Abbott: Two Special Sessions Coming

June 7th, 2021

Evidently the exploding clown show that was this year’s Texas regular legislative session, and the House’s failure to pass many conservative priorities (including election reform) has governor Greg Abbott planning on calling an extra special session this summer in addition to the redistricting session that will happen sometime this fall:

Thursday morning, while being interviewed on the radio by Chad Hasty, Gov. Greg Abbott all but confirmed there will be at least two special called legislative sessions.

While he stopped short of giving a specific time for the first special session, he indicated that it would address election integrity, bail reform, and potentially other issues. The other special called session, which will be held around September or October, will be specific to redistricting and the use of federal COVID-19 funding.

Abbott said, “I’m not going to engage in Monday morning quarterbacking, but I’ll treat this as halftime. We didn’t get this done in the first half, but we’ll get there in the second half.”

On May 30, a majority of Texas House Democrats walked out while they were considering the omnibus election integrity bill, or Senate Bill 7. This brought the total of legislators present under 100, therefore “busting quorum” and rendering the bill dead. It also meant that several other bills or conference committee reports that were waiting to be called up died as a result. One of those included the conference committee reports related to bail reform, like House Bill 20 or House Joint Resolution 4, which were also emergency legislative priorities of Abbott.

The following day, Abbott tweeted his intent to potentially defund the Legislature as a result.

Election integrity is a must, and I’d also like to the taxpayer-funded lobbying ban and banning gender modification of children. But we don’t know what topics Abbott will limit the special session to. There are ways for legislators to offer bills on other topics during a special session, but there are many ways for the Governor and chamber leadership to kill bills that are “outside the call.”

Republican Elected Mayor of McAllen

June 6th, 2021

McAllen, Texas in Hidalgo County is a border city smack in the middle of the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily Hispanic area that Democrats have dominated since time immemorial. Hidalgo went for Biden by 16% in 2020, and by 41% for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The just elected a republican mayor:

The city of McAllen has a new mayor.

Javier Villalobos defeated Veronica Whitacre in the June 5 runoff election to win the position as McAllen mayor.

Villalobos won the election with 4,744 votes to Whitacre’s 4,538 votes. Villalobos won with 51.11 percent of the election total.

The new mayor had served as commissioner of McAllen’s district one since 2018.

The two candidates garnered the most votes in the initial city election in May.

Villalobos’s term will last four years.

“But Lawrence,” you say, “there’s no mention that he’s a Republican in that piece, and the Mayor is a theoretically non-partisan race. How do you know Javier Villalobos is a Republican?”

Mainly because he’s the former chairman of the the Hidalgo County Republican Party.

There are a lot reasons the formerly deep-blue valley has turned distinctly purple: The deep unpopularity of hard-left social justice policies among culturally conservative Hispanics, the Biden Administration working overtime to undo all the work the Trump Administration did in securing the border, President Trump’s personal popularity with Hispanics, and the time and resources Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Republican Party have poured into the valley to make Republicans competitive there. If Democrats continue following their woke, soft-on-crime, open borders policies, expect Republicans to do even better along the border (and elsewhere) in 2022 than they did in 2020.

California Assault Weapons Ban Struck Down

June 5th, 2021

This is a welcome development:

A federal judge ruled Friday that California’s “assault weapons” ban is unconstitutional.

The court found the state’s ban on the sale of AR-15s and other popular rifles violated the Second Amendment. Judge Roger Benitez [of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California] ruled the guns targeted by California are in common use. He said the state ran afoul of the Constitution in restricting access to them.

“This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection,” Benitez wrote. “The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes. Instead, the firearms deemed ‘assault weapons’ are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles.

“This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes.”

California’s ban is one of the oldest and most aggressive in the country. It was instituted in 1989 but has been expanded multiple times in the decades since. The state added more guns and features to the ban. Eventually, it banned the possession of unregistered “assault weapons” before the latest iteration of the ban was challenged by gun-rights groups in federal court.

Benitez said the AR-15’s versatility made it widely popular in the United States, and that popularity is part of what gives it protection under the Second Amendment. He compared the modular firearm to a “Swiss Army Knife” and noted its use for home defense and civil defense.

“Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v. Miller,” he said. “Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle. Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional.”

1989 means the ban even predates the cosmetic Clinton-era “assault weapon” ban intended to ban ARs, AKs, and most modern sporting rifles. Indeed, the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 was the model the Clinton Administration used for their own ban, including the dreaded barrel shroud. Roberti-Roos is also the source of California’s infamous ban on detachable magazines and those holding more than 10 rounds.

For those that say the Republican Party has been completely useless at achieving conservative objectives, I would point to the appointment of strong Federalist Society and pro-Second Amendment judges as one of many counter examples. Without Reagan and Bush41, we don’t get Scalia and Thomas, and without them we don’t get Heller. Indeed, without originalist judges, the Second Amendment would probably have been legislated away entirely by now…

LinkSwarm for June 4, 2021

June 4th, 2021

The pandemic may almost be over, but Mao Tze Lung is still in the news!

  • Katherine Eban at Vanity Fair is shocked, shocked to discover that the Wuhan Coronavirus may have come from a lab!

    On February 19, 2020, The Lancet, among the most respected and influential medical journals in the world, published a statement that roundly rejected the lab-leak hypothesis, effectively casting it as a xenophobic cousin to climate change denialism and anti-vaxxism. Signed by 27 scientists, the statement expressed “solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China” and asserted: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

    The Lancet statement effectively ended the debate over COVID-19’s origins before it began. To Gilles Demaneuf [a data scientist with the Bank of New Zealand in Auckland], following along from the sidelines, it was as if it had been “nailed to the church doors,” establishing the natural origin theory as orthodoxy. “Everyone had to follow it. Everyone was intimidated. That set the tone.”

    The statement struck Demaneuf as “totally nonscientific.” To him, it seemed to contain no evidence or information. And so he decided to begin his own inquiry in a “proper” way, with no idea of what he would find.

    Demaneuf began searching for patterns in the available data, and it wasn’t long before he spotted one. China’s laboratories were said to be airtight, with safety practices equivalent to those in the U.S. and other developed countries. But Demaneuf soon discovered that there had been four incidents of SARS-related lab breaches since 2004, two occuring at a top laboratory in Beijing. Due to overcrowding there, a live SARS virus that had been improperly deactivated, had been moved to a refrigerator in a corridor. A graduate student then examined it in the electron microscope room and sparked an outbreak.

    Demaneuf published his findings in a Medium post, titled “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: a review of SARS Lab Escapes.” By then, he had begun working with another armchair investigator, Rodolphe de Maistre. A laboratory project director based in Paris who had previously studied and worked in China, de Maistre was busy debunking the notion that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a “laboratory” at all. In fact, the WIV housed numerous laboratories that worked on coronaviruses. Only one of them has the highest biosafety protocol: BSL-4, in which researchers must wear full-body pressurized suits with independent oxygen. Others are designated BSL-3 and even BSL-2, roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office.

    Read on to see mostly what those of you reading this blog knew last year, albeit with some new details. Such as…

  • It seems that even The State Department tried to block investigation of the lab leak hypothesis:

    A report in Vanity Fair details actions by some members of the U.S. State Department to block efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus because the inquiry could open “a can of worms.” An internal memo sent to department heads by Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, warned “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19.”

    The “can of worms” in question was the extensive funding by the U.S. government into the Wuhan Virology Lab’s “gain-of-function” virus research. It’s unclear whether DiNanno was concerned that an investigation would uncover evidence of a lab leak or the extent to which the U.S. was funding dangerous research.

    Indeed, there’s a lot more going on with this gain-of-function research than has ever been revealed. There appears to be a powerful lobby within the U.S. government that is heavily invested in the dangerous research and is serious about keeping it quiet. Former CDC chairman Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab.

    Just whose interests does the federal bureaucracy actually serve? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of which, Dr. Anthony Fauci emails obtained via FOIA show him flip-flopping on a number of topics, including whether Flu Manchu came from a Chinese lab or not.
  • Ron Paul: How Texas killed Flu Manchu:

    The pro-lockdown “experts” were shocked. If a state as big as Texas joined Florida and succeeded in thumbing its nose at “the science” – which told us that for the first time in history healthy people should be forced to stay in their houses and wear oxygen-restricting face masks – then the lockdown narrative would begin falling apart.

    President Biden famously attacked the decision as “Neanderthal thinking.” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa warned that, with this order, Abbott would “kill Texans.” Incoming CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tearfully told us about her feelings of “impending doom.”

    When the poster child for Covid lockdowns Dr. Fauci was asked several weeks later why cases and deaths continued to evaporate in Texas, he answered simply, “I’m not sure.” That moment may have been a look at the man behind the proverbial curtain, who projected his power so confidently until confronted with reality.

    Now a new study appearing as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, highlighted recently in Reason Magazine, has found “no evidence that the reopening affected the rate of new COVID-19 cases in the five-week period following the reopening. …State-level COVID-19 mortality rates were unaffected by the March 10 reopening.”

  • Hunter Biden said he couldn’t remember his baby mama. Turns out she worked for him. And he fired her.
  • Every time Hunter is in the news, the MSM asks Joe Biden about…ice cream. “The record is now rife with individuals associated with foreign governments and intelligence organizations giving millions to Hunter and his uncle as well as luxurious expenses and gifts.”
  • A meme for all seasons:

    

  • Rashard Turner, founder of St. Paul chapter of #BlackLivesMatter learns better:

    That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union. I was an insider in Black Lives Matter. And I learned the ugly truth. The moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for black children. I resigned from Black Lives Matter after a year and a half. But I didn’t quit working to improve black lives and access to a great education.

  • Congressional Democrats just hit a snag in trying to cram through lots of budget busting bills using reconciliation.

    While the Democrats have high, if not delusional hopes of fundamentally changing every aspect of American life, from federal voting dictates to essentially outlawing sub-contracting, the actual rules of the Senate have stood in their way. The filibuster, which Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (among others who are laying low) have pledged to not touch, means that Chuck Schumer and his merry band can’t force through things on a simple 50-50 vote.

    The Democrats were given a shot of life a few months ago, though, in the form of a parliamentarian ruling that Schumer claimed greenlit most of his agenda. I expressed skepticism at the time in an article discussing the infrastructure package.

    Chuck Schumer recently claimed the Senate parliamentarian gave him free rein, yet that decision has not been made public, and there’s probably a reason for that.

    Well, it appears my skepticism was warranted. In what is claimed as a “new ruling,” the parliamentarian effectively rips the heart out of the Democrat agenda.

    Reconciliation is a very narrow process, and the Byrd Rule requires that anything included in a reconciliation bill must deal with taxes and budgetary issues. You also have stipulations about deficit offsets that must be taken into account. You can not pass regularly legislative items under the guise of reconciliation.

    Given that, this ruling essentially defeats HR1, the ProAct, and much of what is included in the current “infrastructure” bill. Of course, none of those bills were likely getting support from Manchin anyway, but with reconciliation off the table to get this stuff passed, Schumer is now officially out of options.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Red states continue crushing blue states economically.
  • Inflation is back.

    Corn, soybeans, and wheat have been trading at multiyear highs, with corn having risen from around $3.80 per bushel in January 2020 to approximately $6.75 now. Chicken wings are at all-time record highs. It is getting more expensive to eat.

    Copper prices have risen to an all-time high. Steel, too, recently traded at prices 35 percent above the previous all-time high set in 2008. Perhaps most famously, the price of lumber has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of 2020 and has nearly doubled just since January.

    Naturally, with raw materials prices soaring, prices of manufactured goods are jumping, too. That is especially noticeable in the housing market, where the median price of existing homes rose to $329,100 in March—a whopping 17.2 percent increase from a year earlier.

    The cost of driving is soaring, too. According to J.D. Power, cited in the Wall Street Journal, the average used car price has risen 16.7 percent and new car prices have risen 9.6 percent since January.

  • What I Like About Being White“:

    My answer would’ve been blunt – What I like about being white is I’m free to think anything I like; believe anything politically and not be prejudged by liberals for it. I don’t have people assuming I vote a specific way, for a particular party, simply because of my skin color. That no matter what I believe, I won’t be called a traitor to my race, a sell-out, or some racial slur like “Uncle Tom,” or “Uncle Tim.”

    What I like about being white is I don’t have to suffer the bigotry of leftists demanding I conform to how they insist I must think.

    Hill and pretty much every left-wing pundit, TV personality, reporter, academic, actor, etc., do not extend that same courtesy to, say, any black conservative. Ever.

    In that answer, it would have exposed Hill for what he was trying to do to Rufo, and it shows what the left is now: you are your skin color. If you refuse to conform, if you won’t be what they demand you must be, you are their enemy.

  • Polls show that under Biden, Americans think America is weaker and race relations worse.
  • “BLM activist steps down from school board after allegations he molested up to 62 children.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis does what Texas couldn’t: sign into law a bill preventing men from competing in women’s sports.
  • Gun buybacks increase gun crimes. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • Iran’s largest warship mysteriously catches fire and sinks.

  • A new government in Israel?

    Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid announced that he is able to form a new government, in another step towards ousting longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Lapid’s coalition is made up of parties from the left and right wings of the political spectrum, many of whom would not normally sit together in the same government. For the first time in Israel’s history, an Arab political party—the Islamic conservative United Arab List—signed on as part of the prospective governing coalition.

    The new government must survive a vote of confidence in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, but the Knesset will not be in session for another twelve days. This means that members of Lapid’s coalition may defect in the meantime, potentially sending Israel to another round of elections.

    Before Democrats start celebrating the fall of their designated bogeyman, the man likely to replace Netanyahu in the new government is Naftali Bennett, who is even harder right than Bibi:

    Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett have reached an agreement to rotate the prime minister’s position between them as they race to meet a Wednesday midnight deadline to finalize a coalition government to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule.

    Under the agreement, Bennett will take the premiership first, but the two are still working on finalizing their ruling coalition, which would include parties from across the political spectrum. The Associated Press reported that as of 6 p.m. Wednesday in Israel, there was still no sign of progress.

  • “New York Times Publishes Photo of Girl Killed by Israelis Who Was Also Killed by Israelis in 2017.”
  • Hollywood types are pouring money into the New York City mayor’s race:

    A-listers including actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Steven Spielberg have raised the stakes with their backing of candidates. Spielberg and his wife have finally supported activist Maya Wiley, while Paltrow has supported Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, Bloomberg reports.

    The majority of those identified as actors or part of the entertainment industry have opted to join Paltrow in backing McGuire, who has vowed to boost film tax credits, Bloomberg reports. Figures who have donated to McGuire include “Despicable Me” producer Chris Meledandri, filmmaker Spike Lee and comedic actor Steve Martin. McGuire is also the only candidate not accepting public matching funds, Bloomberg notes.

    Other candidates getting attention from Tinseltown include Scott Stringer and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Actress Scarlett Johansson has donated to Stringer, while Yang has reportedly received financial backing from actor Michael Douglas.

    Also: “Recent polls, however, show Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in the lead.”

  • Two-time loser Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke may want to lose running for governor as well.
  • Nice profile of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The triumph of Thomas Sowell. Review of Jason L. Riley’s new book Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell.
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
  • Speaking of which: Houston homeowner kills would-be burglar. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • Florida woman previously rescued naked from a storm drain is rescued from another storm drain in Texas. It’s time to admit you have a D&D LARPing problem… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Allen West steps down as Texas Republican Party Chairman in July.
  • Amazon is trying to steal your bandwidth.
  • “Google’s Diversity Chief Removed for Decrying Jews’ ‘Insatiable Appetite for War and Killing.’ No doubt they’ve moved him to their Republican Deplatforming division…
  • Carbonated Jägermeister.
  • “CIA Replaces Waterboarding With 12-Hour Lectures On Intersectional Feminism.”
  • “Bars On Migrant Kids’ Cages To Be Painted Rainbow Colors For Pride Month.”
  • Bilingual:

  • George P. Bush Running Against Paxton For AG

    June 3rd, 2021

    Just like the old gypsy woman said:

    George P. Bush, the current land commissioner of Texas, officially announced at a campaign kick-off event on Wednesday night that he would be running to be the top attorney for the Lone Star State.

    “It’s time for a change,” said Bush at the event, held at a bar in Austin.

    The move sets up what is sure to be a heated Republican primary race between Bush and current Attorney General Ken Paxton.

    Bush, the grandson of former president George H. W. Bush and son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, was considering a potential run for the position last October after several of Paxton’s top aides raised allegations of abuse of office and bribery against their boss.

    “Enough is enough, Ken,” said Bush. “It’s time for you to go.”

    Perhaps the most influential endorsement in the race will be from former president Donald Trump.

    Last week, Bush tweeted, “Great to speak with President Trump to discuss the future of Texas and how we are keeping up the fight to put America first. I appreciate the words of encouragement and support. Big things coming soon!”

    I can’t imagine that there’s a lot of love lost between Trump and the Bush clan, but stranger things have happened.

    This decision is an indication that Bush has (probably correctly) identified Paxton as the weakest of the three top statewide office holders. Paxton’s low-grade scandals, clocking in at a mere 20 Milli-Hunters, are pretty weak as scandals go, but they have slightly tarnished what has generally been a very effective and conservative tenure as Attorney General.

    But so too has the long-running Alamo redesign controversy sapped George P. Bush’s popularity. In 2014 he ran slightly ahead of Governor Greg Abbott in total votes. In 2018, he ran a couple of points behind.

    Bush41 built a very effective fundraising machine, to the benefit of both 43 and George P. Bush, so I imagine Bush will be a moderate favorite in the race, but not a prohibitive one. Also expect Bush to get favorable media coverage right up until he clinches the nomination, at which point the MSM will turn on him in favor of whoever is the Democratic candidate. (Right now former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworksi is the only declared Democrat in the race.)

    It also indicates that Bush thinks both Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick are too strong to take on. In this I think he’s correct as well. Abbott has a huge warchest to fend off any challenge. Dan Patrick has about half that, and strong conservative credentials that make it difficult for Bush to unseat him in a Republican primary.

    They’re Not Going Back

    June 2nd, 2021

    There’s a very early Laurie Anderson song called “Walk The Dog” where she riffs on (among other things) a Dolly Parton song:

    “I just want to go back to my Tennessee mountain home now.”

    Well, you know she’s not gonna go back home.

    And I know she’s not gonna go back home.

    And she knows she’s never gonna go back there.

    And that’s a good summary of many former office workers post-coronavirus: They’re never going back.

    With the coronavirus pandemic receding for every vaccine that reaches an arm, the push by some employers to get people back into offices is clashing with workers who’ve embraced remote work as the new normal.

    While companies from Google to Ford Motor Co. and Citigroup Inc. have promised greater flexibility, many chief executives have publicly extolled the importance of being in offices. Some have lamented the perils of remote work, saying it diminishes collaboration and company culture. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon said at a recent conference that it doesn’t work “for those who want to hustle.”

    But legions of employees aren’t so sure. If anything, the past year has proved that lots of work can be done from anywhere, sans lengthy commutes on crowded trains or highways. Some people have moved. Others have lingering worries about the virus and vaccine-hesitant colleagues.

    And for [Portia] Twidt, there’s also the notion that some bosses, particularly those of a generation less familiar to remote work, are eager to regain tight control of their minions.

    “They feel like we’re not working if they can’t see us,” she said. “It’s a boomer power-play.”

    It’s still early to say how the post-pandemic work environment will look. Only about 28% of U.S. office workers are back at their buildings, according to an index of 10 metro areas compiled by security company Kastle Systems. Many employers are still being lenient with policies as the virus lingers, vaccinations continue to roll out and childcare situations remain erratic.

    But as office returns accelerate, some employees may want different options. A May survey of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39% would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about remote work. The generational difference is clear: Among millennials and Gen Z, that figure was 49%, according to the poll by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News.

    “High-five to them,” said Sara Sutton, the CEO of FlexJobs, a job-service platform focused on flexible employment. “Remote work and hybrid are here to stay.”

    The lack of commutes and cost savings are the top benefits of remote work, according to a FlexJobs survey of 2,100 people released in April. More than a third of the respondents said they save at least $5,000 per year by working remotely.

    This is especially true in high tech. If you have in-demand skills (full-stack developer, AI expertise, etc.), lots of companies are vying for you, and all of them have remote-work infrastructure already in place. Chances are good you login into a VPN in the morning, communicate via email and Slack, have your meetings on Zoom, code on your laptop, then check your work into a remote repository running a continuous integration/continuous deployment platform (GitHub, GitLab, etc.) that builds and tests your software. There’s zero reason for you to spend your time commuting to the office. And if your current employer won’t let you work from home, another will. And that other company can be located anywhere, and they can hire the best talent for their position no matter whether they have a local office.

    I, for one, save just shy of an hour a day working from home rather than braving Austin roads, and my dogs are much happier.

    How can you keep them in the big city once they’ve tasted life back on the farm?

    Assuming the farm has Internet…

    This Day All Bills Die

    June 1st, 2021

    If you’ve been following the Texas legislature for any appreciable length of time, then the close of the 87th Legislative Session must have felt eerily familiar to you: A whole bunch of conservative priority bills made it to the one yard line, only to be killed by various political maneuvers and the legislative schedule.

    Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan let Democrats kill the election integrity bill by walking out, thus preventing a quorum:

    On Sunday night, with just hours left for the Texas House to give its final approval to legislation, Democrats left the chamber and busted the quorum.

    By doing so, they were able to kill multiple bills in the process, including a high-profile omnibus election integrity bill and a bail reform bill.

    Both bills were deemed priorities of Gov. Greg Abbott in February.

    In order for the House to conduct business, a quorum of two-thirds of the chamber’s members (100 out of 150) are required to be present.

    Despite being an emergency priority item that lawmakers have been allowed to address since February 1, Senate Bill 7—election integrity legislation that has been the target of Democrats nationwide—was scheduled to finally be passed on Sunday afternoon, just hours away from the midnight deadline.

    As debate began, Democrat members started to leave the chamber, taking their voting keys with them.

    When a vote was taken on whether to excuse one of the members, the tally revealed that only 86 members were present in the chamber.

    The House then adjourned until 10 a.m. on Monday, without objection.

    Abbott quickly took to Twitter to say election integrity, as well as bail reform, would be among the items added to a special session call.

    A ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying also died, as did bills on banning men from women’s athletic competitions and banning child sex change operations. (In addition, the previously discussed Critical Race Theory bill passed with so many Democratic amendments that it may end up being worse than no bill at all.)

    These were just many of the conservative priority bills that died in the session. Michael Quinn Sullivan provided the following scorecard via email:

    Incompetence or sabotage? It seems like no matter who sits in the speaker’s chair, be it Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen or Joe Straus, conservative bills make it through the Senate only to die in the House at the last minute. It’s a pattern that repeats itself over and over again.

    I’m not enough of an insider to tell you exact culprits behind killing conservative legislative priorities (though Speaker Phelan obviously deserves a considerable share of blame, as does Republican state representative Jeff Leach, who’s delaying tactics over a point of order helped doomed many of the above bills).

    Governor Greg Abbott is threatening to veto legislative funding in retaliation for Democrats walking off the job, and threatening to hold a special session to get it done. I’m all in favor of calling a special session to pass those items, but it’s unclear whether it would be a special summer session or the already-planned redistricting session after census data is made available. It’s also unclear whether any legislator would be motivated by the threat of losing their $600 per month paycheck.

    In any case, what is clear is that conservatives need a new gameplan for the next special session. If you have any ideas on what that should be (or have good candidates (besides Democrats) for who is really the power behind killing conservative bills), feel free to share them in the comments below.

    Memorial Day: Remembering John Henry Pruitt

    May 31st, 2021

    This Memorial Day we honor Marine Corporal John Henry Pruitt, who not only won the Medal of Honor, he won two Medals of Honor (the Army and Navy versions) for the same action:

    For extraordinary gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 78th Company, 6th Regiment, 2d Division, in action with the enemy at Blanc Mont Ridge, France, 3 October 1918. Cpl. Pruitt, singlehandedly attacked two machine guns, capturing them and killing two of the enemy. He then captured 40 prisoners in a dugout nearby. This gallant soldier was killed soon afterward by shellfire while he was sniping at the enemy.

    Here’s a short video on Pruitt, primarily voiceover narration over stock footage, but it does give additional information:

    “He died from his wounds on October 4, 1918. It was his twenty second birthday.”

    Movie Review: The Bridge on the River Kwai

    May 30th, 2021

    The Bridge on the River Kwai
    Directed by: David Lean
    Written by: Pierre Boulle (novel), Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson (screenplay)
    Starring: Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald

    I usually save movie reviews for my other blog, but this fits in thematically with Memorial Day (and also with a cross blog debate on the best war movies), so here we go.

    Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Burma during World War II, it follows a battle of wills between Japanese camp commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), who must use prisoner labor to build the titular railway bridge, and newly arrived British Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), the stiff upper lip, by-the-book commander to end all stiff upper lip, by-the-book commanders. Saito needs his bridge built by mid-May or he’ll have to commit suicide. Nicholson insists that he will only cooperate if the entire operation is done by the book (with him commanding his troops and officers exempt from manual labor, as per the Geneva convention).

    The battle of wills between the two men makes up the core of the first half of the movie. Saito theoretically holds all the cards, but Nicholson will not give an inch. Saito threatens to machine gun the allied officers for disobeying, leaves them standing to fry in the sun all day, then confines them to a punishment hut and Nicholson to a hot box for days on end, all to no avail. Meanwhile, bridge construction falls further and further behind schedule.

    Saito eventually has Nicholson pulled from the hot box, barely able to walk, on the raw edge of consciousness, and plies him with food and scotch, only to have Nicholson refuse him yet again.

    In the end, both men get their demands, and all it costs them is everything. Saito gets a much better bridge built, but is absolutely emasculated in the process. There’s a dinner party where Nicholson tells Saito the Japanese have done everything wrong and the bridge must be rebuilt in a new location, in the process getting all his demands met and subtly demonstrating that he, not Saito, is the one calling the shots.

    There is a secondary plot that follows William Holden as American officer Shears, who manages to escape the camp, and then is recruited by British Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) to help a commando squad travel across the jungle to blow up the bridge. That part of the movie is solid as well, and is what drives the film’s climax.

    One surprise is just how funny The Bridge on the River Kwai is, in a very low-key, black comedy way. Saito’s blank-eyed helplessness in the face of his ongoing humiliation is a constant source of amusement, and many of the meetings between Nicholson and Saito are darkly hilarious. Supposedly Lean didn’t want Guinness’ portrayal to have that comic edge, but in many ways it really makes the movie.

    Guinness gives an Oscar-winning performance for the ages as Nicholson, a stubborn, decent, blinkered officer who does the wrong thing (aiding an enemy’s war effort) for all the right reasons. He’s a tragic figure who’s more right than wrong, successfully standing up for his men but trapped by his own adherence to regulation. Hayakawa isn’t nearly on that level (there were probably a dozen Japanese actors who could have turned in a more nuanced performance at the time), but he’s good enough. Holden and Hawkins turn in solid performances, and the rest of the cast is filled with great British character actors.

    It’s a war film with barely any combat, a two-and-a-half hour film that never seems to drag, and remains not only a great war film, but a great film period, winner of seven Oscars, including Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture, and currently sits at 167 on the IMDB Top 250 list.

    Back in the dim mists of time, I also read the Pierre Boulle novel the film was based on, and it’s worth reading on its own. One bit left out was that one of the commandos was a former bridge engineer who had redesigned a single truss over and over again until he had reduced the amount of steel used by half, which gave him ample motivation to want to blow up a bridge….

    Memorial Day: Remembering William James Bordelon

    May 29th, 2021

    This Memorial Day weekend we celebrate Medal of Honor winner, Texan, Marine Staff Sergeant and combat engineer William James Bordelon, who lost his life securing a beachhead during the invasion of Tarawa. His official citation reads:

    For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but four of the men in his tractor, SSgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put two pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machine-gun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall. Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and singlehandedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machine-gun position, but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. SSgt. Bordelon’s great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout three days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

    Tarawa was the first amphibious landing of the island hopping campaign where American troops met serious resistance at the beach, with Imperial Japanese troops fighting down to almost the last man, resulting in over 1,000 American dead and 2,000 wounded in 76 hours of combat.