“PPP’s first poll of the Texas Senate runoff finds Ted Cruz with a surprising 49-44 lead and a much more enthusiastic cadre of supporters than former front runner David Dewhurst.”
Surprising, that is, unless you’ve paid close attention to the race. The Cruz campaign is better organized, better focused, has a winning message, and hasn’t been caught lying the way the Dewhurst campaign has.
That’s the second poll today showing Cruz leading Dewhurst. I’m pretty sure they’re hitting the panic button over at Dewhurst headquarters.
This is the first real (not internal) poll released since the primary, and confirms that all the momentum on the race is on the Cruz side. The Cruz team seems to be working harder and generating more buzz than Dewhurst. I’ll let you know more when I have a chance to review the full poll numbers, methodology, etc.
Meanwhile, an internal Dewhurst poll shows Dewhurst at 50%. You know, the same poll that had Dewhurst winning outright and Leppert coming in second earlier in the race. If anything, the mere 50% makes me more inclined to believe Cruz has pulled ahead, as it makes me think they had to fiddle with screening criteria just to get a bare majority.
However, Dewhurst is still rich, and it’s still just under three weeks until the election. A lot can happen.
Texas has a market that works just fine for electricity when government lets it: “California pretended to have a deregulated electricity market, but it was really a poorly designed, government-controlled system that eventually collapsed under its own weight. Texas’ economy is outperforming the rest of the country because we put fewer burdens on markets. This is why Texas has the most competitive and successful electricity market in the United States, if not the world. If we let it work, the world-class Texas electricity market will power Texas’ future.”
You know, if I were looking to save money, eliminating the state’s open meeting law is about the last thing I would cut. California at every level government needs more transparency, not less. (That probably true for the other 56 49 states as well.)
Finally, I want to note that Dwight has created a tag to track all mentions of the No Longer Golden State on his blog, so you can read his roundups on police incompetence, municipal corruption, and bankrupt locales such as Vernon, Bell, San Bernardino, Cudahy, Maywood, and Zalgo.
It’s a real challenge to say which has the wackier theology (links in headers, which annoyingly still show up in black):
Scientology
75 million years ago, galactic Overlord Xenu sent hundred of billions of people to Earth in spaceships shaped like rocket-powered DC-8s where they were blown up in volcanoes with H-bombs.
Then Xenu hypnotized the souls (thetans) in soul cinemas brainwashing them with religious theology.
Now all the brainwashed soul-thetans are hanging around in clumps of thousands to real bodies.
If you pay Scientology lots of money, they can remove these thetans from your body using a galvanometer.
Oh, and they also keep people captives against their will as part of their “Sea Org,” and view anyone leaving Scientology as a traitor for whom it’s “fair game” to stalk and harass. And they sue people at the drop of a hat.
Elijah Muhammad didn’t die in 1975, but is alive on the spaceship now.
UFOs are smaller ships from the giant spaceship, and carry out God’s plans (and also carry bombs).
And that pretty much only scratches the surface of the crazy. I think I have to give the edge to Scientology for outright lunacy, but both are worthy contenders. And you can see the beginnings of compatibility from the space brothers angle. Not to mention the whole “both are completely bugfark insane” thing.
As for what the team-up may mean politically: Who knows? But you might want to have some popcorn ready…
Dwight has been all over the story of Amado “Mayo” Pardo, owner of South Austin Mexican restaurant Joviata’s, who just happens to be a two-time convicted murderer (a third murder charge was dropped as part of a plea bargain for the first) and the accused leader of a heroin-dealing ring.
He’s also a noted fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
I have not been able to find any direct political donations at the state or national level for Pardo (and the Travis County website doesn’t seem to have a way to search for individual donations, only rank upon rank of PDFs), but Jovita’s seems to have been the site for numerous liberal and Democratic fundraising events:
The Statesman article mentions fundraisers for Democratic State Representative candidate David Rodriguez.
There are more, but you get the idea. If these people were just renting Jovita’s as a venue, fine and dandy. But if they were specifically approaching Pardo to hold fundraisers for them, perhaps a bit more due diligence was in order on the part of the Austin Democratic establishment? The Austin Chronicle named him “Mayor of South Austin” in 2009. Here’s their profile of him, also from 2009, in which discusses his reading Marx and his love for Cesar Chavez, but omits his two murder convictions. How could he spend two decades hob-nobbing with Austin’s liberal community and no one bothered to find out that not only did he have two murder raps, but the FBI believes he had been dealing heroin for 25 years?
Of course, Pardo hasn’t been convicted. Instead of a heroin-dealing convicted murderer and liberal activist, he may only be a convicted murderer and liberal activist…
Accused Plano bomber Anson Chi was denied bail at a hearing at which he testified on his own behalf. I don’t see anyone placing any sort of credibility on his claims that some of his wounds were due to being tortured by police while in the hospital. Various testimony adds a lot more to the “walking time-bomb” file:
[FBI agent Brian] Carroll described Chi as “anti-government, anti-technology, anti-big business, pro-environmentalist (and) slightly anarchist.”
“He said he was tired of armchair activists and wanted to have this in the bank to prove he was a real activist,” Carroll said.
One wonder what sort of “activism” Chi thought he was displaying. Anti-gas-pipeline activism? I fail to see how blowing up a pipeline would fight the Federal Reserve, the IRS, or genetically modified food (all noted Chi concerns).
Testifying for the defense, Chi’s parents said they were OK with him living at home if the judge agreed to release him and would notify police immediately if he broke any rules.
But the testimony also seemed to backfire.
His father, Swia Chenn Chi, said he often fought with his son and was so afraid of him he once called the police.
“If we don’t agree, he usually goes wild,” the father testified. “I was so afraid he would take the gun and point it at me … I wished the police would (have taken) his gun away, but they never did.”
The FBI said agents recovered two pistols and three shotguns from the family’s Plano house, in addition to bomb-making chemicals and hardware in a search hours after the explosion.
Chi’s father said he was upset with his son because he hadn’t worked for several years.
“He’s such a grown-up man,” Swia Chenn Chi said of his 33-year-old son. “He’s not handicapped but he doesn’t work so he makes me disappointed.”
An adult refusing to look for a job fits the Occupy mold a lot more than your typical Ron Paul supporter. It also fits in with Chi’s posting the “Disappointed Asian Father” images on his Facebook page, like this one:
In addition to the bomb-making materials and instructions, agents found three shotguns and two 40-caliber semi-automatic handguns at the Chi home. They found books on domestic terrorism and technological slavery. They also found $2,000 hidden in a spray can with a false bottom, as well as euros and Asian currency.
Carroll detailed Chi’s extensive travel in recent years, including trips to Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Records show that Chi crossed into Mexico 20 times on foot and that he was denied entry into Canada last year, Carroll testified.
I’m not a big fan of the IRS, and as a fan of small government I have a bit of sympathy for tax protestors. But that sympathy is tempered by the fact that the theories by which they deduce the federal income tax is unconstitutional range from the almost certainly wrong to the completely ludicrous. And further evidence that they’re mistaken is the frequency with which they end up in prison.
Chi also posted a copy of this well-known video depicting soccer fans overwhelming police over their excessive use of violence. I’m all for exposing and punishing police brutality, but when Chi comments “Watch the police (pigs) get what they deserve—oink!” once again he gives that Occupy-tainted whiff of throwback 1960s radicalism. Not everyone who called police pigs in the 1960s built bombs, but virtually 100% of the 1960s bomb builders (The Weatherman Underground, etc.) would be found among their ranks.
He also links to a 9/11 Truther video, which does not speak well of his credulity.
More on the poll’s methodology. If memory serves, they never released any methodology on those Michael Baselice internal polls the Dewhurst team kept leaking to favored journalists…
“Most members of the urban workforce don’t actually have any plan if they came in contact with a mountain lion.”
You don’t say.
Actually, in Texas, a CHL holder would have one more action available: shoot it. Of course. this wouldn’t do you any good in California, or if you’re unfortunate enough to work in an office that has a “Gun Free Zone” policy, since there’s no chance the mountain lion will heed the “Mountain Lion Free Zone” policy…
From The Hill comes word that Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (28th District) will be joining many of his colleagues in skipping the Democratic National Convention in September. “As I get close to my election, I want to spend more time in my district and focus on my reelection. Right now, I have no plans to attend.”
The question is: Why? Most Democratic office-holders skipping the event are in competitive races and don’t want Obama’s unpopularity to rub off on them. Cueller is in a district that voted 56% for Obama in 2008. According to the most recent FEC reports, Cuellar has $600,000 in cash on-hand. His Republican opponent, William Hayward, hasn’t even filed an FEC report. Cueller survived with 56% of the vote in the Republican wave year of 2010, in a district that was a couple of points more Democratic leaning than it is now, despite having a perfect liberal record voting for all four of the big government expansion bills of recent years: TARP, cap-and-trade, the Porkulus, and ObamaCare.
Given all those advantages, why would Cueller feel a need to stay away from the DNC? A 56% Obama seat would usually be a few points outside what most analysts would consider a takeover target, and he’s a well-funded incumbent with an unknown, underfunded challenger. Has he seen some internal polls that give him reason to worry? Could voter ID have that big an effect on a border district (even assuming the Obama Administration doesn’t block it)?
Since July is July 4th, let’s celebrate the day with a glimpse at one of the most impressive weapons in the American arsenal of democracy: The M1A2 Abrams tank.
(Not my videos, and some have music and/or NSFW langauge.)
What it’s like inside loading the M1A2’s 120mm smoothbore main gun:
