September 23rd, 2014
Been a while since I did a roundup on gun news and examples of criminal stupidity, so here it is:
Study shows that banning “assault weapons” has no effect on crime.
The Missouri House and Senate override the veto of Democratic governor Jay Nixon for expanded concealed carry.
California is evidently cooking up a whole new batch of unconstitutional gun laws. (A repeat from the latest Texas vs. California update, but it certainly fits here as well…)
The New Jersey Star-Ledger comes out for mandatory gun confiscation. Perhaps New Jersey gun owners should come up with a boycott of all Star-Ledger advertisers until the editorial board is replaced…. (Hat tip: Shall Not Be Questioned.)
A look at the crappy, unverified statistics used by the gun grabbers in Nevada. “The source links given by Nevadans for Background Checks do not lead to any independent research on gun background checks, but lead solely back to statements by a gun-control advocacy group that are unsupported and ignore conflicting evidence.” (Hat tip: Alphecca.)
One police officer’s advice on how police can rewin the public’s trust: End the militarization, wear cameras, and end the drug war (or at least the war on marijuana). (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Dear Pennsylvania State Police: Please note that there is no void when searching for a cop killer clause in the Bill of Rights.
The Brady Bunch is suing an ammo manufacturer for the crazy Colorado movie shooter? Really? “It does sound like a civil action that is a sure loser, brought in hopes of gaining publicity. That of course runs a big risk of getting hit with sanctions.” (Hat tip: Shall Not Be Questioned)
Homeowner’s rights against criminals: “It is called confinement. In the situation where someone has illegally come inside a person’s home or workplace, that person can hold the intruder by force until police get there.”
Broken Windows: How a tiny bit of criminality (things stolen from open garages) has escalated to home invasion in an Austin neighborhood. Close your garage doors and lock your doors and windows at night, people…
Break into a home, get shot. That’s the Houston way.
Speaking of Houston, gun sales there are off 18%.
Four Chicago gangbangers decide to execute a 9-year old boy. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
Speaking of murderers of 9-year olds, Texas executed Lisa Coleman on September 17.
Pro-tip: If you don’t want to be arrested, try not to smuggle “38 pounds of marijuana, two disassembled .40 caliber semi-automatic weapons and 350 pounds of ammunition” onto a plane at JFK airport.
Pro Tip: Don’t try to hold up a man with the gun you’re buying from him off Craigslist. Especially since it’s unloaded. (Hat tip: Sipsy Street.)
If you’re going to get drunk and go joyriding, try not to crash in the home of the medieval weapons enthusiast, which will help minimize your chances of being stabbed with a spear. (Hat tip: Sipsy Street.)
Tags: Austin, California, Crime, gun control, Guns, Houston, Media Watch, Nevada, New Jersey, New Jersey Star-Ledger, Pennsylvania, police, Texas
Posted in Austin, Crime, Guns, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »
September 22nd, 2014
A Monday LinkSwarm of some recent(ish) news:
Surprise, surprise, surprise: ObamaCare covers abortions.
Alaska doctor shuts down practice due to ObamaCare.
Obama’s own Secretary of Defense says we left Iraq too soon.
Strangely enough, Gaza landlords are no longer wild about renting to Hamas.
Another day, another 36 people killed by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
“A Pakistani academic known for promoting liberal views on Islam has been shot dead by gunmen.” And people wonder why we don’t hear from more moderate Muslims…
“The progressive media consensus on Islam is stultifying, and deliberately so. It’s a series of simplistic claims intended to drown out any adult discussion on the issue in favor of childish happy-talk which serves no purpose except to preserve the fragile progressive voting coalition.”
How well is the war against ISIS going? David Gergen compares it to the rollout of ObamaCare.
Meanwhile, ISIS continues to advance in Syria.
“The ‘social justice warriors are only happy when they’re destroying someone. That’s because they’re awful people with mental and emotional issues.”
Are you a whistle-blower who has spoken truth to power? Then expect to be investigated by the media, if the power you spoke truth to has a (D) after their name…
Global warming has been missing for 19 years.
Fareed Zakaria: Plagiarist. (Via Instapundit.)
Mary Burke: Plagiarist. (Also via Instapundit.)
C. David Heymann: Serial Liar. (Hat tip: Dwight.
Federal Reserve makes a $7 Trillion (with a T) cut-and-paste error. I would think that when you’re dealing with trillions of dollars, you’d want to have additional auditors checking your math. Silly me…
With antisemitism on the rise, Jews decide that Glocks go with lox.
The college rape “epidemic” is complete bunk.
Last year: Socialist Party Vice Presidential candidate. This year: Texas Democratic Party state House candidate.
Wallace Hall update: Remember how Rep. Dan Flynn was part of the “impeach Hall” committee? Guess what?
Flynn, however, is one of the lawmakers who tried to pull strings for a family friend, and never disclosed that fact throughout his yearlong investigation, even as the question of legislative influence became the subject of two official investigations and independent media investigations, and ultimately led to the forced resignation of the university’s president, Bill Powers.
Flynn wrote a letter to Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa on behalf of a family friend who was applying to UT; the name of the applicant and the letter’s date are redacted on a copy of the letter that was published Thursday by the Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune published 112 pages of correspondence with Cigarroa’s office involving letters of recommendation; five of those letters were from state legislators: Reps. Flynn, Tryon Lewis and Brandon Creighton, and Sens. Carlos Uresti and Mario Gallegos.
(Hat tip: Push Junction)
S. T. Joshi on why replacing H. P. Lovecraft’ visage on the World Fantasy Award statuette (an idea pushed by the usual radical feminist Social Justice Warriors) is a bad idea. Keep scrolling, there’s a lot of slagging of a very foolish idea at a very high level of diction…
“Feminism is about women’s equality. Period. It’s not about capitalism or socialism or racism.” Well, first wave feminism, anyway…
Dripping Springs ISD administrators have decided that the children in their charges are the perfect laboratory for social justice engineering via “Meatless Mondays.”
We just passed the 40 year anniversary of Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump. Kids: Ask your parents what an “Evel Knievel” was. Or, urm, your grandparents. And get the hell off my lawn!
Austin wants to spend $1 billion to extend their toy trains. Citizens Against Rail Taxes explain why that’s a bad idea.
Tags: abortion, Austin, C. David Heyman, Carlos Uresti, Dripping Springs, Evel Knievel, Fareed Zakaria, Global Warming, Guns, Hamas, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Mary Burke, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, victimhood
Posted in Austin, Democrats, Global Warming, Guns, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
September 21st, 2014
That’s the headline on this Hisham Melhem piece on the comprehensive failure of the entire Arab world.
The jihadists of the Islamic State, in other words, did not emerge from nowhere. They climbed out of a rotting, empty hulk—what was left of a broken-down civilization. They are a gruesome manifestation of a deeper malady afflicting Arab political culture, which was stagnant, repressive and patriarchal after the decades of authoritarian rule that led to the disastrous defeat in the 1967 war with Israel. That defeat sounded the death knell of Arab nationalism and the resurgence of political Islam, which projected itself as the alternative to the more secular ideologies that had dominated the Arab republics since the Second World War. If Arab decline was the problem, then “Islam is the solution,” the Islamists said—and they believed it.
At their core, both political currents—Arab nationalism and Islamism—are driven by atavistic impulses and a regressive outlook on life that is grounded in a mostly mythologized past. Many Islamists, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (the wellspring of such groups)—whether they say it explicitly or hint at it—are still on a ceaseless quest to resurrect the old Ottoman Caliphate. Still more radical types—the Salafists—yearn for a return to the puritanical days of Prophet Muhammad and his companions. For most Islamists, democracy means only majoritarian rule, and the rule of sharia law, which codifies gender inequality and discrimination against non-Muslims.
And let’s face the grim truth: There is no evidence whatever that Islam in its various political forms is compatible with modern democracy.
A few pieces of Melhem’s piece are erroneous: “As terrorist organizations, al Qaeda and Islamic State are different from the Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative movement that renounced violence years ago, although it did dabble with violence in the past.” That’s only because the Egypt’s military forced them to refrain from large-scale violence on pain of death. We saw how quickly this restraint was cast aside when Morsi assumed power. The only differences between al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are of degree, tactical choice, and certain Islamic Eschatological doctrinal differences as to exactly what sort of oppressive Islamic theocracy imposing Sharia law are the ideal end-state.
But those flaws aside, it’s still an admirably clear-eyed distillation of the horrific, bloody, dysfunctional nature of the Arab world. Read the whole thing.
Tags: Arab, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Hisham Melhem, Islam, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
September 20th, 2014
The Abbot campaign sent around this two minute exchange from the debate as being Davis’ most cringe-worthy performance:
The Houston Chronicle says that Abbott is right on the facts in that exchange:
Shot: Davis said “the only thing right now coming between our children and appropriate funding of their schools is (Abbott).”
Fact: It’s a little more complicated than that. This charge came in the lead-up to her sole question of her Republican opponent, which was whether he would drop the state’s appeal of a judge’s ruling that Texas’ school finance scheme is unconstitutional. Abbott is defending the law passed by the Legislature – as is the job of the attorney general. So while Abbott may get pinned with continuing to legally vouch for the state’s $5.4 billion in cuts to Texas public schools in 2011, he retorted that it was the Legislature that stood between the children and appropriate funding. Abbott also correctly pointed out that the Legislature passed a law last session that limited the attorney general’s ability to settle cases like the one over school finance.
Even a friendly press is saying that Davis “fails to land blows on Republican rival.”
Dallas Morning News: Davis “failed to rattle a poised Greg Abbott…At one point he asked Davis if she were still glad she had voted for the president, whose deep unpopularity in the state is a headache for Democrats. Davis laughed at the question but didn’t answer it.”
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, debate, Elections, Greg Abbott, Media Watch, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, video, Wendy Davis
Posted in Elections, Texas, video | No Comments »
September 19th, 2014
Well, if Wendy Davis was hoping the Rio Grande Valley debate would help her catch up to Greg Abbott, she probably should have worked to have a voice other than the pre-programmed monotone she used. She also loses points for the lack of discipline at having answers that extended beyond her allotted time (which I commend the debate hosts for strictly enforcing), and then continuing to talk rudely over their attempts to shut her off.
Abbott won by a comfortable margin. Davis wins points for actually knowing the Mexican Water Treaty of 1944, but loses even more points for flat out lying about Republicans wanting to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1964, as opposed to ending the preclearence requirements.
I doubt terribly many minds were changed by the debate, except possibly those of donors who previously thought Davis might be worth giving more money to…
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, debate, Greg Abbott, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Wendy Davis
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
September 19th, 2014
Tonight Greg Abbott faces off against Wendy Davis in the Texas gubernatorial debate. In Austin it should be broadcast here live starting at 6 PM.
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, debate, Elections, Greg Abbott, Wendy Davis
Posted in Elections, Texas | No Comments »
September 19th, 2014
I had been reading less and less of Sports Illustrated for a while now, partially because of their increasing politicization (see Peter King, Gun Control Zealot), and partially because each redesign was worse than the last. The most recent one, the one with all the boxes that makes them look like http://www.zergnet.com/, pretty much made me swear it off and use Fox Sports instead.
But I wandered over there yesterday, only to find this list of linked stories on the front page of the NFL session:
Of 15 stories, 12 deal with accusations of off-field player malfeasance in some way or another as opposed to actual play on the field. It’s as though talking about football games isn’t nearly satisfying enough for Sports Illustrated writers who want to push a “social justice” agenda instead.
Domestic violence is a real issue, but there is no indication that football players are more notably prone to domestic violence than players in other sports, or the population at large. What we’re seeing now is a moral panic ginned up by left-wing activists and their journalistic enablers. The left hates football in general, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for not bending to their politically correct will (see, for example, the fight over the Washington Redskins nickname).
America has a criminal justice system for a reason. Players accused of crimes have a right to be judged by a jury of their peers, not a high tech left-wing lynch mob who have already determined they’re guilty merely because they’ve been accused.
Noah Rothman has similar thoughts over at Hot Air.
Tags: Crime, Media Watch, NFL, Roger Goodell
Posted in Crime, Media Watch | 2 Comments »
September 18th, 2014
There’s nothing quite so entertaining as Democrat-in-Democrat mud fights, so take a few minutes to enjoy Edward-Isaac Dovere’s takedown of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. It’s something of an clinic on the insider hit-piece form, full of anonymously sourced catty slams and putdowns of DWS from fellow Democrats, who only now seem to have noticed her ongoing manifest incompetence.
And it has the Obama White House’s fingerprint all over it.
Some samples:
The perception of critics is that Wasserman Schultz spends more energy tending to her own political ambitions than helping Democrats win. This includes using meetings with DNC donors to solicit contributions for her own PAC and campaign committee, traveling to uncompetitive districts to court House colleagues for her potential leadership bid and having DNC-paid staff focus on her personal political agenda.
In 2012, Wasserman Schultz attempted to get the DNC to pay for her clothing at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, multiple sources say, but was blocked by staff in the committee’s Capitol Hill headquarters and at President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign headquarters in Chicago.
She asked again around Obama’s inauguration in 2013, pushing so hard that Obama senior adviser — and one-time Wasserman Schultz booster — Valerie Jarrett had to call her directly to get her to stop. (Jarrett said she does not recall that conversation.)
I’m guessing that little walk-back at the end is to distract you from the possibility Jarrett orchestrated this entire hit piece. Probably in vain, given often describes Jarrett at furious over various DWS decisions.
Many expect a nascent Clinton campaign will engineer her ouster. Hurt feelings go back to spring 2008, when while serving as a co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Wasserman Schultz secretly reached out to the Obama campaign to pledge her support once the primary was over, sources say.
Nicely done, that paragraph, since it accomplishes three goals: 1.) Suggests Hillary blesses tossing DWS under the bus as well (a lot more in the final third of the piece), 2. Paints DWS as a backstabber, and 3. Reminds you that DWS ran Hillary’s disasterous 2008 campaign.
Overall the piece paints a picture of DWS as using the DNC to garner perks and further her own political ambitions rather than focusing on the party. “’People know she works hard,’ said another House colleague. ‘But there’s this sense that she only works hard for herself.’”
It’s a shame that Democrats are finally catching on to what I’ve been saying since 2010: Debbie Wasserman Schultz simply isn’t very good at running political organizations. She does a poor job giving interviews, she doesn’t have good camera presence, she comes in at .2 Bidens in the Walking Gaffe Derby, she’s poor at recruiting candidates, and she doesn’t seem to know how to run a large organization like the DNC or the DNCC. Her incompetence was probably worth a good 3-5 seats in 2010.
I, for one, will be very sad to see her go…
Tags: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Party, Democrats, DNC, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Valerie Jarrett
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 17th, 2014
Time for another Texas vs. California roundup:
The Texas economy continues to hum along:
During the second quarter, Texas employers added 148,200 net nonfarm jobs—an average of 49,400 per month. This amounts to an 18 percent share of all jobs created nationwide over this period in a state with only 8 percent of the country’s population and about 10 percent of total economic output. Over the last year, the addition of 382,200 net jobs in Texas was more new jobs than any other state. These employment gains increased the annual job growth rate to 3.4 percent, which is higher than those of the national average and other highly populated states.
The city of Los Angeles is at an impasse over police raises: the police union (naturally) wants raises, while the city says they can’t afford them. So what happens next? The issue goes before the Employee Relations Board, which just happens to be packed with union-approved appointees. In one-party Democratic cities and states, it’s always government together with unions against taxpayers. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“The ugly reality is that so long as the boards of CalPERS and CalSTRS are controlled by public employee union loyalists, pension reforms enacted by state lawmakers and signed by governors will never live up to their billing.”
Jerry Brown lies about pension spiking.
Why San Antonio’s public-private partnerships are better at dealing with drought than Los Angeles.
A FAQ on Costa Mesa’s pension situation. Including answers to such questions as “How could the $228 million in unfunded pension liabilities affect the city budget?”
Watsonville, California passes a sales tax hike solely to pay for additional union pension payments.
A judge rules that bankrupt San Bernardino can cut firefighter pension benefits in order to exit bankruptcy.
A union-sponsored bill tries to increase liabilities for companies that hire contractors.
California is evidently cooking up a whole new batch of unconstitutional gun laws.
A look at phony baloney jobs numbers for California’s high speed rail boondoggle.
Firefly Space Systems is relocating from California to Burnet County, Texas. “King said Firefly was attracted to Texas partly because of its business and regulatory climate.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out California offers a lousy climate for business. Or to put it another way: My days of underestimating California’s ability to improve its business climate are certainly coming to a middle…
Drone-maker Ashima is relocating to Reno, Nevada from California.
If you hadn’t heard, Tesla is building its battery factory in Nevada, not California.
An actual good law out of California: A law that prevents companies from suing customers for negative reviews.
North Carolina offered twice as much incentive money to Toyota but still lost out to Texas for relocating their HQ.
Your dedicated BART employee in action:
Tags: Ashima, Austin, BART, Budget, Burnet County, California, CalPERs, CalSTARS, Democrats, drought, Firefly Space Systems, Jerry Brown, Los Angeles, North Carolina, Regulation, San Antonio, San Bernardino, Tesla Motors, Texas, Texas Public Policy Foundation, unions, video, waste, Watsonville
Posted in Austin, Budget, Democrats, Regulation, Texas, unions, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
September 16th, 2014
So I keep try to pen a coherent essay on the Rotherham child rape scandal, and I keep getting too angry and/or disgusted to write about it.
Pat Condell has no such problem.
“If your 11 year-old daughter is regularly raped by organized gangs of Pakistani Muslim men, should you be concerned?”
“This is how we roll in multicultural England, a green and pleasant land of tolerance, diversity, and Pakistani Muslim child rape gangs.”
The reason these rapes were deliberately ignored year after year is because they were carried out by Pakistani Muslims, and because the police and social services in Rotherham are run by a bunch of cowardly ‘progressive’ cultural self-haters and racists who are so morbidly terrified of being called racist they will willingly sacrifice 1400 children to sexual predators, and then try to silence anyone who draws attention to it.
View the whole thing.
Tags: Common Purpose, Crime, Islam, Labour, multiculturalism, Pat Condell, progressives, rape, Rotherham, victimhood, video
Posted in Crime, Jihad, video | No Comments »