A smattering of senate race updates:
Texas Senate Race Updates for May 12, 2011
May 12th, 20112012 Election Tidbits for May 11, 2011
May 11th, 2011A few 2012 election tidbits, on the Senate race and others.
Texas To (Further) Outlaw Cockfighting
May 10th, 2011The Right Side of Austin reports that HB 1043 will further outlaw cockfighting by closing several loopholes in the law.
The news gives me the excuse to post a video of the greatest song ever written about cockfighting, Tom Russell’s “Gallo del Cielo”:
Here Comes the Flood
May 10th, 2011Randall Munroe, the guy who does XKCD has an interesting post up on the possibility that the current Mississippi flood may overwhelm the Old River Control Structure that keeps the river from shifting course to the Atchafalaya, as I discussed last week.
And continuing the Peter Gabriel kick from my other blog, here’s a young Peter Gabriel doing “Here Comes the Flood” on the Kate Bush Christmas Special circa 1979:
In other news, there was a Kate Bush Christmas Special…
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tom Leppert And ACORN
May 9th, 2011Matt S. Dowling has a post up up claiming that not only was Tom Leppert playing footsie with the SEIU, but he also sought the endorsement of everyone’s favorite pimp assistance agency, ACORN.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t actually provided the links to the evidence. When I pressed him on the issue in comments, he said “You ask and you shall receive….on Wednesday.”
Well, I like things sooner rather than later, and I wonder if he was hinting at this video showing Leppert hobnobbing with ACORN. Here’s the embedded MySpace version of it (I know, in the age of YouTube that’s like asking you to listen to a Victrola, but that’s the format it’s in):
Tom Leppert Supports ACORN for Dallas Mayor
bird | Myspace Video
The video, with a date of June 1, 2007, looks like it was put together an ACORN/Hispanic outreach video for Leppert’s mayoral campaign. (Don’t ask me why they put the sepia-tone wash over everything.) And here’s a screen capture of the pledge it shows Leppert signing:
Assuming the date is accurate, and there’s no funny stuff in the video editing, it does indeed show that Leppert sought ACORN’s endorsement, and pledged to support some of their initiatives.
How damaging will this be to Leppert’s campaign? I don’t know. So much RINO baggage has tumbled out of Leppert’s closet that I don’t know how much more damage another skeleton can inflict.
I do look forwarding to checking in with Dowling on Wednesday to see what he’s dug up…
LinkSwarm for Monday, May 9, 2011
May 9th, 2011A few links of potential interest:
Osama Bin Laden IS Norma Desmond!
May 7th, 2011So the Pentagon has released captured video of Osama Bin Laden watching footage of himself on TV:
Setting aside why he would have had anyone filming him watching TV (maybe he was testing a new camera, or maybe he was looking forward to an “I’m So Meta” Hitler parody video), what this reminded me of most was Norma Desmond watching herself in Sunset Boulevard. That is to say, someone who was once a big international star the world had passed by and was now a has-been, watching faded footage of the glory days, delusional about still being important, unwilling to go outside and largely forgotten.
I’m not going to say that was a fitting end for him, as that was having U.S. soldiers forcibly evict large portions of gray matter from his skull. But it is a fitting prelude to a fitting end.
He was ready for his close-up.
Texas Taxpayers Defeat Liberal Interest Groups
May 7th, 2011Over on BurkaBlog I chanced across this framing of the debate over passing the state budget:
Who has more clout: A fictional Texas Ranger and a former major corporate CEO or a cadre of right wing interest groups?
Texas Senate Republicans gave an unabashed nod to the interest groups this week by passing a state budget that balances without tapping the rainy day fund. Instead, the Senate budget relies on accounting tricks and contingent spending. If an economic recovery fails to materialize, even deeper cuts to public education will occur.
The battle was for the senators’ heads and hearts on one side and fear of political retribution on the other. The public school coalition Raise Your Hand Texas ran television commercials featuring Tommy Lee Jones, who starred in the classic mini-series Lonesome Dove, and former GM and AT&T executive Ed Whitacre urging Texans to press against cuts to education. However, when the smoke cleared from the Senate’s budget debate, it was Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans, Peggy Venable of Americans for Prosperity, and Brooke Rollins of the Texas Public Policy Foundation who had carried the day.
The trio also ran commercials urging Republican senators to stick with state spending cuts proposed by the House. But lobbyists and lawmakers tell me the deciding factor was really the threat that the groups would find Republican primary opponents to run against incumbents and make sure the opponents were well financed. “It’s just intimidation,” said former Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff, one of the lobbyists for Raise Your Hand.
Well, that’s one way to spin the story. Here’s another way: Liberal pressure groups defeated by actual Texas taxpayers. And the possibility that an incumbent might actually be challenged in their primary? That’s not intimidation, it’s called democracy.
The underlying attitude of that piece seems to be: How dare elected representatives vote for limited government the way their constituents actually want rather than vote for big government the way liberal interest groups I agree with lobby for?
For years Republicans could get away with breaking their pledges to control government spending, knowing that the MSM would fall all over themselves to praise them for their “courage.” What’s changed has been the Tea Party and similar groups actually paying attention and challenging Republicans who break their promises. That’s what’s changed, and that’s what’s helping hold down spending.
No wonder liberals hate it.
Taxpayers can see the end results of the blue state model of big government, higher taxes, and caving in to unions and other liberal interest groups in California. Given the statements of some of the commentators here, California should be doing much better than Texas.
It isn’t. California businesses and taxpayers are leaving in droves to settle in Texas, because our red state economy is weathering the current recession much better than bankrupt, free-spending California.
The red state model is a success and the blue state model is a failure, and making an environment that is friendly to businesses and taxpayers is a far more effective strategy for states than making an environment that is friendly to big government, bureaucrat unions and liberal interest groups.
This is why Republicans are so firmly entrenched in Texas, and why Democrats haven’t won a statewide race in nearly two decades: The red state model works, the blue state model doesn’t.