One More Reason to Vote for Charles Schweitner Over Ben Bius

May 27th, 2012

I’ve already mentioned that, despite having voted for Ben Bius against Steve Ogden in 2010, I wasn’t inclined to vote for Bius over Charles Schwertner in the Senate District 5 race. However, even if I weren’t so inclined, the news that Schwertner supports Governor Perry’s Budget Compact, while Bius opposes it, would be enough for me to vote for Schwertner over Bius.

I don’t want to oversell the budget compact. Getting Republicans to agree to it is the first step of a long (and no doubt frequently painful) process to get it implemented, and I don’t imagine that it will be the absolute “game changer” some have made it out to. And even if passed, it could all be undone in a single legislative session (especially if Democrats ever get their act together in Texas). But if it doesn’t yet create the ratchets for long-term control of the state government’s size, budget, and growth rate, it at least lays the groundwork for those ratchets to be implemented.

For that reason, among many others, I will be voting for Charles Schwertner (who Perry has endorsed) over Ben Bius in the Senate District 5 race, and urge any readers in SD5 to do the same.

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »

LinkSwarm for May 27, 2012

May 27th, 2012

Woke up entirely too early this morning, so here’s a big old bag of randomness:

  • Wisconsin Democratic recall candidate Tom Barrett manicuplated crime figures as Mayor of Milwaukee. (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.) Shades of Tom Leppert. Or Tommy Carcetti.
  • I wonder if the “Choom Gang” VW Microbus our 44th President and his friends used to habitually smoke pot in also had tools and rakes and implements of destruction in it.
  • The UAW is broke.
  • America is defying the demographic doom befalling other nations.
  • “Non-Partisan” redistricting commissions aren’t.
  • Do liberals actually expect this patronizing, passive-aggressive condescension toward Judge Roberts to work? I’d like to believe that treating the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America as though he’s as easy to manipulate as an insecure teenage girl would be counterproductive if it weren’t so transparently laughable.
  • Huge land swindle/ponzi scam out near Manor. And where was the Statesman for this huge story in its own backyard? “No results found for “Natalia Wolf” site:statesman.com.”
  • Today’s amusing hashtag #MovieswithObama.
  • Remember when every car bomb in Lebanon was front page news? Now a bomb that kills 100 isn’t.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Obama Scandals, Uncategorized, unions | No Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Update for May 25, 2012

    May 25th, 2012

    Last day of early voting before a long weekend, and only four days till the primary, so here’s another batch of Texas Senate race news:

  • Good profile of Ted Cruz by Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News.
  • Garrett also interviews Rice professor Mark Jones about David Dewhurst’s amnesty slime of Cruz, who calls it “a desperation ploy.”
  • George P. Bush also slams the Dewhurst amnesty slime. Enough to bring Grandpa41 and Uncle43 into the Cruz camp? Probably not, but you never know.
  • Man, the Houston Chronicle editorial board must really hate David Dewhurst: he skipped their meeting, but they went ahead and endorsed him anyway. Ouch!
  • The left-leaning PPP poll has Dewhurst at 46% and Cruz at 29%. Don’t see any reason to trust this more than the UT/TT poll, though both show Dewhurst shy of 50%.
  • Charting the polls in the race. But wait, didn’t they lop three points off Cruz’s total compared to the most recent UT/TT poll? At least they left out those fake Dewhurst leaked polls…
  • Ross Ramsey looks at what happens if Dewhurst doesn’t win. Also, what’s the deal with liberals like Ramsey and Paul Burka prattling on about how Texas is some sort of uninhabited wasteland during the summers? Yeah, it’s hot. Those of us who were born here just deal with it. I believe we might even be able to make it to our local polling stations for a runoff without melting.
  • Rick Perry vs. The World is not impressed with Tom Leppert’s empty suits ad.
  • AP piece on the state of the race.
  • Democrat Sean Hubbard gets some love from the Houston Chronicle. But it’s ruthlessly realistic love: “Hubbard’s chance of taking the oath of office in Washington next January is even less likely than the Astros sweeping this fall’s World Series.”

