Posts Tagged ‘Republicans’
Saturday, February 20th, 2016
Turns out that Trump loves the ObamaCare mandate. Then he said Obama lied making all those promises about ObamaCare…right after making similar promises about his nebulous, pie-in-thes-sky “much better than ObamaCare, less expensive than Obamacare” health care plan that he fails to elucidate.
So he likes ObamaCare’s unrealistic promises, and the ObamaCare mandate, but hates the name “ObamaCare.”
Presumably TrumpCare is paid for by taxing unicorns.
And this is the same Trump that slammed Ted Cruz for supporting (before he became a Senator) John Roberts, who ruled the mandate, that Trump says he likes, as unconstitutional. It’s enough to make your head spin, if it weren’t already spinning from all of Trump’s previous spin.
“I’m angry, so I’m going to vote for a reality TV star with no core conservative principles who makes unrealistic promises!” seems a rather self-defeating strategy for Republican voters.
More on the subject.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, ObamaCare, Republicans
Posted in Elections, ObamaCare, Republicans | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 18th, 2016
Let’s talk about the Green vs. Green Texas Supreme Court race.
Supreme Court Place 5 incumbent Paul Green is being challenged by conservative activist Rick Green in the Republican primary. And a few notable figures (such as Chuck Norris) have endorsed Rick Green.
Usually when a Republican incumbent is being challenged by a conservative activist, I’m backing the insurgent. This is not one of those cases.
Here’s a National Review piece covering why Rick Green is unsuited for the Texas Supreme Court:
Rick Green, age 44, has a law degree but does not primarily practice law. He is a speaker (with David Barton’s WallBuilders), radio talk-show host, family-based reality TV performer (Red, White, Blue & Green – imagine Sarah Palin meets Duck Dynasty), former state legislator (he served two terms in the Texas House of Representatives, 1999–2003), and founder of the Patriot Academy, a religious-oriented youth organization. Rick Green’s website offers services ranging from constitution training (Constitution Alive!) to firearms instruction. However beloved Rick Green may be in the world of conservative political activists (akin to Alan Keyes, Chuck Norris, or Ted Nugent), and no matter how admirable his work, he is simply not qualified to serve on the Texas Supreme Court.
Rick Green has no prior judicial experience, and scant relevant legal experience. He styles himself a “constitutionalist,” but the bulk of the Texas Supreme Court’s docket concerns mundane — albeit important — matters of state law. His judicial temperament is questionable. According to press reports (e.g., here and here), his brief tenure in Texas’s part-time legislature (which meets for 140 days every other year) was marred by ethical controversies involving his promotion of the dietary supplements Metabolife and FocusFactor. After he left the legislature, he reportedly decked the opponent who defeated him, Patrick Rose. Rick Green ran for an open seat on the Texas Supreme Court in 2010 and narrowly lost to Debra Lehrmann in the Republican primary runoff. Afterwards, in Trump-like fashion, he sued his critics, including former Chief Justice Tom Phillips, contending that their campaign against him was libelous.
Call me a philistine, but I’m not wild about a Supreme Court justice punching out political opponents and filing libel lawsuits against critics. Doesn’t exactly befit the dignity of the office.
(For those interested in the libel case, this brief goes over Rick Green’s alleged shady behavior, and evidently Rick Green dropped his lawsuit after it was filed.)
The entirety of Rick Green’s attack on Paul Green seems to be the latter’s ruling in State vs Naylor: “The main issue in the race is the State vs Naylor case of two women who married in Massachusetts and decided to not be married in Texas. Eight of the nine justices participated with three dissents. Paul Green joined in the majority opinion. The majority opinion dismissing the lawsuit was based on lack of jurisdiction, a procedural matter, that had nothing to do with the central question of the constitutionally of the Texas Marriage Laws. The decision shows that the court exercised judicial restraint and did not engage in judicial activism.”
Here’s a comparison chart between the two Greens.
And just in case you’re worried that incumbent Paul Green is too moderate, the fact that he garnered endorsements from Texans for Lawsuit Reform should ease your concern. And former Governor Rick Perry endorsed Paul Green as well: “Paul Green is the type of constitutionalist that I want to see on our courts. Paul has the intellectual capability and the scholarly capability to serve the people of Texas.”
All of which should help convince you to support Paul Green over Rick Green. Sorry, Chuck Norris…
Tags:2016 Election, Chuck Norris, Elections, Judicial Elections, Paul Green, Primary, Republicans, Rick Green, Rick Perry, Texas
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
This is very interesting:
Ted Cruz has inched ahead of Donald Trump in a new national poll released Wednesday, the first national poll of the 2016 cycle that shows the Texas senator on top of the Republican field.
Cruz has the backing of 28% of Republican voters nationwide, unseating Trump, who won the support of 26% in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
But Cruz’s 2-point edge is within the poll’s margin of error, and it’s not clear if the survey captures real movement in the race or is simply an outlier.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio comes in third with 17% support, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 11%, Ben Carson at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in last place with 4%.
All polls should be taken with several grains of salt, as the only real poll that matters is the one at the ballot box. Still, this is notable as the first national poll where Ted Cruz has lead Donald Trump.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, polls, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
Early voting started in Texas Monday, which means I’m way behind on covering state and local races. Oh well, maybe later this week…
Hillary Clinton didn’t do as badly as expected in New Hampshire. She did worse.
Sanders’s margin of victory — 60 percent to 39 percent — was the largest ever by a Democrat who wasn’t a sitting president. It was a come-from-behind win: Eight months ago, Sanders was at 9 percent and Clinton held a 46-point advantage. And Sanders overperformed the polls. Only 1 of the last 15 polls had him above 60 percent; the Real Clear Politics average in New Hampshire had him at 54.5 percent going into the vote.
Then there are the crosstabs. The exit polling for Clinton was brutal. Sanders won men by 35 points; he won women by 11. He won voters under the age of 30 by 67 points. People expect that of Sanders and his children’s crusade. Clinton took home senior citizens, 54 percent to 45 percent. People expect that of Clinton’s boomers. But in the big band of middle-aged Democrats, ages 45 to 64 (who made up 42 percent of the electorate), Sanders beat Clinton 54 percent to 45 percent. He beat her among Democrats with a high school diploma or less; he beat her among Democrats with postgraduate degrees. Among people who’d voted in a Democratic primary before, Sanders won by 16 points; among first-time voters, he won by 57. He won self-identified “moderate” voters by 20 points.
Clinton made gun control a substantial part of her pitch in New Hampshire. Sanders won voters who own guns by 40 points. But he won voters who don’t own guns by 14. He even won voters who said that terrorism was their number one concern.
The biggest problem for Clinton, however, came in the candidate-perception categories. The second-most important quality voters said they wanted in a candidate was someone who “cares.” Sanders won these voters by 65 points. The most important quality people said they wanted was “honesty.” Sanders took those people home 92 to 6. Look at that again. When asked “Is Clinton honest and trustworthy?” 53 percent of all voters — not just Sanders voters, but everyone casting a Democratic ballot — said “no.”
Bernie Sanders has more than ten times the number of staffers on the ground in South Carolina than Clinton does.
Lefty at The Nation: “Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.”
The topic is the Clintons, so it’s time for another glimpse of Good Maureen Dowd: “It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at Hillary as a candidate rather than as a historical imperative. And she’s coming up drastically short on trustworthiness.”
Ted Cruz is very electable. “Cruz is electable because he’s the real thing.” (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
People who were actually paying attention during the Gang of 8 fight scoff at Marco Rubio’s assertion Cruz favored amnesty. (Hat tip: Conservatives 4 Ted Cruz.)
Only top Obama Administration officials with high security clearances knew about Hillary’s secret email server. And LinkedIn.
The NRA is saying gun-indifferent Sanders beat hoplophobe Hillary. Hmmm…
Remember how the Obama Administration swore up and down ObamaCare wouldn’t go to illegal aliens? Guess what?
I think this is quite an effective Donald Trump ad, targeting how black Americans have been hurt by illegal alien crime. Rick Perry did quite well with an ad highlighting an illegal alien who murdered a Houston police officer in his race against Bill White in 2010. Too bad too many gutless Republicans have been hesitant about running such ads for fear of being branded racists, xenophobes, etc. by the media.
Muslim immigrants are killing Sweden.
Germany to take in a half million more Islamic “refugees” in 2016. It’s like Merkel wants to destroy her own party… (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Police in the UK arrest man for criticizing Syrian “refugees” in a Facebook post. (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
Boom! Headshot! (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Current law prohibits transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S., and the military won’t do so until the law is changed, no matter what Obama may want.
“Scalia was not only finest writer ever to sit on the Court, he was one of the best rhetoricians in history.”
Dear naive young voters: socialism sucks in real life.
Behold the ideal government worker under socialism! Every bureaucrat his own Wally….
A look at China’s new stealth fighters.
China is also deploying missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea.
Huge explosion at a military barracks in Turkey. Just occurred before I posted this, so details are scant.
The ACLU continues its long retreat from defending free speech. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Talk like Reagan.
Venezuela’s socialist government appears to have authorized the military to form an oil company.
Notes on the collapse of a tech startup. More than a grain of truth here. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
The Coen Brothers aren’t fans of cramming diversity for the sake of diversity into individual movies. “Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”
Science fiction writer has book rejected by Harper Voyager because robot characters dared to voice non-PC thoughts.
Because driving I-35 just didn’t suck enough already, enjoy being attacked by thrown rocks.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, ACLU, Antonin Scalia, Austin, Bernie Sanders, black, Border Controls, China, Coen Brothers, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, Elections, Facebook, Guantanamo Bay, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, I-35, Jihad, Marco Rubio, Maureen Dowd, Military, NRA, ObamaCare, polls, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell, Venezuela
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2016
Ted Cruz has picked up plenty of notable endorsements in his race for President, but today he picked up endorsements from two very notable men:
Towering free market economist and writer Thomas Sowell:
Senator Ted Cruz has been criticized in this column before, and will undoubtedly be criticized here again. But we can only make our choices among those actually available, and Senator Cruz is the one who comes to mind when depth and steadfastness come to mind.
As someone who once clerked for a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he will know how important choosing Justice Scalia’s replacement will be. And he has the intellect to understand much more.
Congressional Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Dakota Meyer:
“This election is a turning point for our country,” said Meyer. “In these dangerous times we need a strong, principled conservative in the White House. We need a Commander-in-Chief who works with our allies and makes it known that certain actions against the United States and its allies will not be tolerated. I am confident that Ted Cruz has the ability and resolve to be Commander-in-Chief. His record of standing up and fighting for what he believes in shows that he is not someone who buckles under pressure. Ted is ready to led this country – and I look forward to help uniting conservatives and veterans behind this campaign.”
I note in passing that Sowell is 85, and Meyer is 27…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Congressional Medal of Honor, Dakota Meyer, Elections, Endorsements, Military, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell
Posted in Elections, Military, Republicans | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2016
New Hampshire primary returns are still coming in, but right now the results are:
- Donald Trump
- John Kasich
- Ted Cruz
- Jeb Bush
- Marco Rubio
Trump is way out front, with Kasich a firm second, and a dogfight for third that Cruz currently leads.
Just like exactly nobody predicted two weeks ago…or even yesterday.
Could what looked like a 3-way race end up being a 5-way race?
Could Bush think his improved showing is a sign his strategy is finally working?
Does Kasich cash the cache of his second-place finish with a fresh infusion of cash?
Tried to work him in, really I did…
Can Rubio bounce back from a disappointing showing?
Do Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson drop out?
For the answers to these questions, and many others, tune in to the next episode of Soap…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, New Hampshire, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2016
DrewM over on Ace of Spades HQ makes the case for Ted Cruz and against Marco Rubio. It’s well worth reading.
Is Rubio “The Establishment’s” first choice? No. Jeb is next in line. Are members of “The Establishment” comfortable with him as a second choice? I’d say it seems so. Is there any doubt that in a Rubio-Cruz showdown “The Establishment” would go with Rubio? So, yeah.
Yes, Rubio supporters can trot out his Heritage Action score but that only shows he goes along, not that he’s going to lead anywhere. They simply can’t show a single time he’s bucked the party, not just with a vote but by publicly putting his neck on the line. I simply don’t believe that when push comes to shove a President Rubio will be any more forceful in breaking up the consensus than Senator Rubio has been.
I would make somewhat different points, and the “Cruz is a bastard” point I disagree with (Cruz is quite a likable guy in person), but it’s true that one of his great strengths is his willingness to buck the leadership of his own party rather than compromise conservative principles. “If you want someone to change DC and the direction of the country, you have to elect someone who has shown they understand that there’s a problem, someone who has shown a willingness to point at people in his own ‘leadership’ and say, ‘they have no clothes’.”
Read the whole thing.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Ace of Spades, Elections, Marco Rubio, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Friday, February 5th, 2016
Presidential elections, Islamic terrorism, gun rights, crooked locksmiths: Something for (almost) everyone in your Friday LinkSwarm:
So why did Hillary Clinton take $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs? “That’s what they offered.” I actually like the refreshing honesty about that answer, since we already know Granny Crooked McCankles is all about the benjamins. But Hillary saying she hadn’t decided to run for President yet when she took the money? That’s just pissing on our leg and calling it rain…
Why is the Republican establishment willing to consider one heresy to their worldview (subsidizing the working poor) but not another (actually enforcing immigration law and securing the borders)?
An inside look at Boko Haram.
According to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz gave us ObamaCare. By voting to confirm John Roberts. Before Cruz was even in the senate. Hey, why should Ted Cruz even bother to run for President if he’s capable of time travel?
Remembering the genocide Muslim Turkey committed against Christian Armenians.
The gun rights movement continues to win victories around the country:
To recap: Gun-control activists declared Virginia their proving ground and poured unbelievable amounts of money into a state-senate election; then they lost that election; then they bet big on executive actions instituting new gun control; they watched as those actions were not only reversed but gun rights were expanded.
If we take Virginia as the bellwether that the gun-control activists envisioned, then gun control is dead as a 2016 issue.
And according to this legal paper by Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, lower courts are scrutinizing even modest post-Heller gun rights restrictions.
West Virginia is on the brink of becoming a right-to-work state.
Who knew New Hampshire had such a serious drug problem? Or that they were the hardest-drinking state in the union? (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty via his Morning Jolt.)
Old and Busted: “The solution to misguided speech is more speech.” The New Hotness: “Your non-liberal speech is toxic. Goodbye comments!”
Debunking the “BernieBro” myth social justice warrior types are trying to gin up.
Rick Santorum stops pretending to run for President.
Male yahoo employee claims illegal sex discrimination in Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s ranking system.
Feminists freak out over people daring to point out how just how unlikable Hillary Clinton is. Then again, when are feminists ever not freaking out?
How fake locksmiths are gaming Google maps to rip you off. It’s an eye-opening piece, and another reason you should join Angie’s List…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Boko Haram, Border Controls, Crime, DC vs. Heller, Democrats, Donald Trump, genocide, Glenn Reynolds, gun control, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Instapundit, Jihad, Jim Geraghty, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, New Hampshire, Nigeria, ObamaCare, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Ted Cruz, Turkey, unions, Virginia, West Virginia
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, unions | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2016
Ever see John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King, the film starring Sean Connery and Michael Cain based on the Rudyard Kipling story of the same name? It features Connery as a British soldier mistaken for a god by a remote tribe, a mistake Connery plays to his advantage, right up until his would-be queen bites him, the resulting blood proving that he’s a mere mortal.
His subsequent fall is swift.
I’m reminded of that fall by news that, according to a PPP poll, Donald Trump has dropped nine points following his second place finish in Iowa. Trump’s sense of popular inevitability was always one of his greatest assets, but after Ted Cruz successfully smote him, Trump too has been revealed as a mere mortal, and that sense of inevitability is bleeding away…
(Hat tip: Bad Blue.)
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Elections, Iowa, polls, PPP, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Elections, Republicans | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016
Here are a few of the more interesting pieces pieces of Iowa analysis, along with a dollop of general Presidential Race news):
How Ted Cruz won Iowa.
Texas Monthly‘s Erica Grieder offers up a field guide to Ted Cruz for her fellow reporters. Including such nuggets as “Ted Cruz is not a fire-breathing extremist” (this is true; I’ve never once seen him breath fire) and “Cruz is smarter than us” (which is undoubtedly true for the vast majority of reporters covering him). While I have some quibbles here and there, the piece is well worth reading, especially if you’re unfamiliar with Cruz. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
More: “What they’re failing to perceive is that such an effort reinforced Cruz’s claim that he will work for the people. Trump has been making the same claim, and a lot of people believe him. But in Iowa, at least, Cruz had a chance to show the people that he meant it. That’s what clinched the caucus.”
“Cruz won Iowa the old-fashioned way: He earned it.”
13 Quick Takeaways From The Iowa Caucuses. Including the fact that Hillary is a horrible candidate, and the media is far more obsessed with a Republican populist candidate that got 25% of the vote than the Democratic populist candidate that got 50%.
Cruz’s 51,000 votes were the most ever for a Republican in the Iowa caucus.
“The reason why we were reluctant to tip Cruz as the likely winner, however, was because we were all suckered by The Donald’s hype.”
Cruz 1, Ethanol Lobby 0.
“Hillary Did Not Win Last Night.”
How Sanders caught fire in Iowa.
“Between the turnout and the result, Iowa’s caucuses provide an early indicator that Republicans are more excited and Democrats less enthusiastic than usual about 2016.”
Ace asks where were all those new voters Trump was supposed to bring in?
Frank Luntz says that Jeb Bush’s $100 million worth of anti-Rubio ads hurt Bush more than Rubio.
Rand Paul drops out.
Cruz gets endorsed by South Carolina congressman Jeff Duncan.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Erica Grieder, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Jeff Duncan, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »