Posts Tagged ‘Proposition A (2021)’
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021
That was a pretty consequential off-year election.
Not only did Glenn Youngkin win, but Republicans swept statewide offices in Virginia, with Winsome Sears winning Lieutenant Governor and Jason Miyares winning Attorney General. (And for those that worry that Youngkin wasn’t quite beyond the margin of fraud, Terry McAuliffe conceded.)
Turns out that Critical Race Theory and radical transgenderism are deeply unpopular among actual voters. Who knew?
Republicans also won control of the Virginia House of Delegates, flipping six seats held by Democrats. Democrats still control the Virginia Senate.
Jim Geraghty:
Here in Virginia, the sun is shining a little brighter, the birds are chirping sweetly, the leaves are turning vibrant colors, and Republicans just stomped the bejeebers out of Democrats up and down the ballot. A “bloodbath,” as University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato told Rachel Maddow last night. “A five-alarm fire,” as Van Jones declared on CNN.
Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governor’s race by about 70,000 votes over Terry McAuliffe, Winsome Sears won the lieutenant-governor’s race by about 56,000 votes, and Jason Miyares won the state attorney-general’s race by about 34,000 votes. Democratic incumbent AG Mark Herring was the guy who called upon governor Ralph Northam to resign, despite his own past wearing of blackface. The night was so bad that McAuliffe’s surrogates canceled on Chuck Todd and wouldn’t come out and eat their humble pie.
Republicans picked up six seats to win control of the House of Delegates — the oldest continuous legislative body in the Western Hemisphere — with 51 seats to the Democrats’ 49 seats. This is one of the indicators that even though Terry McAuliffe was a deeply flawed candidate, the problem for Democrats was not just him. (With McAuliffe’s defeat, the last gasp of the Clinton political legacy ends.) This should dispel the defeatist “Virginia is a blue state now” talk among Republicans.
Snip.
Once schools did come back, some parents didn’t like what they saw in their children’s curricula and also how schools handled some big issues. What did it mean if teachers were instructed to “embrace critical race theory,” “engage in race-conscious teaching and learning,” “teach code-switching in positive, nonjudgmental ways,” and “re-engineer attitudes and belief systems”? What kinds of materials are appropriate for sex education, and what kinds of materials are age-appropriate for school libraries? Do schools quickly and accurately report sexual assault and violence, or are they trying to sweep it under the rug?
And when parents objected, the National Association of School Boards labeled them “domestic terrorists” and demanded “the resources of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment Center” to investigate them.
As Robby Soave summarized, “The public school system abused families’ trust during the pandemic, and the reckoning has just begun.”
Nebraska senator Ben Sasse contended that the teachers’ unions delivered the governor’s mansion to Youngkin.
“The Virginia GOP’s MVP has to go to Randi Weingarten, the leader of a radical teachers’ union that ignored actual teaching, politicized everything, shut down schools, and literally tried to tell parents to shut up. Congrats, Randi, you really turned out the vote,” Sasse declared in a released statement. “Congrats to Glenn Youngkin as well, on a sane, well-run campaign — and may all American politicians finally reject drunken, anti-parent rage from radicals like Randi Weingarten.”
Some Twitter reactions to Virginia:
If Sears were a Democrat, the leftwing media would never tire of telling us how historic her election was. Since she’s a Republican, the MSM tried to make her all but invisible. What was the media’s reaction to Republican ticket with a black Lt. Governor and a Hispanic attorney general winning? It was because of racism:
To the surprise of absolutely no one who’s been paying attention to the execrable members of the mainstream media, their response to this momentous occasion was to say that the Republicans won because of racism.
They’re not only evil, but they’re also lazy too.
As we have discussed on many occasions, the Democrats and their media mouthpieces are truly broken people. They were barely tethered to reality when Trump became the Republican nominee in 2016. His victory ripped them from any moorings that they had. Now incapable of rational thought, all they can do is reflexively belch “Racism!” whenever bested by a Republican. They’ve got nothing else, which is why that’s all they’ve got in response to the Virginia results despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
They’re still lying about Critical Race Theory, which is just going to keep making them dig deeper holes for themselves. There were stories about anti-CRT conservatives taking over school boards, like this one in Texas. Of course, NBC News spun that as the victors being anti-diversity. The biggest of the lies about CRT is that it’s “anti-racist,” which it is not. It’s racist, it’s commie, and it’s all about fomenting division.
It wasn’t just CRT that was on the ballot in Virginia last night, it was also a referendum on what the drooling idiot usurper in the Oval Office has done to the country since January. The media won’t dwell on that though, they’re still tasked with carrying all of the water for President LOL Eightyonemillion.
I’ve been writing and saying for months that the egregious overreach by the Democrats would be their undoing. This is the first electoral manifestation of that.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Terry McAuliffe Baffled That Telling Parents The State Owns Their Children Wasn’t A Winning Strategy.”
If Virginia was a wakeup call for race and transgenderism-obsessed Democrats, then what are we to make of New Jersey? There Republican Jack Ciattarelli holds a razor-thin lead over Democratic incumbent Philip Murphy in the governor’s race. If that holds up, it would be a seismic event akin to Chris Christie’s victory there in 2009. That provided a foretaste of the red tsunami that would give Republicans control of the House and Senate in 2010, even if Republican enthusiasm for Christie himself waned considerably over the years. (Update: Murphy is now ahead.)
Bad news on for Austin residents: Proposition A, the proposal for adequately funding the police, went down to defeat. It wasn’t a small defeat, either. A whopping 102,791 against to only 46,433 for. And we’re left to figure out an electorate that voted to reinstate the homeless camping ban but didn’t want to refund police in the face of record murders. Maybe I should do a roundtable discussion on the topic.
Minneapolis voters took the opposite tack, voting against disbanding their police department.
All the Texas Constitutional Amendments passed.
Anti-CRT parents win control of the Carroll ISD school board. (Previously.)
I’m hearing the same about Cypress-Fairbanks, with three incumbents going down to defeat. Holly Hansen at The Texan is on that beat, and I’ll update this post when her piece is up. Update: Here it is:
Following a year of heated controversy in the state’s third-largest school district, challengers have unseated three long-time incumbents for positions on the school board.
The winners in the Cypress-Fairbanks ISD (CFISD) election — Natalie Blasingame, Scott Henry, and Lucas Scanlon — were all endorsed by the Harris County Republican Party (HCRP), the Conservative Coalition of Harris County (CCHC), and business political networking organization BIZPAC.
Tags:2021 Elections, Austin, Austin Police Department, Critical Race Theory, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, Democrats, Elections, Glenn Youngkin, Jack Ciattarelli, Jason Miyares, Jim Geraghty, Lucas Scanlon, Minneapolis, Natalie Blasingame, New Jersey, Philip Murphy, police, Proposition A (2021), Randi Weingarten, Republicans, Scott Henry, Social Justice Warriors, Terry McAuliffe, Texas, Virginia, Winsome Sears
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, unions | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021
Today’s Election Day in Texas, Virginia, and several other states! If you haven’t already voted early, find your voter registration card, grab your ID and head off to the polls!
Travis County polling locations.
Williamson County polling locations.
Now a few election roundup bits:
Tons of out-of-state money is flowing in to defeat Pro A.
Among several reforms, the proposition would enact the nationally recognized “Safe City Standard” in Austin to require two police officers per 1,000 citizens.
Texas Scorecard previously reported that New York billionaire George Soros recently intruded into Austin and gave $500,000 to oppose Proposition A. Now, other big players are joining him. Washington, D.C.-based labor union The Fairness Project and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (the largest trade union of government employees in the nation) are also pumping money to defeat the citizen-led effort.
The Fairness Project, which has previously supported harmful employer mandates in Texas, poured in $200,000 to kill the police campaign, while the big-government union tossed in $25,000.
More background on the Austin Justice Coalition, the main local anti Prop A group:
Founded by Chas Moore, the AJC has reached new heights of influence within the City of Austin. Before launching the coalition, Moore “served as a student activist fighting many social issues at The University of Texas at Austin and in the broader Austin Community.”
Snip.
Moore describes himself ideologically as a “liberal, radical, abolitionist, [and] afrofuturist.” He founded AJC in 2015.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, AJC had its tax exempt status revoked in August of 2019 for failing to file a Form-990 return for three consecutive years.
Moore said that there was a misunderstanding between himself and the organization financing AJC at the time, the Texas Fair Defense Project, as to who was responsible for the tax filings. He said that the misstep was rectified by filing backdated 990s and their status was reinstated in 2020.
Under Moore’s tutelage, AJC has prodded the progressive-dominated city council to adopt a sea change in policies.
One of AJC’s biggest triumphs includes its successful effort lobbying council to scrap a 2017 APD labor agreement and the eventual final product that included the creation of the city’s Office of Police Oversight — which expanded on the responsibilities of its predecessor, the Office of the Police Monitor. Another more recent and monumental gain is the 2020 cut and redirection of $150 million from the Austin Police Department (APD) budget.
Other big issues AJC and its sister organizations, such as Texas Appleseed, the Texas Fair Defense Project, and Just Liberty, pushed for include a 2017 ordinance mandating the municipal court prioritize personal recognizance (PR) bonds for defendants classified as indigent, the subsequent ousting of five judges who did not abide the policy change, and the 2019 recission of the citywide prohibition on camping and laying.
In Virginia, more gaslighting by the same people who hired the fake “white supremacists”:
Man, Terry McAuliffe sure likes to hire jerks:
What’s wrong with not just saying “Sorry, he’s not taking questions” rather than yelling “THANK YOU FOR COMING” over and over again?
Tags:2021 Elections, Austin, Austin Justice Coalition, Brad Johnson, Chas Moore, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Proposition A (2021), Terry McAuliffe, Texas, Texas Constitutional Amendment, Virginia
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas | 9 Comments »
Monday, November 1st, 2021
There’s a Texas Constitutional Amendment election tomorrow.
So let me go through these in “one-eyed man in the land of the blind” fashion:
- Proposition 1: Charitable Raffles at Rodeo Venues [HJR 143]. What It Does: Designates sanctioned rodeos as professional sports teams and authorizes professional sports team charitable organizations to conduct raffles at rodeo venues.
Analysis: This is one of those small ball “every damn thing has to be spelled out in the Texas Constitution” amendments Yes.
- Proposition 2: County Infrastructure Bonds in Blighted Areas [HJR 99]. What It Does: Authorizes counties to issue bonds (debt) to fund infrastructure and transportation projects in underdeveloped, unproductive, or blighted areas.
Analysis: Lots of direct mail flyers trying to pimp this thing. “Underdeveloped,” “unproductive” and “blighted” sound like excuses to throw government subsidies to private business interests, with all the attendant possibilities of cronyism, graft and fraud. Texas local governments do not suffer from a crushing lack of debt. “Compared to the top 10 most populous states in the nation, Texas’ local debt per capita ranks as the second highest total, behind only New York (Texas Bond Review Board, 2021, p. 4). Proposition 2 may aggravate this situation by allowing counties to take on even more debt, which could result in higher future taxes, increased debt service payments, and credit rating risk.” No.
- Proposition 3: Prohibition on Limiting Religious Services [SJR 27]. What It Does: State and local governments may not enact any rules that prohibit or limit religious services by religious organizations.
Analysis: You know how Canada imprisoned a minister for daring to hold church services? Texas don’t cotton to none of that. Yes.
- Proposition 4: Eligibility Requirements for Certain Judicial Offices [SJR 47] What It Does: Adds that state Supreme Court and court of appeals justices, and court of criminal appeals judges, must be Texas residents at the time of election. They must have been practicing lawyers licensed in the state of Texas and/or Texas state or county court judges for at least 10 years (the current amount of experience), with no suspensions of their licenses. Requires district court judges to have eight years of Texas law practice and/or court judge experience, with no suspensions—twice the current requirement of four years of combined experience.
Analysis: Seems like sound requirements. Yes.
- Proposition 5: Authority of State Commission on Judicial Conduct [HJR 165]. What It Does: Authorizes the Commission to investigate complaints and reports against candidates for state judicial office, in the same manner it does judicial officeholders.
Analysis: Mildly in favor, though the advantage of catching bad apples before they’re elected has to be weighed against the possibility of the commission being used to stifle dissent. Yes.
- Proposition 6: Right to Designated Essential Caregiver [SJR 19]. What It Does: Residents of nursing, assisted living, and similar residential facilities have the right to designate an essential caregiver who may not be denied in-person visitation.
Analysis: More Flu Manchu fallout spelling out things that we didn’t realize needed spelling out before. Yes.
- Proposition 7: Homestead Tax Limit for Surviving Spouses of Disabled [HJR 125]. What It Does: Extends the current homestead school tax limit for disabled individuals to surviving spouses who are at least 55 years old and reside at the home.
Analysis: More small ball. Yes.
- Proposition 8: Homestead Tax Exemption for Surviving Military Spouses [SJR 35]. What It Does: Expands the current homestead tax exemption to include surviving spouses of service members fatally injured in the line of duty, along with those killed outright.
Analysis: More small ball. Yes.
If you live in Austin, I recommend a very strong Yes vote on Proposition A, to restore police staffing to sane levels, and a moderate No vote on Proposition B. I haven’t had time to research the ins and outs of this landswap, but with all the flyers I’ve been getting touting it, somebody’s palms are getting greased and somebody is going to make out like a bandit, so I would vote no just on general principle.
Tags:2021 Elections, Austin, Elections, Proposition A (2021), Texas, Texas Constitutional Amendment
Posted in Austin, Elections, Texas | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
There’s been a lot of news on the Austin Police Department and Soros-backed Travis County DA Jose Garza popping up, so let’s dig in:
In case you missed it, Austin police staffing levels have fallen so low that police will no longer respond to “non-emergency” calls. “Collisions with no injury or burglaries no longer in progress or where the suspect has left, would not warrant a 911 call. Austin residents in these situations and others like it will have to call 311 and file a non-emergency report.”
“Austin Homicide Investigator Accuses Travis County District Attorney of Criminal Witness Tampering“:
In an affidavit filed Tuesday, Austin Police Department (APD) Detective David Fugitt went to blows with Travis County District Attorney José Garza over his alleged tampering with Fugitt’s testimony in the prosecution of Army Sergeant Daniel Perry.
Last month, a grand jury indicted Perry for charges including murder, aggravated assault, and deadly conduct after he shot and killed Garrett Foster, a former Air Force mechanic who was protesting in downtown Austin at a Black Lives Matter demonstration on July 25, 2020.
Fugitt, who is spearheading the investigation into the incident in question, insisted that Garza quashed exculpatory evidence he planned to provide to the grand jury. He indicated that witness statements gathered by Foster’s relatives and their lawyers “were inconsistent with prior interviews” and video of portions of the incident.
With respect to a charge of threatening imminent bodily injury, Fugitt had also planned to say that the complaining witness “never once suggested that Daniel Perry” had threatened her by purposefully driving his vehicle in her direction.
According to the affidavit, Fugitt described an interaction he had with Assistant District Attorney Guillermo Gonzalez in which the detective had asked Gonzalez what “ramifications” there would be if he did not abide by the DA’s request to exclude the evidence favorable to Perry. Fugitt says the office merely told him again which evidence he was not to discuss in front of the grand jury.
“In my mind, after this directive from José Garza, is when the conduct of the District Attorney’s Office [went] from highly unethical behavior to criminal behavior,” Fugitt deposed.
“I firmly believe the District Attorney’s Office, acting under the authority of José P. Garza, tampered with me as a witness.”
More on the same subject:
When Fugitt refused and stood by his finding of justified homicide, Garza retaliated. That retaliation implicates Austin PD acting Police Chief Joseph Chacon and Assistant Chief Ricardo Guajardo, according to the filing and several others in the case which PJ Media has obtained.
Snip.
The documents call for an evidentiary hearing to determine the facts surrounding Det. Fugitt’s direct accusations against Garza, which include new evidence and also implicate the two leaders of APD. The documents also note that Garza opposes such a hearing, which Sgt. Perry’s defense attorneys interpret as evidence of Garza’s guilt.
The document accuses District Attorney Garza of felony criminal conduct under the Texas Penal Code 36.06(a)(1)(A), unethical conduct, and violation of Sgt. Perry’s right to a fair trial under the law as a defendant.
You may start to understand why rank-and-file APD officers were less than wild about Chacon being made police chief…
It’s no surprise that Garza has tried to seal the evidence against him.
That’s not the only thing Garza doesn’t want you to see:
“Austin Office Of Police Oversight Director Farah Muscadin Investigated For Spending Enormous Taxpayer Money To Push Critical Race Theory Training.”
