July 19th, 2013
Detroit went bankrupt. One stranger was acquitted for shooting another stranger. Which do you think the media spent more time covering?
“Progressive politicians, wonks, and activists can only blame big corporations and other liberal bogeymen for so long. The truth is that corrupt machine politics in a one-party system devoted to the blue social model wrecked an entire city and thousands of lives beyond repair. The sooner blues come to terms with this reality, the greater chance other cities will have of avoiding Detroit’s fate.”
The IRS scandal now leads to the chief counsel, one of only two Obama appointees at the agency.
“The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
The Wall Street Journal makes the case for dismantling ObamaCare piece by piece.
Republican Insiders are very, very upset that Jim DeMint is exposing them for the RINOs they are.
My precious snowflake is extremely gifted. He’s also 29 and unemployed because so many jobs are unworthy of his Promethean talents. Matt Walsh: SMACKDOWN.
“The Democratic Party is a machine for inciting grievances in order to consolidate its power.”
Charles Barkley on the Zimmerman trial: “Just looking at the evidence I agreed with the verdict.”
A few facts about Marissa Alexander that may not be apparent from a two panel picture comparison with George Zimmerman.
“Reason for termination: Disabled veteran.”
“Negative perceptions of young black men are rooted in hard data on who commits crimes.”
Near empty New York hospital losing $3 million a week. Naturally, unions are demanding it stay open. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Charles Murray on American exceptionalism.
Marco Rubio was riding high. Then he became a shill for amnesty, and now his life is all sad trombones. I haven’t seen a serious national political aspirant fall so far since Gary Hart went boating.
Today’s serial Democratic Party groper who felt-up at least six women and who the state party forced their members to cover up for comes to you from California.
Tags: Blue State, California, Detroit, Gary Hart, George Zimmerman Trial, Heritage Foundation, IRS, Jim DeMint, LinkSwarm, Marco Rubio, Obama Scandals, ObamaCare, vets, Welfare State
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July 18th, 2013
Stockton, California can now breath a small sigh of relief. It’s no longer the largest American city to declare bankruptcy. Detroit has filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
Bonus: The city has more than 100,000 creditors.
This is the endpoint of the cradle-to-grave welfare state. Certainly Detroit got there faster than most will, thanks to endemic corruption, horrific mismanagement, and an overwhelmingly unionized (and thus expensive and inflexible) manufacturing base workforce. But the problem of overspending, bloated government, overregulation, declining population and cronyism are endemic to blue states and members of the European Union. Greece’s future is Detroit (with possibly fewer race riots), California’s future is Greece, and deficit spending continues, eventually the United States’ future is that of California.
Tags: Budget, Crime, Democrats, Detroit
Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats | No Comments »
July 17th, 2013
Texas Attorney General and 2014 Gubernatorial frontrunner Greg Abbott will be taking questions tonight on Twitter starting at 8 PM. Just use the #askabbott hashtag to ask the AG anything you want.
And as long as we’re on the subject of Abbott, here’s a video interview (though the sound quality is a little wonky):
Tags: 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Elections, Greg Abbott, Texas, video
Posted in Elections, Texas, video | No Comments »
July 16th, 2013
Time permitting, I’m hoping to do regular updates on the 2014 statewide races in Texas the same way I updated the senate race. But with so many more offices and players, it’s going to take me some time to get up to speed.
Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial warchest has swollen to a formidable $23 million.
He also visited Longview, Wichita Falls, and Duncanville.
Todd Staples leads the money race for Lt. Governor, according to this fragment of the story that isn’t behind the Statesman paywall.
Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, with $3 million in the bank, has the largest campaign treasury of the four Republican candidates for lieutenant governor, according to the latest fundraising statements, which were due Monday.
Thanks to a $650,000 personal loan to his campaign, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, the latest entrant in the race, edged past Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in money in the bank — $2.1 million to $1.73 million — even though Dewhurst raised $1.2 million compared with about $100,000 for Patrick. The fourth candidate, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, raised $417,000, bringing his treasury to $1.3 million. Patterson said he hopes to raise $3 million in the next six months to remain competitive, and Dewhurst has a personal fortune that he can tap
The Texas Tribune has more fundraising roundup news. Tidbits:
- State Rep. Dan Branch hasn’t even declared his AG run, but already has $4 million on hand, including a $5,000 donation from George W. Bush.
- Barry Smitherman has over $1 million cash on hand for his AG run.
- State Sen. Ken Paxton (honestly, I was just guessing he would make an AG run) has more than $1.6 million cash on hand. He hasn’t declared yet.
- George P. Bush reported $2 million raised and $2.6 million on hand for his Comptroller run.
I’ll be digging into the financial reports for all the major candidates when I get a chance (don’t hold your breath this week).
Democratic abortion diva Wendy Davis raised just under a million dollars…for her state senate campaign. No word on a governor’s run.
Even in-the-tank liberal fossil Paul Burka says Davis has no chance to win the Texas Governor’s race.
A David L. Watts, Jr. is running for Land Commissioner. His platform so far seems to be that George P. Bush isn’t conservative enough.
Tags: 2014 Election, Barry Smitherman, Bush43, Dan Branch, Democrats, Elections, George P. Bush, Greg Abbott, Jerry Patterson, Ken Paxton, Paul Burka, Republicans, Texas, Todd Staples, Wendy Davis
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
July 15th, 2013
When you’re a domain expert in something, sometimes you agree with the central point of an article, but enough details ring false that you wonder how closely the reporter has been following the story. For example, this Betsy Woodruff piece in National Review gets the big picture right (David Dewhurst’s loss to Ted Cruz has weakened him politically), but gets numerous details wrong.
“Only one person has ever lost an election to Ted Cruz, and he’s not doing so well right now. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst,”
No. The proper way to start that sentence is “Only one person has ever lost a runoff to Ted Cruz.” Paul Sadler lost an election to Ted Cruz, and a whole bunch of other candidates (Tom Leppert, Craig James, Glenn Addison, etc.) lost a primary to Cruz.
“But things went from bad to worse for him when the news broke, shortly after his defeat, that his former campaign manager, Kenneth Barfield, appeared to have stolen millions from the lieutenant governor’s campaign coffers over the previous five years.”
Last I checked, Barfield was accused of stealing a maximum of just over one million (singular), not millions (plural).
“Further, [Dan] Patrick used to be a vocal champion of Dewhurst’s. During the contest for the senatorial nomination, Patrick strongly defended the lieutenant governor on his radio show.”
This is not how I remember things. Patrick contemplated a run against Dewhurst himself, criticizing Dewhurst at length over his handling of the anti-TSA groping bill. He did finally come down on Dewhurst’s side against Cruz very late in the game, i.e., only a week before the runoff, but I don’t recall him being particularly vocal. (Granted, I don’t listen to Patrick’s radio show. Maybe he was far more vocal in support there in that last week.)
The piece is otherwise fairly reasonable, but I found it just wrong enough to merit correction…
Tags: 2012 Election, 2014 Election, Betsy Woodruff, Dan Patrick, David Dewhurst, Elections, Kenneth Barfield, National Review, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
July 14th, 2013
Abbott makes his run official: “That’s why I’m asking you, the people of Texas, to elect me as your next governor.”
Jay Root posted this pic of the sign they handed out at Greg Abbott’s San Antonio event
Livestream of the announcement here.
Lots of standard family introductions and Abbott telling his life story, including the accident that put him in a wheelchair. “Politicians get up and talk about having a spine of steel. I actually have one.”
“The very day the President signed ObamaCare, I took him to court to fight for our constitutional rights.”
“The second amendment and the tenth amendment are not suggestions. They are guaranteed rights that I will preserve, protect, and defend.”
More later.
Tags: 2014 Election, Elections, Greg Abbott, Texas
Posted in Elections, Texas | No Comments »
July 14th, 2013
Today is Bastille Day, so here’s a memorial by Rush:
Every year Jerry Pournelle puts up an informative blurb on Bastille Day:
On July 14, 1789, the Paris revolutionaries with aid of the local militia stormed the Bastille, a fortress in downtown Paris which was similar in purpose to the Tower of London. The revolutionaries freed all the prisoners held in the Bastille on royal warrants. They were all aristocrats: four forgers, two madmen, and a young man who had challenged the best swordsman in Paris to a duel, and whose father had him locked up so that the duel could not take place. The garrison consisted largely of invalid and retired French soldiers. After the surrender much of the garrison was slaughtered and their heads paraded on pikes. The four forgers vanished. The two madmen were sent to the common madhouse where they much missed the special treatment they’d had in the Bastille. The final freed prisoner joined the Revolution, became Citizen Egalite, and was later killed by guillotine in the Place de la Concorde for joining the wrong faction.
Eventually, the death toll from the French Revolution’s “Reign of Terror” would range in “the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine…and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.”
There are many, many reasons the American Revolution was different from the French Revolution…
Tags: Bastille Day, French Revolution, history, Jerry Pournelle, Reign of Terror
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
July 12th, 2013
Last night was the night when we, as Americans, set aside our political differences and came together to watch Sharknado. But time hurries on! Time for another Friday LinkSwarm:
50+ years of Democratic rule turn Detroit into a failed city.
David Stockman says the recovery is bunk.
Ted Cruz would make a formidable Presidential candidate.
Thomas Sowell: The Left refuse to grapple with the issue of Evil. “Disarmament means making decent, law-abiding people more vulnerable to evil people.”
ObamaCare mandate delayed. “It has become a trope among defenders of the law that its flaws are the fault of Republicans because they don’t want to fix them. They must have seen their own peculiar version of Schoolhouse Rock!: The first step in making a law is jamming a massive bill down the opposition’s throat. The second is whining that the opposition won’t fix problems inherent in the bill jammed down their throats.”
The FEC is another IRS scandal waiting to happen.
Speaking of the IRS, they’ve been told to audit Americans, but to give out fraudulent refunds to illegal aliens.
A week after he’s deposed, the Obama Administration suddenly realizes that Morsi is an undemocratic asshat.
Vladamir Putin’s thugs put on a showtrial for a guy three years in the grave.
Big Jolly notes that Texans overwhelmingly support Attorney General Greg Abbott on Voter ID.
Salt is no longer bad for you. Now, when do we get an apology from Nurse Bloomberg?
Tags: 2016 Election, David Stockman, Democrats, Detroit, Egypt, FEC, Guns, LinkSwarm, Mohammed Morsi, ObamaCare, Sharknado, Ted Cruz, Thomas Sowell
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Guns, ObamaCare | No Comments »
July 11th, 2013
The hot days of summer are here. Texas is now into its usual 100° summer days. However, if it’s any consolation, Death Valley hit a record 129° in June.
Texas’ business climate is a lot like our summers: hot, hot, hot! California’s business climate is a lot like Death Valley: Still and oppressive.
On to the Texas vs. California roundup:
Unemployment claims are up in California.
You know all that talk of California having a small budget surplus? That doesn’t count the $10.3 billion California owes the federal government for unemployment compensation, an amount that is not expected to be paid off until 2020.
Between 2007/8 and 2013/14, “the officially reported unfunded pension liability for state workers through the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) grew from $31.7 billion to $57.2 billion, an 80.1% increase.”
He, remember that short-lived BART strike? How horribly were the employees “underpaid?” “BART employees — including management and nonunion workers — earn an average of about $83,000 annually in gross pay, contribute nothing toward their retirement and $92 monthly to health insurance. Their pay and total compensation are both the highest in the Bay Area among transit agencies.”
BART’s highest paid employee in 2012? Someone who earned $333,000 and never worked a day that year.
California’s coming health insurance death spiral.
California writer explains why he and his family relocated to Texas.
Did taxes help Dwight Howard decide to leave the Los Angeles Lakers for the Houston Rockets?
Rick Perry retiring means the Texas is losing on of its greatest pitchmen to the business community.
California, bluest of blue states, forcibly sterilized female prisoners. Well, liberal’s love of eugenics goes back at least as far as Margaret Sanger…
Tags: California, eugeneics, Margaret Sanger, ObamaCare, Texas, unemployment, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, ObamaCare, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
July 10th, 2013
The ongoing European Debt Crisis hasn’t ended, it’s merely undergoing a summer hiatus while the various bankers and Eurocrats involved in the shell game take their customary 8 week vacations. As such, expect a new round of crisis headlines to come rolling in during the fall.
Remember: The purpose of the shell game is to let insiders unload their bad debts onto taxpayers. (Look how it was done in Ireland for pointers.) The shell game will continue as long as the insiders can get away with buying off restive electorates with an unsustainable cradle-to-grave welfare state.
Europe’s present is our future.
Once again, Greece is being given money to pretend to reform. Look for more fake austerity, and another bailout in six months.
“Greece will never repay the money it’s been lent to ‘save’ it. The current debate over whether Greece has done enough by way of reform, tax hikes and spending cuts to have earned the next tranche of bailout funds is largely beside the point. If Greece is cut loose, or walks away, its euro-zone creditors will lose their money. The Greeks and the Germans are surely both aware of this. They’re also aware that Greece’s external debt position is far worse than when the bailouts began—when its debt stood at a mere 129% of GDP—and that any talk of debt sustainability in Greece has become a joke.” It’s now at 157% of GDP.
Predictably, Greek unions respond to more fake austerity and staff cuts by extending strikes.
Europeans realize that their governments are corrupt. Those who think they’re not corrupt? “In Spain that number is just 8 percent. In Italy, it’s 13 percent. And Greeks and Portuguese have the least trust in the world regarding their governments’ efforts: Just 1 percent of respondents say their government is making strides against corruption.”
And just how corrupt is Greece? “Politicians and journalists are viewed as on the take by most Greeks with 50 percent also saying they’ve had to bribe public officials to get services.”
Eurozone unemployment hits all time highs.
The EU is preparing a banking union bill. No word on whether it will require depositors to take haircuts like those in Cyprus in the event of a bank failure.
And speaking of bank failures, there are rumblings that Slovenia will require a bailout.
Portugal is still trudging through their own bank bailout…
…despite which they may still need another bailout.
Italy could be forced to beg for a bailout in six months.
UK actually proposes to roll back some 35 EU laws. This may be the first sign that Cameron’s wet Tories have actually noticed how effectively Nigel Farge’s UKIP is eating into their base…
UKIP itself says it’s a threat to the entire political class Well, let’s hope so…
Latvia is now set to join the Euro on January 1, 2014.
Tags: Budget, Euro, Europe, European Debt Crisis, Greece, unions, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »