Posts Tagged ‘Hidalgo County’
Friday, June 14th, 2019
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Border control, Social Justice Warriors, Iran and Geto Boys all feature in today’s roundup…
The idea that we can go back to a “Pre-Trump Normal” is an illusion.
Washington sophisticates, and the DC press corps in particular, are deeply parochial. Trump didn’t create worldwide skepticism about globalism, resentment of sinecured elites, or frustration with an out-of-touch cultural vanguard. He merely rode them to power.
Politicians and pundits can disagree with this populist trend, but it’s electorally suicidal to ignore it. As I note in USA Today, one look around the globe shows that, in many ways, Trump is the new normal.
Iran evidently limpet-mined two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
One reason Iran is desperate: The Trump Administration’s sanctions are working:
These actions on the part of Iran follow a series of sanctions from the US Treasury Department, which on Wednesday (June 12) imposed sanctions on a financial conduit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, and last week (June 7) sanctioned Iran’s largest petrochemical holding group.
US officials are also considering sanctions against the Iranian financial body that was established as a trade channel with Europe – a move that would underscore US intolerance to any international workarounds to the Iran sanctions campaign.
You don’t need to read the tea leaves closely to know the administration’s plan for its “maximum pressure” campaign. But one thing the tea leaves don’t show are plans for war. And the reason is simple: the sanctions are working to help achieve President Donald Trump’s priority goal, which is to undermine Iran’s influence and support for terrorism in the Middle East.
The Treasury’s latest steps follow a State Department press briefing, during which its spokesperson, Morgan Ortagus, listed the negative effects Iran sanctions were having on that country’s terrorist proxies and on its other actions in the region. She pointed to the Lebanese group Hezbollah’s “pleas for public donations via billboards, posters and collection cans” and stressed that “Iran is withdrawing Hezbollah fighters from Syria and cutting or canceling their salaries.” This is a big deal.
She also pointed to Hamas’s austerity plan in Gaza and to the IRGC’s budget cuts for Iraq Shia militia groups. She highlighted fuel shortages in Syria due to the cut in Iranian oil supply and noted the IRGC cyber command “is short on cash.”
Others have also picked up on this emerging trend: that Iran sanctions are starving Iran’s proxies of critical funds. The Washington Post reported that US sanctions against Iran have “curtailed” Iran’s finances to Hezbollah, which “has seen a sharp fall in its revenue and is being forced to make draconian cuts to its spending.” A fighter with an Iranian-backed militia in Syria told The New York Times that he lost a third of his salary and other benefits, lamenting, “Iran doesn’t have enough money to give us.”
When he withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or what is often called the Iran nuclear deal, last year, President Trump made his top goal clear. Before even addressing Iran’s nuclear capabilities or speaking about working toward a new agreement, he emphasised Iran’s support for terrorism and plans for regional influence as among his key concerns and reasons for withdrawing from the deal. Working to undermine that behavior has been the administration’s top priority in its Iran policy.
Sanctions are particularly taking a bite out of Hezbollah. One wonders, yet again, what the Obama Administration thought it was achieving with the insane and costly Iran deal…
Venezuelans reduced to barter.
This essay suggests that defeating Social Justice Warrior madness will be more difficult than we think, because it’s essentially a religious phenomena:
The shock presidential election of 2016 might have prompted partisans on both sides to ask whether the vocabulary on which they relied had become a lifeless hindrance. On the Left, the Clinton political machine suffocated every dissenting voice within the Democratic Party, which denied its members the opportunity to rethink the identity politics death-grip that was strangling them. Then as now, Sanders, more smitten by Marx than the halfway-Nietzscheanism of identity politics, invited his fellow Democrats to step back from the brink. Alas, itself guilty of class privilege, the donor class of the Democratic Party living in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and in the wealthy enclaves surrounding New York City needed a fig leaf to cover its class sins—and, so did not, and will not, allow Sanders to win the Democratic nomination and thereby reveal their unrighteousness.
The Democratic Party will again double down on the rhetoric of identity politics, lose the 2020 presidential election, and conclude—as it did with Russiagate—that some demonic force temporarily bent the arc of history in the wrong direction. The demonic force responsible this next time around? “Hate speech” from the lips of those in the center and on the Right who refuse to rehearse the Red Letter political liturgy identity politics tirelessly repeats—or bow before the false gods that identity politics worships.
Partisans on the Right were given a gift: President Trump. He came into the Republican Party, and the Republican Party understood him not. Many did not want to receive this gift. Having read their Aristotle and Burke, and wishing to remain gentlemen, they withdrew from the political fray—preferring the decorous tyranny of candidate Clinton, the very paragon of identity politics, to the incivility of candidate Trump who, alone among Republican candidates, had the temerity to combat it. “Our tastes, not our ideas, define us”—that is what the 2016 election apparently taught the GOP.
Now forming a Conservative Book Club of sorts, these gentlemen ponder great ideas, entice donors to fund their conferences and think tanks, and all the while enjoin us to believe the vocabulary of the pre-2016 Republican Party continues to be adequate to the troubles we face. It is not.
Today, whether at conservative conferences or in conservative think tanks, the listener even moderately attentive to the conversation will hear of the perils of progressivism and of cultural Marxism, of the need to defend family values, of the importance of being pro-life, of the importance of free markets, and of the threat of multiculturalism. These terms—indeed the constellation these terms form—emerged during the Reagan Presidency, more than three decades ago. If the 2016 Presidential election tells us anything, it is that this verbiage has hardened into nearly lifeless political rhetoric, sustained on life support through institutional buy-in and the assurances of political philosophers sympathetic to conservatism who tirelessly promote the link between the veritable ideas they study and the political vocabulary that has been in place for decades is timeless.
Times have changed, however. Philosophy must gently persuade; that is its privilege and its weakness. Philosophers are concerned with eternal truth. Partisans, by contrast, are concerned with timely rhetoric, opinion, and persuasion. They must engage in comparatively immediate combat. So long as conservatives inattentively conflate philosophizing and partisanship, they will continue to produce partisan vocabularies that masquerade as eternal truth—and partisans unable to respond in a timely manner to shifting times. To win, partisans must know when the weapons of their enemies have changed. Wars—and this is a crucial point to understand—are not won using weapons from earlier engagements. Only armchair soldiers and Conservative Book Club members have the luxury of replaying those battles.
Neither liberals nor conservatives understand the weapon of identity politics, and the immense destruction it can cause. Identity politics does not simply parse different kinds of people. Identity politics is concerned with the relationship of transgression and innocence between different, purportedly monovalent, kinds of people. Identity politics is not just about who we are, it is about a moral stain or purity that defines who we are.
The language of stain and purity, of transgression and innocence, is Christian language. Other religions are concerned with these categories as well, but our long familiarity with Christianity in America means that the invocation of these categories by the practitioners of identity politics derives from Christianity, and from Protestantism in particular. Surveys may indicate that America has lost or is losing its religion; the fever of identity politics that now sweeps the nation suggests these surveys are looking in the wrong place and asking the wrong questions. America has not lost its religion. America has relocated its religion to the realm of politics.
Identity politics transforms politics. It turns politics into a religious venue of sacrificial offering. Ponder for a moment, Christianity. Without the sacrifice of the innocent Lamb of God, there would be no Christianity. Christ, the scapegoat, renders the impure pure—by taking upon Himself “the sins of the world.” By the purging of the scapegoat, those for whom He is the sacrificial offering purify themselves. Identity politics is a political version of this cleansing for groups rather than for individuals. The scapegoat in the case of identity politics is the white heterosexual male who, if purged, supposedly will restore and confirm the cleanliness of all other groups of communities. He is the transgressor; all others—women, blacks, Hispanics, LGBTQs—have their sins covered over by the scapegoat, just as the scapegoated Christ covered over the sins of all the descendants of Adam.
The theological perversity of replacing the Divine Scapegoat of Christianity with the all-too-mortal white heterosexual male scapegoat does not imply that he is innocent. Rather, in identity politics, the white heterosexual male becomes more than who he really is—a member of a scapegoated group who takes away the sins of the world, rather than a mortal, like everyone else, involved in transgression, and searching for redemption. The mystery of transgression and innocence, however, cannot be resolved at the level of groups, because in reality not one of them is univocally pure or stained. But identity politics stands or falls on the claim that groups are such unities of transgressors or innocents. Therein lies its weakness, at which all the armament allied against it must be aimed.
Charles Murray changes his mind. “I want to shut down low-skill immigration for a while.”
“Open borders advocates are panicking after the arrest of Irieno Mujihca, the leader of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a pro-open borders group funded by globalist financier George Soros that has worked to undermine United States immigration policy and sponsor Central American caravans.”
“Hispanics stick with Trump despite tough border stance.” Despite, or because? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Tech reporter Peter Bright has been arrested for soliciting sex with children online. He was employed by Ars Technica until recently. A federal complaint alleges that Bright sought to molest a 7- and 9-year-old and met with an undercover agent for this purpose, at which point he was arrested. It also states that Bright claimed to be in a sexual relationship with an 11-year-old.” Was he a “male feminist” and “anti-#GamerGater”? Of course he was.
Twitter suspends Project Veritas for revealing Pintrest block pro-life website Live Action as porn.
University of Alabama returns donor’s $21.5 million and takes name off law building, partially over Alabama’s abortion law, but partially just because he was kind of a dick.
“Agriculture Dept. Employees Are Really Upset They Might Have to Live Among the Rubes in Flyover Country.”
“The folks running The Bulwark must decide which they value more, being conservative or being anti-Trump. They have, I’d argue, already picked the latter.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez team up again on a bill to make birth control available over the counter.
“Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Everyone’s Pay Should Be Equal, But My Pay Should Be More Equal Than Others.‘”
New York Times leftist: “Hey Rep. Dan Crenshaw! If you really cared about 9/11 victims, you would have co-sponsored the 9/11 Victims Compensation fund!” Rep. Dan Crenshaw: “I did.” New York Times leftist: “Uhhhhh….” DELETE DELETE DELETE. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina indicted on 12 felony counts of voter fraud.
