The Carpetbagger In TX-06

April 19th, 2021

On May 1st, voters in the Texas Sixth U.S. Congressional District, a suburban Metroplex district that runs from Arlington down to Corsicana, go to the polls to fill the seat vacated by late Republican Representative Ron Wright, who died February 7. It’s a Republican-leaning district that’s recently gotten more purple, and there are a bunch of candidates from both parties (plus a Libertarian and an Independent) running for the seat.

I haven’t paid close attention to the race, but one name has popped up a few times in my Twitter feed, that of Republican candidate “Big Dan” Rodimer, who’s running “More Texan Than Though” ad campaigns like this:

Wow, sure was impressive how that guy who’s face we never saw rode that bull! One tiny problem, though: Rodimer ran for a U.S. Congressional seat last year…in Nevada:

A Republican former professional wrestler is district-hopping in hopes of winning a U.S. House seat — and has apparently changed his personality as he tries to make those congressional dreams a reality.

Dan Rodimer won the GOP nomination in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District in November 2020. He went on to lose to Democratic Rep. Susie Lee by a 3-point margin in the suburban Las Vegas-based seat.

A little more than four months later, he’s back, this time running in a special election in a Dallas-based seat more than 1,200 miles away — and he’s almost unrecognizable from his previously failed bid.

In his Nevada race, Rodimer ran ads painting himself as a clean-cut family man, wearing a collared shirt and seated on a couch with his wife and five children.

In the ad, he was defending himself from reports that he had been accused of assault three times between 2010 and 2013. According to a report from the Associated Press in October 2019, Rodimer was accused of punching men “at or outside of nightclubs.”

Now, Rodimer is back and running in a special election in Texas’ 6th Congressional District — a Dallas-based House seat left vacant after Rep. Ron Wright died following a COVID-19 diagnosis.

And Rodimer looks like a totally different person, donning a cowboy hat and positioning himself as a rodeo bull rider with a Texas accent.

American Independent is a lefty source, which explains the bad writing, repetition (can you tell me whether the district is Dallas-based?) and sloppy errors (Rodimer won his Nevada primary June 9, not in November), but the basic outline of facts is correct. Rodimer himself even mentions his Nevada run in his bio. “Dan Rodimer lived in Houston, Texas and worked as a home builder. He owned a house in Galveston and has always thought of Texas as his true home.” So the question is: Was his Nevada bid a carpetbagger bid, or is his Texas bid one now?

I asked Rodimer exactly when he moved to Texas on both his campaign email address and his Twitter account, and have not received a reply.

Issue-wise, I have have no problems with Rodimer, but I do have issue with his carpetbagger bid and how thickly he spackles on his Texas persona.

There are ten other Republican candidates running in the TX-06 field. I suspect more than one of them are acceptable conservative Republican candidates.

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | 2 Comments »

Former Travis County Sheriff’s Deputy Murders Three, On The Lam

April 18th, 2021

Just imagine that there’s an “allegedly” in that headline, but that does appear to be the case:

Authorities have lifted the shelter in place order near the apartment complex where three people were shot and killed Sunday, but the suspect remains at large, Interim Austin Police Chief Joe Chacon said during a second update on the .

People who were sheltering inside their residences and businesses can now come out, and people who had been out of their homes will now be allowed to go back in, Chacon said.

Chacon also confirmed that the suspect, 41-year-old Stephen Nicholas Broderick, is a former deputy with the Travis County sheriff’s office.

Law enforcement units have begun to leave the Great Hills Trail area where the shooting happened as Chacon said the efforts to find Broderick now transition into a fugitive search.

However, Chacon urged the community to remain vigilant. He asked people who may have information about his whereabouts to avoid approaching him and call 911.

Back in June of 2020, Broderick was put on administrative leave after being charged with sexual assault of child.

He’s a black male “5 feet, 7 inches tall and was last seen wearing a gray hoodie, sunglasses and a baseball cap.” Also looks like he’s got a tattoo that says “Lord Have Mercy” on his chest at his neckline. If you see this guy, call 911:

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Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 2 Comments »

Extended Range Cannon Artillery: Going Boom 43 Miles Away

April 17th, 2021

Here’s some videos of BAE’s new M1299 self-propelled Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) firing Raytheon’s precision-guided M982 Excalibur artillery round. The round itself isn’t new, it’s been around for over a decade, but using the ERCA, they recently extended the effective range of the shell out to 43 miles:

“That blew up real good!”

Here’s a longer video that shows more detail, but also has one of those annoying computer voice-over tracks:

I suspect the ability to fire and scoot from such long ranges will be useful on future battlefields. They’re also working an integrating an autoloader into the ERCA.

Reach out and touch someone…

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Posted in Military, video | 1 Comment »

LinkSwarm for April 16, 2021

April 16th, 2021

Greetings! Welcome to an extra-late Friday LinkSwarm! I had a doctor’s appointment and have been running behind all day. This week: #BlackLivesMatter activists raking off that sweet, sweet graft, mainstream media keeps up its assault on independent thought, and a bunch of Texas news.

  • Hustling the rubes for #BlackLivesMatter Dane-geld must really pay well for “trained Marxist” Patrisse Khan-Cullors, because she just bought herself a $1.4 million home in an exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood where “the vast majority of residents are white.” Evidently disdaining “whiteness” is for .
  • But her buying spree didn’t end there! She bought a total of four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone.
  • Cullors isn’t the only BLM biggie buying houses on the grift. The FBI arrested Toledo, Ohio #BlackLivesMatter activist Sir Maejor Page for allegedly spending “over $200,000 on personal items generated from donations received through BLMGA Facebook page with no identifiable purchase or expenditure for social or racial justice” and is facing “federal wire fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly spending the money on tailored suits, a home in Ohio, and guns.”
  • Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants a global minimum corporate tax. Since other countries aren’t stupid, I doubt she’ll get it. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Teachers union power, not rate of COVID transmission, determines whether schools are open for instruction.”
  • After an embarrassing hidden camera footage of CNN personal admitting their liberal bias, Twitter permanently bans Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe.
  • Here’s what Twitter doesn’t want you to see:


    

  • And now O’Keefe is suing them for defamation.

    I am suing Twitter for defamation because they said I, James O’Keefe, ‘operated fake accounts.’” O’Keefe wrote in an emailed statement to The Federalist. “This is false, this is defamatory, and they will pay. Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday.”

    The discovery process for that is going to be lit…
    

  • Speaking of Twitter being petty, they will “not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump’s past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available on the social media platform.”
  • Also, they locked the account of black journalist Jason Whitlock for daring to criticize Cullors for her house-buying spree. Presumably there’s a secret Twitter algorithm setting for “Uppity.”
    

  • Speaking of censorship, the Epoch Times had to suspend printing of its Hong Kong edition after its presses were busted up. For the fourth time.
    

  • “NYT Journalist Erases ENTIRE Twitter After National Pulse Unearths Posts Admitting “Working For The Chinese Communist Party.” That would be one Jonah K. Kessel.
  • Why Iranians are furious at New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi.

  • How Biden’s “job plan” would hurt the American economy.
  • College threatens to fire professor unless he takes “mandatory diversity training.” Professor tells them to get stuffed. College blinks.
  • Truth:

  • “Black Lives Matter, So Refund the Police“:

    Public officials across the country are only now discovering the foreseeable consequences of these decisions. City legislatures are realizing that in their attempt to make life better for marginalized groups, they have only contributed to the disproportionate hardships they already face. As it becomes apparent that moves to defund the police have exacerbated criminality, some local authorities are reversing cuts to police budgets passed last year amid much radical breast-beating but without much thought for who would bear the likely consequences.

    Minneapolis is the epicentre of the defund movement—the city in which George Floyd died last May as he was being taken into police custody. In spite of a spike in crime there in 2020, including a 70 percent increase in homicides, the Minneapolis City Council decided in December to redistribute $8 million from the police budget to other violence prevention services. At the time, Mayor Jacob Frey said there were “good reasons to be optimistic about the future in Minneapolis.” The move to reallocate funds away from the police department was proclaimed a “Safety for All” plan by its supporters. Unfortunately, it has made the streets of Minneapolis considerably less safe. In the first three weeks of 2021, Minneapolis saw a 250 percent increase in gunshot wound victims from the same time last year.

  • Since defunding, murders are up 64% in Minneapolis.
  • “Texas Supreme Court Delivers Dallas Salon Owner Shelley Luther a Delayed Victory.” “The remaining five days in jail and $7,000 fine ordered by the district court is now off the table entirely.”
  • “Majority of Voters Say Preventing Fraud in Elections Is More Important Than Making Voting Easier.”
  • “China Fighter Jets Will Fly Over Taiwan to Declare Sovereignty.” What could possibly go wrong?
  • “Biden is making the Trump presidency seem like a golden age of unity.”

    Until Biden came along, every single covid-19 relief bill was approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses. Congress passed three covid relief packages in March 2020 with margins of 96-1, 90-8, and 96-0 in the Senate, and with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House. This was followed in April by the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which passed 388-5 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. Indeed, the votes were so bipartisan that Democrats blocked another covid relief package until after Election Day — because they did not want to let President Donald Trump claim credit for another bipartisan victory before voters went to the polls. But after he lost and they finally allowed another covid bill to come up for a vote in December, it passed both houses of Congress with similar margins.

    Yeah, but bipartisan doesn’t curry favor with the hard left who want massive graft payoffs and total control.

  • Speaking of graft: “Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Uses Call Options To Buy Microsoft Ahead Of Big Govt Contract.”
  • “Former House Speaker John Boehner Falsely Claims Ronald Reagan Was ‘Pro-Abortion.'” He was no Newt Gingrich…
  • The Russian bounty story was always a complete lie. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Texas Republican U.S. Representative Kevin Brady announces his retirement.
  • Former Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was arrested on Class A Misdemeanor Assault Family Violence charges in Dallas after a scuffle over a laptop. “Hotel management told police officers that the woman was assaulted by Dewhurst. Officers spoke with the woman who said that Dewhurst was boarding a bus when the woman remembered that she had his laptop. It was a shared laptop that they both had access to, the affidavit said.” I wonder if the woman is the same 40-year old “live-in girlfriend” Leslie Caron who allegedly broke two of his ribs last year. Also makes you wonder: 1. Just what was on that laptop, and 2. What Dewhurst, a man with a reported net worth of over $200 million, was doing riding a bus…
  • Yesterday was Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day.
  • Mike Rowe on why raising the minimum wage is a stupid idea:

    I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper. I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just pull the money out of midair you’re going to create other problems, like there is a ladder of success that people climb and some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers.

  • The problem with Austin this time of year is that the air is just filled with pollen:

  • Spotify keeps deleting Joe Rogan podcasts.
  • The line between reality and Titania McGrath grows ever thinner:

  • “$251 Billion State Budget Passes Texas Senate, Stays Below Target Spending Line.”
  • SB10, a taxpayer funded lobbying ban, also passed the Texas Senate.
  • “Texas House Approves Constitutional Carry, Bill to Be Sent to Senate.”
  • “Nigeria’s Muslim communications minister: “We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed.'”
  • The public doesn’t want to read books by corrupt scumbag crackhead adulterous whoremongers? Do tell… (Hat tip: Mollie Hemingway.)
  • Evidently the “new” case against Woody Allen is as shoddy as the old case:

    There is no doubt that part of the goal of Allen v. Farrow was to finish off both Allen’s career and his legacy by presenting a definitive guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. The filmmakers, aided by a mostly uncritical press, have undoubtedly won over a large segment of the public—those who come to this subject for the first time through their HBO subscriptions, or who aren’t inclined to question “survivors.” But for those of us who are familiar with the story, or who take the trouble to check it out, the effect is the opposite. If making the case against Allen requires his cultural prosecutors to weave this kind of intellectually dishonest, emotionally manipulative, selectively edited account of the underlying drama, then the case for acquittal becomes stronger, not weaker.

  • Florida Man floors it.
  • Murica table.
  • “Minneapolis Target Holds Semi-Annual ‘Everything Is Free‘ Sale.”
  • “In Fun, Innovative Science Project, Middle Schooler Makes A Battery Out Of Brian Stelter.
  • Smile:

For some reason, WordPress is now putting random gaps between bullet points in the LinkSwarm, so I’m having to tinker with the look and feel a bit. I may even have to update to a more current version…

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Posted in Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud | 2 Comments »

Democrats Full Speed Ahead On Court Packing?

April 15th, 2021

Democrats seem to be hellbent on dismantling the Republic entirely in their relentless quest for absolute power.

Congressional Democrats plan to unveil legislation expanding the size of the Supreme Court on Thursday, according to three congressional sources familiar with the closely held measure.

The bill would add four seats to the high court, bringing the total to 13 from the current nine. The bill is led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, Subcommittee chair Hank Johnson, and freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones. In the Senate, the bill is being championed by Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Never mind that “sainted” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposed court packing, or that Biden himself denounced the idea back in the Bush43 days:

The question is whether they’re seriously going to try to push this through, no matter how many seats it loses them in 2022, or if this is all a mime show to appease the activist base that demands seizing complete power by any means necessary.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has said that he’s still opposed to court packing, as has Arizona’s Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Then again, these days there are few things more ephemeral than a Democratic office-holder standing on principle against The Will Of The Party.

Just how delusional are Democrats? Certainly the leftwing media bubble lets them continuously get high on their own supply, and they’ve been emboldened since their corrupt push to enthrone Slow Joe over both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump was a success. (And speaking of Bernie, he was on record as opposing court packing as well.) But surely the more sober party strategists realize they actually lost House seats last year, and outright stole three senate seats between Georgia and Michigan. And all that only got them to 50/50 in the senate. Are they really willing to go all in on court packing when pushing through ObamaCare probably cost them a dozen statehouse chambers for generation?

A worst-case scenario for them would to go all-in on court packing, still come up short, and get slaughtered in 2022…

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Posted in Democrats, Supreme Court | 3 Comments »

If You Pay The Dane-Geld You Never Get Rid Of The Dane

April 14th, 2021

In the wake of last year’s #BlackLivesMatter/#Antifa riots, shoe retailer Foot Locker went full virtue signaling, pledging to commit $200 million over five years to the “black community.” Usually this amounts to payoffs to far left black activists, tossing some black suppliers a few more crumbs, and hoping no one audits your promises after five years.

So what did all that virtue signaling earn Foot Locker when rioting broke out in Minneapolis yet again? A big, steaming plate of bupkis:

Footlocker stores in Minnesota were looted and trashed once again despite the company having donated $200 million dollars to Black Lives Matter causes in the past year.

Minnesota has been hit with yet more violent unrest over the last two nights in response to the police killing of Daunte Wright, who was shot by a female officer who mistook a gun for a taser.

Footage from Sunday night showed looters breaking into a shoe store and stealing Nike trainers, because apparently justice for Daunte Wright looks an awful lot like getting your hands on a brand new pair of Air Max.

By the end of the night, around 20 Brooklyn Center businesses had been looted as well as sporadic looting in surrounding areas, and the chaos was repeated last night.

Apparently, the opportunistic thugs who looted both stores didn’t care too much for Nike and Footlocker’s commitment to helping Black Lives Matter causes.

Paying off radical Marxists spouting a totalitarian ideology is a poor business strategy. They can’t protect you from the mob and all your Dane-geld won’t prevent them from turning on you.

Once you have paid him Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane

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Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »

The Racism-Free Utopia Is Rural MAGA Land

April 13th, 2021

Funny how social justice warrior types always claim they’re fighting racism, but John Nolte says the most racism-free areas of America can be found in rural MAGA Land:

Life in Rural America (which is where Republican Trump voters live and govern), is clean, safe and racially tolerant. Most places in America where life is dirty, polluted, dangerous, violent, and plagued with racial hate and race riots, are cities that are almost exclusively populated by and governed by Democrats.

Outside of these Democrat-run cities, America is peaceful, safe, clean, and racially tolerant.

What’s more, if you remove these Democrat-run cities from our national statistics, you will find an America that is overwhelmingly peaceful, safe, clean, and racially tolerant.

Nevertheless, Democrats and their fake-media allies still blame Republicans for all of their problems.

According to them, it is Republicans who are responsible for racism, pollution, and gun violence — even though, out here where we all live, our air, water, and streets are safe and clean… We all own guns, but where we live there is no gun violence crisis… We are all supposed to be racists and responsible for all the hate crimes, but out here where we all live, there is no hate crime crisis.

Now, there will be exceptions, but those exceptions only serve to prove the rule.

Let me lay this out for you…

Leftists say they want to live in a Utopia free of gun violence, free of pollution, and free of racism…

Well, that place already exists.

It’s called Rural MAGA Land.

Out here in Rural America the environment is clean, no one worries about getting shot, and there are no racial tensions.

Let me start with a personal example…

For a total of 20 years now, I’ve lived in rural North Carolina. My wife is a Mexican immigrant. Our interracial marriage has never been a problem with anyone. My wife has never had a problem with anyone.

For six years, my next door neighbor was a mixed-race family. Black and white. They never had a problem.

On the other side of me is a couple with mixed-race grandkids. Black, white, and brown. They’ve never had a problem.

Riddle me this fake-media and Democrats: If Rural America is where all the racists are supposed to live, where’s all the racism in Rural America?

Everyone I know out here in Rural MAGA Land owns guns (plural), and yet I can’t remember the last time we had a shooting in my county, a county where shoplifting still makes the front page.

He also includes some eye-opening hate crime statistics:

According to the Department of Justice, out here where I live in rural North Carolina, throughout all of 2019, there were a total of only 20 hate crime allegations in our 13 rural counties where the population adds up to 668,000. That means that throughout 2019, there were only 2.9 hate crime allegations per 100,000 people.

Guess what the hate crime number is in some of the most progressive, left-wing cities in America? Well, you don’t have to guess, because I have those numbers for you….

  • Portland, OR = 5.75 reported hate crime incidents per 100,000
  • Boulder, CO = 7.9 incidents per 100,000
  • San Francisco, CA = 7.2 incidents per 100,000
  • Portland, OR = 5.2 incidents per 100,000
  • Alexandria, VA = 3.1 incidents per 100,000
  • Arlington, VA = 4.7 incidents per 100,000
  • Seattle, WA = 40 (not a typo) per 100,000
  • Washington DC = 29 (not a typo) incidents per 100,000 (this is where the elite media live LOL)

    • I think you are starting to get the point, but let’s close with my personal favorite…

  • Berkeley, CA = 6.5 per 100,000

    • Keep in mind that I think “hate crimes” are mostly bunk. But clearly, such crimes are far more prevalent in SJW hotbeds like Seattle and Portland than they are in rural America.

    Clearly social justice warriors make race relations worse.

    Plus some eye-opening statistics on crime:

    Except for Jacksonville and Indianapolis (which have had both Republican and Democrat rule in recent years), every one of America’s most murderous cities has been run exclusively by Democrats for decades, and not a single one of those cities — not one! — has been run exclusively by Republicans.

    Here’s a list of 2020’s top ten most dangerous cities per capita (violent crime incidents per 100,000 residents) and which party runs those cities… Spoiler alert: Democrats.

    1. Detroit – 1,965 per 100,000 – Democrats have run Detroit since 1962
    2. St. Louis – 1,927 per 100,000 – Democrats have run St. Louis since 1949
    3. Memphis – 1,901 per 100,000 – Democrats have run Memphis since 1992
    4. Baltimore – 1,859 per 100,000 – Democrats have run Baltimore since 1967
    5. Springfield (MO) – 1,519 per 100,000 – mayoral office is non-partisan, but the city is left-leaning
    6. Little Rock – 1,517 per 100,000 – ruled by Democrats for decades
    7. Cleveland – 1,517 per 100,000 – Ruled by Democrats since 1990
    8. Stockton – 1,397 per 100,000 – Alternates between GOP and Dem mayors.
    9. Albuquerque – 1,352 per 100,000 – One Republican since 1985
    10. Milwaukee – 1,332 per 100,000 – Only Socialist and Democrat mayors since 1906

    Read the whole thing.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Guns, Social Justice Warriors | 8 Comments »

    The Building Austin Policing Crisis

    April 12th, 2021

    Many of the cities that defunded police last year in a fit of social justice warrior-endorsed madness have reversed course once crime rates started spiraling. But Austin’s hard-left City Council seems stuck on stupid.

    After the Austin police budget cut on top of the repeal of the public camping ban, Austin crime and disorder has gotten measurably worse. Austin police are also leaving in droves:

    After the Austin city council voted unanimously to defund its police department by about one-third of its budget, in August 2020, many predicted that once the cuts kicked in a flood of officers would leave the force as soon as they could. The new district attorney’s policy of re-investigating police officers for closed cases is also expected to cause officers to resign or retire.

    The city council’s cuts officially kicked in and have been in place for a few months.

    PJ Media reports exclusively that APD is now suffering a huge surge of officer departures putting it on pace to shatter 2020’s record.

    In January 2021, sources tell PJ Media 20 officers retired from APD and eight resigned, for a total of 28 departures.

    In February 2021, five officers resigned and six retired, according to multiple sources, for a total of 11 departures.

    In March 2021, 24 more officers left APD, with 20 officers retiring. Additionally, three officers resigned and one was terminated.

    To put this into perspective, 2019 was the last non-pandemic year and the year before the city council cut APD’s budget. APD averages about 50 retirements or separations in a calendar year, and replaces them with cadets who have graduated from the police academy or officers who join APD from another force.

    APD saw 46 officers retire with another 22 resigning in 2019, according to local TV news station KVUE.

    2020’s numbers were exacerbated by the George Floyd riots; 78 officers departed or retired from APD from the beginning of those riots to the end of 2020, for a total of 89 separations, according to KVUE.

    Official 2021 numbers provided to PJ Media by the Austin Police Retirement System (APRS) break down as follows:

    • Prior to 2020, retirements averaged 50-52 per year over the last 5-6 years
    • Record number of retirements in FY 2020: 97
    • First-quarter 2021 retirements: 45

    Add to those 45 retirements the 18 resignations or terminations, for a total of 63 separations in just the first quarter of 2021. If the current pace continues, APD could lose approximately 252 officers — about five times the average number of separations for a year. This will impact public safety across the board, and according to the APRS, can impact retirees’ benefits as well. APRS raised the alarm about the impact the city council’s cuts could have in September of 2020.

    March 2021’s retirements hit all over the department, including tactical intelligence, gang crimes, narcotics enforcement, investigations, and the bomb squad, according to a full list provided to PJ Media. Traffic enforcement — both warnings and citations — has declined by more than 60% in the first two months of 2021, a source tells PJ Media.

    At the same time, the city council’s cuts have forced the cancellation of police cadet classes. The department is losing experienced officers in droves and is unable to replace them with new officers.

    Fewer officers means fewer officers to cover 911 calls, to the point that some 911 calls now result in “NUA”s: No Officer Available:

    The situation is made worse by the fact that hard-left Travis County DA Jose Garza has announced he’s not prosecuting drug crimes, but is keen on indicting Austin police officers on even minor infractions:

    Indicting police officers who have committed crimes is proper. Referring every allegation against a police officer to a grand jury—a promise Garza repeatedly made as a candidate–is not. It is not proper because it is not how allegations against all others are handled. Singling out persons based on their status is discriminatory and, ironically, itself an abuse of power. Such overt antagonism against law enforcement undoubtedly will erode cooperation between APD and the DA’s office and impact adversely criminal justice in Austin generally.

    Garza clearly wants to promote a perception that police misconduct will not be tolerated and successfully indicting APD officers might serve that purpose. Failure to prosecute after indictment, however, ultimately will undermine public trust and confidence in Garza and his office. Garza’s hostility toward police can also engender public animosity toward APD as an organization. Effective policing requires community support. To the extent Garza persists in attacking APD as racist and corrupt, social and racial divisions will worsen and impede cooperation.

    Snip.

    Garza’s anti-law enforcement campaign closely resembled those of other Soros-backed socialist candidates for district attorney around the country. He promised to abolish the requirement of bail, to ignore laws he does not like and violations of those laws. He promised immunity to persons for conduct he considered status crimes. He promised to discriminate against police and to treat immigrants more favorably than citizens. Based on the actual policies of those DA’s elected in other large cities, it was entirely predictable that Garza would follow suit. My campaign sought to warn voters of the threat to public safety and security as evidenced by deteriorating conditions in cities like San Francisco, Portland and Chicago. Because Garza is an ideologue, he will not be deterred by the harm his policies will surely cause our community. He is more committed to his ideology than the rule of law.

    Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Some. Face with rising murder rates, the Austin City Council finally relented and is allowing a new APD cadet class to be trained, though it looks like they’re going to try to cram “more community involvement” (a codeword for more far-left social justice warrior meddling) into the curriculum. And various bills are winding their way through the Texas legislature to address Austin’s idiocy.

    A huge improvement, of course, will happen if Proposition B passes on May 1st. But expect Austin policing to continue to get short shrift as long as Garza, Austin mayor Steve Adler and the current City Council remain in office.

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 3 Comments »

    .50 BMG SLAP, Raufoss Rounds vs. Body Armor

    April 11th, 2021

    In my continuing series of “Videos of .50 BMG Rounds Hitting Things Make Great Lazy Blog Fodder,” here’s Kentucky Ballistics testing SLAP, Raufoss, and other exotic .50 BMG rounds against body armor plates.

    Other entries in the series:

  • .50 BMG vs. Body Armor
  • .50 BMG vs. Heavy Metal
  • .50 BMG MK211 Raufoss Round vs.
  • .50 BMG vs. Lock
  • .50 BMG vs. Printer Paper Reams

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    Posted in Guns, video | No Comments »

    Dan Crenshaw Undergoes Eye Surgery

    April 10th, 2021

    Texas Republican U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw has undergone emergency surgery on his remaining good eye:

    Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) announced that he received emergency surgery on his left eye on Friday, which will leave the congressman “effectively blind” for the next month.

    Crenshaw said he noticed blurry spots in his vision over the past few days, and was informed by an ophthalmologist that his retina was detaching. The congressman’s right eye was destroyed in an IED explosion while on a 2012 deployment in Afghanistan, and his left eye also required surgery after being injured in the blast.

    The Friday surgery “went well, but I will be effectively blind for about a month,” Crenshaw said in a statement on Saturday morning in which he thanked the medical team who conducted the operation. “During the surgery they put a gas bubble in my eye, which acts as a bandage for my retina. This means I have to be face-down for the next week or so, unable to see anything.”

    Crenshaw added that his congressional offices in Washington, D.C., and Houston would continue to operate normally.

    Here’s Crenshaw’s tweet about the surgery:

    “This is a terrifying prognosis for someone with one eye, and the nature of the injuries that I sustained in Afghanistan. Anyone who knows the history of my injuries knows that I don’t have a ‘good eye,’ but half a good eye.”

    Best wishes to Rep. Crenshaw for a speedy recovery.

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    Posted in Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

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