Posts Tagged ‘Rick Perry’

Rick Perry Suspends Presidential Campaign

Friday, September 11th, 2015

Former Texas governor Rick Perry effectively ended his second campaign for president Friday, becoming the first candidate to exit the race as his attempt to mount a do-over of his disastrous 2012 run fell short.”

Snip.

“Perry had struggled to rise in polls and failed to qualify for last month’s prime-time debate in Cleveland — a major setback. He appeared in the undercard debate, only to see Carly Fiorina, a former technology executive, have what many observers considered a breakout performance.”

While I like Perry better than at least 2/3rds of the GOP field (and even made the case for him back in 2012), he couldn’t overcome his gaffes enough to get voters to take a look at his record as Governor.

I bet Evan at Perry vs. World would like that prediction back…

LinkSwarm for July 20, 2015

Monday, July 20th, 2015

46 years ago today, America walked on the moon. Or perhaps I should say “Nixon walked on the moon” in the same sense that “Obama got Bin Laden.”

Some links:

  • Rotherham councilors suppressed the Muslim child rape scandal because Muslims vote Labour. (Hat tip Jihad Watch.)
  • Islamic State sets up stronghold in Bosnia. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
  • One of the architects of ObamaCare is now a health insurance lobbyist.
  • Mark Steyn says the Iran deal is far worse than Munich.
  • Former Labour minister, newspaper founder fired for column defending free speech of columnist critical of Islam.
  • Judge Hanen is pissed at the Obama Administration illegally defying his ruling on their unconstitutional illegal alien amnesty.
  • Rick Perry proposes hitting sanctuary cities in their pocketbooks.
  • Pension payments to Chicago public union employees have become so high that today all the property taxes paid by the households of Chicago go exclusively to pensions.
  • Minimum wage goes up, prices go up by the same amount. What are the odds?
  • The Nine Rings of Climate Scientist Hell.
  • Keith Olbermann fired. Yet again. Maybe because ESPN is feeling the pinch.
  • “if you have permission from the property owner, it is art. If you don’t, it is vandalism.”
  • Speaking of walking on the moon, there’s a whole lot of spaceflight items up for auction.
  • The myth of the “Southern Strategy.”
  • “Political correctness is a euphemism for exclusivity and closed-mindedness.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Governor Greg Abbot raises $8.3 million, bringing his war chest up to $17.8 million. Keep in mind that Abbott is three years away from any election campaign…
  • Adultery website Ashley Madison hacked, and “37 million clients” could be blackmailed. (I’m guessing that’s more like 15 million male clients and 22 million fake female profiles.) Golly, who could have possibly seen that coming? Except, of course, everyone who’s ever worked in the computer industry…
  • There’s a Jack Kemp Foundation.
  • Here’s a blog devoted to news about Ted Cruz.
  • Maybe this headline from Buzzfeed is what caused Gawker to pull the trigger on detonating the entire bottom-of-the-barrel containment field…
  • The documentary Roar may be the most insane (and dangerous to the cast) movie ever filmed.
  • LinkSwarm for July 7, 2015

    Tuesday, July 7th, 2015

    It looks like the the riots in Athens aren’t quite ready to start yet, so let’s do a little LinkSwarm:

  • Nixon drunk is better than Obama sober.
  • Boko Haram/Islamic state burns 32 Christian churches in Nigeria. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
  • Russians miss good cheese. Well, maybe they should avoid supporting dictators who invade other countries… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • China bans pension funds from selling stocks? That can’t possibly end well…
  • Rick Perry talks about how rich liberal elites are screwing minorities. “The left has to race-bait not just for ideological reasons, but for sheer self-preservation.”
  • Ex-CNN anchor’s husband kills armed felon who opened fire on them. “If you don’t want to carry please don’t. Then, shut the fuck up about it. Make your own decisions.”
  • Wait, you mean a Clinton is a money-grubbing influence peddler? What are the odds?
  • Dear Burning Man attendees: Fork over $1 million for Uncle Sam to add air conditioning to your anarchy. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
  • Thanks to Bill De Blasio’s magic, crime is up in New York City again. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Today is the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 attack in London. So how many articles you can find that bend over backwards to avoid mentioning the words “Muslim,” “Islam” or “Jihad.”
  • Even Donald Trump deserves defense from the “outragists.”
  • Paedophiles of Wikipedia.
  • Public Integrity Unit Oversight Removed From Travis County

    Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015

    Democrats won’t be able to launch partisan witch hunts against statewide Republican officeholders from the Travis County Prosecutor’s Office anymore, as Governor Greg Abbott has signed the bill stripping oversight of the statewide Public Integrity Unit from the Travis County prosecutor’s office

    “Under House Bill 1690, the Public Integrity Unit would be shifted from Travis County to the Texas Rangers – part of the Department of Public Safety – which would take charge of investigating alleged corruption among public officials. District attorneys from the home county of the accused would prosecute the cases.”

    Travis County Democrats in general, and District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg in particular, have only themselves to blame. Both Lehmberg and equally partisan predecessor Ronnie Earle have pursued vindictive and flat-out-fraudulent cases against Republican officeholders, from Rep. Tom Delay (accused of violating a law that hadn’t been enacted at the time, and whose conviction was overturned and converted into an outright acquittal) to Kay Bailey Hutchison.

    But it was Rosemary Lehmberg’s actions that pretty much sealed the fate of the Public Integrity Unit. The video of following her DUI arrest (when she decided that rolling around Austin with an open bottle of vodka in the car and a blood alcohol level of .239 would just be a swell idea) lead to Governor Rick Perry demand for her to resign. When she refused, Perry carried through with his threat to veto funding for the Public Integrity Unit, at which point the Travis County prosecutor’s office indicted Perry for using his constitutionally enumerated veto powers.

    If it hadn’t been for Lehmberg’s poor judgment and criminal activity, and and the grossly partisan overreach of herself and Earle, the legislature would never have felt compelled to act.

    Given the sterling reputation of the Texas Rangers, the unit is now in far better hands, and the move to their oversight takes effects September 1.

    Rick Perry is in the Presidential Race

    Thursday, June 4th, 2015

    Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has joined the 2016 Presidential race and has a website up.

    As longtime governor of the most economically successful state in the union, Perry should be a serious Presidential contender, especially since he has a more impressive (and recent) story to tell than Jeb Bush.

    The problem, of course, is his poor showing in the 2012 Presidential race, which included a nationally televised “brain freeze” due to him being hopped up on goofballs following back surgery. I thought Perry was the most viable conservative candidate in the race in 2012, for all the good that did either of us. That does not appear to be the case this time around, and my choice for President right now would probably be Ted Cruz first and Scott Walker second.

    Cruz, Walker and Marco Rubio all make the case for Perry more difficult. All outflank Perry on the right in ways that Huckabee and Santorum don’t, and Cruz in particular cuts into Perry’s fundraising base.

    So while Perry should be a serious candidate, he has a much tougher row to hoe than he did in 2012…and he lost in 2012. Maybe he’s counting on the GOP’s well-known “next time around is the charm” bias (see Reagan, Bush41, Dole, McCain, and Romney), but I don’t think he did well enough in 2012 to have that sort of cachet.

    Perry is a tough and tenacious campaigner (though probably not as indefatigable as Cruz), so it’s probably unwise to count him out entirely. Still, he looks to be an even longer shot in 2016 than he was in 2012.

    Texas House Votes To Defang Runaway Travis County Public Integrity Unit

    Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

    More good news from the Texas legislature: The Texas House has voted to remove jurisdiction over statewide elected and appointed officials from Travis County’s corrupt, partisan Public Integrity Unit. Instead, such investigations would be handled by the unimpeachable Texas Rangers rather than the likes of Ronnie Earl and Rosemary Lehmberg.