“President Donald Trump will award the Medal of Honor to former Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia later this month, the White House announced Monday, making him the first living Iraq War veteran to receive the nation’s highest military decoration.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
We could be heroes, just for one day… (Hat tip: @evangie.)
Woman kills boyfriend over alien reptile cult. “Shriner told NJ.com she believed Rogers was a ‘Vampire Witch Reptilian Super Soldier.'” Plus: liquor and firearms! Going to use the “David Icke” tag even though he’s nowhere mentioned, as that’s how I keep track of all the reptoid news…
Bad Idea Theater: Netflix Roast of Anne Frank. You’re probably thinking to yourself “Must be The Onion or The Babylon Bee.” No, this is an actual thing that people actually did. (Indeed, Jewish comics seemed to be the driving force behind it.) I suspect it’s only the second unfunniest spoof on the Holocaust, behind Heil Honey, I’m Home, which was also a real thing.
I’ve managed not to have any news about Houston rap group Geto Boys in a LinkSwarm ever, and now two pieces drop this week. First, dwarf frontman Bushwack Bill (legal name Richard Shaw) has died at age 52 from pancreatic cancer. Now Scarface, AKA Brad Jordan, is running for Houston City Council. (Hat tip for both: Dwight.)
High School Valedictorian’s speech slams teachers and administrators for their utter incompetence and failure. Oh, did I mention it was in California?
How to assemble a P-47 on the ground with hand tools.
ThinkGeek, RIP.
“House Democrats Draft Legislation That Would Make It A Hate Crime To Eat At Chick-Fil-A.”
“Did Leonard Nimoy Fake His Own Death So He Could Seize Control of the Illuminati?” I’m gonna go with “No” here…
UNMAKE.
“England Forced To Crown Donald Trump As King After Strange Woman Lying In Pond Lobs A Sword At Him.”
A funny, heartwarming story that doesn’t start out that way at all.
I was sad because I had no shoes, but then I met a puppy who had no feet:
Tags:#GamerGate, #NeverTrump, 2020 Presidential Race, 9/11 Attacks, Alabama, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Anne Frank, bureaucrats, California, Charles Murray, Congressional Medal of Honor, Crime, Dan Crenshaw, David Bellavia, David Icke, Democrats, Department of Agriculture, dogs, Edinburg, Foreign Policy, George Soros, Geto Boys, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hidalgo County, Hispanics, Holocaust, Houston, immigration, Iran, Iraq, Irieno Mujihca, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Lucas Silverio, Military, Netflix, New York Times, Operation Iraqi Freedom, pedophilia, Peter Bright, Project Veritas, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, Richard Molina, Syria, Ted Cruz, Texas, Twitter, University of Alabama, Venezuela
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, May 31st, 2019
Important traffic notice for Austin residents: Half of I-35 is going to be closed between 290 and Rundberg starting at 9 PM tonight and lasting through 5 AM Monday, June 3, while they take down the St. John’s bridge and route southbound traffic down two northbound lanes, squeezing traffic in both directions. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s going to screw up traffic everywhere between Georgetown and Slaughter Lane. Avoid if at all possible…
Robert Mueller closes up shop.
Alan Dershowitz thinks that Mueller acted shamefully in going beyond his prosecutor’s mandate:
Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.
Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
That determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence and other due process safeguards. Such safeguards were not present in this investigation, and so the suggestion by Mueller that Trump might well be guilty deserves no credence. His statement, so inconsistent with his long history, will be used to partisan advantage by Democrats, especially all those radicals who are seeking impeachment.
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw on the issue:
President Donald Trump has given Attorney General William Barr authority to declassify to declassify Scandularity documents (like FISA warrents aimed at the Trump campaign), and Democrats are freaking out.
Study shows that America is less racist under Donald Trump’s presidency.
Mexico’s senate should pass the USMCA free trade treaty soon. Now it just needs to get past Canada and Nancy Pelosi.
Trump also threatens to slap a 5% tariff on Mexican goods until they do more to control the border.
“Continuing plunge of CNN, MSNBC ratings reveals that fake news is a bad business strategy.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
More on the same subject from Vodkapundit.
Related: “It’s Not Your Imagination: The Journalists Writing About Antifa Are Often Their Cheerleaders.”
Of all 15 verified national-level journalists in our subset, we couldn’t find a single article, by any of them, that was markedly critical of Antifa in any way. In all cases, their work in this area consisted primarily of downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.
Update: For revealing those links, Twitter has banned author Eoin Lenihan.
“Democrats yet again sue Little Sisters of the Poor for contraception coverage.” Every knee must bend…
“Scientists discover China has been secretly emitting banned ozone-depleting gas.” I’m shocked, shocked that China is evading agreed-upon environmental regulations…
“Why Are Top Obama Officials Working Cushy Jobs for Chinese Company We Now Consider a Threat?” (I think we all know the an$wer to that que$tion.) “Samir Jain — a former senior director for cybersecurity policy under Obama’s National Security Council and now a partner with the international law firm Jones Day — was recently hired by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a lobbyist. Jain works alongside James Cole, who was Obama’s deputy attorney general from 2011 to 2015. Huawei hired Cole for legal representation in 2017, the Examiner reported.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Gulf Cartel Kidnapping Crew Caught Operating in Texas.” It operated in various locales in Hidalgo County.
This is interesting: Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are talking about teaming up to impose a lifetime ban on former members of congress becoming paid lobbyists. It’s a good idea that I expect to go nowhere, as it takes potential graft money out of too many congressional pockets. But this is not the only idea the hard left and the hard right could propose to fight the swampy center.
Mizrahi Jews are not “Palestinian Jews“:
When my grandparents arrived in Israel, together with 850,000 other Jews who lived in the Middle East and North Africa, they understood three things.
First, they understood that they were being forced to leave their Arab homelands. My Iraqi grandparents, for example, had very clear memories of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom that left more than 180 Jews dead at the hands of their neighbors. They finally fled their native country in 1951, pushed out by an Iraqi government determined to rid itself of all of its Jews.
When they arrived in Israel, my grandparents did not see themselves as Palestinian Jews—they had never before lived in Mandatory Palestine. They saw themselves as Jews of Iraqi descent returning to the ancient homeland they and their ancestors had dreamed of and prayed of for thousands of years, the land from which they were once expelled and to which they were overjoyed to return. And they also understood themselves to be distinct from their Ashkenazi brothers and sisters: They were all Jews, but my grandparents were proud of their Mizrahi heritage just as the 200,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent are proud of theirs.
Five dead as explosions rock Kirkuk, Iraq.
Instagram removes pro-life cartoon as “hate speech.”
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw puts up a Twitter thread for his fallen comrades in arms for Memorial Day.
What it’s like to fight with Americans. “They are coming for you and very little will save you.”
And now a rather pungently expressed conflicting view:
They’re hordes of freaks and geeks, socially promoted like the retards in Common Core to grease the retirement skids of a pack of careerist Courtney Massengales not fit nor capable to pour piss out of their own boots even with the instructions stamped on the heel.
Else we wouldn’t have Rangerettes who can’t climb a short wall, Navy officers who can’t conn a ship without hitting everything afloat, as they dredge up parts from museum pieces to keep their current aircraft flying, Air Force generals pimping for a white elephant plane that cannot fly, missile officers cheating on their proficiency tests, Marine recruits in combat arms who can’t throw a grenade without killing themselves, or “combat leaders” who couldn’t pass a ruck march, West Point “leaders” who condone open communism from faculty and students, and promote a pack of Affirmative Action cadets who couldn’t pass a PRT or meet basic weight and appearance standards, while flashing Black Power signs in uniform. We wouldn’t be doing gender reassignment surgeries instead of physical therapy for combat wounded, we wouldn’t be spending more money on gender sensitivity counseling than on marksmanship training, and we wouldn’t be wavering the insane and drug-addicted into the military in record numbers, just to appease a pack of blue- and pink-haired SJWs.
The US military is broken.
Hugely so. Nearly hopelessly so.
Nostalgia for a time long past when it was otherwise won’t paper over the reality that right now we’re as weak as kittens, with a military that’s going to have its own ass handed to it on a platter, and body bags filled by the gross, because it’s so hamstrung with PC that it cannot accomplish the most fundamental missions assigned to it, eight days out of seven.
Overstated? Probably. Almost certainly. And don’t underestimate “freaks and geeks.” Or both viewpoints are true: Our armed forces aren’t what they’re shaped up to be, but are still miles beyond other country’s armed forces. Or it could be a case of inter-service differences: The army, honed by two decades at the point of the knife in the global war on terror, is the best in the world but the Navy and Air Force have problems. Or anywhere in-between those extremes. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
African Swine Fever and stagflation in China.
Ackerman McQueen moves to terminate their contract with the NRA. (Previously. I still have an incomplete follow-up to that piece I need to finish.)
CrossFit leaves Facebook over suspensions of popular groups promoting a Keto lifestyle. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Spreadsheeting your marriage. It actually makes a surprising amount of sense… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Former Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran has died at the age of 81. Cochran was Mississippi’s first Republican senator since Reconstruction, was a stalwart advocate of the Reagan revolution, and then slowly drifted into a more moderate direction as he stayed in the senate 45 years.
Leon Redbone, RIP.
John Cleese tells critics to piss off:
(Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Texas repeals ban on tomahawks and brass knuckles.
Texas Scorecard approves of the work of Austin police chief Slab Bulkhead* Brian Manley.
Last Mohawk code-talker dies.
Jeopardy host Alex Trebek almost in remission from his cancer.
Important safety tip: Trying to imitate The Dukes of Hazzard in real life will not bring the desired results. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Austin-area SH 45 SW Toll road to open June 1st.
What Rice University looked like a hundred years ago, when it was surrounded by a whole lot of nothing.
Follow-up: You know that story about a researcher cracking the Voynich Manuscript? Yeah, maybe not. (Hat tip: Reader Dave Rainwater.)
“Sociologists Believe Shrieking Left-Winger Who Is Throwing Things May Be Expressing Disagreement.”
“Punk Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel Somehow Always Ends in 9-to-5 Office Job.”
*Running joke. Source here.
