Former Governor, Senator and Republican Lincoln Chafee announced he was dropping out of the Democratic Presidential race. Like Jim Webb, Chafee’s campaign was all but invisible anyway.
Lincoln Chafee Stops Pretending to Run for President
October 23rd, 2015Three Texas Planned Parenthood Clinics Raided Over Medicaid Fraud
October 22nd, 2015“Health investigators with the state of Texas went into Planned Parenthood’s clinic in San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas Thursday morning, but declined to say why.”
Snip.
“Earlier this week, the [Texas Health and Human Services Commission] alleged that Planned Parenthood “committed and condoned numerous acts of misconduct captured on video that reveal repeated program violations and breach the minimum standards of care required of a Medicaid enrollee.”
I’m sure Planned Parenthood’s backers will soon tell us why abortion is such an important and fundamental right that the organization should be allowed to commit Medicaid fraud at will…
Yuma’s Border Fence is Working
October 22nd, 2015People who say the border is impossible to secure almost invariable don’t want to see it secure. The experience of Yuma, Arizona shows it can be done.
Before the fence?
Border agents made on average 800 arrests a day, and watched hundreds of suspects run away. Stolen vehicles laden with drugs raced over the border at high speeds unhindered and unmolested. An estimated eight trucks a day sped out of Mexico onto Interstate 8 and disappeared into the American heartland, stuffed with immigrants or drugs.
And after the Secure Fence Act?
[A] 20-foot high steel curtain separating it from Mexico…Beyond the imposing wall is 75 yards of flat, sandy, no man’s land, monitored by cameras and sensors and agents in SUVs. If an illegal immigrant successfully runs that gauntlet, they face another tightly woven steel fence and a third cyclone fence topped by barbed wire.
Snip.
“We essentially apprehend 92 percent of all entries through the Yuma sector,” said Porvaznik, as he steered a white and green Chevy Tahoe through the sand. “That is 126 miles of border, which includes 12 miles of these sand dunes. On a scale of 1 to 10 we are a 9.”
A secure fence with sufficient manpower plus E-Verify, plus applying minimum ID requirements to buy a home or a car, or to rent an apartment, would quickly bring the illegal alien problem under control. Too bad the Democratic Party, viewing every illegal alien as an “undocumented democrat,” doesn’t want it secure…
(Hat tip: Texas Fred Blog.)
Biden Not Running
October 21st, 2015Vice President Joe Biden has announced he’s not running for President in 2016.
So it’s Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, the crook or the socialist, as your 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee.
God help us all.
TPPF: Why the Texas Model Supports Prosperity
October 21st, 2015I could roll this up into the next California vs. Texas update, but I thought this Texas Public Policy Foundation paper by Vance Ginn on why Texas’ low tax, low regulation model generates prosperity was meaty enough to be worth a separate post.
The Texas model has been touted as an approach to governance that other states and Washington, D.C. would be wise to follow. This approach promotes individual freedom through lower taxes and spending, less regulation, fewer frivolous lawsuits, and reduced federal government interference. Does this Texas restatement of the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” actually promote freedom, prosperity, and jobs when compared to the largest states and U.S. averages?
To answer this question, this paper (in most cases) compares various measures in California, Texas, New York, and Florida—the states with the largest populations and economic output—and U.S. averages during the last 15 years. Five fiscal measures of economic freedom and government intervention for these states show that Texas generally leads the pack as the most free with the least government intrusion. Eight measures of the labor market indicate that Texas provides the best opportunities to find a job. Five measures of income distribution and poverty show that Texas leads in most categories with a more equal income distribution and less poverty despite fewer redistributionary policies than these large states, particularly California and New York.
Though a mere 15 pages, the paper offers up an in-depth survey of various economic metrics and studies, where Texas repeatedly comes out on top, and New York and California repeatedly come in last and second-to-last.
A few more tidbits:
Read the whole thing.
Jim Webb Dropping Out of Democratic Presidential Race; Independent Run?
October 20th, 2015Or so read the tea leaves. Of course, that suggests that he was ever truly in the Presidential race, when all appearances suggests otherwise.
Will he run as a Independent? Given that the three most recent posts on his campaign news page are “Jim Webb, Independent,” “Jim Webb Considering Independent Run for Presidency, Campaign Says” and “Jim Webb to consider independent presidential bid,” I’d say it’s a strong possibility. (Or perhaps a disgruntled soon-to-be-unemployed campaign staffer is just trolling us all.) Then again, given his previous lack of campaign activity, maybe an independent run would be just as invisible…
How SNL Fluffs the Hillary Campaign
October 19th, 2015Saturday Night Live did a skit on the Democratic Presidential debate:
On the surface it’s a skit that ostensibly takes a shot at everyone equally (and even touches on Hillary’s email scandal). However, take a look at one central visual fact:
So Sanders is played by someone Hillary Clinton’s age (old), and Hillary Clinton is played by someone half her age (young). The skit is constructed to reinforce the false Sanders old, Clinton young impression, which suggests the reason why SNL choose non-cast-member Larry David to play Sanders. David did write for the show during the 1984—1985 season (where he worked with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who he would later cast in Seinfeld); to put it another way, David worked on SNL the same year McKinnon was born.
Cop Killer Executed
October 15th, 2015“After spending more than a decade on death row, a 33-year-old man was put to death by lethal injection at a Huntsville, Texas, prison Wednesday evening for the 2001 murder of a Dallas police officer.
Licho Escamilla was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m., 18 minutes after the injection was administered.”
A reminder to the Scumbag American community not to mess with Texas. Kill a cop in Illinois or Massachusetts, and you’ll get three hots and a cot for life. Do it in Texas, and we will kill you…