Dwight has been all over the story of Amado “Mayo” Pardo, owner of South Austin Mexican restaurant Joviata’s, who just happens to be a two-time convicted murderer (a third murder charge was dropped as part of a plea bargain for the first) and the accused leader of a heroin-dealing ring.
He’s also a noted fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
I have not been able to find any direct political donations at the state or national level for Pardo (and the Travis County website doesn’t seem to have a way to search for individual donations, only rank upon rank of PDFs), but Jovita’s seems to have been the site for numerous liberal and Democratic fundraising events:
The Statesman article mentions fundraisers for Democratic State Representative candidate David Rodriguez.
There are more, but you get the idea. If these people were just renting Jovita’s as a venue, fine and dandy. But if they were specifically approaching Pardo to hold fundraisers for them, perhaps a bit more due diligence was in order on the part of the Austin Democratic establishment? The Austin Chronicle named him “Mayor of South Austin” in 2009. Here’s their profile of him, also from 2009, in which discusses his reading Marx and his love for Cesar Chavez, but omits his two murder convictions. How could he spend two decades hob-nobbing with Austin’s liberal community and no one bothered to find out that not only did he have two murder raps, but the FBI believes he had been dealing heroin for 25 years?
Of course, Pardo hasn’t been convicted. Instead of a heroin-dealing convicted murderer and liberal activist, he may only be a convicted murderer and liberal activist…
From The Hill comes word that Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (28th District) will be joining many of his colleagues in skipping the Democratic National Convention in September. “As I get close to my election, I want to spend more time in my district and focus on my reelection. Right now, I have no plans to attend.”
The question is: Why? Most Democratic office-holders skipping the event are in competitive races and don’t want Obama’s unpopularity to rub off on them. Cueller is in a district that voted 56% for Obama in 2008. According to the most recent FEC reports, Cuellar has $600,000 in cash on-hand. His Republican opponent, William Hayward, hasn’t even filed an FEC report. Cueller survived with 56% of the vote in the Republican wave year of 2010, in a district that was a couple of points more Democratic leaning than it is now, despite having a perfect liberal record voting for all four of the big government expansion bills of recent years: TARP, cap-and-trade, the Porkulus, and ObamaCare.
Given all those advantages, why would Cueller feel a need to stay away from the DNC? A 56% Obama seat would usually be a few points outside what most analysts would consider a takeover target, and he’s a well-funded incumbent with an unknown, underfunded challenger. Has he seen some internal polls that give him reason to worry? Could voter ID have that big an effect on a border district (even assuming the Obama Administration doesn’t block it)?
You may not be aware, but Occupy [Place Name Here] had their national gathering in Philadelphia this week. Via Twitter, we have a picture of their national march.
Really? That’s it? 45 people? Even the crappiest local science fiction convention I’ve been to had more members than that. And I dare say the average Texas Senate Race forum had at least four times as many people as that (mainly because by then all the seats had been filled and they wouldn’t let additional people in).
When will the national media stop pretending that Occupy is even remotely important?
Even though I’ve endorsed Ted Cruz, I think it only fair to point out that Dewhurst has, in fact, constantly stated that he’s in favor of repealing ObamaCare pretty much since he joined the Senate race. (I even used the Wayback machine to verify it.) However, Cruz has been more fervent and articulate in campaigning against ObamaCare, making the phrase “repeal every syllable of every word of Obamacare” one of his stock talking points from the very beginning of his campaign. He’s also discussed the 10th Amendment reasons why ObamaCare is unconstitutional, something that I don’t recall Dewhurst doing. (Dewhurst has mentioned the 10th Amendment in support of the Texas Voter ID law.)
Cruz’s worry (which I think is legitimate) is that Dewhurst might be willing to compromise on ObamaCare. And I could easily see Dewhurst signing on with some “Group of 14” (or whatever) to needlessly save ObamaCare despite a Republican House, Senate, and White House, rather than push for full repeal.
Which is why this rings a little hollow to me:
But unlike some of Dewhurst’s other ads, at least that one probably won’t cost him votes…
Here’s the video of last week’s Cruz-Dewhurst debate:
The Dewhurst campaign is pointing to this Cruz appearance on the Dan Patrick show as evidence Cruz is a hothead:
34 minutes? No time to listen tonight…
And here’s still another journalist opining that the mid-Summer runoff date will mean. Memo to the MSM: IT’S TEXAS! IT’S HOT! WE’RE FREAKING USE TO IT!
Grady Yarbrough and Paul Sadler also debated last week. Yarbrough said he supported a border wall, saying that the Berlin Wall was effective. Hmmm, I don’t think I would have made that analogy…
Speaking of things I’m not watching tonight, here’s KERA’s embeddable video of the Democratic debate:
More on the Democratic debate. Another summary. My summary of those two summaries: Yarbrough wants a border wall and legal pot, and Sadler is against both of those. Sadler does actually say the national debt is too high.
Whether this was done by convicted felon Brett Kimberlin, his likely associate Neal Rauhauser, or anyone else on Team Kimberlin, I don’t think they’ve thought their cunning scheme all the way through. Did it ever occur to the people setting up these SWATings that police really, really don’t like being made to look like fools? Having police officers kill an innocent person based on a malicious prank has to rank pretty high among nightmare scenarios at police headquarters.
You SWAT people once or twice and and police may shrug it off as a prank. You do it repeatedly, as the supergeniuses on Team Kimberlin have done, and you’re really going to piss them off. So much so, that they’re going to start sharing information between departments in an effort to track down the people behind it and nail them to the wall. And they’re going to start calling their friends among the feds and private security consultants for help. Eric Holder may not be interested in helping conservative bloggers, but there are a lot of feds that still want to do the right thing.
Team Kimberlin better be having fun messing with the bull now, because I have a strong feeling they’re not going to like what comes next…
Even for convicted felon Brett Kimberlin this seems ham-handed. They seem desperate to punish conservative bloggers. Or perhaps distract our attention from Obama’s lousy job as President. Whatever the reason, they’re doubling-down on the nasty tactics.
Texas Democratic U.S. Representatives Al Green, Ruben Hinojosa, and the retiring Charlie Gonzalez all kicked money into New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel’s reelection fund.
I haven’t been doing much coverage of Fast and Furious, mainly because bloggers like Sipsey Street and Snowflakes in Hell/Shall Not Be Questioned were doing such good jobs moving the story forward I didn’t feel a need. But now that the Obama Administration is in full cover-up mode, well, bring the swarm.
Remember: Over 200 innocent people have died due to Fast and Furious. So when liberals tell you that “It’s not Watergate,” they’re right. It’s much worse.
“Neighbors also said the son who lives there is often out and about and doesn’t seem to hold down a job.”
“They said he typically carried a backpack with him.”
“One neighbor told News 8 the son seemed to change over the last couple of years. He said his neighbor started running at night, saying he ‘was in training.’ That same neighbor said the young man lived a minimalistic life, saying he was against modern technology, but would then talk about spending hours on his computer.”
No job, backpack, hates technology. Let’s see: Who does that description fit?
Is it too soon to guess at an Occupy Wall Street connection? Probably. There’s only a few shreds of evidence. And yet, want to guess what the most recent concern on the Occupy Dallas website was?
This is all very speculative and tentative, and the bomber could still be a lone nut. But at least the Occupy Dallas connection would explain the bomber’s motivation.
Here’s a nifty interactive primary map for the Democratic side of the Texas Senate race. What jumps out at me is less the respective totals for the Democratic candidates than the fact that that there were no votes cast in the Democratic primary for United States Senator at all in 13 counties. Sure, some (like Loving) are sparsely populated. But out of the 13,153 registered voters in Hockley County, not a single one cast a vote in the Democratic Senate primary? Either there’s something screwy with the data collection, or the Texas Democratic Party is even more pathetic than even i realized.
One more tidbit: Sean Hubbard came in dead last in his home base of Dallas County…