    It was only a historical fluke that Travis County managed to exercise such authority in the first place, and given the Public Integrity Unit’s willingness to pursue abusive vendettas against Republican political figures such as Tom DeLay and Rick Perry, removing that responsibility was long overdue.

    Democrats will no longer be able to get revenge against Republicans from the Travis County prosecutor’s office for what Republicans and voters have done to them at the ballot box over the last two decades…

    LinkSwarm for January 19, 2015

    Monday, January 19th, 2015

    Enjoy a Monday LinkSwarm to get your week started:

  • Police conduct anti-terrorism raids in Germany, Belgium and France. Could this be the start of a real effort to halt Islamic extremism in Europe? I rather doubt it. Too many leftist parties across Europe need Muslim votes, and European elites still seem implacably hostile to the Euroskeptic parties pushing for an end to unlimited Muslim immigration.
  • Old and Busted: Never again! The New Hotness: More dead Jews? Meh.
  • The late Anwar al-Awlaki was good at two things: drawing up plans to kill innocent people in the name of Islam, and banging skanky whores.
  • The Prime Minister of France: “I refuse to use this term ‘Islamophobia,’ because those who use this word are trying to invalidate any criticism at all of Islamist ideology.” (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
  • More from France’s PM on the new antisemitism:

    “There is a new anti-Semitism in France,” he told me. “We have the old anti-Semitism, and I’m obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new anti-Semitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now.”

    In discussing the attacks on French synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses this summer, during the Gaza war, he said, “It is legitimate to criticize the politics of Israel. This criticism exists in Israel itself. But this is not what we are talking about in France. This is radical criticism of the very existence of Israel, which is anti-Semitic. There is an incontestable link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Behind anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”

  • Michael Totten quotes the late Christopher Hitchens. on the jihadist opinion of the current controversy: “Carving up grandfathers and granddaughters with an axe on New Year’s Eve can be okay if it’s done to protect the reputation of a seventh century Arabian man who heard voices.”
  • Bobby Jindal: “Islam has a problem.”
  • Victimology is the language and currency of our politics.”
  • All those Harvard professors supporting ObamaCare are shocked to discover they’re paying for it.
  • “In 2009, 76 Democrats represented primarily white working-class congressional districts. Just 15 of them are still in the House today.”

    A majority of the GOP gains since then have come from the Democrats’ near-total collapse in one set of districts: the largely blue-collar places in which the white share of the population exceeds the national average, and the portion of whites with at least a four-year college degree is less that the national average. While Republicans held a 20-seat lead in the districts that fit that description in the 111th Congress, the party has swelled that advantage to a crushing 125 seats today. That 105-seat expansion of the GOP margin in these districts by itself accounts for about three-quarters of the 136-seat swing from the Democrats’ 77-seat majority in 2009 to the 59-seat majority Republicans enjoy in the Congress convening now.

  • “It was not merely Democratic politicians who were wiped out in November. A plethora of liberal shibboleths were also massacred.”
  • Virginia voters won’t let a little thing like pleading guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor prevent him from regaining his seat in the House of Delegates. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • How big is Texas?
  • Three myths about Medicaid expansion. I hope that Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick understand that we didn’t elect them to cave in on ObamaCare…
  • Are your tweets University of Indiana-approved, comrade? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Feminism’s empathy gap. Or the Shanley Kanes of the world reject the experiences of women that don’t fit their preferred victimhood narrative…
  • How a Global Warming true believer became a skeptic.
  • 10 bodies, 11 severed heads found in Mexico.
  • Pictures of empty Venezuelan store shelves, as Socialism continue to work its usual magic.
  • Liberal California billionaire Tom Steyer may run for the senate. Hopefully he’ll have the same luck as the politicians he donated to in 2014…
  • Only found out recently that Death by Government and genocide/democide expert R. J. Rummel died March 2, 2014.
  • Conservatives win several rule fights in the Texas House.
  • Rick Perry’s farewell address.
  • Gregg Abbott’s inauguration will have 4 tons of brisket. Or, as we call it in Texas, “an appetizer.”
  • Times when climbing down a chimney is a good idea: Your name is “Santa Claus.” Otherwise? Not so much.
  • A cure for cracked winter hands.
  • “My personality is as spartan as a Danish furniture catalog, why can’t yours be the same?” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • American Sniper kills at the box office:

  • LinkSwarm for August 22, 2014

    Friday, August 22nd, 2014

    Just making it to Friday coming back from vacation to Texas in the middle of August seems like it’s own victory condition…

  • The Great Obama Meltdown.
  • Ferguson is the Great Society writ large because the Great Society convinced, and then reassured, black people that they were victims, taught them that being a victim and playing a victim was the way to go always and forever.”
  • Maureen Dowd is never so readable as when she’s slamming Democrats for their personal failures. This week: Obama:

    His bored-bird-in-a-gilded-cage attitude, the article said, “has left him with few loyalists to effectively manage the issues erupting abroad and at home and could imperil his efforts to leave a legacy in his final stretch in office.”

    (snip)

    The extraordinary candidate turns out to be the most ordinary of men, frittering away precious time on the links. Unlike L.B.J., who devoured problems as though he were being chased by demons, Obama’s main galvanizing impulse was to get himself elected.

    (snip)

    The sad part is that this is an ugly, confusing and frightening time at home and abroad, and the country needs its president to illuminate and lead, not sink into some petulant expression of his aloofness, where he regards himself as a party of his own and a victim of petty, needy, bickering egomaniacs.

  • Russia is very upset street artists are turning Bulgarian monuments to the Soviet Union into American superheroes.
  • Enlightened, peaceful members of Temple University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine call a Jewish student a “kike” and punch him in the face.
  • Convicted felon Brett Kimberlin bitchslapped by the court to the tune of $600 a week.
  • “Every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization of sexual issues has seen a steep decline in membership.”
  • Washington Post: “Libertarians silent on Mo. shooting.” Except for all the ones who weren’t.
  • Rick Perry grand juror was an active Democratic Party delegate during indictment proceedings.
  • Mike Ditka stands up to the PC police.
  • Saturday Night Live announcer Don Pardo has died.
  • A tiny bit about Robin Williams.
  • Morning Tweet Roundup

    Wednesday, August 20th, 2014

    I’m back from vacation. Have some Low Calorie Content Substitute:

    Perry Indictment Slammed as Ridiculous On Both Left and Right

    Monday, August 18th, 2014

    More and more commentators, on all sides of the political spectrum, have weighed in on the risible nature of the Rick Perry indictment:

  • Respectable lefty attorney Alan Derschowitz (who has maintained an admirably consistent commitment to civil liberties throughout his career) condemns the Perry indictment: “Everybody, liberal or conservative, should stand against this indictment.”
  • Patterico provides extensive legal analysis and notes: “Words truly fail to describe what an outrageous and unsupportable abuse of prosecutorial power this is.”
  • “’You can’t pay me enough to vote for Rick Perry, but this indictment is a totally corrupt use of criminal law,’ said David Berg, a Houston attorney and contributor to Democratic candidates. ‘It is clearly political, vindictive and unsupportable.’”
  • Sarah Palin notes that frivolous lawsuits to derail a Republican’s national electoral chances are now standard operating procedure for Democrats.
  • Lefty journalist Jonathan Chait says:

    They say a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and this always seemed like hyperbole, until Friday night a Texas grand jury announced an indictment of governor Rick Perry…The theory behind the indictment is flexible enough that almost any kind of political conflict could be defined as a “misuse” of power or “coercion” of one’s opponents. To describe the indictment as “frivolous” gives it far more credence than it deserves.

  • Even MSNBC says that “it’s hard to imagine sending a governor to jail for talking about why he issued a veto.”
  • In other news, check out the #IStumbleWithRosemaryLehmberg tag…