Tags:abortion, Ackerman McQueen, Alan Dershowitz, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, American Indians, antifa, Austin, Austin Police Department, Border Controls, Canada, China, CNN, Dan Crenshaw, Democrats, Donald Trump, Gulf Cartel, Guns, Hidalgo County, highways, Huawei, Iraq, Israel, James Cole, Jews, Jihad, John Cleese, Kirkuk, LinkSwarm, Little Sisters of the Poor, Media Watch, Mexico, Military, Mississippi, MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, NRA, Obama Scandals, Obituary, Republicans, Rice University, Rio Grande Valley, Samir Jain, Ted Cruz, Texas, Thad Cochran, trade, USMCA
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, April 26th, 2019
Democratic mayors behaving badly, violence, mayhem, and an Easter Bunny smackdown. Welcome to your Friday LinkSwarm!
Long, detailed post on FISA abuse under the Obama Administration. Fully 85% of all Obama Administration requests were not compliant with federal law.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka slams Obama and praises President Trump. Unions are also not wild about the “Green New Deal.”
Kurt Schlichter revels in the misery of #NeverTrumpers after the Mueller Report:
Now, it’s not really fair to imply that the Never Trumpers hate Trump solely because he’s vulgar and crude – or, as normal people see it, unwilling to meekly take the guff the Never Trumpers’ country club class pals dish out like a proper gentleman should. They do find him aesthetically displeasing, but it also gnaws at them because every time he stands up to the garbage Democrats, the garbage press, or the garbage jerks and pervs of Hollywood, his refusal to knuckle-under reminds Team Fail that they don’t have the stones to do the same. He shames their cowardly weakness.
It’s clear, in retrospect, that George W. Bush’s supine acceptance of the abuse the elite heaped upon him was not because he was too classy and too decent to respond in kind. Since Obama left office and he rediscovered his vocal cords, Bush has had zero problem trashing Trump and Trump supporters who, like many of us, stood by Bush in the ’00s while Bush was treading water in a sea of mediocrity. No, it’s clear that W was afraid to fight back against fellow members of the ruling class. He cared about being part of the club. Not The Donald. Trump, by fighting, demonstrates that the establishment GOPers are weak. And it eats at them.
But besides providing a manly contrast to their own gimp-like submission to the leftist establishment, Trump infuriates the Never Trumpers for another reason. He’s kicked them out of their comfy sinecures. One of Trump’s magical powers is to make his enemies reveal their own grift complicity, and boy, have they ever. As a result, while once the mandarins of Conservative, Inc., traded on their insider influence and privilege, under Trump they are outsiders. Copies of the Weekly Standard used to be all over the Bush White House. Now, if its inept crew had not slammed it into an iceberg, you would be lucky to find a few pages at the bottom of Barron’s pet iguana’s cage.
Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and all the rest are nobodies, relegated to occasionally joining CNN panels and fighting with Ana Navarro over the doughnuts in the green room. Where’s Bob Corker now? Jeff Flake hasn’t even got an MSNBC gig; I think last week he was the dude who offered to supersize my order.
The Twilight of Liberalism:
it is not the abstract logic of liberalism that is flawed, but rather the attempt to apply it to fallible humans. Like communism, liberalism conflicts with immutable human characteristics. However, unlike communism, certain kinds of liberalism (the industrial liberalism of the 1900s, for example) work because they are moderated by the material conditions of society. But as those moderating conditions are obliterated by technology, the problems of post-industrial liberalism have become clearer. The ultimate problem is this: Humans desire unfettered freedom, but need the discipline that constraint provides. Without such discipline, they risk slumping into an empty and unsatisfying hedonism that is ruinous to communities and to society more broadly.
Those who are intelligent and self-controlled often create their own constraints and can therefore thrive in post-industrial societies that are radically unlike the societies in which humans evolved. Those who are less intelligent or self-controlled, however, often fail to create successful constraints and therefore suffer when once powerful cultural guardrails (such as religion, strict norms, civic groups, and so on) are destroyed by accelerating innovation and secularism. The result is a growing cultural and economic gap between segments of the population which, when coupled with the declining outcomes for a once thriving middle class, fuels growing bitterness and discontent. Combine this with a trend toward cosmopolitanism that increases ethnic and religious diversity and therefore potential sources of faction and conflict, and liberalism’s immediate prospects look bleak.
The authors also posit technological change as one of the biggest drivers of challenge to the old liberal order.
Followup: Remember how Baltimore’s Democratic Mayor Catherine Pugh took over $100,000 in bribes disguised as book sales? Well, now the feds have raided her house and office:
Hauling out boxes of “Healthy Holly” books and documents, dozens of federal law enforcement agents Thursday struck homes, businesses and government buildings across Baltimore as an investigation into Mayor Catherine Pugh’s business dealings widened.
FBI agents and IRS officials executed search warrants at her City Hall office, Pugh’s two houses, and offices of the mayor’s allies, as the growing scandal consumed the city’s attention, generated national headlines and provoked fresh calls for the embattled Democratic mayor’s resignation.
Snip.
Dave Fitz, an FBI spokesman, confirmed that agents from the Baltimore FBI office and the Washington IRS office searched at least six addresses. The U.S. attorney’s office confirmed the location of a seventh search. The actions were the first confirmation that federal authorities, as well as state officials, were investigating the mayor’s activities.
Snip.
Shortly after the raids began, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called on Pugh, who has taken a paid leave of absence as mayor, to resign. The Republican governor had asked the Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor on April 1 to investigate Pugh’s sales of her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s book series to the University of Maryland Medical System while she was on its unpaid board of directors.
“Today, agents for the FBI and the IRS executed search warrants at the mayor’s homes and offices,” Hogan said. “Now, more than ever, Baltimore city needs strong and responsible leadership. Mayor Pugh has lost the public trust. She is clearly not fit to lead. For the good of the city, Mayor Pugh must resign.”
When a raid involves both the FBI and the IRS, usually that’s a bad sign.
And speaking of Democratic mayors committing fraud, Edinburg, Texas Mayor Richard Molina was arrested on voting fraud charges:
At times appearing unfazed by the severity of his circumstances, Edinburg Mayor Richard Molina was guided into a Pharr courtroom Thursday morning after he and his wife surrendered themselves to law enforcement to face multiple election fraud charges. The scene was notably different from when Molina entered a state of the city address just one year ago, shadowboxing and wielding a championship belt.
Now, allegations from a Texas Attorney General’s office investigation into the city’s 2017 municipal election have cast Molina as allegedly cheating his way into the mayoral seat by having people who live outside of the city vote for him.
An hour after he turned himself in at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Edinburg office, Molina stood before Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Jaime “Jerry” Muñoz, who presides out of Pharr, and was charged with two counts of illegal voting and one count of engaging in organized election fraud — second- and first-degree felonies, respectively.
Molina, 40, was then escorted to Hidalgo County jail where he was quickly booked in and out on a combined $20,000 cash surety bond, and promptly headed to a city workshop to discuss the future of a city golf course.
It was business as usual for a mayor who has faced scrutiny since he unseated Edinburg’s longtime mayor, Richard Garcia, in November 2017 by 1,240 votes. Such scrutiny has only increased over the past year as the AG’s office arrested more than a dozen people on illegal voting charges tied to the election.
And the voting fraud, sadly, seems business as usual in both the Rio Grande Valley in general and Hidalgo County specifically… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“The Press Will Learn Nothing From the Russiagate Fiasco.”
You know what was fake news? Most of the Russiagate story. There was no Trump-Russia conspiracy, that thing we just spent three years chasing. The Mueller Report is crystal clear on this.
He didn’t just “fail to establish” evidence of crime. His report is full of incredibly damning passages, like one about Russian officialdom’s efforts to reach the Trump campaign after the election: “They appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect.”
Not only was there no “collusion,” the two camps didn’t even have each others’ phone numbers!
In March of 2017, in one of the first of what would become a mountain of mafia-hierarchy-style “Trump-Russia contacts” graphics in major newspapers, the Washington Post described an email Trump lawyer Michael Cohen sent to Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov. They called it “the most direct interaction yet of a top Trump aide and a senior member of Putin’s government.”
The report shows the whole episode was a joke. In order to further the Trump Tower project-that-never-was, Cohen literally cold-emailed the Kremlin. More than that, he entered the email incorrectly, so the letter initially didn’t even arrive. When he finally fixed the mistake, Peskov didn’t answer back.
That was “the most direct interaction yet of a top Trump aide and a senior member of Putin’s government”!
As outlined in his initial mandate, Mueller explored “any links” between the Russian government and the campaign of Donald Trump. His conclusion spoke directly to the question of whether there was any kind of quid pro quo between the two sides:
“The investigation examined whether these contacts involved or resulted in coordination or a conspiracy with the Trump Campaign and Russia, including with respect to Russia providing assistance to the Campaign in exchange for any sort of favorable treatment in the future.”
In other words, all those fancy org charts were meaningless. Because there was no conspiracy, all those “walls are closing in” reports — and there were a ton of them — were wrong. We were told we’d hit “turning point” after “turning point” leading to the “the beginning of the end,” with Trump certain, soon, to either resign in shame, Nixon-style, or be impeached.
The “RNC platform” change story was a canard, according to Mueller. The exchanges Trump figures had with ambassador Sergei Kislyak were “brief, public, and non-substantive.” The conversations Jeff Sessions had with Kislyak at the convention didn’t “include any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign.” Mueller added “investigators did not establish that [Carter] Page conspired with the Russian government.”
There was no blackmail, no secret bribe from Rosneft, no five-year cultivation plan, no evidence of any kind of any relationship that ever existed between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Michael Cohen “never traveled to Prague.”
The whole Steele dossier appears to have been bunk, with even Bob Woodward now saying the “highly questionable” document “needs to be investigated.” The Times similarly is reporting, two-plus years late, that “people familiar” with Steele’s work began to have “misgivings about [the report’s] reliability arose not long after the document became public.”
Reporters are going to insist all they did was accurately report the developments of a real investigation. They didn’t imply vast criminality that wasn’t there, or hoodwink audiences into thinking a Watergate-style ending was just around the corner, or routinely blow meaningless episodes like the Sessions-Kislyak meeting out of proportion, or regularly smear people who not only weren’t part of a conspiracy but had no connection to anything (see here for an example).
They’ll also claim they didn’t spend years openly rooting for indictment and impeachment via wish-casted predictions disguised as reporting and commentary, or denouncing people who doubted the conspiracy as spies and Putin apologists, or clearing their broadcast panels and op-ed pages of skeptics while giving big stages to craven conspiracy-spinners like Malcolm Nance and Luke Harding.
(Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Mark Steyn notes that between the Notre Dame fire and the bombing of Christian churches in Sri Lanka, our journalists have reached new levels in truth avoidance:
It used to be said that ninety per cent of news is announcing Lord Jones is dead to people who were entirely unaware that Lord Jones was ever alive. Now the trick is to announce Lord Jones is dead and ensure that people remain entirely unaware of why he is no longer alive. One senses that a line was crossed in yesterday’s coverage. As one of our Oz Steyn Club members, Kate Smyth, put it, the media have advanced from dhimmitude to full-blown taqiyya.
The lights are going out on the most basic of journalistic instincts: Who, what, when, where, why. All are subordinate to the Narrative – or Official Lie. All day yesterday and into today, if you had glanced at the telly, switched on the radio or surfed the big news sites of the Internet, you would have thought the Tamil Tigers were back “with a vengeance”, as The Economist put it – even though with one exception (the 1990 police massacre) the death toll was higher than any individual attack the Tigers had ever pulled off.
This seems like big news: “The National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a U.S. surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages.”
Interesting thread on Gregory Craig, Obama’s White House Counsel who was recently indicted for crimes in his Ukraine work with Paul Manafort, and also Ted kennedy’s top foreign policy guy back when he was secretly asking for the Soviets to help him against Reagan.
“The partisan warfare over the Mueller report will rage, but one thing cannot be denied: Former President Barack Obama looks just plain bad. On his watch, the Russians meddled in our democracy while his administration did nothing about it.”
Russia launches world’s largest submarine. “The six hundred foot long submarine displaces more water than a World War I battleship and can dive to a depth of 1,700 feet.” More: “The nuclear-powered Belgorod is neither an attack submarine nor a ballistic missile sub. A special mission submarine, Belgorod will be a mothership to other undersea vessels. The sub can carry a payload on its back, behind the sail, or a Losharik class mini-submarine that attaches and detaches to the bottom of the hull.”
The Philippines threaten war over the canuck garbage menace.
M. J. Hegar, the Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. John Carter for the Texas 31st congressional district last year, announced that she’s running against John Cornyn. If she couldn’t take Carter in the Betomania midterm of 2018, she stands approximately no chance against Cornyn in the Presidential year of 2020.
“Sarah Wickline Hull was 20 weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.”
Former State Department employee Candace Marie Claiborne pleads guilty to concealing contacts from communist China. From the 2017 indictment:
According to the affidavit in support of the complaint and arrest warrant, which was unsealed today, Claiborne began working as an Office Management Specialist for the Department of State in 1999. She has served overseas at a number of posts, including embassies and consulates in Baghdad, Iraq, Khartoum, Sudan, and Beijing and Shanghai, China. As a condition of her employment, Claiborne maintains a Top Secret security clearance. Claiborne also is required to report any contacts with persons suspected of affiliation with a foreign intelligence agency.
Despite such a requirement, the affidavit alleges, Claiborne failed to report repeated contacts with two intelligence agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), even though these agents provided tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and benefits to Claiborne and her family over five years. According to the affidavit, the gifts and benefits included cash wired to Claiborne’s USAA account, an Apple iPhone and laptop computer, Chinese New Year’s gifts, meals, international travel and vacations, tuition at a Chinese fashion school, a fully furnished apartment, and a monthly stipend. Some of these gifts and benefits were provided directly to Claiborne, the affidavit alleges, while others were provided through a co-conspirator.
Notable is how cheaply her allegiance was bought: “Claiborne noted in her journal that she could “Generate 20k in 1 year” working with one of the PRC agents, who, shortly after wiring $2,480 to Claiborne.”
Senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander reportedly defects. “Brigadier General Ali Nasiri, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Protection Bureau, is said to have fled to the West after a fallout with the representative of the Supreme Leader in the IRGC….General Nasiri was said to have fled with hundreds of classified documents, which could be of great value to the United States.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Katy human trafficking sting results in 44 arrests. (Hat tip: Governor Greg Abbott on Twitter.)
“The Bail Project is an unprecedented effort to combat mass incarceration at the front end of the system…We pay bail for people in need, reuniting families and restoring the presumption of innocence.” Like Samuel Scott. “Just hours after a nonprofit group posted bail for a man accused of assaulting his wife, the suspect went to the woman’s home and brutally murdered her.”
Kansas schools rebel against Mark Zuckerberg.
Ouch! 28-vehicle, multiple-fatality crash in Colorado.
Man who shot four people in self-defense, killing one, turns down plea deal, gets acquitted by jury in Philadelphia. (Hat tip: Karl Rehn.)
No matter how badly you’ve ever failed a class, you’ve never failed one “police cadet accidentally shoots two fellow cadets” bad. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
More on the Boeing 737 Max stall issue. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Australian feminist coffee shop that charged men a surcharge goes out of business. That will teach the patriarchy!
Shocking truth from the Washington Post: “If you’re in debt, you don’t deserve a vacation.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Savage:
Florida Man gets ass kicked by the Easter bunny.
Speaking of oversized ears, here’s a chart of everything Disney owns. Including Vice.
“New Poll Reveals Americans Strongly In Favor Of Legalizing Comedy.”
This just seems like a really bad idea. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Heh:
“Epic Troll: Jesus To Return Moments Before Avengers: Endgame Premieres.”
Happy Friday!
Tags:2020 Election, 2020 Texas Senate Race, abortion, AFL-CIO, Ali Nasiri, Baltimore, Boeing, Boeing 737, Canada, Candace Marie Claiborne, Catherine Pugh, China, Democrats, dogs, Edinburg, Elections, FBI, FISA, Florida, Florida Man, Foreign Policy, Gregory Craig, Guns, Hidalgo County, Iran, IRS, Jihad, John Carter, John Cornyn, Katy, LinkSwarm, M. J. Hegar, Maryland, Media Watch, Military, Navy, NSA, Obama, Obama Scandals, Paul Manafort, Philadelphia, Philippines, Richard Molina, Richard Trumka, Rio Grande Valley, Russia, Samuel Scott, spying, submarine, Ted Kennedy, Texas, Ukraine, unions
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Obama Scandals, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, video | No Comments »
Friday, November 9th, 2018
Texas election analysis is coming next week. Meanwhile, Democrats appear to be in the midst of voting fraud in Broward County, Florida.
Man who vandalized NYC synagogue was a gay black Democratic activist.
Another Obama-era intelligence failure resulted in dozens of deaths China. Thanks, Obama… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Jeff Sessions resigns as Attorney General, replaced on at least an interim basis by his chief of staff Matthew G. Whitaker. Very early on in the Trump Administration, I decided that there were two things I wasn’t going to pay much attention to: 1. Reports of dysfunction or “chaos” among White House staffers, and 2. Trump tweets slamming various people. (See any of my previous posts on Trump persuasion techniques.) I have no particular insight into intra-White House squabbles, and reporting on this issue is so bad or overblown that there’s too much noise for me bother to extract signal from. So go elsewhere for how Sessions fits into the “Deep State vs. Trump” narrative. (Over at Powerline, they put up both anti-Sessions and pro-Sessions pieces.)
Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer wants House Democrats to impeach Trump. I’m sure there’s no way that could possibly backfire on them…
Nine more Hidalgo County voter fraud arrests:
Nine individuals were arrested Thursday for their alleged roles in a 2017 voter fraud scheme involving the municipal election in a Texas border town.
These arrests were part of an ongoing investigation into a coordinated effort by political workers to recruit people who would fraudulently claim residential addresses so they could vote in specific races and influence the results of the Edinburg city election held last year, according to information provided by the Office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“Illegal voting, particularly an organized illegal voting scheme orchestrated by political operatives, is an affront to democracy and results in corruption at the highest level,” said Paxton in a prepared statement.
“Each illegal vote silences the voice of a law-abiding registered voter,” added Paxton. “My office will continue to do everything in its power to uncover illegal voting schemes and bring to justice those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Texas.”
The nine Hidalgo County residents arrested were Guadalupe Sanchez Garza, Jerry Gonzalez, Jr., Araceli Gutierrez, Belinda Rodriguez, Brenda Rodriguez, Felisha Yolanda Rodriguez, Rosendo Rodriguez, Cynthia Tamez, and Ruby Tamez. Online jail records show bond was set at $20,000 for both Garza and Ruby Tamez. A $10,000 bond was set for Gonzalez, Gutierrez, Belinda Rodriguez, Brenda Rodriguez, Rosendo Rodriguez, and Cynthia Tamez. Felisha Yolanda Rodriguez’s bail was set at $1,000.
“Number of migrants, refugees from Venezuela reaches 3 million.” Or one out of twelve Venezuelans. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
More harassment of a conservative heretic at Sarah Lawrence College. (Hat tip: Amy Alkon on Twitter.)
85-year old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg breaks three ribs in a fall.
After expressing approval of Antifa attacking Tucker Carlson’s house, Matt Yglesias deleted his entire Twitter timeline. Sadly, he’s started up again.
“Leftist Protesters: “If Tucker Carlson Didn’t Want To Get Mobbed In His Own Home, Then Why Did He Disagree With Us?'”
Mike Ward journalistic fraud follow-up: “Of the 275 people quoted, 122, or 44 percent, could not be found. Those 122 people appeared in 72 stories.” (Hat tip: Dwight.) (Previously.)
Dead pimp wins in Nevada. (Previously.)
In Tweet form:
Super-genius falls through the ceiling of an Alabama Waffle House, proceeds to fight the patrons on his way out the door. Bonus: He left his pants in the restroom…with his ID. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Hong Kong film pioneer Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest, dead at 91. You may not know his name, but he was instrumental in launching the careers of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and dozens of other Hong Kong film icons.
“California marijuana delivery man says he was robbed by ninjas.” Old story, but how can you turn down that headline?
Tags:Alabama, Broward County, California, China, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Donald Trump, Florida, Foreign Policy, Hidalgo County, Houston Chronicle, Jeff Sessions, Ken Paxton, LinkSwarm, marijuana, Matthew G. Whitaker, Matthew Yglesias, Media Watch, Mike Ward, morons, Nevada, Rio Grande Valley, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sarah Lawrence College, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, Tom Steyer, Tucker Carlson, Venezuela, Voter Fraud
Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, July 27th, 2018
Good economic news tops today’s LinkSwarm. Meanwhile, a passel of Middle East conflict news will have to wait until tomorrow…
The U.S. economy grew at 4.1% in Q2. Remember how Paul Krugman said the economy would “never” recover from Donald Trump being elected President?
Vice reports what I’ve been covering for quite a while: Twitter shadowbans mainstream conservatives and Republicans.
“Say anything you want about this president – I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights.”
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan has thrown his hate into the ring to replace Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“New UAW Corruption Scandal Details Implicate Union at Highest Level.” And not just the union:
Remember the multi-million dollar corruption scandal involving UAW officials? Apparently, it was even more corrupt than previously reported. While the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center is suing both Fiat Chrysler and the union members involved, recent developments point to the money scheme being greenlit by former UAW President Dennis Williams.
As part of a plea agreement filed this week, ex-labor official Nancy Adams Johnson told investigators that Williams specifically directed union members to use funds from Detroit’s automakers, funneled through training centers, to pay for union travel, meals, entertainment, and more. If true, the accusation not only implicates the UAW of corruption at the highest level but also the potential involvement of staff from both Ford and General Motors — something the FBI is already looking into.
I believe the official industry term for something like this is a “shit show.”
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Attention everyone: They’re called “illegal aliens,” not “undocumented immigrants.” Deal with it…
Is the Trump Administration preparing to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities? A report worth taking with several grains of salt.
Alt-right protestors call black police officers “f**king n****r” in Portland protest. Oh, wait, did I say “alt-right”? I meant “anti-ICE.” (Hat tip: Derek Hunter on Twitter.)
Retired Sgt. Maj. John Canley received a phone call from President Donald Trump telling him he was receiving the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Battle of Hue in 1968.
“Man Indicted for Threatening to Kill Rep. Diane Black, Tennessee Republican in high-profile governor race.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Masculine fathers raise strong daughters. Plus this: “A glance at the public figures felled in the #MeToo purges—not to mention Bill Clinton —should cure us of the idea that progressive politics incline men to better treatment of women.”
“Sexual inequality makes marriage work.” Marriages work better when the husband earns more. Also: “The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction.”
“Challenger Tracy Booker Gray won the Republican nomination for Kaufman County Court at Law No. 1 over incumbent Dennis Jones in a July 21 do-over election. A judge ordered a new election after finding voter fraud and other irregularities tainted the outcome of the March 6 primary.”
Houston ISD spends almost $1 million on a school with no students.
UK father who raped and fathered three children with his own daughter sentenced to only four years in jail. Guess the ethnicity of the rapist. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Texas lawn mowing company owner prints cards stating his company is an alternative to illegal alien labor. Good for him.
American semiconductor company Qualcomm’s merger with Dutch company NXP collapses after regulatory approval withheld…by China. Earlier this year, Qualcomm’s attempted merger with Broadcomm was blocked by the Trump Administration.
Meanwhile, the merger between Disney and 1st Century Fox was approved, which means we might finally get a Fantastic Four movie that doesn’t suck.
Facebook just lost $120 billion in market cap. How about they stop worrying about censoring the news and stop switching the view from “Most Recent” to “Top Stories”?
Allegations of vote fraud in Mission mayoral runoff in Hidalgo County.
“Confused Mueller Reminds Nation Russia Investigation Wrapped Up Months Ago.” (Hat tip: American Digest.)
The Magic Power of Socialism:
(Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
Trump Trolling: Master Class:
Every book I bought in the first half of this year.
Finally, the Hello Kitty Exorcism Kit.
Tags:21st Century Fox, Border Controls, China, Congressional Medal of Honor, Crime, Democrats, Dennis Williams, Disney, Facebook, Hidalgo County, Houston, Houston Independent School District, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, Jihad, Jim Jordan, John Canley, LinkSwarm, Military, Portland, Qualcomm, rape, Republicans, Russia, Semiconductors, shadowban, Tennessee, Texas, Twitter, UAW, unions, Vietnam War
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 11th, 2018
With all the Supreme Court news, it’s been a while since we looked at Texas statewide races.
First up: A new poll shows by Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott walloping their respective Democratic challengers:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Texas Governor Greg Abbott are smoking their Democrat opponents, a new poll conducted by Gravis Marketing and provided to Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release shows.
Cruz, up for re-election this year, is 9 percent ahead Democratic challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX). At 51 percent, Cruz towers overs O’Rourke’s 42 percent–with just 7 percent undecided.
In the governor’s race, Abbott fares even better–leading his Democratic challenger Lupe Valdez by 10 percent. Abbott’s 51 percent is much better than Valdez’s 41 percent, with 8 percent undecided.
Both of the Republicans’ job approval ratings are solid in the state, too. A whopping 47 percent either strongly or somewhat approve of Cruz’s job performance, while just 44 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove with 10 percent uncertain. Even more–52 percent–either strongly or somewhat approve of Abbott’s performance, while just 39 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove with 9 percent uncertain.
Lifting the GOP in the state is President Donald Trump’s high approval rating of 51 percent either strongly or somewhat approving of the job the president is doing, while just 44 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove of Trump and 5 percent are uncertain.
The survey of 602 likely Texas voters was conducted between July 3 and July 7, and has a margin of error of 4 percent.
Usual poll caveats apply. And the same poll has some down-ballot races theoretically closer:
While Republicans at the top of the ticket are faring much better than Democrats, down-ticket the survey shows closer races. In the Lieutenant Governor race, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick–a Republican–leads Democrat challenger Mike Collier by just two points, 46 percent to 44 percent with 10 percent undecided. Similarly, in the Attorney General race, GOP incumbent Ken Paxton at 45 percent leads Democrat challenger Justin Nelson, at 41 percent, by just 4 percent–with 14 percent undecided.
I doubt those numbers are terribly meaningful, since absolutely no one is paying attention to those down-ballot races right now. Dan Patrick won his Lt. Governor’s race by just under 20 points in 2014, and has out-raised Mike Collier by a hefty $21,193,288 to $628,924. Likewise, Paxton won by over 20% in 2014 and has raised $5,309,709 to Justin Nelson’s $787,803.
The money disparity is even more pronounced even further down the ballot. Republican incumbent George P. Bush has raised $3,370,337 to unknown Democratic opponent Miguel Suazo’s $25,259 in the Land Commissioner’s race. Republican incumbent Comptroller Glenn Hegar has raised $3,500,997 to Democratic challenger Joi Chevalier’s $18,311. But the champion of the Republican/Democratic fundraising disparity race is Republican incumbent railroad commissioner Christi Craddick out-raising Democratic opponent Roman McAllen by four orders of magnitude, $4,690,452 to $3,774.
Clearly the Great White Hope for Democrats this election cycle is U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, who has managed to edge Ted Cruz in fundraising through Q1 by $4 million, $13,242,359.00 to $9,113,159.00 $6,113,470.00 (though less than a million dollars separates them when it comes to cash-on-hand). The Cruz campaign reported raising $4 million in Q2. (Disclaimer: I made a small contribution to the Cruz campaign earlier this year.) O’Rourke hasn’t announced Q2 fundraising totals yet (Follow the Money has him leading $14,773,365 to $12,214,719 for Cruz), but he’s he’s out in Hollywood raising more money. Clearly O’Rourke is the best campaigner and fundrasier Democrats have at the statewide level this year, and indeed, arguably their best statewide campaigner this century. But that’s not exactly a target-rich environment.
Cruz won his 2012 race, in a year Obama won re-election, by 16 points against the overmatched Paul Sadler. It would not surprise me to see O’Rourke possibly get that down to a 10 point gap on election night. But I don’t see him doing any better than that absent some sort of Black Swan event.
Know who’s not running well statewide? Lupe Valdez:
Valdez, after all, has significant deficiencies as a candidate. She’s unpolished as a speaker and has demonstrated little command of statewide issues. She’s also underfunded—her latest campaign finance report showed she had a little more than $115,000 cash on hand, compared to Abbott’s $43 million. That has forced her to forgo campaign fundamentals such as an internal vetting process, in which the campaign looks for skeletons in its own candidate’s closet. Two days after Valdez won the Democratic runoff, for example, the Houston Chronicle revealed that she owed more than $12,000 in unpaid property taxes. A vetting would have prepared her better to respond when a Chronicle reporter asked about it; instead, a campaign spokesman tried to blame Abbott for allowing property taxes to rise.
In short, Valdez may not be the transformational figure many Democrats hope for. In the March 6 primary, Democrats turned out a million voters—their best primary showing since 1994—30 percent of whom had Hispanic surnames. But that high turnout seems to have been in spite of Valdez’s presence on the ballot. In several South Texas counties, thousands of voters cast ballots in the U.S. Senate contest and various local races but skipped voting for governor entirely. In Hidalgo County, Valdez failed to capture even half the voters with Hispanic surnames. One prominent South Texas Democrat told me that when Valdez campaigned in the area, her lack of knowledge of state issues turned off a lot of local voters. “We’re not blind,” he said. He also admitted that many conservative Hispanics just would not vote for a lesbian.
Tags:2018 Election, 2018 Texas Gubernatorial Race, 2018 Texas Senate Race, Beto O'Rourke, Christi Craddick, Democrats, Glenn Hegar, Greg Abbott, Hidalgo County, Joi Chevalier, Ken Paxton, Lupe Valdez, Miguel Suazo, Mike Collier, Republicans, Roman McAllen, Ted Cruz, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Friday, June 29th, 2018
Half the year gone! And so far, those of you who declared “Surely Democrats can’t keep up this level of lunacy” are losing your bets…
How Democrats’ said lunacy will backfire on them:
Democrats should also understand that these public tantrums and other slights are simply bad politics. Voters don’t respond well to angry chanting losers harassing people, or to vulgar celebrities, or to threats verging on intimidation and violence. There is nothing inspirational about it, and it makes the targets of the anger look that much more reasonable. If Democrats think this crazed behavior will generate a “blue wave” in November, they are mistaken.
Why Democrats are freaking out over Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement:
How did we get here? Two tracks converged to deliver us this dysfunction. The first is narrowly political. The Democrats, confident that they were on the right side of history, thought there was no harm in accelerating the rush to total victory. For years, Democrats practiced the rule that all is fair in judicial-confirmation battles, starting with the war on Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Then, under the leadership of Barack Obama and then–Senate majority leader Harry Reid, they did away with the filibuster on judicial appointments short of the Supreme Court, opening the door for Republicans to nudge it slightly more wide open.
The second track is longer. Starting over a century ago, progressives began emphasizing ends over means. If the Supreme Court could deliver wins unattainable at the ballot box and unsupported by the Constitution, so be it. Thus was born the “living Constitution” — the doctrine that holds that the magical parchment should mean whatever progressives need it to mean at any moment. This was how Anthony Kennedy became an (apparently temporary) gay-rights hero. After consulting his feelings, he found a constitutional right no one had found in the text before.
This idea that the Supreme Court is there to serve as a Praetorian Guard around progressive policies was on full display this week. Prior to Kennedy’s retirement announcement, the court issued a 5–4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which held that public-sector unions can’t compel nonunion members to pay fees for union representation, thus violating the First Amendment.
Justice Elena Kagan caustically disagreed. For her, the problem with the decision was that “public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support.”
“The First Amendment was meant for better things,” Kagan concluded in her dissent. “It was meant not to undermine but to protect democratic governance — including over the role of public-sector unions.”
In short: The Supreme Court isn’t there to protect the meaning of the First Amendment; the Supreme Court is there to protect a secure source of financial support for public-sector unions. If the First Amendment gets in the way, that’s okay.
The panic unfolding across the progressive landscape stems from the creeping fear that the Supreme Court might start doing its job — and not the job progressives have assigned it.
Hugh Hewett: “Turns out ‘But Gorsuch’ was a good argument after all.”
What will the #NeverTrump coalition in the Beltway (with an annex in New York) say now?
For a while, before tax cuts and regulatory reform boosted the economy, before defense spending increased, before Jerusalem was recognized as Israel’s capital, and before a “maximum pressure” campaign led to a detente with North Korea, #NeverTrumpers were fond of mockingly summarizing Trump supporters’ arguments as “But Gorsuch.”
This bit of childish taunting always struck me as an unknowing admission of ignorance about the role assumed by the Supreme Court in modern American governance. Even when 21 appeals court judges took their seats — orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues — still the one-note pundits played on, only louder: President Trump was so awful and evil, and conservatives who supported him had done so for one lousy seat on the Supreme Court.
The implication from all the noise and a thousands posts was that “Gorsuch” wasn’t worth it. Now, after Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s first year on the court, it will be impossible to overstate what his confirmation has meant.
Anthony Kennedy as moderate conservative pragmatist:
While Justice Kennedy was usually a moderate conservative, there were areas of the law in which Justice Kennedy was not particularly moderate and others in which he was not particularly conservative. Particularly in areas touching on the freedom of speech and personal liberty, Justice Kennedy would swing for the fences. Justice Kennedy was easily the most speech-protective Justice on what was a quite speech-protective Court. Whether the speech at issue concerned political campaigns or product pricing, “offensive” messages or dishonest claims about military service, Justice Kennedy believed in uncompromising First Amendment protection. By some accounts it was Justice Kennedy who pushed the Court (and a reluctant Chief Justice) to invalidate the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, and this would be entirely consistent with what we saw in his First Amendment opinions.
Speech was not the only freedom that mattered to Justice Kennedy. He had a deep concern for Due Process, as shown in his embrace of habeas rights for alleged enemy combatants, his concerns about the application of capital punishment to some classes of criminal defendants, and his embrace of constitutional limits on punitive damages. He also, perhaps most famously, believed that due regard for individual liberty barred the government from adopting laws prohibiting or disregarding same-sex relationships, as in Lawrence, Romer, Windsor, and Obergefell. In these areas, there was nothing modest, moderate, or minimalist about Justice Kennedy’s views or the doctrinal rules he would embrace.
Given the makeup of the Roberts Court, as went Justice Kennedy, so went the Court. Where Kennedy was a moderate conservative favoring a minimalist approach, the Roberts court would tend to adopt a moderate conservative opinion. Where Justice Kennedy favored a more muscular approach, on the other hand, there were almost always at least four votes to go along. (NFIB v. Sebelius being a notable exception.) If Justice Kennedy wanted to recognize same-sex marriage or preclude the use of the death penalty for those convicted of non-lethal crimes, the liberals would agree. If Justice Kennedy wanted to protect campaign-related or commercial speech, the conservatives were there. so the Roberts Court was generally as conservative and as moderate as Justice Kennedy wanted to be.
(Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Kurt Schlichter on the insanity gripping the Democratic Party:
There’s no sign of sanity. This week they turned the hate up to “11,” then cranked it to “17.” There are not many places to go once you reach “You are real live Nazis murdering children by not letting aspiring Democrat voters flow into the country at will!” At some point, instead of a few wild-eyed randos with crummy aim trying to off libs’ political/cultural opponents, they are going to start collectively going to go for the throat.
Our collective throat. Which I do not anticipate us Normals responding to in a huggy, loving kind of way.
Snip.
We’re already seeing it play out. The mainstream media quit even pretending to be honest – it’s in full scale fib mode. Look at the Time magazine cover of the little girl whose scumbag mom dragged her across the desert to help her break our laws (apparently without daddy’s permission and not for the first time). That Time cover is a lie, but it’s no surprise. The only surprise is that Time magazine is still a thing.
In fact, the whole manufactured outrage over Democrat-preferred criminals being treated like every other criminal was a lie. And the media not only doesn’t care but actively and consciously supports lying to you to support its liberal allies. But no one cares anymore. They can lie and lie and lie, and do, and we just smile and buy more guns and ammo.
So the leftists attempt to intimidate us into submission, showing up at people’s houses and screaming at them in restaurants. Take that, Sarah! The idea is since the leftists can’t convince Normals with the power of their ideas – because leftists’ ideas inevitably involve Normals ceding more of their rights and money to leftists – the left wants to make submission and obedience the price for being able to participate in the culture. But what’s inevitable is that us newly militant Normals, whose power is political rather than cultural, are going to respond pursuant to the New Rules and demand that leftists bake us a cake.
The craziness among Democrats can be explained by the behavior of cultists after a prophecy fails: the moderates, the ones who were the biggest brake on untrammeled lunacy, are the ones out the door first.
The more lukewarm Democrats are either keeping their mouths shut or are disappearing from the Party. The ones who remain are the ones who are more committed (translation: barking mad moonbats) who are the ones we hear talking about impeachment, banishing Trump supporters from the public square, protesting at Republican’s houses, etc.
It also explains why Democratic Party big wigs are losing primary challenges to candidates of the more barking mad persuasion (e.g. Joe Crowley, one of the biggest of the Democratic House big wigs who lost to someone who can only be described as a commie).
Speaking of which, the House’s fourth-ranking Democrat just got knocked off by a woman who wants to abolish ICE. “The objection of the hard Left is not to the current style or kind of immigration enforcement; their objection is to the existence of immigration enforcement.”
Mega Turbo Democrat Dumbass: “I’m going to find the Congressman’s kids and kill them. If you’re going to separate kids at the border, I’m going to kill his kids. Don’t try to find me because you won’t.” Yeah, that last bit turned out to not be the case: The FBI arrested him within hours.
“Janus Ruling Could Cost Unions Hundreds of Millions.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“In ruling on bullet-stamping law, California Supreme Court says state laws cannot be invalidated on the grounds that complying with them is impossible.” Evidently liberals find this whole “reality” thing too much of a drag…
Keep in mind that a majority of Democrats don’t want to abolish ICE. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
In East Texas, more of that voter fraud Democrats claim doesn’t exist.
And also in South Texas. Bonus: Hidalgo County fraud, which we’ve previously covered.
Bonus: Judges orders redo of Democratic primary runoff due to voting fraud:
A judge ordered a do-over of a contested Democratic primary runoff race in South Texas after invalidating the runoff results due to voter fraud. The runoff was decided by six votes.
Ofelia “Ofie” Gutierrez contested the results of the May 22 Democratic primary runoff for Kleberg County Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 after losing to incumbent Esequiel “Cheque” De La Paz by a vote of 318 to 312.
Gutierrez alleged that more than six illegal votes were counted, cast by people who didn’t reside within Precinct 4 and therefore weren’t eligible to vote in the election.
On Tuesday, visiting Judge Joel Johnson threw out seven of the 16 ballots Gutierrez challenged in court. All seven were cast by voters related in some way to De La Paz.
“Head of prominent charity that campaigns against child abuse is arrested for ‘trying to arrange to rape multiple children as young as two.”
200 Muslim migrants attempt to storm the Croatian border yelling “Allahu Akbar.”
Iran reopens uranium plant. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Speaking of Iran, protests there continued for a sixth day following a currency collapse. “On Sunday, the rial plunged 15 percent to IRR 89,000 against the dollar on the black market. Since the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal on May 8, the rial has lost more than 40 percent of its value.”
The dumbasses at the Austin City Council approved building a soccer stadium. Because subsidizing a popular sport just wasn’t insulting enough to taxpayers…
Were Houston police officers dosed with flyers laced with Fentanyl left on patrol car windshields? Followup: Lab tests say no.
What it’s like to service an SR-71. “Our last structural integrity review was in 1987, and it declared that the aircraft was about 180 percent stronger than the day it was made. The higher and faster you flew it, the stronger the titanium became.”
CNN’s ratings fall below those of the food network. (Hat tip: Ace.)
Black man being arrested for shoplifting calls police Nazis. So they charged him with a hate crime. All hate crime laws are stupid, but those that criminalize free speech are an order of magnitude stupider. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
A Tweet with some numbers from the latest Harris poll:
A sample from the #WalkAway tag on Twitter:
Are eight AT&T buildings (including one in Dallas) hubs for NSA spying?
Multiculturalism Watch: Excavating the Aztec’s ceremonial skull rack, which the Spanish conquistadors estimated as holding 130,000 skulls from human sacrifices. “Gomoz Valdas found that about 75% of the skulls examined so far belonged to men, most between the ages of 20 and 35—prime warrior age. But 20% were women, and 5% belonged to children. Most victims seemed to be in relatively good health before they were sacrificed.”
Harlan Ellison, RIP.
Tags:#NeverTrump, 2018 Election, Air Force, aircraft, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Anthony Kennedy, Austin, Aztec, Border Controls, Borepatch, California, Croatia, Democrats, Elections, FBI, Fentanyl, Foreign Policy, Guns, Harlan Ellison, Hidalgo County, Houston, Houston Police Department, Hugh Hewitt, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Iran, Janus v. AFSCME, Jihad, Joe Crowley, Jonah Goldberg, Kurt Schlichter, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Military, Neil Gorsuch, NSA, soccer, SR-71, Supreme Court, unions, Voter Fraud
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Supreme Court, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Friday, August 18th, 2017
The House IT scandal, another UK Islamic rape ring, jihad terror attacks, Charlottesville, Google: Another packed week of news, all big stories that deserve more time than I have to fully untangle. I especially don’t want to get dragged into the endless Charlottesville debate/recrimination/squirrel! morass, since that’s exactly where the leftwing activists and the MSM (but I repeat myself) want us to focus our attention, rather than the economy or Islamic terrorism.
Plus two Disney links, just because that’s the way the week shook out.
“Newcastle has joined a list of British cities where grooming gangs, made up of predominantly Pakistani Muslim men, systematically rape and abuse vulnerable, white girls. A nationwide pattern emerged after the first prosecutions in Rotherham, and then Rochdale, where a ‘culture of silence’ and political correctness led to inaction by authorities who feared being called ‘racist’.”
Barcelona jihad terror attacks kill 13.
But news reports go out of their way to avoid mentioning “Islam” or “Jihad.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
On the same subject:
Jihad stabbing attack in Finland? Obviously Finland needs stricter knife control…
“Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements.”
The Feds also indicted Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi. “In addition to lying on multiple mortgage disclosures, as an affidavit alleged at the time of Imran’s arrest, the indictment claims Hina lied by claiming medical hardship in order to withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars from a retirement program.”
“Feds Accuse Former Texas Police Chief of Working with Mexican Cartel.”
McALLEN, Texas — Federal authorities arrested a former chief and current police sergeant for his role in allegedly helping Mexico’s Gulf Cartel move cocaine and marijuana through his jurisdiction. The Texas cop claimed that he needed money to pay for his upcoming bid for county constable after a failed attempt for the Hidalgo County Sheriff position.
Current Progreso Police Sergeant Geovani Hernandez went before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby who formally charged him with one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and one count of aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine.
The case against Hernandez began earlier this year when agents with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations received information from a confidential informant indicating that Sgt. Geovani Hernandez was working for the Gulf Cartel, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed. According to the documents, Hernandez bragged to an informant that he was a friend of former Gulf Cartel leader Juan Manuel “El Toro” Loza Salina and was able to travel to Reynosa without heat. The Texas cop told the informant that he needed money for his upcoming race for Hidalgo County Constable.
Hernandez, like the majority of candidates running for office in the Rio Grande Valley, is a Democrat. The person he lost to in the 2012 Democratic, Guadalupe “Lupe” Trevino, is in prison for money-laundering. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Participant at Charlottesville rally claims police actively pushed attendees into the arms of antifa to be attacked. Which would seem to be a misuse of police power even if the people being abused are white nationalist scumbag LARP Nazis.
Agreeing with the above version of events: Those well-known Nazi sympathizers, the ACLU:
“I was there and brought concerns directly to the secretary of public safety and the head of the Virginia State Police about the way that the barricades in the park limiting access by the arriving demonstrators and the lack of any physical separation of the protesters and counter-protesters on the street were contributing to the potential of violence,” said Gastanaga. “They did not respond. In fact, law enforcement was standing passively by, seeming to be waiting for violence to take place, so that they would have grounds to declare an emergency, declare an ‘unlawful assembly’ and clear the area.”
“The ridiculous campaign by virtually every media outlet, every Democrat and far too many squishy Republicans to label Trump some kind of racist and Nazi sympathizer is beginning to have the stink of an orchestrated smear. The conflagration in Charlottesville is beginning to feel like a set-up, perhaps weeks or months in the planning.” Also this tidbit I’ve seen elsewhere: “The ‘founder’ of Unite The Right, Jason Kessler, was an activist with Occupy Wall Street and Obama supporter.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“Charlottesville Deputy Mayor’s Troubling Twitter Feed: ‘I Hate Seeing White People.'”
“As for Antifa, it’s a minuscule fringe of the Left, just as its predecessors were,” Noam Chomsky told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a major gift to the Right, including the militant Right, who are exuberant.” Noam Chomsky and I agreeing on something. And the moon became as blood… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“Why Was This ‘Crowd Hire’ Company Recruiting $25 An Hour ‘Political Activists’ In Charlotte Last Week?”
Scott Adams: “How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble”:
A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it. The Salem Witch Trials are the best-known example of mass hysteria. The McMartin Pre-School case and the Tulip Bulb hysteria are others. The dotcom bubble probably qualifies.
Snip.
One sign of a good mass hysteria is that it sounds bonkers to anyone who is not experiencing it. Imagine your neighbor telling you he thinks the other neighbor is a witch. Or imagine someone saying the local daycare provider is a satanic temple in disguise. Or imagine someone telling you tulip bulbs are more valuable than gold. Crazy stuff.
Compare that to the idea that our president is a Russian puppet. Or that the country accidentally elected a racist who thinks the KKK and Nazis are “fine people.” Crazy stuff.
German town of Bad Nenndorf discovers best way to defeat both Neo-Nazis and Antifa: Have a big party! (Hat tip: Will Shetterly.)
“7 Things You Need to Know About Antifa,” including the fact that 92% still live with their parents.
On this Althouse thread I joked that SJWs would soon start digging up the graves of Confederate soldiers to put their bones on trial for war crimes. Guess what?
Next up on the statue destruction spree: Well-known Confederate sympathizer Abraham Lincoln, whose statues have been the target of multiple incidents of vandalism.
The hard left is drawing up big plans for November 4. “It’s very likely nothing will come of this, that it’s just another left-wing wish-fulfillment pantomime of a type carried out by leftists every year – if not every six months – since the 60s.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Where this is all leading:
Google engineer James Damore explains why he was fired:
I was fired by Google this past Monday for a document that I wrote and circulated internally raising questions about cultural taboos and how they cloud our thinking about gender diversity at the company and in the wider tech sector. I suggested that at least some of the male-female disparity in tech could be attributed to biological differences (and, yes, I said that bias against women was a factor too). Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai declared that portions of my statement violated the company’s code of conduct and “cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”
My 10-page document set out what I considered a reasoned, well-researched, good-faith argument, but as I wrote, the viewpoint I was putting forward is generally suppressed at Google because of the company’s “ideological echo chamber.” My firing neatly confirms that point.
“James Damore was just fired for being insufficiently Googly.”
He rejected Google’s internal mythology, and worse, he did so with basic math, in a company where mathiness is supposed to be part of the culture.
He also rejected a piece of the general mythology so firmly that what he said was actively misreported — so blatantly that one has to conclude the reporters either can’t read the hard parts of the memo, didn’t bother to read the memo, or somehow managed to see things that weren’t there. (That last is my guess, based on the examples of Trump Trance we’ve seen over the last six months.)
“I’m An Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader And I’m Sick Of Our Approach To Diversity!”
In the copious hiring I did at Google, 97% of the people I hired were men. I wrote reams of appeals to the hiring committee to make cases for cross-functional candidates who would be great assets to Google, even though a (typically) male dominated software engineering interview crew did not find these candidates up to snuff. I had a 90+% success rate changing the hiring decision for these candidates. Almost every one of these hires made an amazing difference to the company. 98+% of these candidates were men.
It’s not like I wasn’t trying to hire women. But I was working with a candidate pool composed of 90% men. Try software engineers with experience in sensors, wireless and hardware stacks before angrily correcting my stats there. There was no way I was going to come out of that with a larger percentage of women hires than I did.
Slashdot commenter nails them for their endless social justice warrioring:
Yes, there are some unproductive people in major corporations and the media who wish to push their left-leaning political agendas on the public at large.
But we want no part of it.
And you know what? It’s no different here at Slashdot.
We come here to learn about new technologies, about new scientific and mathematical discoveries, and to discuss computing.
We don’t want to waste our days arguing about genitalia, sexual preference, racism, and transgenderism.
We just want this bullshit to end.
We want those on the political left to stop trying to divide society into small groups based on arbitrary traits.
Or at the very least, we want everybody else to ignore the divisions that the political left are trying to create.
Is a war between China and India brewing in the Himalayas? That would seem to be a bigger story than some century-old statues. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Liberals: “There should be fewer regulations on cool things I like!” Everyone else: “What about regulations on things other people like?” Liberals: “Fuck them!”
Madness is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
“Jury orders blogger to pay $8.4 million to ex-Army colonel she accused of rape.”
College girl gets her picture taken with the Vice President. Lunatics freak out.
If any Republican wrote that Adolf Hitler was “had in him the stuff of which legends are made,” the way John F. Kennedy wrote in his diary in 1945, his career would be over.
Ted Nugent believes he would be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if he weren’t such an outspoken supporter of gun rights. He’s probably right: How do you think is a bigger “Rock and Roll Legend”: Ted Nugent, or ABBA?
In case you’re wondering how big a joke that Southern Poverty Law Center “hate list” is, Bosch Fawstin, a critic of Islam who drew Mohammed and was targeted for assassination in Garland, is evidently a “hate group” all on his own:
“He tried to kill them with a forklift!” Alice in Wonderland, that is. Who is a man. And then it gets weird…
The rise and fall of Disney’s River Country, a small water park near Disney World in Orlando that’s been closed and allowed to decay for 15 years.
“10 Disney Princesses Re-imagined as Electoral Maps.”
Tags:Abraham Lincoln, ACLU, antifa, Bad Nenndorf, Barcelona, Border Controls, Bosch Fawstin, Charlottesville (VA), China, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, DHS, Disney, Draw Mohammed Day, feminism, Finland, Foreign Policy, Geovani Hernandez, Google, Gulf Cartel, Hidalgo County, Hina Alvi, Imran Awan, India, James Damore, Jason Kessler, JFK, Jihad, LARP Nazis, LinkSwarm, McAllen, Mike Pence, Newcastle, Noam Chomsky, Occupy Wall Street, rape, Regulation, Rio Grande Valley, Slashdot, Social Justice Warriors, Southern Poverty Law Center, Spain, Ted Nugent, Texas, UK
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 11th, 2016
Been a while since I did an update on corruption down in Rio Grande Valley, so let’s do a roundup:
A border patrol agent is being tried for murder and aiding drug smugglers:
The discovery of a headless body floating near the spring break haven of South Padre Island touched off an investigation that prosecutors say revealed a U.S. Border Patrol agent had helped a Mexican cartel move illegal weapons and ammunition south of the border and illicit drugs to the north.
The prosecutors allege that agent Joel Luna got pulled into the business to help his brothers, including one linked to a cartel, and that their operation unraveled when investigators found a “treasure trove” of evidence in a safe at Luna’s mother-in-law’s home. The material included passwords to Luna’s work computer, almost $90,000 in cash and a kilo of cocaine. The trail of evidence led to Luna facing a raft of charges, including capital murder in the death of a man seen as a possible snitch.
Snip.
The case against Luna and his brothers, Eduardo and Fernando, began in March 2015 when boaters found the headless, nude and bloated body of 33-year-old Jose Francisco Rodriguez Palacios Paz. The Honduran immigrant had worked at Fernando Luna’s tire shop in Edinburg, about 20 miles north of the border.
Investigators said phone records and texts revealed that Palacios Paz’s wife expressed concern to Fernando Luna that he was going to reveal the drug operation. Prosecutors allege that the Luna brothers conspired to kill Palacios Paz and that he was killed at the tire shop.
And here’s the story of another law enforcement officer arrested for working with drug smugglers:
A Rio Grande Valley police officer accused of aiding a drug trafficking organization out of Starr County appeared for his initial hearing on Monday.
Rio Grande City police officer Ramon “Ramey” De La Cruz Jr. is currently under federal custody. He’s charged with conspiring to possess and distribute marijuana.
Investigators said he accepted cash and marijuana while providing smugglers with police radios and security.
A Homeland Security Investigation’s federal complaint shows an extensive list of De La Cruz’s alleged crimes. It details a highway drug bust in Victoria County three years ago that led investigators to members of an alleged drug smuggling family in Starr County.
The federal complaint shows sources from a string of indictments gave information about how De La Cruz aided the Beltran family.
The report details how an informant said De La Cruz would give the Beltrans law enforcement documents, intel and would get paid in return with marijuana. Another informant said the police officer provided one of the smugglers with a police radio.
La Joya Housing Authority head Juan Jose Garza was indicted on a a bid rigging scheme:
The 48-year-old executive director of the housing authority in a small Rio Grande Valley town and a construction company owner have been indicted on federal charges related to what prosecutors say was a bid rigging scheme.
Juan Jose Garza, who runs the La Joya Housing Authority, and 52-year-old Armando Jimenez made initial appearances Monday before a federal magistrate in McAllen. They both were arrested Friday.
Prosecutors say the men from July 2012 through March 2013 engaged in bid rigging for construction contracts with housing authorities in nearby Alamo and Donna in Hidalgo County.
According to the indictment, they submitted false bids so Jimenez’s company would be awarded construction projects, then Jimenez falsely submitted invoices for work he claimed as his firm’s but actually was done by subcontractors working for Garza.
Garza also seems to be a member of the La Joya ISD school board.
More on the same story, including the tidbit that “Roberto Jackson, who represents Garza [also] serves as a the [sic] La Joya city attorney.”
Misssed this from December of last year: Starr County Tax Assessor Collector Maria Del Carmen Pena arrested on 18 counts:
Prosecutors have obtained five indictments against Starr County Tax Assessor Collector Maria Del Carmen Pena, charging her with 18 offenses, according to records obtained by CBS 4 News.
Investigators arrested Pena and 14 other people Wednesday, when they raided the Tax Assessor Collector’s Office.
According to the indictments, Pena embezzled at least $200,000 from the Tax Office from November 2010 to October 2012. Pena also conspired with clerks to backdate payments from taxpayers and make the transactions appear legitimate.
Investigators have said they believe approximately $700,000 in taxpayer funds were stolen.
Two Hidalgo County employees arrested for stealing from the county. “La Villa Alderman Jose Lupe Contreras, 32, and 26-year-old Derick Palomin were arrested and charged with theft by a public servant, a Class B misdemeanor, and abuse of official capacity, a Class B misdemeanor, according to the news release.” What did they take? “The pair of cousins is accused of using county equipment to steal caliche from Precinct 1.” It takes a certain kind of genius to be arrested for stealing dirt…
Increased border enforcement brought by the Texas Department of Public Safety “surge” has meant that smuggling-related crime is down in Starr and Hidalgo counties, but up in Webb and Cameron counties. “The next step is going to be Cameron County, and we’ll keep moving to Zapata and Webb and keep moving west…It’s working exactly as we expected. We don’t just throw this strategy out based upon anything. This strategy was built on evidence and past experiences.”
Tags:Border Controls, Cameron County, Crime, Democrats, drugs, Edinburg, Eduardo Luna, Fernando Luna, Hidalgo County, Joel Luna, Jose Francisco Rodriguez Palacios Paz, Juan Jose Garza, La Joya, Maria Del Carmen Pena, Ramon De La Cruz Jr., Rio Grande Valley, Roberto Jackson, Starr County, Webb County
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 21st, 2015
Been a while since I took a look at the last region of Texas where Democrats still wield political power: the Rio Grande Valley. What’s going on down there these days?
Would you believe…corruption?
The Rio Grande Valley is considered the most corrupt area in the country, according to the latest statistic from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Valley has the highest number of federal public corruption convictions. In 2013, 83 cases received guilty verdicts or pleas. The FBI since launched their anti-corruption task force.
Let’s look at a few examples, shall we?
A look at vote buying in the valley:
They’re called politiqueras — a word unique to the border that means campaign worker. It’s a time-honored tradition down in the land of grapefruit orchards and Border Patrol checkpoints. If a local candidate needs dependable votes, he or she goes to a politiquera.
In recent years, losing candidates in local elections began to challenge vote harvesting by politiqueras in the Rio Grande Valley, and they shared their investigations with authorities. After the 2012 election cycle, the Justice Department and the Texas attorney general’s office filed charges.
“Yes, there is a concern in which the politiqueras are being paid to then go and essentially round up voters and have them vote a certain way,” says James Sturgis, assistant U.S. attorney in McAllen.
In the town of Donna, five politiqueras pleaded guilty to election fraud. Voters were bribed with cigarettes, beer or dime bags of cocaine. In neighboring Cameron County, nine politiqueras were charged with manipulating mail-in ballots.
Funny how much of that voter fraud Democrats claim doesn’t exist there is. (Hat tip: Push Junction.)
From the same series: How the drug trade turns good cops bad, focusing on Jonathan Treviño, former head of a Hidalgo County narcotics squad who’s now doing 17 years in prison
Still another piece from the same series: “Jonathan Treviño’s father, Lupe, who was Hidalgo County’s powerful and popular sheriff, is serving a five-year prison term for a separate conviction. He admitted taking $10,000 in illegal campaign contributions from a drug trafficker known as The Rooster, with ties to the Gulf Cartel.” Plus an estimate that 20% of the border’s economy is based on drugs. NPR guesses this estimate is too high; I would guess it’s probably low.
Speaking of which: “The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office blocked auditors from investigating whether or not former Sheriff Lupe Treviño’s administration allowed county workers to fraudulently report they worked extra hours — and rack up so-called ‘comp time’ they could spend campaigning for him.”
And this was at the direction of former Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Jose Padilla, who “himself pleaded guilty to working with a Weslaco-based drug trafficker named Tomas ‘El Gallo’ Gonzalez, talked about the time card tampering allegations during a videotaped interview with anti-corruption activists.”
“Two former Hidalgo Housing Authority officials have plead guilty to bribery this afternoon. Sixty year-old Susana Mungia and 53-year-old Lubina Pedraza both admitted in Federal court to have engaged in a bribery scheme, after they had solicited and received money in exchange for allowing people to skip the waitlist and immediately obtain housing assistance.
“A Starr County justice of the peace facing bribery and cocaine charges has been forced off the bench until further notice, state officials ordered Monday. The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered Salvador Zarate suspended without pay until further notice, according to court documents. Zarate, 62, the Place 3, Place 1 justice of the peace, is accused of taking $500 to lower two defendants’ bond on Christmas Eve.”
“The Indian Lake Police Chief John Chambers was arrested [in February] on 14 counts of tampering with governmental records.”
These are only the stories that have caught my eye this year…
Tags:Border Controls, corruption, Crime, Donna (town), Guadalupe “Lupe” Trevino, Hidalgo County, Indian Lake, John Chambers, Jonathan Trevino, Jose Padilla, Rio Grande Valley, Starr County, Texas, Tomas "El Gallo" Gonzalez, Voter Fraud
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Texas | No Comments »
