February 21st, 2016
Some people learn quicker from experience than others. For example, a foolish child generally learns very quickly not to play with fire.
Then there’s the Texas Racing Commission, which would have disfiguring burns over three-quarters of its body before deciding Hey, maybe the bright red thing doesn’t want to be my friend!
But this week, commissioners finally seem to have gotten the message:
“The Texas Racing Commission voted Thursday to repeal its endorsement of historical racing terminals, the controversial machines that led to a fierce political fight with prominent state legislators. The 5-4 vote ends a more than year of fighting over who has the authority to authorize dog tracks to add new gaming machines.”
How eminently reasonable of the Commission to decide that, in fact, state law does indeed apply to them after all…
(Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings.)
Tags: gambling, Texas, Texas Racing Commission
Posted in Texas | No Comments »
February 20th, 2016
“Jeb Bush, who sought to join his father and brother in winning the White House, suspended his campaign for the presidency Saturday night after a long year-long slide in the polls and a disappointing showing in the South Carolina primary.”
Trump is winning handily, with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz fighting for second place.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Republicans, South Carolina, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 20th, 2016
As part of Twitter’s ongoing attempt to silence anti-social justice warrior thought, they have suspended the account of Robert Stacy McCain.
For now you can follow his alt account @SexTroubleBook.
In the best Kafka-esque fashion, the Twitter SJW police have refused to tell McCain why his account is suspended, or which offending tweet did the deed:
Twitchy has more.
Edited to Add: Reason covers the story:
Remember a few days ago, when Twitter elevated anti-GamerGate leader Anita Sarkeesian to its “Trust and Safety Council,” an imperious-sounding committee with Robespierre-esque powers to police discussion on the social media platform? The goal, according to Twitter, was to make it easier for users to express themselves freely and safely.
One user who won’t be expressing himself at all is Robert Stacy McCain: a conservative journalist, blogger, self-described anti-feminist, and prominent GamerGate figure who was banned from Twitter on Friday night. Clicking on his page redirects to this “account suspended” message that encourages users to re-read Twitter’s policies on abusive behavior.
But as with other Twitter suspensions, it’s impossible to tell which specific policy McCain is accused of violating, or which of his tweets were flagged as abusive.
Hiring Anita Sarkeesian to define free speech is like hiring Ted Bundy to run a battered women’s shelter…
Tags: Anita Sarkeesian, Robert Stacy McCain, Social Justice Warriors, Twitter
Posted in Social Justice Warriors | 3 Comments »
February 20th, 2016
Turns out that Trump loves the ObamaCare mandate. Then he said Obama lied making all those promises about ObamaCare…right after making similar promises about his nebulous, pie-in-thes-sky “much better than ObamaCare, less expensive than Obamacare” health care plan that he fails to elucidate.
So he likes ObamaCare’s unrealistic promises, and the ObamaCare mandate, but hates the name “ObamaCare.”
Presumably TrumpCare is paid for by taxing unicorns.
And this is the same Trump that slammed Ted Cruz for supporting (before he became a Senator) John Roberts, who ruled the mandate, that Trump says he likes, as unconstitutional. It’s enough to make your head spin, if it weren’t already spinning from all of Trump’s previous spin.
“I’m angry, so I’m going to vote for a reality TV star with no core conservative principles who makes unrealistic promises!” seems a rather self-defeating strategy for Republican voters.
More on the subject.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, ObamaCare, Republicans
Posted in Elections, ObamaCare, Republicans | 1 Comment »
February 19th, 2016
Tomorrow (Saturday, February 20) is the South Carolina Republican primary. (Democrats don’t vote in South Carolina until next Saturday, February 27). Current polls have Ted Cruz gaining on Donald Trump. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
A small LinkSwarm going into the weekend:
Remember Hillary’s big lead in Nevada? As frequently happens to items owned by the elderly, she seems to have misplaced it.
Also, the AFL-CIO has decided not to open their bank vault of compulsory union dues to Hillary.
Ted Cruz’s already has a grassroots army on the ground in Texas.
Remembering Ted Cruz’s role in DC vs. Heller. (Bonus: Here’s the brief on Heller Cruz helped author.)
The most trusted states in the union have Republican governments, while the least trusted ones are run by Democrats. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Venezuela’s socialist government is so desperate they’re trying a few “too little too late” reforms, like “replacing a leftist sociologist who has denied existence of inflation” with a businessman and raising the price of subsidized gasoline. Problem is, since they’re socialists, gasoline is still heavily subsidized compared to market prices.
Charles Koch agrees with Bernie Sanders. Sort of…
China stops reporting cash outflows. Hmmm….
Rio de Janeiro to Olympic athletes: Suck it up and swim in the cesspool.
How to prep for a fire. And I’ve already downloaded one of those emergency radio apps for my iPhone.
Harper Lee, RIP.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders, Brazil, China, DC vs. Heller, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Hillary Clinton, LinkSwarm, Nevada, Olympics, Rio de Janeiro, South Carolina, Ted Cruz, Texas, unions
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections, Guns, Texas, unions | No Comments »
February 18th, 2016
Let’s talk about the Green vs. Green Texas Supreme Court race.
Supreme Court Place 5 incumbent Paul Green is being challenged by conservative activist Rick Green in the Republican primary. And a few notable figures (such as Chuck Norris) have endorsed Rick Green.
Usually when a Republican incumbent is being challenged by a conservative activist, I’m backing the insurgent. This is not one of those cases.
Here’s a National Review piece covering why Rick Green is unsuited for the Texas Supreme Court:
Rick Green, age 44, has a law degree but does not primarily practice law. He is a speaker (with David Barton’s WallBuilders), radio talk-show host, family-based reality TV performer (Red, White, Blue & Green – imagine Sarah Palin meets Duck Dynasty), former state legislator (he served two terms in the Texas House of Representatives, 1999–2003), and founder of the Patriot Academy, a religious-oriented youth organization. Rick Green’s website offers services ranging from constitution training (Constitution Alive!) to firearms instruction. However beloved Rick Green may be in the world of conservative political activists (akin to Alan Keyes, Chuck Norris, or Ted Nugent), and no matter how admirable his work, he is simply not qualified to serve on the Texas Supreme Court.
Rick Green has no prior judicial experience, and scant relevant legal experience. He styles himself a “constitutionalist,” but the bulk of the Texas Supreme Court’s docket concerns mundane — albeit important — matters of state law. His judicial temperament is questionable. According to press reports (e.g., here and here), his brief tenure in Texas’s part-time legislature (which meets for 140 days every other year) was marred by ethical controversies involving his promotion of the dietary supplements Metabolife and FocusFactor. After he left the legislature, he reportedly decked the opponent who defeated him, Patrick Rose. Rick Green ran for an open seat on the Texas Supreme Court in 2010 and narrowly lost to Debra Lehrmann in the Republican primary runoff. Afterwards, in Trump-like fashion, he sued his critics, including former Chief Justice Tom Phillips, contending that their campaign against him was libelous.
Call me a philistine, but I’m not wild about a Supreme Court justice punching out political opponents and filing libel lawsuits against critics. Doesn’t exactly befit the dignity of the office.
(For those interested in the libel case, this brief goes over Rick Green’s alleged shady behavior, and evidently Rick Green dropped his lawsuit after it was filed.)
The entirety of Rick Green’s attack on Paul Green seems to be the latter’s ruling in State vs Naylor: “The main issue in the race is the State vs Naylor case of two women who married in Massachusetts and decided to not be married in Texas. Eight of the nine justices participated with three dissents. Paul Green joined in the majority opinion. The majority opinion dismissing the lawsuit was based on lack of jurisdiction, a procedural matter, that had nothing to do with the central question of the constitutionally of the Texas Marriage Laws. The decision shows that the court exercised judicial restraint and did not engage in judicial activism.”
Here’s a comparison chart between the two Greens.
And just in case you’re worried that incumbent Paul Green is too moderate, the fact that he garnered endorsements from Texans for Lawsuit Reform should ease your concern. And former Governor Rick Perry endorsed Paul Green as well: “Paul Green is the type of constitutionalist that I want to see on our courts. Paul has the intellectual capability and the scholarly capability to serve the people of Texas.”
All of which should help convince you to support Paul Green over Rick Green. Sorry, Chuck Norris…
Tags: 2016 Election, Chuck Norris, Elections, Judicial Elections, Paul Green, Primary, Republicans, Rick Green, Rick Perry, Texas
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
February 17th, 2016
This is very interesting:
Ted Cruz has inched ahead of Donald Trump in a new national poll released Wednesday, the first national poll of the 2016 cycle that shows the Texas senator on top of the Republican field.
Cruz has the backing of 28% of Republican voters nationwide, unseating Trump, who won the support of 26% in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
But Cruz’s 2-point edge is within the poll’s margin of error, and it’s not clear if the survey captures real movement in the race or is simply an outlier.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio comes in third with 17% support, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 11%, Ben Carson at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in last place with 4%.
All polls should be taken with several grains of salt, as the only real poll that matters is the one at the ballot box. Still, this is notable as the first national poll where Ted Cruz has lead Donald Trump.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, polls, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
February 17th, 2016
Early voting started in Texas Monday, which means I’m way behind on covering state and local races. Oh well, maybe later this week…
Hillary Clinton didn’t do as badly as expected in New Hampshire. She did worse.
Sanders’s margin of victory — 60 percent to 39 percent — was the largest ever by a Democrat who wasn’t a sitting president. It was a come-from-behind win: Eight months ago, Sanders was at 9 percent and Clinton held a 46-point advantage. And Sanders overperformed the polls. Only 1 of the last 15 polls had him above 60 percent; the Real Clear Politics average in New Hampshire had him at 54.5 percent going into the vote.
Then there are the crosstabs. The exit polling for Clinton was brutal. Sanders won men by 35 points; he won women by 11. He won voters under the age of 30 by 67 points. People expect that of Sanders and his children’s crusade. Clinton took home senior citizens, 54 percent to 45 percent. People expect that of Clinton’s boomers. But in the big band of middle-aged Democrats, ages 45 to 64 (who made up 42 percent of the electorate), Sanders beat Clinton 54 percent to 45 percent. He beat her among Democrats with a high school diploma or less; he beat her among Democrats with postgraduate degrees. Among people who’d voted in a Democratic primary before, Sanders won by 16 points; among first-time voters, he won by 57. He won self-identified “moderate” voters by 20 points.
Clinton made gun control a substantial part of her pitch in New Hampshire. Sanders won voters who own guns by 40 points. But he won voters who don’t own guns by 14. He even won voters who said that terrorism was their number one concern.
The biggest problem for Clinton, however, came in the candidate-perception categories. The second-most important quality voters said they wanted in a candidate was someone who “cares.” Sanders won these voters by 65 points. The most important quality people said they wanted was “honesty.” Sanders took those people home 92 to 6. Look at that again. When asked “Is Clinton honest and trustworthy?” 53 percent of all voters — not just Sanders voters, but everyone casting a Democratic ballot — said “no.”
Bernie Sanders has more than ten times the number of staffers on the ground in South Carolina than Clinton does.
Lefty at The Nation: “Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.”
The topic is the Clintons, so it’s time for another glimpse of Good Maureen Dowd: “It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at Hillary as a candidate rather than as a historical imperative. And she’s coming up drastically short on trustworthiness.”
Ted Cruz is very electable. “Cruz is electable because he’s the real thing.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
People who were actually paying attention during the Gang of 8 fight scoff at Marco Rubio’s assertion Cruz favored amnesty. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
Only top Obama Administration officials with high security clearances knew about Hillary’s secret email server. And LinkedIn.
The NRA is saying gun-indifferent Sanders beat hoplophobe Hillary. Hmmm…
Remember how the Obama Administration swore up and down ObamaCare wouldn’t go to illegal aliens? Guess what?
I think this is quite an effective Donald Trump ad, targeting how black Americans have been hurt by illegal alien crime. Rick Perry did quite well with an ad highlighting an illegal alien who murdered a Houston police officer in his race against Bill White in 2010. Too bad too many gutless Republicans have been hesitant about running such ads for fear of being branded racists, xenophobes, etc. by the media.
Muslim immigrants are killing Sweden.
Germany to take in a half million more Islamic “refugees” in 2016. It’s like Merkel wants to destroy her own party… (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Police in the UK arrest man for criticizing Syrian “refugees” in a Facebook post. (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Boom! Headshot! (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Current law prohibits transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S., and the military won’t do so until the law is changed, no matter what Obama may want.
“Scalia was not only finest writer ever to sit on the Court, he was one of the best rhetoricians in history.”
Dear naive young voters: socialism sucks in real life.
Behold the ideal government worker under socialism! Every bureaucrat his own Wally….
A look at China’s new stealth fighters.
China is also deploying missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea.
Huge explosion at a military barracks in Turkey. Just occurred before I posted this, so details are scant.
The ACLU continues its long retreat from defending free speech. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Talk like Reagan.
Venezuela’s socialist government appears to have authorized the military to form an oil company.
Notes on the collapse of a tech startup. More than a grain of truth here. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
The Coen Brothers aren’t fans of cramming diversity for the sake of diversity into individual movies. “Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”
Science fiction writer has book rejected by Harper Voyager because robot characters dared to voice non-PC thoughts.
Because driving I-35 just didn’t suck enough already, enjoy being attacked by thrown rocks.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, ACLU, Antonin Scalia, Austin, Bernie Sanders, black, Border Controls, China, Coen Brothers, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, Elections, Facebook, Guantanamo Bay, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, I-35, Jihad, Marco Rubio, Maureen Dowd, Military, NRA, ObamaCare, polls, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell, Venezuela
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
February 16th, 2016
Ted Cruz has picked up plenty of notable endorsements in his race for President, but today he picked up endorsements from two very notable men:
Towering free market economist and writer Thomas Sowell:
Senator Ted Cruz has been criticized in this column before, and will undoubtedly be criticized here again. But we can only make our choices among those actually available, and Senator Cruz is the one who comes to mind when depth and steadfastness come to mind.
As someone who once clerked for a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he will know how important choosing Justice Scalia’s replacement will be. And he has the intellect to understand much more.
Congressional Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Dakota Meyer:
“This election is a turning point for our country,” said Meyer. “In these dangerous times we need a strong, principled conservative in the White House. We need a Commander-in-Chief who works with our allies and makes it known that certain actions against the United States and its allies will not be tolerated. I am confident that Ted Cruz has the ability and resolve to be Commander-in-Chief. His record of standing up and fighting for what he believes in shows that he is not someone who buckles under pressure. Ted is ready to led this country – and I look forward to help uniting conservatives and veterans behind this campaign.”
I note in passing that Sowell is 85, and Meyer is 27…
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Congressional Medal of Honor, Dakota Meyer, Elections, Endorsements, Military, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell
Posted in Elections, Military, Republicans | No Comments »
February 16th, 2016
Git, if you are unfamiliar with it, is a software source control program, allowing you to check code (and other things; I’ve used it for documentation) in and out of a repository, which can be either local or remote.
GitHub is (for now) the most popular remote repository for Git. You can either put all your code in a public repository for free, or in a private repository for a modest per-user fee. GitHub makes its money off bells and whistles for private repositories.
Now comes word that GitHub’s “Social Impact Team” has decided “We don’t want any of those stinking white people here.” “It is very hard to even interview people who are ‘white’ which makes things challenging.”
Git and GitHub got to be where they are today because they’re both free-ish, but also because they’re deeply beloved of open source programmers not deterred by the steep learning curve of Git’s command-line-fu. But open source programmers, in addition to being distinctly pale of hue on average, tend to hate Social Justice Warrior types, if the comments on the SJW threads the “new” Slashdot keeps trying to cram down their reader’s throats on a regular basis is any indication.
Since Git (the program) isn’t limited to any particular repository, it’s fairly easy (remembering, always, that everything about Git falls into two general categories: trivial (because you’ve memorized and mastered the syntax) and impossible (because you haven’t)) to move your existing code to a new repository. And there are plenty of GitHub competitors, including a new one from Google.
No wonder GitHub is suffering an exodus of talent…
(Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Tags: Git, GitHub, Slashdot, Social Justice Warriors, technology
Posted in Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »