Google may be cracking down on free speech, but that's free enterprise

God bless the Internet. The creation of American free enterprise and unchained innovation, based on already decades-old military technology, the World Wide Web is  a prime example of how freedom can not only transform the world but improve lives.

Despite all the fake news, pornography, and dark web activity we've come to fear, the advantages of interconnectedness are too numerous to mention here.

We'll stop the ode and revert, instead, to a jeremiad of sorts regarding the unintended consequences of its success.

'Gosnell' advance screening censored by hotel; backup events on Saturday, Monday

An advance showing of a movie depicting the trial of Kermit Gosnell -- the abortion doctor accused of murdering a young mother and hundreds of newborns -- was apparently too much truth for Planned Parenthood to take.

According to an email communique from the producers of the upcoming movie "Gosnell," the showing designed to coincide with Saturday's Planned Parenthood gala in Austin was canceled by the host hotel -- even though former Planned Parenthood national president Cecile Richards was invited to attend the screening.

Planned Parenthood and 'Gosnell' pre-screening to clash at Austin hotel (UPDATE: screening canceled)

UPDATE: the screening has been canceled by the hotel. Read more.

As posh Planned Parenthood patrons prepare to gather in downtown Austin for a gala, just down the hallway an upcoming feature film surrounding the grotesque murders perpetrated by notorious abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell is scheduled for an advanced screening.

Coincidence? That would be tremendously ironic, but the timing is quite intentional. Texas Alliance for Life booked the same hotel with a mind to "shine a light in the darkness as we host this event at the same time and location Planned Parenthood ..."

Former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards is the keynote for the Saturday, Sept. 29, gala for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, at the Hyatt Regency (208 Barton Springs Road, Austin). The screening is set to begin at 6 p.m. in a nearby suite.

Pickups, Punk rock, and politics (or why Beto doesn't stand a chance)

What do these two images have in common? Almost everything.

Texas political pop quiz time: Who are we talking about, here?

• This young(ish) rising star won the Democrat primary for U.S. Senate and quickly drew national attention for his persona, appeal to the grassroots, and a media biased to the left.
• He completed a successful tour of small town stump speeches to rally Democrats and swing voters covering 60,000 miles of Texas heartland.
• He boasted about refusing PAC money while focusing on small donors.
• His David vs. Goliath bid against the Senator Texas liberals fear the most has made him the hope of a state Democratic Party with few other hopes of winning a race at the top of the ballot.

If you guessed Democrat Congressman Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke ...

Paper trail voting technology brought to you by Travis County Republicans

As a major victory for advocates of ballot integrity, the Travis County Commissioners Court this week approved a new paper ballot backup hybrid voting system that combines electronic tabulations with a voter verified paper ballot.

According to the Austin American Statesman, the county's elections chief gave credit to the voters in general for paving the way for this innovation in voting technology.

“Our voters have been asking for it for a long time, and it was not available on the marketplace,” [Travis County Clerk Dana] DeBeauvoir, the county’s chief election official, said in an interview. “I tried to build it myself. We got a long way down the line, and ... we caused, we influenced the marketplace to come back and do this.”

For background read the Statesman article here: https://www.statesman.com/news/local/travis-county-purchase-million-paper-trail-voting-system

Who might "the voters" DeBeauvoir referred to be, exactly?

Austin audit headed to ballot; fight to remove tricky language just beginning

Misleading language may potentially doom a now-approved petition to place an audit of the City of Austin on the November ballot.

The coalition supporting the audit ballot item, Citizens for an Accountable Austin, is taking emergency legal action to clarify the language (see legal petition via the Texas Monitor at https://texasmonitor.org/attorney-citys-ballot-language-on-independent-austin-audit-political-prejudiced).

According to Matt Mackowiak, county Republican chairman who stayed up to the wee hours to testify, the victory was nothing short of heroic, but the battle continues in making certain that voters are aware of what, exactly, they will be voting on.

Cedar Park Council: intent of new rule isn't to prohibit speech, but ...

