June 12th, 2016
Another “senseless” mass shooting that makes perfect sense to anyone who has been paying attention:
A gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 50 people and injuring dozens more in a rampage that turned into a deadly hostage situation.
Authorities in Orlando said that 50 people were killed in what authorities are calling an act of domestic terrorism, and many others were injured in the violence at Pulse, a popular gay bar and dance club. Police had initially thought about 20 people were killed in the attack, but authorities said later on Sunday morning that the toll was significantly higher.
The body count evidently includes the shooter.
The suspected gunman was identified by relatives and law enforcement officials as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old from Fort Pierce, Fla. One relative said that Mateen’s family was in shock after being told on Sunday morning about his involvement. This relative said Mateen’s family was very sorry about what had happened.
Police have not identified a possible motive, and details about Mateen’s background were scarce on Sunday morning. His family is from Afghanistan, while Mateen is believed to have been born in the United States.
So a man named Omar with roots in Afghanistan opens fire in a gay nightclub. What could his motivations possibly be? It’s an insoluble mystery!
Except, of course, for the Koranic verses that explicitly call for the deaths of those committing homosexual acts.
The CBS News article, in contrast to the Washington Post, is not nearly so reticent about the shooter’s motives:
A U.S. intelligence source told CBS news senior investigative producer Pat Milton that Islamic terrorism is being investigated as a possible motive in the shooting due to several indicators including the style of the attack, which had similarities to the attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March. The gunman put up a protracted gun battle with police and was heavily armed, the source said.
Also this: “FBI Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Ron Hopper said at a press conference that there are ‘some suggestions’ the gunman ‘may have leanings’ toward Jihadist ideology.”
And TMZ, who was evidently willing to spare a staff member from their dedicated Kardashian team, states bluntly “Omar Mateen Terrorist was 29-Year-Old Islamic Radical.”
Weasel Zippers is also reporting that Mateen is a registered Democrat.
Tags: Crime, Democrats, gay, Islam, Jihad, Media Watch, Omar Mateen, Washington Post
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »
June 10th, 2016
Couldn’t happen to a nicer company.
Or to quote Popehat: “When they came for Gawker, I didn’t speak out. Because fuck Gawker.”
Insert your own wrestling metaphor here.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 10th, 2016
Dwight offers an update to my update of his original update on Jana Duty.
Williamson County business leaders stood outside the county courthouse Wednesday morning to deliver an ultimatum to District Attorney Jana Duty: resign or be forced out.
“I, along with other community leaders, demand that Jana Duty step down and resign her position as district attorney of Williamson County by sunset this Friday,” said Jim Schwertner, owner of Schwertner Farms, a cattle trading enterprise.
“If she does not, we will petition the court to have her removed as district attorney of Williamson County,” he said.
If Schwertner’s name sounds familiar, it may be because he’s a distant cousin to state senator Dr. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown.
Another official who has called for her to resign is Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross. “We still have seven months to go and we need the judiciary to be operating at 100 percent capacity, and from what we understand that’s not the case these days.”
Duty is also accused of frequently failing to show up for work.
Another officer calling for Duty to resign: County Judge Dan Gattis.
Duty continues to insist she’ll serve out her term.
The mechanisms by which a county official (including a district attorney) may be removed from office are outlined here, which defines “official misconduct” as “intentional, unlawful behavior relating to official duties by an officer entrusted with the administration of justice or the execution of the law. The term includes an intentional or corrupt failure, refusal, or neglect of an officer to perform a duty imposed on the officer by law.”
Tags: Crime, Dale Ross, Dan Gattis, Jana Duty, Texas, Williamson County
Posted in Crime, Texas | No Comments »
June 9th, 2016
Dwight beat me to this story on Williamson County District Attorney Jana Duty being placed on probation for 18 months by the Texas bar, but I have a few additional bits of context for those coming in late on the Jana Duty Saga.
First, let’s remember how widely unpopular Duty was (and is) with fellow Williamson County Republicans. Holly Hansen had this to say back in 2011:
Republican Jana Duty was first elected to the office in 2004 and re-elected in 2008, but has developed increasingly antagonistic interactions with the County Judge, all four members of the Commissioners Court, all of the County Court at Law Judges, the Williamson County District Attorney, and pretty much any other judge handing an down unfavorable ruling.
Since then, if anything she’s managed to become even less popular.
Second, the fact that Duty was sanctioned for “withholding evidence in a murder case” provides a delicious bit of irony for those who have been following her career. For it was charges of “prosecutorial misconduct” in the Michael Morton case that allowed her to defeat incumbent John Bradley in the 2012 Republican primary, even though Bradley was only involved in Morton’s appeal process, not the original prosecution. The Morton case was a real miscarriage of justice, but Duty and several other dubiously-conservative challengers in 2012 seemed to view the case as a “get into office free” card.
Finally, one tiny tidbit missing from the Statesman article Dwight linked to: Shawn Dick beat Duty in this year’s Republican Primary, so that probation is going to extend through the end of her term as DA, and beyond…
Tags: 2012 Election, 2016 Election, Austin, Crime, Holly Hansen, Jana Duty, John Bradley, Michael Morton, Republicans, Shawn Dick, Texas, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Crime, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
June 8th, 2016
With a helpful nudge from her lackeys in the media, who declared her the Democratic candidate before she had enough elected delegates to clinch, Hillary Clinton actually did manage to clinch the Democratic nomination Tuesday, winning California, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico.
Has there ever been such a prohibitive favorite who still managed to win do it in a less-convincing fashion? Hillary 2016 combines the excitement of Mondale 1984 with the outsider enthusiasm of Humphrey 1968 and the sincerity of Edwards 2008.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is vowing to take the fight to the convention, though it’s hard to see how he wins the nomination at this point short of an FBI indictment or a incapacitating health event on the part of Clinton.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton
Posted in Democrats, Elections | 2 Comments »
June 8th, 2016
Conservative Republican candidate Warren Davidson won his special election to take over the Ohio congressional seat of former speaker John Boehner. Because it was a special election for the resigning Boehner, Davidson will take office as soon as he is sworn in.
Davidson, who was endorsed by groups like the Tea Party Express and the Senate Conservatives Fund, beat out 14 other Republican candidates in the March primary.
Tags: 2016 Election, Elections, John Boehner, Ohio, Republicans, Warren Davidson
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
June 7th, 2016
Here we are, the final day of the primary season, when Democrats in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota go to the polls to (theoretically) put Hillary Clinton over the top.
Will EmailGate finally do Hillary in?
Why did Hillary want to hide her communications from the public so badly? “The most frightening explanation is that she sold foreign policy favors to the highest bidders to the Clinton Foundation and/or her husband. Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, argues that we can’t understand the “server” story unless we look carefully at the Clinton Foundation. In his opinion, some of Hillary’s policy decisions were linked to contributions to the Clinton Foundation.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“The Tea Parties were not a white identity-politics movement. But liberal elites treated it as such and now we’ve got the beginnings of one.”
“Hillary Clinton has to go to jail.”
“Trump is taking for granted—because he is not blind—that ethnic Democratic judges will rule in the interests of their party and of their ethnic bloc. That’s what they’re supposed to do. The MSM and the overall narrative say this is just fine. It’s only bad when someone like Trump points it out in a negative way.”
Any Hillary Clinton appointments to the Supreme Court would be disasterous for the rule of law. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The Debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is on no off, no on, no off no…let me get back to you.
Inside David French’s non-run for President. Which is indeed off, if you hadn’t heard.
“Hillary Clinton wore $12,495 Armani jacket during speech on inequality.” Of course, the amazing thing about Hillary is her ability to pick a $12,495 Armani jacket that still makes her look like a frumpy restaurant cashier… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
AP says screw lowly voters, we’re declaring Hillary the Democratic nominee.
Big networks cancel exit polling for remaining primaries. Maybe they don’t want to know just how much voters hate Hillary…
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, California, David French, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Republicans, South Dakota, Supreme Court
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Supreme Court, Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 6th, 2016
Here’s an update on the University of Texas admissions scandal and their continuing attempt to stonewall regent Wallace Hall.
Regents Alex Cranberg and Brenda Pejovich and former chairmen Charles Miller and Gene Powell filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week backing Hall’s lawsuit against UT System Chancellor Bill McRaven. The chancellor contends that Hall is not entitled to see confidential student records of the investigation into favoritism in admissions at UT-Austin.
For those who haven’t been following the case, this Jon Cassidy piece from March lays out the issues.
Tags: Austin, Texas, University of Texas, Wallace Hall, William McRaven
Posted in Austin, Texas | No Comments »
June 4th, 2016
Well, isn’t this lovely?
Hillary Clinton posted and shared the names of concealed U.S. intelligence officials on her unprotected email system.
Federal records reveal that Clinton swapped these highly classified names on an email account that was vulnerable to attack and was breached repeatedly by Russia-linked hacker attempts. These new revelations — reminiscent of the Valerie Plame scandal during George W. Bush’s tenure — could give FBI investigators the evidence they need to make a case that Clinton violated the Espionage Act by mishandling national defense information through “gross negligence.”
Numerous names cited in Clinton’s emails have been redacted in State Department email releases with the classification code “B3 CIA PERS/ORG,” a highly specialized classification that means the information, if released, would violate the Central Intelligence Act of 1949.
Remember when “Plamegate” was the worst thing ever as far as liberals were concerned?
Hillary committed a Plamegate every day while Secretary of State, because it was more important for her to protect her crooked dealings from Freedom of Information Act requests than it was to protect the lives of actual intelligence agents out in foreign countries.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags: Democrats, EmailGate, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Valerie Plame
Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
June 3rd, 2016
Another week, another Texas flood. Try to stay dry and enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:
Paglia on Clinton: “If it were a Republican in the crosshairs, Hillary’s shocking refusal to meet with the Inspector General (who interviewed all four of the other living Secretaries of State of the past two decades) would have been the lead item flagged in screaming headlines from coast to coast. Let’s face it—the genuinely innocent do not do pretzel twists like this to cover their asses.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
New York Magazine massively re-edits article on why Hillary won’t debate because the original wasn’t fawning enough.
Eight reasons Hillary sucks. Including Obama: “she does not seem to want to run on Ben Rhodes’s foreign policy, Jonathan Gruber’s Obamacare, Lois Lerner’s IRS, Lisa Jackson’s EPA, Eric Holder’s Justice Department, or Barack Obama’s racial healing. And yet she needs Obama’s hard-left base. So far she has rejected her 2008 Annie Oakley, Reagan-Democrat schtick, gambling that her Black Lives (alone) Matter and transgenderism pandering can ensure that she will match Obama’s historic share of the minority vote. But so far it seems just as likely that she will lose more voters among the white working class than she can lease from Obama’s core.”
College students are allowed to ask Hillary Clinton original, spontaneous questions that just happen to be scripted by the Clinton campaign. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
At judge’s order, 20,000 documents related to Fast and Furious scandal released. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Trump is right: Some illegal aliens are being lavished with more benefits than our own veterans.
How a naval contractor named “Fat Leonard” infiltrated the Navy with bribes, prostitutes and lavish parties. “The Soviets couldn’t have penetrated us better than Leonard Francis.” Our country is in the best of hands. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Oberlin students are among the most precious of snowflakes.
More on the same theme. Alas, this morning I just don’t have time to explicate all the manifest idiocies on display by the Social Justice Warrior Campus Cadets…
Obama Administration bitch-slapped for attempting ex-post facto regulation. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Columbia was once a basket case and Venezuela a thriving nation on the rise. Thanks to The Magic Power of Socialism™, they’ve switched places.
“This bitch is so crazy I can’t even keep up with her crazy bitch shit.”
Enya: rich crazy cat lady.
Flooding-related blackout leads to Texas prison riots.
City Manager behind Dallas’ controversial city-owned hotel steps down.
If your political party openly calls for the complete destruction of the oil industry, maybe you shouldn’t have your national convention in Houston.
Science Fiction writer Gregory Benford on university host escort duties for G. Gordon Liddy, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, and a certain “Tom.”
Space City Comic Con turns into an actual con. As in the fraud kind…
Swiss open world’s longest tunnel with ceremony featuring marching uniform worker drones, a horned goat god, and a giant flying death baby.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Camille Paglia, Crime, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Enya, Fast and Furious, Foreign Policy, Gregory Benford, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Leonard Francis, Media Watch, Military, Navy, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, Rolling Stone, science fiction, Social Justice Warriors, Switzerland, Texas, Venezuela
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 3 Comments »