Everything In the Middle East Is Blowing Up

July 15th, 2018

Or to put it another way, everything in the Middle East is blowing up slightly more than usual:

  • Hajin, reportedly the last Islamic State stronghold in Syria, has come under sustained attack by coalition forces. There are supposedly some 4,000 heavily dug-in Islamic State fighters there, but that number sounds way too high, being about the number of Islamic State fighters who defended the much larger Raqqa. Hajin is described as a “small city,” but it really looks more like a large town, perhaps on the order of a county seat for a mid-sized Texas county. It’s hard to imagine 4,000 besieged defenders holding out in a such a small area for the eight months since the fall of Deir Ez-Zor, just on the logistical difficulties of maintaining food and ammunition. But anything close to that number would explain why that Islamic State pocket has been so hard to eradicate. But the area is now being pounded with Syrian Democratic Forces artillery and coalition airstrikes, while SDF ground forces push into Hajin.

  • There was a report that “More than 30 soldiers and officers of the pro-Assad forces, including 13 officers, were killed by aerial bombardment in attempt to seize Hajin.” Since the Islamic State has no air force beyond the occasional drone, that would mean the coalition was bombing pro-Assad forces because they were on the east side of the Euphrates. But at least one Tweet suggests that report is false. “There was no attack by the Syrian Arab Army towards Hajin and there are no clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Arab Army. These attacks are only happening on social media.”
  • The SDF has also been making a large (and largely under-reported) push to roll-up what remains of the Islamic State in sparsely-occupied eastern Syrian along the Iraqi border, capturing a string of tiny villages as they push south.

  • Widespread unrest has broken out across southern Iraq (with a few outbreaks elsewhere), including strikes, protests and street blockages over government incompetence at providing basic services like electricity and water.
  • The war in Yemen grinds on. Saudi-backed forces have failed to capture the Houthi-occupied port of Hodeidah. There’s also mutterings about a peace conference. And there’s no telling how much a yesterday’s 6.2 earthquake might shake things up. (Sorry.)
  • Finally, Israel and Hamas went at it again. Hamas fired a bunch of projectiles into Israel, and Israel walloped a bunch of Hamas assets in Gaza. You know: the usual. But the Israel retaliatory raids were reportedly the biggest on Gaza since 2014.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military | 1 Comment »

    Happy Bastille Day

    July 14th, 2018

    Since Jerry Pournelle is no longer around to post his standard Bastille Day post, here’s a goodly excerpt:

    On July 14, 1789, the Paris revolutionaries with aid of the local militia stormed the Bastille, a fortress in downtown Paris which was similar in purpose to the Tower of London. The revolutionaries freed all the prisoners held in the Bastille on royal warrants. They were all aristocrats: four forgers, two madmen, and a young man who had challenged the best swordsman in Paris to a duel, and whose father had him locked up so that the duel could not take place. The garrison consisted largely of invalid and retired French soldiers. After the surrender much of the garrison was slaughtered and their heads paraded on pikes. The four forgers vanished. The two madmen were sent to the common madhouse where they much missed the special treatment they’d had in the Bastille. The final freed prisoner joined the Revolution, became Citizen Egalite, and was later killed by guillotine in the Place de la Concorde for joining the wrong faction.

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    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Nicaragua: It Hits The Fan

    July 14th, 2018

    Violence escalated in Nicaragua as a nationwide strike demanding that corrupt, brutal communist scumbag Daniel Ortega resign triggered a violent crackdown by pro-Sandinista paramilitary groups.

    The clashes between forces that support President Daniel Ortega and demonstrators calling for his resignation mark the deadliest protests in Nicaragua since its civil war ended in 1990.

    At the Divine Mercy Catholic Church in Managua, at least three people were injured, according to a post on Twitter by Paulo Abrao, an official with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

    One of the injured has been shot through the leg, a Washington Post reporter at the church posted on Twitter, and along with others was allowed out by police and met by waiting ambulances.

    It was unclear how many people remained trapped in the church where earlier in the evening gun shots prevented those inside from leaving.

    At the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, also in the capital, some students barricaded themselves on the campus earlier in the day as paramilitary groups that support Ortega shot at the building from outside, according to media reports.

    It was not clear how many people had been injured at the university.

    Nicaragua has been convulsed by unrest since April when its leftist president proposed reducing pension benefits to cover a social security shortfall. The plan, later dropped, provoked deadly demonstrations and led to demands for Ortega’s resignation and early elections.

    A nation-wide strike emptied streets on Friday as businesses shut their doors, heeding the call of civil society groups that have demanded Ortega’s resignation after more than three months of bloody civil unrest.

    The general strike followed mass protests that fanned out across the Central American nation on Thursday.

    Nicaragua has been trending this way for a while. The Trump Administration has called for Ortega and his family to step down:

    U.S. Ambassador Michael Kozak, of the State Department’s bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Thursday that demonstrators have even been blocked from getting treatment for their injuries and government-run hospitals have reportedly required families to sign certificates that falsified the cause of deaths as a condition of retrieving relatives’ bodies.

    Kozak and other administration officials told Congress that the only way to address the ongoing crisis in Nicaragua is with new elections that would allow the Nicaraguan people to pick new leadership.

    “Nobody is going to be able to reconcile with the regime in power,” Kozak testified. “It’s really important for them to get out of the way and let the country make a future for itself. It’s how do you make that happen mechanically. How do you put enough pressure on the family basically to make that choice and get out of the way.”

    More than 250 people have been killed since daily peaceful protests in April turned into a political uprising. Most deaths have been at the hands of the national police, state security forces and government-led gangs who target peaceful demonstrators, officials said.

    While some have expressed surprise at the violence in what was once known as the most stable country in Central America, Rep. Paul Cook, R-Calif., chairman of the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said this crisis did not occur overnight.

    “In my view, it is a result of more than a decade of Ortega’s authoritarian rule and built-up resentment from the Nicaraguan people who have seen the Ortega family enrich themselves at the expense of the country,” Cook said, calling on the United States to take stronger actions.

    Even the lefty Washington Post editorial board has gotten a clue-by-four on Nicaragua, comparing it to Venezuela, Latin America’s other socialist basket case:

    THE DEATH TOLL in Nicaragua continues to rise. A bloody assault on protesters Sunday by police and pro-government paramilitary forces left 31 civilians, four police officers and three members of President Daniel Ortega’s black-hooded paramilitary groups dead. This was the highest one-day body count since pro-democracy demonstrations began April 18; it left the cumulative total at more than 300, according to human rights monitors. Monday, masked pro-Ortega thugs armed with clubs and handguns invaded a church where protesters had taken refuge and roughed up the Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio José Báez. There are reliable reports of sniper fire against peaceful civilian protests.

    Such bloodshed, so reminiscent of the political carnage that plagued Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, is repugnant enough on its own. What was especially ominous about this latest spasm, however, is that it came just after Mr. Ortega declared at a rally on Saturday his unequivocal rejection of the leading compromise proposal for resolving Nicaragua’s crisis: holding early national elections, rather than waiting for 2021. And on Monday the Ortega government issued a proclamation declaring its opponents “terrorists” and canceling any further political talks until such time as “the serious problem of terrorism, insecurity and violence . . . has been addressed and resolved in a verifiable manner.”

    In short, the Ortega regime has now opted for all-out repression similar to that practiced against the democracy movement in Venezuela. It is true that protesters in Nicaragua have blocked key roads with heavy brick barricades, a tactic opponents of the erstwhile Somoza dictatorship, including Mr. Ortega’s Sandinista front, employed when that regime forced them into it — just as Mr. Ortega’s regime is forcing its opponents into strikes and civil disobedience today. This is taking a toll on the Nicaraguan economy. Yet the government is responsible for the vast majority of the deaths and injuries. Contrary to regime propaganda, the opposition remains overwhelmingly peaceful and unarmed; the only terrorism in Nicaragua today is the official kind.

    There’s even an Austin angle here, with two cousins describing how they were kidnapped and beaten by paramilitary forces. (Warning: Autoplay video.) Though the piece doesn’t mention that it was pro-government paramilitary forces until 90 seconds in.

    Things will continue to deteriorate in Nicaragua until Ortega either steps down or is removed from power.

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    Posted in Austin, Communism, Foreign Policy | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for July 13, 2018

    July 13th, 2018

    Happy Friday the 13th! FBI “Partisan Weasel” Peter Strzok smirked and slithered his way through his capitol hill testimony. “That Strzok could huddle with FBI lawyers while stonewalling a Republican-led committee speaks to the corruption of official Washington and the comparative impotence of Republican administrations. Does anybody think an FBI agent who had vowed to “stop” the candidacy of Barack Obama would have lasted a week at his job, let alone over a year, after the discovery of his bias?”

    And when I say slithered:

    Now enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:

  • The U.S. Army has announced that Austin will be home to its new Futures Command. “The Futures Command center will focus on modernizing the U.S. Army and developing new military technologies. It is expected to employ up to 500 people.” Cool. My only question is: How do I get a job there?
  • “MSNBC Does Not Merely Permit Fabrications Against Democratic Party Critics. It Encourages and Rewards Them.” Also: “Anyone who criticizes the Democratic Party or its leaders is instantly accused of being a Kremlin agent despite the lack of any evidence. And the organization that leads that smear campaign is the one that calls itself a news outlet.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Three Democrats: “Here’s a bill to abolish ICE.” House Republican leadership: “OK, let’s put it to a vote.” Three Democrats: “Never mind, we’ll vote against it.” Hypocrite much?
  • “Fierce Gun Battle Erupts Between Mexican Troops And Cartel Gunmen Near Texas Border.”
  • President Trump on NATO: “Europe needs to pay it’s fair share for defense.” Eurocrats: “We have no idea what he’s saying! Stop speaking in code!”
  • Remember how socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated incumbent Joe Crowley in the 14th Congressional District Democratic primary? Surprise! Crowley is still on the ballot on the Working Families Party line. Read on for New York’s goofy third party rules (goofier than most). (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.)
  • Problem: Residents of New Jersey are moving to Florida to escape high taxes. New Jersey’s solution: raise them even higher.
  • Saudi Arabia’s ruling class is falling in line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reforms. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Social Justice Warrior game developer goes all Social Justice Warrior on gaming company partner on company time. Pink slip ensues.
  • Stop fixating on the Russia-hacked-the-election fantasy, says his Russian political foes:

    “Enough already!” Leonid M. Volkov, chief of staff for the anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, wrote in a recent anguished post on Facebook. “What is happening with ‘the investigation into Russian interference,’ is not just a disgrace but a collective eclipse of the mind.”

    What most disturbs Mr. Putin’s critics about what they see as America’s Russia fever is that it reinforces a narrative put forth tirelessly by the state-controlled Russian news media. On television, in newspapers and on websites, Mr. Putin is portrayed as an ever-victorious master strategist who has led Russia — an economic, military and demographic weakling compared with the United States — from triumph to triumph on the world stage.

    “The Kremlin is of course very proud of this whole Russian interference story. It shows they are not just a group of old K.G.B. guys with no understanding of digital but an almighty force from a James Bond saga,” Mr. Volkov said in a telephone interview. “This image is very bad for us. Putin is not a master geopolitical genius.”

  • The citizens of European nations balk at erasing borders.

    The European Union has always been sold, to its citizens, on a practical basis: Cheaper products. Easier travel. Prosperity and security.

    But its founding leaders had something larger in mind. They conceived it as a radical experiment to transcend the nation-state, whose core ideas of race-based identity and zero-sum competition had brought disaster twice in the space of a generation.

    France’s foreign minister, announcing the bloc’s precursor in 1949, called it “a great experiment” that would put “an end to war” and guarantee “an eternal peace.”

    Norway’s foreign minister, Halvard M. Lange, compared Europe at that moment to the early American colonies: separate blocs that, in time, would cast off their autonomy and identities to form a unified nation. Much as Virginians and Pennsylvanians had become Americans, Germans and Frenchmen would become Europeans — if they could be persuaded.

    “The keen feeling of national identity must be considered a real barrier to European integration,” Mr. Lange wrote in an essay that became a foundational European Union text.

    But instead of overcoming that barrier, European leaders pretended it didn’t exist. More damning, they entirely avoided mentioning what Europeans would need to give up: a degree of their deeply felt national identities and hard-won national sovereignty.

    Now, as Europeans struggle with the social and political strains set off by migration from poor and war-torn nations outside the bloc, some are clamoring to preserve what they feel they never consented to surrender. Their fight with European leaders is exploding over an issue that, perhaps more than any other, exposes the contradiction between the dream of the European Union and the reality of European nations: borders.

    Establishment European leaders insist on open borders within the bloc. Free movement is meant to transcend cultural barriers, integrate economies and lubricate the single market. But a growing number of European voters want to sharply limit the arrival of refugees in their countries, which would require closing the borders.

    This might seem like a straightforward matter of reconciling internal rules with public demand on the relatively narrow issue of refugees, who are no longer even arriving in great numbers.

    But there is a reason that it has brought Europe to the brink, with its most important leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, warning of disaster and at risk of losing power. The borders question is really a question of whether Europe can move past traditional notions of the nation-state. And that is a question that Europeans have avoided confronting, much less answering, for over half a century.

    Snip.

    Perhaps the drive to restore European borders is, on some level, about borders themselves. Maybe when populists talk about restoring sovereignty and national identity, it’s not just a euphemism for anti-refugee sentiment (although such sentiment is indeed rife). Maybe they mean it.

    Traveling Germany with a colleague to report on the populist wave sweeping Europe, we heard the same concerns over and over. Vanishing borders. Lost identity. A distrusted establishment. Sovereignty surrendered to the European Union. Too many migrants.

    Populist supporters would often bring up refugees as a focal point and physical manifestation of larger, more abstract fears. They would often say, as one woman told me outside a rally for the Alternative for Germany, a rising populist party, that they feared their national identity was being erased.

    “Germany needs a positive relationship with our identity,” Björn Höcke, a leading far-right figure in the party, told my colleague. “The foundation of our unity is identity.”

    Allowing in refugees, even in very large numbers, does not mean Germany will no longer be Germany, of course. But this slight cultural change is one component of a larger European project that has required giving up, even if only by degrees, core conceits of a fully sovereign nation-state.

    National policy is suborned, on some issues, to the vetoes and powers of the larger union.

    Snip.

    European leaders hoped they could rein in those impulses long enough to transform Europe from the top down, but the financial crisis of 2008 came when their project was only half completed. That led to the crisis in the euro, which revealed political fault lines the leadership had long denied or wished away.

    The financial crisis and an accompanying outburst in Islamic terrorism also provided a threat. When people feel under threat, research shows, they seek a strong identity that will make them feel part of a powerful group.

    For that, many Europeans turned to their national identity: British, French, German. But the more people embraced their national identities, the more they came to oppose the European Union, studies found — and the more they came to distrust anyone within their borders who they saw as an outsider.

    European leaders, unable to square their project’s ambition of transcending nationalism with this reality of rising nationalism, have tried to have it both ways. Ms. Merkel has sought to save Europe’s border-free zone by imposing one hard border.

    Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, has called for ever-harder “external” borders, which refers to those separating the European Union from the outside world, in order to keep internal borders open.

    This might work if refugee arrivals were the root issue. But it would not resolve the contradiction between the European Union as an experiment in overcoming nationalism versus the politics of the moment, in which publics are demanding more nationalism.

    That resurgence starts with borders. But Hungary’s trajectory suggests it might not end there. The country’s nationalist government, after erecting fences and setting up refugee camps, has seen hardening xenophobia and rising support for tilting toward authoritarianism.

    As the euro crisis showed, even pro-union leaders could never bring themselves to fully abandon the old nationalism. They are elected by their fellow nationals, after all, so naturally put them first. Their first loyalty is to their country. When that comes into conflict with the rest of the union, as it has on the issue of refugees, it’s little wonder that national self-interest wins.

  • The Air Force is rigging a test for the F-35 and against the A-10. Jerry Pournelle said the Air Force would always kill a hundred A-10s to buy one more F-35… (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Why did President Trump nominate, and Texas Senator John Cornyn vote to confirm, a circuit court judge who opposed Heller?
  • President Trump pardons Oregon ranchers at the heart of the Bundy protests. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Parkland shooting survivors sue Scott Israel and the Broward County Sheriff’s Department. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • Democratic Rep: Data is racist.
  • “Shocking Video Shows Abortion Clinic Staff Playing With Aborted Babies Like Dolls.”
  • Oopsie! (Hat tip: Mike.)
  • Feminist Apparel’s male CEO fires entire staff after they confront him over his history of sexual abuse. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Good news! Kinky Friedman has a new album out. Interesting news:

    Looking back through history, I can only think of two figures that have been mocked more than Trump, and they are Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. So I say, give him a chance. How about a reality president for a reality world? Of course, this doesn’t sit well with people in New York I’m working with on projects, but, y’know, I would just withhold judgment on Trump. And it looks to me like he’s getting things done, and some of ‘em are pretty good things. And the last guy was a f*ckin’ Forrest Gump.

    Trump has already done one thing that the previous three Presidents looked in our eyes and told us they were gonna do — and they knew the whole time they were never gonna do – which is move that embassy. He did it. Every expert told him that would result in the apocalypse coming…he did that. And that’s a big thing to do. And he’s done other big things. Pulling out of the Iran deal took Pawn Shop-sized balls when everybody else was telling him what a horrible mistake that was. And…we’ll see. He may be the guy who does get Kim to come along with him, that very well might happen. I follow what Billy Joe Shaver says, which is, Remember that Jesus rode in on a jackass.

    No wonder Democrats never embraced him. Too much of a free-thinker… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Lifestyles of the rich and felonious.
  • Size dysfunction among the London left:

  • Bye bye bag bans.
  • NFL owner sells team, but requires new owner to keep giant statue of him outside the stadium as a condition of sale.
  • William Shatner vs. the Social Justice Warriors.
  • “Thirteens my lucky number…” If you suffer from triskaidekaphobia, try to enjoy Social Distortion’s “Bad Luck.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    .50 BMG vs. Body Armor

    July 12th, 2018

    Ace of Spades had this video up of Jerry Miculek testing a Barrett .50 BMG rifle against a body armor plate made of dense polyethylene:

    Result: The round did not penetrate the back of the plate. That’s not the result I would have expected.

    That got me wondering what a .50 BMG round would do against other types of armor plate out there.

    Here’s a video of a .50 BMG first against two Level IV composite/ceramic plate body armor plates.

    Spoiler: it obliterates the first plate, seriously deforms (but does not penetrate) the second, hard enough to obliterate the water jog behind it.

    Level III Kevlar helmet?

    Not only does the .50 BMG obliterate it, it doesn’t even stop an AK-47 round.

    More on the same theme.

    The .50 BMG doesn’t go through the helmet, it goes though three helmets, and through both sides of two.

    How about 1 inch of AR550 steel?

    Just over an inch of Titanium:

    And just for fun: .50 BMG vs. Legos:

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    Posted in Guns, video | 4 Comments »

    Texas Statewide Race Update for July 11, 2018

    July 11th, 2018

    With all the Supreme Court news, it’s been a while since we looked at Texas statewide races.

    First up: A new poll shows by Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott walloping their respective Democratic challengers:

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Texas Governor Greg Abbott are smoking their Democrat opponents, a new poll conducted by Gravis Marketing and provided to Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release shows.

    Cruz, up for re-election this year, is 9 percent ahead Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX). At 51 percent, Cruz towers overs O’Rourke’s 42 percent–with just 7 percent undecided.

    In the governor’s race, Abbott fares even better–leading his Democratic challenger Lupe Valdez by 10 percent. Abbott’s 51 percent is much better than Valdez’s 41 percent, with 8 percent undecided.

    Both of the Republicans’ job approval ratings are solid in the state, too. A whopping 47 percent either strongly or somewhat approve of Cruz’s job performance, while just 44 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove with 10 percent uncertain. Even more–52 percent–either strongly or somewhat approve of Abbott’s performance, while just 39 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove with 9 percent uncertain.

    Lifting the GOP in the state is President Donald Trump’s high approval rating of 51 percent either strongly or somewhat approving of the job the president is doing, while just 44 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove of Trump and 5 percent are uncertain.

    The survey of 602 likely Texas voters was conducted between July 3 and July 7, and has a margin of error of 4 percent.

    Usual poll caveats apply. And the same poll has some down-ballot races theoretically closer:

    While Republicans at the top of the ticket are faring much better than Democrats, down-ticket the survey shows closer races. In the Lieutenant Governor race, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick–a Republican–leads Democrat challenger Mike Collier by just two points, 46 percent to 44 percent with 10 percent undecided. Similarly, in the Attorney General race, GOP incumbent Ken Paxton at 45 percent leads Democrat challenger Justin Nelson, at 41 percent, by just 4 percent–with 14 percent undecided.

    I doubt those numbers are terribly meaningful, since absolutely no one is paying attention to those down-ballot races right now. Dan Patrick won his Lt. Governor’s race by just under 20 points in 2014, and has out-raised Mike Collier by a hefty $21,193,288 to $628,924. Likewise, Paxton won by over 20% in 2014 and has raised $5,309,709 to Justin Nelson’s $787,803.

    The money disparity is even more pronounced even further down the ballot. Republican incumbent George P. Bush has raised $3,370,337 to unknown Democratic opponent Miguel Suazo’s $25,259 in the Land Commissioner’s race. Republican incumbent Comptroller Glenn Hegar has raised $3,500,997 to Democratic challenger Joi Chevalier’s $18,311. But the champion of the Republican/Democratic fundraising disparity race is Republican incumbent railroad commissioner Christi Craddick out-raising Democratic opponent Roman McAllen by four orders of magnitude, $4,690,452 to $3,774.

    Clearly the Great White Hope for Democrats this election cycle is U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, who has managed to edge Ted Cruz in fundraising through Q1 by $4 million, $13,242,359.00 to $9,113,159.00 $6,113,470.00 (though less than a million dollars separates them when it comes to cash-on-hand). The Cruz campaign reported raising $4 million in Q2. (Disclaimer: I made a small contribution to the Cruz campaign earlier this year.) O’Rourke hasn’t announced Q2 fundraising totals yet (Follow the Money has him leading $14,773,365 to $12,214,719 for Cruz), but he’s he’s out in Hollywood raising more money. Clearly O’Rourke is the best campaigner and fundrasier Democrats have at the statewide level this year, and indeed, arguably their best statewide campaigner this century. But that’s not exactly a target-rich environment.

    Cruz won his 2012 race, in a year Obama won re-election, by 16 points against the overmatched Paul Sadler. It would not surprise me to see O’Rourke possibly get that down to a 10 point gap on election night. But I don’t see him doing any better than that absent some sort of Black Swan event.

    Know who’s not running well statewide? Lupe Valdez:

    Valdez, after all, has significant deficiencies as a candidate. She’s unpolished as a speaker and has demonstrated little command of statewide issues. She’s also underfunded—her latest campaign finance report showed she had a little more than $115,000 cash on hand, compared to Abbott’s $43 million. That has forced her to forgo campaign fundamentals such as an internal vetting process, in which the campaign looks for skeletons in its own candidate’s closet. Two days after Valdez won the Democratic runoff, for example, the Houston Chronicle revealed that she owed more than $12,000 in unpaid property taxes. A vetting would have prepared her better to respond when a Chronicle reporter asked about it; instead, a campaign spokesman tried to blame Abbott for allowing property taxes to rise.

    In short, Valdez may not be the transformational figure many Democrats hope for. In the March 6 primary, Democrats turned out a million voters—their best primary showing since 1994—30 percent of whom had Hispanic surnames. But that high turnout seems to have been in spite of Valdez’s presence on the ballot. In several South Texas counties, thousands of voters cast ballots in the U.S. Senate contest and various local races but skipped voting for governor entirely. In Hidalgo County, Valdez failed to capture even half the voters with Hispanic surnames. One prominent South Texas Democrat told me that when Valdez campaigned in the area, her lack of knowledge of state issues turned off a lot of local voters. “We’re not blind,” he said. He also admitted that many conservative Hispanics just would not vote for a lesbian.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS Roundup

    July 10th, 2018

    Lots of reactions this morning to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

    First up, Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Conspiracy offers up an overview of Kavanaugh’s career (including links to his decisions):

    Judge Kavanaugh is widely respected on the Supreme Court. Many of his clerks go on to clerk at One First Street. More importantly, his opinions attract notice from the justices. Several of his dissents have been vindicated by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. His dissents showed the way for the Court in Michigan v. EPA (White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA concerning mercury emissions), UARG v. EPA (CRR v. EPA concerning GHG emissions), Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (concerning separation of powers), and D.C. v. Wesby (concerning qualified immunity). And even when certiorari was granted, Judge Kavanaugh’s dissents have been noted in subsequent Supreme Court cases (as in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components which favorably cited Kavanaugh’s dissent in Grocery Manufacturers Association v. EPA). This suggests other justices will take the new junior justice’s opinions quite seriously, especially on administrative law.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    Second, Kavanaugh is also a strong believer in the Second Amendment. From his 2011 Heller v. District of Columbia (the follow-up lawsuit to the original Heller decision) dissent:

    In Heller, the Supreme Court held that handguns – the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic – are constitutionally protected because they have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens. There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses. Moreover, semiautomatic handguns are used in connection with violent crimes far more than semi-automatic rifles are. It follows from Heller’s protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that D.C.’s ban on them is unconstitutional.

    (Hat tip: J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ.)

    Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave Kavanaugh what amounts to a strong endorsement on that very subject:

    Respectable liberal Alan Dershowitz endorsed Kavanaugh as well: “He has a lot of support from centrist academics. He is regarded as a very scholarly, very smart person. I probably will disagree with many of his opinions, but it’s hard to question his qualifications for the job.” (Hat tip: BigGator5.)

    Via Stephen Green at Instapundit comes this list of top six unhinged reactions to the Kavanaugh nomination. I especially liked the Women’s March drafting their blurb on what an extremist whoever Trump picked for the court was, then just leaving “XX” instead of inserting Kavanaugh’s name when they sent out the press release…

    Finally, liberals want you to know that the Federalist Society and Opus Dei are evidently the same thing. Maybe somebody should explain to them the difference between real life and a Dan Brown novel…

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    Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    NEWSFLASH: Trump Nominates Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court

    July 9th, 2018

    President Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh (formerly of the D.C. Circuit) to the United States Supreme Court.

    Here’s his summary information from the Federalist Society:

    Judge Kavanaugh was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on May 30, 2006, after his nomination by President George W. Bush and his confirmation by the Senate. Before his appointment to the Court, Judge Kavanaugh served for more than five years in the White House for President George W. Bush. From July 2003 until May 2006, he was Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary to the President. From 2001 to 2003, he was Associate Counsel and then Senior Associate Counsel to the President. Judge Kavanaugh was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2001. From 1994 to 1997 and for a period in 1998, Judge Kavanaugh was Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr. In 1992-93, Judge Kavanaugh was an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. In the October Term 1993, Judge Kavanaugh served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh previously clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in 1991-92) and for Judge Walter Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in 1990-91). Judge Kavanaugh graduated from Yale Law School in 1990, where he was a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal, and from Yale College in 1987.

    Here’s his Wikipedia entry.

    According to President Trump, he teaches at Harvard, Yale and Georgetown.

    Judge Kavanaugh: “A judge must interpret the law, not make the law.”

    More to come.

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    Trump Supreme Court Pick Roundup

    July 9th, 2018

    In advance of President Donald Trump announcing his nominee to the Supreme Court to replace retiring justice Anthony Kennedy tonight, here are a few links of interest on the subject:

  • The Volokh Conspiracy’s Jonathan Adler looks at President Trump’s reported finalists:

    According to press reports, rollout packages have been prepared for four potential nominees, all of whom sit as judges on U.S. Courts of Appeals: Brett Kavanaugh (D.C. Circuit), Raymond Kethledge (6th Circuit), Amy Coney Barrett (7th Circuit), and Thomas Hardiman (3rd Circuit). All four potential nominees are on Trump’s list of 25 potential SCOTUS nominees, and all four are highly qualified jurists of the sort the President said he would appoint.

  • Jim Geraghty is hoping for Amy Comey Barrett, just to watch the left-wing anti-Catholic freakout:

    The way Senate Democrats treated Barrett last autumn — in particular, Senator Dianne Feinstein’s argument that Barrett was simply too religious and too devoutly Catholic to serve on the bench, declaring, “the dogma lives loudly within you,” revealed an argument this country needs to have: whether the country accepts deeply religious people in positions of legal authority.

    (It’s kind of amazing that a country that has freedom of religion, that was founded in part by Pilgrims, was a beacon for those seeking religious freedom for generations, and that has had George Washington, John Adams, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush as presidents would even need to have this debate. But it is illustrative of how different the modern Left is from previous generations.)

    Yes, there are plenty of progressive and Democratic Catholics in this country. But I don’t think you have to look too hard to find progressives who believe, more or less, that devout Catholics — perhaps devout Christians of any stripe — simply can’t be trusted to rule on the law and should be prevented from serving in the judiciary whenever possible. A Catholic judge can insist, loudly and often, that they believe their role as a judge is to rule on the law and the Constitution alone, and that while their faith no doubt shapes their values and their worldview — as much as any religion, philosophy, or atheism shapes the values and worldview of any other judge — and some progressives will insist it’s all a ruse. Some are determined to see any religiously active Christians as theocrats in black robes. (As this 2007 cartoon demonstrates, the arguments are sometimes not that subtle at all; merely an affiliation with a Catholic faith makes you an agent of the Pope.)

    You know that if Barrett is the nominee, someone on the Left will make an openly sexist criticism. You know her seven children will be discussed in depth. You know that someone will inevitably make an argument that amounts to, “Look, if we’re going to allow Catholics to be judges, they at least have to be lapsed Catholics.”

    Why do some progressives see Catholics and/or Christians as aspiring dictators from the bench, eager to toss away any established rights, established traditions, and impose an oppressive doctrine on the entire country and stifle dissent and differing points of view?

    Because that’s how some progressives see the role of the judiciary.

  • Contrasting Amy Comey Barrett with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
  • Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois thinks other Democratic senators should be just fine and dandy with losing their own senate seats in order to defeat President trump’s Supreme Court pick, whoever it is. I wonder what that would accomplish, given that President Trump could just resubmit them to a more Republican senate for approval come January…
  • Via Adler comes news that there’s a FantasySCOTUS page where people can vote for their preferred pick. Barrett is leading there.
  • “Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) said Thursday the upcoming fight over President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee was about whether the country would ‘criminalize women.'” OK, you caught us! At our Secret Patriarchal Oppressor Tribunals (SPOT), we often opine “Hey, what if we just threw everyone with two X chromosomes into prison! That would solve all our problems!” Good times, good times…

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    Will Democrat Calls To Eliminate ICE “Tick Off” Their Black Base?

    July 8th, 2018

    Political commentator Lawrence Jones thinks so:

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