Some very quick and exceedingly brief impression of today’s TPPF conference call with Mario Loyola and Arlene Wohlgemuth:
I said brief…
Archive for the ‘Republicans’ Category
Quick Impressions from the TPPF Conference Call for 3/11/13
Monday, March 11th, 2013Droning On and On
Wednesday, March 6th, 2013Senator Rand Paul has launched an old-fashioned filibuster against Obama’s CIA nominee John Brennan to protest the Obama Administration’s refusal to rule out drone strikes against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.
Under questioning by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Eric Holder admitted that he thought Obama could indeed launch a drone strike against American citizens on American soil.
Funny how far you can stretch unlimited power when the Constitution is a living document.
Hell, even some liberals are appalled.
Here’s the first hour of Rand Paul’s filibuster:
And here’s Cruz getting in on the filibuster action:
This is potentially even a bigger story than it’s being made out to be (and it’s already plenty big). There’s lots of support for Rand and Cruz coming from some unusual quarters. I don’t have time to go into all the ramifications now, but this could be the issue on which finally the vast majority of Americans look at the unchecked growth of federal power under Obama and finally yells “Enough!”
LinkSwarm for February 22, 2013
Friday, February 22nd, 2013Enjoy your now-traditional Friday LinkSwarm:
Republicans Going Wobbly On Magazine Bans?
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013Bad news: There are signs that some Republicans are thinking of caving on magazine capacity bans. “An increasing number of lawmakers in both parties appear willing to compromise on high-capacity magazines, the one component of gun control legislation that seems palatable to Republicans who view a full ban on assault weapons as politically toxic.”
There’s also this report from last year that suggests some Republicans are thinking of caving.
Democrats in congress have already introduced bills to ban standard capacity magazines. In the Senate, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced legislation (S.33) that would ban the manufacture and sale of magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. In the House, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)’s H.138 would do the same.
If there’s a bright spot, it’s that neither piece actually names any Republicans. It could be the usual case of Democratic allies in the media trying to make a magazine ban look “inevitable,” when in truth it’s anything but.
But gun owners can’t take that risk. Democrats believe they can achieve gun control (and eventually a complete ban on civilian firearms ownership) incrementally, and a useless, cosmetic ban on easily machined pieces of metal and plastic is part of their divide and conquer strategy. We need to make a magazine capacity ban every bit as “politically toxic” as any other gun control measure. Gun owners should let their senators and congressmen know we’re having none of it. You need to tell them you absolutely oppose any magazine capacity ban.
I’ll even provide a sample letter:
Dear ENTER NAME HERE,
Since you’re my representative, I just wanted to write you today in opposition to the firearm capacity bans currently proposed in congress. Both Senate Bill 33 and House Bill 138 seek to ban firearm magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. This is a foolish, irrational, and unconstitutional idea for many reasons.
First, several modern weapons are designed and shipped with magazines of higher capacities. Glock pistols, for instance, regularly ship with 17 round magazines. Second, like all gun control laws, it only penalizes the law abiding, as criminals will continue to use any capacity magazine they want. Third, with tens (if not hundreds) of millions of higher capacity magazines already in circulation, the ban would only penalize law-abiding gun owners purchasing from licensed firearms dealers. Fourth, the ban would be unenforceable for the non-law abiding, as magazines, being relatively simple mechanisms of metal and plastic, can easily be manufactured by anyone with basic machining equipment. Finally, such a ban violates not only the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, but also the 10th, as the Constitution nowhere specifies a role for government in regulating firearm magazine capacity, thus leaving the matter to the states.
This issue is very important to me, my family, my friends, and all other law-abiding firearms owners. We’re being scapegoated and hung out to dry by irrational appeals to emotion and knee-jerk legislation being pushed in response to the isolated actions of madmen. Instead of addressing the real root causes of mental health, liberals and their media allies seek to cow and stigmatize the sane and law-abiding over the actions of the criminal and insane as part of their long-term goal of completely eliminating civilian firearm ownership. As such, there can be no compromise on this issue, and any ban on 15, 20, or 30 round magazines must be categorically rejected as an irrational infringement of the rights of law-abiding Americans.
I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reject any magazine capacity ban bills.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME AND CONTACT ADDRESS
Here’s Dwight page of contact information for their Texas Congressional representatives, and here’s a link for any other congressional critters.
And the NRA-ILA just sent around a list of senate phone numbers to contact:
And after you’ve contacted your representatives, follow up. If they say they’re opposed, send them a thank you note. If they say they support such a bill, or waffle (“the Senator only supports reasonable firearms legislation”), keep after them. Ask them for a definitive answer and express your opposition. Tell them voting for a bill is cause not only for voting against them, but for backing both primary and general election challenges against them.
Gun banners only succeed when we fail to oppose them hard enough. Keep up the pressure.
Abbott Rising
Thursday, January 31st, 2013There’s much news about Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott as of late, so I’m just going to put it all here in this big virtual pile:
Texas vs. California: January 22, 2013
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013Another quick roundup of Texas’ economic strength, and California’s blue state decline:
Brief Impressions of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s 2013 Policy Orientation
Monday, January 14th, 2013I enjoyed attending what little I could of the Texas Public Policy Foundation 2013 policy orientation held January 9-11. Here are a few quick and largely random impressions:
Because I just started a new day job, I wasn’t able to attend until Thursday evening, which meant I got to enjoy Austin’s lovely rush-hour traffic on Mopac and only got to hear about half of Ted Cruz’s pre-recorded message. (Cruz was originally scheduled to appear with Sen. John Cornyn, but had to fly off to Afghanistan and Israel on a Senate Foreign Relations trip. Cruz also appeared at lunch that day, a session I was unable to attend.) Then it was time for Texas’ senior U.S. Senator, John Cornyn, to be interviewed.
He defended the Fiscal Cliff deal as necessary to avoid a huge tax increase. He talked about the Senate’s inability to pass a budget. “Shame doesn’t work on Harry Reid.”
On foreign and defense policy, he noted (correctly) that keeping the American people safe is the number one responsibility of government. Cornyn says he’s opposing the nomination of Chuck Hagel and dinged Obama over Benghazi. “If the President and his Administration had been honest about Benghazi, they’re wouldn’t have been a scandal.” (Paraphrased.)
Cornyn also displayed a certain tone-deafness in regard to his audience. When asked to mention possible 2016 GOP Presidential candidates, the first name Cornyn mentioned was NJ Governor Chris Christie, which drew audible groans and hisses from the audience, for good reason.
After the Cornyn speech there was a blogger met-and-great at Rivals Steakhouse. I met a bevy of state Reps whose names quickly blurred together, as well as Ashley Sewell, AKA @TXTrendyChick, who I had already been following on Twitter, and a bunch of other bloggers. Most interesting bit of off-the-record gossip: Confirmation of my Rick Perry hopped-up on goofballs theory. “When I saw him running around Iowa in flats I knew he was in a lot of pain. The man practically sleeps in boots.”
On Friday, I took a long lunch to attend the Newt Gingrich luncheon and signing. I sat one seat down from the indefatigable Holly Hansen (who has her own, far more extensive coverage), and @TXTrendyChick promptly plopped down between us. Obviously our table was the place to be.
I get to hang out with all the cool chicks!
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was Gingrich’s warm-up speaker. Dewhurst has improved somewhat since his losing Senate race against Ted Cruz last year, but he’s still not a natural speaker. He tries to cram too many policy points into a speech, and isn’t skilled enough to distinguish between major and minor points. When it comes to conservative policy, he seems to know the words, but doesn’t hear the music.
Dewhurst’s four points as to why Texas is doing better than any other state (1. We keep our spending low, 2. Keep our taxes low, 3. A light regulatory hand, and 4. Keep state government out of the way) were all very solid. He also promised additional budget cutting; let’s hope he follows through.
Most interesting parts of Dewhurst’s speech: A clumsily-phrased plea for welfare reform (“I’m not going to pay people to sit on the couch and do drugs,” a proclamation that will no doubt disappoint many members of Occupy Wall Street), and a proposal to arm teachers in the classroom.
Gingrich came on stage to a standing ovation. He said it was unfair for other states to compete with Texas, since we weren’t raising taxes and spending like California. (This is what people call “sarcasm.”)
This was definitely Gingrich 2.0 (or maybe 8.6), an idea-a-minute futurist (I’d like to see him and Bruce Sterling bounce off each other for a couple of hours someday). He was saying things about America 2.0, ubiquitous diagnostic cell phones as a health care initiative, having the programmers behind World of Warcraft come up with ways to teach our kids, and puters mkn kdz wrt btr (I iz skptical). It was even more scatter-shot than Dewhurst, but seemed a lot more organic. And he had one truly fascinating factoid: Students taking Stanford’s online classes did better on tests than the ones taking classes in person.
Gingrich seems genuinely optimistic about America’s future, which is a nice contrast with many of us after the 2012 election.
After the speech I managed to get him to sign two books for me, To Renew America, and Jim Wright’s Reflections of a Public Man, which he was quite amused by.
A few more luminaries:
A very dapper Chuck DeVore. He wasn’t born in Texas, but he got here as quickly as he could.
Apologies to anyone I didn’t mention, didn’t run into, or didn’t get a picture of (some just didn’t come out well). It was a busy two days!
And congratulations to TPPF honcho David Guenthner and his many minions, for all the hard work in carrying this off:
In addition to the copy of Texas Got it Right handed out to everyone, David thrust a copy of DeVore’s The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State into my hands. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to say more about both in the not-so-distant future.
Lamar Smith Among Four Texas Congressmen Who Voted for Massive Tax Hike
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013In addition to both Texas Senators (John Cornyn, who should have known better, and the retiring Kay Baily Hutchison, who came in like a lion and is going out like a RINO; thank God Ted Cruz is replacing her), four Republican Texas congressmen voted for the “Fiscal Cliff” tax hike deal:
All should have known better than to vote for a bill that contained $41 dollars in new taxes for every $1 in spending cuts, but the name Lamar Smith certainly sticks out thanks to such previous hits as “Hi, I’m a SOPA/PIPA Recording Industry Whore.” It’s no surprise, given the bill includes big tax breaks for Hollywood. I guess Smith is one of those politicians that stays bought.
All should expect primary challenges.
I’m happy to say that my own Representative, John Carter, voted against the bill.
I haven’t had time to read the entire bill yet, so I can’t tell you whether it’s merely bad or actively horrific…
Step 1: Stop the Hispanicing
Monday, December 17th, 2012I’ve held off on offering up immediate judgment on the election because I’m incredibly lazy to get past the panic and knee-jerk reactions. The world hasn’t ended, Republicans are not doomed to permanent minority status, and the cause of smaller government is not lost forever. Go over that list of bright spots again. Republicans did not do as badly as they did in 1932, 1964, 2006 or 2008. And we survived those elections, just as the Democrats survived 1994, 2004, and 2010. We’ll survive this one.
One persistent theme in a lot of recaps is how badly Republicans did among Hispanic voters, and that Republicans must immediately cave on the issue of illegal alien amnesty to have any chance of courting Hispanic votes. Though no one can dispute that Republicans need to do better among Hispanics, much of the panic over the 2012 Hispanic vote (and the resulting predictable knee-jerk push for amnesty among prominent RINOs) has been overblown, for a number of reasons:
So take a deep breath. Republicans are far better off trying to pitch the ideas of freedom and limited government to Hispanics, and running conservative Republican candidates who happen to be Hispanic like Ted Cruz, than transparent and incompetent pandering via illegal alien amnesty.