Via Newsmax, May 23rd:

The growing Latino vote in the Lone Star State, coupled with the national interest in Castro since he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention last year, would make him the most formidable candidate, his admirers say, if not for 2014, then certainly in 2018. Republican Gov. Rick Perry may be wearing out his welcome with voters and is sure to face primary opposition next year after 13 years in office. But should he win re-election, the Economist noted recently, Perry “in 2018 will be 68 years old and seeking a fifth term, while Mr. Castro will be a fresh face at 44. Sometimes the route to higher office involves knowing the right time to seek it.”

This article popped up on my radar a couple of days ago even though Castro has said repeatedly that he has no plans to run for Governor next year.   So why the recent speculation and social media buzz?

That Castro would seek the Governor’s job after serving a few years as a lackluster pretty-boy in the San Antonio Mayor’s office wouldn’t be too surprising.  Barack Obama served not even one term as a Senator before powerful interests convinced him to run for President, defying all odds.   The comparisons between Barack Obama and Julian Castro are numerous.  Low info voters like to nominate fresh faces based on big, well-received speeches, not results.   Both have ties to sketchy foreign investors and like to throw taxpayer money into shaky green company startups.  Both men were raised by mothers who were highly critical of America  – much more so than just your typical outspoken progressive, these women associated with rabid anti-American political activists aka radical communists.

Both Castro and Obama mask their leftist ideologies as politically moderate when they are nothing of the sort.  Castro  seemingly wants San Antonio to rival San Francisco as a haven for the gay population.  His one policy achievement, a pre-K program, will ultimately prove to be taxpayer provided day care for low paid, unskilled illegal immigrants that are flocking to the region in search of government benefits.

And where Barack Obama has courted, activated and counted on the African American vote — Castro wants to segment and divide society further by openly wooing Hispanics (many who refuse to learn English or otherwise assimilate)  using taxpayer money as enticements.     Brought up by a mother who founded an organization with a motto “For The Race everything. Outside The Race, nothing”– it would be hard to imagine a man indoctrinated in that thinking having a real interest in representing all the people, wouldn’t it?

Castro likely gets his marching orders from the same progressive puppet masters that control Obama, so don’t listen to what Castro says he’s going to do, because radical progressives are well trained masters of deception.    Remember this interview with Barack Obama in 2004?

Given the similarities between Barack Obama and Julian Castro, don’t rule anything out, especially if progressives think they need a game changer to take the focus off Obama’s scandals.

One of my favorite questions was asked of outgoing commissioner Miller:  Questioner:  “If someone answered ‘I don’t know’ in an audit, what would you do to them?”   Miller:  “Uh, we’d…work with them” — yeah, I bet they would!!!

I got chills listening to this particular line of questioning.  Why didn’t every single person in the hearing room have this kind of outrage?

Kelly received the only real applause in the room after this.  Deservedly so.  Please share. And thanks, PA, for electing this guy.

Exit question:  If the IRS staged Lois Lerner’s supposedly impromptu, extemporaneous “apology” — Why is she now hiding out in Montreal if the IRS didn’t do anything illegal?

Susan Collins appeared on CNN’s State of the Union yesterday to address the exploding scandal at the IRS, as many of the other Sunday talk shows focused more on the exploding scandal of Benghazi. Candy Crowley asked Collins, “Is this passing the smell test to you?” Collins scoffed at the explanation given — that this took place only among low-level staffers — and wondered aloud why Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew haven’t apologized for the agency’s targeting of political opponents for more than a year up to the 2012 election.~ Free Republic

I’m only going to wade into this with my little toe, that’s about as far as I want to go with it. Reason being,  I don’t want to relive those fearful days and nights when the group I formed in good conscience was undergoing special scrutiny by the powers that be.

And when I say “powers that be” —- I never was naive enough to think that the buck stopped at the IRS.

If you know me from outside of this blog, you know that I was one of the founding members of the Richmond Tea Party. Those who like to demonize the original Tea Party groups as Astroturf led by some sort of puppet-master make wrong assumptions because they don’t know the founders of local groups.  Nearly all of us were just people with everyday private sector jobs, or homemakers, who felt a line had been crossed in early 2009, when lawmakers were boasting they were passing mega-bills without reading them.   I had no contacts with politicians and was not active with any political organizations in 2009 when I put up the Richmond Tea Party website and decided to organize a tax day event.  I thought we were just going to bring a bunch of regular people together to celebrate America’s founding principles, and protest out of control government spending.  Nobody, particularly not me, had any idea that the populist tea party movement would grow past April 15, 2009 and become such a phenomenon. That it did caused certain tax applications to have to be made, and that’s what many tea party groups across the country undertook with due diligence starting in late 2009.

I know the Richmond Tea Party poured a lot of hours into preparing the required documentation. I know how much the attorney’s fees cost. I know how intimidating the process was, the lingering fear that somehow the IRS would identify us as proponents of a flat tax, as advocates for smaller government, a group that would unhesitatingly gut the agency if given the chance.  Fearful in that “they” — the powers that be– might use it against us, somehow.  Yes, it sounds paranoid, but now we know we had reason to be.  The IRS is a very powerful government agency, and if used as a tool by other power seekers, nothing can stop it. Not even innocence.

But.  What I find odd, and what I think doesn’t pass the “smell test” is this whole out of the blue admission by the IRS, that the IRS did something they shouldn’t have, something illegal, and now they are sorry. Why in the world did this come out on Friday? Why would anyone, a current employee especially,  bring it up at all?

I just can’t shake the belief that there is something very twisted behind this, not just a distraction from Benghazi as Michele Bachmann has suggested, but something more than that. Could it be that the “powers that be” want hearings, want “investigations”,  in order to make some sweeping changes that will only serve to clamp down on more of our rights? Isn’t that how it always seems to end up?

I don’t know. It just smells awfully fishy to me. In other words, it stinks to high heaven, you know, that place where Obama lives.

UPDATE: Uh-huh. Fairly obvious now what the end result of this is going to be. This administration cannot do what it wants to do with the laws currently in place. It demands to know who opposes it. Look for a major change in codes governing 501(c)4 organizations. That’s my prediction – this will end up benefiting the administration. Especially when you have people like Tim Kaine, former head of the DNC during the time period all of this activity took place, coming out against the WH, you gotta believe there’s something sneaky going on.

Teleflora offered a nice selection of floral arrangements, so I chose this one, priced at $89.00.

The flowers were ordered and paid for on Wednesday, to be delivered on the Friday before Mother’s Day. On Friday, I got a text “thank you!” from “mom”, with this photo attached of what she actually received.

Do they look the same? I don’t think so, and neither did my husband and many friends on Facebook. The colors are totally different, the flowers — not enough roses, one too many carnations and non descript white flowers that look (to me) like they belong in a baptism or funeral. Instead of a “fashionista” fashionable vase, it’s a cheap garage sale vase, no bow.

I tried to contact the company (as did, apparently, hundreds of others who were disappointed with their service) but although they say they are interested in helping, there is no follow through at all. Only lip service. Sure, florists have the right to substitute when flowers aren’t available, but this amounts to bait and switch. And for nearly $100, I call this just a total rip off. Where is the integrity in the process? Sadly, symptomatic of our culture.

In order for CPS Energy to strike the deal with South Korean solar firm Nexolon to bring manufacturing facilities to San Antonio, it had to entice the company with taxpayer incentives. One of the biggest incentives was a sweet deal for the land purchase at Brooks City-Base.

More about that here.

Some people are still shaking their heads at how easily the deal went down, considering the shaky state of the solar energy economy and how much taxpayers are having to ante up.

In yesterday’s column in the San Antonio Express News, Greg Jefferson touched on concerns with the make-up of the Brooks Development Authority, the entity that pretty much rubber stamped the deal with Nexolon several weeks ago. The BDA is currently in the process of searching for a new CEO to oversee the economic development of the Authority’s property holdings. In order to be successful, the BDA needs government grants and bond allocations – which means that a likely successful candidate would own a lot of goodwill with politicians. And that’s an issue, writes Jefferson, when calls from sitting officials are made to promote candidates — it becomes a slippery slope “that seems to be getting slippier”:

Of course, each call of that nature — whether for Gomez or anybody else, whether to BDA directors or some other council-appointed board — would be a transgression. It would mean council reps are exerting political pressure on a board that, on paper, is independent and above political influence.

