Rick Perry vs World

25 February 2010

Don't mess with the IDF

This book sounds pretty awesome:

The son of one of Hamas's founding members was a spy in the service of Israel for more than a decade, helping prevent dozens of Islamist suicide bombers from finding their targets, it emerged today.

Codenamed the Green Prince by Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, supplied key intelligence on an almost daily basis from 1996 onwards and tracked down suicide bombers and their handlers from his father’s organization, the daily Haaretz said.

Information he supplied led to the arrests of some of the most wanted men by Israeli forces, including Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader often tipped as a potential president who was convicted of masterminding terrorist attacks, and one of Hamas' top bomb-makers Abdullah Barghouti, who is no relation of the jailed Fatah chief.

Mr Yousef, a 32-year-old convert to Christianity who now lives in California, has revealed the intrigues of his years as a spy in a new book called Son of Hamas, much to the concern of Shin Bet, whose operations will be revealed in detail. While the revelations may give a boost to Israel's intelligence service, whose external counterpart Mossad is still grappling with the diplomatic fall-out of last month's Hamas assassination in Dubai, there will be concern that the account may give too many insights into the murky world of espionage.

Posted by Evan @ 02/25/10 05:06 PM | Comments (0)

Where flaks go after politics

ESPN:

Mark McGwire did not return phone requests left with his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, on Wednesday. Efforts also were made to reach McGwire through the Cardinals.

Posted by Evan @ 02/25/10 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

Doesn't sound like it

John Carona doesn't sound like he's running for re-election. If he is, he's certainly asking for a primary opponent.

Posted by Evan @ 02/25/10 06:17 AM | Comments (0)

Bill White getting money from Big Labor

Jason Embry:

The Democratic Governors Association gave former Houston Mayor Bill White a $500,000 contribution to his gubernatorial campaign on Feb. 15, signaling that national party leaders think White can topple the Republican nominee this November.

It seems to me that Embry missed the story here. The DGA is a 527, unregulated by the FEC. It can accept unlimited contributions, and then pass them through to the campaign as long as it's not coordinated* with the campaign (wink, wink). In other words, if you want to take...oh, I don't know...half a million but you don't want to disclose where it's coming from, then you send it on over to the DGA.

Who are the 4 biggest DGA donors so far? Unions. The Teamsters, government employees, Painters, and the SEIU. So it's possible that the title is unfair to Bill White**, but not likely.

* At least that's my understanding of the law right now, but Democrats and John McCain have a tendency to try and complicate an already byzantine system.

** It could have been trial lawyer money, y'know?

Posted by Evan @ 02/25/10 04:34 AM | Comments (1)

Someone hit the boomswitch

I thought Todd Gilman had a well done writeup of the Harris County GOP dinner. My favorite part?

Among the silent auction offerings, an autographed copy of Hutchison's book about trailblazing women eventually got one bid, at the $25 minimum. The next item over was a hot seller: a Henry Golden Boy Lever Action .22 rifle, with Debra Medina's signature and the phrase "Don't Mess With Texas" engraved in the walnut stock.

It sold for $500.

Baseballs autographed by Mitt Romney, Steve Forbes and Dan Quayle had no takers at all.

Mitt might want to ponder what happened to the other two.

Posted by Evan @ 02/25/10 03:05 AM | Comments (0)

24 February 2010

Hutch goes for spending

DMN:

"If we elect Gov. [Rick] Perry for another four years, we will not address the high taxes. We will not address the spending," Hutchison told supporters and lunchtime diners at the Railhead Smokehouse, a popular barbecue restaurant in Fort Worth.

Hutchison blasted the governor for increasing the business margins tax and for what she called an 80 percent increase in state spending.

Wonder why she hasn't done more of this?

Posted by Evan @ 02/24/10 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

DMN

[The poll] shows more than half of Texas Hispanics call themselves conservative, and a surprising 23 percent say they might participate in Tuesday's GOP primary. Among those, Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by 2 to 1, according to the poll, commissioned by an Austin consultant for a national group of Hispanic legislative leaders.

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the poll hints at a little-noticed facet of Perry's political persona: He doesn't frighten Hispanics because he often visits their communities, and he distances himself from immigration hard-liners in the GOP.

"He thought the border wall was a little ridiculous and didn't think it was going to help," said Van de Putte, Democrats' leader in the Senate and a co-chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention in Denver two years ago. "What he wanted to keep out were those people that are smuggling drugs and people."

Van de Putte said Perry tilts more to the right than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and can't match Bush's high level of support among Hispanics. But she said many Hispanics remember that Perry signed a 2001 bill that let illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges. He has defended the bill, saying affected students have studied hard in Texas schools and will be good citizens.

Surprising comments from Van de Putte. Maybe some of that explains why she resisted entreaties to run statewide?

Posted by Evan @ 02/24/10 04:49 PM | Comments (0)

He'd mostly been dodging that question pretty regularly until now.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) should stay in the Senate if she falls short in her bid to become governor of Texas, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Wednesday.

"My hope is that she'd stay on and serve the remainder of her term," Cornyn told The Hill in a brief interview.

Posted by Evan @ 02/24/10 04:43 PM | Comments (0)