Darth Hammer - Too Funny

And while we're on The Darth Side...


Use The Farce Luke.
Found at The JawaReport

Read more...

Friday Link Roundup

Palin stumps for McCain! Payback?
I hope that's all it is, but she owes him nothing really. He owes her, as far as I'm concerned.
Michelle Malkin has the scoop.

Crash Landing For Err America
Call the Waaaaambulance. 

Air America said 10 consecutive quarters of declining ad revenue and the difficulty of making money on the Internet contributed to its troubles.

It seems there is no remedy for bad management and a message no-one wants to hear.
Say Goodnight Gracie.

Look! Is it Air America's death knell? Is it Obummer and Pelosi's Corner Bar? Wherever this sign is pointing to, it looks to me as if someone skipped Marketing 101. Or, perhaps they are trying a new "Victim Marketing Strategy" Whatever they are selling, like Obama and Pelosi and Reid, no-one is buying.

 

Little Miss Attila warns the testosterone wielding among us to Please Remain Calm.
Sorry LMA, I was waaay ahead of the curve on this one. :)


NEW! Solar Panel Shingles! Way Cool.

And a complete  Congressional Primary calendar.

Via Instapundit, of course.

Also, more Robot Love:
From Instapundit.
The fetish continues?

I've been meaning to post this. Been a busy week at work.

Read more...

Woodshed Politics

Tuesday, the Massachusetts Independents and Conservatives ran roughshod over the Democrat machine. To say that I'm ecstatic would be an understatement. OBummer probably needs a couple more TVs in the WH after doing some impromptu, unscripted demolition, but that's OK, he's got the taxpayers' money and a Nobel Prize to pay for them.

But, before we commence breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back, we need to look at what happened in Mass. and consider how to do it better next time.

Senator Scott Brown is a liberal Republican. Granted he's the lesser of two evils and will serve the purposes of the nation by being in that seat for sure. But I think one can easily show that he leans much farther left than most in the Republican party. So here's what I'm really getting at. We've got less than a year before the 2010 elections. We need Real Conservatives in the upcoming elections if we are to keep up the momentum and I'm not just talking on a state or national level.

Get Local and Get Vocal:
Former Speaker of the House Thomas "Tip" O'Neill once said  "All politics is local."

I agree. We need to start from the bottom up. Nominate the best candidates you can find for your local elections. This is where the grass roots will really take hold in the next two or three election cycles. If we can catapult some of these into State offices this year, fine but the point is, most of those running at that level are already entrenched in their campaigns. So let's set about finding the future Conservative leaders this year.

On Term Limits:
To all those people who keep up the "Term Limits" and "Throw Them All Out" mantras. I want to point out just how dangerous those philosophies are. For one, they are rooted in a lazy attitude towards politics. It says that you are too lazy to do your own research. Does the politician you are about to throw out deserve to be thrown out like bad house guest? If so, good. Kick them out but remember, in the end we voters are at fault for letting the freeloader stay in the guestroom for too long.

If you are truly voting your political beliefs then he may be the right person for the job and with the TL or TTAO philosophy, you've just taken a valuable asset off the playing field. Especially in the case of an experienced politician, the newly elected will be slowed by the learning curve and possibly outflanked by the opposition. I would rather we keep the good ones and get rid of the bad.

Another argument against TL would be that a politician who knew he was about to lose his seat would have no accountability, no allegiance to the voter who should grade his performance. That sets up the special interest buying a vote at the last of his term, with no repercussions except for the citizen. The answer to this is not term limits. The answer is a more involved and informed voting base.

Define Your Beliefs:
This is merely a caution not to vote angry. We need to vote for something, not against something else and getting started locally is the only way to set up future elections for that end.

This past Presidential election is a perfect example of a population voting against  a person rather than voting for a set of principles. We all know where that got us. That kind of angry voting lead us to the situation we're in now. With government breathing down our backs and threatening to take over one sixth of the economy.

But it also awakened us and got a lot of people fired up!

Let's stoke that fire with fresh blood from the local woodpile.



HT Villainous Company
The American Conservative

Read more...

Thank You Doug Ross!

Doug Ross's Journal is Da Absolute Bomb! And his readers are pretty explosive themselves.
You make a small time Texas Robot feel a little bigger. Much grass for the linkage Douglas. You Rock!

Read more...

Massachusetts Update: 8:25pm CT - Live

Gateway Pundit comes through again!
Live streaming the Scott Brown election party.

I'm just sitting here at my local beer joint trying not to celebrate too early. However, I will raise a bottle of American brewed beer in a salute to the descendants of the original Tea Party participants.

Thank you for waking up with the rest of us. Welcome to the party.

Cheers!

UPDATE: Coakley Concedes!

Read more...

Texas' In-State Tuition Law - Unconstitutional

Our second installment of The Peter Morrison Report:
Summary of this week's report:

Under current Texas law, illegal aliens qualify for in-state tuition at state colleges and  universities, paying far less than legal immigrants and American citizens from other states. This
benefit costs Texas taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually, and the amount is getting higher every year. IRCOT has filed suit to put a stop to this outrage. Let's support their efforts, and also contact our lawmakers to demand they repeal the law.

Full report:

Many Texans aren't aware of it, but public colleges and universities in Texas are required by law to treat illegal aliens better than American citizens who live in other states. Back in 2001 the legislature passed a law letting illegal aliens pay the same tuition as legal Texas residents pay, as long as they've been in the country for at least three years, and promise to apply for permanent residency. Meanwhile, a young man or woman who is an
American citizen, but grew up a few miles across the Oklahoma or Louisiana state line, has to pay thousands of dollars more than the illegal alien to attend the same Texas university.

