November 16th, 2010
Of 11 of the 13 counts against him by the House ethics committee.
And what will Rangel be sentenced to for tax evasion, rent control fraud, etc.? Most likely, a strongly worded letter. He’ll get to live on in the 112th congress as reminder of Nancy Pelosi’s “most ethical congress ever.”
And how badly did his ethics problems hurt him at the polls? He won his race against Michel Faulkner by 86% of the vote. Maybe if he had killed someone on live television, his poll numbers might have dipped into the 70s…
Tags: Charlie Rangel, corrupt scumbags, corruption, Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, tax evasion
Posted in Democrats, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
November 13th, 2010
Incumbent Democrat Ben Chandler eked out a win over Republican Andy Barr by 648 votes.
That leaves Republicans with a net gain of 61 seats in the 2010 elections, with six races still undecided.
Tags: Andy Barr, Ben Chandler, Elections, Kentucky
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »
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 »
November 11th, 2010
Another week, another roundup of the World of jihad:
- Arabs would evidently prefer to see a little Arab boy die rather than have his life saved by an Israeli ambulance
- Jihadists try to blow up airplanes by stuffing dogs with bombs. Killing the dogs in the process. Angries up the blood, it does.
- My congressman, Rep. John Carter, wonders why the Pentagon still has not acknowledged that “radical Islamic terrorism” was the cause of the Ft. Hood rampage. (At some point I should put up pics from Carter’s picnic. He got a lot of pictures with my dog…)
- The Turkish media seems happy to keep their own citizens in the dark about what really happened with the Peace and Happiness Flotilla earlier this year.
- Reza Aslan is one of those “moderate Muslim spokesman,” who, when you actually examine their words and deeds, turns out not to be so moderate after all…
- Pope: Hey, how about some religious freedom in Islamic countries? I wouldn’t hold your breath…
- Especially in Hamasistan, who have declared that they’re not going to let any of those filthy, stinking Shi’a into their country, much less Christians, Buddhists or (ha!) Jews. (Which, of course, won’t prevent them from taking money from the Shi’a theocracy in Tehran.)
- The latest group of racist, bigoted Americans to oppose the Ground Zero Mosque: Muslims.
- A Somalia sex-slave ring is operating out of: A.) Mogadishu, B.) Cairo, or C.) Minneapolis?
Tags: Ground Zero Mosque, Hamas, Islam, Israel, Jihad, John Carter, Michael Totten, Palestinians, Reza Aslan, sexual slavery, Turkey
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »
November 11th, 2010
Another LinkSwarm of sundry sundries:
- More reasons to be thankful Paul Kanjorksi is gone.
- “Much of what this Democratic Congress did, or tried to do, was like throwing Molotov cocktails at business.”
- Top Ten Upsets of the 2010 Election. (Warning: slide show.) Some of the surprises were the Democrats that didn’t lose (such as Harry Reid), but several (Ortiz, Oberstar, Wilson, Gene Taylor) were upsets I predicted.
- The RNCC has put up a page (with donations links) for the eight house races still up in the air.
- The question isn’t whether Blake Farenthold beat Solomon Ortiz, the question is whether the win is “outside the margin of ACORN.”
- Need an example of the above? Try this: “The Bean campaign approached the Cook County Clerk’s Office, requested and received a list of all outstanding absentee ballots with name, address, and phone numbers. As alarming as that was, they also asked for and were provided an exact image of a blank absentee ballot.”
- Study after study have shown Republicans are more generous than Democrats. This year’s election just proved that the same applies to the Texas congressional delegation. “The 20 Texas Republican incumbents, none of whom faced serious opposition, gave an average of $100,000 each to Republicans. Texas Democrats, meanwhile, provided relatively meager support for endangered Democratic incumbents. They averaged $26,000 in donations to other candidates in their party.”
- The Democrats have a Rust Belt problem: “The drop-off in Democratic support among older voters and white voters from the last midterm election is remarkable. In 2006 Democrats lost white voters by 4 points in House races, which are a fairly good indicator of party preference, and they tied among voters 65 and over. This year they lost whites by 23 points and lost older voters by 21 points.”
- “Many Dem Staffers on Capitol Hill Face Tough Job Market.” Perhaps they should check with IBM. I hear they’re working on a nanoscale violin construction program that might be appropriate for them…
Tags: ACORN, Blake Farenthold, Charles Wilson (Ohio), Chicago, Democrats, Elections, Gene Taylor, James Oberstar, Joe Walsh, Melissa Bean, Paul Kanjorski, Republicans, Solomon Ortiz, voting fraud
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
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 »
November 10th, 2010
I’m sure the average BattleSwarm reader came to this conclusion heretofore, but Derek Thompson provides a statistical roundup in The Atlantic that proves it. They also find lesser effects for the other three votes I’ve highlighted here (Stimulus, TARP, and Cap-and-Trade):
For Democrats in the least Democratic districts, the model suggests a loss of about 4 percent for every yes vote. If vulnerable Democrats hadn’t voted for any of the four bills, he concludes, Democrats would have won 32 more seats, enough to retain control of the House. Even after you remove TARP (which was a must-vote in scary times), the three-vote impact was 24 seats — not enough to keep the House, but close.
Although at least one study he cites shows no effect for the last that can’t be explained for the other three.
But it all comes back to what all non-liberal Americans have been telling Democrats for a year or longer: It’s the ObamaCare, stupid.
Tags: Cap-and-Trade, Derek Thompson, Elections, ObamaCare, Stimulus, TARP
Posted in Democrats, Elections, ObamaCare | 1 Comment »
November 10th, 2010
Another day, another bucket of post-election links for your clickity goodness:
- Liberals admit what they really want.
- Rick Perry wins not despite skipping newspaper endorsements, but because of it. I’m glad to see Republican politicians finally picking up on this. “When in doubt, vote against the Statesman and Austin Chronicle‘s endorsements” has long been part of the standard operating procedures among my friends…
- Dick Morris on why Obama’s last minute appeals to the Democratic base partially blunted the Republican tsunami. A few salient points:
- Singles, under-$25,000-income voters, and voters 18-29 all decided late and broke for Obama, indicating the “rally the base” appeal partially worked.
- Blacks cast only 10 percent of the vote and Latinos only 8 percent in the 2010 elections. In 2008, they cast 13 and 10 percent, respectively.
- Union members broke evenly, with 49 percent backing Democrats and 47 percent voting Republican.
- Voters under 30 constituted only 11 percent of the vote, and those 18-24 were just 3 percent. [Insert generic geezer anti-Facebooking, Twitter, Pabst-Blue-Ribbon Swilling Anti-Hipster Get-off-My-Lawn rant here.]
- This year was pretty bad for Democrats, but 2012 isn’t looking much better: “Short-term trends look dismal for congressional Democrats. Even if Democrats turn their political fortunes around, they’re still likely to lose seats in the Senate and will be hard-pressed to make inroads in the House, thanks to factors entirely out of their control.” The reasons include Democrats playing defense on more Senate seats in red and battleground states, Republicans controlling redistricting and, of course, Nancy Pelosi. “Obama wasn’t the reason we lost. It was because of Pelosi. She was a turnout machine – for the other side.”
Tags: Democrats, Dick Morris, LinkSwarm, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Rick Perry
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | 1 Comment »
November 9th, 2010
National Journal updates the state of play in the House races that still haven’t been decided yet.
Short version:
- California 11: Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney holds a 628-vote lead over Republican David Harmer, but not all ballots from Republican-leaning locales have been counted yet.
- California 20 Republican Andy Vidak leads Democratic incumbent Jim Costa by a mere 145 votes.
- Illinois 8: Republican Joe Walsh leads Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean, which should hold up unless Cook County cooks up some fraud (and when has that ever happened?).
- Kentucky 6: Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler leads Republican Andy Barr by 649 votes, recanvass starts next week
- New York 1: Republican Randy Altschuler leads Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop by either 392 votes or 383 votes.
- New York’s 25: Republican Ann Marie Buerkle leads Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei by 659 votes, but there are still ballots to be counted.
- Texas 27: Republican Blake Farenthold leads Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz by 792 votes, with only 736 overseas and provisional ballots left to count. Ortiz wants a manual recount.
Tags: Andy Barr, Andy Vidak, Ann Marie Buerkle, Ben Chandler, Blake Farenthold, Cook County, Dan Maffei, David Harmer, Democrats, Elections, Jerry McNerney, Jim Costa, Joe Walsh, Melissa Bean, Randy Altschuler, Recounts, Republicans, Solomon Ortiz, Tim Bishop
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »