Posts Tagged ‘Harris County’
Friday, February 15th, 2019
There’s a much criticized spending bill with a lot of poison pill provisions and a tiny bit of border wall funding President Trump is expected to sign, and then declare a national emergency to get the wall built.
While that’s up in the air, enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:
Democrats don’t want to detain or deport violent felons. If that’s the hill they want to die on, bring on the shutdown. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd told Breitbart News Tonight on Wednesday that Congress had ignored the advice of experts when reaching a deal to provide less than $1.4 billion for border fencing.”
The ludicrous nature of the Democrats’ “Green New Deal” continues to haunt them, leading to a lot of walking back economically insane socialist goals. NPR has the original text of the proposal.
Jonah Goldberg on the subject:
These people think that they can adequately plan and run — for all time — an economic system from Washington that would guarantee: “a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States” as well as “access to nature.”
But they can’t even plan the roll out of a non-binding resolution and some press-release materials? And, when confronted by their own words, their immediate response was to accuse their enemies of sabotaging them? Gosh, by all means, let’s give them control of the entire economy. That couldn’t work out badly. I mean “Mistakes happen when doing time launches like this coordinating multiple groups and collaborators,” when uploading FAQs, not when doing anything as simple as commandeering the bulk of the U.S. economy.
Republicans pull the dirtiest trick on Democrats ever: forcing them to vote on the Green New Deal lunacy they just endorsed. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Bill Barr confirmed as Attorney General.
Amazon cancels it’s New York City HQ2 expansion plans. Government shouldn’t be throwing subsidies at targeted corporations (nor picking winners and losers). The decision is also rich, zesty schadenfreude for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez screwing over New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who both pushed hard for the Amazon deal.
This story should be absolutely infuriating to everyone on all sides of the political spectrum: rather than preserving or processing DNA rape kits, Oklahoma destroyed them.
How do Democrats expect to get socialism to work nationwide when they can’t even get it to work at one Panera Bread location?
Twitter bias is real. “Of 22 prominent, politically active individuals who are known to have been suspended since 2005 and who expressed a preference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, 21 supported Donald Trump.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Democrats cause climate change. The science is settled!
Those pesky peasants are threatening the EU by daring to vote for parties of which the EU elite disapproved.
Brexit update:
“Migrants” banned from Finnish schools and daycare centers because of all the rapes.
Here’s a phising scam that targets not only credit unions, but the credit union officers in charge of enforcing anti-money laundering laws.
Pro-tip: If you’re a phone scammer, try not to target the former head of the FBI and the CIA.
Meanwhile in Australia: “$500 per family for a single day’s electricity. There’s your Green New Deal.”
Germany and Japan are teaming up to oppose American foreign policy. I’ve seen this movie before, and I don’t think they’ll like how it ends…
Islamic State executioner enjoys death by tank. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
More semi-informed speculation than insider knowledge: “The Notorious RBG…is not dead. But she probably soon will be.” (Hat tip: Doug Ross on Twitter.)
New frontiers in unconstitutional legislation: “The Los Angeles City Council voted yesterday to require companies who want to contract with the city to disclose their relationships with the National Rifle Association.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Disgraced former Democratic state senator Carlos Uresti sentenced to five years for bribery. Unfortunately it will run concurrently with his fraud conviction, and therefore result in no additional time in prison. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Don’t mess with Texas, Part 8,192. Doesn’t say whether the attackers were illegal aliens or not. (Hat tip: HeidiL_RN.)
There’s low, and there’s “constable stealing Hurricane Harvey donations” low.
Tesla’s Buffalo Gigafactory workers are not happy campers.
Jussie Smollett’s hate crime allegations fall apart.
New Jersey hates high school football.
I don’t keep up with celebrity culture at all, but this is freaking hilarious. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse, who provides context for celebrity-challenged.)
“Millennials Have Discovered ‘Going Out’ Sucks.” And they only discovered this after cities pushed densification policies to hurd them all downtown where the clubs and bars are… (Hat tip: Millennial Conservative.)
Tags:Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Amazon, Andrew Cuomo, Australia, Bill Barr, Bill De Blasio, Border Controls, border fence, Brexit, California, Carlos Uresti, Crime, data security, Democrats, EU, Finland, fraud, Germany, Global Warming, Green New Deal, Harris County, Hurricane Harvey, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Japan, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Los Angeles, Media Watch, New Jersey, New York, New York City, NRA, Oklahoma, phishing, rape, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, socialism, Tesla Motors, Texas, Twitter
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Global Warming, Jihad, Media Watch, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Thursday, November 15th, 2018
This is going to be a “glass half empty” kind of post, so let’s start out enumerating all the positives for Texas Republicans from the 2018 midterms:
Ted Cruz, arguably the face of conservatism in Texas, won his race despite a zillion fawning national profiles of an opponent that not only outspent him 2-1, but actually raised more money for a Senate race than any candidate in the history of the United States. All that, and Cruz still won.
Every statewide Republican, both executive and judicial, won their races.
Despite long being a target in a swing seat, Congressmen Will Hurd won reelection.
Republicans still hold majorities in the their U.S. congressional delegation, the Texas House and the Texas Senate.
By objective standards, this was a good election for Republicans. But by subjective standards, this was a serious warning shot across the bow of the party. After years of false starts and dead ends, Democrats finally succeeded in turning Texas slightly purple.
Next let’s list the objectively bad news:
Ted Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke by less than three points, the worst showing of any topline Republican candidate since Republican Clayton Williams lost the Governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Ann Richards in 1990, and the worst senate result for a Texas Republican since Democratic incumbent Lloyd Bentsen beat Republican challenger Beau Boulter in 1988.
O’Rourke’s 4,024,777 votes was not only more than Hillary Clinton received in Texas in 2016, but was more than any Democrat has ever received in any statewide Texas race, ever. That’s also more than any Texas statewide candidate has received in a midterm election ever until this year. It’s also almost 2.5 times what 2014 Democratic senatorial candidate David Alameel picked up in 2014.
The O’Rourke campaign managed to crack long-held Republican strongholds in Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Williamson, and Hays counties, which had real down-ballot effects, and continue their recent success in Ft. Bend (Sugar Land) and Jefferson (Beaumont) counties.
Two Republican congressmen, Pete Sessions and John Culberson, lost to Democratic challengers. Part of that can be put down to sleepwalking incumbents toward the end of a redistricting cycle, but part is due to Betomania having raised the floor for Democrats across the state.
Two Republican incumbent state senators, Konni Burton of District 10 and Don Huffines of District 16, lost to Democratic challengers. Both were solid conservatives, and losing them is going to hurt.
Democrats picked up 12 seats in the Texas house, including two in Williamson County: John Bucy III beating Tony Dale (my representative) in a rematch of 2016’s race in House District 136, and James Talarico beating Cynthia Flores for Texas House District 52, the one being vacated by the retiring Larry Gonzalez.
Democratic State representative Ron Reynolds was reelected despite being in prison, because Republicans didn’t bother to run someone against him. This suggests the state Republican Party has really fallen down on the job when it comes to recruiting candidates.
In fact, by my count, that was 1 of 32 state house districts where Democrats faced no Republican challenger.
Down-ballot Republican judges were slaughtered in places like Harris and Dallas counties.
All of this happened with both the national and Texas economies humming along at the highest levels in recent memory.
There are multiple reasons for this, some that other commentators covered, and others they haven’t.
For years Republicans have feasted on the incompetence of the Texas Democratic Party and their failure to entice a topline candidate to enter any race since Bob Bullock retired. Instead they’ve run a long string of Victor Moraleses and Tony Sanchezes and seemed content to lose, shrug their shoulders and go “Oh well, it’s Texas!” Even candidates that should have been competative on paper, like Ron Kirk, weren’t. (And even those Democrats who haven’t forgotten about Bob Kreuger, who Ann Richards tapped to replace Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen when the latter resigned to become Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, getting creamed 2-1 by Kay Baily Hutchison in the 1993 special election, would sure like to.) Fortunately for Texas Republicans, none of the non-Beto names bandied about (like the Castro brother) seem capable of putting them over the top (but see the “celebrity” caveat below).
Likewise, Republicans have benefited greatly from a fundraising advantage that comes from their lock on incumbency. Democrats couldn’t raise money because they weren’t competitive, and weren’t competitive in part because they couldn’t raise money. All that money the likes of Battleground Texas threw in may finally be having an effect.
More on how Democrats have built out their organization:
Under the hood, the damage was significant. There are no urban counties left in the state that support Republicans, thanks to O’Rourke winning there. The down-ballot situation in neighboring Dallas County was an electoral massacre, as was the situation in Harris County.
“This election was clearly about work and not the wave,” [Democratic donor Amber] Mostyn said. “We have been doing intense work in Harris County for five cycles and you can see the results. Texas is headed in the right direction and Beto outperformed and proved that we are on the right trajectory to flip the state.”
“Last night we saw the culmination of several years of concentrated effort by the left — and the impact of over $100 million spent — in their dream to turn Texas blue again. Thankfully, they failed to win a single statewide elected office,” Texas Republican Party chair James Dickey said in a statement. “While we recognize our victories, we know we have much work to do — particularly in the urban and suburban areas of the state.”
The idea that Trump has weakened Republican support in the suburbs seems to have some currency, based on the Sessions and Culberson losses.
That effect is especially magnified in Williamson and Hayes counties, given that they host bedroom communities for the ever-more-liberal Austin.
Rick Perry vs. The World ended a year-long hibernation to pin the closeness of the race on Cruz’s presidential race. He overstates the case, but he has a point. Other observations:
3. What if Beto had spent his money more wisely? All that money on yard signs and on poorly targeted online ads (Beto spent lots of money on impressions that I saw and it wasn’t all remnant ads) wasn’t cheap. If I recall correctly, Cruz actually spent more on TV in the final weeks, despite Beto raising multiples of Cruz’s money. Odd.
4. Getting crazy amounts of money from people who dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be the hard part. Getting crazy good coverage from the media who all dislike Ted Cruz was never going to be hard part.
Getting those things and then not believing your own hype…well if you are effing Beto O’Rourke, then that is the hard part.
5. Beto is probably the reason that some Dems won their elections. But let’s not forget that this is late in the redistricting cycle where districts are not demographically what they were when they were drawn nearly a decade ago.
For all the fawning profiles of O’Rourke, he was nothing special. He was younger than average, theoretically handsomer than average (not a high bar in American politics), and willing to do the hard work of statewide campaigning. He was not a bonafide superstar, the sort of personality like Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Donald Trump that can come in from the outside and completely reorder the political system. If one of those ran as a Democrat statewide in Texas, with the backing and resources O’Rourke had, they probably win.
A lack of Green Party candidates, due to them failing to meet the 5% vote threshold in 2016, may have also had a small positive effect on Democrat vote totals in the .5% to 1% range.
None of the controversies surrounding three statewide Republican candidates (Ken Paxton’s lingering securities indictment, Sid Miller’s BBQ controversy, or George P. Bush’s Alamo controversy) seemed to hurt them much. Paxton’s may have weighed him down the most, since he only won by 3.6%, while George P. Bush won with the second highest margin of victory behind Abbott. Hopefully this doesn’t set up a nightmare O’Rourke vs. Bush Senate race in 2020.
Texas Republicans just went through a near-death experience, but managed to survive. Is this level of voting the new norm for Democrats, or an aberration born of Beto-mania? My guess is probably somewhere in-between. It remains to be seen how it all shakes out during the sound and fury of a Presidential year. And the biggest factor is out of the Texas Republican Party’s control: a cyclical recession is inevitable at some point, the only question is when and how deep.
Tags:2018 Election, 2018 Texas Gubernatorial Race, 2018 Texas Senate Race, 32nd Congressional District, 7th Congressional District, Austin, Beau Boulter, Beto O'Rourke, Dallas, Don Huffines, Elections, fundraising, Harris County, Hays County, James Talarico, Jefferson County, John Bucy, John Culberson, Konni Burton, Pete Sessions, Ron Reynolds, Tarrant County, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Democratic Party, Texas House District 136, Texas House District 52, Tony Dale, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 30th, 2018
Happy Good Friday! Spring has sprung and I’m knee-deep in my taxes.
The sitcom Roseanne‘s return features the titular character as a Trump supporter and enjoys smash ratings.
French President Emmanuel Macron talks about sending forces to Syria to block Turkey, then almost immediately walks it back, offering to “mediate” between Turkey and the coalition-backed, Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces. That’s…interesting.
What will Middle East Studies academics do now that Saudi sugar daddy Alwaleed bin Talal is out of favor? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
More ObamaCare rate hikes coming, as Democrats in blue states scramble to avoid the inevitable results of their own policy choices. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Headline: “POPE SAYS HELL DOESN’T EXIST!” (tiny print) “According to a 93 year old atheist who has been wrong before, didn’t tape him, and is quoting from memory. And the Pope himself denies it.” Guess I’ll have to cancel that hooker and blow party I was going to throw Easter Sunday, just in case…
Gun ownership rates say absolutely nothing about homicide statistics.
When a media source such as Mother Jones or Everytown for Gun Safety implies that “we have a gun problem,” they are making exactly the same reasoning error as if they said, “we have a black people problem.”
And black population was six times more predictive than gun ownership was.
Harris County hit with lawsuit for refusing to turn over voter roles so non-citizens can be purged.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is running for reelection on a platform of opposing Muslim immigration and George Soros.
Texas booze lobby defeated in court, paving the way for Sam’s Club, Costco, and other national chains to start selling hard liquor. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings.)
Mozilla launches a “condom” extension to thwart Facebook spying on other sites.
Of all the things to be adopted by the InfoWars right as a bulwark against the radical left, an Austin vegetarian cat café would seem to be among the most unlikely.
What happens when an airliner crashes in your front yard.
Oracle vs. Google heads back to trial.
Karl Rehn attended the 2018 Rangemaster Tactical Conference and brought back lots of insights on things like engaging active shooters. That’s just the first of four after action reports, and all are worth your time to click through.
Latest Hollywood bigshot to sexually exploit underage women: Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi.
In an extensive report from BuzzFeed, cartoonist John Kricfalusi—the creator of iconic Nickelodeon series Ren & Stimpy—has been accused of sexually exploiting teenage girls, promising them careers in animation at his studio Spumco while allegedly grooming them for sexual relationships. One of the women, Robyn Byrd, says it all began in 1994 when she was only 13, after she sent Kricfalusi a video of herself talking about how she wanted a career in animation and how important Ren & Stimpy was to her. Kricfalusi, who was 39 at the time, responded by sending her packages of toys and art supplies, and eventually he helped her set up an AOL account so they could communicate more regularly.
Kricfalusi visited Byrd at her home and told her that she could “become a great artist,” and later he invited her out to Los Angeles, where she says he “touched her genitals through her pajamas” while they were at his house. She was 16. In 1997, Kricfalusi gave Byrd an internship at Spumco; she lived with him during this period, prompting him to allegedly call her “his 16-year-old girlfriend.” Convinced that he was helping her launch the career of her dreams, Byrd moved in with Kricfalusi once she graduated from high school.
Apparently, this was all an open secret in the animation world at the time, partly due to an interview Kricfalusi gave with Howard Stern in which he creepily noted that a “hot chick with big cans and nice legs” he had drawn for a comic book was “underage, too.” People working at Spumco allegedly shrugged off the relationship between Byrd and Kricfalusi, with another former intern noting that Kricfalusi once “left out a drawing he made of Byrd, naked, with a dog ejaculating on her.”
Via Dwight comes a followup to yesterday’s Waco biker trial roundup: “Yesterday a judge ordered the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office to stop distributing what his attorney calls “private, intimate sexual images” of former defendant Cody Ledbetter and his wife.”
All good things must come to an end. And all bad ones.
Polish man kayaks across the Atlantic. Three times.
Tags:Alwaleed bin Talal, Crime, Democrats, Emmanuel Macron, France, George Soros, Guns, Harris County, Hollywood, Houston, Illegal Aliens, John Kricfalusi, Karl Rehn, LinkSwarm, ObamaCare, pedophilia, Pope Francis, rape, Saudi Arabia, Social Justice Warriors, Syria, Syrian Democratic Forces, Texas, Turkey, Voter Fraud
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, March 31st, 2017
Welcome to April Fool’s Eve! Don’t believe anything you hear tomorrow. Especially if it’s from CNN…
Representative Moe Brooks of Alabama offers up a one sentence repeal of ObamaCare: “Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.” Get on it, GOP… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Why not give CruzCare a try?
Single-payer’s future is Venezuela’s present: “The communist model for healthcare will result in everyone having a right to healthcare and no one getting any of it. There will be black market health care for those who can afford it, a lovely parallel system for the politically well connected, and a crumbling system of overworked, over-regulated providers working to give some care to all the rest of us.”
Scott Adams: “With the failure of the Ryan healthcare bill, the illusion of Trump-is-Hitler has been fully replaced with Trump-is-incompetent meme.”
CrowdStrike, Patient Zero in the “Russia hacked the Democrats” vector, backtracks key claims.
“Filibustering Gorsuch might be a pointless exercise when it comes to keeping him off the court, but it would have the advantage of giving angry Democratic activists something they desperately want: an opportunity to lash out in fury at Republicans.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Democratic senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Heidi Heitkamp (ND) announced they will vote for Gorsuch.
Leftists are taking this fact with their usual grace and tact:
Yeah, I have no idea who Mr. Checkmark Who Has Fewer Followers Than Me is either…
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has seven facts for Democrats to consider before filibustering Gorsuch. “There has never been a successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.”
Hosni Mubarek freed in Egypt. But I mainly want to talk about the Times piece of an example of sins of omission by the newspaper of record. “The first democratic election, in 2012, brought to power a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi. But he lasted only a year, making a series of political blunders that cost him the support of the military, crucial parts of the security apparatus and millions of Egyptians, who gathered in the streets in June 2013 to call for his removal.” Yes, one might call “engineering a murderous rampage and instituting a dictatorship in order to fully Islamicize Egyptian society” a “blunder”…
So how’s that boycott against North Carolina over the tranny bathroom law panning out? Not so hot. “Tourism has thrived: Hotel occupancy, room rates and demand for rooms set records in 2016, according to the year-end hotel lodging report issued last week by VisitNC, part of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.” (Hat tip: Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Twitter feed.)
“Former Obama Official Describes Last-Minute Rush to Spy on Trump Team, Conceal Intel Sources.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Someone in a small circle of Obama intelligence officials who knew the identity of that American No. 1 committed a felony by leaking Flynn’s name to media.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Chicago follows in Detroit’s footsteps.
Journalists who exposed Planned Parenthood’s baby parts selling scheme indicted on felony eavesdropping charges in California. By an amazing coincidence, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra received donations from Planned Parenthood. What are the odds?
There’s an actual Wikipedia article for a list of grenade attacks in Sweden, which have exploded (ha) since 2012. Many occurred in Malmo. Gee, what could possibly be driving all these grenade attacks?
Euroweenie to campaign for independence of the People’s Republic of Austin. Good luck with that. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.
Trump as The Mule from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Empire. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
President Trump reverses four Obama regulations. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
$15,000 of Soros money a month per team to fight Trump.
You know that “1973 Manhattan was a nightmare of smog” picture your liberal Facebook friends have been posting? Debunked.
Behind the scenes of 2016’s wipeout of Republicans in Harris County.
Texas Senate votes to end automatic union payroll deductions.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s trial venue is being moved, which is a victory for the prosecution. Given the dismissal of the SEC charges the case is based on, I still think the long-term prognosis points to acquittal or dismissal.
Homeowner 3, Robbers 0.
Are your sexual fetishes social justice warrior approved, comrade? If not, then expect to be fired…
“Spiders could theoretically eat every human on earth in a year and still be hungry.” Obviously this cries out for a research grant and a pilot program…
Internet Security issue: “Typosquatting programming language package managers.”
Troll level: Godlike.
Five-year old suspended for imaginary gun.
An obituary for the author of The Anarchist’s Cookbook.
McSweeney’s on packing the liberal go-bag. (Hat tip: Gay Patriot’s Twitter feed.)
Don McLean’s “American Pie” added to the National recording registry. “I’m really delighted that the government has taken notice of me in this way, and not by tapping my phone or something.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Want. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Hakeem Olajuwon: Better than Jordan.
Speaking of shocking statistics: “Steven Seagal released seven films in 2016. Seven.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Oh no! Not the bees! They’re in my eyes!”
Tags:Austin, Buzzfeed, California, Chicago, data security, Democrats, Donald Trump, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Guns, Hakeem Olajuwon, Harris County, Heidi Heitkamp, Hosni Mubarak, Isaac Asimov, Jean Claude Juncker, Jihad, Joe Manchin, McSweeney's, Moe Brooks, Mohammed Morsi, Neil Gorsuch, North Carolina, ObamaCare, Planned Parenthood, Social Justice Warriors, spiders, Steven Seagal, Supreme Court, Sweden, Ted Cruz, Texas, Xavier Becerra
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Guns, Jihad, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 5th, 2014
With all the votes in, we can start analyzing some of odder aspects of the Texas statewide race results.
For those watching the race, it’s no surprise that (discounting 2006’s strange four-way race) Wendy Davis was the worst-performing Democratic gubernatorial candidate this century. The surprising thing is that, as bad as she was, Davis was the Democrat’s best statewide candidate this year. Her 38.9% was the highest statewide vote percentage by any Texas Democrat in 2014. Leticia Van de Putte’s 38.7% was the second highest. Otherwise statewide Democratic candidates ranged from a low of 34.3% for invisible Senate candidate David Alameel to a high of 38% for Attorney General candidate Sam Houston.
Possible explanations:
Perhaps Wendy Davis’ antics didn’t cause people to switch so much as it caused Democrats to stay home entirely.
Perhaps in lower-pofile races people felt free to vote for third party candidates.
Perhaps there is indeed a staunchly “pro-abortion Republican” segment of the Texas electorate, but evidence suggests that, if so, it ranges from 0.5% to 1% of the total…
And those who said Abbott would outpoll Dan Patrick were right…but only by 1.2%.
Abbott took ten counties that Bill White won in 2010: Harris, Bexar, Brooks, Culberson, Falls, Foard, Kleberg, La Salle, Reeves and Trinity. Harris (Houston) and Bexar (San Antonio) are the 800-pound gorillas on that list. In 2012, Ted Cruz won Harris by 2% (while Romney was edged there by a thousand votes) while losing Bexar by 4%. For a while Democrats were able to stay competitive statewide by racking up big margins in those urban counties even while they were losing rural and suburban counties. If Republicans can now win those counties outright, it may be a long, long time before a Democrat can win statewide again.
Two statewide Republican candidates got more votes than Abbott’s 2,790,227: Senator John Cornyn and Land Commissioner-elect George P. Bush. The rest of the country may suffer from Bush-fatigue (though I imagine that it’s now dwarfed by Obama-fatigue), but you’d be hard-pressed to find signs of it in Texas…
Since Democrats failed to contest three statewide court races, both the Libertarian and Green parties reached the minimum 5% threshold to maintain ballot access in 2016.
Shockingly, David Weigel actually brings the wood when discussing Battleground Texas:
“These are the greatest geniuses of data in the f**king world and they can’t figure out that less people voted?” asked Carney. “Every publicly pronounced goal of Battleground, every one, has been an abject failure.”
(snip)
Davis only out-performed the 2010 ticket in her home base of Tarrant County (Ft. Worth).
Oh, and it got worse. Abbott’s campaign said throughout the campaign that it would poach Latino voters, especially in the Rio Grande valley. A quick look at a Texas map might tell you that Abbott failed. Not quite true. Perry had lost Hidalgo County (McAllen) by 34 points; Abbott kept the margin down to 28 points. Perry had lost Webb County by 53 points; Abbott lost it by 39. In exit polling, Perry ended up pulling only 38 percent of the Latino vote. Abbott won 44 percent of it, about what was expected in a Texas Tribune poll that Davis allies tried to debunk. Abbott actually won Latino men, 50-49 over Davis. The Democratic wane and Republican outreach helped oust Rep. Pete Gallego, elected in 2012 in a district that sprawled across most of the border. He won 96,477 votes that year; he won only 55,436 this year, allowing black Republican Will Hurd to win, despite being out-fundraised 2-1.
Weigel may be a partisan, but at least he can read a spreadsheet…
Tags:2010 Election, 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, 2014 Lt. Governor's Race, Bexar County, Dan Patrick, David Alameel, David Weigel, Greg Abbott, Harris County, John Cornyn, Leticia Van de Putte, Texas, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2014
Will Franklin of WILLisms put up an interesting link on his Twitter feed: A PDF of Texas relocation data from the Texas Association of Realtors.
There’s lots of interesting information to be gleaned:
The 2014 Texas Relocation Report shows that Texas continues to be a national leader in relocation activity and a sought- after location for households moving out of state.
According to the report, Texas gained more out-of-state residents than any other state in 2013, with 584,034 people moving to Texas from out of state. A majority of these residents originated from California (66,318), followed by Florida (32,619), Oklahoma (29,169), Louisiana (29,042), and Illinois (28,900).
Texas ranked third in the nation for number of residents moving out of state in 2013 (409,977), coming in behind California (581,689) and Florida (423,995) and topping New York (401,440), and Illinois (304,674). Like with incoming residents, a majority of the residents who moved out of state moved to California (32,290), followed by Oklahoma (27,391), Florida (24,226), Colorado (23,490), and Louisiana (21,747).
Overall, Texas had a net gain of out-of-state residents in 2013, with 138,057 more people moving into Texas than Texas residents moving out of state in 2013.
So roughly twice as many people moved from California to Texas as vice versa.
Other nuggets from the report:
Both Harris and Dallas counties had net negative outflows, though their surrounding counties more than made up for it in population growth.
Williamson county had the third largest net population inflow, with Hays fourth, behind Denton and Brazos counties, but well ahead of Travis. Indeed, Williamson’s population growth was three times that of Travis.
Despite that, Travis got more out-of-state migration inflow than Williamson, which I take to mean that Travis got more Californians and Williamson got more Texans fleeing The People’s Republic of Austin.
If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the report, it actually says most of Williamson’s in-state inflow came from Travis, but numbers of people moving from Williamson to Travis are so low they’re not even in the the top five. Indeed, more people moved to Walker County (home to Huntsville) than to Travis.
What does this mean politically? As Ace of Spades noted in their ginormous .PNG, conservative areas of the state are gaining population, while liberal strongholds are losing ground. The two largest liberal counties (Bexar and Travis) to gain population were outpaced by population growth in conservative Denton County alone.
Conclusion: Despite Democrats talking up demographic shifts, don’t expect Texas to turn blue anytime soon…
Tags:California, Dallas, Harris County, population, Travis County, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Texas | 7 Comments »
Thursday, May 15th, 2014
Do you remember District 27 Democratic State Representative Ron Reynolds? I mentioned his indictment back in 2012 on barratry charges in 2012. (For those unfamiliar with the term, “barratry” essentials amounts to illegal ambulance chasing.) Evidently the 2012 charges were thrown out due to fallout from the comic book theft scandal.
However, Brittany Pounders at Liberty Juice brings us news that Reynolds was again indicted on barratry charges in 2013, this time in Montgomery County.
It seems he was a real go-getter in the barratry department:
Reynolds was not only smart enough to profit from the lawyer fees he generated as an ambulance chaser, he also had part ownership in the Greenspoint Health and Injury Clinic, the clinic where these “victims” were sent to be “evaluated” after an accident, giving him a double profit whammy. This practice puts the sleaze in lawyer.
It seems that the Montgomery County Police Reporter is the only news outlet covering the story, and they have significant details on how Reynolds’ boiler-room legal solicitation call operation worked.
“I am an appointment setter for 12 different law firms in Houston. Because the police report shows that you are in the right, at no charge to you, you are eligible to have a rental car while your car gets fixed and you are eligible to go to the doctor to get checked out. Additionally if you went to an emergency room, your bills will be paid and you can receive a personal injury check from $3000 to $6000. If you are interested all you have to do is set an appointment for one of the law firms to have a representative come out to your home to meet with you.”
Liberty Juice also notes Reynolds’ previous legal problems (twice sanction by the bar, several settled lawsuits) and that he has a Republican election opponent in David Hamilton.
Tags:Crime, Harris County, Montgomery County, Ron Reynolds, Texas
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
Here’s a small virtual bucket for a few pieces that I didn’t catch earlier:
I meant to post on the defeat of Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos in the Republican Primary. This was not an issue of ideology so much as incompetence and abuse of office. For the full details, check out Dwight’s pieces on Whipped Cream Difficulties and keep scrolling. (Or do the same at the Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center blog, which has been following the Lykos story for a long time.)
Now a few more John Wiley Price tidbits:
It looks like the details of the John Wiley Price affidavit were delayed until after the primary. Hmmmm….
Speaking of Price, his lawyer expects a federal indictment soon.
Jim Schutze of the lefty Dallas Observer provides more background on Price and Kathy Nealy. A few excerpts:
In 2002, when I asked Nealy what she did with all the money sluiced into her account by the Citizens Council candidate, she called me a racist.
It’s strangely heartening to learn that black political functionaries are just as eager to play the race card on their fellow liberals as they are on conservatives.
I want to point out that black southern Dallas has consistently voted against honesty, against progress, against inter-ethnic neighborhood cooperation and against any kind of civic responsibility in citywide elections.
But we are told nevertheless — we are beaten about the ears, in fact — that it’s everybody else’s job to clean up and bring prosperity to the black precincts.
After decades of watching this dismal scam operate, you may have to forgive me if I have become a bit jaded. I look at the editorial campaign of The Dallas Morning News, 10 holes in the bucket or something, about all the stuff it’s my job to clean up in South Dallas, and I can’t help wondering if this isn’t part of the same old sleazy political deal.
You know what? I’m starting to wonder if maybe it isn’t time for southern Dallas to clean up its own crap and leave me the hell alone.
Mr. Schutze and I might differ over our respective definitions of “progress,” but I suspect the rest is accurate.
Maybe it’s time for the rest of Dallas to start consciously and deliberately voting against southern Dallas, as long as southern Dallas continues to support the Price/Nealy machine. How the hell can we be expected to fix all the holes in southern Dallas’ damn bucket if we don’t fix the holes in our own first?
Moving from the specifics of the Price case to the issue of urban black machine politics in general, a few politically incorrect questions:
- How pervasive is this type of black political machine corruption in other cities with significant black populations?
- To what extent has black America’s overwhelming allegiance to the Democratic Party created such corruption, since it prevents the sort of inter-party competition that could sweep the corrupt from office?
- To what extent has the Democratic Party’s need for black votes encouraged such corruption, by making them turn a blind eye to it as long as they votes keep rolling in?
- Fair or not, the impression I get from the Price case, from the decades-long mismanagement of Detroit, etc., is that a significant portion (and perhaps a majority) of the urban black community is just fine with pervasive political corruption, as long as it’s black politicians that are the ones with their fingers in the pie. Is this impression correct, or is it too cynical even for me?
Tags:black, Crime, Dallas, Dwight Brown, FBI, Harris County, Houston, Jim Schutze, John Wiley Price, Kathy Nealy, Pat Lykos, Race Card, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »