September 23rd, 2013
Sometimes you see a troll attempt so shamelessly blatant that, like the ludicrous science in a Sy Fy channel movie, you can’t help but laugh at the obvious, naked stupidity.
Today’s example of trolling comes from that renowned redoubt of Euroleftisms, The Guardian:
“American gun use is out of control. Shouldn’t the world intervene?”
One can only smile at the image of wave after wave of UN troops, each bearing ammo cans laden with Strongly Worded Letters, landing on America’s shores to liberate their oppressed liberal brethren.
The article itself is the usual insular ruling-class assumption of Absolute Righteousness on the part of the far left agenda and the simultaneous assumption of Evil Incarnate on the part of their political opponents.
In the comments, a few worthies like Clayton Cramer have undertaken debunking some of its more obvious idiocies, but this is really a piece that need only be labeled with the “Maximum Trolling” tag and then ignored.
Tags: Clayton E. Cramer, Guns, Media Watch, The Guardian
Posted in Guns, Media Watch | 1 Comment »
September 20th, 2013
Here’s a Friday LinkSwarm. I have a big piece brewing on the ObamCare battle I may or may not have out on Monday.
Poland seizes half of private retirement funds.
Republicans in the House actually manage to cut something.
On the other hand, if you’re a Republican congressman, and you make $172,000 a year, you don’t get to complain about it. That means you, Rep. Phil Gingrey.
Ted Cruz says the ObamaCare fight is just beginning.
Speaking of Cruz, nothing says class quite like the Communications Director of the Sacramento Democratic Party wishing for the children of a Ted Cruz staffer to die of a horrible disease. If a Republic staffer said that about Obama’s children he’d be gone faster than Domino’s could get there. (Bonus: An extra evidence to Allan Brauer’s extreme classiness, he also refers to a woman as “cumrag.”) Sacramento Democrats have taken down Brauer’s page, but you can still find it on the Wayback Machine.)
“Like your health care plan? Then you can keep it” suck it up and get shoved into an ObamaCare exchange by your employer.
The IRS scandal just keeps getting worse.
Congressional Budget offices says that the deficit is going to get much, much worse.
Biggest story you’re not hearing much about? German elections this weekend. If Angela Merkel’s party should lose, and be replaced with a party less enthused with endless PIIGS bailouts, well, things could get interesting.
Obama official refuses to release information pertaining to a a Freedom of Information Act request. Stonewalling the press and withholding evidence? Obviously he must be bucking for a promotion.
Obama Express busted for paying cash for food stamps.
FEMA grounds UAVs, preventing them from providing mapping of Colorado flood victims for free.
Mainly read this Ann Althouse piece on “lean-in” circles for the catty comments.
Amarillo restaurant closes, evidently pens insulting message to patrons?
Remember China’s “Ghost Cities”? They’re bigger, and emptier, than ever:
Tags: Allan Brauer, Amarillo, China, Colorado, FEMA, Germany, Ghost Cities, Phil Gingrey, PIIGS, Poland, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Republicans | No Comments »
September 20th, 2013
And the battle is joined. I support the move, and hope it’s the right course of action, knowing that it might not succeed. Then again, I would also be willing to see no spending limit raise at all, and force the federal government to live within its (which is to say our) means.
Now the ball is in the court of Senate Republicans, where Ted Cruz says he’ll filibuster any ObamaCare funding if necessary. Now would be a great time for senators like John McCain, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham to look at their political ID cards, realize they’re Republicans, and back him. Whether than will actually happen or not is another question.
Don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin…
Tags: ObamaCare, Ted Cruz
Posted in ObamaCare | No Comments »
September 20th, 2013
An appeals court has not only overturned former House Majority leader Tom DeLay’s money-laundering conviction, it actually rendered judgments of acquittal.
This is not a surprising decision for anyone who watched the case, which was always based on unconstitutional ex post facto prosecution and former Travis County DA Ronnie Earle’s vindictiveness. Also remember that the DoJ spent six years investigating DeLay and found nothing.
Which is not to say that DeLay is free of sin. Indeed, DeLay’s leadership was one of the reasons the Republican House majority went from backing Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America to succumbing to Washington’s usual big-spending, horse-trading, “campaign dollars for access” in less than a decade. It’s just that none of those were crimes in the eyes of Democratic prosecutors. As far as they were concerned, DeLay’s real crime was helping unseat Democratic incumbents, and for that they had to find something, anything to nail him on.
I do wonder what happens to DeLay’s co-defendants who plead guilty to lesser charges to avoid prosecution (one of whom I used to know back in my college days)…
Tags: Republicans, Ronnie Earle, Texas, Tom DeLay, Travis County
Posted in Austin, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
September 19th, 2013
Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared on Crossfire yesterday, and by all reports he got the better of Maryland Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley.
Though not all of the episode appears to be on YouTube yet, you can judge for yourself based on what is available.
Some fact checking here.
Tags: Crossfire, Economics, Martin O’Malley, Maryland, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Rick Perry, Texas
Posted in Economics, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas, video | No Comments »
September 18th, 2013
Time for another Texas vs. California update:
CalPERS decides commoners are unworthy of knowing what their betters in the California state retiree system get paid.
New California law to shield pedophiles in teacher’s unions in California each year, seven to eight times as much sexual misconduct takes place in public schools as in the Catholic Church.
I’ve often thought Texas would consider doing this: Nevada gives mentally ill tickets to California.
You know all those pieces on how “California is back?” Yeah, not so much.
Because other states just aren’t getting enough businesses fleeing California, they’re moving to hike the minimum wage again.
Sacramento Convention Center loses $218 million over 14 years.
California bends over backwards to prevent jailed illegal aliens from being deported.
What it’s like living in bankrupt Stockton: “Anderson called the police recently after a boy was shot riding his bike down the alley that runs alongside her home. It took them four hours to show up.”
Judge rejects CalPERS, allows San Bernardino’s bankruptcy to proceed. Naturally CalPERS is incensed that their golden pension goose could be cooked along with everyone else.
California toll road agency misses overly optimistic projections, may have to declare bankruptcy. “The Foothill-Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, which operates 39 miles (63 kilometers) of toll highways in Orange County, risks default on $2.4 billion in debt.”
Rick Perry goes fishing for new businesses to relocate to Texas in Maryland.
Also Missouri, where the Democratic governor just vetoed a tax cut.
Tags: California, CalPERs, Marylnd, Missouri, Rick Perry, Texas, Victor Davis Hanson
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Regulation, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
September 17th, 2013
Via Dwight comes a link to this Jonathan Chait piece in New York magazine. Which contained this gem of prevarication:
Bloomberg’s health crusade is so unusual because it embraces a political mode usually associated with the right. Conservatives favor regulation of vice and personal behavior, especially related to sex, because they believe that the state has a legitimate role in shaping the culture. Traditional social values, they believe, undergird stable families and a well-functioning community. Liberals traditionally want to remove the government from regulating personal behavior and to deploy it only in the economic realm.
That quote might have had some nodding relationship to reality in, oh, 1980 or so. But it’s certainly not conservatives who have been pushing to:
Ban civilian firearms ownership
Increase tobacco taxes
Ban incandescent light bulbs
Force Catholics to pay for abortions
Ban “high flow” toilets
Ban “hate speech”
Ban plastic bags
Ban transfats
Ban crosses and managers on public land
Ban liquor stores in black neighborhoods
Ban talk radio
Ban government use of the word “Christmas”
Ban SUVs, or any other vehicle that get insufficiently “virtuous” gas mileage
Ban genetically modified foods
Ban foie gras
And don’t forget that the “War on Drugs” was an extremely bipartisan affair, with Hubert Humphrey, Joe Biden and Tip O’Neil all among its enthusiastic backers.
Etc.
This poster makes many of the same points:
The idea that modern (as opposed to classical) liberals “want to remove the government from regulating personal behavior” is a naked, vainglorious, self-flattering lie on Chait’s part, and only someone living in the coastal Liberal Reality Bubble could possibly type it with a straight face.
Tags: Democrats, Jonathan Chait, Media Watch, Nanny State, Regulation
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, Regulation | No Comments »
September 17th, 2013
Today is Constitution Day, one of our lesser celebrated civic holidays.
The Cato Institute is also holding a symposium.
Today would be a good time to read the Constitution all the way through again. Or maybe for the first time, if you’re working in the Obama White House…
Tags: Cato Institute, Constitutional Law
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 16th, 2013
Austin police chief assaulted by member of Dragworm American community (for values of assault that include just getting pushed).
In an amazing coincidence, the local media suddenly realizes that aggressive panhandlers are assaulting people. “Downtown APD Commander Jason Dusterhoft tells KVUE News they received more than 900 calls last year — regarding three homeless individuals alone.”
Thanks to KrimeLabb (which I should really add to the local/Texas links section), we have a pretty good idea of exactly who these people are:
Jonathon Glen Richard, 174 Arrests
William Eugene Perry, Jr., 128 Arrests
Donald Ray Windrom, 114 Arrests
Bonus: David Glenn Roach, 111 Arrests
Sadly, this is not a new problem, and it’s getting worse. “For the first seven months of FY 2013, there have been more homeless-related downtown community court cases than in all of FY 2012.” And it’s not just limited to downtown.
Putting aside the fact that the legalization of drugs would eliminate some (not all) of public nuisance arrests, this is not a problem that will have any easy solutions; nor, indeed, any solution at all as long as liberals on the Austin City Council consider Homelessness next to Godliness.
Tags: Austin, Crime, homeless, transients
Posted in Austin, Crime | 1 Comment »
September 13th, 2013
My schedule is finally close to getting back to normal after Worldcon, so here’s the latest Friday LinkSwarm:
Greek unemployment hits 27.9%. Remember: For all the mentions of “austerity measures,” they’ve never balanced a budget.
Why we were in Benghazi. Short answer: Smuggling arms to Syrian rebels. Remember: No Americans died in Iran-Contra.
Syrian rebels do what they do best: kill women and children.
Obama’s Syrian policy is “is an unmitigated cl*st*rf*ck.” And that’s from his friends at The New Republic.
Charles Krauthammer calls it epic incompetence.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, which, as we all know, finally brought long-lasting peace and stability to the Middle East. “Decadal stasis points to the sterility of the Arab-Israeli diplomatic process.”
Mark Steyn on ObamaCare.
Mickey Kaus is worried that Republicans can still snatch amnesty defeat from the jaws of victory.
How often does Defensive gun use occur? “From about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”
PPP’s poll data showed Giron was in trouble, but they didn’t release the poll, ostensibly because they didn’t believe it. That may be the case, but their explanation is suspect, given they actually testified in court as part of the effort to get the recall effort thrown out. Also, they didn’t do Giron and the gun-grabber side any favors by suppressing the results (the Liberal Reality Bubble strikes again). Bonus: Pollster Twitter slap fight!
Is the House Republican leadership actually stupid enough to kill the sequester in a deal with Obama? Let’s hope not…
Jihadi rapper killed by fellow jihadis. And you thought Vanilla Ice’s reviews were brutal…
To a visitor from India, America looks like a classless society. “I’ve noticed that most Americans roughly have the same standard of living. Everybody has access to ample food, everybody shops at the same supermarkets, malls, stores, etc. I’ve seen plumbers, construction workers and janitors driving their own sedans, which was quite difficult for me to digest at first since I came from a country where construction workers and plumbers lived hand to mouth.” (Hat tip: Ace.)
How can Newspapers make money these days? How about by selling off their old photo morgues?
UK’s NHS: Now With Added Death.
Million Muslim March falls a mere 999,970 marchers short of their goal.
Rep. Peter King of Long island is running for President. Expect GOP voters to greet his campaign with the same enthusiasm with which they greeted Jon Huntsman’s.
Super-genius astronomer wants to name an asteroid “Trayvon”.
New Jersey police: hate crimes don’t happen to white people.
Police Chief meeting with Sheriff Joe Arpaio on his own time and money? That’s a suspension.
Austin: 13 murders in 8 months. “Otherwise known as a slow weekend in Chicago.”
Holly Hansen takes a look at Williamson County judicial races.
Tags: amnesty, Angela Giron, Austin, Border Controls, Charles Krauthammer, Chicago, Colorado, European Debt Crisis, Foreign Policy, Greece, gun control, Guns, Holly Hansen, Israel, Jihad, Joe Arpaio, LinkSwarm, Mark Steyn, Mickey Kaus, Oslo Accords, Peter King, Syria, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
