Posts Tagged ‘Texas’
Thursday, May 8th, 2014
Ah, Team Dewhurst: Find an issue no one cares about, then run it into the ground. Their latest attack ad (or attack viral video) doubles down on all the unsuccessful attacks in his previous ads.
“Hey, let’s take a popular Disney song and ruin it! That will get people to vote for us!” Buzzfeed wonders if it’s the worst political attack ad of all time.
Dan Patrick has been a state senator since 2007. If Team Dewhurst has made an ad actually attacking that record, rather than Patrick’s business dealings in the 1980s, I haven’t seen it.
It’s like no one on the Dewhurst team actually understood why the Cruz team flash ads were so effective in the 2012 race. Hint: They made you chuckle rather than cringe.
I can’t think of another campaign team that spends so much time and money on ineffective attack ads as Team Dewhurst. It’s becoming more and more obvious that Buddy Barfield wasn’t the biggest problem with Dewhurst’s 2012 campaign…
Tags:2014 Election, 2014 Lt. Governor's Race, Dan Patrick, David Dewhurst, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 7th, 2014
Time for another roundup of gun and crime news. As always Democrats are trying to take guns away from the good guys, while the good guys are shooting the stupidest of the bad guys:
Supreme Court refuses to hear Drake v. Jerejian, leaving intact New Jersey’s anti-Second Amendment law requiring citizens to “show need” before being allowed a concealed carry permit. This leaves Heller nominally in place, but allows states to deprive law-abiding citizens of the Second Amendment rights for essentially capricious reasons.
The big news in the gun-grabber ranks, just in case you hadn’t noticed, is Bloomberg merging two of his gun-grabbing front groups into the single Everytown for Gun Safety. The goal, of course, remains the same: The complete disarmament of American civilians. But you couldn’t tell that from their website or spokespeople, who are deliberately vague when asked for specifics. Hint: Your need to keep changing your name is a sign you’re losing.
In related news, the head of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against illegal guns quits.
Louisiana wants to give lawmakers gun rights not enjoyed by ordinary citizens. I think you’ve got some equal protection clause issues there, Catou… (Hat tip: Alphecca.)
Hillary Clinton attacks “gun culture.” How nice of Hillary to remind gun owners that she’s a genuine foe of the Second Amendment prior to 2016. (Hat tip: Alphecca.)
Bonus:
Is the NRA falling victim to its own success and losing focus?
Missed this earlier: Smith & Wesson and Ruger leave California over unworkable microstamping law.
New Orleans teen shot in the head during a burglary attempt is arrested for another burglary attempt just blocks away from where he got shot Dude, being shot in the head is a giant clue that you should be pursuing a different career path…
Two burglars shot dead in Sacramento.
Murderer has sentence reduced and is to be released into the hands of director Richard Linklater, who made the movie Bernie about him. Uh, I don’t think this is the way the justice system is supposed to work… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Man shot through door by fake policeman.
Try to steal a man’s worktools from his truck three times? That’s an ass-shooting.
If I had a hammer/I’d hammer the pizza delivery guy/But if he had a gun/He’d shoot my stupid thug ass.
Bad gun use in popular media. With an entire section on The Walking Dead. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
Tags:Everytown for Gun Safety, gun control, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Michael Bloomberg, New Jersey, Texas
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Guns | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 6th, 2014
With so much Obama Administration scandal, sleaze and general fail, I haven’t devoted as much time to the statwide primary runoffs as they deserve. The Lt. Governor’s race in particular offers up the interesting dynamic of well-funded incumbent David Dewhurst getting trounced in the primary by state senator Dan Patrick. So here’s an update on the latest race news, which is lamentably heavy on who did what while owning a Houston business in the 1980s.
The two debated:
There has also been a lot of back and forth on two Dewhurst attack ads against Patrick:
There’s the little problem of Dewhurst accusing Patrick of having changed his name to “hide from debts.” In fact, Patrick had used the name Dan Patrick as a his working name since 1978, discharged all his debt in bankruptcy filings in 1987, and legally changed his name from Dannie Gobe to Dan Patrick in 2003. This is a case where the Dewhurst campaign connected two dots that simply weren’t connected for the sake of an attack ad. No wonder the claim got rated “Pants on Fire.” (On the other hand, Politifact also dings Patrick for suggesting they rated the entire ad as untrue, rather than just that one part of it.)
Politico also noted that Patrick discharged the payroll taxes debt in 1989. (Consider this your periodic reminder that Politico is considerably more trustworthy when the issue in question features no favored Democrats to protect…) Here are Patrick’s responses to the charges, where he also touches on tax problems Dewhurst’s companies had in the 1980s as well, and his own response ad:
Speaking of that second Dewhurst ad, Dewhurst supporter David Jennings dings Dewhurst for shirtless picture of Dan Patrick taken at a charity event. In fact, all the unflattering photos in that ad strike me as more than a little bush league.
As for the “hiring illegal aliens” charge Dewhurst has leveled:
Jerry Patterson tried using it in the primary, and it got him nowhere.
The idea that a restaurant or club owner in Houston might have hired illegal alien help shocks absolutely no one these days.
While if true, it does show a certain amount of hypocrisy on Patrick’s part, the charge is stale enough, and documentation of it so scanty, that I don’t see it being a successful line of attack for Dewhurst.
Dewhurst also spent an additional $600,000 on attack ads. It’s strange to see Dewhurst doubling down on the same tactic that backfired so badly in his race against Cruz. While there’s a bit more meat to the Patrick charges than the Cruz ads, I just don’t see the payoff putting so much money into attacks over business decisions Patrick made a quarter-century ago during the oil bust.
Other race news:
Patterson endorses David Dewhurst. That’s a good pickup for Dewhurst (certainly a lot better than the Craig James endorsement in the 2012 Senate race), but I don’t think it moves the needle.
Dewhurst picks up the endorsements of Battleground Tea Party of Texas (who I don’t know much about, except they’re from the Clear Lake area) and the Pearland Tea Party.
1980s Savings and Loan scandal figure W. Harold Sellers was involved in helping Patrick buy a radio station. Patrick says he didn’t know about Sellers loan issues, which were eventually settled.
I’d love to bring you news on this race that doesn’t revolve around business decisions in the 1980s, but I’m not seeing much…
Tags:1980s, 2014 Election, 2014 Lt. Governor's Race, Dan Patrick, David Dewhurst, Elections, Houston, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Border Control, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, May 2nd, 2014
Dan Patrick and David Dewhurst will be debating tonight at 7 PM.
Dewhurst trailed Patrick badly in the Lt. Governor primary, so he has the most to gain from a good showing. Unfortunately for him, his debates with Ted Cruz showed him to be a bad debater. Unless he’s managed to radically improve his debating skills, this could be the final nail in his coffin…
Tags:2014 Election, 2014 Lt. Governor's Race, Dan Patrick, David Dewhurst, debate, Elections, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, May 2nd, 2014
Here’s another data point for the Texas vs. California debate: U-Haul rates from California to Texas are still over double those from Texas to California:
Torrance, CA to Plano, TX: $2,626
Plano, TX to Torrance, CA: $1,264
Los Angeles, CA to Dallas, TX: $2,558
Dallas TX to Los Angeles: $1,232
Torrence to Plano, of course, being Toyota’s move from their old to their new U.S. corporate headquarters…
Tags:California, Texas, Toyota, U-Haul
Posted in Texas | No Comments »
Thursday, May 1st, 2014
Ask Bo Delp.
“Bo Delp, spokesman and former communications director for Sen. Wendy Davis’ campaign for governor, has resigned.”
(By the way, Delp seems to go by Dr. Robert Delp for his resume.)
The Davis campaign has been roundly criticized from all sides (including liberal pundits and members of the press) for continued organizational problems and a candidate who did not appear to be ready for prime time. But for her spokesman to leave the most important, high profile, and well-funded Democratic campaign in Texas, things there must be even more dysfunctional than they appear.
Delp said Thursday that he is “considering a number of other opportunities in Texas Democratic politics.” Yes, because there are so many Texas Democrats with a higher profile than Wendy Davis.
Also, this bit is hardly reassuring for voters who want Davis to actually represent Texans and Washington, not just be another tool of the liberal elite:
“Zac Petkanas, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s former communications director, became Davis’ communications director in March.”
Evidently getting her money out-of-state wasn’t enough for Davis; now she has to import her personnel from the national Democratic Party elite as well…
(Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Tags:2014 Governor's Race, Bo Delp, Democrats, Texas, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
Big news, as one of the world’s largest car makers decides to abandon tax-and-spend California for the Lone Star State:
Toyota is moving U.S. sales and marketing operations from Torrence, California to Plano, Texas.
California has become infamous with business executives and owners there not only for high tax rates and complex taxing schemes but also for overzealous regulations and regulators that have managed to stifle the entrepreneurial energy of thousands of companies.
“Criminal activity is the extreme manifestation of California’s institutionalized progressive hypocrisy.”
ZeroHedge (quoting a certain gun-grabbers business news service) offers up the most and least taxing states in America. Once again, California tops the list for most taxing. Plus a handy visual representation:
“California doesn’t just have the highest state income tax in the nation. It leads the rest of the country in almost every category of taxation: the highest state sales tax, the highest taxes on gasoline at the pump, and the highest corporate tax west of the Mississippi. And the taxes aren’t doing much for the people of the state, rich or poor. For the first time in history, the Census Bureau reports that California is also the poorest state in the nation, with 23.8% of the population living in poverty, in large part because of California’s high cost of living (which is not helped by all the sky-high consumption taxes the Democrats have enacted and the poor must pay to survive.)”
If that weren’t bad enough, a new bill (SB 1372) threatens to levy a class-war tax on CEO salaries. “Their bill would change the state’s fixed tax rate on publicly traded corporations to a sliding levy that’s pegged to the earnings gap between the top-paid executive and the median worker.” Evidently Democrats want all publicly traded corporations in California to move their headquarters to Texas…
The Pension Tsunami is going to wreck California sooner rather than later. “State and local governments in the Golden State have underfunded their golden-parachute pension promises by a terrifying half a trillion dollars. Twenty thousand public employees now collect yearly pensions of $100,000 or more.”
Some of the money those “public servants” are raking in is pretty staggering: “In 2012, more than 100 individuals took home more than $500,000 in total compensation; 8,248 raked in more than $250,000; 28,844 cashed in to the tune of $200,000 or more.”
Superintendent in a California school district who oversees 6,600 students pulled down a cool $674,559 last year. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Evidently CalPERS and San Bernardino are still negotiating.
If you think CalPERS is going broke now, just wait to California’s bankrupt cities start writing down debts owed.
Everyone knows San Francisco is as liberal as liberal can be. Yet even there voters have voted down green energy mandates.
California hot sauce maker Sriracha is still mulling relocation offers. Texas is still a possibility.
California’s tax bureaucracy will continue suing you after 20 years, even if they’ve lost in court.
Poll of residents shows that Texas is one of the five most popular states to live in. “Texans rank high on standard of living and trust in their state government, and they are less negative than others are about the state taxes they pay.”
Texas isn’t immune from California’s troubles when big city officials start spending like California Democrats. Big-spending Texas cities should learn from bankrupt Detroit’s example.
Tags:California, CalPERs, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Sriracha, Texas, Toyota, unions, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014
You may remember back in 2012 when I reported on Democratic Party candidate for Hidalgo County Precinct 1 Constable Robert “Bobby” Maldonado being caught with over $1 million cash in his car’s trunk. Well, I now have a Hidalgo County guilty plea update.
But not on Maldonado. Last time I checked, he was out on a $200,000 bond.
No, I have an update on a completely different Hidalgo County Democratic Party law enforcement officer charged with money laundering.
Former Hidalgo County Sheriff Guadalupe “Lupe” Treviño, a nine-year veteran of the office and a fixture of the region’s Democratic Party, pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges of money laundering. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said the former lawman “received cash contributions for his election campaign from alleged drug trafficker Tomas ‘El Gallo’ Gonzalez.”
Trevino’s former chief of staff, Maria P. Medina, also plead guilty.
Also keep in mind that this was after Trevino prepared termination papers for his second in command, Jose Padilla after the feds arrested him for “marijuana smuggling and money laundering,” also reportedly in the pay of Gonzalez.
I wonder how many other shoes might drop.
Texas Attorney General (and 2014 Gubernatorial favorite) Greg Abbott penned this editorial on the topic, containing this great quote (albeit it one only tangentially related to the question of border corruption):
Conservative is not a color, it is not a race, it is not an ethnicity. It is a commitment to the idea that every American has a chance to succeed; that faith and family are foremost; that jobs and education are the best pathway to a better future; and that secure communities are a part of all that.
Tags:Crime, Democratic Party, Greg Abbott, Guadalupe “Lupe” Trevino, Hidalgo County, Rio Grande Valley, Robert "Bobby" Maldonado, Texas, Tomas "El Gallo" Gonzalez
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 16th, 2014
The Bundy Ranch story is part of the Second Amendment story (and the Tenth Amendment story), but is too big and sprawling to unpack here. So here are some of the other things that have been happening:
Gun grabber Michael Bloomberg has pledged $50 million to defeat the NRA. Since every time Bloomberg opens has wallet, it seems like more Republicans win, we’ll see how long that commitment lasts…
But Bloomberg is sure that his Big Gulp and gun banning antics have earned him entry into the kingdom of heaven. “It’s not even close,” says he. Well, when you’re so exalted that you know the mind of God, why bother with the opinions of puny mortals?
“We gun owners have been utterly unreasonable and lacking in common sense for roughly 20 years. And by golly, look where it’s got us! We’ve whomped the enemies of gun rights into quivering submission.” (Hat tip: Borepatch, who offers further thoughts.)
Fast and Furious helped supply arms to gun trafficking rings in the U.S.
Connecticut: Massive non-compliance with new gun registration rules.
East Texas citizen terminates meth freak with gun.
Eric Holder wants to waste more money on smart guns.
A Harvard Law roundup on recent gun cases I haven’t had time to read yet. (Hat tip: Shall Not Be Questioned.)
Beaver County, PA Sheriff has around 700 guns seized from his home for violating a court order. Guess what party he’s from? Hint: The media decline to name the party when reporting the story. (Hat tip: Ditto.)
Two men rape and murder four women in California while wearing GPS tracking bracelets.
Detroit homeowners kill seven intruders in seven weeks.
Dumbass in Tuscaloosa finds out once again that gun beats machete.
Four pro gun bills (including a preemption bill) make their way through the Arizona legislature. (Hat tip: Alphecca.)
Tags:Arizona, California, Crime, Fast and Furious, Guns, Michael Bloomberg, NRA, Second Amendment, Texas
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Guns, Media Watch | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 15th, 2014
Tags:Border Controls, Dan Patrick, debate, Julian Castro, Media Watch, San Antonio, Texas
Posted in Border Control, Elections, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »