Al Gore must be unhappy about this--ummm Maybe not, He already has his, we are the ones paying for the loss

He's got problems.  First the wife goes, now his stock falls.  What next?
From American Thinker blog:

Money for Nothin'

by Randy Fardal

Why are welfare queens sent to prison while eco-capitalists buy mansions? It appears that the carbon credit trading exchange some eco-capitalists sold just a few months ago for $634.5M is now worthless. According to the Financial Times:

The owner of the US’s only nationwide cap-and-trade market has signaled the death of the seven-year-old industry, saying companies were no longer interested in trading carbon emissions credits in the absence of government legislation.

Virtually nothing the eco-capitalists produce creates wealth for society, including their carbon exchanges. They are not participating in free-market capitalism; it’s just parasitic political capitalism. And since most of what they do is based on the AGW scam, one could argue that many of them are guilty of misrepresentation or outright fraud.

Meanwhile, the buyer at the other end of this transaction, Intercontinental Exchange, apparently lost a half-billion-dollar bet that the carbon-taxing Democrats would retain control of the House in the 2010 elections. That’s fine; ICE is a profitable private sector company that took a calculated risk, and whose losses will be borne by its shareholders. Because of pending Democratic legislation, that risk had potentially great rewards -- perhaps even “windfall profits” -- so it’s unlikely that shareholders now blame the company’s executives for malfeasance.

But taxpayers indirectly cover about a third of the shareholders’ losses. Because ICE’s overall business is profitable, its losses on the climate exchange reduce its tax liability.

[....]

Bottom line: Taxpayers will have to cover about a third of the total $655-660M bet that ICE lost on its Climate Exchange acquisition. Can the leftists be happy about that? After all, the added government revenue would have paid for a large portion of Nancy Pelosi’s taxpayer-funded private jet.

Read it all, it is all part of the big Global Warming scam.

Now some Democrats think He doesn't get it

From the Washington Post:

Assessing midterm losses, Democrats ask whether Obama's White House fully grasped voters' fears
By Karen Tumulty and Dan Balz

President Obama's failure to channel the anxieties of ordinary voters has shaken the faith that many Democrats once had in his political gifts and his team's political skill.

In his own assessments of what went wrong, the president has lamented his inability to persuade voters on the merits of what he has done, and blamed the failure on his preoccupation with a full plate of crises.

But a broad sample of Democratic officeholders and strategists said in interviews that the disconnect goes far deeper than that.

"There doesn't seem to be anybody in the White House who's got any idea what it's like to lie awake at night worried about money and worried about things slipping away," said retiring Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D). "They're all intellectually smart. They've got their numbers. But they don't feel any of it, and I think people sense that."

Bredesen had voiced such reservations long before the election, but more Democrats are saying the same thing after Tuesday's defeats - although few are willing to cross the White House by doing so publicly.

[....]

Still, Democrats remain divided between their moderate and liberal wings over whether the president should continue to push hard with his agenda or move to the center to try to accommodate the Republicans in Congress.

Read it all, much more to discuss.

Democrats as Racist?

Far be it from me to call anyone a racist without proof of the fact.  According to Chris Salcedo at Pajamas Media he has the evidence. Read this and you will think he has some facts to support the claim.

By Their Own Standards, Dems Racist When It Comes to Hispanics
The Democrats' pattern of blocking Hispanics for not being "the right kind of Hispanic" is undeniable.

Conservatives warned liberals of the dangers of playing the race card too often without substantiation. But with the election of President Obama, progressives went crazy.

Every time conservatives opposed our inexperienced president on policy, progressive pundits were quick to dismiss the objections as a simple expression of conservatives’ supposed distaste for an African-American president. Recall how Karen Hunter, MSNBC contributor, described challenges to the Obama agenda? “Post-Traumatic First African-American President Syndrome.”

Even the Daily Show lampooned the excessive use of the race card, declaring it “maxed out.”

Well, if by liberalism’s standards the act of objecting to a person of color on policy is tantamount to racism, then Americans now have clear evidence that progressives are racist toward Hispanics.

Democrats, through Bill Clinton and reportedly the White House, conspired to defeat a conservative Latino in a Senate race in Florida. The liberals in charge of the Democrat Party tried to convince their candidate, Kendrick Meek (an African-American), to drop out of that race so that the linguini-spined Charlie Crist would have a shot at beating Marco Rubio.

The message, largely ignored by the press, was that Marco Rubio could not be allowed to win because he was the wrong kind of Hispanic.
[....]
Liberals knew he had to be stopped, and thus were willing to throw an African-American under the bus in favor of the white guy who had been a Republican five minutes ago.

Read the rest, he builds a good case of racism against the Democrats.

Must Read articles for Sunday, Nov 7th

Why I quit... Desert Storm vet explains decision to leave Air Force after 22 years

This confirms my belief that the war was prolonged and people died because the Democrats used the war as a tool to hammer President Bush.

Work-shy will be 'pushed' into working for free by welfare revolution This is from Great Britain, we could learn something here from him.

AIFD PRESS RELEASE: American Muslim organization applauds Oklahoma anti-shariah law I wish we heard from more Muslims like this.

Assessing midterm losses, Democrats ask whether Obama's White House fully grasped voters' fears  another one that speaks for itself.

Chris Christie irks David Gregory by calling him an advocate  too much truth for David Gregory to handle.

The Biofuels Scam

Obama jumps on natural gas bandwagon  this could be good news for Texas, if true.

Frank Luntz: Forget red and blue, it's a Tea Party nation  What voters want.

Is the name of the game Control for the Republican Party?

In an article in American Thinker Joseph Asbuy makes the case and that is his final conclusion. Here is the article, what do you think?

The Establishment Strikes Back

At the climax of the 1977 film Star Wars, hero Luke Skywalker destroys the evil Empire's dreaded Death Star. The Rebellion's celebration, however, is short-lived. The movie series' next installment, The Empire Strikes Back, depicts the Empire's use of its still vastly superior weaponry and manpower to reassert its authority.

In the 2010-midterm elections, the tea party movement has played the role of the Rebellion. But the Empire is not played by the Democrats. It's true that the Democrat-controlled federal government was resoundingly defeated in the November 2nd general election, but that loss, unlike the destruction of the Death Star, was not a surprise. The real blindside was the tea party's dismantling of the Republican Establishment throughout the primary season.

He goes on to describe the wins by the tea party candidates against their Republican establishment and wraps it up with this:

The Establishment attitude is another form of central planning, in this case political planning instead of economic. The great economist Frederick von Hayek was once asked by so many academics rejected the free market in favor of central direction. Hayek responded: "I think it's...an intellectual attraction of a system you can deliberately control, which is fascinating to the intellectual." For Rove, Graham and others it's not just winning, but winning with their plan. The organized chaos of the tea party is to the Establishment what the unplanned free market is to the leftist professor. Both represent a lack of "fascinating" control.

And so the Establishment strikes back. Entrenched blue-blood Republicans hope to reap the electoral benefits of the tea party movement while simultaneously seeking to discredit it. In the aftermath of the 2010 midterms, it has become clear that the fight for America's future will pass directly through the heart of the Republican Establishment.

And there you have the best description of what happened and an alert to us to keep on fighting the establishment, not by forming a new party but revitalizing one that is already there.

Why We Need to Keep up the Intensity

Charles Krauthammer has angered some of us lately, but he still has a brilliant mind and maybe, just maybe, we should listen more closely.  Today he is good.  From the Washington Post:

A return to the Norm
For all the turmoil, the spectacle, the churning - for all the old bulls slain and fuzzy-cheeked freshmen born - the great Republican wave of 2010 is simply a return to the norm. The tide had gone out; the tide came back. A center-right country restores the normal congressional map: a sea of interior red, bordered by blue coasts and dotted by blue islands of ethnic/urban density.
[....]
The conventional wisdom is that these sweeps represent something novel, exotic and very modern - the new media, faster news cycles, Internet frenzy and a public with a short attention span and even less patience with government. Or alternatively, that these violent swings reflect reduced party loyalty and more independent voters.

Nonsense. In 1946, for example, when party loyalty was much stronger and even television was largely unknown, the Republicans gained 56 seats and then lost 75 in the very next election. Waves come. Waves go. The republic endures.

Our two most recent swing cycles were triggered by unusually jarring historical events. The 2006 Republican "thumpin'" (to quote George W. Bush) was largely a reflection of the disillusionment and near-despair of a wearying war that appeared to be lost. And 2008 occurred just weeks after the worst financial collapse in eight decades.

Similarly, the massive Republican swing of 2010 was a reaction to another rather unprecedented development - a ruling party spectacularly misjudging its mandate and taking an unwilling country through a two-year experiment in hyper-liberalism.

Nor should Republicans overinterpret their Tuesday mandate. They received none. They were merely rewarded for acting as the people's proxy in saying no to Obama's overreaching liberalism. As one wag put it, this wasn't an election so much as a restraining order.

The Republicans won by default. And their prize is nothing more than a two-year lease on the House. The building was available because the previous occupant had been evicted for arrogant misbehavior and, by rule, alas, the House cannot be left vacant.

Read it all here.

What is Happening to our Military

It isn't just that they are being disenfranchised, it is also that they are being downsized.  We had the Captain from our local high school's JROTC speak to our Tea Party group last night.  He is so thrilled with being with the kids of his unit and so exuberant about the work he is doing with them, but one of the sad things is many of them will not be able to get into any of military forces because they are downsizing.  Much of it is by attrition and they are very selective about taking in new recruits.  This is not new with Obama, it is a long term stradegy. Check out these sources:

http://www.militarytimes.com/forum/showthread.php?1585989-Navy-downsizing!Wrongdoing.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/downsizing_the_navys_industria.html

http://www.stanford.edu/group/WTO/cgi-bin/docs/1998Barley.pdf 
(Military Downsizing and the Career Prospects of Youths)

Navy Begins Downsizing The Virginian Pilot January 27, 2004

Now for the disenfranchising:

The Scandal of Military Voter Disenfranchisement
We can't depend on the Justice Department to see to it that the states comply with the law regarding absentee ballots being shipped in a timely manner to military personnel overseas.

In his 1952 letter, President Truman called upon the states to fix this problem, and he called upon Congress to enact temporary federal legislation for the 1952 presidential election. He wrote, 

Any such legislation by Congress should be temporary, since it should be possible to make all the necessary changes in State laws before the congressional elections of 1954.

Well, it did not work out that way. The Korean War ground to an inconclusive halt in 1952, the issue dropped off our national radar screen, and the states did not fix the problem. Finally, in 2009, Congress enacted the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act). This new law requires every state to mail out absentee ballots to military personnel and family members by the 45th day before Election Day (e.g., September 18, 2010). Several sstates with late primaries applied for and received waivers for 2010, and agreed to extend the deadline for the return of ballots mailed in from overseas.

In Illinois, the problem was not a late primary. Indeed, Illinois held its 2010 primary on February 2, 2010. But 35 of 110 Illinois counties seriously missed the September 18 deadline. One of the late counties was St. Clair County, home to 261,000 people and to Scott Air Force Base.

The U.S. Department of Justice is responsible for enforcing the MOVE Act, but it seems not to take its responsibilities seriously — perhaps because military personnel vote overwhelmingly Republican when they do have the opportunity to vote.


DoJ entered into a consent decree with Illinois that does not solve the problem. In those counties that were seriously late in sending out ballots, the consent decree extends by only one day (from November 1 to November 2) the deadline for the postmark of the marked ballot coming back to the local election official. If Sergeant Smith in Afghanistan receives his ballot on November 3, he cannot cast a ballot that will get counted.

Congress should amend the MOVE Act to clarify that individual military voters have a private right of action to enforce the 45-day rule. We cannot depend upon DOJ to enforce this law in good faith. DOJ, under present management, will paper over MOVE Act violations for the same reason that it condoned voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia in 2008.

Congress should also clarify that military personnel and family members overseas have the right to vote in state and local elections as well as federal elections, and that any violation of the 45-day rule must be remedied by a court order extending both the deadline for the postmark of the marked ballot and the deadline for its receipt.

It is a national scandal that we as a nation are still conducting absentee voting in much the same way that it was conducted during the Korean War — by shipping pieces of paper across oceans and continents by snail mail. In our Armed Forces, classified information is transmitted and received every day by secure electronic means. In commerce, billions of dollars change hands electronically every business day. If electronic means are secure enough for our nation’s most important secrets and for huge sums of money, why is it not possible, in 2010, for deployed service members to vote by a secure means that will guarantee that their ballots are counted?

Captain Wright retired after a career as a judge advocate in the Navy and Navy Reserve. He has been working the military voting issue since 1976.

This is just the last half of the article, read it all here.  Then let us all get to work on fixing this.  There is absolutely no reason ballots cannot be requested by email or fax. I have seen it suggested that it be done in several different ways.  I think it would be okay if they were emailed to the military personnel and turned into their commanders to be certified as to the person handing them in is the same as the name on the ballot. and then sent by email or fax.  LET'S GET TO WORK and get this done.!!

Is the Tea Party (Parties) the Little Engine that Could?

Mark Tapscott had an editorial in the Washington Examiner

They aren't laughing at the Tea Party now

Well, they did it. Against all odds, the starfish people - aka the Tea Party movement - have in less than two years not merely changed American politics, but reversed its direction entirely.

Tuesday's results make clear the Tea Party is the most dynamic and successful grass-roots political movement since Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican revolt against John Adams and the Federalists in 1800.

They did so because they did exactly what they should have done. Instead of fighting specific issues and causes like Card Check and cap-and-trade, they ignored their critics while focusing their energies on finding, fielding, funding and fueling candidates for elected office at every level of government, but especially for Congress.

They worked within the system in the most direct way possible by defining the decisive issues of the 2010 campaign and putting forth candidates to replace Washington officials who refused to listen to the people during the long, hot summer of Town Hall protests in 2009.

That is why, without the Tea Party, the Republicans would not have gained 63 seats in the House, nor would we now be adding "Senator-elect" to the names of Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, Mike Lee in Utah and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

There is more, read it here.

Abortion isn't funny, but Diversity Lane shows it's irony

New Iraq/Afghanistan vets in Congress

The Corner of National Review Online has an article on Iraq/Afghanistan vets in Congress.  And as it happens, the ones on our side are pro Victory in those countries.

The New Victory Caucus in Congress
by By Pete Hegseth

On Tuesday, six Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were elected to Congress (and possibly seven, if Jesse Kelly pulls out his race in Arizona’s 8th district). All six (seven) of them support victory on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hawkish national-security posture overall. The impressive list of warriors can be found at the bottom of this post, and also at Vets for Freedom’s website.
[....]
These warriors — and the two pro-victory Iraq veterans already in Congress (Duncan Hunter and Mike Coffman) — constitute a formidable new Victory caucus in the House. All eight (or nine) Iraq and Afghanistan veterans — an infantry-squad-sized element of Republicans — speak with special authority on very important issues facing the next Congress, especially winning the war in Afghanistan, winning the peace in Iraq, preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, and ensuring that the Pentagon has adequate resources to project American power and preserve American interests around the world.

But that’s not the only good news. Tuesday also brought losses for every single anti-war Iraq and Afghanistan veteran running for Congress — including the only two anti-war Iraq war incumbents in Congress (Patrick “the surge can’t work” Murphy in PA-8 and John Boccieri in OH-16). The group most undermined by this trouncing is VoteVets, the blatantly partisan anti-war “veterans” group that came up empty on Election Night (and has already removed all the candidates from its website).

All of this taken together means that every single Iraq and Afghanistan veteran in Congress today is pro-victory.
The list of new Iraq/Afghanistan vets in Congress is:

– Lt. Col. Allen West (FL-22) – Iraq, Afghanistan, & Gulf wars
– Lt. Col. Steve Stivers (OH-15) — Iraq war
– Capt. Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) — Iraq & Afghanistan wars
– Col. Joe Heck (NV-3) — Iraq war
– Maj. Tim Griffin (AR-2) — Iraq war
– Col. Chris Gibson (NY-20) — Iraq war (4 tours)

– Pete Hegseth is executive director of Vets for Freedom.

Read it all here.

Regulations are Hidden Taxes; there are a lot of new ones.

The Heritage Foundation has a report out on how many regulations have been added, how they tax us and increase the costs of goods and services.  I'm quoting only the title and abstract.  This report was published October 26th, 2010.  You need to read it all.  This is just a teaser. It is very detailed.

Red Tape Rising: Obama’s Torrent of New Regulation,
by James Gattuso, Diane Katz and Stephen Keen

Abstract: The burden of regulation on Americans increased at an alarming rate in fiscal year 2010. Based on data from the Government Accountability Office, an unprecedented 43 major new regulations were imposed by Washington. And based on reports from government regulators themselves, the total cost of these rules topped $26.5 billion, far more than any other year for which records are available. These costs will affect Americans in many ways, raising the price of the cars they buy and the food they eat, while destroying an untold number of jobs. With the enactment of new health care laws, financial regulations, and plans for rulemaking in other areas, the regulatory burden on Americans is set to increase even further in the coming year.

Click on the title to read the whole report.

Victor Davis Hanson on What the Democrats and their Leader Do Not Get

From Works and Days in Pajamas Media

What the Election Was Not About
by Victor Davis Hanson

1. Communication—As If You Would Have Liked My Agenda Had You Just Been More Informed

President Obama’s postmortem press conference was a near disaster. He seemed subdued, but also sometimes petulant—still convinced that we, in fear and distrust, “lashed out” in anger at the doctor rather than the disease. In fact, the same voter furor that turned on him is, he thinks, what earlier elected him: only his failure to channel it properly explains the setback. Finally he did admit that he was “shellacked,” but he believes that partisanship confused us voters into shellacking him.

This common complaint that he failed to communicate just how wonderfully he had done is quite an unhinged Carteresque/Kerryesque exegesis. The problem was not that the American voter did not know about the second stimulus, ObamaCare, the efforts to push cap and trade, card check, and $3 trillion more in debt, but that he knew them all too well. [....]

And his other points are:

2. We Spent Too Little?
Given what we know of the models of Spain, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and California, we should not take seriously another lunatic explanation that we did not borrow enough.[...]

3. Obstructionist Republicans
A third explanation often aired is that Republicans are good at destroying noble things like Obamism, but not good at governing. Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News and the usual partisan suspects deluded the gullible public. The result is that we still do not appreciate the wonders of ObamaCare (check those rising premiums), and will soon choke without cap and trade, and will applaud Obama for the trivial things like the Government Motors Volt. Yet Obama and the left seem oblivious to the fact that they gave as good as they got. [....]

4. Race
Oh yes, race. I mention that because on election day Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post has already played that preemptory card to explain the repudiation of the Obama agenda. Here’s why that is also crazy:
a) The anger is against the Obama agenda and those who promote it
[....]
b) The Tea Party zealots backed all sorts of candidates, women like Sharron Angle, Hispanics like Marco Rubio, blacks like Allen West, and Asians like Van Tran. Contrary to Robinson’s charges, race or gender was incidental — not essential — to their support.
c) Barack Obama has encountered no more venom—and in fact much less—than what George Bush or Bill Clinton endured. As of yet, thank God, we have not seen an Alfred Knopf novel like Checkpoint aimed at Obama, or anything like the 2006 Toronto prize-winning film Death of a President, which imagined the shooting of George Bush. I don’t recall Robinson at the time suggesting that such sick, unhinged hatred of Bush was either untoward or motivated by nefarious forces.
d) By 2001 the two highest foreign policy officials of the U.S. government—Secretary of State and National Security Advisor—were both African-Americans—and appointed by George Bush. [....]
e) To the degree racial divisiveness is more apparent after 2008, it is largely due to the Obama administration. The president himself called for Latinos to see Republicans as “enemies.”
[....]
So What Was Tuesday?
The truth is always the simplest explanation. Here it goes in simple language from the beginning: Obama was elected largely because of public furor over Bush/Iraq. The fawning media hid his socialist background. He ran as a centrist.

There is a lot more, go read it all.

We Gained Conservative Minorities in this election

From Pajamas Media
Minority Republicans Make Major Gains Across America
Beyond the major narratives of Obama policies and the rise of the Tea Party, Republican victories won by minority candidates show the strength of the Republican ideal, and may have the most lasting impact on the nation.
 
As things stand now, the 2010 midterm elections have dramatically shifted the balance of power across the country.  The Democrats’ control of the Senate weakened, and Republicans took outright control of the House, ending the term of Rep. Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House.  Much will be made of the Tea Party and its impact, which stands to reason, and the verdict on that will be mostly positive but mixed.  But beyond the Beltway and beyond the Tea Party narrative, Republicans surged to greater power at the state level.  Sixteen state Houses or Assemblies moved into GOP control, and red states like Texas and Oklahoma got redder.  Republicans now hold a majority among governorships.  And in what may make the fewest headlines but have the most lasting impact on both parties, minority Republicans won offices all over America.
[....]
Perhaps the greatest gains for minority Republicans occurred in Texas, where Lone Star State voters turned out three Democratic U.S. House incumbents, Reps. Chet Edwards, Ciro Rodriguez, and Solomon Ortiz.  Of those three, two were replaced by conservative Hispanic Republicans.  Bill Flores crushed Chet Edwards in TX-17 and Francisco “Quico” Canseco defeated Rodriguez in TX-23. 
 
Farther down the ballot in Texas, minority Republicans made substantial gains in the Texas House of Representatives.  Larry Gonzales won in central Texas’ HD-52; Jose Aliseda won in a surprising upset in HD-35; John Garza won in HD-117; James White, who is black, defeated Democratic incumbent Jim McReynolds in HD-12 in northeast Texas; and Stefani Carter, who is also black, defeated Democratic incumbent Carol Kent in HD-102.  On the State Board of Education, Charlie Garza defeated Rene Nunez in west Texas’ SBOE Place 1.  All of these seats represent pick-ups for the GOP and for minority Republicans.
 
For years, Democrats in Texas have pinned their hopes of a return to power on holding onto the black vote and capturing an increasing share of the Hispanic vote. The 2010 elections show that the first line could be cracking, and the second may be a fading possibility.

Looking farther to the west, New Mexico has replaced its Democratic governor, Bill Richards, with native Texan and conservative Republican Susana Martinez. Martinez is New Mexico’s first female governor, and the first female Hispanic governor anywhere. That she ran on the issue of border security, and won, speaks volumes.

You can read the whole discussion here.

More Texas Wins

From San Antonio:

Canseco overtakes Rodriguez in Dist. 23
By Gilbert Garcia - Express-News
San Antonio businessman Francisco “Quico” Canseco knocked off U.S. District 23 Rep. Ciro Rodriguez late Tuesday in one of the state’s most hard-fought congressional races.
Canseco, 61, a banker-attorney who relocated from Laredo in 2006, built a solid early-voting lead in Bexar County, which makes up two-thirds of the district’s electorate, with Rodriguez, 63, making a small dent in that margin as Election Day results rolled in.

Associated Press From the Waco Tribune
GOP makes huge gains over Democrats in Texas House
by April Castro & JAY ROOT,
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Democrats suffered staggering losses in the state Legislature, losing their House leader and several longtime incumbents who weren't even considered vulnerable.

Twenty-one Democrats lost Tuesday night, including 14-year veteran Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, the longtime Democratic House leader, who was defeated by rancher Marva Beck.

Flores ousts Edwards from Congress

Bill Flores, a first-time candidate, crested a surge of conservative enthusiasm in toppling the 10-term congressman.
[...]
Corpus Christi Democratic Reps. Solomon Ortiz Jr. and Abel Herrero, along with Rep. Paula Pierson of Arlington, all fell in Election Night upsets. Other Democratic incumbents who lost Tuesday included Reps. Patrick Rose of Dripping Springs and Valinda Bolton of Austin.

Democrat Rep. Kirk England of Grand Prairie was defeated by Rodney Anderson by fewer than 200 votes and Democrat Ellen Cohen of Houston lost to Republican Sarah Davis by 725 votes.
[....]
In Round Rock, first-term Democrat Rep. Diana Maldonado lost her seat to Republican graphic designer Larry Gonzales. The suburban district has long been considered a Republican stronghold, but Maldonado saw an opening in 2008 when the longtime GOP incumbent decided not to seek re-election after he barely broke 50 percent in 2006.

A couple of Republicans embroiled in ethics scandals were considered vulnerable but held on to their seats.

Republican Rep. Linda Harper Brown in Irving won re-election. She was the subject of an ethics complaint involving her use of a Mercedes-Benz owned by a company that makes millions through state transportation contracts.

Republican Rep. Joe Driver of Garland, whose double billings to the state and his campaign for travel expenses have come under criminal review, also retained his seat.

Changes in the Texas House could have a big effect the upcoming legislative session. Straus, the speaker, faces a challenge from a more conservative GOP candidate. Straus said early Wednesday he has 122 pledges of support from lawmakers, which would be enough to hold on to his leadership position.

The House members also will help decide how the state deals with a massive budget shortfall. The Legislature also is expected to redraw congressional district lines using new Census data — a highly partisan task that in the past has been marked by quorum-busting shenanigans.

This is the best round up I could find for one post about Texas.

Military Votes in Texas - The rest of the USA needs to follow this example

This is from the website of the Texas Secretary of State
New rules streamline military/overseas voting

For Immediate Release
August 2, 2010
Contact: Randall Dillard

512/ 463-5770AUSTIN – Military and overseas voters are now able to request blank balloting materials for the November 2 election to be sent to them by email, following new rules put in place by the Texas Secretary of State.
“A large number of our United States Military Forces call Texas home,” said Secretary Andrade. “It is of upmost importance to me and my office that these brave men and women have the opportunity to participate in our nation’s democratic process. I am pleased that these new rules modernize the process to ensure the secure and expedited transmission of ballots and I encourage our military and overseas voters to take advantage of these new simple voting procedures.”

In accordance with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, the State of Texas has adopted new administrative rules that make it easier for military and overseas voters to access the absentee voting process. Included are provisions which allow military service members temporarily residing outside their county of residence, as well as United States citizens residing overseas, to request blank balloting materials to be sent to them by email as well as the establishment of a ballot tracking system allowing military and overseas voters to determine the status of their ballot.

When a voter submits their Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), they may specify that a blank ballot be sent to them via email. Voted ballots must still be returned through regular mail, unless they are sent from a designated war zone and are eligible to be returned by fax. For more information, voters may visit the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) website or call FVAP at 1-800-438-VOTE (8683).

From Great Britain's Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the EU is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free. He is the winner of the Bastiat Award for online journalism.

Here is what he is saying about the election.

It's morning in America

“The cause of America,” wrote my countryman Tom Paine, “is in great measure the cause of all mankind”. That statement now has a practical, financial truth which Paine couldn’t have imagined in 1776. The US is the world’s leading economy, the dollar its reserve currency. American prosperity is especially critical to Britain, its single largest overseas investor.

That, above all, is why Britons should take satisfaction from the return of candidates committed to restoring order and sanity to the federal budget. Virtually the first thing John Boehner, the new Speaker of the House, said in his acceptance speech was that Congress would “cut government spending”. Not before time. Under Barack Obama, US debt has risen from 40 per cent of GDP to 62 per cent and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it was on course to rise to 87 per cent by 2020, 109 per cent by 2025, and 185 per cent by 2035.

Yesterday, American voters reminded their politicians that they are servants, not rulers: that elected representatives are there to carry out the will of a people who, as the experience of many ages shows, are generally wiser than their leaders. Americans understand that governments, like individuals, must live within their means.

The Founders knew what they were doing when they put Congress in Article One of the Constitution, before the Presidency. The House of Representatives is supposed to control spending: its failure to discharge that duty properly is what brought America to its present predicament. Two years ago, this blog predicted that voters would punish those Congressmen who backed the bail-out; and so they have.

The US is at last returning to the sublime principles on which it was founded: principles, as I never tire of pointing out, inherited from this country. I leave the last word to Thomas Jefferson, whose bust stares at me from my desk as I type this blog:

I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

Fun from 4 Block World

Visit 4 Block World for more.

An online friend and blogger is asking for prayers.

Prayer Requests


by Heather Page Wilson-Egelston on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 1:29am

Yesterday evening about 5:30, I gave Penelope to my mom to hold so I could put on a kettle of water for tea. Mom was on her daybed watching TV. Things were going well with the baby pushing up on her elbows and working her legs trying to crawl. Paddy came in the bedroom and bounced down on to the daybed, when he did he hit Penelope's incision site and it started leaking spinal fluid.

I called the neurosurgeon's office and luckily I got his nurse who told me to bring her to the ER.

One of the Neuro residents put a few more stitches in the incision site, but I just checked it and it feels pretty wet so I'm guessing that the damage is on the internal stitches.

So it's after midnight and we just got into a room. My poor baby girl, she's finally gone to sleep.
I'm about as freaked out as a mom can be.
I'm terrified about my baby girl.
I'm terrified about my mom's cancer.
I'm holding on to my faith, but I'm only human and I'm scared.

Please continue to pray for us-

1. For Penelope to have a quick recovery.

2. For my mom Penny's cancer to be driven from her body, so she can be healthy and strong.

3. For me to have the strength, and stamina to endure yet another hospital stay. I'm so tired.

God Bless,
Heather

Dennis Prager: Why I Now Vote Party, Not Individual

There are two reasons to vote Democrat: either one is a Leftist or one has come to believe the Left's demonization of its opponents as SIXHIRB (Sexist, Intolerant, Xenophobic, Homophobic, Islamophobic, Racist, Bigoted).

Oh, yes, there is a third reason to vote Democrat: More and more Americans are employed by the government, and more and more Americans receive significant material benefits from it. So one does not have to have left-wing values or believe in the demonization of conservatives to vote Democrat. All one has to do is vote according to where one's livelihood comes from.

Along with the minority groups that it has effectively convinced it alone protects, the Democratic Party has, therefore, created a built-in voting bloc that is formidable.

Why, then, will Republicans do well this year? Because the Democrats went too far left and the country has serious economic problems.

Of course, Republicans cannot and should not depend on economic recessions to win elections. They have to make the case as clearly as possible why America's success is the result of its most distinguishing trait: limited government. They have to show that the Democratic Party undermines the primary reason for America's success -- limited government, America's most distinguishing trait. And Republicans need to make clear the connection between Democratic policies and America's economic problems.

It is probably accurate to say that no country in the world has less government intervention in the lives of its citizens than America does. But Democrats do not like such American distinctiveness. They want America to be like other countries. The president, recall, does not believe in American exceptionalism.

Read full article here

Has the Republican Party morphed into a new party?

Bill Markin at American Thinker believes it has. Read this:

R.I.P., G.O.P.

The Grand Old Party, known to many as simply the "G.O.P.," passed away during the recent election season.

Despite having once been known for such luminaries as Lincoln and Reagan, in recent years the party had slipped into a near-comatose state of minorityhood and, under the leadership of a continuing parade of elder statesmen, had demonstrated an unfailing ability to reach across the aisle and compromise principles in the name of "getting things done."

It is survived by a group of aging professional politicians whose primary interest has been their own political careers and assuring the blessings of continual reelection upon themselves and their cronies.

Those close to The Party say it was asleep at the time of passing.

This is just the beginning, read it all here.