But in Chan’s view, that’s exactly what happened in January, ahead of the BDA board’s vote on a meaty incentive package for solar-panel maker Nexolon America.

Among the goodies: the chance for the company to essentially buy an 86-acre chunk of Brooks City-Base, valued at $17 million, for $5 million. The city has pledged to effectively make up the difference with $12 million in improvements at Brooks.

Only one of BDA’s 11 directors voted against the package on Jan. 28.

“I think they’re heavily influenced by politics — they need to be a little more independent,” Chan said. “I felt tremendous pressure was being given to board members from the council to push forward with the Nexolon deal.”

Despite whispers to the contrary, both Chan and Pelaez-Prada said she didn’t press Pelaez-Prada, her appointee, to vote against the package. And despite whispers to the contrary, a spokesman for Mayor Julián Castro said neither he nor his staff lobbied the board.

Chan isn’t naming names, and Pelaez-Prada said he didn’t hear from board members about getting squeezed by their appointing council members.

But he makes this allowance: “Given the vote count, I could see why people would think that.”

Indeed.

Politicians stacking the boards with cronies who in turn apply for government grants from the people who appointed them. Million dollar deals struck with foreign firms with not even an audit, while the public entities hide behind confidentiality clauses. Pretty good gig I guess, if you’re in on it.

Imagine Average Joe, a tea party member.  Put a long spear in his hand.  Now imagine him jumping up and down, pumping his spear with outrage!

When you pictured Average Joe – did he look like you?  Or did he look like someone you don’t want to be?

————————————————————————————————————–

Governor Bob McDonnell’s support of the largest tax hike in VA history is shocking, mostly because it is contrary to the kind of governing  he promised when he ran for office.   I am not anti-tax, we NEED to fund our road improvements  - but I AM anti-wasteful spending, and this “transportation” bill does nothing to guarantee that taxes won’t be mismanaged yet again.  But most of all I am anti-promising something that you cannot, or will not, deliver in order to be elected.  Which he clearly did.  

I will give Jamie Radtke props for her TV appearance, where she (with the exception of the uncalled for plug for Susan Stimpson) logically explains tea party opposition to the deal. But THEN, she gets on hootsuite and follows it up with this (my emphasis added):

Patriots,

I went on CBS6 yesterday and WMAL this morning. The outrage is starting to build fast. I can feel it! Virginians are just now learning about the largest tax increase in the history of Virginia that Republican Governor Bob McDonnell is pushing on all of us!

I’ve created a way for all citizens to voice their outrage to Bob McDonnell and create a groundswell. I’m not asking people to sign a petition, but will you please ask ALL your people to go to http://www.notaxincrease.com and “like” the page. Let’s see if we can generate some big noise!

If you will remember, one of the keys to repealing the retroactive abuser fees in HB3202 here in Virginia back in 2007 was the petition that was created that instantly received over 10,000 signatures. Going to http://www.notaxincrease.com is even easier for people, because they don’t have to give their email address or any private information!

Can you please push to all your contacts? I’d really appreciate it. Let’s skewer Bob McDonnell, Speaker Howell, and Tommy Norment for crushing the taxpayer – coming from Republicans no less!

Thanks so much!

Let’s roll!
Jamie Radtke
jamie@jamieradtke.com

So, Patriots.   You know the drill!   A Republican has betrayed you.  Get outraged!  Go SKEWER the Governor and Speaker. Just be mindful that, when sharpening your  tool, you don’t become someone else’s.   Because going to http://www.notaxincrease.com is a Facebook page, and you can’t “like” it without giving up your Facebook identity.   But, it’s those Republican leaders who think tea partiers are idiots. What an Outrage!

Well, well, well.

First, some background.  CPS Energy, a municipal utility that has Mayor Julian Castro as a board member, recently signed a deal with a South Korean firm to manufacture solar panel components in San Antonio at the site of the former Brooks AFB.   The billion dollar venture is backed with taxpayer money with the goal of creating 800 professional and technical jobs – and helping OCI Solar, a division of Nexolon Inc,, become the leading solar energy provider in the world.

Read more about it here, and here and here.   Let’s just say that this whole solar deal seems a bit on the shady side.

With this new project gearing up in San Antonio, in the background we now hear, courtesy of Erika Johnsen at Hot Air, that ANOTHER Obama backed solar energy deal is in its death throes.   Wonder what the bigwigs at CPS Energy have to say about this new development. Probably some lame thing about the OCI Solar deal being different, or that its parent company Nexolon is rolling in the dough! (ha,ha, that’s a laugh) or that the Brooks project will be managed better than all the others that have failed, epicly, to date. I doubt that anybody at CPS will admit that it has assurances from … well, you know, the powers that be …. that things will work out just fine.   For the Mayor counting on political paybacks, that is.

If the San Antonio solar power manufacturing faclity tanks, nobody in their right mind will be able to say they didn’t see it coming.  But that doesn’t protect Mr. Taxpayer much.

Late last summer, at about the same time as the failed federally-backed solar company Solyndra was in its death throes, the Obama administration decided to go full steam ahead with its loan guarantee program anyway, approving a $197 million loan to oh-so-promising startup SoloPower. On top of that, the company received a total of $58 million in various tax incentives from Oregon and Portland, where they located their first major factory. Pretty sweet leg-up for an industry President Obama is constantly telling us is “on the rise,” no?

Womp. Solopower announced today that there going to have to do some business restructuring, including layoffs — and although they didn’t announce an exact number, it doesn’t look like things are going quite according to plan for them. Via Forbes:

The company issued a short statement about the plan after The Oregonian reported last night that the Silicon Valley startup is in trouble. The venture-backed company is laying off employees, and top executives have left the company recently, the newspaper reported.

SoloPower declined to disclose how many people it’s letting go or where the layoffs will take place.

“The restructuring includes a workforce reduction designed to trim costs and address market conditions as the company transitions from an R&D focus to commercial manufacturing and sales,” the company said in a statement.

SoloPower now joins a long line of solar equipment manufacturers worldwide who have struggled mightily to stay in business in the past two years. A glut of solar panels has caused prices to crash and forced dozens of manufacturers to either file for bankruptcies, idle production lines or scratch new factory plans. The impact of this imbalance of supply and demand has affected everyone from industry stalwarts such as First Solar and SunPower to startups such as Solyndra and Abound Solar.

When Democrats talk about “taking over” Texas, about “crushing the GOP” so that it no longer functions as a second party, is that divisive talk or conciliatory talk? It sure doesn’t sound like: Hey, let’s get together on work on making things better, does it?

To progressives, the success of Texas isn’t something to admire or emulate. It is something that must be stopped in its tracks – to kill and feed off the carcass until the bones are picked clean.

That’s why they’ve launched Battleground Texas:

Launched on February 26, 2013, Battleground Texas (BT) seeks to transform the traditionally Republican Lone Star State into a Democratic stronghold. At its inception, BT pledged that over the next several years it would “focus on expanding the electorate by registering more voters—and, as importantly, mobilizing those Texans who are already registered but who have not been engaged in the democratic process.”

Toward that end, BT relies heavily on the efforts of volunteers and organizers “knocking on doors, registering voters, and engaging Texans” to support Democratic candidates. By BT’s telling, large numbers of Texans are “tired of not being heard, tired of not being represented … and tired of the same Republican playbook which is failing our communities and ignoring the[ir] needs.” Vowing to “change the face of presidential politics in this country as we know it,” BT points out that “with 38 electoral votes at stake, a blue [Democratic] Texas would be a surefire road to the White House.” In short, the objective is to make it impossible for Republicans to ever again win a presidential election.

BT notes that as of 2012, Hispanics constituted 41% of Texas’ citizenry, while whites were 43%. This is highly significant because Hispanics tend to vote heavily Democratic. In BT’s calculus, existing demographic trends (birth rates, immigration rates, and the gradual maturation of Texas’s large pre-voting-age Hispanic population) will eventually—by themselves—make Texas a plurality-Hispanic state by 2017 and a majority-Hispanic state by 2036. But the organization aims to accelerate these eventualities as much as possible, by focusing its efforts on three major priorities:

1) Voter Registration: Observing that Hispanics in Texas have been far less likely than their white counterparts to be registered voters, BT places heavy emphasis on registering the state’s 1.5 million unregistered Hispanics. It also seeks to target the 500,000 unregistered African-Americans and 200,000 unregistered Asian-Americans, groups that are likewise reliable supporters of Democrats.

2) Voter Participation: Noting that Hispanics have been significantly less inclined than whites to vote even when registered, BT devotes many of its resources and energies to voter-mobilization initiatives.

3) Voting Blue: BT strives to influence public opinion in Texas via messaging that depicts Republicans as racists who do not understand the needs and concerns of nonwhite voters.

How is any conservative law abidingTexan supposed to respond? Particularly, how is any white Republican supposed to respond to point #3?

In essence, Democrats are proudly stating they are working hard to turn Texas into a welfare state like California and New York and Illinois — so that they then have a lock on turning all of America into a welfare state. They plan to do this by inserting wedges in society — by turning neighbor against neighbor.

The Battleground Texas plan:  Stir up tensions between groups, get Democrats in office, raise taxes, watch businesses leave….watch the standard of living decline. That’s what happens when Democrats take over, right, Detroit? Do I hear a second, Chicago?

Should Texans not fight the efforts of outsiders conniving to change the system to gain the right of illegals to vote, to encourage immigration followed by voting Democrat, with promises of free food stamps, free pre-K, free housing? Texans, the Democrats have declared war on your way of living. Their plan is to take advantage of all that you have created, to take a state that is working — and turn it into a state that no longer does.  This is a battle we must not lose.

Noted Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was threatened by a senior White House aide identified as Gene Sperling after asking too many questions.  Apparently it’s a pattern.  Although the left is now attempting to portray it as a misunderstanding of some kind, there is no other way of looking at Sperling’s response as anything other than a threat.  It may have been a soft threat hid behind the word “friend”, a veiled threat, but if you put it in context of a man in a place of extreme power, telling someone else he’s going to “regret” his actions — it’s not acceptable if you still believe that our government works for us, not the other way around.

Politico has released the Woodward, Sperling emails, which you can read here.    I think the key to Sperling’s mindset is found in this line:

but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here.

This is how Obama and his appointed lackeys look at everything they do.  Our actions are unconstitutional?  But it’s for the collective good, don’t get caught up in the details, dude.   What’s a few mistakes with Fast and Furious, Solyndra, taking over the auto industry, and Benghazi when we’re working on fundamental transformation?  It’s the end goal that matters, right?   How small you are to focus on the minor issues when the big picture is so much more important.

White House response in a nutshell:  Don’t worry about a few specific trees, people, especially when there’s controlled burning go on.

Obama’s attempt to hold Republicans responsible for job losses due to sequestration gets more ridiculous by the moment:

The president ticked off a host of expected repercussions should the $85 billion in cuts for this year take effect. He said Border Patrol, emergency responders, FBI agents, airport controllers and others would all face cutbacks. He said teachers would be laid off by the thousands and America’s military would be degraded.

If “Border Patrol, emergency responders, FBI agents and airport controllers, teachers and the military” are the ones on the chopping block, Barack Obama has only himself to blame. Those are the positions that Obama set up to be hit – instead of the more obvious government seat warmers at the EPA, IRS, Department of Education, Energy — heck, 1/2 of his and Michelle’s staff could go and the country wouldn’t suffer for it. How much do we pay a staffer to tout around Obama’s golf clubs on his many vacation trips?

But let the fear mongering continue, Obama style:

This week, a host of Cabinet secretaries wrote letters and trooped to Capitol Hill hearings to warn that the impact will indeed be calamitous.

Furloughed inspectors will force meat and poultry plants to shut down nationwide. Wait times will soar at airport security and border crossings. Rent checks will be cut off to 10,000 elderly or disabled people and single mothers. And the FBI warned it will be less able to “penetrate and disrupt terrorist plans prior to an attack.”

Yes, but will there still be money to spend on advertising food stamps? I’m sure the WH will find the cash, somewhere.