There are certainly good reasons to charge out of state residents higher tuition at public  universities than Texans pay. State funded colleges and universities are set up primarily to educate Texans. In-state tuition rates are subsidized by Texas taxpayers, and so if out of state students want to attend one of our schools they're more than welcome to, but they'll have to pay extra for the privilege and don't get the Texas taxpayer subsidy. This is standard operating procedure in almost all states, and has been going on for decades. There's nothing unfair about it.

It becomes extremely unfair, however, when people who are in the country illegally are given in-state tuition, which is subsidized by the taxpayers of Texas, while American citizens from other states have to pay thousands of dollars more per semester. We are now becoming second class citizens in our own country. American citizens from out of state are treated worse than people who shouldn't even be here in the first place, people who are breaking the law every day they remain in America.



Liberals and RINOs like to claim that giving illegal aliens in-state tuition at taxpayer expense is a good "investment."  According to this theory, because the illegal must promise to seek permanent residency, it encourages them to assimilate and become legal citizens, and in turn they become role models for other illegals to emulate. They also say that it's far better for them to go to college and get employment training so they can become productive members of the economy, which justifies the massive tax subsidies they receive.

They're wrong on all counts. Illegal aliens shouldn't be "assimilating" in the first place. They should be returning to their country of citizenship, not freeloading here. As far as the "role model" argument, all we do when we give illegal aliens tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer subsidies for college is to encourage even more illegal immigration. That's Economics 101 - what you subsidize, you get more of. Compounding this is the fact that legal immigrants who respect our nation's laws don't qualify for the lower tuition. We're rewarding illegal immigrants and
punishing the ones who follow the rules. Their third argument is also faulty. If we need more productive workers in the Texas economy, we could simply quit charging higher tuition for out of state Americans.

It's an outrage that this law was ever passed, as it's blatantly unconstitutional. Finally, a patriotic organization is stepping up to the plate to do something about this injustice. The Immigration
Reform Coalition of Texas (IRCOT) has filed a lawsuit to put a stop to this practice. IRCOT spokeswoman Rebecca Forrest spoke to the Lone Star Report about the lawsuit:

"We believe Texas is in clear violation of federal law by giving cash grants to illegal aliens. Texas is currently treating illegal aliens better than it treats legal residents and American citizens, and we obviously want our leaders in Texas to change this situation...we want people to come  legally, obey our laws, speak our language and assimilate."

IRCOT is a fine organization working hard to reverse the invasion of illegal aliens, and deserves your support. Former Supreme Court Justice Steven Wayne Smith is also a party to the lawsuit, which speaks well of the solid legal argument the suit is based on.  Several states have passed similar laws, but there's a growing groundswell of opposition from outraged Americans fed up with their government coddling illegal aliens. Oklahoma recently rescinded its law, and even in liberal California, the state appeals court ruled their version unconstitutional (although it's been appealed to the state Supreme Court).

Texas' in-state tuition law is not only unconstitutional; it's also extremely expensive. No  government office tracks the figures, but The Lone Star Foundation estimated that in-state tuition for illegals cost Texas taxpayers approximately $18 million in 2003 and nearly $35 million in 2005, nearly doubling in just two years! If that rate of growth continues, it won't be long before its costing Texas over $100 million per year. As long as our government refuses to get serious about stopping illegal immigration, that figure is going to keep going higher every year.

We've got high hopes that the IRCOT lawsuit will be successful, and that the expensive, unjust practice of granting illegal in-state tuition benefits will be officially declared unconstitutional.
It's a travesty that IRCOT has to even take this to court, because our legislature could rescind the law at any time. There's no excuse for it ever being passed in the first place, but in today's economy, it's even more indefensible. We can't afford to be giving tens of millions of dollars every year to illegal aliens who shouldn't even be here in the first place, while legal immigrants
and American citizens have to pay their own way to attend Texas universities.

We should all support IRCOT and their efforts to nullify this unjust and wasteful law, but we shouldn't stop there. Contact your legislators today and demand that they repeal the in-state tuition law. They have the authority to do so, and there are no good reasons why they shouldn't. When it comes to illegal immigration, it's often the federal courts that impose these liberal  policies, and there's little we can do about it. That's not the case this time. It's our own elected officials in Texas who passed this law, and it's time we demanded they repeal it.

Sources: 
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6772447.html?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:0ae09396-5284-4525-95a5-276c5f0602be 
http://www.ircot.com/documents/Lone_Star_Rpt_IRCOT_Lawsuit_12-18-09.pdf 

The Peter Morrison Report 
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com 
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreport

Read more...

Is It Just Me...

or does Instapundit have a robot fetish lately?
Here's one.
And another.

Hmmm.

Read more...

Join the Brown Brigade - Call From Home

Help promote Scott Brown for Senate in Massachusetts. Send a message to the Liberals that we do not want their version of Health Care Reform.
Today is the day to get the vote out!
Sign up here.

Read more...

Block Brown?

Hillbuzz asks, if the Dem's won't seat Brown, do we have a Plan B? or, in the words of Sean Connery: "What are you prepared to do?"


Good question.

HT Little Miss Attila

Read more...

Planned Parenthood - Racists? You Betcha.

In Houston, the new Planned Parenthood Abortion Super Center is to be located in a predominately Black and Hispanic community. How can anyone say that PP isn't racist? Aren't they just promoting self enforced population control? This is sickening.
Check out this video from Bound4LIFE - Houston, Now Is The Time

HT: The Woodlands TEA Party

YREFUMCHNY6Q

Read more...

The Texas Debates

In case you missed it or would like to see it again, this is a link to a video archive of the debate between Hutchison, Medina and Perry Jan. 14.

Found at Patterico's Pontifications.

Read more...