Dan Crenshaw on Face the Nation

November 20th, 2018

Texas Republican Congressman-elect Dan Crenshaw appeared on Face the Nation, and calmly, rationally made the case that the ideas that President Donald Trump is “attacking Democracy” and “attacking the press” is utter nonsense.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: Winning Friends and Influencing People

November 19th, 2018

So how is Social Justice Warrior Princess and congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio Cortez finding her reception in her new workplace?

One word: Frosty.

She’s very, very upset that other congressional Democrats are being mean to her. By 2025, nanotechnology experts expect to be able to molecularly assemble a violin tiny enough for this occasion. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

By why would they be mean to poor little her? Well, except for the tiny fact that she wants to primary fellow Democrat House incumbents who aren’t hard enough left for her:

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday threw her weight behind a new national campaign to mount primaries against incumbent Democrats deemed to be ideologically and demographically out of step with their districts.

The incoming star congresswoman from New York again put the Democratic establishment on notice that she and activist groups on the left aren’t content with a Democratic-controlled House: They are determined to move the party to the left.

“Long story short, I need you to run for office,” Ocasio-Cortez said Saturday on a video conference call hosted by Justice Democrats, as the group launched a campaign dubbed “#OurTime.” Justice Democrats supported Ocasio-Cortez’s primary campaign against powerful Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.).

“All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “That’s really what we need to do to save this country. That’s just what it is.”

The incoming congresswoman’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, a co-founder of Justice Democrats, was blunter.

“We need new leaders, period,” he said on the call. “We gotta primary folks.”

Gee, I can’t imagine why here fellow Democrats are not welcoming her with open arms!

The group said they want Democratic members of Congress to be representative of their diverse communities and support liberal policies like Medicare for all, abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, implementing a “Green New Deal,” and rejecting corporate PAC donations. On the campaign trail, Ocasio-Cortez talked about forming a “corporate-free caucus” as a means to push for reform. That type of group, if it forms, could turn out to be the left’s counterpart to the Freedom Caucus, which pushed Republican leadership to the right.

Tiny problem there: The Freedom Caucus didn’t make its name by primarying ideological opponents within the party. That sounds more like what the Senate Conservative Fund or various Tea Party groups did, with limited success.

It also ignores the fact that Democrats accomplished their 2006 takeover of the House by running conservatives and moderates in red states and swing districts. Thanks to the hard left turn under Obama, almost all those Democrats have been defeated in subsequent Republican wave elections.

Maybe Congressional Democrats, faced with the keenness of Social justice Warrior demands to gore their own oxen, might do something about the victimhood identity politics cancer that has metastasized across their party. Unfortunately, I suspect they simply lack the balls to openly defy Miss Flavor-of-the-Month…

Williamson Man Cleared of False Accusation

November 18th, 2018

Remember how Democrats were shouting “Believe all women!” during the Kavanaugh hearing? Turns out, not all women should be believed:

The morning of September 22, 2017, Cristopher Precopia went to work at a lumber yard in Georgetown.

By the end of the day, he was in jail facing 99 years in prison.

But he didn’t know why.

Why had police come to his work and arrested him? Why was he being accused of these horrible crimes? Who was accusing him?

She said he broke into her home in Temple.

She said he sliced an “X” into her chest with a box cutter.

She said it happened on Sept. 20, 2017 around 7:20 p.m.

She was his high school girlfriend. The two dated several years earlier, but he couldn’t remember the last time the two had contact.

Now Precopia was facing a felony charge: burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit other crimes.

“I had no idea why everything was happening, and I was lost,” he said.

Precopia was taken to the Williamson County Jail, where his parents posted a $150,000 bond. Then they began fighting to prove his innocence.

Precopia knew he didn’t do it. He knew he couldn’t have done it.

On the night of the alleged attack, he was with his mother, Erin, at a Northwest Austin hotel about 65 miles from the accuser’s home.

“I’m thinking, ‘this is awesome. By the grace of God, she said it happened on the day when I can say totally, 100 percent, where he was at,” Erin Precopia said.

There were sworn affidavits from several people who were with him that evening.

There were pictures to prove it, and they were posted on Facebook. Timestamped. Geo-located.

An alibi.

“Most of the time, we deal with gray matters,” attorney Rick Flores said. “It’s not normally black or white. But this is one of those cases where I could definitely prove he did not commit this offense.”

Snip.

“Nine months after Precopia’s arrest, Flores said he took the evidence of an alibi to Bell County prosecutors, who dropped the charge ‘in the interest of justice.'”

Yet, as far as I can tell, the woman who tried to destroy his life by falsely accusing him of rape, has not only not been charged, but newspapers refuse to print her name because “she hasn’t been charged with a crime.” The only reason her criminal scheme was thwarted was that hard evidence to the contrary was available, and we still have due process in America. If the feminist inspired kangaroo court “guilty until proven innocent” standard that prevails on too many college campuses had been used, Precopia would have already been convicted.

California Democrat: Nuke Those Damn Gun Owners

November 17th, 2018

No sooner do I downplay the idea of a second American Civil War in yesterday’s link than California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell promptly opens his mouth to insert his foor into it:

Yes, nothing says “reasonable” like suggesting that forced gun confiscations will totally work because the American government is willing to use nuclear weapons on American soil against the American people. Yes, that’s a totally ration argument and in no way buying a one-way ticket to Crazytown.

he later tried to pass it off as a joke, because there’s simply nothing as rib-tickling funny as suggesting incinerating your political opponents because they refuse to surrender constitutional rights and disarm at your command.

Now let’s hear from the Dead Kennedys.

Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron Bomb…

LinkSwarm for November 16, 2018

November 16th, 2018

Welcome to the Friday before Thanksgiving! I hope you have your family gathering, gluttony and/or shopping plans all laid out. I tend to avoid Black Friday sales unless I happen to be near a used bookstore. (And speaking of booksales, I’ll be putting out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog after Thanksgiving, so drop me a line if you’re interested.)

  • Florida: DeSantis wins, Scott leads Nelson in senate race, where it goes to a hand recount. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Meanwhile, both Broward and Palm Beach counties, where most of the Democrat shenanigans occurred, missed the machine recount deadlines, so the initial tallies stood.
  • In all the bad recount news, here’s one bit of good news: Utah incumbent Republican congresswoman Mia Love is now expected to win reelection after recounts. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • A bit more analysis of the midterms:

  • Democratic presidential preferences for 2020: 1. Joe Biden, 2. Bernie Sanders, 3. Beto O’Rourke, with senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker trailing.
  • Speaking of longshot Presidential contenders, Michael Avenatti Arrested for Alleged Domestic Violence. Remember: Believe all women, except when they accuse Democratic political operatives.
  • Heh: “Hillary Clinton Receives Large Cash Advance For ‘What Happened 2’ Ahead Of 2020 Presidential Run.”
  • Pentagon fails first audit, as expected. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Joy: “Beijing is sharply speeding up a large-scale buildup of military forces in preparation for a future conflict with the United States, according to the congressional commission report made public Wednesday.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Over 50 million Chinese apartments are empty. (Caveat: Some sort of malware on ZeroHedge is trying to do a drive-by DMS install on that page. They should look into that…)
  • Austin’s sick leave ordinance was just struck down by the 3rd Court of Appeals. “The requirement violates the Texas Constitution because it is pre-empted by the Texas Minimum Wage Act.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Another week, another fake college hate crime.
  • Any time Israel tries to defend itself: “Shame! Shame!” Any time Hamas fires missiles at Israeli civilians from Gaza: “Oh look! It’s my lunchbreak!”
  • The Ammo.com folks wrote in with this piece on an armed American populace and asymmetrical warfare, making some of the same points I’ve made before. But keep in mind that no one actually wants a second American Civil War save parts of the Twitter echo chamber and some of the more delusional Antifa types.
  • Who frontman Roger Daltry “detests Jeremy Corbyn (whom he, not without cause, calls a “communist”), supports Brexit, and says of the Labour party, ‘It pains me to say it, but in my life a Labour government comes in with incredible optimism and leaves the country in the sh*t.'”
  • Stan Lee, RIP.
  • Roy Clark, RIP. To TV viewers, he was that guy on Hee-Haw. To fellow guitarists he was a legend. Here’s a nice rendition of his signature piece:

  • William Goldman, RIP. The Princess Bride is a swell novel, and he penned more than his share of great Hollywood movies.
  • If you’re going illegally carry a concealed gun without a permit, maybe you shouldn’t make yourself look like The Joker. And yes, it’s exactly the state you think it is. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Nothing says “I hate Trump” quite like shouting “Heil Hitler!” at a performance of Fiddler on the Roof.
  • “It’s a nice day to…START AGAIN!”
  • Texas Election Results Analysis: The Warning Shot

    November 15th, 2018

    This is going to be a “glass half empty” kind of post, so let’s start out enumerating all the positives for Texas Republicans from the 2018 midterms:

  • Ted Cruz, arguably the face of conservatism in Texas, won his race despite a zillion fawning national profiles of an opponent that not only outspent him 2-1, but actually raised more money for a Senate race than any candidate in the history of the United States. All that, and Cruz still won.
  • Every statewide Republican, both executive and judicial, won their races.
  • Despite long being a target in a swing seat, Congressmen Will Hurd won reelection.
  • Republicans still hold majorities in the their U.S. congressional delegation, the Texas House and the Texas Senate.
  • By objective standards, this was a good election for Republicans. But by subjective standards, this was a serious warning shot across the bow of the party. After years of false starts and dead ends, Democrats finally succeeded in turning Texas slightly purple.

    Next let’s list the objectively bad news:

  • Ted Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke by less than three points, the worst showing of any topline Republican candidate since Republican Clayton Williams lost the Governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Ann Richards in 1990, and the worst senate result for a Texas Republican since Democratic incumbent Lloyd Bentsen beat Republican challenger Beau Boulter in 1988.
  • O’Rourke’s 4,024,777 votes was not only more than Hillary Clinton received in Texas in 2016, but was more than any Democrat has ever received in any statewide Texas race, ever. That’s also more than any Texas statewide candidate has received in a midterm election ever until this year. It’s also almost 2.5 times what 2014 Democratic senatorial candidate David Alameel picked up in 2014.
  • The O’Rourke campaign managed to crack long-held Republican strongholds in Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Williamson, and Hays counties, which had real down-ballot effects, and continue their recent success in Ft. Bend (Sugar Land) and Jefferson (Beaumont) counties.
  • Two Republican congressmen, Pete Sessions and John Culberson, lost to Democratic challengers. Part of that can be put down to sleepwalking incumbents toward the end of a redistricting cycle, but part is due to Betomania having raised the floor for Democrats across the state.
  • Two Republican incumbent state senators, Konni Burton of District 10 and Don Huffines of District 16, lost to Democratic challengers. Both were solid conservatives, and losing them is going to hurt.
  • Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas house, including two in Williamson County: John Bucy III beating Tony Dale (my representative) in a rematch of 2016’s race in House District 136, and James Talarico beating Cynthia Flores for Texas House District 52, the one being vacated by the retiring Larry Gonzalez.
  • Democratic State representative Ron Reynolds was reelected despite being in prison, because Republicans didn’t bother to run someone against him. This suggests the state Republican Party has really fallen down on the job when it comes to recruiting candidates.
  • In fact, by my count, that was 1 of 32 state house districts where Democrats faced no Republican challenger.
  • Down-ballot Republican judges were slaughtered in places like Harris and Dallas counties.
  • All of this happened with both the national and Texas economies humming along at the highest levels in recent memory.
  • There are multiple reasons for this, some that other commentators covered, and others they haven’t.

  • For years Republicans have feasted on the incompetence of the Texas Democratic Party and their failure to entice a topline candidate to enter any race since Bob Bullock retired. Instead they’ve run a long string of Victor Moraleses and Tony Sanchezes and seemed content to lose, shrug their shoulders and go “Oh well, it’s Texas!” Even candidates that should have been competative on paper, like Ron Kirk, weren’t. (And even those Democrats who haven’t forgotten about Bob Kreuger, who Ann Richards tapped to replace Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen when the latter resigned to become Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, getting creamed 2-1 by Kay Baily Hutchison in the 1993 special election, would sure like to.) Fortunately for Texas Republicans, none of the non-Beto names bandied about (like the Castro brother) seem capable of putting them over the top (but see the “celebrity” caveat below).
  • Likewise, Republicans have benefited greatly from a fundraising advantage that comes from their lock on incumbency. Democrats couldn’t raise money because they weren’t competitive, and weren’t competitive in part because they couldn’t raise money. All that money the likes of Battleground Texas threw in may finally be having an effect.
  • More on how Democrats have built out their organization:

    Under the hood, the damage was significant. There are no urban counties left in the state that support Republicans, thanks to O’Rourke winning there. The down-ballot situation in neighboring Dallas County was an electoral massacre, as was the situation in Harris County.

    “This election was clearly about work and not the wave,” [Democratic donor Amber] Mostyn said. “We have been doing intense work in Harris County for five cycles and you can see the results. Texas is headed in the right direction and Beto outperformed and proved that we are on the right trajectory to flip the state.”

  • “Last night we saw the culmination of several years of concentrated effort by the left — and the impact of over $100 million spent — in their dream to turn Texas blue again. Thankfully, they failed to win a single statewide elected office,” Texas Republican Party chair James Dickey said in a statement. “While we recognize our victories, we know we have much work to do — particularly in the urban and suburban areas of the state.”
  • The idea that Trump has weakened Republican support in the suburbs seems to have some currency, based on the Sessions and Culberson losses.
  • That effect is especially magnified in Williamson and Hayes counties, given that they host bedroom communities for the ever-more-liberal Austin.
  • Rick Perry vs. The World ended a year-long hibernation to pin the closeness of the race on Cruz’s presidential race. He overstates the case, but he has a point. Other observations:

    3. What if Beto had spent his money more wisely? All that money on yard signs and on poorly targeted online ads (Beto spent lots of money on impressions that I saw and it wasn’t all remnant ads) wasn’t cheap. If I recall correctly, Cruz actually spent more on TV in the final weeks, despite Beto raising multiples of Cruz’s money. Odd.

    4. Getting crazy amounts of money from people who dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be the hard part. Getting crazy good coverage from the media who all dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be hard part.

    Getting those things and then not believing your own hype…well if you are effing Beto O’Rourke, then that is the hard part.

    5. Beto is probably the reason that some Dems won their elections. But let’s not forget that this is late in the redistricting cycle where districts are not demographically what they were when they were drawn nearly a decade ago.

  • For all the fawning profiles of O’Rourke, he was nothing special. He was younger than average, theoretically handsomer than average (not a high bar in American politics), and willing to do the hard work of statewide campaigning. He was not a bonafide superstar, the sort of personality like Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Donald Trump that can come in from the outside and completely reorder the political system. If one of those ran as a Democrat statewide in Texas, with the backing and resources O’Rourke had, they probably win.
  • A lack of Green Party candidates, due to them failing to meet the 5% vote threshold in 2016, may have also had a small positive effect on Democrat vote totals in the .5% to 1% range.
  • None of the controversies surrounding three statewide Republican candidates (Ken Paxton’s lingering securities indictment, Sid Miller’s BBQ controversy, or George P. Bush’s Alamo controversy) seemed to hurt them much. Paxton’s may have weighed him down the most, since he only won by 3.6%, while George P. Bush won with the second highest margin of victory behind Abbott. Hopefully this doesn’t set up a nightmare O’Rourke vs. Bush Senate race in 2020.
  • Texas Republicans just went through a near-death experience, but managed to survive. Is this level of voting the new norm for Democrats, or an aberration born of Beto-mania? My guess is probably somewhere in-between. It remains to be seen how it all shakes out during the sound and fury of a Presidential year. And the biggest factor is out of the Texas Republican Party’s control: a cyclical recession is inevitable at some point, the only question is when and how deep.

    Houston Gets Earliest Ever Recorded Snow

    November 14th, 2018

    Global warming: Is there nothing it can’t do?

    In other news, yet another “most warming ever observed” study has significant errors:

    A major error in an alarming study published in Nature on October 31 suggesting that “ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates, with implications for policy-relevant measurements of the Earth response to climate change, such as climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and the thermal component of sea-level rise.” How much higher? Using a novel technique to measure the accumulation of heat in the oceans, Princeton geoscientist Laure Resplandy and her team calculated that the amount of heat being absorbed by the oceans is more than 60 percent higher per year than the estimates offered by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014.

    Dire headlines warning that catastrophic global warming was more likely than previously thought ensued.

    However, British climate researcher and statistician Nicholas Lewis re-crunched the numbers in the study and found that Resplandy and her team had made significant errors in their calculations.

    Remember: “The Science is settled” only when it backs the pro-warming cause…

    Dennis Bonnen Sews Up Texas House Speaker’s Race

    November 13th, 2018

    State Rep. Dennis Bonnen says that he has enough fellow Republican representatives pledged to him to became the next Speaker, replacing the retiring (and wildly reviled) Joe Straus.

    State Rep. Dennis Bonnen announced Monday that he has support from 109 members to become the next speaker of the Texas House. That number, if it holds, is more than enough votes for him to win the gavel.

    The Angleton Republican’s announcement comes after four other speaker candidates — Republicans Tan Parker, Four Price and Phil King, along with Democrat Eric Johnson — dropped out of the race in the last 48 hours. All four endorsed Bonnen upon removing their names from consideration. Bonnen said during a news conference at the Texas Capitol on Monday afternoon that his team plans to release the list of 109 members supporting his bid soon.

    “We are here to let you know the speaker’s race is over, and the Texas House is ready to go to work,” said Bonnen, who was flanked by at least two members of the hardline conservative Texas House Freedom Caucus — Jeff Leach of Plano and Mike Lang of Granbury — and state Rep. Tom Craddick, a Midland Republican and former speaker, among other Republican and Democrats. When asked by reporters what the House’s No. 1 priority would be during the 2019 legislative session, Bonnen suggested school finance would be at the top of members’ lists.

    According to this morning’s Empower Texas email, two Republicans that had been going the Straus “get elected via Democrat votes” route, Travis Clardy (R–Nacogdoches) and Drew Darby (R–San Angelo), both dropped out of the race as well.

    Though Bonnen had initially balked at signing a pledge to support the speaker picked by the Republican caucus, he did eventually sign the pledge.

    Bonnen showed up as the 23rd most fiscally responsible representative in the last legislative session; not outstanding, but far from horrible.

    Said a political insider following the race: “Better than Straus. Not owned by Gordon Johnson. He’s prone to wild fits, but they are his and not manufactured to appease the lobby.”

    Mood: Cautious optimism.

    Israel Kills Hamas Commander in Gaza

    November 12th, 2018

    Welcome back my friends to the war that never ends:

    Seven Palestinians, including a local militant commander, have been killed during a covert Israeli operation in Gaza, Palestinian officials say.

    An Israeli soldier was also killed and another wounded, the Israeli military said, after a firefight erupted.

    Palestinians said an Israeli unit travelling in a civilian vehicle had killed the Hamas commander.

    It was followed by rocket-fire into Israel, while on Monday a Palestinian mortar hit an Israeli bus.

    The bus in question:

    Initial reports say the vehicle was empty, although a 19-year-old was seriously hurt, Israel’s ambulance service said.

    According to Palestinian sources, the Israeli unit was about 3km (2 miles) inside the Gaza Strip, which borders Israel, when it fired at Nur Barakeh, a commander of the Izzedine al-Qassam brigades, Hamas’ military wing.

    The incident is reported to have happened east of Khan Younis, in the south of the territory.

    A gun battle erupted and Israeli tanks and aircraft opened fire in the area, witnesses said.

    Hamas did its usual “launching terrorist rockets at civilians” thing.

    So Hamas is attacking civilians, and Israel is hitting terrorist targets in response.

    You know what the situation would be like right now if President Donald Trump hadn’t moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem?

    Hamas would be attacking civilians, and Israel would be hitting terrorist targets in response.

    It can’t be said too often: The “Middle East Peace Process” is all process and no peace.

    Dan Crenshaw Slays On SNL

    November 11th, 2018

    Following Saturday Night Live player Pete Davidson foolishly goofing on the eye Navy SEAL Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw lost to an IED on his third deployment in Afghanistan, now Republican Congressman-elect Crenshaw came on SNL to get him back.

    A lot of pundits were predicting this year’s elections would make one Texas candidate a star, they just got who it was wrong. (Previous posts about Crenshaw can be found here.)

    And thanks to the universe for providing easy Veterans Day content for lazy bloggers…