
Well, guess what? Conservative Action Fund is another Dan Backer scam PAC, just like Patriots for Economic Freedom.
You know how much money they’ve contributed to conservative candidates in 2014? Zero.
If you want to contribute money to David Perdue, do it directly.
And Breitbart should kick “Conservative Action Fund” off their list of accepted advertisers.
Tags: Breitbart, Crime, Dan Backer, Elections, fundraising, Republicans, scam
Posted in Crime, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
October 28th, 2014
Your “one week until Election Day” roundup of news:
Republicans lead going into the final stretch. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Thomas Sowell: “Many Democrats are running away from Barack Obama, but they can’t hide their record of voting for Obama’s agenda more than 90 percent of the time.”
Democrats: “Jerk your knees, women! Damnit, jerk your knees!”
Speaking of pandering to women: Evidently, it isn’t working for Mark Udall in Colorado. “A myopic focus on reproductive freedom and the ‘War on the Women’ does not seem to be an effective way to mobilize and motivate women in a year when the economy and jobs are at the forefront of voters’ minds.”
Indeed, the gender gap is working against Udall, since Gardner’s lead among men is much bigger than Udall’s narrow lead among women.
Denver Post: Udall sucks so bad we’re actually endorsing a Republican.
An ad that targets Kay Hagan the same way the last one targeted Mary Landrieu:
(Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
The latest poll has Hagan tied with Thom Tillis, a precarious place for a Democratic incumbent a week out from a Republican wave election.
Early signs point to Republicans picking up a new Nevada congressional district which was D+4 in 2012.
Texans favor voter ID by a 3-1 margin.
Wendy Davis has just over a half-million funds on-hand for the last week of the campaign.
Texas State Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-im): Greg Abbott is a guy who “just rolls around.”
Texas Democrats thinking “this time will be different!” because of money spent targeting Hispanic voters are forgetting Tony Sanchez’s big bucks 2002 campaign. “Perhaps Texas Latinos just don’t like the shoddy liberal product that Texas Democrats keep trying to sell them.”
Why you should vote against exapanding Capitol Metro’s toy trains.
More on the same theme.
Holly Hansen’s Round Rock ISD endorsements.
Remember: When in doubt, it’s always safe to vote against the Austin Chronicle‘s endorsements.
Tags: 2014 Election, Colorado, Cory Gardner, Dawnna Dukes, Democrats, Elections, Greg Abbott, Kay Hagan, Mark Udall, Media Watch, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Thom Tillis, video, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas, video | No Comments »
October 27th, 2014
Since we’re in the home stretch, here’s a quick roundup of various election news:
A whole whopping 9% of Americans are “enthusiastic” about Obama. “Only about one out of 10 people who heads to the polls on Nov. 4 will go there being enthusiastic about the Obama presidency.”
Democratic pollster predicts disaster for Democrats, largely thanks to young voters abandoning their party in droves. “That’s the biggest concern right now for Democrats and progressives in particular, is that millennial voters look very, very discouraged. They don’t think that anyone has particularly spoken to them, anyone has been doing anything for them, it’s a bad economy, it’s expensive education, and all the kinds of concerns that millennials have.”
Nevada Democrats are just the latest Democrats that seem to be sitting the election out.
Even more evidence of Kay Hagan’s family benefiting from “green energy” stimulus pork. “A Carolina Journal examination of the JDC Manufacturing grant file at the N.C. Department of Natural Resources revealed that Tilden Hagan and William Stewart, Sen. Hagan’s son-in-law, had significant involvement in the project. Records from the stimulus file show direct payments to Tilden and Stewart of $12,785.”
“Immigration Activists” (i.e., supporters of illegal alien amnesty) are not happy at Hagan’s waffling and flipflopping either.
Boston Globe endorses Republican Charlie Baker for governor. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Tags: 2014 Election, amnesty, Border Controls, Democrats, Elections, fraud, Kay Hagan, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Stimulus
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
October 27th, 2014
So how the hell did this ever get past the editors at Salon?
As they rampage and behead their way through Syria and Iraq, ISIS fighters know they have the Koran on their side – a book they believe to be inerrant and immutable, the final Word of God, and not at all “malleable.” Their holy book backs up jihad, suicide attacks (“martyrdom”), beheadings, even taking captive women as sex slaves. This is not surprising; after all, the prophet Muhammad was a warrior who spread Islam by the sword in a dark, turbulent time in history. (Christianity’s propagation had, in contrast, much to do with the Roman emperor Constantine’s fourth-century conversion and subsequent decriminalization of the faith.)
Moreover, the razor-happy butchers of little girls’ clitorises and labia majora, the righteous wife-beaters, the stoners of adulterers, the shariah clerics denying women’s petitions for divorce from abusive husbands and awarding sons twice the inheritance allowed for daughters, all act with sanction from Islamic holy writ. It matters not a whit to the bloodied and battered victims of such savagery which lines from the Hadith or what verses from the Koran ordain the violence and injustice perpetrated against them, but one thing they do know: texts and belief in them have real-life consequences. And we should never forget that ISIS henchmen and executioners explicitly cite their faith in Islam as their motive.
To be sure, writer Jeffrey Tayler couches his critique (which focuses on Islamist apologist Reza Aslan) in the usual “look at the violence in the Bible” rhetoric, and in a general defense of atheism. Still, it’s quite remarkable for Salon to be catching up with what conservatives have been saying for more than a decade.
Who are you and what have you done with the actual Salon staff?
(Hat tip: Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, who notes “Has Bill Maher made it safe for Leftists to admit that there is a problem with how jihadis and supremacists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and oppression?”)
Tags: Islam, Jeffrey Tayler, Jihad, Media Watch, Reza Aslan, Robert Spencer, Salon
Posted in Jihad, Media Watch | 1 Comment »
October 24th, 2014
It’s Friday and I’m feeling lazy, so enjoy the comedy of Bill Burr, who’s actually willing to make fun of women and feminists.
Enjoy it while you can. If the Social Justice Warriors win, merely listening to these routines will be categorized as a hate crime…
Tags: Bill Burr, feminism, video
Posted in video | No Comments »