Posts Tagged ‘Texas’
Sunday, December 26th, 2010
Meet Lance Mitchell, the man who runs speedtrapahead.org. He not only founded a website to warn people about speed traps, he actually stood up the road from one in his home of speedtrap-crazy Lakeway in his bright orange “Speed Trap Ahead” t-shirt…and got arrested for his troubles. The charge? Among others: illegal signage. For wearing a t-shirt.
Federal courts have pretty regularly held t-shirts to be a form of free speech (see Boroff v. Van Wert City Board of Education, for example), so it’s no surprise that all the charges were dismissed, and Mitchell has reached a settlement with Lakeway on his own lawsuit.
(Hat tip: Fark.)
Tags:Free Speech, Lakeway, speed trap, Texas
Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
A few bite-sized links of interest for the holiday season:
- Michael Barone digs deeper into the census data. Among the tidbits: Five of the seven states with no state income tax gained the most population, and the other two each gained the most within their region, and immigration seems to have slowed in the last decade.
- More on redistricting from lefty election wonk Nate Silver.
- China’s housing bubble is worse on a percentage of GNP basis than the U.S. or Japan.
- California’s Treasurer claims that the state economy is not in trouble, but is merely resting. He also asserted it has beautiful plummage.
- We’ve got spirit, yes we do!/I killed a buck, how about you?
(Hat tips: Instapundit, mostly.)
Tags:California, cheerleaders, China, Guns, hunting, Japan, LinkSwarm, Nate Silver, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Guns, Texas | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
The census data has finally been released, and Texas will gain four seats in the U.S. House. (Here’s a map breaking down which districts have gained or lost population, and by how much.) Keep in mind that at least one or two of those seats will have to be “majority minority” Hispanic seats to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
The only other state to gain more than one House seat was Florida, which gained two. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington state each gained one.
Ohio and New York will each lose two seats, while Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania will each lose one.
The total U.S. population is now 308,745,538, a 9.7% increase from 2000.
The states gaining seats are predominately Republican, while the states losing seats are predominately Democratic, a trend that’s been going on since at least the 1980s. This, along with newly Republican majorities in many of the statehouses that will control redistricting, is the reason some analysts believe that Republicans will control the House at least through 2012, and possibly beyond.
Tags:census, Democrats, Demograhics, Elections, population, Redistricting, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, December 6th, 2010
Since the topic has gotten to Fark, I thought I would clear up the whole “Republicans oppose Straus because he’s Jewish” myth, a myth entirely based on one dumbass (or one plant) sending out email. (The truth is, Republicans oppose Straus because he’s not conservative enough.) In particular, I’d like to point out that those who say that Republicans haven’t condemned this religious bating are wrong:
Reps. Warren Chisum and Ken Paxton, conservative Republicans who’ve launched long-shot bids to unseat House Speaker Joe Straus, on Wednesday condemned campaign e-mails that have introduced candidates’ religions.
E-mails, some of unknown origin, have surfaced in recent days that mention Straus’ rabbi and underscore the Christian faith of his leading critics in the House Republican Caucus. One e-mail promises that “Straus is going down in Jesus’ name.”
“I repudiate that in the strongest terms,” Chisum, R-Pampa, said in an interview. “That is not what this is about.”
Chisum later issued a release saying, “No one working with me on my campaign for speaker has anything to do with such tactics,” which he called “deplorable.”
Paxton, R-McKinney, released a similar statement.
“There is absolutely no place for religious bigotry in the race for Texas speaker,” Paxton said. “It is just as shameful for anyone to imply that I would ever condone this type of behavior. My campaign is singularly focused on a message of providing proven, dependable conservative leadership to the Texas House.”
That was way back on November 18, people. If you’re going to repeat a liberal smear, how about one that wasn’t already debunked three weeks ago?
Tags:Joe Straus, Judaism, Ken Paxton, religion, Republicans, Texas, Texas House of Representatives, Warren Chisum
Posted in Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 25th, 2010
For those who haven’t heard of him, Joe R. Lansdale is a friend, a mentor, and a hell of a writer. He’s also not a conservative (don’t get him started on Bush 43). But I thought you might appreciate his defense of Walmart from the perspective of someone who grew up in a small east Texas town:
If you’re poor and barely making it, or even if your income is middle-of-the-road, it’s good to get what you need at slashed prices, anytime of the day, seven days a week, in a big, ugly, over-lit store that closes only on Christmas and half a day on Christmas Eve. If you forgot to get a gift card and a six pack of tall boys, you have to think, “To hell with downtown.” What we got now in our downtown are specialty stores that provide things we can’t get at Walmart, like maybe a stuffed deer head for that special place over the mantle. The stuff we really need, hell, it’s at Walmart.
Here’s something else. With Walmart in town, lots of people can be put to work, far more than downtown ever employed. Someone has to run a 24-hour store, check people out, sack groceries, push carts, place stock, work at the McDonald’s sequestered in the back. The workers have all skin colors, not something I saw a lot of downtown, except for immigrants unloading trucks.
Tags:Joe R. Lansdale, Texas, Walmart
Posted in Economics, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, November 22nd, 2010
Blake Farenthold is now officially the next congressman from Texas’ 27th Congressional District. That brings the Republican totals up to a 62-seat pickup for 2010, with possibly as many as 64, and at least 241 seats in the House, the most Republicans have controlled in 60 years.
(Hat tip: Instapundit)
Tags:Blake Farenthold, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Solomon Ortiz, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 22nd, 2010
You may have noticed that the race for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is getting hot and heavy. So it’s no surprise to see current Speaker Joe Straus campaigning to retain his role. However, I must say it was something of a surprise to see him advertising (via Google ads) on Powerline. Here’s a capture of the ad I saw there (no doubt triggered by the fact my IP address is inside Texas):
The irony is that there are numerous voices in the Texas conservative blogosphere complaining that Strauss isn’t conservative enough:
Ken Paxton seems to be the choice of most conservatives who have chimed in on the race.
I was going to say that I had not studied the issue enough to be for or against Straus. But then I came across this Austin-American Statesman piece praising Straus for being “nonpartisan” and “moderate,” which is pretty much the kiss of death as far as I’m concerned, and a solid reason to vote for someone else as speaker, advertising on Powerline not withstanding.
Tags:Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, Texas, Texas House of Representatives
Posted in Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
Most of the recount is finished, and the vote total of has only fluctuated by a few votes. Unless Ortiz has a few magic ballot boxes up his sleeve in Nueces County, Republican Blake Farenthold is the new U.S. Congressman for Texas’ 27th Congressional District.
Tags:Blake Farenthold, Corpus Christi, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Solomon Ortiz, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 12th, 2010
In the “old news is so exciting” department, Houston voters got rid of red light cameras in last week’s election. Well, voted them down, anyway. The usual red light sycophants were saying they couldn’t possibly shut them down until March, due to a 120 day notice contract with (yep, you guessed it) American Traffic Solutions, who you may remember from such hits as “We’re creating Astroturf PACs to keep us rolling in dough.”
(Here’s a hint: No city should set up red light cameras in the first place, since they create more accidents than they prevent, but if you do, how about adding a clause saying “Contract immediately void upon rejection by the voters?”)
However, this time the story has a happy ending: City Hall ordered the plug pulled on the cameras by 10 AM this coming Monday (November 15).
Every time voters get a chance to actually vote on the issue, red light cameras are defeated. Sadly, many local politicians still think its more important to line the city’s pockets (or maybe their own) than paying attention to the wishes of actual voters. Maybe with enough defeats like this, the whole red light camera scam will be pulled down for good.
I’d previously pointed out College Station voters getting rid of red light cameras.
Tags:American Traffic Solutions, Houston, red light cameras, Texas
Posted in Texas | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
Remember during the aftermath of the 2000 election when Al Gore tried to get a recount done in just the counties that favored Democratic voters?
Well, soon-to-be-Ex-Rep. Solomon Ortiz just tried to do the same thing in the race he lost to Republican Blake Farenthold, asking for a recount of just three Nueces County precincts.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected his appeal, noting that state law requires all precincts to be included in the re-count.
Ortiz said he’ll refile the petition. A bit more information here, though it still doesn’t say which precincts. FWIW, here are the Nueces election night precinct-by-precinct results.
Tags:Blake Farenthold, Democrats, Elections, Nueces County, Solomon Ortiz, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | No Comments »