British atheist commentator and comedian Pat Condell let’s Islam have it with both barrels:
I doubt any of these sentiments will be new to anyone following attempts to contain Jihadism, but are seldom expressed with such pithy concision and free of even the slightest nods to PC sensibilities.
There was a time when Islam was given the benefit the doubt by many people in the west. Now we think it’s poison and we wish we’d never heard of it, because 20 years of baseless grievance mongering and knee-jerk offense have shown us this religion for what it really is. Now we don’t like it, we don’t trust it, and we are never going to respect it. And we don’t care how Muslims feel about that.
The echos from Ted Cruz’s victory over Dewhurst are still echoing not only around the state, but the nation as well. Here’s just a small sampling of the most important reactions:
“It’s difficult to overstate the achievement of Cruz beating Dewhurst,” said Democratic strategist Harold Cook of Austin. “That Cruz won amplifies the extent to which tea partiers are at war with establishment Republicans, and at the moment, winning it.”
This bland “Hispanics are our future” thumbsucker does have one standout line that deserves repeating: Cruz’s victory demonstrated that “Texas Republicans are more interested in conservative ideals than in ethnicity.”
A Democratic analyst’s look at Cruz’s victory. Don’t agree with it 100%, but it’s focused on technical analysis and free of liberal bile (unlike the column of certain former Texas Agricultural Commissioner I’m not linking to).
Thanks to his runoff victory Tuesday, Ted Cruz is now a political figure with clout, and, as this video shows, he’s already making the case for controlling spending and limited government to a national audience:
Tomorrow’s election day! Get out there and vote! And if you’re still making up your mind, you might want to read my endorsement of Ted Cruz.
Now the final roundup of pre-runoff Senate race news:
Evan at Perry vs. World debunks Cruz’s role in Dewhurst’s last-minute “cash for kids” ad. “Ted Cruz was trying to help the Kids for Cash victims get the money they deserved from an insurance company.”
The more detailed explanation that Evan links to is here. “In either case, Cruz had nothing to do with the creation of the fund or how much it pays victims. He was not one of the attorneys listed on the agreement. If anything, Cruz’s only involvement in the case would have resulted in more—not less—money for victims.”
Even Paul Burka can see the writing on the wall: “Nothing Dewhurst has tried has changed the dynamics of the race at all. If anything, the millions Dewhurst has spent on TV have hurt his own campaign. The China ad and the Kids for Cash scandal ad have not achieved anything. Dewhurst’s array of consultants has never been able to lay a glove on Cruz.”
Politico joins the list of those expecting a Cruz victory. “We’re on the 2-yard line. We have marched the entire length of the field. We started out up in the hot dog stands.”
Final day of campaigning: “At Dewhurst’s stopover at an Austin Chick-fil-A franchise early Monday, about a dozen supporters waved Dewhurst placards—and close to half of them were lobbyists.”
Q: So Dewhurst, are any of your staffers working for the SuperPACs slamming Ted Cruz? A: No. Q: Former staffers? A: Uh….
Fox Houston: “Early voting numbers show Cruz ahead by 10 percent.” I assume they mean the PPP poll, as they usually don’t release actual vote totals until the polls have closed on election night.
Dewhurst is still campaigning. Here’s his last-minute-push video with Rick Perry:
At least it’s refreshingly free of dishonest slime attacks against Cruz…
And yes, the Democrats are having their own runoff tomorrow. The Texas Democratic Party all but says “Screw neutrality, you better vote for Paul Sadler if you know what’s good for you.” They also commit a factual error. As readers of this blog know, Grady Yarbrough has been endorsed by a newspaper, The Austin Villager. Since the The Austin Villager is a black community newspaper, if a Republican omitted them, you know they would be accused of racism…
Yarbrough comes out for illegal alien amnesty, which might be a we tad inconsistent with his previous stance on putting the Berlin Wall on the border.
If Yarbrough does win the Democratic runoff, $20 says Sadler and the TDP try to get him thrown off the ballot for not filing his FEC forms…
The Senate race runoff is barreling down the track toward us, so there’s a lot of race news this week:
New poll has Dewhurst down by 10 points. One caveat is that I haven’t heard of Political Gravity before, so I have no way to evaluate their robopolling methodology.
Cruz beat Dewhurst in fundraising from the first 11 days of July, pulling in $522,600 while Dewhurst brought in $160,400.
Cruz has 15 times as much cash on hand as Dewhurst. Then again, Dewhurst could always write himself a check, and maybe he’s prepaid for more deceptive attack ads.
But if so, why is Dewhurst having a fundraiser with Governor Rick Perry on election eve? I would think you would want to be doing your last big campaign push then…
This article suggests that Cruz has actually been spending more than Dewhurst, but I’m not sure that’s right. And has Dewhurst really only donated a paltry $22,147 to his own campaign? Maybe, since he’s loaned it millions, but that number still seems strangely low (but I don’t have time to go digging through his FEC reports right now).
Joe Holley says Cruz won Tuesday’s debate. “A debate, whatever the format, is just not Dewhurst’s forte, as he himself pretty much admitted Tuesday night, and he went on to prove it. He looked uncomfortable, often stumbled, and at times found himself on the defensive. It was not a good night for him.”
So Mitt Romney’s campaign has taken Obama’s yawning gaffe and run with it, producing a dozy of an ad called “These Hands”:
I like it!
But people calling it “the best political ad in 30 years” are overselling it. Even if you’re just looking at Presidential ads, there are several I think are a lot more effective.
Here’s the Dukakis Tank ad from George H. W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign:
Here’s Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s devastating ad against John Kerry, using his own words against him in 2004:
(By the way, whenever you hear someone on the left saying that one of their candidates has been “swiftboated,” it means is “Republicans have attacked them effectively with the truth.”)
Accused Plano bomber Anson Chi was denied bail at a hearing at which he testified on his own behalf. I don’t see anyone placing any sort of credibility on his claims that some of his wounds were due to being tortured by police while in the hospital. Various testimony adds a lot more to the “walking time-bomb” file:
[FBI agent Brian] Carroll described Chi as “anti-government, anti-technology, anti-big business, pro-environmentalist (and) slightly anarchist.”
“He said he was tired of armchair activists and wanted to have this in the bank to prove he was a real activist,” Carroll said.
One wonder what sort of “activism” Chi thought he was displaying. Anti-gas-pipeline activism? I fail to see how blowing up a pipeline would fight the Federal Reserve, the IRS, or genetically modified food (all noted Chi concerns).
Testifying for the defense, Chi’s parents said they were OK with him living at home if the judge agreed to release him and would notify police immediately if he broke any rules.
But the testimony also seemed to backfire.
His father, Swia Chenn Chi, said he often fought with his son and was so afraid of him he once called the police.
“If we don’t agree, he usually goes wild,” the father testified. “I was so afraid he would take the gun and point it at me … I wished the police would (have taken) his gun away, but they never did.”
The FBI said agents recovered two pistols and three shotguns from the family’s Plano house, in addition to bomb-making chemicals and hardware in a search hours after the explosion.
Chi’s father said he was upset with his son because he hadn’t worked for several years.
“He’s such a grown-up man,” Swia Chenn Chi said of his 33-year-old son. “He’s not handicapped but he doesn’t work so he makes me disappointed.”
An adult refusing to look for a job fits the Occupy mold a lot more than your typical Ron Paul supporter. It also fits in with Chi’s posting the “Disappointed Asian Father” images on his Facebook page, like this one:
In addition to the bomb-making materials and instructions, agents found three shotguns and two 40-caliber semi-automatic handguns at the Chi home. They found books on domestic terrorism and technological slavery. They also found $2,000 hidden in a spray can with a false bottom, as well as euros and Asian currency.
Carroll detailed Chi’s extensive travel in recent years, including trips to Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Records show that Chi crossed into Mexico 20 times on foot and that he was denied entry into Canada last year, Carroll testified.
I’m not a big fan of the IRS, and as a fan of small government I have a bit of sympathy for tax protestors. But that sympathy is tempered by the fact that the theories by which they deduce the federal income tax is unconstitutional range from the almost certainly wrong to the completely ludicrous. And further evidence that they’re mistaken is the frequency with which they end up in prison.
Chi also posted a copy of this well-known video depicting soccer fans overwhelming police over their excessive use of violence. I’m all for exposing and punishing police brutality, but when Chi comments “Watch the police (pigs) get what they deserve—oink!” once again he gives that Occupy-tainted whiff of throwback 1960s radicalism. Not everyone who called police pigs in the 1960s built bombs, but virtually 100% of the 1960s bomb builders (The Weatherman Underground, etc.) would be found among their ranks.
He also links to a 9/11 Truther video, which does not speak well of his credulity.
Since July is July 4th, let’s celebrate the day with a glimpse at one of the most impressive weapons in the American arsenal of democracy: The M1A2 Abrams tank.
(Not my videos, and some have music and/or NSFW langauge.)
What it’s like inside loading the M1A2’s 120mm smoothbore main gun:
