Former Rep. Wayne Christian has joined the Railroad commissioner race.
Christian lost his seat to the Joe Straus-backed Chris Paddie in the Republican primary after losing 80% of his district in redistricting. Christian is already generating some grassroots enthusiasm in a crowded Railroad Commissioner field that already includes Malachi Boyuls, who has drawn some heavyweight support himself, and state Rep. Stefani Carter.
It seems that David Dewhurst’s relative Ellen Bevers was arrested for (allegedly) shoplifting in a Kroger in Allen (a Metroplex suburb between Plano and McKinney). That’s not really news. It’s, at most, 3-line wire service filler everyone forgets about the next day.
It’s what happened next that was news.
Lt. Governor Dewhurst called the Allen police to lean on them to let her out of jail.
And, of course, the call was tape-recorded, and released:
Dew, Dew, Dew: A desire to help a relative out is a laudable impulse, but 800-pound gorillas personally throwing their weight around to intimidate police officers (even in the polite manner Dewhurst did) is an abuse of office and incredibly stupid to boot. This is not the way things are done, and I’m surprised the Lt. Governor of Texas hasn’t managed to figure that out after 68 years.
No, what you do is you make a phone call to the sharpest, best connected lawyer in that neck of the woods, one who probably owes you a favor or two anyway (since you’re the Lt. Freaking Governor), you ask him to take care of it, he calls the appropriate judge (the one he probably plays poker or golf with on alternate weekends), the judge calls the police chief (you know, the one whose wife is on the same charity board as the judge’s wife), the Kroger manager receives a call from his regional supervisor (who really doesn’t want a few store opening schedules to be hit with unforeseen permitting snags), and before you know it, it’s all a big misunderstanding, charges are dropped, and Ms. Beavers walks away with a story tell at her next PTA meeting about that silly mistake where she ended up spending a night in jail.
All clean, all quiet, no headlines, no fingerprints, no one gets their dander up, and a nice little state grant for extra training for the Allen police department shows up in the 2014-2015 budget.
This charging in like a bull elephant to throw his weight around is just pure mule-headed stupidity. (It also displays amazing naivete about how technology works in the 21st century. If you’re Joe Cop and the Lt. Governor calls you, of course you’re going to record the call, if only for your own protection. Hell, it may even be department policy to record all calls.)
Dewhurst should have known better.
Another Friday LinkSwarm on Friday, to make your Friday seem more like Friday:
To improve the socio-economic development of Africa, the continent desperately needs private innovations, empowered by rule of law and an ambience of free enterprise, free of restrictive government regulations.Economic growth and development is indeed a vital ingredient towards achieving prosperity and a free society. However, it takes a spontaneous market driven approach without state interventionist barriers to achieve the noble aim, not foreign aid.
Is amnesty dead this congressional session? That’s what a lot of observers, on both left and right, are saying this morning.
Mickey Kaus isn’t so sure.
In The Atlantic, Molly Ball claims that amnesty proponents are winning August. And I wouldn’t count on it being dead when the Republican Establishment shows no sign of giving up it’s suicidal longing for it.
In course of discussing why Texas won’t turn blue anytime soon, Nate Cohn in The New Republic gives away the game as to why Amnesty is so vitally important to Democrats, saying the expect 300,000 more Democratic votes from Amnesty in Texas alone. For Democratic strategists, every illegal alien is just an Undocumented Obama Voter.
Whether it’s dead or not, it certainly won’t do any harm to call or write your Representative’s office and remind them that you categorically oppose amnesty in any way, shape or form. And it wouldn’t hurt to mention your support for defunding ObamaCare while you’re at it…
Wendy Davis slouches closer to running for Governor. In fact, with the Texas Democratic Party officially begging her to get in, I think it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point.
I think she will get in and get slaughtered by Greg Abbott in the general election in 2014. I think her partisans have severely overestimated how Abortion Barbie’s signature issue and liberal politics will play statewide. Also expect Democrats to field a collection of nobodies in down-ballot statewide races, assuming they bother to recruit anyone at all; remember, they failed to even field candidates in many 2012 races.
In addition, I hope Democratic partisans nationwide pump enough money into her campaign to weaken them elsewhere; far better for Wendy Davis get that money than, say, Mary Landrieu.
Despite that, I think it probably is the best decision for her politically. A losing race for Governor is going to give her a lot more national exposure and access to donors than another state senate campaign ever would.
My prediction is that by 2015, she’s going to have her own show on MSNBC.
“Travis County prosecutor charged with DWI.”
A prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office was charged with driving while intoxicated after being involved in a traffic wreck over the weekend.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit released Monday, Brandon Grunewald, 33, was in a collision Sunday afternoon on the southbound MoPac Boulevard service road near Barton Skyway, Grunewald was driving a 2008 Land Rover. The other driver was in a Mini Cooper.
And what did his boss have to say?
Grunewald’s boss, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said she is reviewing his case
“It’s a first offense DWI and I don’t know what will happen until I have all the facts,” explained Lehmberg. “I have never terminated an employee for a first offense DWI and we have had employees with first offense DWI up and down the ranks.”
Indeed.
You know, I don’t think I’ve worked anywhere where “people up and down the chain of command” had “first-time” DWIs.
Sadly, Mr. Grunewald was not reported to have stamped his feet and implored the police to “Call Greg!”
(Hat tip: Blue Dot Blues.)
Today the Dallas Morning News has an article hand-wringing article on why white males have abandoned the Democratic Party. The title quote is from the middle of the piece, to which one can only reply “Well, duh.”
The piece makes the usual MSM-required mention of racism, and takes until the third-to-last paragraph to quote a Republican saying “The national Democratic Party moved sharply to the left.”
Ask yourself: What conservative Democrat of, say, 35 years ago, would back an agenda of trillion dollar deficits, illegal alien amnesty, gay marriage, and taxpayer funded abortions? Pretty much none, especially not in the rural areas Democrats used to dominate. It’s all-but-impossible to envision conservative Democratic stalwarts like Charlie Wilson or Allan Shivers back today’s Democratic Party. Add to the fact that liberals have ruthlessly purged Blue Dog Democrats from the party, and you realize that conservatives didn’t leave the Democratic Party; they were pushed out.
Today through Sunday are Texas’ annual tax-free weekend. Mostly on clothes and school supplies. Take advantage while you can.
Time for another quick roundup of statewide race news:
Which strikes me as well-produced, but pretty generic. Can’t see why any reasonable person would find it even remotely objectionable.
I don’t cover the gun scene nearly as much as I should, but there are several stories percolating throughout the gun community this week I thought were worth taking a look at: