Posts Tagged ‘Houston Chronicle’

LinkSwarm for February 22, 2019

Friday, February 22nd, 2019

Enjoy a 2/22 LinkSwarm!

  • Trump Is On Solid Legal Ground In Declaring A Border Emergency To Build A Wall.”

    A review of existing federal laws makes clear that President Donald Trump has clear statutory authority to build a border wall pursuant to a declaration of a national emergency. Arguments to the contrary either mischaracterize or completely ignore existing federal emergency declarations and appropriations laws that delegate to the president temporary and limited authority to reprogram already appropriated funding toward the creation of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

  • When lawmakers want to talk to President Donald Trump, they just pick up the phone. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Andy Ngo helpfully provides an extensive list of fake hate crimes in the Trump era.
  • “Covington teen Nick Sandmann sues The Washington Post for $250M.”
  • Shocker: Washington Post tells the truth about guns:

    Gun homicides have dropped substantially over the past 25 years — but most Americans believe the opposite to be true. Why? Perhaps in part because of the media focus on multiple-victim shooting incidents in recent years. Perhaps, too, because of the number and deadliness of those incidents. We’ve noted before that the number of fatalities in major mass-shooting incidents has increased dramatically in recent years; it’s possible that people are conflating increases in frequency and deadliness of mass shootings with the United States getting more dangerous generally.

  • New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez adapts quickly to the ways of Washington, puts her boyfriend on her congressional payroll. But that’s not all! She also featherbedded him on her campaign payroll by laundering the funds through a third party.
  • The fight between Second Amendment activists and Michael Bloomberg’s money:

    The time for division is not now. We need a strong NRA. If you quit NRA over bump stocks or red flag laws, you aren’t helping. I’m not saying we can’t have disagreement, but we all need to be rowing in the same direction and understanding what’s important. Miguel notes that activists in Florida are concentrating on Open Carry. I would advise concentrating on stopping the ballot measure Bloomberg is going to foist on you in 2020. NRA has to have money to fight that. We cannot write off the third most populous state. We will never be able to outspend Bloomberg, but we sure as hell can out-organize him. We have a blueprint, and last I heard the dude who pulled off defeating the Massachusetts handgun ban is still alive. The odds were stacked against him too.

    Forget about the fucking bump stocks. It’s not where the fight is. That’s over. The fight is preserving the right to own semi-automatic firearms. That’s ultimately what they want, because they are well aware no state’s gun culture has ever come back from an assault weapons ban. Gun bans are a death blow to the culture. If you want to get the hard-core activists worked up over saving an impractical range toy, or in some misguided effort to (badly) get around the machine gun restrictions, you’re not paying attention to where the actual fight is.

  • “Government report reveals CBO was scandalously off in Obamacare estimates.”
  • The Supreme Court unanimously rules that there are limits to civil asset forfeiture under the Eighth Amendment. Good. Now congress should tackle such abuse legislatively.
  • Note the obvious truth that the media is overwhelmingly liberal? Expect to be attacked.
  • Nicolas Maduro would rather let his own people continue to starve rather than let foreign food aid reach them. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • His army evidently relies on Cuban military personnel. Too bad for him that Cuba’s military intervention in Angola showed the world that Cuban troops sucked. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “Even the UN IPCC says we’re not headed for climate disaster.”
  • The boy who inflated the concept of wolf:

    Suppose that instead of one shepherd boy, there are a few dozen. They are tired of the villagers dismissing their complaints about less threatening creatures like stray dogs and coyotes. One of them proposes a plan: they will start using the word “wolf” to refer to all menacing animals. They agree and the new usage catches on. For a while, the villagers are indeed more responsive to their complaints. The plan backfires, however, when a real wolf arrives and cries of “Wolf!” fail to trigger the alarm they once did.

    What the boys in the story do with the word “wolf,” modern intellectuals do with words like “violence.” When ordinary people think of violence, they think of things like bombs exploding, gunfire, and brawls. Most dictionary definitions of “violence” mention physical harm or force. Academics, ignoring common usage, speak of “administrative violence,” “data violence,” “epistemic violence” and other heretofore unknown forms of violence.

    Ditto “Gas-lighting.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Pro-top: Try not to steal guns from the SHOT show.
  • The English-language narrator of Islamic State execution videos has been captured.
  • Gay magazine takes the Mullah’s side to own Trump:

  • Former women’s tennis champion and out lesbian Martina Navratilova vilified for daring to point out that men shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports.
  • “Medical examiner barred from Travis County courtrooms amid Rangers investigation.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Stafford: the Texas city without property taxes.
  • B-1s to be retired before B-52s.
  • Followup: But they’re buying more F-15s. (Hat tip: The Political Hat.)
  • Philadelphia’s stupid soda tax has not reduced consumption, brought in less revenue than expected, and has cost Philadelphia over 200 jobs. Also, corrupt union officials helped push it through as a “screw you” to the Teamsters. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Lt. Governor Dan Patrick bitchslaps some shoddy journalism from the Houston Chronicle so hard they had to retract the story. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings, though the Scribed link is broken.)
  • Giant “nightmare bee” previously thought to be extinct found alive. Pleasant dreams:

  • A new football league, the Alliance of American Football, just debuted. Their main bread and butter isn’t ticket sales or broadcast rights, its refining technology to help boost sports gambling.
  • Trump-supporting comedian Terrance K. Williams recovering from a car accident:

  • Speaking of Williams:

  • Instant classic:

  • “Atheist Requiring Evidence To Believe Anything Knows For Certain Trump Colluded With Russia.”
  • La zzzzOOOOOMMMMMMMzzzz Le schzzzzzzcchh-Mmmmmmmmmwaaaaaaahh!
  • LinkSwarm for November 9, 2018

    Friday, November 9th, 2018

    Texas election analysis is coming next week. Meanwhile, Democrats appear to be in the midst of voting fraud in Broward County, Florida.

  • Man who vandalized NYC synagogue was a gay black Democratic activist.
  • Another Obama-era intelligence failure resulted in dozens of deaths China. Thanks, Obama… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Jeff Sessions resigns as Attorney General, replaced on at least an interim basis by his chief of staff Matthew G. Whitaker. Very early on in the Trump Administration, I decided that there were two things I wasn’t going to pay much attention to: 1. Reports of dysfunction or “chaos” among White House staffers, and 2. Trump tweets slamming various people. (See any of my previous posts on Trump persuasion techniques.) I have no particular insight into intra-White House squabbles, and reporting on this issue is so bad or overblown that there’s too much noise for me bother to extract signal from. So go elsewhere for how Sessions fits into the “Deep State vs. Trump” narrative. (Over at Powerline, they put up both anti-Sessions and pro-Sessions pieces.)
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer wants House Democrats to impeach Trump. I’m sure there’s no way that could possibly backfire on them…
  • Nine more Hidalgo County voter fraud arrests:

    Nine individuals were arrested Thursday for their alleged roles in a 2017 voter fraud scheme involving the municipal election in a Texas border town.

    These arrests were part of an ongoing investigation into a coordinated effort by political workers to recruit people who would fraudulently claim residential addresses so they could vote in specific races and influence the results of the Edinburg city election held last year, according to information provided by the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

    “Illegal voting, particularly an organized illegal voting scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in corruption at the highest level,” said Paxton in a prepared statement.

    “Each illegal vote silences the voice of a law-abiding registered voter,” added Paxton. “My office will continue to do everything in its power to uncover illegal voting schemes and bring to justice those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas.”

    The nine Hidalgo County residents arrested were Guadalupe Sanchez Garza, Jerry Gonzalez, Jr., Araceli Gutierrez, Belinda Rodriguez, Brenda Rodriguez, Felisha Yolanda Rodriguez, Rosendo Rodriguez, Cynthia Tamez, and Ruby Tamez. Online jail records show bond was set at $20,000 for both Garza and Ruby Tamez. A $10,000 bond was set for Gonzalez, Gutierrez, Belinda Rodriguez, Brenda Rodriguez, Rosendo Rodriguez, and Cynthia Tamez. Felisha Yolanda Rodriguez’s bail was set at $1,000.

  • “Number of migrants, refugees from Venezuela reaches 3 million.” Or one out of twelve Venezuelans. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • More harassment of a conservative heretic at Sarah Lawrence College. (Hat tip: Amy Alkon on Twitter.)
  • 85-year old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg breaks three ribs in a fall.
  • After expressing approval of Antifa attacking Tucker Carlson’s house, Matt Yglesias deleted his entire Twitter timeline. Sadly, he’s started up again.
  • “Leftist Protesters: “If Tucker Carlson Didn’t Want To Get Mobbed In His Own Home, Then Why Did He Disagree With Us?'”
  • Mike Ward journalistic fraud follow-up: “Of the 275 people quoted, 122, or 44 percent, could not be found. Those 122 people appeared in 72 stories.” (Hat tip: Dwight.) (Previously.)
  • Dead pimp wins in Nevada. (Previously.)
  • In Tweet form:

  • Super-genius falls through the ceiling of an Alabama Waffle House, proceeds to fight the patrons on his way out the door. Bonus: He left his pants in the restroom…with his ID. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Hong Kong film pioneer Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest, dead at 91. You may not know his name, but he was instrumental in launching the careers of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and dozens of other Hong Kong film icons.
  • California marijuana delivery man says he was robbed by ninjas.” Old story, but how can you turn down that headline?
  • Houston Chronicle Reporter Resigns Under Suspicion of Making Quotes Up

    Tuesday, September 11th, 2018

    Another day, another press scandal, this time in Texas:

    Another Houston Chronicle journalist flagged me with questions about the accuracy of a story written by veteran Austin reporter Mike Ward. Ward joined the Chronicle in 2014 after a long career with the Austin American-Statesman. Specifically, questions were raised about whether individuals quoted in one of his stories were real people.

    Our own researchers, after an initial review, had difficulty finding a number of sources cited in Ward’s most recent reports.

    Ward has insisted that his work was truthful, that his work involved real people, and that we would eventually find the individuals behind his “man-on-the-street” interviews. However, given the questions this review raised, he offered to resign and I accepted that resignation last week. If we were in another business, that might be enough.

    As a journalism organization, we owe the public more. We owe our readers the truth and to tell you if, in fact, there were inaccuracies in anything we published. We simply do not know the full story yet.

    To help us ferret this out, we have hired an independent, highly respected journalist to review Ward’s work for the last year, or further, if necessary, and determine whether any reporting transgressions occurred. We have given that journalist full access to our archives and promised access to our editors as well. Investigative work takes time, and it can be tedious. Tracking down and verifying sources, especially across a year or more of work, requires significant legwork.

    Ward frequently reported on state politics.

    At least the Chronicle was kind enough to make a public statement about it.

    Once again: If members of the media want to know why the public has lost faith in them, they need only look in the mirror.

    LinkSwarm for March 3, 2017

    Friday, March 3rd, 2017

    Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! (On a personal note, if you know of any technical writing positions here in the Austin area, please let me know.)

  • U.S. troops in Iraq finally get to enjoy sane rules of engagement. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • George Soros-funded group is providing scripts for those “spontaneous” town hall protests. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • For many Democrats, President Trump’s joint address was the first time they actual heard and saw him unfiltered. “He just crushed the Drive-By [Media] last night. He just crushed them. He just blew up every narrative they’ve established on the guy. And they don’t even realize it.”
  • “As one might imagine given the Democrats’ breathtaking electoral collapse, there is basically nothing but bad news for Democrats across the board. The data showed that the voting patterns of key demographic groups shifted dramatically downward from 2008 through 2016.” More: “Contrary to the emerging Democratic majority thesis, there does not seem to be any demographic category with which Democrats are progressively improving.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Maine: Want to work for a living? Welfare recipient: Nah! Maine: Well then, I guess you won’t be needing these food stamps.
  • Man arrested for making threats to Jewish groups is a Bernie Bro and former reporter for The Intercept. Bonus 1: His Twitter page calls capitalists “bloodsuckers.” Gee, that rhetoric seems familiar somehow… Bonus 2: This is hot on the heels of another Intercept writer poo-pooing the idea that Democrats might be targeting Jews.
  • “The Congressional Review Act of 1996 is a ‘sleeper statute’ (aka, a secret weapon) in that its practical application took 20 years to enter the realm of viable possibility. The CRA allows Congress to overturn executive regulations by a simple majority—and this is the moment it’s been waiting for.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • TBS guy at CPAC asks DA Tech Guy to help him make fake news.(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • No. Just no. And how come SMONE ELSE isn’t running away with the race?
  • “Trump Was Right: Large Amounts of Actionable Intelligence Found in Yemen Raid.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Leading French Presidential candidate Francois Fillon investigated for paying his own family “€1m ($1.05m) of public money for allegedly fake jobs.”
  • Geert Wilders’ party is poised to win the most votes in Dutch elections March 15. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Members of an elite Baltimore Police Department squad charged with getting guns off the streets gets hit with federal racketeering charges and held for trial without bail. More: “In one case, four of the officers are alleged to have stolen $200,000 from a safe and bags and a watch valued at $4,000. In July 2016, three officers conspired to impersonate a federal officer in order to steal $20,000 in cash.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Apple Board Member Al Gore makes $29 million in profit selling Apple stock.
  • Authenticity is bunk. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Help me Watergate, you’re my only hope!

    The NYT and the Washington Post have a motivation to ally with the Democratic Party in its last-ditch effort to Watergatize Trump after Trump’s endless criticisms of them. And this anti-Trump approach may get them a spike in readership, even as it repels some readers like me.

    I’m missing the sense that I’m getting the normal news. It seems unfair and shoddy not to cover the President the way you’d cover any President. What looks like an effort to stigmatize Trump as not normal has — to my eyes — made the media abnormal.

    Snip.

    The more seemingly normal Trump becomes — as with his speech to Congress the other day — the more the anti-Trump approach of the news media feels like a hackish alliance with the Democratic Party in its sad, negative, backward-looking effort to disrupt the President the people elected.

  • Have any of my friends lost a gun transiting Austin Bergstrom Airport? If so, a baggage handler may have stole your gun to trade for pot.

    Austin police have charged Matthew Bartlett, 21, and Catronn Hewitt, 36, with felony possession of marijuana, police said in a news release.

    Ja’Quan Johnson, 25, was charged with federal charges in connection with the thefts. Johnson is a contract baggage handler at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and is believed to have been behind the thefts, according to police and the Justice Department.

    Buying pot? Likely misdemeanor charge. But stealing guns from airport luggage is likely an interstate federal gun trafficking felony. Also: Our airport security is in the best of hands!

  • Houston Chronicle to move its call center from the Philippines to Dallas. 1. Who thought it was a good idea to move it to the Philippines in the first place? 2. “The move will result in 130 new jobs for Texas.” Why does the Chronicle need 130 people in its call center? 3. Dallas? Really? Because it’s evidently impossible to locate a call center in the 4th largest city in America…
  • SEC charges against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dismissed. A state felony trail is pending, but given that the state charges are based on the same issue as the SEC case just dismissed, chances of a conviction would appear to be very slim. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Trump Derangement Syndrome in La La Land.
  • How was I to know/She was with the Russians too?

  • Speaking of which:

  • Indeed, “Russia!” is now the go-to move for the media the same way a bad video game player will just use the same button combination over and over again:

  • Happiest stinkiest place in the world. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Leonardo DiCaprio flew eyebrow artist 7,500 miles to do his brows for the Oscars. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Insecure Mongo DB run by toy company hit with ransomware.
  • Ever wanted Mickey Spillane’ typewriter or his World War II uniform? Now’s your chance. I already put in a bid on Spillane’s concealed gun permit…
  • MD Anderson Announces Layoffs

    Thursday, January 5th, 2017

    Well, this is a bad economic indicator for the Houston area:

    Financially ailing MD Anderson Cancer Center will announce today it will cut its workforce by 5 percent through layoffs and retirements.

    Dan Fontaine, Anderson’s chief financial officer, confirmed Thursday morning a little less than 1,000 of the staff of 2o,000 [sic] will be leaving the world-renowned cancer hospital. Some of those people are expected to volunteer to retire, he said.

    Dr. Ronald DePinho, president of the cancer center, Fontaine and other officials set a press conference today to announce the workforce reduction.

    Anderson officials said before Christmas they were considering staff cutbacks as the Houston cancer hospital tries to shore up its finances. During the September-through-November quarter, Anderson posted $110 million in operating losses.

    Officials said in the advisory MD Anderson’s long-term financial health remains strong. Last month, officials said the operating budget is an important indicator of the cancer hospital’s ability to be self-sufficient, but it doesn’t take into account other revenue streams like state funding, charitable gifts and investement [sic] income. At that time, officials said Anderson has $2.8 billion in cash on reserve.

    Snip.

    Other factors also are at play, Fontaine said, including patients’ higher insurance deductibles and a shrinking number of insurers willing to pay for MD Anderson’s expensive cancer treatments.

    Belt-tightening measures already are paying off, he said, noting that the $9 million operating loss in November was far smaller than the $102 million in losses recorded in September and October. Those losses followed seven months of operating losses to end fiscal 2016.

    MD Anderson is one of the premier cancer centers in the world, and my father received treatment there during his terminal illness. I wonder if the relentless cost-cutting required by ObamaCare was a contributing factor, as MD Anderson has been dropped by all ObamaCare plans.

    Also, the folks at the Houston Chronicle should have their proofreaders do a better once-over for breaking stories. Those two typos I’ve noted [sic] for should have been caught…

    Texas Senate Race Update for May 25, 2012

    Friday, May 25th, 2012

    Last day of early voting before a long weekend, and only four days till the primary, so here’s another batch of Texas Senate race news:

  • Good profile of Ted Cruz by Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News.
  • Garrett also interviews Rice professor Mark Jones about David Dewhurst’s amnesty slime of Cruz, who calls it “a desperation ploy.”
  • George P. Bush also slams the Dewhurst amnesty slime. Enough to bring Grandpa41 and Uncle43 into the Cruz camp? Probably not, but you never know.
  • Man, the Houston Chronicle editorial board must really hate David Dewhurst: he skipped their meeting, but they went ahead and endorsed him anyway. Ouch!
  • The left-leaning PPP poll has Dewhurst at 46% and Cruz at 29%. Don’t see any reason to trust this more than the UT/TT poll, though both show Dewhurst shy of 50%.
  • Charting the polls in the race. But wait, didn’t they lop three points off Cruz’s total compared to the most recent UT/TT poll? At least they left out those fake Dewhurst leaked polls…
  • Ross Ramsey looks at what happens if Dewhurst doesn’t win. Also, what’s the deal with liberals like Ramsey and Paul Burka prattling on about how Texas is some sort of uninhabited wasteland during the summers? Yeah, it’s hot. Those of us who were born here just deal with it. I believe we might even be able to make it to our local polling stations for a runoff without melting.
  • Rick Perry vs. The World is not impressed with Tom Leppert’s empty suits ad.
  • AP piece on the state of the race.
  • Democrat Sean Hubbard gets some love from the Houston Chronicle. But it’s ruthlessly realistic love: “Hubbard’s chance of taking the oath of office in Washington next January is even less likely than the Astros sweeping this fall’s World Series.”
  • Since it’s possible people who haven’t been following the race until now are tuning into this blog, you might want to take a look at:

  • My endorsement of Ted Cruz.
  • Previous senate race posts.
  • Websites of the 2012 Texas Senate Candidates, which is a pretty comprehensive list.
  • Texas Senate Race Update for April 26. 2012

    Thursday, April 26th, 2012

    We’re a little more than a month out from the elections, and the rhetorical blows are already raining down among the candidates:

  • The Dewhurst campaign doubles down on the Communist Chinese attack:

    The Dewhurst campaign also says the longer piece will be available to watch on Hulu “in exchange for viewing an entire program on Hulu without commercials.” I must admit that the idea of using hulu in this way for a political campaign never occurred to me. We’ll see if it’s cost effective…

  • The Cruz campaign hit Dewhurst for working with liberals to kill conservative legislation in the Texas Senate, the wage tax/income tax, his moderate tendencies, and for raising money from PACs that have supported liberal causes like ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade.
  • Cruz gets profiled by the liberal Texas Observer. Though it covers everything you would expect it to cover, it’s actually a lot less of a hit piece than I expected it to be. And I didn’t know that Cruz was a pallbearer at William Rehnquist’s funeral. However, I think there’s one factual error (albeit one I’m sure the Cruz campaign won’t go out of their way top correct): As far as I know, Cruz has not been endorsed by Sen. Marco Rubio.
  • Tom Leppert calls his opponents “empty suits”:

    Craig James has to feel pleased that Leppert feels he’s worth of being attacked.

  • The Dewhurst campaign took time out of their busy Cruz-attack schedule to swat Leppert over the ad: “‘Tom Leppert is probably just using the same kind of creative math that got him into trouble when he raised property taxes and ran up Dallas debt,’ said Dewhurst spokesman Enrique Marquez.” Ouch!
  • Leppert picked up a passel of religious conservative endorsements.
  • Leppert appeared on KFYO in Lubbock.
  • Leppert will be visiting San Angelo on Friday.
  • Some behind the scenes tidbits on the Houston Chronicle‘s editorial board interviews with Cruz and Leppert. While it’s not the huge negative an endorsement by the Austin American-Statesman is, I’m not sure the Chron‘s endorsement is a net plus for a Republican candidate these days. (20 years ago it was.)
  • Craig James raised just over $1 million, but three-quarters of that was his own money.
  • The ground war has already started, as I got my first Cruz direct mail flyer yesterday.
  • A look at the air war. Interesting how Peggy Fikac calls Jim DeMint an “arch-conservative.” I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that she’s never labeled anyone an “arch-liberal” in print.
  • Trial lawyer and withdrawn democratic candidate Jason Gibson raised $25,980 between December 19 and when he dropped out February 2. I say “raised,” but every single donation he received was from himself…
  • Lela Pittenger raised $10,976 in Q1.
  • No Q1 FEC report up yet for Sean Hubbard or Addie D. Allen.
  • An Example Of What’s Wrong With Journalism These Days

    Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

    This Houston Chronicle piece by Joe Holley is an example of why so many people are dissatisfied with the job the legacy media is doing of reporting events.

    In covering the American Jewish Committee/World Affairs Council of Houston senate candidate forum on foreign policy I mentioned previously, we have a news story that is demonstrably deficient in several areas:

  • You get told who wasn’t there (Craig James, Paul Sadler, and Lt. Governor Chupacabra), and even how many of each flavor were there (“six Republicans, three Democrats and one Libertarian”), but the article itself only lists five of those ten. That would be the very first “W” of the “Five Ws and an H,” assuming they still teach that at journalism school. (Maybe they’re replaced it with another class on “Reporting Social Justice.”)
  • However, because I’m so Old School, I actually went out and got a list of who attended the forum from the AJC: Republicans Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Glenn Addison, Lela Pittinger, Charles Holcomb, and Ben Gambini (yes, an actual Ben Gambini sighting!), Democrats Daniel Boone and Jason Gibson, Libertarian Jon Roland, and independent candidate Mike Champion. So it turns out that even the summary of candidate affiliations was wrong.
  • In an article on a foreign policy forum that runs just shy of 500 words, a grand total of 96 of them actually dealt with the candidate’s foreign policy views, and even those are essentially free of concrete information. Let’s repost those parts in their entirety:

    Cruz also said that “President Obama has been the most anti-Israel president this nation has ever seen.”

    [snip]

    Leppert emphasized his experience as an international businessman familiar with issues of currency and international trade.

    [snip]

    Cruz and Leppert were the only two candidates who were able to respond with practiced ease to a series of sophisticated questions dealing with world affairs, ranging from Israel’s response to the Iranian nuclear threat to whether the United States should help bail out faltering European economies. Most of the others on the stage seemed unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues.

    That’s it. That’s the extent of coverage of the candidates’ foreign policy views in a forum dedicated to that very subject. We are no wiser as to what any candidate thinks of our troops levels in Afghanistan, what our relations with Pakistan should be, whether we should help topple the Assad regime in Syria, how to counter an increasingly bold China, or whether we should use military force to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Were those topics covered? We don’t know, as Holley and the Chronicle do not deign to tell us.

  • Instead of giving the candidates’ actual views, Holley merely gives us his dismissive analysis of eight of the ten candidates, telling us they are “unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues” without bothering to provide a single example of this ignorance.
  • The rest of the piece consists of horse race analysis, noting Dewhurst’s absence, audience attendance figures, and an interview with a random forum attendee. All of which would have been fine in a longer piece.
  • Joe Holley and/or his editor have missed a chance to actually inform their readers. I have a hard time thinking of a blogger who couldn’t have done a better job.

    Election Results: Three Propositions Go Down In Defeat

    Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

    The results of yesterday’s election are up, and three of the ten propositions on the ballot went down in defeat. Since all statewide propositions usually pass, that’s an interesting (and welcome) result.

  • Proposition 4, which Texans for Fiscal Responsibility said “gives counties new authority for “Kelo”-style redevelopment takings” went down by the heftiest margin, 59.7% to 40.3%.
  • Proposition 7, which would have allowed El Paso County to use property taxes to build parks, went down 51.7% to 48.3%.
  • Proposition 8, a technical amendment which allow agricultural/ranching/ etc. land to be developed for water conservation without changing its tax status, lost 53% to 47%.
  • Propositions 2 and 6 each passed narrowly with less than 52% of the vote. Proposition 1, the only one I voted for and which provided homestead exemptions for the spouses of disabled veterans, passed by the largest margin, 82.9% to 17.1%.

    Taken together, the results seem to show that Texans are actually becoming more conservative, and more willing to oppose government spending and Kelo-style eminent domain abuses.

    About 675,000 voter participated in yesterdays election.

    As a side not, notice how information on the statewide election appears nowhere on the Houston Chronicle‘s main page, though it does provide a link to how Nancy Grace did on Dancing With the Stars. Just another sign of that once great (and conservative) newspaper’s decline into being just another irrelevant liberal MSM mouthpiece.