    • Since it’s possible people who haven’t been following the race until now are tuning into this blog, you might want to take a look at:

  • My endorsement of Ted Cruz.
  • Previous senate race posts.
  • Websites of the 2012 Texas Senate Candidates, which is a pretty comprehensive list.

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    My Obligatory Blog Post About Convicted Felon Brett Kimberlin

    May 25th, 2012

    Just in case you hadn’t heard, today is Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day. Or should I say, “Blog about convicted felon, Speedway Bomber, and all-around psychopath Brett Kimberlin day.” Like Everyone Draw Mohammed Day, Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day is designed to stand up to illegal harassment and intimidation by giving the bad guys (Jihadests or convicted felon Brett Kimberlin) too many targets to attack. And like jihadests, convicted felon Brett Kimberlin has defenders (and funders) among the hard left.

    Also, I certainly don’t want to be left out of the Blog About Convicted Felon Brett Kimberlin day festivities if there are tasty death threats to be garnered!

    Here’s a short video:

    And here are several posts where you can read about what an unmitigated scumbag convicted felon Brett Kimberlin is:

  • A history of convicted felon Brett Kimberlin’s bombing spree in two parts.
  • Popehat offers a summary of convicted felon Brett Kimberlin’s misdeeds for those just getting up to speed.
  • The long, chilling take of how convicted felon Brett Kimberlin trying to frame Aaron Walker for a crime.
  • Patterico on how a fake 911 call in his name caused the SWAT team to show up at his house with guns drawn.
  • When I first read that Stacy McCain was relocating to an undisclosed location to to intimidation from convicted felon Brett Kimberlin, I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.

    • That should be enough to keep you going for a while, but if I have time, I may blog more about convicted felon Brett Kimberlin, if only to be the number one Google hit for the phrase “convicted felon Brett Kimberlin.”

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats | 7 Comments »

    Desperate Dewhurst Tries To Paint Ted Cruz As Supporter of Illegal Alien Amnesty

    May 24th, 2012

    David Dewhurst seems to be getting desperate, as he’s trying to paint Cruz as a supporter of amnesty for illegal aliens.

    It so happens that this is one of the subjects I covered in my interview with Ted Cruz last summer, so you can hear his answer for yourself:

    So, which part of “I’m categorically opposed to Amnesty” was unclear?

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    Posted in Border Control, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

    Something Tells Me Lloyd Doggett Survives This Time Around

    May 24th, 2012

    I always believe in telling the truth as I see it, no matter how uncomfortable. And my reading of the tea leaves (not the Tea Party leaves) is that, despite all the effort to redistrict him out of office, Lloyd Doggett will still be sworn in for another term on January 3, 2013.

    Why? One word: money. Doggett’s biggest Democratic rival for the 35th Congressional District, Sylvia Romo, has $20,000 on hand. Doggett has $2.9 million on hand. Money isn’t everything, but it’s a lot. Even an experienced, popular incumbent would be hard-pressed to overcome a greater than 100-to-1 fundraising disadvantage, and Romo is neither.

    For all the persistent talk of Hispanics being the future of the Texas Democratic Party, it’s still old white guys who seem to be getting the Democratic establishment juice…

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Ted Cruz Picks Up Rick Santorum’s Endorsement

    May 24th, 2012

    Rick Santorum just endorsed Ted Cruz on the Glenn Beck show:

    That’s got to sting for Craig James, who endorsed Santorum’s Presidential run.

    He’s already got Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Sean Hannity and Ron Paul, among many others. Who will be the next big name to endorse Ted Cruz? Phil Gramm? (Possible) Bush41 or Bush43? (Unlikely) Marco Rubio? (Probably would have happened by now.) Rush Limbaugh? (Nope. He avoids endorsements as a matter of policy.)

    You know who should endorse Ted Cruz? In all seriousness? Craig James. With polls showing him around 4% and his latest FEC report showing he had only $9,000 cash on hand, it should be obvious to everyone (James included) that he won’t be the next Senator from Texas.

    If James wants to run for office again (and I think he does), he should ask himself which looks better: 1.) Running a no-hope campaign to the bitter end and getting 4% of the vote, or 2.) Announcing Sunday night or Monday morning that he’s ending his campaign and endorsing Ted Cruz? In the later case, he’ll probably still pull 2-4% of the vote, and he can always point out the fact he ended his campaign early as the reason why. The Guy Who Dropped Out is a lot more viable than The Guy Who Got Slaughtered So Bad He Pulled Single Digits. Plus it wins him the gratitude of the conservative activists he’ll have to work with in the future, and maybe a nod for, say, a congressional race down the road. Not to mention depriving legions of disgruntled Texas Tech fans from their expected allotment of schadenfreude on election day…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, unions | No Comments »

    EuroDoom #Grexit Update: Greeks Already Printing Drachmas?

    May 24th, 2012

    Are the Greeks already printing Drachmas? So says a completely unverified tweet from a random Twitter user. Really, what better source could you possibly ask for?

    The Internet is alive with buzz on Greece exiting the Euro (see #grexit for a sip from the firehose). Sadly, there seems to be no buzz at all on reigning in the cradle-to-grave European welfare state that caused the crises in the first place.

    More Grext/European debt crises news:

  • The Fraud of Austerity.
  • The European debt crises as the world’s longest root canal with the world’s dullest dental drill.
  • How lovely: diseases unknown to Europe are making a comeback thanks to the Greek government’s colossal mismanagement.
  • Problem: Greece’s government will seize their citizens’ Euros to forcibly convert them into Drachmas. Solution: Withdraw your cash in Euros. Problem: Burgler’s have figured this out too.
  • Spain’s Prime Minster: Screw the long term Euro plans, I need the European Central Bank’s sweet low rates right now.
  • Maybe because his government just pumped €9 billion into failing banks.
  • Who’s most exposed to the grexit? Italian and Spanish insurers.
  • There’s no conflict between real austerity and pro-growth polices. Too bad no one in Europe is willing to try them.
  • Wait, The Guardian actually printed an editorial by John Bolton? (“And the moon became as blood…”) It’s a good one, too:

    “Growth” to social democrats means growth in government’s size and reach, not growth in the real economy. This approach directly contributed to our current predicament; and more of the same will only exacerbate it.

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

    Major Democratic Donor Larry Flynt Pornographies Conservative Commentator S. E. Cupp

    May 23rd, 2012

    I wonder if the founding fathers’ conception of the First Amendment right of free speech ever extended to faking pictures of a penis in a woman’s mouth. Which is what Obama supporter and Hustler publisher Larry Flynt just did to conservative commentator S. E. Cupp. I tend to doubt this thought crossed the mind of anyone attending the Constitutional Convention in 1787, not least because photography hadn’t been invented yet, and our founding fathers weren’t total pervs.

    Remember all those liberals crowing over the need for civility? Whatever happened to them?

    Expect some proforma sniffing from the left, to be followed by a quick flick into the memory hole, mainly because Flynt has been a serious contributor to Democrats and liberal causes over the years:

    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 HUSTLER MAGAZINE 8/19/96 $10,000 Clinton, Bill (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FMG INC 10/20/04 $2,500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 LFP – SELF-EMPLOYED/PUBLISHER/CHAIR 12/29/03 $2,000 Kucinich, Dennis J (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90210 L F P INC 8/30/93 $1,000 National Republican Senatorial Cmte
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FMG INC./PRESIDENT 7/22/06 $1,000 Studebaker, Stephanie (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY LOS ANGELES,CA 90069 PUBLISHER 7/7/04 $1,000 DNC Services Corp (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FMG INC 5/10/05 $500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY LOS ANGELES,CA 90069 HUSTLER 5/18/98 $500 California Voter Registration Project
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90210 L F P INC 8/30/93 $275 National Republican Senatorial Cmte
    FLYNT, LARRY LOS ANGELES,CA 90069 1/9/97 $-1,000 Clinton, Bill (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY LOS ANGELES,CA 90069 8/24/96 $-9,000 Clinton, Bill (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 LFP INC./CEO 9/28/06 $10,000 Democratic Party of Nevada (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 LARRY FLYNT PUBLICATIONS/EXECUTIVE 8/27/06 $10,000 Democratic Party of Washoe County (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FLYNT MANAGEMENT GROUP/PRESIDENT 12/30/05 $2,100 Carter, John William (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FLYNT MANAGEMENT GROUP/PRESIDENT 12/30/05 $2,100 Carter, John William (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FMG INC 7/19/05 $1,500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FMG INC 7/18/05 $1,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C LOS ANGELES,CA 90069 FMG, INC./PUBLISHER 8/25/05 $1,000 Clinton, Hillary (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 6/30/05 $-500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C LOS ANGELES,CA 90069 9/22/05 $-1,000 Clinton, Hillary (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 8/10/05 $-2,500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 10/21/04 $-2,500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 SELF/PUBLISHER 2/15/08 $2,300 Kucinich, Dennis J (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 SELF/PUBLISHER 8/4/08 $1,000 Kucinich, Dennis J (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FMG INC/PRESIDENT 5/10/07 $2,300 Kucinich, Dennis J (D)
    FLYNT, LARRY C BEVERLY HILLS,CA 90211 FLYNT PUBLICATIONS/CEO 9/26/11 $2,000 Hall, Isadore (D)

    Of course, the donations to Bill Clinton (a man after his own heart) should surprise no one. The big mystery is those two donations to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Maybe he did it just to see if they would notice.

    That’s an awful lot of money for Dennis Kucinich for a guy in California. I wonder what Flynt’s interest is….

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    Posted in Democrats, Media Watch | 1 Comment »

    Texas Senate Race Update for May 22, 2012

    May 22nd, 2012

    With just a week to go in probably the longest Senate race Texas has ever seen, expect a lot of election news between now and May 29:

  • Ted Cruz endorsed by Sean Hannity:

    I am given to understand that this Hannity fellow is kind of a big deal.

  • Here’s the automated call Sara Palin is doing for Cruz:

  • Cruz’s pre-primary FEC report. He actually raised more money from donors than Dewhurst did.
  • Here’s Dewhurst’s FEC report.
  • Ted Cruz appears on Coffee and Markets.
  • Club for Growth ads are hurting David Dewhurst. Here’s the ad:

  • Club for Growth has also put up another anti-Dewhurst site: http://daviddewhurttexas.com/. Catchy name, but not seeing anything new there.
  • National Review calls the latest Dewhurst attacks on Cruz “laughable.”
  • The Real Ted Cruz.
  • Blogger Whitney Neal on why she supports Cruz.
  • A more complete breakdown of that UT/Texas Tribune poll. Looks like the Democrats are headed to a Senate runoff as well.
  • Team Dewhurst puts up an endorsement by Rick Perry:

    It’s probably a more effective ad than all of Dewhurst’s previous ads put together.

  • KYFO put a poll up asking which Senate candidate people support.
  • Interesting breakdown of candidate spending per city.
  • The Statesman looks at Tom Leppert. Which is more than Texas voters have done.
  • Leppert also gets the nod from The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram editorial board.
  • Speaking of Leppert, a true story: At a party this past weekend, a friend (who is not the political junkie I am) asked “Who’s that creepy old guy with the suits?”
  • Craig James picks up two San Antonio endorsements. Just because I haven’t heard of these people doesn’t necessarily mean no one else has…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | No Comments »

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