Posts Tagged ‘Matthew McConnaughey’

Texas Governor’s Race Update for November 30, 2021

Tuesday, November 30th, 2021

A few quick updates in the Texas Governor’s Race:

  • Actor Matthew McConnaughey is not running for governor:

    Celebrities (especially those as famous as McConnaughey) tend to be formidable candidates, but there was no guarantee he would even win a primary. His hetrodox views might prevent him from winning the Democratic primary over Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, and a run against incumbent Greg Abbott (and his giant warchest) in the increasingly crowded Republican primary was no sure thing either.

  • Abbott officially filed for reelection.
  • Allen West also officially filed for the governor’s race.
  • I recently received my first flyer in the race, from the Don Huffines campaign. As you can see from the scans below, the issues he’s emphasizing are controlling the border, ending property taxes and election integrity. Good as far as it goes, but he may have missed a bet by not supporting a special session for outlawing vaccine mandates.

    Is it a bit early to be dropping direct mail flyers? A bit, but: A.) As a longshot challenger, Huffines has to raise his profile to have any chance at all, and direct mail probably offers a much bigger bag for the buck than broadcast media advertising. (There may be lots of online advertising as well, but I have so many online ads blocked that I almost never see them on my Mac.) And: B.) It’s not that early, as we’re roughly six months out from the May 1st primary date.

  • I haven’t received any campaign mailers from Team Abbott, but lord, have I received a lot of fundraising emails. Over 60 in November alone, some of which go out of their way to insult my intelligence. Like the one that claims to be from “Greg Abbott (iPhone).” Is there anyone stupid enough to believe that Abbott is personally emailing fundraising solicitations from his personal iPhone? Also annoying: “Your Order Confirmation” and “YOUR EXCLUSIVE OFFER.” Just stop…
  • Fundraising tidbits: O’Rourke raised $2 million in the 24 hours after launching his campaign. However, that’s down 2/3rds from the first 24 hours of his unsuccessful presidential campaign. Also, Abbott has $55 million in the bank…
  • Allahpundit wonders what the hell O’Rourke is trying to accomplish:

    It’s always intriguing when a well-known figure whom everyone understands has no chance of winning decides to run for office.

    I doubt even Beto’s under illusions about his chances. He’ll be running in a red state facing a massive red midterm wave against a Republican who’s more popular than the one he ran against in 2018 and who’s raised more money than any governor in U.S. history. Why bother?

    Some blather about the “hardness” of Abbott’s stand on vaccine mandates snipped, as Texas conservative activists have been all over Abbott for refusing to call a fourth special session to outlaw vaccine mandates by statute, not just decree.

    A poll published last week found him rocking a 27/57 approval rating among independents in Texas. If the 2022 midterm environment was as favorable to Democrats as 2018 was, I’d give them an outside chance of pulling an upset.

    More erroneous analysis snipped.

    But 2022 isn’t 2018. And a candidate as far left as Beto O’Rourke isn’t the man to dethrone a longtime governor.

    Team Abbott posted this ad featuring some of Beto’s greatest hits a few weeks ago. They’re going to attack him as too liberal for Texas, which he is:

    O’Rourke’s defining issues when he ran for president two years ago were liberalizing America’s border and grabbing guns. Given the crush of migrants seeking asylum that the U.S. has seen this year, though, open borders is an especially toxic position to hold in Texas of all places. And gun-control is a perennial loser in a state with as robust a gun culture as Texas had. You would think today’s announcement would be an occasion for O’Rourke to say he’s rethought his previous positions on firearms. Instead, incredibly, he’s doubling down:

    Abbott has already been campaigning against O’Rourke as too liberal for Texas, branding him “Wrong Way O’Rourke” and seizing on multiple positions he has taken since last running statewide. At the top of the list is O’Rourke’s proposal to require buybacks of assault weapons during his presidential campaign. That led to a memorable moment on the debate stage in which O’Rourke proclaimed that, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

    O’Rourke said he was not backing away from that proposal in his latest campaign.

    “I think most Texans can agree — maybe all Texans can agree — that we should not see our friends, our family members, our neighbors, shot up with weapons that were originally designed for use on a battlefield,” said O’Rourke, whose hometown of El Paso was the site of an anti-Latino mass shooting in 2019 by a gunman who killed 23 people.

    His progressive views during his 2020 presidential run appear to have stuck to him in Texas as he’s polled poorly there over the past few months. Last month a UT survey found his favorable rating at 35/50, including 22/48 among indies. O’Rourke trailed Abbott 46/37 in that same poll, a pitiful showing against a governor whose popularity had waned lately. Another poll taken a month earlier also put O’Rourke at 37 percent against Abbott. A third recent survey from Quinnipiac had a mere 33 percent willing to say they thought Beto would make a good governor.

    I’ll give you a few possibilities. One, simply, is time. If O’Rourke had waited to challenge Ted Cruz for Senate again in 2024, he would have risked being perceived as old news, especially having failed in his two previous statewide runs. The 2024 Senate primary could be a competitive one for Democrats, with no guarantee of Beto winning. This year’s primary is easier for him since no one else wants to to face Abbott in a Republican-friendly cycle. Simply put, his political capital was depreciating. He could either use what was left of it for one more campaign or go bankrupt.

    Two is fundraising. I’m skeptical that we’ll see the return of the “Betomania” money juggernaut in full force in Texas but it probably remains true that O’Rourke can raise cash more easily than the average Dem, if only by dint of name recognition. He’ll be at less of a money disadvantage against Abbott than any other prospective nominee would be. Of course, if Betomania does run wild among Democratic donors nationally, that’ll backfire on the party by drawing cash into Texas in a likely losing effort that could have gone to more competitive races elsewhere. Double-edged sword for Dems.

    Three is enthusiasm. Between Biden’s troubles and the likelihood of a red wave, Democrats will have a hard time getting Texas liberals excited to vote in 2022. Having a charismatic well-known liberal at the top of the ticket who captivated them once before might boost turnout at the margins. And while that won’t be enough to make Beto governor, it might help Dems win a few state races downballot that they otherwise would have lost. His candidacy is a favor to the state party, in other words. He might even be able to steer some Latino voters who defected to Trump and the GOP last year back into the Democratic column.

    Realistically, the best-case scenario for O’Rourke is that he raises a ton of money again, loses by a respectable margin, and is then targeted by Biden for some sort of national job either in the cabinet or at the DNC. Beto’s long-term challenge is staying politically relevant and another run for office advances the ball — albeit at the risk that he’s well and truly done politically if he gets blown out.

  • Actually, O’Rourke is already starting to tack right on border security, saying that Biden hasn’t done enough to secure the border.
  • O’Rourke has some Democratic Primary competitors (Larry Baggett, Michael Cooper, and Deirdre Dickson-Gilbert), but I can’t even find working websites for the first two.
  • Likewise, Chad Prather‘s campaign has been essentially invisible, and Allen West‘s all but invisible.
  • There’s also someone named Danny Harrison, who seems to be running on a “legalized gambling and weed” platform, an interesting choice for the Republican primary. Harrison actually has a bit of polish, so the guy is punching above his weight class (Gadfly). Like Prather, I get the impression he could actually make some noise in a lower-level race (State Rep., County Commissioner, etc.).

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    Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas, video | 3 Comments »

    Something Resembling A Texas Gubernatorial Race?

    Saturday, July 24th, 2021

    Does Texas have a competitive Gubernatorial race in 2022? No, not yet. But on the Republican side, we have something that resembles a competitive primary a lot more than we did at any point of the 2018 election cycle.

    In 2018, incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott was running against someone named Barbara Krueger (of whom I have actually no memory whatsoever and who reports show raised literally no money), and gadfly Larry SECEDE Kilgore (yes, that’s how his name appeared on the ballot), whose funding raising totals equaled Krueger’s. Abbott walloped those two with 90.4% of the primary vote in 2018.

    That’s not going to happen in 2022.

    Abbott already has two much higher profile challengers in former state senator Don Huffines and former Florida congressman and former Texas GOP head Allen West, both of whom are campaigning against Abbott from the right. (Humorist Chad Prather is also running in the Republic primary, but I see no signs his is a serious campaign.)

    Abbott had a huge advantage in money-on-hand in the 2018 race, and will likely have the same this time around, with over $55 million on hand this time around. However, Huffines already has over $7 million as well. That’s enough to build out statewide campaigning and fundraising infrastructure. Huffines also pulled in over $4 million in fundraising, indicating there are some deep pocketed contributors out there who are unhappy enough with Abbott to put their money where their mouth is. (West declared he was running July 4, which means he won’t have to file his campaign fundraising reports until the end of the year. But as someone who’s name has been showing up in fundraising solicitation campaigns for at least a decade (and I see he was featured on one of those National Review cruises back in 2013), I have to imagine that he still has something of a national fundraising network to draw on.)

    Huffines also picked up a high profile endorsement from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. That’s going to get him some attention from national Republicans who weren’t even aware Abbott had a primary challenger.

    Then there’s the looming threat of actor Matthew McConaughey possibly getting into the race, something he’s hinted at several times. Though not the level of, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003, McConaughey is a high profile star, and celebrity politicians can be quite formidable in a general election (as Schwarzenegger, Donald Trump and Jesse Ventura have all proven). McConaughey claims he’s a centerist, and hasn’t declared which party he would run in. A run in the Republican primary would turn it into a high profile, high-spending battle royal between McConaughey’s fame and Abbott’s money and infrastructure.

    You would think that being locked-out of statewide office victories for over a quarter-century would give McConaughey an easy path to the general election on the Democratic Party side, but that may not be the case. It’s quite possible that McConaughey expressing heretical centrist thoughts on any number of hard-left hot button orthodoxies (election integrity, abortion, illegal aliens, guns, social justice, etc.) would draw a high-profile, hard left outrage candidate into the race just to block him. (Beto O’Rourke can’t win a statewide race against Abbott, but he might very well be able to win a Democratic primary against McConaughey.) While there’s a world of difference between a Hollywood star and an offbeat country musician/mystery writer, Kinky Friedman losing to a non-campaigning nobody in the 2014 Democratic primary for Ag Commissioner tells you Democrats prefer losing to heterodoxy.

    As for non-McConaughey Democratic possibilities, the leading candidate seems to be a Deirdre Gilbert, formerly Deirdre Dickson-Gilbert, whose prime political experience seems to be a third-place finish in a three man Democratic Primary field for Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace Precinct 2. She has all of $617.56 on hand, which is less than the Green Party candidate. Also running is Michael Cooper, who came in eighth in a ten man field in the 2020 Democratic Senator primary. But he still looks good in that bolo tie…

    All this may amount to nothing, and Abbott is still the odds on favorite to be sworn in in 2023. But his lockdown decisions and the ice storm debacle has Abbott looking his most vulnerable since being elected governor. He’s not seriously vulnerable, but he’s at least “Eric Cantor in 2013 vulnerable.” And we all know how that turned out…

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Huffines Challenges Abbott

    Tuesday, May 11th, 2021

    Former state senator Don Huffines is running against incumbent Greg Abbott for the Republican nomination for Texas governor:

    Gov. Greg Abbott has gained another challenge from the right, with the addition of former State Sen. Don Huffines into the gubernatorial race on Monday.

    “I’m a proud fifth-generation Texan,” said Huffines. “For too long, Texas has been let down by politicians who offer nothing but excuses and lies. Our border is still wide open. Property taxes keep going up. And our election laws continue to be ignored. Plain and simple, our politicians aren’t getting things done, and Texans have rightfully run out of patience.”

    “I will fight and win on behalf of Texans. We will protect our great state and secure our freedoms. I am ready to take on the federal government and the entrenched elites of the Austin swamp. We will finally finish the wall and secure our border, and we’re not going to ask for permission to do it. We will put Texas on a path to eliminating property taxes. And we will enforce our sacred voting laws so that the voices of lawful voters are preserved and not diluted through corrupt election procedures,” he added.

    Don Huffines was first elected to the Texas Senate in 2014, after defeating liberal Republican incumbent John Carona in the GOP primary.

    Immediately, Huffines made his mark as one of the most conservative members of the chamber, on more than one occasion grinding the normally scripted Senate to a halt by offering amendments that attempted to improve Texas’ open carry law and completely phase-out the state’s margins tax.

    Huffines also led the charge to take down “Dallas County Schools,” a corruption scheme that stole millions of dollars from Texas taxpayers and led to the imprisonment of six individuals.

    Huffines was defeated in the Senate by Democrat Nathan Johnson in the 2018 Democrat sweep of Dallas County.

    Since then, Huffines has continued to be a figure in the conservative movement, traveling the state to pull back the curtain on the true nature of the Texas Legislature, as well as being a sharp critic of the governor.

    Is Huffines a serious threat to Abbott? Let’s just say he’s a more serious 2022 Texas Gubernatorial candidate than Chad Prather or Kurt Schwab. Or, for that matter, Barbara Krueger or Larry SECEDE Kilgore, the two nobodies Abbott wiped the floor with in the 2018 Republican primary. State senator is a pretty decent launching pad for statewide office, as Dan Patrick can attest. But no one has jumped straight from the state legislature to the Governor’s mansion since Dolph Briscoe did it in 1972, and that was after a previous gubernatorial run, plus the Sharpstown scandal. Mostly the the path to the governor’s mansion runs through a lower state-wide office (Attorney General and the Texas Supreme Court for Abbott, Lieutenant Governor and Agricultural Commissioner for Rick Perry, Treasurer for Ann Richards).

    Up until last year, Abbott was considered a popular governor and a shoe-in for reelection. Then the 2020 lockdowns happened, then the disaster of the ice-storm. No one blames Mao Tse Lung on Abbott, and he clearly weathered the coronavirus crisis better than Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom or Grethen Whitmer (to damn him with very faint praise indeed), but he waited far too long to lift the lockdown and mask mandate orders when it was obvious they had no effect on viral spread, especially compared to Ron DeSantis. Likewise, the ice storm was obviously not of Abbott’s making, but the years of lax oversight of ERCOT and a failure to push reliable fossil fuel over acquiescence to subsidies for trendy (and unreliable) renewables made the crisis far more severe than it had to be.

    So Abbott probably is vulnerable, but I’m not sure Huffines is the candidate to take advantage of it. Abbott has at least $47 million in the bank, an extremely formidable warchest going into the primary season. (If Matthew McConaughey does jump into the race, he may need all of it.) Huffines has conservative bonafides, but losing your last race is seldom an indicator that you’re ready to step up a weight class (Richard Nixon not withstanding). Huffines, like Abbott, seems more like an artifact of the bygone pre-Trump political era, and thus very unlikely to defeat Abbott in the Republican primary.

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    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for March 12, 2021

    Friday, March 12th, 2021

    Welcome to the one year anniversary of the week the world went crazy.

  • After the passing of the Democratic Party’s giant $1.9 trillion porkulus, “Federal ‘COVID’ Spending Just Hit $41,870 Per Taxpayer.”
  • Two-thirds of Americans think corporate wokeness has gone too far.
  • “California Curriculum Leads Kids in Chant to Aztec God of Human Sacrifice.”
  • Lefties: Liberals are simply better people than those evil conservatives! Science: Not so much:

    According to recent studies, when it comes to how people are treated, conservatives are more likely to treat people equally.

    You read that correctly.

    According to a recent article on Psychology Today, “several recent studies over the past few years cast doubt on” the idea that liberals treat individuals and groups more equally than conservatives despite liberals’ “self-reported support for equality.”

    On Twitter, “liberals were more likely to amplify the successes of female and Black athletes than male and White athletes, whereas conservatives treated the successes of groups more similarly,” one study found.

    Other studies showed that “white liberals presented less self-competence to black than white interaction partners, whereas white conservatives treated black and white interaction partners more similarly. And in another set, liberals had stronger desires to censor passages that portrayed low-status groups unfavorably than identical passages that portrayed high-status groups unfavorably, whereas conservatives treated the passages more comparably.

  • The 2020 election is already harming the law-abiding:

    If you think really hard, perhaps you can imagine more disastrous policies than throwing open our country’s southern border and abandoning criminal-law enforcement in city after city. The consequences are already emerging, and they are grim. It is important to examine them without ideological blinders so we can change course before more damage is done.

    Snip.

    The most consequential effect of open immigration and lax criminal enforcement is to undermine the safe, stable environment law-abiding citizens need to go about their lives, free from predation. Providing that environment — and signaling clearly that you intend to provide it — is the first responsibility of government.

    That means punishing crimes. The goal is not vengeance. Nor is it solely to provide justice for the victims, important as that is. It is also to send a strong message to would-be criminals: Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Right now, we are sending the wrong message and, by doing so, we are encouraging law breaking on a massive scale.

    That encouragement is the unifying theme behind these policy disasters, one on the border, the other in our cities. The other unifying theme is their justification under the fashionable rubric of “social justice” and “equity.” What those feel-good arguments ignore is that our criminal laws are democratic efforts to preserve personal safety and community integrity. Failing in those responsibilities harms all law-abiding citizens.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Why Texas was right to reopen:

    Six weeks before yesterday was Tuesday, January 26. On that day, Texas reported 22,796 new cases of COVID-19 and 332 new deaths from the pandemic.

    One month before yesterday was Tuesday, February 9. On that day, Texas reported 13,282 new cases of COVID-19 and 303 new deaths from the pandemic.

    Two weeks before yesterday was Tuesday, February 23, Texas reported 10,090 new cases of COVID-19 and 258 new deaths from the virus.

    Yesterday was Tuesday, March 9. The state of Texas reported 5,119 new cases of COVID-19, and 168 new deaths from the virus.

    It’s not quite a straight or smooth line, but you can see a steady decline in cases, followed by a similar decline in deaths. This doesn’t mean the pandemic is over. But it does suggest that the worst is over. Hospitals across the state now report a significant amount of unused capacity. “State health officials in Texas reported to the federal government that 75 percent of inpatient beds and 80 percent of ICU beds in hospitals across the state were still occupied as of March 6. Around 9 percent of beds statewide were filled by COVID-19 patients, they reported.” (Unused hospital beds are good for emergencies, but not good for the long-term financial health of the hospital.)

    Texas ranks second in the country in the number of vaccine shots administered, with nearly 7.3 million, but it also ranks second in the number of shots received from manufacturers, because doses are allocated to states by population size. As of this morning, the state has used 75 percent of its delivered supply, which is not an impressive percentage. (It is worth keeping in mind that as more doses get delivered, every state’s percentage-used figure is declining a bit; North Dakota and Minnesota lead the country at 87 percent.) Fifteen percent of Texans have received one shot, and 8.2 percent are fully vaccinated. (We used to use the term “received both shots,” but now the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine is rolling out.) Obviously, getting hit with a terrible winter storm and experiencing widespread power outages does not help a state accelerate its vaccination program.

    This week, another million doses have arrived or are scheduled to arrive in Texas. A week ago, Texas made all school and child-care workers eligible for the vaccine.

  • The Biden Administration wants to destroy 57 million jobs:

    With the rise of gig economy jobs such as driving for Uber and other forms of independent work enabled by the digital era, more than 57 million Americans now work as freelancers in some capacity. But President Biden just endorsed a radical labor law that endangers their livelihood.

    House Democrats recently reintroduced the PRO Act, which, among many sweeping reforms, would make many commonplace forms of independent contractor (freelance) arrangements illegal. It’s based on a California law that was so dysfunctional even voters in the very blue state voted to change it.

  • Biden is getting worse:

    “He literally forgets the name of his Secretary of Defense, forgets the position, as well as the name of the Pentagon, calling him ‘the guy that runs that outfit over there.'”

  • Slow Joe is not big on news conferences. “Biden has gone longer without facing extended questions from reporters than any of his 15 predecessors over the past 100 years.”
  • By contrast, after succeeding Warren G. Harding on August 2, 1923, “Silent” Calvin Coolidge held three press conferences in August and seven in September.
  • Entire Nevada Democratic Party staff quits after Bernie Bros sweep every seat.

    Not long after Judith Whitmer won her election on Saturday to become chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, she got an email from the party’s executive director, Alana Mounce. The message from Mounce began with a note of congratulations, before getting to her main point.

    She was quitting. So was every other employee. And so were all the consultants. And the staff would be taking severance checks with them, thank you very much.

    On March 6, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took over the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, sweeping all five party leadership positions in a contested election that evening. Whitmer, who had been chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, was elected chair. The establishment had prepared for the loss, having recently moved $450,000 out of the party’s coffers and into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s account. The DSCC will put the money toward the 2022 reelection bid of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a vulnerable first-term Democrat.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Democrats: We must destroy coal! Coal workers: Hey, we’re starting to take this personally. “Within two decades, your profession goes from being championed by the Democratic Party and labor officials to one that they want to destroy.”
  • Here’s a Twitter thread documenting how the media repeatedly fluffed the National Man Boy Lincoln Association.
  • Bad cop: “Dallas police officer allegedly hired hitmen to kill two people.” “Officer Bryan Riser, 36, was arrested Thursday in the unrelated slayings of Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 60, after one of the men charged in Saenz’s death told investigators he kidnapped and killed them at the officer’s direction.”
    

  • NYT‘s Maggie Halberstam just admits that Trump drove her crazy. Why does anyone think ordinary Americans will ever trust MSM outlets like New York Times ever again?
  • Judge allows Texas to remove Planned Parenthood from Medicaid.
  • “Illegal Alien Family Unit Apprehensions in Texas Nearly Triple in February.”
  • Matthew McConaughey teases a run for Texas Governor again. I don’t know enough about his politics to consider him a viable candidate (though he’s probably more viable than Beto O’Rourke on day 1), but the idea of him beating Greg Abbott isn’t nearly as far-fetched as it was a year ago, before Abbott maintained the coronavirus lockdown long after data said it was ineffective.
  • Speaking of Abbott, he really stepped in it this week when he said that Gab was an antisemitic platform:

    In a Wednesday evening Twitter video, with State Reps. Craig Goldman (R–Fort Worth) and Phil King (R–Weatherford) on either side of him, Abbott claimed Big Tech competitor Gab was “antisemitic” and that such companies “have no place in Texas and certainly do not represent Texas values.”

    He offered no evidence to back up his claim against Gab. He also praised legislation from Goldman and King “that fights antisemitism in Texas.”

    “I’m not on Gab a lot but I wouldn’t consider the platform as ‘anti Semitic’ …and I’m a Jew,” a citizen named Lisa replied to Abbott’s tweet. “Stop this nonsense.”

    Gab recently skyrocketed in popularity, claiming more than 2 million new users in January after Twitter permanently banned then-President Trump and Amazon, Apple, and Google teamed up to shut down conservative social media app Parler.

    Abbott’s attack on the free speech platform contradicts his words from last week when he defended free speech and berated Facebook and Twitter for their censorship.

    “They are choosing which viewpoints are going to be allowed to be presented,” Abbott said at the time. “Texas is taking a stand against Big Tech political censorship: We’re not going to allow it in the Lone Star State.”

    Mainstream media coverage of Gab has attacked its free-speech approach to moderation, labeling it a haven of “QAnon conspiracy theories, misinformation and anti-Semitic commentary […] .”

    “Gab is not an ‘anti-semitic’ platform,” the company replied to Abbott’s tweet. “We protect the political speech of all Americans, regardless of viewpoint, because in this age of cancel culture nobody else will.”

    “The enemies of freedom smear us with every name in the book because they hate America and they hate free speech,” Gab continued. “It’s a shame to see a GOP politician fall for this trap when conservative values are under sustained attack all over the country.”

  • The woke brigade wants to kill off the SAT:

    Behind the Covid19 news, outside the 1619 wars, far more important than Dr Seuss, and much more far-reaching than dismantling the classics, a real line is being crossed in American education, and therefore American society as a whole. It’s the accelerating abandonment of standardized tests, the one objective measurement of students’ ability and potential in our society and culture: 77 percent of high school seniors sent in SAT scores in 2019-20; only 44 percent this year; and many schools want to keep it that way. What was initially a temporary suspension of tests because of Covid has become an opportunity to tear down the entire system.

    The rationale for the SAT abolition movement is — surprise! — critical theory, which insists that any measurement that results in different outcomes among ethnic or racial groups is a priori racist. (Except for all cases when non-whites and non-Asians do better than whites or Asians, in which case, never mind.) In the words this week of Congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York: “Standardized testing is a pillar of systemic racism.”

    His argument is pure Kendi: the results are solely and exclusively what determines if a test is racist. Not the test itself; not evidence about its fairness or otherwise; not data about how it is constructed; not studies that examine its effects alongside every other way of measuring academic potential. Just the results.

    There is no countering this argument because it is not an argument. It is a threat. All it tells us is that the power of the term “white supremacist” will be ruthlessly deployed to shut down anyone who dares to argue that the SAT is, in fact, the least culturally biased of all measurements, the one thing wealthy kids cannot buy, and the most helpful tool in discovering the potential of poor, first-generation immigrant, black and Hispanic children, and rescuing them from the restrictions of class as well as race.

  • “Whitmer’s Michigan State Health Department Refuses To Release Nursing Home COVID Death Data. Gee, I wonder why? (Hat tip: johnnyk20001.)
  • Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in Canada despite everyone in the nursing home being vaccinated?
  • In Hollywood, vaccine lines are for the little people.
  • Portland Antifa is at it again, trying to storm banks and break into the federal courthouse again. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Milo Yiannopoulos now says he’s ex-gay. “I was never wholly at home in the gay lifestyle — Who is? Who could be? — and only leaned heavily into it in public because it drove liberals crazy to see a handsome, charismatic, intelligent gay man riotously celebrating conservative principles.” Whatever. His agent provocateur pose has worn pretty thin over the years. But I suspect this is one “lifestyle choice” liberals won’t be celebrating.
  • “10,000th Victim Comes Forward To Accuse Cuomo Of Inappropriately Killing Her Grandma.”
  • “Biden Finally Visits ‘On The Border’ To See Crisis Everyone’s Talking About.”

  • “Man Glad He’s American So He Doesn’t Have To Pretend To Care About Royal Family.”

    Local man Craig Trudeau gave thanks to the good Lord above today that he’s an American so he doesn’t have to pretend to care about the royal family at all.

    Trudeau said he is extremely humbled and grateful to have been born in the best country ever created by God, especially because it means he doesn’t have to care about Meghan Markle or Prince Harry.

    “Lord, thank you that I was born in your chosen country of America, so that I don’t have to give a wooden nickel about whoever this prince and princess or king or duke or whoever they are,” he said Monday as he cleaned his AR-15 and shot off fireworks in front of his house, because he lives in America and so can do whatever he wants.

  • Russian scientist has a simple plan for resurrecting the dead that involves constructing Dyson Spheres and super-powerful AIs trading information with other universes in the multiverse. Why it’s all so simple! I’m sure the illustrious government functionaries fighting to fire people over pronouns will get right on that.
  • Heh:

  • Heh 2:

  • I think he was hungry:

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for November 20, 2020

    Friday, November 20th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Coronavirus is up around the world again, Democrats keep behaving badly (talk about your evergreen themes), some fun dog links, and it’s time to celebrate Life Day again!

  • Good news, everyone! No more lockdowns in Texas! It took him long enough, but Governor Greg Abbott realizes what Democratic governors haven’t: all the Wuhan coronavirus infection curves seem the same, lockdowns don’t seem to work, masks don’t seem to work, the survival rate for the non-elderly, non-immune-compromised is well over 99%.
  • Speaking of which: Sweden, after having seemed to beat the bug through a strategy of herd immunity, now sees cases rising.
  • Indeed, all of Europe seems to be getting hit again. Nobody knows nuthin.
  • For liberals who still can’t understand President Trump’s appeal: “US Household Incomes Increased More in 2018 Than in the Previous 20 Years—Combined.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Hundreds of Companies That Got Stimulus Aid Have Failed.” Government can’t pick winners, but it can sure create losers. (Hat tip: Holly Hansen.)
  • Defunding the police and the damage done. “Homicides in Minneapolis are up 50 percent.”
  • Andy Ngo on all the politicians who have turned Portland into a shithole:

    This week brought news that Portland City Commissioner (as councilmembers are known) Jo Ann Hardesty called the cops over an argument with a Lyft driver days before the city council was scheduled to vote on her proposal to slash millions from the police budget.

    The hypocrisy is glaring, but the bigger lesson is about the damage an activist political class can do to cities all over America if they follow in Portland’s foolish footsteps.

    Hardesty has been a vocal advocate of Black Lives Matter and defunding the ­police. During a ride home, she allegedly belittled and berated her driver over a partially open window, a COVID-19 recommendation from the ride-sharing service itself. After the driver had enough of the abuse and canceled the ride, Hardesty refused to get out and called 911.

    Portland politics have become the subject of national scrutiny by both the media and President Trump following more than 120 days of riots this year. While much attention has ­focused on the city’s feckless mayor, Ted Wheeler, others on the council have equally enabled a rapid descent into disorder.

    Since Hardesty was elected to the council in 2018, her staunch hostility to police has earned her the approval of Black Lives Matter and ­antifa activists in Portland. Ordinary Portlanders have paid the price for that approval.

    Days after her abuse of emergency services, the council took up Hardesy’s proposal to slash $18 million from the police budget. Already in June, she had spearheaded a successful effort to cut $15 million. Her newest proposal narrowly failed, however. Dan Ryan, the commissioner who was the swing vote, had his home vandalized that night by a mob of antifa militants.

    Portlanders have suffered immensely this year from the grandstanding of left-wing politicians who run the city. Mayor Wheeler oversaw six months of anti-police riots that have turned downtown into an empty shell of itself. When the federal government sent in reinforcements in July to protect a federal courthouse under siege, the city council passed a resolution banning Portland Police from communicating with federal agencies.
    see also

    Hardesty’s initial police-defunding package has had deadly consequences. As part of the cuts, police units that investigate gun ­violence, work in schools and patrol the transit system were disbanded. The result? In just the first month, shootings increased by almost 200 percent compared to the previous year. In the months since, homicides and shootings have continued to soar.

  • Ding-dong, the witch is… still Speaker of the House. I foresee two more years of robust NRCC fundraising.
  • “Biden to Continue Obama Tradition of Packing White House with Corporate Lobbyists:

    With Joe Biden poised to take office in 2021, reports suggest he plans to follow in Obama’s footsteps by hiring a bunch of corporate lobbyists in senior roles.

    At least two former lobbyists who will assume top roles in the Biden administration previously served on Biden’s staff during the Obama administration. Steve Ricchetti, who served as then-Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, will join the White House as counselor to the president. Ricchetti founded his own lobbying firm in 2001 and worked on behalf of corporate clients such as AT&T, Eli Lily, and the American Bankers Association.

    Ron Klain, who also served as then-Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, will take on the role of White House chief of staff in the Biden administration. Klain is a veteran of the K Street lobbying firm O’Melveny & Myers. His clients included U.S. Airways, AOL Time Warner, and ImClone, a pharmaceutical company whose CEO was convicted for fraud. Klain also lobbied on behalf of mortgage giant Fannie Mae in an effort to fight off stricter oversight from Congress.

    Rep. Cedric Richmond (D., La.) will also join the Biden administration in a senior advisory role. The move was blasted by environmental groups that pointed out Richmond’s close ties to Big Oil. During his 10 years in Congress, for example, Richmond received more than $340,000 in donations from the oil and gas industry and frequently joined Republicans in voting against legislation opposed by the industry.

    Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, will join the incoming administration as a deputy chief of staff. She is a cofounder of Precision Strategies, an “integrated strategy and marketing agency” that was recently hired by the American Investment Council, a lobbying group for private equity firms.

    If the election fraud isn’t overturned…

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Just because California’s peasants are locked down due to the cornavirus and can’t have Thanksgiving with the family doesn’t mean that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom can’t have a maskless dinner with high-rolling lobbyists at swanky restaurant The French Laundry. Rules are for the little people, not for your betters in the ruling class…
  • Speaking of Newsom: Courts don’t seem to agree with his rule by fiat:

    The judge ruled that Newsom violated the state constitution by unilaterally ordering that all registered voters be sent mail-in ballots. More importantly, she found good cause for a permanent injunction restraining Newsom from issuing any further unconstitutional orders that make “new statutory law or legislative policy.”

    The court rejected Newsom’s extraordinary claim that a state of emergency centralizes the state’s powers in the hands of the governor, thus turning California into an autocracy. This is the unlawful basis on which Newsom has collapsed our system of checks and balances, issuing 58 executive orders and changing over 400 laws unilaterally.

    Specifically, the judge rejected Newsom’s argument that Section 8627 of the Emergency Services Act gives him autocratic powers. At least 24 of his executive orders rely on that section.

    As far as the most damaging order, Newsom’s arbitrary and unscientific lockdown scheme, that too is newly vulnerable. The Pacific Legal Foundation’s new lawsuit uses the same separation-of-powers argument our victory established as a successful legal theory.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Speaking of some pigs being more equal than others: “As America locks down, 20 lawmakers from 3 states really just flew to Maui to mingle with a bunch of lobbyists at a posh resort for 4 days.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • So the largest city in the state that voted to removed pedophiles from the sex offender registry is considering eliminating the sex crimes unit due to budget cuts.

    (Hat tip: Ian Miles Chong.)

  • Michigan’s Speaker of the House throws cold water on the idea of impeaching Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
  • Evidently being a horrible anti-Semite means you get suspended from the Labour Party for all of three weeks.
  • Another day, another hate crime hoax. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Cincinnati Democratic city councilman P.G. Sittenfeld indicted on bribery. Bonus: Sittenfeld was the third Cincinnati city council critter indicted this year.
  • Is actor Matthew McConnaughey going to run for governor of Texas? Eh. I like Hugh Hewitt, but the governor suggestion is just sort of tossed out there by him.
  • Another male feminist/anti-#GamerGater turns out to be a creeper. What are the odds?
  • I’m an unabashed partisan, but I’m getting pretty tired of politicians filling up my phone with text messages begging for money. Yeah, the Georgia runoff is important, I get it. But multiple text message begs a day just piss me off.
  • You know what’s worse than getting accidentally ejected from a fighter plane? Getting partially ejected.
  • IThoughtThisWasAmerica.jpg.
  • Heh:

  • “Disney Capitalizes On Success Of Baby Yoda With Baby Jar Jar.” To be fair, Baby Jar Jar is probably more tolerable than the original…
  • Speaking of Star Wars remakes being more tolerable than the original, the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special is now out on Disney+.
  • Speaking of Disney, science fiction author Alan Dean Foster claims Disney is screwing him out of royalties. Not cool, mouse. Not cool.
  • 8-Bit version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” Stumbled on this again after posting it many years ago, and it provides great background music to work by…
  • Man finds shelter for 300 dogs ahead of hurricane. In his own house.

  • High Golden Retriever.
  • Doggy fashion-plate:

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