June 9th, 2016
Dwight beat me to this story on Williamson County District Attorney Jana Duty being placed on probation for 18 months by the Texas bar, but I have a few additional bits of context for those coming in late on the Jana Duty Saga.
First, let’s remember how widely unpopular Duty was (and is) with fellow Williamson County Republicans. Holly Hansen had this to say back in 2011:
Republican Jana Duty was first elected to the office in 2004 and re-elected in 2008, but has developed increasingly antagonistic interactions with the County Judge, all four members of the Commissioners Court, all of the County Court at Law Judges, the Williamson County District Attorney, and pretty much any other judge handing an down unfavorable ruling.
Since then, if anything she’s managed to become even less popular.
Second, the fact that Duty was sanctioned for “withholding evidence in a murder case” provides a delicious bit of irony for those who have been following her career. For it was charges of “prosecutorial misconduct” in the Michael Morton case that allowed her to defeat incumbent John Bradley in the 2012 Republican primary, even though Bradley was only involved in Morton’s appeal process, not the original prosecution. The Morton case was a real miscarriage of justice, but Duty and several other dubiously-conservative challengers in 2012 seemed to view the case as a “get into office free” card.
Finally, one tiny tidbit missing from the Statesman article Dwight linked to: Shawn Dick beat Duty in this year’s Republican Primary, so that probation is going to extend through the end of her term as DA, and beyond…
Tags: 2012 Election, 2016 Election, Austin, Crime, Holly Hansen, Jana Duty, John Bradley, Michael Morton, Republicans, Shawn Dick, Texas, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Crime, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
June 8th, 2016
With a helpful nudge from her lackeys in the media, who declared her the Democratic candidate before she had enough elected delegates to clinch, Hillary Clinton actually did manage to clinch the Democratic nomination Tuesday, winning California, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico.
Has there ever been such a prohibitive favorite who still managed to win do it in a less-convincing fashion? Hillary 2016 combines the excitement of Mondale 1984 with the outsider enthusiasm of Humphrey 1968 and the sincerity of Edwards 2008.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is vowing to take the fight to the convention, though it’s hard to see how he wins the nomination at this point short of an FBI indictment or a incapacitating health event on the part of Clinton.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton
Posted in Democrats, Elections | 2 Comments »
June 8th, 2016
Conservative Republican candidate Warren Davidson won his special election to take over the Ohio congressional seat of former speaker John Boehner. Because it was a special election for the resigning Boehner, Davidson will take office as soon as he is sworn in.
Davidson, who was endorsed by groups like the Tea Party Express and the Senate Conservatives Fund, beat out 14 other Republican candidates in the March primary.
Tags: 2016 Election, Elections, John Boehner, Ohio, Republicans, Warren Davidson
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
June 7th, 2016
Here we are, the final day of the primary season, when Democrats in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota go to the polls to (theoretically) put Hillary Clinton over the top.
Will EmailGate finally do Hillary in?
Why did Hillary want to hide her communications from the public so badly? “The most frightening explanation is that she sold foreign policy favors to the highest bidders to the Clinton Foundation and/or her husband. Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, argues that we can’t understand the “server” story unless we look carefully at the Clinton Foundation. In his opinion, some of Hillary’s policy decisions were linked to contributions to the Clinton Foundation.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“The Tea Parties were not a white identity-politics movement. But liberal elites treated it as such and now we’ve got the beginnings of one.”
“Hillary Clinton has to go to jail.”
“Trump is taking for granted—because he is not blind—that ethnic Democratic judges will rule in the interests of their party and of their ethnic bloc. That’s what they’re supposed to do. The MSM and the overall narrative say this is just fine. It’s only bad when someone like Trump points it out in a negative way.”
Any Hillary Clinton appointments to the Supreme Court would be disasterous for the rule of law. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The Debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is on no off, no on, no off no…let me get back to you.
Inside David French’s non-run for President. Which is indeed off, if you hadn’t heard.
“Hillary Clinton wore $12,495 Armani jacket during speech on inequality.” Of course, the amazing thing about Hillary is her ability to pick a $12,495 Armani jacket that still makes her look like a frumpy restaurant cashier… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
AP says screw lowly voters, we’re declaring Hillary the Democratic nominee.
Big networks cancel exit polling for remaining primaries. Maybe they don’t want to know just how much voters hate Hillary…
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, California, David French, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Republicans, South Dakota, Supreme Court
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Supreme Court, Uncategorized | No Comments »
June 6th, 2016
Here’s an update on the University of Texas admissions scandal and their continuing attempt to stonewall regent Wallace Hall.
Regents Alex Cranberg and Brenda Pejovich and former chairmen Charles Miller and Gene Powell filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week backing Hall’s lawsuit against UT System Chancellor Bill McRaven. The chancellor contends that Hall is not entitled to see confidential student records of the investigation into favoritism in admissions at UT-Austin.
For those who haven’t been following the case, this Jon Cassidy piece from March lays out the issues.
Tags: Austin, Texas, University of Texas, Wallace Hall, William McRaven
Posted in Austin, Texas | No Comments »
June 4th, 2016
Well, isn’t this lovely?
Hillary Clinton posted and shared the names of concealed U.S. intelligence officials on her unprotected email system.
Federal records reveal that Clinton swapped these highly classified names on an email account that was vulnerable to attack and was breached repeatedly by Russia-linked hacker attempts. These new revelations — reminiscent of the Valerie Plame scandal during George W. Bush’s tenure — could give FBI investigators the evidence they need to make a case that Clinton violated the Espionage Act by mishandling national defense information through “gross negligence.”
Numerous names cited in Clinton’s emails have been redacted in State Department email releases with the classification code “B3 CIA PERS/ORG,” a highly specialized classification that means the information, if released, would violate the Central Intelligence Act of 1949.
Remember when “Plamegate” was the worst thing ever as far as liberals were concerned?
Hillary committed a Plamegate every day while Secretary of State, because it was more important for her to protect her crooked dealings from Freedom of Information Act requests than it was to protect the lives of actual intelligence agents out in foreign countries.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags: Democrats, EmailGate, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Valerie Plame
Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
June 3rd, 2016
Another week, another Texas flood. Try to stay dry and enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:
Paglia on Clinton: “If it were a Republican in the crosshairs, Hillary’s shocking refusal to meet with the Inspector General (who interviewed all four of the other living Secretaries of State of the past two decades) would have been the lead item flagged in screaming headlines from coast to coast. Let’s face it—the genuinely innocent do not do pretzel twists like this to cover their asses.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
New York Magazine massively re-edits article on why Hillary won’t debate because the original wasn’t fawning enough.
Eight reasons Hillary sucks. Including Obama: “she does not seem to want to run on Ben Rhodes’s foreign policy, Jonathan Gruber’s Obamacare, Lois Lerner’s IRS, Lisa Jackson’s EPA, Eric Holder’s Justice Department, or Barack Obama’s racial healing. And yet she needs Obama’s hard-left base. So far she has rejected her 2008 Annie Oakley, Reagan-Democrat schtick, gambling that her Black Lives (alone) Matter and transgenderism pandering can ensure that she will match Obama’s historic share of the minority vote. But so far it seems just as likely that she will lose more voters among the white working class than she can lease from Obama’s core.”
College students are allowed to ask Hillary Clinton original, spontaneous questions that just happen to be scripted by the Clinton campaign. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
At judge’s order, 20,000 documents related to Fast and Furious scandal released. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Trump is right: Some illegal aliens are being lavished with more benefits than our own veterans.
How a naval contractor named “Fat Leonard” infiltrated the Navy with bribes, prostitutes and lavish parties. “The Soviets couldn’t have penetrated us better than Leonard Francis.” Our country is in the best of hands. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Oberlin students are among the most precious of snowflakes.
More on the same theme. Alas, this morning I just don’t have time to explicate all the manifest idiocies on display by the Social Justice Warrior Campus Cadets…
Obama Administration bitch-slapped for attempting ex-post facto regulation. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Columbia was once a basket case and Venezuela a thriving nation on the rise. Thanks to The Magic Power of Socialism™, they’ve switched places.
“This bitch is so crazy I can’t even keep up with her crazy bitch shit.”
Enya: rich crazy cat lady.
Flooding-related blackout leads to Texas prison riots.
City Manager behind Dallas’ controversial city-owned hotel steps down.
If your political party openly calls for the complete destruction of the oil industry, maybe you shouldn’t have your national convention in Houston.
Science Fiction writer Gregory Benford on university host escort duties for G. Gordon Liddy, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, and a certain “Tom.”
Space City Comic Con turns into an actual con. As in the fraud kind…
Swiss open world’s longest tunnel with ceremony featuring marching uniform worker drones, a horned goat god, and a giant flying death baby.
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Camille Paglia, Crime, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Enya, Fast and Furious, Foreign Policy, Gregory Benford, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Leonard Francis, Media Watch, Military, Navy, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, Rolling Stone, science fiction, Social Justice Warriors, Switzerland, Texas, Venezuela
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 3 Comments »
June 2nd, 2016
Time for another Texas vs. California update:
Once again, Texas is ranked as the best state for business by CEO Magazine, while California is ranked the worst. (Hat tip: Rider Rants via Pension Tsunami.)
This OC Register piece offers an good restatement of the general problem:
California has earned quite a reputation for being openly hostile to business, as confirmed by numerous studies and surveys. Its plethora of taxes and regulations are driving away legions of entrepreneurs and workers, but they are doing wonders for one segment of the economy: the moving industry. It is almost as though that industry is secretly lobbying the state Legislature for its anti-business policies.
Joe Vranich, as president of Spectrum Location Solutions, an Irvine business relocation consulting firm, knows all about what drives businesses’ decisions to give up and leave for greener pastures. According to his research, in just the past seven years, approximately 9,000 businesses have decided to leave California or expand their operations out of state. Companies leaving California typically save between 20 percent and 35 percent of operating costs, he concluded.
Texas has been the biggest beneficiary of California’s business exodus.
Snip.
California’s litigious climate has become a common complaint of business owners. No wonder the American Tort Reform Foundation once again named California the No. 1 “Judicial Hellhole” in the nation last year, based on the state’s excessive laws and regulations and a flood of disability access, asbestos and food advertising and labeling lawsuits, frequently more opportunistic attempts at extortion than legitimate attempts to seek justice for victims who have been truly harmed.
California has proven to be a particularly harsh climate for manufacturing businesses. “Even if California were to eliminate the state income taxes tomorrow, that still would not be enough,” CellPoint Corp. CEO Ehsan Gharatappeh told the Dallas Business Journal of the Costa Mesa company’s move to Forth Worth.
General Magnaplate Corp., which has made reinforced parts for the aerospace, transportation, medical, oil and other industries for 36 years, decided to shut down its California facility in Ventura altogether. “This is a very sad day for our employees and for my family, who have a long history of job creation in this area, but the simple fact is that the state of California does not provide a business-friendly environment,” CEO Candida Aversenti said in a press release. “Increases in workers’ compensation costs and government regulations, combined with predatory citizens groups and law firms that make their living entirely by preying on small businesses, have left us with no other choice but to shut down our California facility. This is in stark contrast to our New Jersey and Texas facilities, which are flourishing in small business-friendly environments created by the respective local governments and environmental agencies.”
Tech layoffs double in the Bay area:
Yahoo’s 279 workers let go this year contributed to the 3,135 tech jobs lost in the four-county region of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and San Francisco counties from January through April, as did the 50 workers axed at Toshiba America in Livermore and the 71 at Autodesk in San Francisco. In the first four months of last year, just 1,515 Bay Area tech workers were laid off, according to mandatory filings under California’s WARN Act. For that period in 2014, the region’s tech layoffs numbered 1,330.
How did the California city of Irwindale rack up the largest per household market pension debt in the state, at $134,907 per household?
Low and negative interest rates means that CalPERS must make risky investments to even come close to hitting their yield targets:
The nation’s largest public pension fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has one-fifth of its assets in bonds and is down 1.3% since July 1, according to public documents. The system, known by its abbreviation Calpers, also has 53.1% of its assets in stocks, 9% in real estate and 9.4% in private equity. In 2015, Calpers posted a return of 2.4%, below its target rate of 7.5%.
Nor is CalSTARS doing much better:
The nation’s second-largest public pension plan, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, has shifted a significant amount of money away from some stocks and bonds to protect against a downturn. It moved assets into U.S. Treasurys and so-called liquid-alternative funds, which mimic hedge-fund strategies. Calstrs, as the pension is called, reported gains of 1.5% during a choppy 2015, with returns on its fixed-income investments up just 0.6%.
(Note: WSJ link, so you may need to do the Google thing.)
News: Former CalPERS chief executive Fred Buenrostro convicted of bribery. California: Buenrostro will continue to receive his CalPERS pension while in prison. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Overview of the Texas budget.
UnitedHealth exits California’s Obamacare exchanges.
Despite that, California wants to offer ObamaCare subsidies to illegal aliens.
California also wants to spend more money to send illegal aliens to college.
And those illegal aliens with California driver’s licenses still aren’t purchasing liability insurance.
Hate California traffic? Tough:
The newest outrage comes from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in the form of a proposed “road diet.” This would essentially halt attempts to expand or improve our roads, even when improvements have been approved by voters. This strategy can only make life worse for most Californians, since nearly 85 percent of us use a car to get to work. This in a state that already has among the worst-maintained roads in the country, with two-thirds of them in poor or mediocre condition.
Snip.
In essence, the notion animating the “road diet” is to make congestion so terrible that people will be forced out of their cars and onto transit. It’s not planning for how to make the ways people live today more sustainable. It has, in fact, more in common with Soviet-style social engineering, which was based similarly on a particular notion of “science” and progressive values.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Toyota’s Plano headquarters takes shape.
The UAW is making a big push to unionize Tesla’s Fremont plant.
Speaking of Tesla, they’re approaching the grand opening of their giant battery factory…in Nevada.
McDonald’s CEO says a $15 minimum wage will make his restaurants shift to using robots. But what would McDonald’s know about minimum wage workers?
In the same vein, it’s no wonder that Whole Foods opened it’s first semi-automated Whole Foods 365 store in Los Angeles. “Promoted as a ‘chain for millennials,’ the new ‘365’ stores use about one-third less square footage than the company’s traditional 41,000-square-foot Whole Foods stores, but they also slash almost two-thirds of workers with robots and computerized kiosks.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Schedule for California high speed rail boondoggle pushed back four more years. Latest obstacle: wealthy equestrians. “Hey, this study says horses won’t mind a super-fast, super loud train zipping along right next to them.” “You mean the study from the institute that two bullet train authority members sit on? Get stuffed!”
“The State Assembly Subcommittee on Education voted Tuesday to delay funding to the UC system because of concerns with the UC Retirement Plan, proposed by UC President Janet Napolitano in March, which would cause the university to incur significant costs. The delay was announced after an actuarial report was released earlier that day by Pension Trustees Advisors, or PTA, which showed that the retirement plan would cost the university $500 million in savings, or $34 million a year, over the next 15 years.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Maywood, California (which had previously outsourced services to the corrupt city of Bell) is on the brink of bankruptcy. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Two L.A. sheriff’s deputies convicted of beating mentally ill inmate.”
San Francisco liberals versus the city’s police union
“Another aviation company has decided to move its corporate headquarters to Fort Worth to take advantage of the Lone Star state’s business friendly environment and the city’s longtime history in the aerospace industry. The move is historic for Burbank, California-based C&S Propeller — an FAA and EASA certified repair station for propeller and airplane maintenance — which has been in California for nearly five decades.”
This one’s a wash: XCOR lays off employees in both California and Texas.
Tags: Autodesk, Border Controls, California, CalPERs, CalSTARS, CellPoint, Crime, Democrats, Fred Buenrostro, Ft. Worth, General Magnaplate, Irwindale, Legislative Budget Board, Los Angeles, Maywood, McDonald's, minimum wage, Nevada, ObamaCare, Plano, San Francisco, Tesla Motors, Texas, Toshiba, Toyota, UnitedHealth, Welfare State, Whole Foods, XCOR, Yahoo
Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, ObamaCare, unions, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
June 1st, 2016
Let’s take a look at this Caroline Crampton piece in the New Statesman talking about how very, very difficult it is to be Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner’s wife and Hillary Clinton’s closest aide.
Years before Trump, notable Republicans were trying to make unpleasant capital out of Abedin’s background. In 2012, Tea Party supporters alleged that she was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and its attempt to gain access “to top Obama officials”. In her rare interviews, Abedin has spoken of how hurtful these baseless statements were to her family – her mother still lives in Saudi Arabia.
Note the unsupported assertion that allegations of Muslim Brotherhood ties to Huma Abedin are “baseless.”
Funny, but that’s not what the record shows.
Huma Abedin’s mother, Saleha, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s female division (the “Muslim Sisterhood”), is a major figure in not one but two Union for Good components. The first is the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR). It is banned in Israel for supporting Hamas under the auspices of the Union for Good. Then there’s the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC) — an organization that Dr. Saleha Abedin has long headed. Dr. Abedin’s IICWC describes itself as part of the IICDR. And wouldn’t you know it, the IICWC charter was written by none other than . . . Sheikh Qaradawi, in conjunction with several self-proclaimed members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Does Ms. Crampton assert that Saleha Abedin is not associated with the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief or the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child, or that these organizations have no Muslim brotherhood ties?
I asked Ms. Crampton these questions via Twitter. I’ll let you know if she replies.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Andrew McCarthy, Caroline Crampton, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Jihad, Media Watch, Muslim Brotherhood, Saleha Abedin
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Jihad | 1 Comment »
May 31st, 2016
For those still on the “Oh God, Hillary is going to slaughter Trump” express, now might be a good time to start making your way to the exits.
David S. Bernstein lays out four ways Hillary can lose. Fortunately for Trump, she seems to be managing them all:
“Step 1: Take Hispanic enthusiasm for granted.” Trump needs only for Hispanic voting to return to 2008 levels to win in Florida.
“Step 2: Alienate the young.” You can’t assume all those young Bernie Sanders voters who are seeing Clinton shamelessly cheat her way to the nomination are going to magically put aside their bitterness and vote for Granny Crooked McCankles.
“Step 3: Let establishment Republicans find another place to go.” Not sure about this one, as I see #NeverTrump as more an online/insider issue than one that could deliver significant numbers of disgruntled Republican voters to Hillary.
“Step 4: Fumble on trade.” Never mind that protectionism is loser economics, Hillary’s been on every side of just about every trade agreement, and her vital union allies are more than a little tired of it.
It’s not hard to see how quickly this could start costing her Electoral College votes in the Rust Belt, where Trump hopes to improve on past Republican performance. (And where, you may remember, Clinton had to apologize for threatening to put coal companies out of business.) In Ohio, for example, 22 percent of 2012 voters came from union households, and 60 percent of them voted for Obama. In Wisconsin, a similar share of the electorate voted 2-to-1 for Obama over Romney. In 2016, both states went for Sanders over Clinton in their primaries. In Pennsylvania, where Trump is planning a major effort, union households provided Obama more than half his net margin.
Read the whole thing.
Missing from the analysis: The dead certainty that Hillary will not do as well among black voters as Obama did. But that’s an analysis for another day…
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Democrats, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hispanics, Ohio, unions
Posted in Democrats, Elections, unions | No Comments »