Interesting, if not troublesome, tid-bit in the editorial page of Thursday's Hill Country News:

With no fanfare and limited discussion, the council passed a set of rules to govern itself. Among those is a paragraph that states: 

“Members of the City Council shall confine their discussions concerning a motion or a question to the merits of a motion made and seconded or to a question already presented to them. Councilmembers shall show respect and courtesy to, and refrain from making disparaging comments about, fellow Councilmembers, the public, and City staff in the conduct of a City Council meeting, outside of Council meetings, in social settings, and on social media.” 

Council Member Heather Jefts told us [the editorial board] that the verbiage had been discussed for some time and the intent wasn’t to prohibit speech, but to ensure the council members conduct themselves “in a manner befitting the gravity of (their) positions.”

Read more: http://hillcountrynews.com/stories/dissent-is-essential-to-our-democracy,77815

Jefts happens to be one of the liberal candidates on the Cedar Park City Council, having taken out conservative John Lux in May 2017.

Several dictionaries we consulted seem to agree that "disparaging" means "expressing the opinion that something is of little worth; derogatory." We'll see what comes of this.

Pflugerville residents: ACC expansion all tax and no campus

Pflugerville residents are not only stuck between a Rock and a weird place, but the median Pflugerville homeowner will be on the hook for a $200 per year tax increase if a proposed bond passes to include the city into a local community college district (and with no campus).

A new group, Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation, is working to kill a proposed Austin Community College District expansion into the Pflugerville area raising about $40,000 per student, according to their press release (yikes!). Here are some other shocking assertions made by the new citizen-led organization:

It started as a joke: now city of Austin's name is racist, on chopping block

Now back to Waterloo, we suppose.

It finally happened. The city of Austin's very name is now racist and is on the chopping block of "Confederate memorials" within the Austin city limits.

What started as a joke has now become a reluctant prophesy. A GoFundMe page and petition to re-name both Austin and Travis County (in memory of homeless icon Leslie Cochran, if that tells you how serious it was) circulated around last year and raised a glorious sum of $25:

https://www.gofundme.com/austin-travis-county-name-change

Tucked into a City of Austin memo released yesterday is a recommendation for the city to explore renaming the very name of the City as one of several memorials to Stephen F. Austin, the father of Texas.

Frank Ward endorsed as Troxclair's successor; warns high taxes stripping away Austin's 'weird' vibe

Frank Ward, with family

The sole Republican on the Austin City Council last week announced she would not seek re-election for a second, four year term.

Today, Council member Ellen Troxclair announced her endorsement for her successor in District 8, which encompasses the southwest portion of the city. See below for an email from the Troxclair campaign:

Today, I am proud and excited to announce my endorsement of Frank Ward to succeed me in representing District 8 on the Austin City Council. 

Frank Ward is a thoughtful and principled man of character who we can trust to carry on the work that we have started at City Hall to reduce property taxes, address traffic congestion, and fight for effective and efficient government. Through his service on the City’s Parks and Recreation board and extensive involvement in our community, he has shown a clear understanding of the needs in Southwest Austin and a deep commitment to the people who call it home.

Outcry against Austin anti-law enforcement policy getting louder

Casar: Not exactly our idea of turning Travis County "red."

"The City of Austin's latest use of taxpayer resources to protest the Trump Administration, Gov. Greg Abbott, and the will of the voters of Texas is not only an exercise in futility but a risky policy that puts Austinites in danger:"

That was the opening salvo in the latest press release from the Travis GOP. And it's no exaggeration.

Here's what happened for those of you who aren't tuned into the wonderful world of municipal politics:

The Austin City Council last week unanimously approved two so-called "Freedom City" resolutions which defy the new law banning sanctuary cities (SB 4, passed last year). The resolutions, according to the Travis GOP, "instruct Austin Police Department personnel to refrain from arresting members of racial minority groups for drug possession and theft. The thought behind the new law, according to radical leftist Austin City Council member Greg Casar, is to keep more illegal immigrants out of jail."

From platform apathy to activism in a little over a year

West Texas-based conservative activist Teresa Beckmeyer had an interesting recollection brought to her attention via a "Facebook Memory."

On May 24, 2016, she shared a screenshot of the following tweet from Texas Tribune founder Evan Smith:

Beckmeyer wrote in response: "It's what the grassroots has known for some time---those in positions of influence in the state feel the platform is irrelevant. It's up to the party and its leadership to change that."

Two years later she pointed out: "Hah, this was before James Dickey became RPT Chairman ..."

How to be 'daringly great' even after a political defeat

The Tracker does not take sides in primaries, but we wanted to share one of the most gracious, inspiring, and politically aware messages to supporters following an electoral defeat we've read in a long time.

Donna Davidson, a longtime stalwart of the Republican Party of Texas and a friend to the Travis GOP who lost to fellow conservative Mike Toth in the Texas Republican Party Runoff for Third Court of Appeals Place 6, sent this via email earlier this week. If you have ever had any disgust with the political system, pessimism about the future of the conservative movement, or any feelings of burn-out this will cure what ails you:

Breaking 10,000 votes in a lesser-known runoff: what that means

If you kept up at all with the Travis County Republican Primary Runoff you know how Tuesday night turned out. Chip Roy is our nominee to succeed Lamar Smith and Mike Toth is our pick for Third Court of Appeals. Here's the Travis county turnout for those curious:

U. S. Representative District 21  

Matt McCall 36.06%

Chip Roy 63.93% 

2,792 total Travis County votes cast (unofficial count) 

Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 6  

Donna Davidson 53.73%

Michael ("Mike") Toth 46.26% 

10,053 total Travis County votes cast (unofficial count)

(Across all counties involved both races were decided by a margin of 47-53%. See more.)

 

And if you got you get your voting information from the local media, you would have mostly noticed coverage of a gubernatorial runoff and several other races on the Democratic ticket, which naturally dwarfed the county GOP turnout.

5 reasons to vote in the 2018 Primary Runoff

One thing is true about Travis County conservative voters: they're good closers.

Vote counts tend to increase toward the end of the first week of early voting. But in the case of the only week of early voting in the Republican Primary Runoff, voter tallies have been, as expected, anemic (under 6,000 votes by Friday). In an effort to boost our last day of early voting (that's today, Friday, FYI) we put together a list of five reasons why you should care about this year's GOP Primary Runoff -- especially in Travis County:

Advice for newly elected local officials

Congratulations! (Now time for some schoolin' ...)

Not a small number of Republican voters won their Local Election races on Cinco de Mayo. With that, conservative activist Don Stroud had some "unsolicited advice" for Leander city officials that can easily apply to any officeholder in any locality.

Read below for some nuggets of unapologetic truth from Stroud's Leander Lookout blog, and for the whole list click here.

• Your objective should not be to get re-elected, bloat your resume, carry water for outside special interests, or to advance your political career. If your objective happens to be any of those reasons, please refrain from taking the oath of office.
• Make your oath of office more than just good intentions.
• You are not the employee of the City Manager or city staff.
• The City Manager is to implement the policy you and the rest of the council determine, not the other way around. ...

Stroud suggests local officials keep the following questions in mind when weighing the pros and cons of every policy decision on the agenda:

• Is this the constitutional role of government?
• Does it fulfill the social contract? ...
• Is this necessary?
• Is it redundant?
• Can this best be handled through the private sector? Through outsourcing and effective contract management?
• Will the proposal or expenditure truly address a problem?
• What are alternative solutions?
• Is it good for ALL residents and taxpayers?
• Does this create more bureaucracy?
• What enforcement will be required?
• What are the unintended consequences?
• Does this abdicate local control?
• Can private or charitable sectors be enlisted to address the issue? ...

Source: http://www.leanderlookout.com/advice-new-leander-council-members

Austin Republican recognized in comedic style by 'The Daily Show' for 27th Amendment work

I amended the U.S. Constitution and all I got was
this lousy T̶-̶s̶h̶i̶r̶t̶  trophy!

Austin's own Greg Watson told "The Daily Show" on May 1 that he received "absolutely nothing" for his painstaking work in getting the 200-year-lapsed 27th Amendment to the Constitution ratified.

As a University of Texas student, when he discovered that this long-forgotten amendment from the Founding Fathers era (concerning Congressional pay raises) was still eligible for inclusion into the U.S. Constitution by virtue of having no expiration clause, he only received a "C" from his skeptical poli-sci instructor.

Proving his instructor wrong he "pestered, badgered, and cajoled" the members of various state legislatures until in 1992 the Amendment was finally ratified.

So the show gave him a trophy for it, crowned with the number 27! Given, it looks more like a Pinewood Derby award, but for Watson, a longtime legislative staffer and Travis Republican Precinct Chair, we know his real reward was having his grade boosted to an "A+" by UT just last year -- three-and-a-half decades later (which doesn't seem that long considering the amendment dates back to 1789). You can read the entire story here (Tracker, March 13, 2017) and you can watch an actor portray a younger Watson on the Daily Show clip below explaining the entire saga:

JP3 voters have a chance to stop liberal judicial activism dead in its tracks

(Sic.)

The Republican nominee for Travis County Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 apparently has no tolerance for using the people's court as a bully pulpit.

In an unexpected salvo, Martin Harry has filed three grievances with the State Bar of Texas against Sylvia Holmes, the Democrat candidate, for her "lack of judicious temperament." We summarize the grievances below, but if you want more detailed information see Harry's grievance page and his press release.

Some valuable intel on the 2018 May Local Elections

Nestled between the 2018 March Primary and the May 22 Runoff is the local election -- to be held on Cinco de Mayo this year.

Voting in the Local Elections takes place on Saturday, May 5, with early voting from April 23 through May 1. More info is available at votetravis.com.

It can be hard for those who don't have their ear to the track of hyper-local politics to know how to vote, but fortunately our friends at the Travis Outrider blog have researched the political affiliations of candidates in the following Travis County local races:

CANDIDATE PARTY VOTING HISTORY:

Cedar Park 
Lakeway 
Leander
Round Rock
Pflugerville ISD 
Lake Travis ISD 

For our readers in Bee Cave and Briarcliff you're on your own for now, but we do have links to all the sample ballots here:

SAMPLE BALLOTS:

Cedar Park
Round Rock
Pflugerville
Lakeway
Briarcliff
Lake Travis ISD 

Municipal Utility Districts: 

• Cascades MUD No. 1 Directors election (2 places), 
• West Travis MUD No. 3 and No. 5 consolidation referendum, 
• River Place MUD Limited District creation referendum.

The sample ballots indicate which Travis County precincts are having elections. To find your precinct number see your voting registration card or visit www.votexas.gov.

When voting, whether or not you've done your homework, if you encounter a race or a proposition you're not sure about, follow the Travis Tracker's advice:

"When in doubt leave it blank."

________________
ADDITIONAL INTEL:

Tony Hanson (incumbent for Pflugerville ISD) has proven himself reasonably conservative and has the Tracker's approval.

Patrick Walz (who seems to be the ringleader of a slate of Cedar Park council candidates) is no friend of conservatives, nor civility. See screenshots below:



Recommendations from Williamson County conservative activist Don Stroud for Leander voters here.


Last updated: 1:05 p.m. 4/26

Yeti's anti-conservative stance is nothing new

Gun rights supporters are furious today that a company so linked to the outdoors lifestyle has apparently cut ties with the NRA Foundation. We include Yeti's statement above, which denies any such cancellation, and that it was only the termination of an older discount program.

However it has become apparent that Austin-based Yeti is prone to knee-jerk reactions to liberal protests. See this Aug. 22, 2017, Tracker article on Yeti's pulling its Facebook ads from conservative news service Breitbart. A Twitter screenshot from the article is below:

Whether or not Yeti is home to anti-gun bigots, the fact remains that it does have a hard left orientation that consumers should consider when shopping for insulated containers.