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 »
November 8th, 2010
Another day, another LinkSwarm.
- Liberal coach plays all players, good or bad, equal minutes, says having fun more important than winning. Conservative coach plays best players, makes winning the top priority. Guess which one they enjoy playing for more?
- Democrat Gabrielle Giffords holds on to Arizona’s eighth congressional district over Jesse Kelly.
- A lot of those Democratic House seats lost this year may be gone for good, or at least a decade.
- Voters don’t want big government:
Democrats must grasp that their defeats were not about deficient personalities or insufficient communication, but about their philosophy and substance. Roughly two out of three voters agreed with the statements that President Obama “has failed to deliver hope and change” and that in the midst of an economic crisis, Democrats “had their priorities wrong.” The post-midterm realities are simple: If the Republicans don’t deliver on their promises, they’re finished. If the Democrats continue doing what they’re doing, they’re finished.
- Will Democrats get the message? Probably not, since some defeated Democrats are saying they lost because they just weren’t liberal enough, like defeated Dem congressman Alan “Crazy Pills” Grayson.
- They’re also getting ready to put Nancy Pelosi in charge of their caucus yet again.
Tags: Alan Grayson, Democrats, Elections, Gabrielle Giffords, Jesse Kelly, Nancy Pelosi, Obama
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »
November 6th, 2010
Now that the rush of the election is over, I’ve been taking it (relatively) easy for the past few days. Expect more post-election analysis next week. We’re also still waiting to hear back on not only those eleven House races where recounts are still ongoing, but there’s a twelfth race, between Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler for New York’s First District, that is not only up in the air due to 3,500 ballots wrongly attributed to Bishop, but which Altschuler now leads (though several thousand absentee, etc. ballots remain to be counted). Once that is done I can do a post-election analysis of my predictions. (Pending those outcomes, it looks like I did pretty well for my House prediction, but not as good on the Senate.)
In the meantime, here are a few links of interest
Tags: Democrats, Elections, Randy Altschuler, Republicans, Tim Bishop
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
November 4th, 2010
Just because the U.S. has an election doesn’t mean Islamic fundamentalists rest. So here’s a roundup of Islamic- and Jihad-related news from around the world.
Tags: Bill Mahar, CAIR, Democrats, Elections, Iran, Islam, Islamist, Jihad, Keith Ellison, MEMRI, Michael Totten, Oklahoma, Saudi Arabia, This Week in Jihad
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Jihad | 1 Comment »
