Posts Tagged ‘Lou Barletta’

LinkSwarm for May 18, 2018

Friday, May 18th, 2018

At some point I will grapple with all the unraveling Clinton/Mueller/Fusion GPS/FISA/Brennan Scandularity…but not today.

  • Democrats, rather than maximizing their chance at a blue wave, have insisted on electing far left-wing candidates over more-electable party moderates. Those national results replicate what the Texas Democratic Party did to themselves: Push moderates out of the party. Result: More Republicans elected. They appear hellbent on replicating those results at the national level…
  • Former New York speaker of the House Sheldon Silver found guilty of a kickback scheme yet again. The first conviction was overturned on appeal over a technicality.
  • “The people who’ve lost their way are the liberals and civil libertarians, blinded by their rage for Trump, who have dropped their principles in a moment of political threat and are taking out their anger on a man who has been their staunchest ally. Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz. Maybe it’s what happened to everyone else.” Caveat: Writer suffers from usual “Fox News and Trump are the Devil” derangement. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • President Donald Trump: “Members of the violent MS-13 gang are animals.” MSM: “Trump just said all undocumented immigrants are animals!” Also: “Trump supporters are fleeing the media not because they want cheerleaders, but because they are tired of a secular, coastal, liberal press that not only cannot relate to heartland voters but thinks it is beneath them to even try.”
  • Rep. Lou Barletta wins Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary, to face Bob Casey in the general. Barletta earned a lot of nationwide Republican gratitude for taking out Stupak block flip-flopper Paul Kanjorski in 2010.
  • China, Russia and other scumbag authoritarian countries are lying about their GDP. This is my shocked face. This also why you should take all those “OMG China’s economy will overtake the U.S. in 20XX!” panics with several grains of sand.
  • Seattle thinks that golden goose would taste mighty fine cooked in a white wine reduction.
  • Class-action lawsuit filed against Facebook over revelations that the company logged users’ text and call logs using the Facebook smartphone app on Android phones. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • EU: here’s a statement condemning the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania: LOL, no. BLOCKED. (Hat tip: Pat Condell on Gab.)
  • Tom Wolfe, RIP.
  • Another case of illegal alien voter fraud that Democrats swear doesn’t exist.
  • President Trump wrings airline agreement out of gulf states.
  • The mathematician who cracked horse racing. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Joe Straus backed a lot of liberal Republican state candidates in March, to the tune of $1 million, and they all got walloped.
  • More scandal at the University of Texas law school:

    Jason Shoumaker, the law school’s facilities director until November 2017, is the subject of an ongoing probe by the Travis County District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Rangers. Though Shoumaker was taken into custody Thursday over tampering charges, he is at the heart of a major fraud investigation – one that potentially involves “several million dollars of questionable expenses,” a source familiar with the probe said….During multiple pay periods, Shoumaker logged regular 8-hour days with the university while he was actually cavorting out of state, according to the affidavit.

  • George Soros pulls out of Hungary.
  • #BadStockPhotosOfMyJob. But they obviously nailed the one for writers:

  • Death by Snu Snu! (Hat tip: Slone’s Twitter feed.)
  • Why Won’t Zombie Amnesty Die?

    Friday, May 23rd, 2014

    Pretty much every week brings the same set of stories over and over again:

  • One person says that illegal alien amnesty is dead for the current election cycle.
  • News bubbles up that mainstream Republican leadership is still trying to find a way to shove illegal alien amnesty down conservatives’ throats.
  • This week’s example of the first comes from Pennsylvania congressman Lou Barletta (who I donated to in the 2010 election cycle, when he retired Stupac-block flipper Paul Kanjorski) has an editorial stating that immigration reform is dead for now due to the news that “the Obama administration had released more than 36,000 illegal immigrants who had been convicted of other crimes.”

    The thousands of illegal immigrants released from custody had been found guilty of a total of almost 88,000 crimes, including 116 homicides, 43 counts of voluntary manslaughter and one classified as “homicide-willful kill-public official-gun.” Throw in thousands of drunken driving convictions and other crimes, and the picture is clear that these inmates were not simply in custody for their most basic crime: being illegally present in this country. Yet they were released into the neighborhoods of America, supposedly having paid their debt to our society and sent along their way. This should be appalling to anyone who cares about the rule of law or public safety.

    This week’s example of the second comes in the form of Obama Administration capo Valerie Jarrett claiming that she has a “commitment” from House Republican Speaker John Boehner to pass “comprehensive immigration reform” (that is to say illegal alien amnesty) after the elections.

    Could she be lying? Of course. She is, after all, an Obama Administration official; it seems to be part of their job description. But given that Boehner has previously told his own donors he’s “hellbent” on getting it done this year, and since Majority Leader Eric Cantor still remains vocal in supporting amnesty, I think it’s a lot more likely she’s telling the truth.

    Remember, as Mickey Kaus continues to observe, the trick is to get any piece of immigration reform passed in the House so the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill (including amnesty) can be tacked on in the joint committee and rammed through the House with Democratic votes.

    Amnesty is opposed not only by the majority of Americans, but by the overwhelming majority of blue collar workers, conservatives, and Republicans. Zombie amnesty refuses to die because Republican business supporters have an insatiable hunger for cheap labor and 2012 spooked the establishment into full blown hispanicing.

    As the Barletta piece shows, the Obama Administration refuses to deport convicted murders and rapists when they have an excuse not to. Does anyone even remotely believe they would actually enforce any immigration agreement, much less one promising “amnesty now, enforcement later”? Trusting the Obama Administration to obey an inconvenient law is like trusting Vladamir Putin to obey an inconvenient treaty.

    Everyone should call your U.S. congressional representative to remind them that there can be no immigration reform until we have an Presidential Administration who is actually willing to obey they law, which won’t occur until 2017. And Republicans should never sign off on another “amnesty now, enforcement later” bill ever again.

    Conservatives should refuse to donate a dime to establishment outfits like the NRCC until Boehner and Cantor publicly give up on passing any immigration bill until Obama leaves office.

    Finally, every Democratic “War on Women” ad should be met with one asking “Why is Obama furloughing illegal alien rapists?” This is ready-made attack ad fodder for anyone willing to ignore the tut-tuting and name-calling of MSM liberals, who will inevitably denounce such ads as racist because they know they work. (Just ask Michael Dukakis.)

    Take the fight to the enemy.

    Paul Kanjorski Hits Bottom, Goes Spelunking

    Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

    Remember Paul Kanjorski? You know, the Democratic congressman and Stupak block turncoat from Pennsylvania that Lou Barletta slaughtered in November? (Can we still use “slaughtered” in a political context post-Jared Lee Loughner? How about creamed? Spanked? Hmm, I should probably desist from that line of thought…) The guy who wrote a $10 million earmark for his own relatives? Thought you’d heard the last of him, didn’t you?

    That was until he published a New York Times editorial calling for civility and respect in political discourse. That would be great, if it weren’t coming from someone who recently called for the shooting of a Republican candidate:

    “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him [Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Florida governor] and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.

    A class act, Mr. Kanjorski. It makes me very glad that Lou Barletta was one of the candidates I actually donated to in 2010.

    Surely there has to be at least one Democratic official calling for tact and civility who hasn’t called for the murder of political opponents. Hasn’t there?

    (Hat tip: Instapundit)

    Post Election Analysis: Bart Stupak’s Turncoats Go Down in Flames

    Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

    One of the most satisfying results of last night’s election was just how many of Bart Stupak’s block of ObamaCare flippers went down in flames.

    If you remember back to the ObamaCare debates, Stupak’s bloc of “Pro-Life Democrats” was never, ever, ever, ever going to vote for a bill that included government funding of abortions. That is, right up until they did.

    As shown below, on November 2, the clear majority of them paid the price for betraying their principles as well as their constituents. Unless otherwise noted, the election margins below are taken from this CBS table. Since WordPress doesn’t let me set font colors to red, I’ve marked GOP pickups in bold.

    • Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois’ 12th district defeated Republican Teri Newman
    • Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana’ 2nd district edged Republican Jackie Walorski by less than 3,000 votes.
    • Rep. Brad Ellsworth left his Indiana’s 8th Congressional seat for an unsuccessful run for the Senate. Republican Larry Bucshon flipped the seat by defeating Trent Van Haaften by almost 40,000 votes.
    • Rep. Bart Stupak retired from Michigan’s 1st congressional district when it became apparent his ObamaCare betrayal doomed his electoral chances. Republican Dan Benishek flipped the seat by defeating Gary McDowell by 25,000 votes.
    • Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota lost to Republican Chip Cravaack. You may also remember Oberstar for racking up only a single in-district donation to his reelection campaign.
    • Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio’s 1st district lost to Republican Steve Chabot by 23,000 votes.
    • Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio’s 6th district lost to Republican Bill Johnson by 10,000 votes.
    • Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio’s 9th district beat James Iott (AKA Nazi Costume Guy) by a wide margin.
    • Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania’s 3rd district lost to Republican Mike Kelly by over 20,000 votes.
    • Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania’s 11th district lost to Lou Barletta by over 15,000 votes.
    • Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas’ 27th district loses to Republican Blake Farenthold by less than 1,000 votes.

    That’s eight out of eleven Stupak bloc flippers whose seats are now in the hands of the GOP. And of those eleven races, I correctly picked ten, missing only Donnelly’s narrow victory in Indiana’s second district (which I originally had down as a longshot).

    A few lessons:

    1. Voters hate ObamaCare.
    2. They hate congressmen who break promises. (Republicans should take special note of this one anytime they contemplate letting a GOP-controlled congress slip back to the old free-spending ways of the Bush43 years.)
    3. They hate Blue Dog Democrats who vote like liberals when the really important issues are on the line.
    4. Voters may be wising up to the fact that it doesn’t matter how much a Democrat swears up and down how Pro-Life, fiscally conservative, pro-gun, etc. they are; when push comes to shove, they’ll always cave in and vote with their liberal leadership.

    As a reward for laying down their careers in the cause of ObamaCare, at least Blue Dogs have the consolation of the respect and gratitude of liberal activists everywhere. Ha, just kidding. The Daily Kossacks are saying “we can do without their sabotage.”

    Oh yes, I’m sure that running Democrats ideologically closer to Nancy Pelosi than Dan Boren in places like Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio is a great way to pick up seats. I encourage you to get started on that right away.

    Selected House Democrats Who May Be Swamped By The Coming Tidal Wave

    Monday, October 11th, 2010

    So how bad are Democratic House members doing this election? According to the National Journal, pretty bad. They count 60 seats among the most competitive and another 19 very close. Of those 79 House seats in play, 72 are currently held by Democrats.

    As for where Democrats are spending their money, six of the seven districts the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending money on went for Obama by more that 54%. They say that they’re trying to “nail down” relatively easy seats before moving on to harder ones, but that makes absolutely no sense; if you really want to help the marginal seats, you start helping them out first, because they need the most work. No, this smacks of triage, and suggests that the DCCC considers most districts below that line as good as gone.

    There are a number of interesting races and names that should be familiar to regular BattleSwarm readers, either from being in Texas or having been mentioned here before:

    • Chet Edwards (TX 17) comes in at #7. (I would say that Edwards is the last remnant of the old Texas Blue Dogs, but I didn’t know that Henry Cueller (TX-28) was an actual member of the Blue Dog Collation, which Edwards is not.) Edwards voted against ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade, but did vote for the Stimulus and the TARP bank bailout. District is heavily Republican; went for Bush by 68% in 2000, 70% in 2004, and 67% for McCain. His opponent is Bill Flores.
    • Suzanne Kosmas (FL 24) comes in at #9 on the list. You may remember this BattleSwarm piece on her back when she was a wavering no vote on ObamaCare; as I predicted, she was easier to flip to a Yes vote that Rep. Jason Altmire (PA 4), who I also profiled, and who stuck to his no vote. Which goes a long way toward explaining why Kosmas is likely to lose her seat, while Altmire isn’t on the list of endangered Democrats. Go figure. She also voted for the Stimulus and Cap-and-Trade. (Kosmos was first elected in 2008, so she didn’t vote on TARP.) District went for Bush in 2000 by 53%, Bush in 2004 by 55%, and McCain by 52%. Her opponent is Sandy Adams.
    • Indiana’s open 8th congressional district, held by Brad Ellsworth, who is leaving for a Senate run (which polls show he’s currently losing by 17 points), comes in at #11. The contest is between Democrat Trent Van Haaften and Republican Larry Bucshon. Ellsworth was of the theoretically Pro-Life members of the Bart Stupak bloc that rolled over for Nancy Pelosi on ObamaCare. District went for Bush by 57% in 2000, 62% in 2004, and for McCain by 51%.
    • Paul Kanjorski (PA 11) comes in at #15. Another Stupak bloc turncoat. Voted for TARP. Voted in favor of the Stimulus, but evidently decided oversight was so unimportant that he that he only attended three of the ten Pennsylvania Stimulus Oversight Board meetings. Has a reputation as a big spender: “Asking Paul Kanjorski to make sure our tax dollars are being spent wisely is like asking John Dillinger to keep an eye on the bank safe.” (IBID). Yesterday’s LinkSwarm mentioned how he earmarked $10 million for a business run by his own family. District went 54% for Gore, 53% for Kerry, and 57% for Obama. His opponent is Lou Barletta.
    • Steve Driehaus (OH 1) comes in at #16. Another Stupak-blocer who rolled over to let Nancy Pelosi rub his furry belly. In addition to ObamaCare, he voted for the Stimulus and Cap-and-Trade. (He was elected in 2008, and so didn’t vote on TARP.) District went 51% for Bush in both 2000 and 2004, but only 44% for McCain. His opponent is Steve Chabot, who held the seat for 12 years before Driehaus edged him 52%-48% in the Obama wave of 2008.
    • Kathy Dahlkemper (PA 3) comes in at #20. Yet another turncoat Supak-blocer Pelosi flipped for ObamaCare. Also voted for the Stimulus but against Cap-and-Trade. Wasn’t in Congress when TARP was voted on. District voted 51% for Bush in 2000 and 53% in 2004, and McCain edged Obama by a mere 20 votes in 2008. Her opponent is Mike Kelly.
    • Speaking of Stupak, Michigan’s open 1st congressional district comes in at #35. Realizing that his betrayal of his Pro-Life position to pass ObamaCare made him electoral toast, Stupak declined to run for reelection, leaving the battle to Democrat Gary McDowell and Republican doctor Dan Benishek. District went for Bush by 52% in 2000 and 53% in 2004, but 50% for Obama.
    • Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23) is off the list of top 60 races, but shows up in the “Knocking on the Door” section. Another Stupak bloc turncoat. In addition to ObammaCare, he voted for the Stimulus, but against Cap-and-trade and TARP. His district went for Bush by 54% in 200 and 57% in 2004, but for Obama by 51%. His opponent is Francisco “Quico” Canseco. Rodriguez came to national attention recently thanks to his defensive tone when constituents asked him to defend his vote on ObamaCare:

    Time permitting, I’ll try to do additional posts on each of those races, plus a few others (including some longer shots that just might pay off in a tidal wave year). But if you’re looking for places your campaign contributions might be the most effective at unseating Democrats, the challengers linked to above are certainly worthy of your consideration.

    References

    LinkSwarm for 10/10/10

    Sunday, October 10th, 2010

    A few links for 10/10/10 Sunday: