Is Lamar Smith Running Scared?!?

An interesting development in the Matt McCall/Lamar Smith race:

Lamar Smith, who is seeking re-election to U.S. Congress District 21 of Texas, was to be the guest speaker at the Kyle Buda Republican Group (KBRG) meeting last Saturday, but he cancelled suddenly a few days before the meeting. Asked why Lamar Smith had cancelled, the KBRG President responded, “He cancelled when I called to give him a heads-up that Matt McCall would be at the meeting". Smith recently cancelled another speech in Bexar County for the same reason. Lamar Smith’s re-election campaign manager has been contacting Republican groups in CD 21 to book these speaking engagements for his boss, Lamar Smith. In cancelling the speaking engagements, Smith’s campaign manager insisted that the speeches were strictly “State of the Union” speeches, which would not be delivered if Mr. McCall was allowed to attend.

 Read the whole thing here.

Update: Lamar Smith to appear on Joe Pags show at 5:30 pm today!!!  Call in at 210-737-1200

Greg Abbott supports banning Taxpayer Funded Lobbyists!!!

A hidden gem in Abbott's latest proposal:

Prohibit the use of tax dollars for the purpose of engaging a registered lobbyist to lobby on the behalf of a school district or the board or association thereof. 

School districts should directly represent the needs of their communities before the legislature, and not waste taxpayer resources on lobbyists. School district leadership must not rely on lobbyists to do the work voters elected them to do. These leaders are elected or appointed in part to vigorously represent and defend their constituents – the hiring of lobbyists to meet this same goal is superfluous. School districts are funded by the state through the school finance formulas. By contrast, Teachers Associations are funded by dues. Utilizing state tax dollars to hire private lobbyists to influence the state (and its budgetary priorities) is an abuse of the public trust. 

…. 

It is, in part, the legality of lobbyists for the entrenched interests of school districts that makes meaningful reform of Texas’ public education system so difficult. These expenditures of taxpayer funds to hire private lobbyists to influence taxpayer-funded government officials should be prohibited.

Good for Abbott; taxpayer funded lobbyists are a crucial component of the business-as-usual crowd.

Battleground Texas FAILS: Dubya's Hometown Stays Red

Yowza; score one for the good guys:

Democrats have a new strategy to field radical candidates in conservative areas: targeting non-partisan races. In the Midland Mayoral Election, Democratic activist and City Councilman John James was an early favorite in the race. Announcing his candidacy unseasonably early and garnering major contributions from high-dollar Republican donors, James had a lead in name identification and fundraising by the end of August. 

Branding himself as a “strong fiscal conservative”, James tried to conceal a consistent history of Democratic activism, involvement and contributions. Attempting to downplay his “former” party affiliations, James obfuscated his record of service to the State Democratic Executive Committee and numerous, Democratic political contributions. According to a statement on James’ Facebook page, “I am completely non-partisan.” 

As a way of ignoring this inconvenient issue, James highlighted the fact that he was the only candidate with a Master’s degree in City Management as his greatest qualification for the job. For any discerning participant of the political process, one salient issue contrasts James’ lacquer: non-partisan does not mean non-political. Party affiliations give testament to political philosophy, attitudes toward issues and inform decisions on important policy questions.  

.... 

Activists worked hard on behalf of local businessman and conservative Republican, Jerry Morales. Conservative Republican leaders united behind Morales for his conservative record and experience as an at-large City Councilman. On Election Night, the question was virtually decided in early voting returns. By the end of the counting, Morales bested James by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. With 61% of the vote, Morales received not only the plurality of the vote needed to win among the five candidates, but a sizable majority with a margin of victory unseen in a Midland Mayor’s race in recent memory.

Cahnman's Musings has little love for George W. Bush these days.  That being said, the Republican Party in Texas remains tied to him.  Whether we like it or not, had a radical Obama-ite gotten elected mayor in Midland, it would have been spun as a major victory for Battleground Texas.  But the Tea Party had other things to say.  Congratulations to Midland!!!

How Obamacare Promotes TERRIBLE Sex

"Let's Get Physical

OMg, he's hot!
Let's hope he's as easy to get as this
birth control.  My health insurance
covers the pill, which means all I have
to worry about him between
the covers*  I got insurance.
Now you can too.
Thanks Obamacare

*The pill doesn't protect you from STD's, condoms and common sense do that."

Yesterday, the Obamacare ad pictured above made the internet rounds.  It's obviously tasteless and terrible.  In God's eternal sense of humor, however, on the same day Alfred Kinsey's disciples released this study:

Orgasms uncommon in women during casual sex

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Women are much less likely to have a sexual climax during casual sex than in committed relationships, U.S. researchers say.

….

A study Garcia led involving 600 college students found women were half as likely to reach orgasm from intercourse or oral sex in hookups as they were serious relationships.

….

"Women are not feeling very free in these casual contexts to say what they want and need," New York University sociologist Paula England told the Times.

England, who led a separate study of 24,000 students at 21 colleges over five years, found about 40 percent of women had an orgasm during their last recreational-sex encounter involving intercourse, while 80 percent of men did.

By contrast, about 75 percent of the women in the survey said they had an orgasm the last time they had sex in a committed relationship.

….

"The way we view sex in porn and in movies and in books, people aren't talking to each other like, 'Oh, my foot's falling asleep, we need to move,'" she said.

LOL: "Obamacare, making 'my foot's falling asleep' sex more possible!!!"

-----

History Lesson: We wrote about this topic last year after the Presidential election:

Here's why there's hope: what Marxists will never tell you is that while yes, promiscuity can lead to lots of sex, most of that sex is bad.  As someone who grew up around leftists, and as a repentant little whore myself, I cannot overemphasize how much time liberals spend complaining about bad sex.  By contrast, married conservative Christians have the best sex.  Leftists might be able to muddy the waters on gross diseases and poorly timed conceptions, but they can't defend bad sex.

-----

Update: Good Greif, speaking of Obamacare forcing women into having bad sex, now there's this:



(h/t Breitbart)

Is Abortion Barbie "ready for Prime Time'?!?

A liberal op-ed columnist on Candidate Barbie's visit to South Texas last week:

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis’ two-day stop in the Rio Grande Valley this week should have been a carefully choreographed affair during which the notable state senator from Fort Worth gathered support in this Democratically rich, yet predominantly pro-life, Hispanic and Catholic region. 

However, at least one of her appearances here was plagued with missteps, gaffes and goofs by the candidate and her campaign. And it has me questioning whether Davis is really ready for prime time. 

.... 

From the poor choice of venue to her disappointing remarks and even her handlers, the event reeked of amateurism. It certainly wasn’t worthy of the leading Democratic contender nor should it be representative of how she runs her campaign if she is to have any hope of defeating outspoken, well-financed Republican candidate Attorney General Greg Abbott in November 2014. 

 
I say this with all sincerity and with sadness. Because I want to believe that Davis could win and be our next governor. But from what I saw Wednesday night, I don’t believe it in my heart — at least not unless she makes serious campaign changes.  

Rather than hold the Pharr event, which was open to the public, inside the nicely decorated and air conditioned Poncho’s restaurant, we were trotted out back beneath a palapa (large thatch hutch) that smelled stuffy and moldy amidst the evening’s rain. It had uneven floors and was poorly lit. And rather than a crowd of curious voters that I expected to find, there were numerous plastic tables manned by local volunteer phone bank callers who were admitted into the venue in exchange for stumping for Davis — on their own cellphones — for two hours prior to her arrival. They read their spiel from a typed “recruitment script” written in English and Spanish and introduced themselves on behalf of “a new grassroots Democratic organization,” Battleground Texas.  

It was embarrassing to watch as a campaign staffer prematurely announced Davis’ arrival and urged everyone to stand up and chant, which they did for several minutes until it was obvious that Davis wasn’t there. “I thought she was here,” a worker mused into the microphone to the quizzical and confused glances from the crowd of 60 or so. In retrospect, it was a harbinger of what was to come (or not) and representative of the disorganization and confusion that is apparently plaguing this fledgling month-old campaign. 

.... 

No matter how it was phrased, it was clear Davis would not say "abortion" and would steer the subject back to education at every turn. 

.... 

And that’s probably why I was shocked and disappointed when her press aide, Acuña, called and woke me at 11:30 p.m. that night asking that The Monitor retract a headline on an online article that referenced Davis’ “pro-life” position. She then tried to backpedal and said her comments weren’t for publication, although they were made during a public media briefing. After the media briefing, Acuña did speak with some journalists on background but that was not the case when she jumped in during the open media conference.

 Read the whole thing here.

Over the past six weeks, Cahnman's Musings has done substantial reconnaissance work, which we haven't documented on this blog, on Battleground Texas and the Barbie Campaign; this column, written by a friendly source, is consistent with what we found.

Thomas RATliff Proves We're Winning

[Author's Note: We have enough new readers that it's worth, in the spirit of full disclosure, reminding readers that Alice Linahan is a good friend of ours.]

Friday morning, Cahnman's Musings awoke to an e-mail that included this link from Voices Empower:

What a Day~ I was preparing to hit the road to Milwaukee, WI for a Franklin Center Retreat on Education and I get a call from the Texas Ethics Commission. State Board of Education Elected Official/ Microsoft Lobbyist Thomas Ratliff filed an Ethics Complaint against me. 

.... 

Yep you heard that right State Board of Education Elected Official/ Microsoft Lobbyist Thomas Ratliff filed an Ethics Complaint against me saying the work I am doing fighting against CSCOPE/Common Core is unethical because I am not registered as a paid lobbyist. Really Thomas? I would love to know who it is that is paying me to fight this battle. I haven’t seen the pay check. 

.... 

I can assure you my husband is tired of me spending so much time working for no compensation on this issue. We had a discussion last week about it as a matter a fact because I have been away from home so much. My husband said the kids are the ones who are missing out on their mother being home. To which I replied if I don’t fight for them now even though I am not getting paid and I do not get to be with them like I want to….. they will not have freedom, and the blessings we have enjoyed. I am willing to sacrifice now because if I don’t they will blame me later for not fighting for their future.  

I actually had to laugh when I saw in the Ethics complaint a picture of the 4 new tires I posted when one my tires blew out on the way to the SBOE Adhoc hearing. I did not make it by the way. 

My husband was not happy about paying for the 4 new tires because I had put over 30,000 miles in 9 months traveling around the state warning parents about CSCOPE/Common Core.  

As many of the readers of Voices Empower know I have been a politically active Texas Mom working in the grassroots since Obama was elected. Taking on the issues that I see as a clear and present danger to my children’s future. I have been helping to organize at a grassroots level to get the word out. I guess we are being successful at getting the word out about the Federal Take-Over of Education. Those involved are trying to shut down our voices. The voices of parents, teachers and the students they are harming.  

I have a feeling after listening in on the public WomenOnTheWall.org Communication Team Conference Call last night Thomas Ratliff may be feeling a little nervous.

You see those who are in the Education Establishment do not like parents actually saying….#CanISee what and how you are teaching my child. I also don’t think he likes that we are asking our school districts #CanISee what you are spending our tax dollars on to train teachers, administrators and school boards members.

The notion that Thomas Ratliff, who Greg Abbott ruled in 2011 was ineligible to serve on the SBOE over his lobbying activities, is filing an ethics complaint against Alice Linahan over failure to disclose 'lobbying clients' is laughable.

There's no glamour in what Alice does.  Alice travels the state of Texas, at her own expense, educating small groups of Moms and Dads about the dangers of CSCOPE and Common Core.  To our knowledge, the only psuedo-compensation Alice receives is occasional help to offset gas or food.

This moves reeks of fear.  Why would a 'respected' member of the education establishment draw attention to the actions of a diligent Texas mom?!?   Members of the establishment usually ignore the grassroots...until they're effective!  We spoke with Alice late Friday afternoon and found her in surprisingly good spirits.  The Texas education debate just got more interesting.

Punking Battleground Texas AND Obamacare (Part 1)

BOOM:



Highlights:

• Enroll America encouraging people to lie on Obamacare applications.

• Enroll America sharing information with Battleground Texas.

• The long term goal is to get people on Welfare and voting Democrat.

Readers are welcome to speculate about our relationship to this investigation....:)

Update: Ken Paxton reacts.