Posts Tagged ‘debate’

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Quick Gabbard vs. Harris Debate Roundup

Thursday, August 1st, 2019

Eh, want to do a bit on the second Round Two debate?

Not really. Without Marianne Williamson it doesn’t have as big a hook, and I should probably save something for the Clown Car update. Surely there’s something more interesting to talk about.

(Checks news) Nope.

(Checks Twitter) Nope.

(Checks blogs) Hey, Instapundit has a lot of links…on the debates.

OK, debates win by default!

I’m not a Tulsi Gabbard fan, unlike some almost sane lefty types, but she seems to have made a big impression:

Especially her takedown of Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor:

How much of that is true? At least some of it seems to be.

One need not be soft on crime to be outraged by prosecutor abuse of American civil liberties.

More on the same theme:

On paper, Kamala Harris is a really strong contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination. But last night, on the debate stage in Detroit, she demonstrated that as good as she is when she’s on the attack, she looks brittle, flustered, and flailing when other candidates attack her.

Harris’s first move when attacked is to simply deny the accusation. Five times last night, Harris began a sentence with “the reality is. . . ,” and what follows from Harris rarely directly refutes the accusation; she usually emphasizes a slightly different point.

Dana Bash asked Harris about the Biden campaign’s claim that her health care plan was “a have-it-every-which-way approach.” Harris’s responded, “the reality is that I have been spending time in this campaign listening to American families, listening to experts, listening to health care providers.” Listening to lots of people is nice, but that doesn’t really address whether the plan is an attempt to have it every which way.

Biden then said that her plan would cost $3 trillion. She responded, “the reality is that our plan will bring health care to all Americans under a Medicare for All system.” That doesn’t address the cost issue. Biden went after her on the cost again, and Harris’s best defense was “the cost of doing nothing is far too expensive. Second, we are now paying $3 trillion a year for health care in America. Over the next 10 years, it’s probably going to be $6 trillion.” Harris was left arguing that we need to spend more in order to ensure that we don’t spend more.

I don’t know if marijuana prosecutions and death row evidentiary decisions will be enough to derail Harris’s presidential campaign. But I do know that these sorts of examples are real complications to the image Harris wants to project, which is that of tough prosecutor who’s on the side of the typical Democratic presidential primary voter.

Tulsi Gabbard — who seems to have a genuine animosity towards Harris — ate her Wheaties before this debate and just ripped Harris’s record as a prosecutor: “There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.” That generated applause from the crowd in the Fox Theater in Detroit.

Gabbard continued: “She blocked evidence — she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California. And she fought to keep a bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.”

The Harris response was to ignore all of the specific accusations: “I did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of a state of 40 million people, which became a national model for the work that needs to be done. And I am proud of that work. And I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor, but actually doing the work of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform.”

Except Gabbard wasn’t giving a “fancy speech,” she was making specific accusations, and Gabbard had the facts on her side: on the marijuana prosecutions, on the laughing, on the blocking of the evidence, on the prison labor, and on the bail system. Rather than defend any of the specific decisions, Harris preferred to simply assert she had reformed the criminal justice system. Maybe she had, but not on the policies Gabbard listed.

Gabbard smelled blood and repeated the accusation: “In the case of those who were on death row, innocent people, you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them until you were forced to do so. (APPLAUSE) There is no excuse for that and the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor owe — you owe them an apology.”

Harris responded, “My entire career I have been opposed — personally opposed to the death penalty and that has never changed.” Again, notice how Harris answers a question that wasn’t asked. Gabbard didn’t say she supported the death penalty, she said she blocked evidence that ultimately exonerated an innocent man.

But Harris then responded in the worst possible way: “I think you can judge people by when they are under fire and it’s not about some fancy opinion on a stage but when they’re in the position to actually make a decision, what do they do.”

Yes, Harris dismissed the only Iraq War veteran on the stage as not knowing what it’s like “under fire.”

Look, a lot of folks in the media world and high-level Democratic circles really like Kamala Harris. She presses a lot of their buttons: black, Indian, woman, daughter of immigrants, Howard University, powerful lawyer. She’s got the profile of the “good” politician that sinister powerful forces want to derail in an uncreative Hollywood thriller. And if Harris didn’t have a media protective bubble around her, she would be getting crucified for that you don’t know what it’s like under fire, you’re just making some fancy opinion on a stage counterattack.

Boosting Gabbard’s case is the ridiculous overreaction of Democratic Media Complex types in screaming “Russian bot!” at Gabbard and her fans.

I love the conspiracy theory that the Russian bots are so organized, effective and insidious that they have enough agents strewn in every state between Maine and California to effectively game Google’s IP-based stats system. “Boris, we must plant troll form in Boise to game Google Idaho stats! Get on it, comrade!”

Evidently the Magic Eight Ball at DNC headquarters has only two settings these days: RACIST and RUSSIAN BOT, and the Russian Collusion Fantasy is going to continue clouding their judgment right up to the 2020 election.

It’s creepy the way a set of Democratic Media Complex insiders seem outraged at any criticism of Harris. I used to worry about Harris being a strong candidate, and how ruthlessly social justice warrior types would scream “Racist!” at any criticism of her if she won the nomination, but the more I watch her, the more I think she’s a giant bowl of flavorless nothing.

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Marianne Williamson Dominates Second Debate

Wednesday, July 31st, 2019

That headline is not my contention (I didn’t watch the debate, for Reasons), but the consensus of people who did watch it. Jim Geraghty:

A lot of us are laughing about Marianne Williamson, but there’s some of that same dynamic that drove Trump to the nomination in 2016. She’s a figure who’s famous for being connected to the entertainment world, who isn’t interested in policy details, and who emotes in a way that generates raucous applause from the audience. She’s the political candidate for people who aren’t that into politics. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed mentioned that a Marianne Williamson staffer told him, “when she visits the networks, reporters and producers sneer at her, but the makeup artists always cry when they meet her.”

And her lack of interest in policy means she’s always talking about bigger, vaguer, more emotionally resonant themes in her own kooky way: “This is part of the dark underbelly of American society, the rainfall, the bigotry, and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.” A chunk of the American people is going to find talk about “dark psychic force” as crystal-waving nonsense. Another chunk of the American people is going to hear Williamson and respond, “finally, a candidate is addressing the real problem.”

John Podhoretz:

Well, Tuesday night in Detroit, the veteran New Age motivational speaker Marianne Williamson hit it out of the park and brought the Democratic Party into the Nutcase Era.

The key problem afflicting America, in Williamson’s view, is a “dark psychic force” that is weaving a racial divide. It is the cause of white nationalism. That racial divide is causing an “emotional imbalance” that is interfering with human thriving. And this betrays the purposes of the founding fathers, who brought America into being to allow us all to have “possibilities.”

To most of us elitists, this either sounds wacko on its own terms or is dismissible as a semi-pagan illiterate translation of classic Christian thinking about the devil’s role in ordinary life. But we dismiss the power of this approach at our peril. These are key themes not only through American history, but also ideas that have played a significant role in the Age of Oprah.

Williamson has been speaking in this way to gigantic audiences for close to 40 years, under the East Coast radar. And you know what? She’s really good at it. And she brought real feeling and passion to the most visceral issue for Democrats at the present moment. She essentially said that racism and white supremacy are nothing less than demonic and that saving America from their evil is a moral task.

She dominated post-debate search results:

She won a Drudge post-debate straw poll with 48%, though no idea of the methodology there.

This bit was evidently the most-applauded speech of the night:

That’s mostly the usual far-left Social Justice Warrior garbage the hard left pushes these days, but she says it better and with more conviction than all the other clowns.

Robert Stacy McCain (who, like me, was early on covering the Williamson campaign):

Here is the thing I keep reminding my conservative friends: You have to keep in mind that this is about Democratic primary voters, the kind of highly motivated hard-core leftists who will turn out on a snowy February night to participate in an Iowa precinct caucus. If you tell me that Marianne Williamson is “too crazy” to win, my answer is, “You’re telling me Elizabeth Warren is not crazy? Bernie Sanders is not crazy?”

If candidates like Warren and Sanders now define what is “mainstream” for Democrats, there is no feasible limit on what is “mainstream,” and the only reason Marianne Williamson is considered a long-shot candidate is because the extremist left-wing fringe has become overcrowded.

More tweets on Williamson:

And another debate is up tonight…

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The Twitter Primary: Post-Debates Update

Saturday, June 29th, 2019

With debate fields as large as the DNC hosted this week, it can be hard to get a read on who did best. Partisans and in-the-tank media figures boost their preferred candidates no matter what, so hard data is hard to come by.

But one metric we do have is Twitter followers, and since I just updated the Twitter Primary on Tuesday, we have a nice baseline for at least one semi-objective proxy for additional interest generated by the debate. So let’s see what the numbers tell us:

  1. Bernie Sanders: 9.35 million (up 20,000)
  2. Cory Booker: 4.28 million (up 20,000)
  3. Joe Biden: 3.61 million (up 10,000)
  4. Kamala Harris: 2.81 million (up 90,000)
  5. Elizabeth Warren: 2.73 million (up 70,000)
  6. Marianne Williamson: 2.67 million (up 50,000)
  7. Beto O’Rourke: 1.44 million (up 10,000)
  8. Kirsten Gillibrand: 1.43 million (unchanged)
  9. Pete Buttigieg: 1.21 million (up 60,000)
  10. Amy Klobuchar: 706,000 (up 10,000)
  11. Andrew Yang: 480,000 (up 143,000)
  12. Tulsi Gabbard: 381,000 (up 34,000)
  13. Julian Castro: 308,000 (up 87,000)
  14. Steve Bullock*: 175,000 (unchanged)
  15. Bill de Blasio: 162,000 (up 5,000)
  16. John Hickenlooper: 149,000 (up 3,000)
  17. Seth Moulton*: 143,000 (unchanged)
  18. Mike Gravel*: 111,000 (up 11,600)
  19. Eric Swalwell: 96,500 (up 3,200)
  20. Jay Inslee: 72,300 (up 6,100)
  21. John Delaney: 25,900 (up 3,500)
  22. Michael Bennet: 24,900 (up 1,700)
  23. Tim Ryan: 24,300 (up 2,000)
  24. Joe Sestak*: 10,900 (up 200)
  25. Wayne Messam*: 7,738 (up 209)

*Not in the debates

For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 61.5 million followers, up 200,000 since Tuesday. The official presidential @POTUS account has 26.1 million, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

A few notes:

  • Twitter does rounding, and counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them.
  • Common wisdom is that Harris and Warren did well in the debates, and the numbers seem to bear that out. But Andrew Yang, who far and away got to speak the least of any candidate, gained the most followers of any of the Democrats, with 143,000 since Tuesday, and passed Gabbard in total number of followers.
  • The second largest gainer was Harris at 90,000.
  • Castro also did very well, gaining 87,000 followers…but he’s still below The Andrew Yang Line.
  • Warren gained 70,000 followers
  • Buttigieg gained 60,000 followers.
  • Williamson also gained 50,000 followers. Some of those may be ironic followers for the far-out crystal space witch, but it’s a fairly big jump, especially given that before this debate her followers had barely budged at all since I started tracking follower counts back in March.
  • Less than 150,000 followers separate Harris, Warren and Williamson.
  • Many commentators thought that Booker did well, but a 20,000 follower increase doesn’t suggest significant momentum.
  • O’Rourke was said to have a disasterous debate, and gaining a mere 10,000 followers tends to confirm that.
  • Likewise with Biden’s 10,000 gain. As I’ve said since I started tracking these numbers, Biden is not gaining at the rate you would expect of a frontrunner.
  • If that’s disasterous, what are we to make of Gillibrand’s followers remaining unchanged? Her campaign has been dead in the water pretty much since she announced.
  • Gravel, who wasn’t even in the debates, gained 11,600 followers. Given the that I don’t know exactly how Twitter does rounding, I can’t say for sure that he gained more followers than Biden, but it reinforces the impression Biden had a bad debate.
  • Gabbard gained 34,000 followers, and still slipped below The Andrew Yang Line.
  • De Blasio made a lot of noise (in a literal sense) interrupting other candidates in his debate, and gained a mere 5,000 followers for his troubles. To know him is to loathe him.
  • Delany passed Bennet for 21st place and a small trophy that reads World’s Tallest Midget.

    • Who helped themselves the best with the debates? Probably Castro, whose campaign looked close to moribund and now appears to have some life. Moreover, bloodying O’Rourke might free up Texas donation dollars from disappointed Beto backers.

    Next would be Yang and Williamson, the interesting weirdos who are just now attracting attention beyond political junkies. It appears that a perceptible slice of the Democratic electorate are intrigued by them. (And while it’s still extremely unlikely, imagine the political establishment’s shock and horror if Yang and Williamson somehow placed first and second in Iowa! They wouldn’t just shit bricks, they’d poop out entire pyramids. And after 2016, are you really prepared say to it’s impossible?)

    Under-performing front-runners have time, money and infrastructure to right the ship and sail on into the early primaries, but becalmed long-shots who can’t catch the breeze simply sink. Gillibrand should get out, as should no-hopers de Blasio, Hickenlooper, Moulton, Swalwell, Inslee, Bennet, Delaney, Ryan and Messam. Bullock and Sestak are similarly doomed, but given their late start, they probably need another quarter to realize it. Gravel’s a protest candidate and has zero incentive to leave the race before the convention. O’Rourke is probably toast as well, but has enough money and infrastructure to coast another quarter in hopes of turning it around. Booker is treading water, and can probably continue to do so until he catches fire or the Nevada and South Carolina primaries either give him new life or drive in the final nails. Klobuchar has been slowly sinking, but might survive if she can make the third debate.

    Serious contenders to at least make it to Iowa: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, Yang, Williamson, Booker, Castro, Gabbard, O’Rourke, Klobuchar. In something like that order. Everyone else is simply wasting our time.

    And next week Q2 fundraising numbers start trickling out…

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    Kiddie Table Debate Reactions

    Thursday, June 27th, 2019

    I tried to watch last night’s kiddie table debate, but was just too tried to endure the pandering. So here’s a roundup of reactions:

    The Democratic contenders seemed to offer up a doom and gloom scenario at odds with current economic reality:

    They described an America of 2019 that was downright dystopic.

    Elizabeth Warren said the economy was only “doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top” and that the government “is corrupt.” Cory Booker declared, “I see every single day that this economy is not working for average Americans” and lamented that “Dignity is being stripped from labor” and that “This is actually an economy that’s hurting small businesses and not allowing them to compete.” Bill de Blasio argued, “There’s plenty of money in this country. It’s just in the wrong hands. Democrats have to fix that.” Amy Klobuchar described “so many people that are having trouble affording college and having trouble affording their premiums.” (I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix that!) Tim Ryan lamented, “We’re getting drones shot down for $130 million, because the president is distracted.”

    Despite President Trump canceling a military retaliation against Iran at the last minute, Tulsi Gabbard warned, “Donald Trump and his cabinet, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and others — are creating a situation that just a spark would light off a war with Iran, which is incredibly dangerous.” (Notice she blames Trump and his cabinet for creating the situation, not the Iranians.)

    This occurs as the national unemployment rate has been at or below four percent since March 2018, and hit the lowest rate since 1969. Even half of Democrats rate the economy as “good” or “excellent.” No doubt the people most likely to watch two hours of ten Democratic candidates debating are the most partisan, and probably the ones most likely to insist that because Donald Trump is president, the economy simply cannot be doing well. But one has to wonder how well the message “I will save you from this terrible economy” will work in a general election.

    A lot of fun was had at Beto O’Rourke’s Spanish language Hispandering:

    Cory Booker promptly jumped aboard the “Look, I can speak Spanish!” bandwagon as well:

    Warren and de Blasio went Full Socialized Medicine:

    William Jacobson at Legal insurrection thought John Delaney won the debate by not sounding insane.

    The moderators clearly favored Elizabeth Warren, repeatedly going back to her for questions, particularly at the beginning.

    You had Warren’s tough gal act, Beto’s wandering mind and Spanish language lesson plan, Bill de Blasio’s almost full-blown commie schtick, Spartacus, and Amy Klobuchar’s Minnesota nice routine.

    Who won?

    Let’s focus on the purpose of an early debate — for all but the top few candidates, it’s name recognition and not coming across as a marginal freak. Tulsi Gabbard achieved a little of that, but far and away the voice of sanity was someone I never had heard of.

    He spoke about how Medicare for all, which depends on reimbursement rates so low it would bankrupt most hospitals, was not viable. That goes against the grain of the Democratic Party, where most of the leading candidates have jumped on some version of Bernie’s plan….

    Being the “not completely crazy” Democrat could get Delaney media attention.

    Don’t bet on it. Besides, there’s that tiny physical similarity problem:

    Delaney really is the right man for the job-

    of selling you a reverse mortgage in an infomercial

    — Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) June 27, 2019

    Speaking of insane, Julian Castro promised taxpayer subsidized abortions for transexuals:

    Tim Ryan correctly identified the Democratic Party's elitist problem:

    "We have a perception problem in the Democrat Party," Ryan admitted. "We have got to change the center of gravity from being coastal, elitist and Ivy League to a party that is on the side of workers. If we don't focus on workers, none of this change will happen."

    He insisted that Democrats will not win unless they "address that fundamental problem."

    Ryan is correct, but that "perception problem" is rooted in the Democratic Party's increasing radicalism on issues such as abortion, climate change, intersectionality, and more.

    (Hat tip: Stephen green at Instapundit.)

    Gabbard wins the unscientific online polling following the debate, which should remind you of a certain Republican contender of years past:

    And now some random tweets about the debates:

    Finally, YouTube appears to have banned a number of YouTubers just for livestreaming their commentary about the debates:

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    Ted Cruz Debates Bernie Sanders

    Sunday, October 22nd, 2017

    One year too late, here’s the match-up many on the left and right wanted to see during the 2016 Presidential election: Ted Cruz vs. Bernie Sanders. They debated on CNN on Thursday. If (like me) you don’t have cable, here’s your chance to watch it.

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    Second Clinton Trump Debate Roundup

    Monday, October 10th, 2016

    No, I didn’t watch it. So here are some reactions from people who did:

  • Vodka Pundit Stephen Green: “I’ve never seen one candidate come on so week, then reverse course — in his own limited, almost demented fashion — so strongly. I’ve never seen another candidate, so thoroughly programed, act as though her various subroutines had been corrupted by one of those nasty Russian viruses.”
  • Scott Adams: “Trump won bigly. This one wasn’t close.” Also:

    The best quotable moments from the debate are pro-Trump. His comment about putting Clinton in jail has that marvelous visual persuasion quality about it, and it was the laugh of the night, which means it will be repeated endlessly. He also looked like he meant it.

    Clinton’s Abe Lincoln defense for two-faced politicking failed as hard as anything can fail. Mrs. Clinton, I knew Abe Lincoln, and you’re no Abe Lincoln. You know that was in your head. Or it will be.

  • Powerline’s John Hinderaker: “Some of the rats might want to consider returning to the ship. Donald Trump came through pretty well tonight, mainly because the focus was on the issues. As long as issues are being discussed, Trump wins….In short, Trump won. In my opinion, he won big. We will see whether it matters.”
  • How moderators hijacked the second debate. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
  • Zero Hedge also scored the debate for Trump.

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    Reactions to First Clinton-Trump Debate

    Tuesday, September 27th, 2016

    Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debated last night. I watched about as much as I could stand, which was about ten minutes. So instead of my reactions, here are those of people who watched it all he way through:

  • Trump wins over Democrats and independents in a Youngstown bar. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Clinton says that everyone is racist. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) Racism has the same role in liberal dogma that original sin has for Catholics.
  • James E. Robbins thought Trump looked Presidential.
  • Lester Holt: Not so impartial. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Interesting: Most conservative pundits were down on Trump’s performance, but most polls show he won the debate. “It isn’t just Drudge and Breitbart; Trump also got more votes than Clinton in instant polls at Time, Slate, Variety and other liberal outlets.”
  • Althouse: “Hillary Clinton’s unchallenged, illogical statement about private prisons.” Also on the debate itself: “Overall, I’ll just say that was very unpleasant and I’m glad it’s over.”

    • Now from the Twitters:

    Edited to add: More more hot take:

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    Trump-Clinton Debate Tonight

    Monday, September 26th, 2016

    The first Trump-Clinton debate happens tonight at 8 PM CDT.

    Viewers are eager to hear the two candidates debate substantive policy issues on—

    Yeah, right. People are tuning in to see if Hillary collapses on stage or if Trump manages to say something stupidly outrageous (our outrageously stupid) even by Trump standards.

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    LinkSwarm for October 30, 2015

    Friday, October 30th, 2015

    Right now Austin is enjoying our traditional “two weeks of flooding following three months of drought” fall. Enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:

  • “In Iraq, Obama took a war that we had won at a considerable expense in lives and treasure, and threw it away for the callowest of political reasons. In Syria and Libya, he involved us in wars of choice without Congressional authorization, and proceeded to hand victories to the Islamists. Obama’s policy here has been a debacle of the first order, and the press wants to talk about Bush as a way of protecting him.”
  • Paul Ryan elected Speaker of the House. If Ryan decides to govern as an actual Republican, he could be a very effective Speaker…
  • The IRS has Stingray cell phone surveillance gear. Get ready for a whole new round of Tea Party audits…
  • Speaking of the IRS, the House of Representatives is justified in impeaching IRS chief John Koskinen.
  • At the most recent Republican Presidential debate, Sen. Marco Rubio said the H1-B visa program is badly in need of reform. One tiny problem: Sen. Rubio’s own H1-B bill doesn’t implement any of the reforms demanded by Presidential Candidate Rubio. “It does not require recruitment of American workers. It does not require employers to ‘pay more than you would pay someone else’…Rubio’s bill would provide Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his comrades ‘a huge increase in the supply of lower-cost foreign guest workers so they can undercut and replace American workers.'” Indeed, Rubio’s bill “would triple the number of H1-B foreign workers admitted.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Get ready for steep ObamaCare price hikes for 2016.
  • Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition is starting to come apart thanks to the refugee crisis.
  • Venezuela is selling gold to cover bond payments. (Hat tip: Commonsense and Wonder.)
  • Al-Shabaab Islamic militant group in Somalia pledge loyalty to the Islamic State.
  • The Islamic State schools ban: “math, music, philosophy, history, French and geography as incompatible with Islam.”
  • Not news: Journalist in Sweden gets stoned. News: The wrong kind of stoned.
  • Teacher’s hate Common Core. The only people that seem to love it are Washington bureaucrats and Jeb Bush…
  • Speaking of Jeb, He has not succeeded this year, and there is no particular reason to believe he will…Jeb just isn’t very good at this.”
  • “Even beyond the fact that Bush has spent almost a year and ended up among the statistical noise despite all of his organizational and financial advantages, this all but proved that he’s simply not a good enough candidate to run in the general election.”
  • Jeb Bush’s campaign also hasn’t knocked on any doors in Iowa.
  • Ben Carson’s campaign is working with other Republican Presidential campaigns to extract their debates from the liberal clutches of the MSM.”
  • How to fix the Republican debates: “First, cancel the rest of the debates. Instead, announce that the RNC will host the debates and pick the panel of questioners. Allow any news organization that wishes to broadcast it.”
  • A look at the Russian BMD-2 infantry fighting vehicle.
  • John Wiley Price trail delayed again.
  • Reminder: Most acts at SXSW don’t get paid.
  • Feminism is “a War Against Human Nature aimed at using the coercive power of government to bring about an androgynous ‘equality’ that ignores the actual differences between men and women. Feminism is a totalitarian movement to destroy civilization as we know it — and feminists say so themselves.”
  • Salon’s pro-pedophile agenda:

  • How to stamp out Cultural Marxism in a single generation.
  • Flash is dying. Netcraft confirms it…

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    Posted in Austin, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, Texas | No Comments »

    Follow-Up On Abbott-Davis RGV Debate

    Saturday, September 20th, 2014

    The Abbot campaign sent around this two minute exchange from the debate as being Davis’ most cringe-worthy performance:

    The Houston Chronicle says that Abbott is right on the facts in that exchange:

    Shot: Davis said “the only thing right now coming between our children and appropriate funding of their schools is (Abbott).”

    Fact: It’s a little more complicated than that. This charge came in the lead-up to her sole question of her Republican opponent, which was whether he would drop the state’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that Texas’ school finance scheme is unconstitutional. Abbott is defending the law passed by the Legislature – as is the job of the attorney general. So while Abbott may get pinned with continuing to legally vouch for the state’s $5.4 billion in cuts to Texas public schools in 2011, he retorted that it was the Legislature that stood between the children and appropriate funding. Abbott also correctly pointed out that the Legislature passed a law last session that limited the attorney general’s ability to settle cases like the one over school finance.

    Even a friendly press is saying that Davis “fails to land blows on Republican rival.”

    Dallas Morning News: Davis “failed to rattle a poised Greg Abbott…At one point he asked Davis if she were still glad she had voted for the president, whose deep unpopularity in the state is a headache for Democrats. Davis laughed at the question but didn’t answer it.”

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