Archive for the ‘Border Control’ Category

LinkSwarm Redux for May 23, 2011

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Yet another passel of news:

  • With the new state budget moving toward passage, the State of Texas will actually spend less money next fiscal year than it did last year, the first state in 50 years to actually implement a real reduction in spending. No wonder liberals hate Texas so much; the probably didn’t realize that was actually possible.
  • Continuing his trend of trying to sound like the second coming of Ronald Reagan, Tom Leppert rails against the Obama Administrations NLRB ruling on Boeing. Maybe we should refer to him as “Leppert 2.0.”
  • Speaking of Leppert 2.0, he was seen at a fundraiser for Mitt Romney. Maybe the two of them got together to commiserate on being unfairly dinged for little things like actual governing records.
  • Gay activist and Stonewall Democrats of Dallas President Omar Narvaez laments the disappearing act of Leppert 1.0: “[Tom Leppert] was our friend [when he first ran for the office] but when he decided to run for higher office, suddenly he wasn’t our friend.”
  • Speaking of Texas Senate candidates, Elizabeth Ames Jones complains about the Obama Administration’s unwillingness to speed up offshore drilling permits.
  • Jonathan Chait is buying into Obama’s Latino strategy. But this ignores Micky Kaus’s point: How many times can Obama verbally flog amnesty without actually do anything about it before pro-illegal alien voters realize he’s all talk and no action? How many times can Lucy snatch away that football before Charlie Brown finally wises up?
  • Why did the media endlessly hype the Rapture predictions of a few far-out-of-the-mainstream evangelical Christians? Easy: “smug superiority and cheap laughs…There’s a cruelty underlying our desire to laugh at this story—a desire to see people humiliated and to revel in our own superiority and rationality—even though the people in question are pretty tragic characters.” True, as far as it goes, but it’s missing one important reason: the loathing of all forms of Christianity by urban atheist adherents of competing religious beliefs (big government liberalism) and unlikely eschatologies (global warming).
  • Ex-Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney pops up to condemn the bombing of Libya. From Libya. I think the over/under for how long it will be before she’s actually endorsing Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli preschools is two weeks.
  • Democratic Senate candidate Sean Hubbard hopes to raise $5,000 by the end of the month. That would seem to be a reasonable goal, but he’s going to need (at a minimum) about ten times that if he wants have even a dark-horse hope of derailing the DNC coronation of Ricardo Sanchez. Surely there are still enough nutroots Code Pink types in Texas that disgruntled by Obama’s continuation of “Bush’s Wars” to come up with that to oppose the “Abu Ghraib” candidate…
  • Election Tdibits for Monday, May 16, 2011

    Monday, May 16th, 2011

    I’m having some computer issues, so expect blogging to be light for the next few days.

  • Trump decides not to run.
  • Tom Leppert bashes the IMF. Just because I doubt Mr. Leppert’s conservative bonafides doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
  • Speaking of Leppert, he’s put up a No Amnesty petition. The Race to Replace Kay Baily Hutchison is not impressed: “Tom Leppert governed as a Liberal and wants Republicans to believe he is a conservative.”
  • 2012 Election Tidbits for May 11, 2011

    Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

    A few 2012 election tidbits, on the Senate race and others.

  • Since I dinged them over inaccuracies in their reporting on the Texas Senate race, it seems only fair to praise Ryan Murphy and Matt Stiles for this nifty interactive map of Q1 fundraising by incumbent Texas congressmen.
  • 2011 hasn’t been kind to Elizabeth Ames Jones thus far, but today she’ll be talking to the U.S. congress about fracking. And not the Battlestar Galactica kind.
  • Roger Williams sets up a separate website to slam Obama’s job on the economy and boost his own chances. This strikes me as a good move, but I think the site is a little lite on content right now; a splash page and a video are a nice start, but he should have links to more information for each of his four subheads. There’s plenty of ammunition for the charge that Obama has screwed up the economy, and the more he can put up there, the more likely voters are to consider Roger Williams’ campaign.
  • Speaking of Obama, he was in Texas yesterday to raise money and pander to the amnesty crowd, but was too busy to look at the areas of the state ravaged by wildfire.
  • Newt Gingrich will run for President. Gingrich would make an excellent Presidential contender…in 1996. Today, with Gingrich already pulling sellout moves like pandering to the ethanol lobby, I see no reason to believe he would be the best choice for President.
  • LinkSwarm for Friday, May 6, 2011: Immigration, the NYT, and Tom Leppert’s SEIU Ties

    Friday, May 6th, 2011

    A small LinkSwarm for a lazy Friday:

  • Mickey Kaus: “Why do these Democrats tell pollsters that immigrants are a burden because they ‘take our jobs’? Maybe because they do. Just a thought.”
  • The New York Times gets the Texas Senate Race, well, not quite right. “So far, only Republicans have declared in the Senate race.” False. Political neophyte Sean Hubbard has declared for the Democratic nomination, and has been filing his campaign financing reports with the FEC. “At least seven Republicans are vying for the seat being vacated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.” Technically true but incomplete; there are five declared major candidates (Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Michael Williams, Roger Williams, and Elizabeth Ames Jones), three declared longshot candidates (Glenn Addison, Andrew Castanuela, and Lela Pettinger), one withdrawn candidate who filed her wind-down report with the FEC (Florence Shapiro) and one undeclared potential frontrunner (David Dewhurst). Saying “At least seven” makes me wonder exactly who you’re counting…
  • The Race to Replace KBH on Senate candidate Twitter antagonists. “Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them/And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum…”
  • From the same source we also learn that Leppert asked for, and received, the endorsement of the far-left SEIU.
  • More on Leppert’s SEIU support from the horse-mouth, SEIU Texas political coordinator Shannon Perez in the lefty Dallas Observer:

    “The Republican primary voters of the state of Texas need to know the truth about Tom Leppert.
    When he first ran for Mayor, as a moderate and a supporter of working men and women, he was pro-SEIU, pro-public employees organizing, pro-collective bargaining.
    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he vigorously pursued SEIU’s endorsement.
    So committed to these ideals was Tom, that he came to our union organizing launch in the Water Department — encouraging folks to join SEIU. So committed to these ideals was Tom, he frequently threw on an SEIU T-shirt and came to our union hall…Tom even signed an SEIU membership card!

    Tom, Tom, Tom, it makes it hard to take your Second-Coming-of-Ronald-Reagan rhetoric seriously when stuff like this keeps tumbling out of your closet. Is it too late for you to switch to the Democratic Primary? You’ve already got a huge lead over Sean Hubbard…

  • LinkSwarm for Monday, January 17, 2011

    Monday, January 17th, 2011

    Just got back from a family trip, so here’s a small LinkSwarm while I get back into the swing of things.

    • “For a decade, from the election of Bush 43 forward, the Left has lied and cheated as it tried to return to power. The left wants us to be civil — after being so uncivil for a decade. Bite me.”
    • The Texas Public Policy Foundation had their annual legislative orientation over the weekend, including one on border security issues, one of several Blue Dot Blues covered.
    • More than 40 year’s after Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, blacks are free to be anything they want to be…except Republicans.

    Breakdown on how the DREAM Act Illegal Alien Amnesty Failed

    Sunday, December 19th, 2010

    This post from Roy Beck of the anti-amnesty NumbersUSA, which is further analyzed by Mickey Kaus here, goes into detail about which Senators flipped from pro- to anti-amnesty. Short version: Republicans were a lot more scared of a Tea Party primary challenge in 2012 than Democrats were of general election challengers. Sayeth Kaus:

    Score one for losing Delaware Tea Partier Christine O’Donnell, who knocked off establishment pick Rep. Mike Castle (who voted for DREAM) in the GOP primary. Even score one for Alaskan Joe Miller. He probably alienated Republican Lisa Murkowski by beating her in the primary, and ultimately she won reelection anyway as a write-in. But that’s just one lost Senate vote. By my count, Miller’s primary coup may have helped gain around ten votes by terrifying GOP incumbents who might otherwise have been tempted by the prospect of a feel-good, bipartisan, MSM-approved pro-DREAM stand.

    Beck also noted at least two Democrats, Conrad of North Dakota and McCaskill of Missouri, who voted for an amnesty despite coming from deep red states and being up for reelection in 2012. Those two seats should be big, juicy GOP takeover targets two years hence…

    DREAM Act illegal Alien Amnesty Fails

    Saturday, December 18th, 2010

    Cloture vote fails 55 to 41.

    Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pyror of Arkansas and Jon Tester of Montana (all Senators from deep red states) all voted against the bill. And boy, the head Kossack is sure pissed about Tester, who had previously been his bestest of buddies.

    Kausfiles has the blow by blow.

    Still, despite being defeated, the DREAM Act has already fulfilled its primary mission: getting Harry Reid reelected.

    (Hat Tips: Instapundt and Mickey Kaus)

    Linkswarm for Monday, November 29, 2010

    Monday, November 29th, 2010

    Like everyone else, I’m a little slow getting back into the post-Thanksgiving swing of things, so here’s a collection of links:

    LinkSwarm for Tuesday, November 23, 2010

    Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

    Two days before Thanksgiving! Here’s a swarm of links from what should be a slow news week:

    Rick Perry Doesn’t Pull Any Punches

    Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

    As seen by this video by a Houston Police Officer talking about how her husband (another police officer) had been killed by a multi-arrested illegal alien while Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White was touting Houston as a “sanctuary city”:

    I haven’t spent much time on the Texas gubernatorial race as I’ve thought all along that Perry was going to beat White like a drum, and this video is a good example why.

    (Hat tip: Dwight. )