Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

George P. Bush Running for Land Commissioner

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

“George Prescott Bush filed the official paperwork Tuesday to run for Texas land commissioner next year.”

That would be Jeb Bush’s son, Bush43’s nephew, and Bush41’s grandson, one of the “little brown ones.” The Bush name alone is probably enough to win him the office, but add to that the fact that the Bush family has one of the most powerful money machines in all politics and you have a prohibitive favorite. Jerry Patterson was probably right to think he’d have an easier time defeating a post-Senate-race-meltdown David Dewhurst for Lt. Governor.

Deeper analysis of a continuing Bush dynasty, and of how Democrats and the press react to facing a Bush scion who happens to be Hispanic, will have to wait until (at least) tomorrow.

Quick Impressions from the TPPF Conference Call for 3/11/13

Monday, March 11th, 2013

Some very quick and exceedingly brief impression of today’s TPPF conference call with Mario Loyola and Arlene Wohlgemuth:

  • The Texas legislature is considering a number of anti-gun-control bills, including one outlawing state officials from cooperating with federal authorities on unconstitutional mandates.
  • Texas is seeking to limit federal influence over anything not directly funded under a federal program.
  • There are over 600 (!) line item sources in the Texas budget as funds received from the federal government.
  • Despite conservative suspicion when it comes to Texas Speaker Joe Straus, reports that he’s considering caving on Obamacare may very well be overblown. Certainly the rest of the Republicans in the House are unified against ObamaCare.
  • I’m waiting to hear back from TPPF on state Senator Kevin Eltife’s sales tax hike proposal, supposedly to retire TxDOT bonds. At first glance it does sound an awful lot like a political death wish.
  • I said brief…

    LinkSwarm for March 5, 2013

    Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

    Had a busy weekend, so here’s a late LinkSwarm:

  • Liberals are casting their greedy gaze on your 401K,
  • Charles Krauthammer: Hail Armageddon!
  • As Mark Steyn put it: “those Mayan guys only hold an apocalypse every few thousand years. Washington now has a Mayan apocalypse every six weeks, whether it’s the fiscal cliff or the debt ceiling, or now the sequestration…it’s talking about $44 billion dollars, or about what the United States government borrows every nine days.”
  • Americans speak English, but Washington speaks a strange dialect where increasing spending by $1 trillion dollars is “holding the line on spending”.
  • Obama’s weak hand on the sequester (though I disagree than gun control is a long-term winning issue).
  • News flash: ObamaCare is still unpopular.
  • The idea that there are more black men in prison than college? Bunk. (via Instapundit)
  • Student suspended for brandishing gun, threatening to shoot someone. Oh wait, no, the student was suspended for tackling the gunman. What the hell, Florida?
  • Syrian rebels take city of Raqqa.
  • The MSM idea of objectivity: quoting a Paul Sadler employee as a neutral observer on Ted Cruz.
  • Speaking of Cruz, he continues to garner a superb list of enemies.
  • Cruz will also be the keynote speaker at CPAC.
  • Groupon’s gun-hating, money-losing CEO got fired.
  • Happy Texas Independence Day!

    Saturday, March 2nd, 2013

    Today is Texas Independence Day. On March 2, 1836, the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico.

    Here’s Ted Cruz’s message from last year.

    And here’s “The Yellow Rose of Texas”:

    Texas Vs. California Update for February 28, 2013

    Thursday, February 28th, 2013

    I’m running out of month! Here’s another quick Texas vs. California update:

  • Is California really back? Yeah, not so much.
  • California to impose tax on rain.
  • Add Costa Mesa to the list of California cities where a pension crises looms.
  • Texas spending on education has outpaced inflation.
  • The Texas Growth Machine.
  • Federalist Society Symposium at UT Featuring Ted Cruz

    Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

    Attention UT students: The Federalist Society is having a Symposium Friday and Saturday, March 1-2 at UT on the subject of the federal Leviathan state. Ted Cruz will be the keynote speaker at BBQ on Saturday, and other legal heavy hitters includes Jeremy Rabkin and Richard Epstein. If you’re a UT student (or just interested in the subject) I’d encourage you to attend.

    LinkSwarm for February 22, 2013

    Friday, February 22nd, 2013

    Enjoy your now-traditional Friday LinkSwarm:

  • Moody’s strips the UK of it’s AAA bond rating. For all the left-wing hand-wringing about “austerity,” Cameron’s government was still running big deficits, just not as big as Labour’s (or ours).
  • Bill introduced in Washington State to allow police to go house-to-house conducting warrentless searches for guns.
  • Smart Bomb drug approved. Let me know when they finally approve the Inviso drug, and we can finally finish off those pesky mutants.
  • China’s “Yellowed Pearls”. “‘Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult,’ reads an excerpt from an article titled, Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy, posted on the website of the All-China Federation of Women in March 2011. ‘These girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don’t realise that as women age, they are worth less and less. So by the time they get their MA or PhD, they are already old – like yellowed pearls.'” And how old is too old in China? 27 years old. 27?!?! What self-respecting man could possibly love the withered, wrinkled, desiccated husk of a woman who’s reached the doddering, shriveled, decrepit age of 27? Why not just marry a mummy and be done with it?
  • “Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis.”
  • ObamaCare exchange costs up 29%…before the first one has even opened.
  • The left’s racists are out to get Ted Cruz.
  • Bag bans are killing people. Well, that won’t be the first time that liberal ecomadness has killed people.
  • Can Democrats mess with Texas in 2016? Short answer: No, but state GOP Chair Steve Munisteri is taking the threat seriously.
  • New charges against accused Plano pipeline bomber Anson Chi.
  • Texas vs. California Update for February 21, 2013

    Thursday, February 21st, 2013

    Another Texas vs. California update! And I don’t even have a line item on how the Houston Rockets picked the Sacramento Kings’ pockets’ in yesterday’s trade.

  • All of TPPF’s Texas vs. California updates in one handy place.
  • California is raising taxes and decreasing services.
  • Mainly because pension funding is crowding out everything else.
  • Good news for California: They got $5 billion more in revenues than they expected in January. The bad news? It was only “an accounting anomaly.”
  • California voters approved a few modest pension reforms last fall. Naturally, unions are sponsoring legislation to have them overturned.
  • Logic: “No amount of legal argument can sidestep the grim numbers facing San Bernardino. The City Council and employee unions alike should recognize a basic fiscal fact: The city will never climb out of bankruptcy without reining in personnel costs.” Unions: You and your oppressive math and logic can die in a fire.
  • Who says California’s high taxes and excessive regulation are driving businesses away? According to The Sacramento Business Journal, 54% of Californians.
  • One reason businesses flock to Texas from California is lawsuit reform. Texas has it, California doesn’t. “For decades, its leaders have consistently pursued policies that promote excessive litigation, making it among the most litigious states. These policies create obstacles for the new and small businesses that drive California’s economy and have allowed abusive lawsuits to delay or halt projects.”
  • The Economist sniffs that Texas’ spending restraint meant the state spent less than the could have. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
  • Liberal compares Rick Perry to Stalin because Texas won’t spend as much as liberals think they should. I’m sure we all can agree that was the very worst thing about old Joe Stalin: Fiscal restraint.
  • A Quick Roundup of Gun News

    Monday, February 18th, 2013

    Here’s a Whitman’s Sampler of gun news for you to chew on:

  • The Truth About Assault Weapons, in easy-to-follow graphic form.
  • Dwight is all over Polifact Texas “checking” Ted Cruz’ statements about untracked gun buyers.
  • Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot appeared on a RedState podcast discussing guns.
  • More on the tremendous success of Chicago’s gun control initiative, and how it’s throwing a wee bit of a kink into Obama’s gun control pitch.
  • In the Texas legislature, Rep. James White’s House Bill 1142 would allow firearms safety to be taught as an elective.
  • Missouri Democrats introduce a bill to seize the guns of the law-abiding.
  • What happens when an expert arrives to provide testimony on modern sporting rifles? If you’re a Minnesota Democrat, you actually walk out of the presentation.
  • Borepatch suggests a legislative strategy.
  • Interesting profile of Bond Arms of Granbury, which makes derringers. The article calls them the only gun manufacturer in the DFW area, which I rather doubt.
  • Ted Cruz will be visiting LaRue Tactical to support the Second Amendment. Sadly, Wayne Slater is evidently too unprofessional to bother telling you when Cruz will be visiting. (Do they just not teach “Five Ws and an H” in journalism school anymore?) Since I offer a full-service blog: Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 11:00 AM, LaRue Tactical, 850 County Road 177, Leander, TX 78641.
  • Finally, here’s a fine NSFW rant about how liberal “civil libertarians” are only too ready to watch the rights of gun owners trampled:

    “At the time the Constitution was written, the weapons in question were muskets.”

    You know what? You’re right. And marriage was between one man and one woman. So what’s with gay marriage? No longer will I offer any moral support, oppose any online statements attacking it, speak out for it. They have the same right as anyone—to marry someone of the opposite gender. And given that all gays support raping little boys (just like all gun owners support shooting school kids), I don’t think I can support them. We should do things just the way they were done 220 years ago. That’s the liberal way.

    “The Heller Decision was by an activist court. It doesn’t count.”

    Indeed. Just like Roe v Wade was an activist decision. It doesn’t count.

    “We’re not trying to take your guns away, just have reasonable limits. It’s a compromise.”

    And some people want reasonable limits on abortion, like waiting periods, gestational time limits, ultrasound, etc. It’s a reasonable response to an activist court decision, and reasonable restrictions on a right, for public benefit. Don’t come whining about your right to murder babies, and I won’t come to you whining about my right to shoot school kids.

    And no one is saying you can’t ride the bus. You just have to sit where people think is reasonable. No one is saying women can’t work. They just have to get paid what is reasonable for the work they do, allowing for the fact they’re going to leave the workplace and raise a family. It’s a compromise.

    “Assault weapons are an extreme interpretation.”

    True. And not allowing any religious emblems on government premises is an extreme interpretation. As long as they’re privately paid for, what’s it to you? No one is saying you can’t belong to the Christian church of your choice, just not to extreme groups, like atheists or Muslims. It would be paranoid to think anyone was trying to infringe on your legitimate right to be free from state religion, just like I’d be paranoid to think they wanted to take my guns. Quite a few states had official churches well into the 1800s. This is not an infringement on your freedom of religion.

    “Given Sandy Hook, you have to make reasonable compromises.”

    “We just want licensing and safe storage requirements so the wrong people don’t get guns.”

    “Publicizing the information lets people make informed choices about who they live near.”

    Accepted. In exchange, gay men should make reasonable compromises over Penn State. They will simply have to accept being registered and kept a safe distance from children. This isn’t a violation of their rights. It’s just common sense. The public has a right to know.

    This should apply to protests, too. No reasonable person would object to being identified. They should welcome it—it means they can’t be wrongly maligned. All union members, blacks, gays and feminists should be signed in with ID before a march or gathering, just so we can track the real criminals to keep the rest safe.

    Also:

    First they came for the blacks, and I spoke up because it was wrong, even though I’m not black.

    Then they came for the gays, and I spoke up, even though I’m not gay.

    Then they came for the Muslims, and I spoke up, because it was wrong, even though I’m an atheist.

    When they came for illegal aliens, I spoke up, even though I’m a legal immigrant.

    Then they came for the pornographers, rebels and dissenters and their speech and flag burning, and I spoke up, because rights are not only for the establishment.

    Then they came for the gun owners, and you liberal shitbags threw me under the bus, even though I’d done nothing wrong. So when they come to put you on the train, you can fucking choke and die.

  • Texas vs. California Update for February 13, 2013

    Wednesday, February 13th, 2013

    Busy day! Here’s a quick Texas vs. California roundup:

  • Texas economic success is no mirage.
  • More on Rick Perry’s California raid. “I’d take free-market capitalism over socialism any day, and that was the decision that we made,” said Waste Connections Inc Chairman and CEO Ron Mittelstaedt. “He added that it took Waste Connections 16 months to design and build a new, 11-story building in Texas, including eight weeks for permits. He estimated it would have taken three years just to get the permits in California. The California Environmental Quality Act is often cited by critics as a major cause of pointless delays on construction projects in particular.”
  • California’s aversion to both nuclear power and fossil fuels will probably cause blackouts in the state this year.
  • “Thanks to appointments by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Public Employment Relations Board has gone from an obscure agency to a union front.”
  • The Milkin Institute’s Kevin Klowden takes a brief look at which state has a better business climate. “California’s higher costs and a difficult-to-navigate regulatory system mean that a split has developed. While research and development and innovation are more likely to stay in California, companies often expand or move their back offices and new manufacturing to Texas.”