Category Archives: Texana

Go get ’em, Ted

Our good Texas Sen. Ted Cruz apparently has helped Israel get a reversal of the FAA’s travel embargo, which prohibited normal U.S. airline flights to and from Israel. Subsequently, many European airlines followed suit.

Ted called it an “economic boycott” of the Jewish state while we send $47 million to Hamas, well, technically to the UN’s mission to Gaza. You know, the same outfit that, after discovering Hamas rockets stored in its empty schools, simply returned them to the terrorist mob.

“The facts,” Cruz said, “suggest that President Obama has just used a federal regulatory agency to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign-policy demands…

“Secretary of State John Kerry issued a veiled threat last February when he encouraged [investment] boycotts of Israel and said that absent serious Israeli concessions at the negotiating table, Israel’s economic prosperity was ‘not sustainable’ and ‘illusory.’ [Lurch] unfortunately reprised this theme just this April…”

Cruz said he would use his senator’s privilege to block all Senate confirmations of State Department appointments until he got an explanation for why no similar airline embargoes have been imposed on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

The State Department rejected Cruz’s characterization of the ban but didn’t answer his question. Then, a few minutes before midnight Wednesday, the FAA lifted its embargo. Thanks, Ted.

Those unaccompanied children…

…are actually fewer than some of the snooze media would have you believe. If you’re paying attention, that is. If, like me, you’re tired of hearing about the latest wave of illegals crossing the Southern border, and therefore only listening with half an ear, you might conclude we’re dealing with a strange wave of thousands of Central American orphans.

Orphans? No. The kids among them—and there are plenty of teens and young adults as well—are coming across to join Mom and Dad who are already here. Mom and Dad watch MSDNC and figure amnesty is just around the corner. So it’s time to bring the whole family together for the big event.Some of the kids have phone numbers written on their shirts and pants so no one fails to call their folks.

And the federal border patrol is cooperating. The kids who are busing or flying to various states are being sent “home,” in essence, where they can swell the public school population and whatever aspects of the local welfare state they’re able to take advantage of, raising taxes for the natives.

The kids part is actually very well coordinated. It’s the older ones that Gov. Rick Perry is upset about. But just how he imagines Texas alone will be able to control its whole Southern border, is beyond me.

UPDATE:  A thousand Texas National Guard won’t be near enough, Rick.

IDF Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli, R.I.P.

Sergeant Carmeli, a native of South Padre Island, on the Gulf Coast in South Texas, was one of two Israeli Americans killed fighting in Gaza on Sunday.

Nissim, 21, who had moved to Israel from Texas in 2010, was an infantryman in the elite Golani Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces.

UPDATE: He “was an example of a new and increasingly common breed of lone soldier — a native Hebrew speaker with Israeli parents who chose to move abroad in pursuit of business opportunities, but instilled a strong sense of Israeli identity in their children, so strong that they choose to return to Israel and serve in the IDF rather than attend university overseas.”

MORE:  Astounding estimates of 12,000 to 20,000 people attended his funeral services in Haifa. Reflecting the love Israelis have for their young defenders.

Rockets, we need rockets

Now that the latest ceasefire seems to be in effect, so Hamas can restock and reposition its snipers, don’t you know, we need to consider some places on this side of the Atlantic that could use rocketing.

But not Austin, as J.D. at Mouth of the Brazos wants. His other choices, such as D.C. and San Francisco, would be fine with me. I would add Houston, also, home of the awful Astros. And Dallas. Just because.

UPDATE:  So much for ill-timed jokes. The missile shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine certainly isn’t funny, though it was bound to happen sooner or later. Twenty-three Americans killed, according to some sources.

MORE:  According to the manifest released Saturday, and available at Fox, none of the passengers were Americans. The majority were Dutch.

Flying illegals northeast upsets Yankees

It’s easy to be for open borders when you don’t live near one, eh? But when the feds start flying the latest crop of illegals to your northeastern town or to one near it, all of a sudden…

This is un-American and has raised the stakes to the public health and public safety threat.”

Gee, guys. You folks in Boston (as in Massachusetts) who always vote Democrat are not living up to your Leftist-rules-for-everyone reputations. Everyone else, anyhow. What a surprise.

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE: From National Review: “…said Lynn (Mass.) Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy. ‘But now it’s gotten to the point where the school system is overwhelmed, our health department is overwhelmed, the city’s budget is being sustainably altered in order [to] accommodate all of these admissions in the school department.'” Get ready, Judith, there’s plenty more where they came from.

Bye, bye, Bill

Well, supposedly, it won’t actually be bye, bye to UT prez Bill Powers until next June, but we’ll see. The Board of Regents wanted October at the latest and they may get it yet. All this after their review found political favoritism in admissions on Powers’ watch.

“Undergrad applicants with recommendation letters from lawmakers had a 58.7% admission rate at UT between 2009 and 2013 compared to a 15.8% overall admission rate. Half of the law school applicants with special letters were admitted, compared to 22.5% overall, and some of the favored had scores well below average.”

By state law, UT and other state universities must admit the top 10 percent of a Texas high school’s graduating class. The next 40 percent can apply without any guarantees. The remainder are out of luck. Looks like the politically-connected in the 40 percent were getting a boost and some of the bottom 50 percent were getting into law school.

Via Wall Street Journal.

The new Keystone Pipeline

“Change the path of the pipeline and have it run north from Laredo to Alberta, make the pipeline bigger and with windows, put a fast train inside and welcome all the illegals at the border for a free train trip to Alberta, They’ll love it way up north.

“One pol there is now demanding Canada provide $20,000 per person minimum income. I think that offer might even beat the free benefits we’re offering. What could be better incentive to large scale immigration than a very generous welfare state?”

I’m sure Wormtongue and his Democrat cronies can get behind this pipeline, but only if it’s rerouted from Laredo to Wisconsin. They’re after new Democrat voters, you know. Sending ’em to Canada wouldn’t work. They’d just have to bring them back.

They’re bound to like that minimum income idea, though. Once they figure out who will pay for it. Other than themselves, of course.