Farah Muscadin, Director of the Austin Office of Police Oversight, has once again pushed to offer bribes to people in the community to take Critical Race Theory (CRT) training. For completing a 22-hour course, people are cashing in with $550 gift (read grift) cards. $55,000 was defunded from the Austin Police Department to fund this radical training course. Guess who is paying for this ridiculous CRT propaganda?
It is well past time for Austin citizens to demand their own Office of Government Oversight Committee to watch over how these people continue to waste taxpayer funds on pushing this Marxist-influenced indoctrination that is inherently racially divisive.
The influential driving force behind these shenanigans is Muscadin. Muscadin was ousted from a similar position at Chicago State University for employing the same shady tactics she is pulling here in Austin.
Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday said they investigated Farah Muscadin, the director of the Office of Police Oversight, and found some disturbing information about her past career at Chicago State University. Casaday sent a letter to Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk noting Muscadin’s name was mentioned in a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to falsely accuse a professor of sexual harassment while she was working as Dean of Students at Chicago State University. He also provided board of trustee meeting minutes mentioning Muscadin had been “terminated.”
This blatant waste of money simply boils down to further defunding of the police. The goal of Muscadin and her ilk is to strip the Austin Police Department of every resource possible.
Indeed, Muscadin’s name appears in that lunatic Reimagining Public Safety Task Force document, the entire purpose of which was to transfer money from APD to various leftwing activist groups.
While Austin crime and homicide numbers continue to exponentially increase, these extreme-left radical groups keep chipping away at morale and funding to continue the downward spiral Austin is on in terms of law enforcement and public safety. While the excuses and denial are endless, accountability is in short supply. If you want to address the record breaking murder numbers, look no further than these anti-police radicals’ war with the police.
Three former Austin mayors come out for Proposition A:
Prop A is a necessary start, but crime will not fully come under control as long as Garza is DA and the current hard-left City Council is in power.
Tags:311, Austin, Austin Police Department, Bryan Preston, Crime, Daniel Perry, David Fugitt, Democrats, Farah Muscadin, Garrett Foster, Guillermo Gonzalez, Jose Garza, Joseph Chacon, Lee Cooke, Lee Leffingwell, Proposition A (2021), Ricardo Guajardo, Ron Mullen, Travis County
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 5 Comments »
Saturday, October 2nd, 2021
George Soros, the man whose money helped install radical leftist Jose Garza in the Travis County DA’s office, is so displeased with the push to put more police back on the streets of Austin that he’s dumped half a million dollars into the fight against proposition A.
The billionaire benefactor of progressive causes across the country, George Soros, has waded into the political fight over Austin’s police staffing — pumping a half-million dollars into a campaign to defeat Proposition A.
Among other reforms, Proposition A would establish a minimum staffing level for the Austin Police Department (APD) of 2 officers per 1,000. Earlier this summer, APD was floating around 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents. From current staffing levels, it’d require the hiring of roughly 500 officers.
APD is suffering not only from a dearth in approved positions compared with its staffing level two years ago, but also from rampant attrition within its ranks, averaging 15 to 20 departures per month this year.
According to the Austin American-Statesman’s Ryan Autullo, the Open Society Policy Center, one of Soros’ advocacy arms, gave $500,000 to Equity Austin which opposes Proposition A.
The proposition is on the November ballot for Austin voters and is openly opposed by Mayor Steve Adler, Councilmember Greg Casar, and the city’s numerous progressive activist groups who each pushed for the $150 million APD budget cut and redirection last year.
Here’s the filing document showing the filing. And they’re not the only ones opposing Proposition A:
As I’ve written before, the hard left opposes adequate funding for policing because it’s much harder for them to rake off money from policing than various “Social Justice” initiatives for which their bureaucratic functionaries control checkbooks. And because they view police officers (probably correctly) as competing institutions of legal force and legitimacy that stand in the way of complete overthrow of capitalism and the current American constitutional order and its replacement with the neo-Marxist/Social Justice/Critical Race Theory “successor ideology.” To them, soaring Austin crime rates are a sign of their success.
All the more reason for ordinary Austinites to show up and vote in droves for Proposition A.
(Hat tip: johnnyk20001.)
Tags:Austin, Austin Police Department, Crime, Democrats, Equity Austin, George Soros, Open Society Foundations, Proposition A (2021), Save Austin Now, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, The Fairness Project
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 4 Comments »