Quote O' The Day

"Texas has been a conservative state since dinosaurs roamed it 6000 years ago...You poor bastards. Dems trying to turn Texas blue are like some straight guy in a bar hitting on a girl even though he knows she's a lesbian. 'Dude, I know I can flip her, I just need time.' " - Jon Stewart, last night on his Comedy Central show from of course, mostly Blue Austin
( known as 'Austin-tacious' to most Texans).

I have to admit that my own experience in that area with lesbians has apparently been a lot different that John Stewarts's, but he has a point.

A Few Words On 'Discrimination' And Freedom

Now here's a small item that caught my attention.

Apparently a gay couple stopped at a popular restaurant called Big Earl's Bait House and Country Store in Pittsburg Texas, a middling sized town in the corner of northeast Texas where the Lone Star State meets Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Their story is as follows; they stopped for breakfast,paid up and were told by their waitress not to return because 'we don't serve fags here.'

My, my.

Big Earl Cheney, who owns the restaurant has a somewhat different story. The waitress happens to be his daughter, and Cheney says her choice of words was her own.

“I don’t think I should have to discipline her. I think the parents of those children — or kids or being whatever they are — should discipline them or teach ‘em how to act in public. I don’t think it’s my place to discipline her.”

Cheney's story is that the couple were, shall we say, acting out in public.In other words, their being gay had nothing to do with it, but their behavior did.

“What I saw was one of them half way under the table with his legs stretched out into the other guy’s lap. And he kind of looked really possum eyed at me as they say it in East Texas, he kind of looked at me like ‘uh-oh’.”

“Homosexuality, Blacks, Hispanics — they all come in here — everybody comes in here to eat,” said Cheney. “I’ve served my country for over 20 years; I know what my freedoms are.”

He continued, “I’m not gonna have people coming in here with their butt showing; I’m not gonna have people coming in here naked; I’m not gonna have people coming in here having sex on the tables.”

Now, that is a rather different message than the one his daughter was sending with 'we don't serve fags here.' I'll leave it to the reader to decide which one applies.

The couple claims nothing inappropriate was going on. I can accept that at face value, but I also recognize that what's inappropriate might be very different for a gay couple in say, Austin than for an older, heterosexual restaurant owner in East Texas. I would also have to add that if the couple was just sitting there eating breakfast, one would have to wonder why anyone would single them out as gay. How would they tell? Were they wearing a sign?

Cheney has said he would refuse to admit the couple back into his restaurant. The gay couple maintains they were doing nothing wrong and were discriminated against.

As one of them said, “Nobody deserves to be treated disrespectfully at an establishment that just seconds ago accepted their money.”

Needless to say, the gay couple figured lawfare was the best response, but their attorney was unable to help out because of, in his words, local bigotry:

Gay Rights Attorney John Nechman says there really isn’t any legal recourse for Dewberry and his partner to take.

“We don't have protections in most parts of Texas for Gay and Lesbian people, other than in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso,” says Nechman. “There’s really no protections to go after someone because they’ve made a slur. Now if they made a slanderous statement, a libelous statement, where they claimed for example that the two were committing an act that they didn’t do, there would be legal action to take against them.”

Lawyers, of course, love the idea that people have a right to be insulted and to sue at the drop of a hat. It's called job security.As well as a plague on society.

But let's examine this from a different point of view.

Two people enter a restaurant. They're served. Something about their conduct during that transaction makes the owner of the business uncomfortable, and they're asked not to return, admittedly in non-PC language.

So there are two possibilities...either the couple's conduct was such that they were told not to ever come back, or the staff and owners don't like homosexuals.Actually, both take us to the same place.

Has anyone reading this ever been 86'd from a bar or restaurant because of their conduct? I have, once because I decked someone who was drinking and got aggressive with me that I later found out was the bar's manager and another time because the idiot I was with pinched and groped a waitress.

In both cases, a business decision was made by a privately owned establishment to forgo my future custom by the business in question. Paying money does not give you a license to behave how you please, especially if you're annoying the other patrons or the staff, and that is a decision only the business in question can make.Actually, many restaurants and bars would even tell heterosexual couples to cool it if they were being overly affectionate in public. There's a time and place for everything.

But what if the couple was 'doing nothing wrong' as they put it, and the restaurant in question is being discriminatory, and simply doesn't want homosexuals in their establishment?

Let's say that you own a restaurant and decide, for whatever reason, that everyone who comes in has to wear a tie. The Bel-Air hotel in Los Angeles demands a jacket and tie for all male patrons, and has some particularly gruesome specimens they force any man who comes in without them to put on if he wants to eat and drink there. Because of that, there are a number of people who simply avoid going there, especially in a casual town like Los Angeles.The hotel has made a business decision for a private facility they own to give up a certain amount of income to enforce this policy and ought to have a perfect right to do so.

What about clubs that refuse to admit people if they're wearing what could be construed as gang colors or gang attire, and clearly post those exclusions? That policy disproportionally affects blacks, but undoubtedly has an affect on safety. Are they being racist, or making a business decision that impacts on their possible liability for any injuries patrons might suffer?

Let's say you own a restaurant or bar and decide, for whatever reason, that you can't abide people with blond hair. Same thing. You are making a private decision to indulge your own bigotry at the cost of a fair amount of money, and possibly the hire of some excellent employees.

If Big Earl is telling the truth and he has no problem with homosexual customers provided they act in a manner he feels is appropriate for his restaurant, you can't call him a bigot,merely a business owner who had made a decision he is entirely entitled to make. If he's lying and doesn't want gays in his restaurant, the same thing applies. It is his establishment and his choice to make.

The gay couple likewise have a choice to make. If they feel they were insulted (and it seems they were) there are other places to have breakfast. And they can certainly tell their friends not to patronize Big Earl's as well.

That's how a free society ought to work.

Federal Judge declares Texas Law Banning Same Sex Marriage Unconstitutional

Judge Orlando Garcia, a Clinton appointee ruled today that a long standing law limiting marriage to one man and one woman is unconstitutional.

“Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution,” Garcia wrote. “These Texas laws deny plaintiffs access to the institution of marriage and its numerous rights, privileges, and responsibilities for the sole reason that Plaintiffs wish to be married to a person of the same sex.”

Of course Texas, like most other states allows domestic partnerships, and Judge Garcia would be hard pressed to name a right or privilege that domestic partnerships are denied, but it doesn't matter.

Nor do the rights of the people of Texas, who passed this law overwhelmingly in a popular referendum.Their rights only matter when they 'vote properly'.

Unlike California, the State of Texas has an attorney general who actually abides by his sworn oath. Greg Abbott, who also is the leading Republican candidate to succeed Gov. Rick Perry, is going to appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans.

“This is an issue on which there are good, well-meaning people on both sides,” Abbott said in a statement. “The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled over and over again that States have the authority to define and regulate marriage.”

I would disagree with Mr. Abbot here. Actually, what the Supreme Court has ruled is that law and the will of the people can be subverted fairly easily.

The most recent SCOTUS decision on the issue are amazing in their disregard for law. In the one on California's Proposition 8, they simply decided that the people of California had no right to amend their own state constitution or to be represented in court if their state officials simply chose not to be bothered to enforce whatever laws they individually decided were politically inconvenient. The SCOTUS didn't even bother to declare Prop 8 unconstitutional, but punted and decided to take the cowardly way out and simply deny the people of California standing to appeal, which meant that the former attorney general Jerry Brown, now governor, could simply pretend the law doesn't exist and order it to be violated at will to curry favor with an important new constituency and source of fund raising.

Homosexual marriage activists understood this message quite well, and their tactics have changed accordingly. In states where they could count on friendly politicians to push same sex marriage over the line whether people wanted it or not like Massachusetts and California, they did so. In other states, rather than bother with state legislators or respecting existing law, they conducted what amounts to lawfare..shopping for Democrat appointed judges,filing suit and getting court orders to overturn long standing law and the will of the people.

It's worked pretty well in several states,making a mockery of the Supreme Court decision on prop 8 that called for existing laws against same sex marriage in states that already had them to be respected. It remains to be seen how well this tactic works.

One thing is certain. This is establishing a precedent for judicial tyranny. The balance of power changes, and just like Harry Reid's elimination of the filibuster, this is going to turn into something the Left is going to be quite sorry for in the future when it does.

The Real Issue On Wendy Davis

I haven't had much to say about the controversy surrounding Wendy Davis, the Democrat candidate for governor of Texas, Wendy Davis. But then it occurred to me that what's going on here reveals something about the state of our politics.

It's been revealed that she's been, well, less than honest about her background.

Ms. Davis first came to prominence when as a state senator she performed a one-woman filibuster against the new Texas abortion law. She became an absolute darling of the Left, not just for opposing any limits on abortion on demand (about which more later) but for her supposed biography, a gutsy single teenage mom living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard, a law degree and political office.

Except it was all, as the Dallas Morning News revealed, 'blurred'. Or as I might less genteelly phrase it, sheer horse manure.

Wendy was actually 21, not 19 as she claimed when she got a divorce from husband #1 and moved back into her parent’s trailer park home, where she lived only a few months before finding an apartment of her own for herself and her daughter.

So we go from a feisty teenaged mom who fought her way out of a trailer park on her own to an adult who moved back in with mom and dad for a few months before moving on. Not only that, but Wendy testified under oath, in a federal lawsuit regarding redistricting, that she was 19 when she got divorced. That's called perjury, and it reveals a certain lighthearted regard for truth in someone sworn to uphold the law..which is definitely not a good thing.

Jeff Davis, Wendy’s second husband, was a lawyer 13 years older than her when they married soon after she moved out of her parent's trailer. In fact, he was a friend of her father's and she got Dad to make the pitch to him and dangle Wendy in front of him. He paid her way through two years of Texas Christian University and then through Harvard Law while Jeff Davis became a single parent, caring for both her daughter by her first husband and a second daughter they had shortly after they were married while she was at Harvard.Davis took out hefty loans in his own name and even cashed out his 401(K) to pay her way through school...after which Wendy divorced him, literally the day after Jeff Davis wrote his final check to pay off her student loan:

Jeff Davis said that was right around the time the final payment on their Harvard Law School loan was due. “It was ironic,” he said. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.

In his initial divorce filing, Jeff Davis citied adultery on her part, but the final court decree smoothed things over and made no mention of any infidelity, granting the divorce “on the ground of insupportability.” Once she and Davis were divorced, Ms. Davis handed over full custody of their daughter to her now ex-husband,(the daughter from her earlier marriage was 21 by then) stating that he was a “nurturing father” and that it was just “not a good time” for her.

In fairness, Wendy Davis claims she helped pay for her college and law school, although her website (at least the last time I looked) claims “With the help of academic scholarships and student loans, Wendy not only became the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree but graduated first in her class and was accepted to Harvard Law School.”

No mention there of Jeff Davis, who won't comment now and says he has been told not to talk to reporters any more.

With kids involved,that's understandable.

After she graduated from Harvard in 1993, Wendy Davis started her own law practice. Although she says, “I was a vibrant part of contributing to our family finances from the time I graduated to the time we separated in 2003”, most of her income came from work she was given by her husband at the title company he founded.

When the company was sold as part of the divorce, she took him for half of it, even though it was Jeff Davis who funded and financed the company.

So what is all this leading up to?

Most politicians lie. That's why so many of them have practiced as liars, er, lawyers. And goodness knows,given who's in the Oval Office these days, that bar has been lowered quite a bit.

But what bothers me here is not a little image enhancing, but the way that image enhancing fits against the truth. And especially, what that truth shows.

Wendy Davis is being sold as a model of the New Woman, a gutsy little self-achiever who got where she is through her own hard work and perseverance, a compassionate progressive who cares about people.

Actually, it pretty much seems like she got where she got to through an older man's money and influence. And once she'd milked that, she dumped him, leaving the baggage of her daughter behind for some one else to take care of while she moved on to better, more exciting endeavors, doesn't it?

Frankly, if she was just campaigning on issues and hadn't made the bio such a big part of her story that would have been something else. As it is, it looks like what we have here is another Hillary Clinton-style serial prevaricator.

And to be honest, her claim to fame, that filibuster against the very moderate Texas Abortion law fits into the same pattern

The law didn't criminalize abortion. All it did,after a couple of Dr. Gosnell style horror stories shocked Texans throughout the state was to mandate the abortion doctors meet certain minimum standards and have practicing privileges at a hospital, essentially a screening device to try and guard against the Dr. Gosnells and their chambers of horror.. It also limited abortion resulting from consensual sex that did not endanger the life of the mother to 20 weeks....5 months.

At 5 months, an infant has a totally developed nervous system and is fully capable of feeling pain when his or her skull is punctured, the brains are vacuumed out and what's left is dragged out of the womb by forceps. What Ms. Davis was filibustering for  was not only a continuation of that practice but for the right to abort infants in that fashion at any point during pregnancy for any reason. And for a lot less accountability for the doctors and clinics that perform them.

So much for being the children's advocate she claims to be.

And compassion? Aside from her tender regard for the unborn,  for someone who, in ProgSpeak frequently talks about the greed of the rich and how  everybody needs to contribute their fair share and show empathy for the less fortunate, she's a mite challenged when it comes to charitable giving herself.

Another example of her compassion for others was this gem, accusing her opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbot of being behind her unraveling narrative:

“I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.”

Actually, Greg Abbot hasn't been able to do much walking in anyone's shoes for some time...as Ms. Davis knows full well:



Now, this is a Texas election, and I am not a Texan. But if I were, this is not the sort of person I'd want held up to my daughters as a role model, let alone who I'd want running my state, especially when things are going quite well without her.

The ancient Greeks said it quite well...'Character is destiny'.

And that's the real issue.

UPDATE: A fairly high profile group of Davis supporters was caught on video mocking AG Greg Abbot's use of a wheelchair:



Battleground Texas, a nationally funded Democrat organization with direct funding from President Obama's Organizing for America and the DNC is the group the Davis supporters caught making the comments belong to.They naturally denied the video was real. Of course, they always say that about James O'Keefe and Project Veritas, don't they, and they're always shown up as liars.

Davis,of course, issued a statement condemning the language used in the video, although her campaign slogan,“Stand With Wendy” is pretty much a direct slur at Abbott. I liked the reply he made in an interview with Megyn Kelly:

Denigrating the disabled is unworthy of Texas….What Texans really look at is the depth of character. There’s a reason why I have been elected statewide in Texas five different times. That’s because Texans know I have the quality and depth of character to represent their families and their values.

When Kelly pressed Abbott about allegations that Davis’s entire “Stand With Wendy” campaign is misleading the people of Texas, he didn't unload on her,but merely said that it is up to voters to make that judgement.

I think that was exactly the right tone to take. As for Wendy Davis? Well, I think you know what I think.

Late Term Abortion Supporters In Texas Chant "Hail Satan!"

This is creepy even to someone like me, whose by no means wants abortion outlawed.

Outside the Texas state capitol in Austin, a Christian woman, an obvious pro-lifer is speaking about her beliefs vis a vis abortion ...and at some points she's almost drowned out by late term abortion fans chanting 'Satan!'.

The capitol of Texas where the legislature meets is located in Austin, which is quite different from most of Texas and is known by most Texans as 'Austin-tatious'. Leftist loons abound.

Since the reality of what late term abortions actually consist of surfaced in the Gosnell trial, a number of states have passed laws limiting late term abortions.

In Texas, where a local Dr. Gosnell clone surfaced recently, the House State Affairs Committee passed a pro-life bill to ban abortions in the state after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion facilities accountable for obeying health and safety laws. The law is set to got to the state senate, where it will probably pass, although there have been the usual rabid demonstrations from the Democrats, whom I suppose at this point we could call the party of abortion.

I have no problem with limiting abortions to 20 weeks ( FIVE MONTHS) unless the mother's life is endangered or there are other special circumstances the law provides for. The other provisions, which are going to limit the number of abortion clinics has good points and bad points. It will eliminate butcher shops like Dr. Gosnell's but it will conceivably make it more difficult for some women in outlaying areas to terminate a pregnancy.Planned Parenthood, of course, will still be around.

On the other hand, there's always the option of traveling a bit or simply being more cautious about getting pregnant, and it's also a fact that no hospital is going to refuse to provide and abortion for someone without means or who is the victim of non-consensual sex.

But to hear people who favor abortion on demand chanting 'Satan!' ? That puts things in an entirely different perspective. If this is what it's come to...

UPDATE: Well, well...it appears that a number of these protesters are being shipped in and paid for their loathsome efforts.

Texas: SCOTUS Voting Rights Decision Clears The Way For Implementing Voter ID Law

 

As you might know, the Supreme Court recently struck down  Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act that dated from 1965, almost half a century ago. The section that they removed dealt with the necessity of sovereign states in the South  needing to seek federal approval before making any changes to their voting laws.

Aside from being unconstitutional, these provision were antiquated a long time ago. But they were still used as a political tool by the Democrats until now, a massive irony considering who actually was the party of Jim Crow.

One thing the new decision did was to allow Texas to implement a law requiring voter IDs that the state legislature passed overwhelmingly in 2011/. The law was identical to one implemented in Indiana, but Texas was prevented from implementing their law by President Obama's justice department. So the courts did their work and that obstacle to equality under th elaw has now been removed.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had this to say:

“This is a huge win for the Constitution and for equality in this country,” Abbott said. “Before today, different states were treated differently under the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is the only law that was used to impose disparate or different kind of treatment. Specifically, Texas was called out and treated differently than other states.”

Abbott noted that Indiana approved a voter ID law a few years ago and had that law upheld by the Supreme Court. But when Texas passed a nearly identical law in 2011, the Obama administration used the Voting Rights Act to block it.

“That just showed that they were using the Voting Rights Act law to treat Texas different from Indiana, and that was part of the backdrop behind today’s decision,” Abbott said. The court ruled today that that law was being used “unfairly, illegally, inappropriately, therefore it was unconstitutional,” Abbott said.

Now that this tool for voter fraud has been rendered inoperable, we may see far different results in Texas elections. Unfortunately too late fop rth e2012 elections, but still welcome.

Federal Judge Blocks Texas Anti Voter Fraud Laws

U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa ( an Obama appointee, of course) partially blocked new Texas registration laws designed to prevent voter fraud in the Lone Star State.

Costa blocked blocked the state from enforcing five provisions of the laws with a preliminary injunction on five sections of the law until a trial on whether the entire law violates the plaintiffs' civil rights and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.

Translation...let's block enforcement of the law until after November 2012.

The plaintiffs, two hand picked Galveston County residents were lawyered up by left wing partisan Democrat group Voting for America.

Under the ruling, the state of Texas may no longer require that deputy voter registrars live in Texas, so the state can be flooded with 'activists' conducting targeted voter registration drives aimed at selected,Democrat friendly groups like Latinos and blacks.

Deputy registrars will also now be able to register voters who live outside their county be able to offer cash incentives based on the number of voters registered, be able to make photocopies of completed voter registration forms 'for their records' and even mail completed applications.
Essentially, it's a license for voter fraud. There's a nothing to stop these 'activists' from mailing completed forms to anyone they want, whom can then be registered as whomever they say he or she is..because the Texas voter ID law is still tied up in court and likely will be until after November.

You just thought ACORN was history. The Democrats just resuscitated it under a few new names.

Meanwhile, the Obama Department of Justice in is diligently working across the country to do everything they can to suppress the active duty military vote.

Felons, illegal aliens, dead people and people too inept to score a photo ID even when they're given out free? That's the Democrat's preferred constituency, for very obvious reasons.

Active duty military? Not so much.

The Democrats aren't so much concerned with voting rights or vote suppression. They just want to make sure that the right votes are suppressed.

Ted Cruz Wins Texas Senate Nomination!!!

Which means he's almost assured of a seat in the next Senate.

Cruz was an underdog to take down Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst - the favorite of the party establishment and Hutchison's heir apparent. Ted Cruz was more aligned with the Tea Party, and he had a lot less money to spend than Dewhurst did.

But Ted Cruz prevailed, and I mean to tell you..I think we have an excellent rookie conservative senator coming up. It's good to see common sense prevailing somewhere in America.

American Hero: Father Kills Man Sexually Assaulting His 4-Year-Old Daughter

Now here's my nominee for father of the year:

A Texas father caught a man sexually assaulting his 4-year-old daughter and punched him in the head repeatedly, killing him, authorities said.

The father was casually acquainted with the alleged abuser, said Lavaca County Sheriff Micah Harmon.

Neither has been publicly identified.

The girl was left inside the family's house during the social gathering, while other members of her family were tending to horses, the sheriff said.

The alleged abuser was known for his horse-grooming abilities, Harmon said.

The father returned to the house, caught the man in the act, and stopped him by striking him in the head several times, Harmon said.

The man was pronounced dead on the scene, while the daughter was taken to a local hospital in Victoria, Texas, for examinations before being released.

The incident took place Saturday.

Harmon described the girl as "OK besides the obvious mental trauma."

Asked whether they would press charges against the father, the sheriff responded, "You have a right to defend your daughter. He acted in defense of his third person. Once the investigation is completed we will submit it to the district attorney who then submits it to the grand jury, who will decide if they will indict him."

I'm betting they won't. Not in Texas, thank goodness, where a degree of sanity still reigns. Instead they'll give him a medal for saving a lot of other victims by exterminating a sick, vicious animal who had no right to keep on living.

Note To Wanna Be Jihadis - Don't Mess With Texas

That's for sure.

“He was screaming, ‘Allah is great, Allah is great,’” said Nancy Haywood, passenger. “And it kind of worries you when that happens, but believe me, there were enough men to hold him down.”

And they did. Men on the plane jumped up and ran to assist the flight attendant.
“Every guy that was in my area was ready to go,” said Mark Foster, passenger. “It was not even a thought. You can tell buckles were off and people were already leaning toward the aisles.”

The men subdued the unruly passenger while the flight attendant ran to the back and retrieved plastic handcuffs and ankle cuffs.

“It almost made me cry to see the way everybody responded because the gentlemen that could help got up and helped the stewardess; she was just a little bitty thing,” said Jeanna Wisher. “What happened should have happened, everybody got up and did a part that needed to do it.”