Liveblogging Election Night 2014

November 4th, 2014

Davis is currently at 38.1%. Just for the record, I called Wendy Davis dropping below Tony Sanchez’s 39.96% back in September.

Back

In local election news, Williamson County Republicans Tony Dale and Larry Gonzalez both won decisively over their Dem challengers.

OK, I’m heading home. This isn’t a Republican landslide, it’s a Republican tidal wave. Enjoy it now. Tomorrow the hard work begins.

Congratulations to Greg Abbott on being elected governor of Texas!

News media now saying Ernst wins and Republicans take control of the senate.

Republican Joni Ernst takes lead in Iowa.

A very solid victory speech, with lots of family thanked.

Wendy Davis called Abbott to congratulate him.

Nope, family members first. Daughter Cecelia Audrey Abbott.

Lights went down and they’re about to introduce Abbott.

Fox just called Kansas Senate race for Republican Roberts.

Wendy Davis didn’t even win Texas women.

Right now Wendy Davis is running behind Tony Sanchez’s 39.97% in 2002. $38%.

Ran into Sen. John Cornyn on my way to the bathroom. Congratulated him. Now he’s being interviewed 3 feet away from me.

Wisconsin Governor’s race called for Republican Scott Walker.

Governor Perry speaking after a huge round of applause.

Whoa!

Not a shock, but someone calling it this early is.

Abbott spokesman saying they crushed Democrats AND BattleGround Texas. “Helping them waste their money, the way Democrats always do.”

Calling West Virginia Senate race for for Republican Capito. Not a surprise, but that’s a flip from D to R.

Republican Rounds projected to win SD Sen. No surprise.

Republican Ed Gillispie beating Warner in VA; not final, but if true that would indicate a truly epic Republican wave.

GOP Sen pickups: Cotton beats Pryor in Arkansas,

OK, now I’m in on Twitter, but on another browser…

Hi there! I’m blogging from the Greg Abbott Victory Party at the ACL theater. Can’t seem to get Twitter to take my password, so this may just be LiveBlog rather than LiveTweet.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Elections | No Comments »

Go Vote!

November 4th, 2014

Williamson County voting information.

Travis County polling locations.

I hope to live tweet/live blog election results tonight.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Austin, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

And Now News of Another ObamaCare-Related Rate Hike: My Own

November 3rd, 2014

I’ve been covering ObamaCare since before it was even passed. Along the way I’ve documented numerous ObamaCare-related insurance cancellations and rate hikes. But now I have a special insurance rate hike to report on: my own.

Humana Hike 2014

Yes, my monthly rate will be going up by $100, a hefty 27.33% hike.

Background: As a contractor, I currently pay for my own health insurance. I have a Humana HMO Platinum Plan for myself only, with a fairly low deductible and solid prescription drug coverage (I’m not on any truly budget-busting medication, but I am on one slightly pricey one that essentially makes the pricier plan more cost effective than the cheaper ones.) I bought my plan through the private insurance market and not the ObamaCare website. (And the children’s dental is on there only because it was a buck more and I didn’t want to go through the bother of the paperwork hoops necessary to get it taken off.)

It’s not that I’ve never seen an insurance hike before, but before ObamaCare I never experienced one so breathtaking. Judging from results, ObamaCare seems designed to fatten both the bottom lines of insurance companies and to force people on affordable plans that Democrats disapprove of onto Medicaid.

I think I may have gotten my hike notice early only because I’m on a private, non-employer plan. If you’re on an employer-covered plan, there’s a good chance your rate hikes will be coming down the pike after the election…

Tags:
Posted in ObamaCare, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Election News Roundup for November 3, 2014

November 3rd, 2014

Election day is tomorrow! Now would be a good time to locate your voter registration card…

  • Democrats come up with a brilliant new strategy to get their voters to the polls: threaten them. And yes, that letter did actually come from the New York Democratic Party. “Nice voter you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it…”
  • Wendy Davis’ campaign may doom Battleground Texas efforts by alienating Hispanics.
  • “On Tuesday, it is all but inevitable that Greg Abbott’s campaign and Texas voters are going to beat Wendy Davis like a circus monkey.” I think this line is deeply unfair to circuses who treat their monkeys humanely…
  • Yet another area the Wendy Davis campaign isn’t strong in: math. Namely, their bragging that Democratic early voting was up from 2010 was false: “Hours later, the organization had to remove that memo from its website, after it became clear that Battleground Texas was using inaccurately low tallies from 2010.”
  • “Joni Ernst has charged to achieve a 7-point lead over Democrat Bruce Braley in a new Iowa Poll, which buoys the GOP’s hope that an Iowa victory will be the tipping point to a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate.”
  • Speaking of Ernst, Tom Harkin has a unique pitch to vote against her: “Oh yeah, I’d totally bang that, but you shouldn’t vote for her because (R) and stuff.” Of course, I’m paraphrasing here…
  • Mary Landrieu says she’s unpopular because her Louisiana constituents are lousy, stinking sexist bigots. I’m sure they’ll enjoy hearing that…
  • The Charlotte Observer memory holes story on her family’s illegal graft. Reporting the news must rank considerably behind “Protecting Democrats” on The Charlotte Observer’s priority list…
  • Travis County GOP Guide to City Council candidates.
  • Travis County GOP on AISD, ACC, RRISD, etc. candidates.
  • More Travis County race information.
  • If you need additional reasons to vote against the latest rail boondoggle, here’s footage of the rally against it.
  • And here’s Holly Hansen’s rundown of RRISD races again.

    • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for October 31, 2014

    October 31st, 2014

    Happy Halloween!

  • This week’s example of Democratic elected official defrauding a non-profit comes to you from Philadelphia congressman Chaka Fattah.
  • Democratic Representative Alan Grayson, the 17th richest man in congress, has cut off funds to estranged wife, and now both she and her kids are on welfare.
  • Former Obama champion Tina Brown now says he makes women feel unsafe.
  • Secret Service investigator into prostitution scandal resigns after his own prostitution scandal.
  • Marine veteran father banned from school after objecting to his daughters history assignment to “list the benefits of Islam.”
  • The war in Ukraine has cemented Putin’s dictatorship in Russia.
  • On the other hand, the ruble is crashing, despite rate hikes.
  • How’s that Chicago model working out?

  • High and trying to grab a cop’s gun is no way to go through life, son. Which goes a long way toward explaining why Michael Brown no longer walks among the living…
  • Japan may have a low murder rate, but as the follow chart from this piece on “haunted” apartments shows, their suicide rate dwarfs our murder and suicide rate combined.

  • Texas Tech student admits to filing false sexual assault charges. Under California’s new kangaroo courts, the student falsely accused would have already been convicted and expelled by now. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Fund managers are the fish in the game. They can’t leave the table.
  • Interesting piece on GamerGate. “The feminism of male demonization and female victimhood has become an insidious force that, despite its faux-progressive trappings, stands in the way of genuine equality. Whatever its flaws, GamerGate is a politically diverse movement of cultural resistance to this brand of toxic feminism. For that, it deserves at least two cheers.”
  • Dear Ridley Scott: Moses did not wear scale armor.
  • Links to this and previous years’ Fark scary story thread.
  • Now that’s what I call shag carpeting.

    • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »

    Election Roundup for October 30, 2014

    October 30th, 2014

    Early voting ends tomorrow in Texas. Plan accordingly…

  • Turns out that Hispanics are just fine and dandy with a Republican-controlled senate. So how’s that “all gay marriage and abortion all the time” thing working out for you, Democrats?
  • CBS buries its own poll showing that Democrats are about to get slaughtered. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke was fired from her own family company because her “my way or the highway” management style alienated employees.
  • Ironically, Harry Reid protecting Democrats from tough votes may end up dooming them for tying them too closely to Obama.
  • Want to increase the number of black voters? Maybe it’s not such a swell idea to keep repeating that Obama is not on the ballot.
  • Democratic South Carolina gubernatorial candidate calls Republican Governor Nikki Haley a “whore.”
  • Dr. Milton Wolf endorses bitter rival Pat Roberts in Kansas senate race. Should help. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • What better way to convince Iowans that Bruce Braley isn’t an out-of-touch elitist who sneers at them than having Joe Biden do a fundraiser for him in New York City?
  • Illegal alien amnesty is so unpopular even Karl Rove’s PAC is running ads against it.
  • Democrats offer up cunning direct mail come-on: “Accept Defeat.”

    • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »

    Antonio Buehler Found Not Guilty

    October 30th, 2014

    From the Austin legal beat, Antonio Buehler was found not guilty of refusing to obey a police officer’s instructions while filming an arrest on January 1st, 2012.

    Chalk up another small but real win for the right to monitor government employees doing their work in public.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | No Comments »

    Houston Mayor Backs Down Over Sermon Subpoenas

    October 29th, 2014

    Better late than never, Houston Mayor Annise Parker comes to the belated understanding that she was getting her ass handed to her on a plate over her subpoenas of church sermons by enemies of her Transvestite Bathrooms Initiative, and has dropped the subpoenas entirely.

    However, the clue-by-four still doesn’t seem to have fully registered:

    The move is in the best interest of Houston, she said, and is not an admission that the requests were in any way illegal or intended to intrude on religious liberties.

    Snip.

    The plaintiffs’ attorney in the lawsuit, Andy Taylor, called Parker’s announcement a “head fake,” and challenged her not only to pull down the subpoenas but to drop the city’s defense of the lawsuit and put the ordinance to a vote. The city last summer ruled opponents’ petition to submit the equal rights ordinance to a repeal referendum fell short of the legal requirements spelled out in the city charter, prompting the lawsuit.

    “The truth is she’s using this litigation to try to squelch the voting rights of over a million well-intentioned voters here in the city of Houston,” Taylor said. “It’s very simple why we filed a lawsuit: Because they won’t do what the city constitutional charter requires them to do.”

    Ms. Parker is obviously what we call a “slow learner.”

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Texas | 1 Comment »

    The Wendy Davis Campaign Prebituaries Are Already Coming In

    October 29th, 2014

    Has there ever been a campaign with as much national hype behind it as Wendy Davis’ that ended up doing so poorly? Maybe Edmund Muskie’s Presidential race in 1972, Ed Koch’s Governor’s run in 1982, or Gary Hart’s abortive 1988 Presidential run. But all those were already major political players before running smack into Nemesis, and Muskie and Koch still had careers after their debacles.

    Perhaps McGovern’s 1972 general election campaign comes closest, with one disastrous decision following another and a healthy streak of bad luck to boot. (Which only compounds the idiocy of Nixon’s dirty tricks team monkeywrenching an election that was already in the bag.) But the McGovern 1972 team can rightfully claim to have displayed real tactical brilliance in winning the nomination in the first place. And McGovern was already a Senator.

    Davis doesn’t even have that going for her. This was her first (and undoubtedly her last) statewide race. After this horrendous showing, I’m not sure Democrats would even nominate her for the Railroad Commission.

    Various media outlets are already busy writing Davis’ political obituary:

  • “How Wendy Davis became the Todd Akin of the 2014 midterms.” (Ouch! That’s gonna leave a scar.) “It turns out that the electorate can be just as unfriendly to bumbling liberal candidates who are identified almost exclusively with social issues.”
  • Michelle Malkin in National Review: “Wendy Russell Davis is on fire. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I mean it in a five-alarm, set-her-own-skirt-aflame, billowing-human-torch kind of way. To say that Davis is smokin’ hot is not a compliment. It’s a campaign incineration status update.” More: “Militant gender-identity politics [can] only get you so far.”
  • The Houston Chronicle‘s Patrick Svitek: “If Democrat Wendy Davis loses the governor’s race next week, there’ll be no shortage of commentary on what may have led to her downfall — early stumbles in conveying her life story to voters, coming across as too poll-tested and stage-managed, going too negative too early on Republican Greg Abbott.” He also notes Davis’ singular failure to grapple with border-security issues. That’s understandable, since Democrats keep crowing that Hispanics are their ticket to regaining majority status, and are notably hostile to securing the border for fear it might keep out future Democratic voters via their desired illegal alien amnesty.

    • And to top it all off, no one is buying Davis’ book:

    Despite enormous levels of media buzz, Nielsen BookScan numbers provided to Slate by a publishing source show only 4,317 copies of the memoir, called Forgetting to Be Afraid, have been sold since its Sept. 9 publication.

    Nielsen BookScan doesn’t include all book sales, notably sales at many independent retailers, so the actual number of copies sold is probably higher, although still likely below 6,000. As a point of comparison, Elizabeth Warren’s memoir, A Fighting Chance, sold more than 70,000 copies in its first few months on shelves. And David Limbaugh’s book Jesus on Trial, which was published the day before Davis’, has sold about 65,000 copies, including 6,778 just last week, according to BookScan.

    In some cases, selling 6,000 hardback books would be a good number. For a first-time novelist, for instance, 6,000 hardbacks would be a pretty good number. (And it’s more than all but one of this year’s Booker Prize nominees sold in the UK.)

    But for a book with a $132,000 partial advance? Not so much…

    Tags: , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »

    “Conservative Action Fund” Is Another Dan Backer Scam PAC

    October 29th, 2014

    I just got a Breitbart direct email solicitation from a “Conservative Action Fund” talking about David Perdue’s race against Michelle Nunn in Georgia.

    Well, guess what? Conservative Action Fund is another Dan Backer scam PAC, just like Patriots for Economic Freedom.

    You know how much money they’ve contributed to conservative candidates in 2014? Zero.

    If you want to contribute money to David Perdue, do it directly.

    And Breitbart should kick “Conservative Action Fund” off their list of accepted advertisers.

    Tags: , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »