One year ago, the Kerch Strait Bridge was hit for the second time, following the October 2022 attack. Russians tried to repair that damage, but the results seem to be…subpar.
đđ„ Kerch Bridge: As a result of the damage received, the structural elements of the bridge are degrading, which leads to the crumbling of its individual parts, – ATESH pic.twitter.com/99WgC1HaYX
I’m not an expert in bridge structural integrity, but that warping/sagging/bending doesn’t look good. In a video game, that looks like a structure you’d get once chance to jump off of before it collapses into the sea.
The Kerch Bridge, a strategically vital structure used by Russia to connect with occupied Crimea, is in need of urgent repairs and cannot survive structural damage, according to a Crimean-based pro-Ukrainian group.
“The Kerch Bridge is living its final days,” Atesh, a pro-Kyiv military partisan group of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, said in a post on Telegram on Sunday.
A partisan source, so take it with a grain of salt.
Denys Davydov covers the bridge damage in the first minute of this video:
“The Crimean Bridge looks very tired.”
“Those images appeared in Internet yesterday. Indeed, you may see some of the damages towards the railway part of the bridge. Which is quite strange, because there were no recent strikes reported. It means that this part of the construction wasn’t repaired properly after the first strike on the bridge.”
“You may say that those are just minor damages, and the bridge can still work. Yes, it works, but there is the feature which tells us that the bridge now has the limited capabilities for the transfer of the heavy cargo, and the structural damage of the bridge could be much more severe than we see just visually on those pictures.”
“So the clue that the bridge is not OK for the heavy cargo lies with this ferry, which Ukraine kaboomed around three weeks ago. Russia used this ferry to transfer the oil products, but somehow didn’t use the Kerch bridge. And with the new pictures that appeared on the Internet, we may understand that the bridge is not in a good shape.”
“So indeed, the Ukrainian attack on the Russian ferry fleet was a main destruction of the Russian supplies towards Crimea and the southern part of Ukraine, which is now partially occupied by the Russian Federation.”
From the limited information we have to go on, this analysis seems correct.
It can be hard to determine the truth of things coming out of a warzone, even with Russia’s notoriously poor operational security. But absent photo manipulation (which we can’t rule out without more firsthand evidence), it does appear that that the Kerch Strait Bridge is clearly slumping and may even be unusable, which will severely complicate Russian logistics in southern Ukraine.
Harris County Democrat Justice of the Peace Steve Duble takes his party’s love of criminal behavior to the next level by recalling all warrants in Precinct One.
A Harris County justice of the peace has recalled all warrants issued through his court thwarting law enforcement efforts in his jurisdiction to enforce traffic laws, pursue fraudulent check writers, and detain individuals who had failed to appear in court.
Judge Steve Duble, justice of the peace for Harris Countyâs Precinct 1, sent a letter on August 22, 2024, to staff working for Constable Alan Rosen notifying them that he had recalled the warrants.
âPlease accept this official notification that after extensive research and thoughtful consideration, I have decided to recall each and every outstanding warrant issued from this court, Justice of the Peace Court, Precinct 1, Place 2,â wrote Duble.
Duble noted that the recalled warrants included those for bad checks and capias warrants which require police to detain an individual until they appear in court. Warrants may also be issued to individuals who have failed to appear in court.
Justice of the peace courts in Texas handle some civil matters and class c misdemeanors that are punishable by fine. Cases may include traffic violations, disorderly conduct, and misdemeanor assaults.
Texas law gives magistrates some authority to recall warrants, but Dubleâs blanket recall may conflict with the Texas Criminal Code of Procedures, which states that âIf an accused fails to appear as required by [an] order, the judge of the court in which the accused is required to appear shall issue a warrant for the arrest of the accused.â The law also states that magistrates must issue warrants for suspects who fail to appear in court for certain citations.
Elected in 2022, Duble campaigned on establishing eviction diversion programs and promised to bring a âsocial justice lensâ to his courtroom.
Indeed, his campaign website states “I am deeply embedded in Houstonâs progressive community through my work to advance social justice and Democratic values.” Which, these days, means opposition to actual law enforcement.
The Harris County District Attorneyâs Office (HCDAO) told The Texan that they had only recently been made aware of the blanket warrant recall.
âWe only recently were made aware of Judge Dubleâs inexplicable decision to grant fugitives a free pass in his courtroom,â said an HCDAO spokesperson. âThis decision can endanger the lives of the public and of our law-enforcement officers. Accountability is fundamental to justice, and without it, the public loses faith in our entire judicial system.â
By law a Justice of the Peace is generally handling non-felony cases. “Justice of the peace courts have original jurisdiction in misdemeanor criminal cases when punishment is by fine only. They have exclusive jurisdiction over civil cases where the amount in controversy is $200 or less and concurrent jurisdiction with both the county and district courts in civil matters in which exclusive jurisdiction is not in the district or county court and the amount in controversy is $5000 or less. By statute, they are granted jurisdiction over forcible entry and detainer actions. A justice of the peace may issue warrants of search and arrest, conduct preliminary hearings…” Etc. So at least he isn’t canceling warrants for rapists and murderers.
But Duble’s actions are precisely aligned with a Democratic Party that backed #DefundThePolice. Some Democrats may now be pretending they didn’t really mean it, but Duble, and his fellow travelers in his party’s ideological core, clearly did.
Warrants are a fundamental necessity for running an effective, impartial system of justice. Canceling every warrant is essentially a declaration of war against a functioning judicial system. Social Justice Warriors like Duble are at war with the very foundations of America’s constitutional order. If possible, the State of Texas should pursue removing Dable from the the bench. If not, Harris County voters need to remember that woke judges like Duble are a direct threat to the rule of law and their life, liberty and property.
Back in the dim mists of time (the 1980s or 90s), every time a Republican would try to earmark money for a religious charity for non-religious services (say, rehabilitating felons or running an adoption agency), Democrats would throw a fit and scream “Church and state! First amendment!” As always, those same rules never apply when they’re the ones doing it, as the Biden Administartion has been funneling money into a Fort Worth Catholic Charity help import their precious illegal aliens.
Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French has revealed that a Fort Worth Catholic organization has been enabling illegal aliens in Texas.
The Biden-Harris administrationâs Department of Health and Human Services has given control of nearly a billion in taxpayer dollars to the organization. The organization has been revealed as funneling this money to illegal border crossers and other organizations funded by leftist billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates.
Starting in 2021, the Catholic Charities of Fort Worthâthe primary charity of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worthâbegan a unique relationship with the Biden-Harris administration, as well as with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera.
The two made an arrangement that all federal grants for the state of Texas, regarding cash payments to so-called ârefugeesâ would be given to the charity, with CCFW receiving discretion over who the money was being handed out to.
With the money being handed out to them, CCFW established the Texas Office for Refugees to handle grants being sent by the federal government. Since 2022, the organization has received more than $800 million from the Biden-Harris administration to aid illegal aliens.
One wonders what line item was for “help illegal aliens move into American neighborhoods to raise the crime rates, depress wages and vote for Democrats?” Was this in the “inflation reduction act?”
CCFW also has an Immigration Services law firm that helps illegal aliens obtain legal status and even American citizenship.
According to Frenchâs findings, the organizationâs 2022 Form 990 showed they had given more than $25 million that year to the International Rescue Committeeâan international immigration nonprofit whose stated mission is to âhelp people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster, including the climate crisis, to survive, recover and gain control over their future.â
So Green New Deal Graft helps with the Import Illegal Aliens Graft.
The IRC receives more than $1 billion annually, with a majority of that money funded by the Biden-Harris administration, as well as Soros and Gates. The IRCâs expressed purpose for assisting illegal aliens is to help them âbecome permanent residents and US citizens.â
The IRC has stated that theyâve already helped more than 50,000 illegal aliens annually and their website states they have settled over 26,000 in Dallas alone.
In 2022, the President of IRCâs salary was more than $1 million and several other employees received a higher salary than the President of the United States.
The article fails to mention that office is held by Labour Party functionary David Miliband, possibly the only man every to lose a leadership election to his own brother.
However, IRC isnât the only organization receiving taxpayer money from the Catholic Charities of Fort Worth.
CCFW has also given more than $13 million to Refugee Services of Texasâa Dallas-based immigration non-governmental organization. RST has also worked with illegal aliens to help them attain citizenship in the U.S., however, the organization has since shut down due to financial mismanagement and lack of funds. Nonetheless, RST received more than $20 millionâ$19 million of which was from federal grantsâin 2021.
The HHS grant, which CCFW has received nearly a billion dollars since 2022, is a grant program 93.566, which gives cash payments to ârefugeesâ and pays for their medical expenses.
Under the HHS program, illegal aliens can receive up to $685 per month in cash payments and incentive bonuses for actions like getting a job or keeping a job for a certain period of time. The program is also known to pay for medical expenses for the illegal alien and their familiesâup to 100 percent of the cost.
Meanwhile, taxpaying American families are eligible for Jack and Squat under the program.
French accused the Biden-Harris administration of abusing the asylum process to help illegal aliens become voting citizens and of giving money to the so-called âcharitiesâ to help with their aims.
When an illegal alien crosses the border and is apprehended, they can claim asylum. An immigration officer then interviews them to check their claims. If the officer accepts the claim, they are granted asylum status and are legally allowed in the country, where they can receive benefits from these nonprofits.
If the alienâs asylum claim is denied, they will go to an immigration court and get another chance with a lawyer provided to them for free by nonprofits like CCFW and IRC. Once they receive some form of legal status, the same organizations will help pay lawyers to assist them in obtaining access to taxpayer-funded programs like SNAP, Section 8 housing, and the Women, Infants, and Childrenâs (WIC) program.
Illegal aliens are then able to receive thousands of dollars per month of taxpayer dollars and can apply for permanent legal residency after one year.
None of the Democratic Party’s “let’s cram as many illegal aliens into the country as possible so we can amnesty them to vote for Democrats” is beneficial for the American taxpayer.
Republican in congress should start an immediate investigation into the organizations receiving these funds, and a second Trump Administration should eliminate all line item spending for national or international NGOs until those designed to violate American sovereignty are weeded out.
We’ve had a lot of stories of Harris County Democratic Party corruption, but don’t forget another Democratic establishment in the People’s Republic of Travis County, which Texas Attorney General is suing for funding an illegal partisan voter drive.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued members of the Travis County Commissioners Court as well as the Travis County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, asking the court to âprevent them from giving a partisan organization thousands of taxpayer dollars to identify the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters without statutory authority.â
In the suit, Paxton alleges that Civic Government Solutions (CGS), a voter outreach company, was hired to âconduct services for the County that the County is unauthorized to perform.â
Paxtonâs lawsuit explains that CGS CEO Jeremy Smith has made public comments about âgetting people to vote for progressive candidates.â Smith is also listed as CEO of Civitech, a company that Axios described as a âprogressive data startup.â
And what do you know! A search of Open Secrets shows that of 142 political donations, all went to Democrats.
âTravis County has blatantly violated Texas law by paying partisan actors to conduct unlawful identification efforts to track down people who are not registered to vote,â said Paxton in a press release.
âPrograms like this invite fraud and reduce public trust in our elections. We will stop them and any other county considering such programs.â
Paxton is arguing that the Travis County officials acted ultra vires â beyond their legal authority, in other words â by contracting with Smith and his company to collect personal information and target unregistered voters.
He further claims that these officials only have the powers explicitly granted to them by law, and argues that nothing in the Election Code allows them to identify and reach out to potentially unregistered voters, some of whom may not be eligible to vote.
Paxton argues that this action could harm the integrity of Texas elections by encouraging ineligible people to register to vote. As a result, Paxton is asking the court to issue a temporary and permanent injunction to stop Travis County from moving forward with the contract.
Pushing to get ineligible people to vote for Democrats seems to be the Democrats’ top goal this year, be it illegal aliens or convicted felons, and they’ve been pursuing it by varied means. Paxton has also fought voter fraud with search warrants in Bexar County and preventing similar “justice” organizations from soliciting voter registration outside DPS offices.
Paxton seems to determined that the voting fraud that happened in 2020 won’t be happening here in Texas.
Yesterday’s LinkSwarm talked about Venezuelan gangs ripping off Permian Basin oilfields, but that was hardly the only activity by the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang to make the news this week. That gang evidently took over at least one Aurora, Colorado apartment complex:
“The evidence we have reviewed indicates that gang members are engaging in flagrant trespass violations, assaults and battery, human traffic trafficking, sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms possession, extortion and other criminal activities.” Human trafficking? Where’s that “see something say something?” And sexual abuse or minors recalls the Rotherham Muslim rape gang scandal in the UK. Evidently “raping children” is just one of those jobs natives won’t do.
“According to the law firm’s report, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has threatened to kill and, in certain instances, has apparently actively attempted to kill, members of Whispering Pines management.” Is “attempted murder” just not a serious enough charge for the police to get involved?
“A consultant for the property management company was severely beaten and stomped by gang members and was hospitalized the alleged incident recorded by building cameras with screenshots attached to the letter.” I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the property management company in question were derelict in their fundamental duties.
“The takeover began last November.” So this has been going on for over three-quarters of a year. Again, where were the police?
“The report recounts that this summer, the gang approached the property manager and told him they would help him out in exchange for half of all the rent that he collected.”
“The gang members then allegedly took over vacant apartments, and according to the document, moved families into those units and started collecting rent.”
The gang obviously didn’t fear property management or the police.
Here’s footage of that same gang operating openly in another apartment complex called The Edge:
Another video, which I am unable to relocate right now, showed a reporter on a street near an apartment complex where gangs had left stolen and stripped cars all down the sides of the street.
The question is how was the problem allowed to get so bad? How was the problem allowed to fester more that nine months?
In increasingly Democrat-controlled Colorado, are the police being told not to arrest illegal alien gang members?
The fake Kamala bubble evaporates, another would-be Trump assassin is arrested, more Chinese spies on the staff of high profile Democrats, more NYC corruption raids, Ukrainian drones heat things up around Moscow, Intel and Stellantis layoff thousands each, another Harris County Democrat double-dips, a bit about Idaho, and some really stupid sailor shenanigans.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Evidently jailing Trump right before an election was a kangaroo too far even for this kangaroo court, so Trump’s sentencing has been pushed to after the election. “Judge Juan Merchan ruled Friday that Trumpâs sentencing will take place on November 26, three weeks after election day, ensuring that Trump will not be sentenced in any of his criminal cases leading up to the election.”
In the friendliest possible format â a joint interview with VP nominee and emotional-support midwesterner Tim Walz, conducted by Dana Bash with the delicacy of an ornithologist gently hand-feeding hatchling chicks â Harris has revealed that her gaseously mindless word-cloud of a campaign is in fact an accurate reflection of her own personal vacuousness.
To be sure, Harris did not memorably self-destruct tonight. Whatever her failings, they are not those of Joe Biden, who couldnât even articulate his words without slurring by the end. Her inarticulateness tonight was of the sort already known to be a Harris trademark, the endless jumble of nonsensical, comically vapid stock language. When she could fall back on a memorized list of talking points, she presented somewhat normally; the second she was required to respond directly to a question, then she began to spin out otiose nonsense like a pasta chef catering a Sicilian banquet. You could practically see the gears turning inside her head as she cast her eyes downward, stared laser-beams into the floor, and groped for cliches. She was more muted tonight than usual â her aides clearly ordered her never to display mirth under any circumstances, for fear the Kamala Kackle might emerge â and as a result, while she simulated sobriety for the most part, her body language was pronouncedly downbeat.
And all throughout she offered no answers to any policy questions whatsoever, nor any explanation for her various changes of position between 2020 and now. In theory, Bash asked most of the âright questionsâ; in practice, the way she solicitously asked them â sometimes even helpfully offering in advance a multiple-choice list of acceptable answers for Harris to choose from â turned them into cream puffs that Harris immediately used to serve up word salad.
Bashâs most pointed moment was when she pushed Harris about why she changed her position on a national fracking ban between 2020 and the present campaign. Harrisâs answer was little more than, âWell, because I changed my mind when I became Joe Bidenâs VP.â In the real world, anyone familiar with politics well understood that her âpositionâ changed because Joe Biden â the presidential nominee â demanded it, and no other reason. Which of course is why itâs impossible to believe her when she says this is now her sincerely held view, as opposed to something to later be discarded once she can set her own priorities.
Eric Weinstein told Chris Williamson on the “Modern Wisdom” podcast that Donald Trumpâs presidency has disrupted the old “rules-based international order,” which many view as an attempt to control global stability and wondered if the Republican nominee will “be allowed” to reenter the White House if elected in 2024. Weinstein argued that Trumpâs unorthodox approach challenged the status quo, exposing flaws in the system and revealing that the impact of populist leaders on democracy and international agreements is more complex and significant than previously understood.
CHRIS WILLIAMSON: When we spoke at the start of the year, I said it was way too close to November to switch anybody out. Turns out that I was wrong.
ERIC WEINSTEIN: Beginner’s luck.
CHRIS WILLIAMSON: You said what are the odds that Joe Biden has a debilitating event between now and November including death, so he runs a one in 20 chance of dying in any given year or above that. I don’t think you know whether he’s even going to make it to November debilitating event could have been a debilitating public event
ERIC WEINSTEIN: I purposefully left it vague. I didnât say the other part of it, which I now feel comfortable saying, which is…
CHRIS WILLIAMSON: What do you mean by that?
ERIC WEINSTEIN: I think thereâs a remarkable story, and weâre in a funny game, which is: are we allowed to say what that story is? Because to say it, to analyze it, to name it, is to bring it into view. I think we donât understand why the censorship is behaving the way it is. We donât understand why itâs in the shadows or why our news is acting in a bizarre fashion. So letâs just set the stage, given that that was in February.
There is something that I think Mike Benz has just referred to as the rules-based international order. Itâs an interlocking series of agreements, tacit understandings, explicit understandings, and clandestine understandings about how the most important structures keep the world free of war and keep markets open. There has been a system in place, whether understood explicitly or behind the scenes or implicitly, that says the purpose of the two American parties is to prune the field of populist candidates so that whatever two candidates exist in a faceoff are both acceptable to that world order.
From the point of view of, say, the State Department, the intelligence community, the defense department, and major corporations involved in international issuesâfrom arms trade to, oh, I donât know, foodâthey have a series of agreements that are fragile and could be overturned if a president entered the Oval Office who didnât agree with them. And if the mood of the country was, âWhy do we pay taxes into these structures? Why are we hamstrung? Why arenât we a free people?â So what the two parties would do is run primaries with populist candidates and pre-commit the populist candidates to support the candidates who won the primaries. As long as that took place and you had two candidates that were both acceptable to the international orderâthat is, they arenât going to rethink NAFTA or NATO or what have youâwe called that democracy. And so democracy was the illusion of choice, whatâs called magicianâs choice, where the choice is not actually, you know, âpick a card, any card,â but somehow the magician makes sure that the card that you pick is the one that he knows.
In that situation, you have magicianâs choice in the primaries, and then youâd have the duopoly field: two candidates, either of which was acceptable, and you could actually afford to hold an election. That way, the international order wasnât put at risk every four years because you canât have alliances that are subject to the whim of the people in plebiscites.
Under that structure, everything was going fine until 2016, when the first candidate ever to not hold any position in the military nor any position in government in the history of the Republic, Donald Trump, broke through the primary structure. Then there was a full court press: âOkay, we only have one candidate thatâs acceptable to the international order. Donald Trump will be under constant pressureâheâs a loser, heâs a wild man, heâs an idiot, and heâs under control of the Russians.â And then he was going to be, you know, a 20-to-1 underdog, and then he wins. There was no precedent for this. They learned their lesson: you cannot afford to have candidates who are not acceptable to the international order and continue to have these alliances. This is an unsolved problem.
A Missouri man is facing federal charges following a series of alleged violent threats made via social media against former President Donald Trump, Republicans at large, and law enforcement officers, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Western District of Missouri on Aug. 30.
Justin Lee White, 36, is accused of using interstate communication to spread a slew of online threats to injure Trump, Republicans, and law enforcement in violation of federal law, culminating in a multi-agency investigation led by the FBI, according to the complaint.
Speaking of Trump assassination attempts, DHS personnel assigned to the protective detail for Trump’s Butler rally were given rigorous training. And by “rigorous training” I mean “they sat through a two hour webinar.”
Remember that “Harris Surge” in polls? Yet again, it was a case of oversampling.
As we’ve been highlighting since 2016, polls are not to be trusted thanks to various ‘tricks of the trade’ – most commonly, oversampling.
Last month we noted how the founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris for president says their own internal opinion polling is “much less rosy” than public polls.
“Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” said Future Forward super PAC president Chauncey McLean said during a Monday event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
Now, the Washington Times reports that some pollsters are even sounding the alarm over Vice President Kamala Harris’ so-called ‘surge’ in the polls – which Harris pulled ahead in after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee on July 21.
Since the switch, Harris is leading Trump nationally by nearly 2 percentage points and is either leading or tied with him in all seven battleground states. However, Republican analysts argue that these polling numbers may not accurately reflect voter sentiment due to biased polling methodology…
Critics point out that many polls have been sampling a disproportionately smaller share of Republican voters compared to exit poll data from the 2020 presidential election. The result, they say, is a misleading “phantom advantage” for Ms. Harris. According to them, this skewed sampling could be a strategic move to boost enthusiasm and fundraising for Ms. Harris’ campaign.
Trump campaign strategist Jim McLaughlin echoed this sentiment, stating, “They undersample Republicans” intentionally “to tamp down support and donations for Trump.” He added that the polls are part of a larger effort to create a narrative that favors Harris.
Trump has openly criticized the poll results. âItâs fake news,â Trump declared during a rally in Michigan. âThey can make those polls sing.â
“Billionaire Mark Cuban Asked His Followers If They’d Prefer Their Kids Be Like Trump or Harris.” Turns out they preferred Trump by more than 2-1. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Another week, another high profile Democrat’s aide turns out to be a Chinese spy.
Linda Sun, a former aide to New York governor Kathy Hochul, acted at the direction of Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party officials while serving in state government, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment Tuesday.
In a statement, the U.S. attorneyâs office in the Eastern District of New York said that Sun was arrested Tuesday morning with her husband, Christopher Hu. They were expected to be arraigned later in the day.
Sun is a former deputy chief of staff to Kathy Hochul and has served in numerous roles throughout New York State government since her first post under the administration of former governor Andrew Cuomo in 2012. Before that, she served as Representative Grace Mengâs chief of staff, when the Queens Democrat served in the New York State assembly.
âAs alleged, while appearing to serve the people of New York as deputy chief of staff within the New York State Executive Chamber, the defendant and her husband actually worked to further the interests of the Chinese government and the CCP,â U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said.
The federal government is alleging that Sun was an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and that her husband engaged in money-laundering while they benefited from millions of dollars in bribes from Chinese officials.
The indictment details a shocking pattern of collaboration with Chinaâs consulate general in New York, with Sun at one point in 2020 letting a Chinese diplomat listen in on a private conference call for New York officials regarding the state governmentâs response to the Covid pandemic.
Chinese-government and CCP officials directed her to block Taiwanese officials from engaging with officials from New York. Beijing views the current government of Taiwan as a traitorous separatist movement and wants to annex the country.
According to court documents, Taiwanâs de facto consulate in New York City invited an unnamed politician, a description that matches the profile of then-governor Andrew Cuomo, to attend a banquet honoring then-Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen during her stopover in the city in 2019. Sun forwarded information about the invite to a Chinese official, telling that individual, âI sent you an email / Just an FYI / I already blocked it.â She then declined the invitation without consulting other New York executive chamber officials.
When Sun later asked a colleague to check if the politician was registered for the banquet, that staff member said that it was not on the schedule. Sun replied: âPerfect!â
She also manipulated messaging from the New York governorâs office, while consulting Chinese diplomats, the indictment stated.
Federal agents on Wednesday zeroed in on the highest ranks of Mayor Eric Adamsâs administration, searching a home and seizing the phones of the New York City police commissioner, the first deputy mayor, the schools chancellor and others, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The police commissioner. They seized the police commissionerâs phones. Wow.
Among the other officials the federal investigators sought information from were the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior adviser to the mayor who is one of his closest confidants, the people said. Both men have had other legal challenges.
The agents also searched the home and seized the phone of a consultant who is the brother of both the schools chancellor and one of the deputy mayors, the people said.
The nature of the investigations is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior City Hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, the people said.
âŠ
Representatives of the City Hall officials â the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson â could not be reached or declined to comment.
The consultant, Terence Banks, a brother of Philip Banks and David Banks, recently opened a government and community relations firm aimed at closing a gap âbetween New Yorkâs intricate infrastructure and political landscape.â He, too, could not be reached for comment.
Several of the officials had their phones seized or records of their communications subpoenaed.
âŠ
In addition to the police commissioner, Edward A. Caban, several other department officials, including Mr. Cabanâs chief of staff and two Queens precinct commanders, also had their phones taken by federal agents, two of the people said.
Says Dwight: “It sounds like the whole Adams administration is so packed with corruption, they canât even keep the lid screwed on.”
Behind the statistics: “August: 635K Foreign-Born Workers Gained Jobs as 1.3 Million Americans Lost Jobs.”
Germany’s conservative, populist, pro-border security Alternative for Germany won big in this week’s elections. Of course, the media, in unison, denounces anyone who objects to the mass importation of unassimilated Muslims into any European country as “far right.” And in Germany, this means they invariable compare Alternative for Germany to a certain mustachioed National Socialist.
President Trump endorses marijuana decriminalization vote. “Florida’s Amendment 3, titled Recreational Marijuana, would allow adults who are at least 21 years of age have up to 3 ounces of marijuana (a ‘small amount’?) and up to 5 grams of marijuana concentrate. At present, the state only allows medical patients with qualifying conditions to legally buy and possess cannabis.” Marijuana prohibition hasn’t worked. Full-bore marijuana legalization seems to have brought a whole host of problems, especially in blue states. Florida will provide another statewide laboratory of democracy to calibrate an approach.
Lowes may be getting out of the culture wars, but Home Depot is still in, having “partnered with LGBTQ mafia organization Human Rights Campaign on a school program that taught radical gender theory to elementary school kids.”
That budget deficit might also cause the Labour government to pull out of the F-35 procurement program. “Despite previous plans to acquire 138 F-35s, only 48 have been ordered.”
The head of Harris Countyâs Public Health Department, who was fired last week, has also been working for a California county since last January. Questions are swirling about her work in Texas, including her role in awarding a contract for sending mental health workers instead of police on some 911 calls.
Sources also say there is a pending criminal investigation into the countyâs health department and related contracts.
County officials announced last Friday that Executive Director of Harris County Public Health Barbie Robinson had been dismissed, just days after the Houston Chronicle reported on communications surrounding a $6 million contract awarded to DEMA, a California-based company, to run the countyâs Holistic Assistance Response Teams (HART).
The Texan has learned that in January 2024, Robinson also contracted with Yuba County, California to provide services for a three-year period. Robinsonâs work for Yuba Countyâs public health department provides her with nearly $200,000 in compensation for hundreds of hours of work, all while managing Harris Countyâs public health department.
Sources familiar with the matter say that Robinson claimed to have obtained approval from former County Administrator David Berry and the County Attorneyâs Office to engage in the additional work, but that current County Administrator Diana Ramirez was unable to confirm Robinsonâs claims.
Other sources indicate that the Harris County District Attorneyâs Office (HCDAO) has been investigating Robinson and nearly a dozen other individuals with the county, HART, and DEMA for several months.
This week, the McLennan County District Attorneyâs Office dismissed murder charges against two Houston men involved in the self-defense incident at a party near the Baylor University campus, finally determining it was a justifiable homicide. While that was good news to Calvin Nichols Jr., it hardly makes up for the 635 days the man spent locked up in jail while the DAâs office slowly dragged its feet over the case.
According to police reports, on the night in question Nichols and his cousin, Jaytron Damon Scott, were invited to a party attended by a number of Baylor students, including football players. According to partygoers, Joseph Craig Thomas Jr. showed up uninvited and began threatening others with a gun, including a female student who asked him to move his car.
He later stuck a gun under the chin of a Baylor football player. And when Scott and Nichols were leaving the party, Thomas began to pistol whip Nichols.
Thatâs when Scott, acting in defense of his cousin, fired his pistol at Thomas, striking him multiple times and killing him. Murder charges were then filed against Scott and Nichols, a fact that Scottâs attorney, Bryan Cantrell, found unbelievable.
âI donât know how this case got indicted,â Cantrell told KWTX.com. âThis was the clearest self-defense case I have ever seen. And I think the problem is a lot of attorneys and, certainly the people of the community, donât understand the law of self-defense.â
You would hope that the end of Abel Reyna’s term as McLennan County DA put a stop to this sort of thing, but evidently not.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to implement the Biden-Harris administrationâs Sustains Act which aims to regulate who will own environmental services.
According to private property rights advocates, American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), examples of environmental services include âthe air we breathe, photosynthesis, pollination, and even the health benefits of open space.â
Specifically, the new law allows private funds to be used for conservation efforts on private land. The USDA will oversee the program, and the Secretary, preparing its implementation, will also decide who owns the environmental service.
Although the public may still provide the USDA with comments about the plan until September 16, 2024, ASL refers to the new law as âcritical for proponents of the United Nationsâ sustainable development agenda to achieve.â
The private property rights advocates see the program as a means to âprovide the path to transfer Americaâs real assets from private citizens to federal and international interests.â
Screw both the Biden Administration and the UN.
The latest Stolen Valor Democrat is Maryland governor Wes Moore, who didn’t earn the Bronze Star he claimed he did.
Speaking of Idaho, how Micron defied the odds to become one of the biggest DRAM manufacturers in the world.
Intel just cancelled their 20A (2nm) node and will be fabbing their Arrow Lake processor at TSMC. “Intel projects it will save half a billion dollars by skipping the 20A node. The announcement comes as Intel embarks on a vast restructuring in the wake of troubling financial results last quarter. The company continues to lay off 15,000 workers, among the largest workforce reductions in its 56-year history.” It’s supposedly going full speed ahead with its 18A node, theoretically due in 2025. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Intel and Japan are teaming up to work on EUV. Hard to see them making much progress given how large a lead ASML has…
Rael Enteen, Vice President of the Washington Commanders football team (AKA The Artist Formerly known As The Washington Redskins) has been fired.
He toldâŠthat, âover 50% of our roster is white religious, and God says, âFâ the gays.â Their interpretation. I donât buy any of that. Another big chunk is low-income African Americans that comes from a community that is inherently very homophobic.â
…Enteen also said some players are âdumb as hellâ and said some who were smart donât stay that way after getting hit in the head too many times. He also said those who âget their heads knocked around a few timesâ are more susceptible to conspiracy theories.
Enteen also said, âI donât think the commissioner of the NFL hates gay people, hates black people. Jerry Jones, who really runs the NFL, I think he hates gay people, black people.â
And James O’Keefe claims another scalp…
Legal Insurrection’s William A. Jacobson just got dis-invited from speaking on antisemitism at a synagogue in Tampa. “How could any Jew look around at the current geopolitical landscape and conclude that itâs safe to ignore all the various threats to their existence â not just Hamas terrorists in Gaza, but also the various murderous entities backed by the Islamic radical regime in Iran, to say nothing of Democratic primary voters in Dearborn, Michigan â because Trump is the real danger? What kind of cocoon are these people living in?”
Hunter Biden intends to plead guilty to criminal tax charges to avoid a potentially damaging trial that would have brought his lucrative foreign business dealings and lavish lifestyle back into the spotlight.
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell announced Thursday morning that the younger Biden will be reversing his not-guilty plea on the first day of jury selection for the tax trial. He will be entering an âAlford pleaâ agreement where he maintains his innocence but accepts a sentence from federal judge Mark Scarsi, who has yet to sign off on the arrangement, CNN reported. The tax charges, three felonies and six misdemeanors, carry a maximum of 17 years in prison.
Special counsel David Weiss is prosecuting Hunter Biden on nine federal tax charges based on his alleged failure to pay more than $1.4 million of taxes in a timely manner over a four-year period last decade. Along with tax-evasion, Biden was charged with filing false tax returns for attempting to deduct expenses incurred from his drug-fueled escapades.
Most of Bidenâs income from that time period came from foreign business dealings with individuals and entities in Ukraine, Romania, and China. Those business dealings and his messy divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle were laid out in a searing indictment last year that gave a detailed look into the exorbitant amounts of money Biden spent on his lavish lifestyle and sexual deviancy.
Leading up to the trial, federal prosecutors spotlighted Hunter Bidenâs Romanian dealings in court papers laying out how he his business partners agreed to lobby U.S. officials on behalf of a Romanian oligarch accused of corruption. Bidenâs attorneys disputed the Justice Departmentâs characterization of the agreement and suggested that the court papers were meant to generate headlines.
In June, Weissâs team won a conviction against Hunter Biden on three federal gun charges for lying about his crack-cocaine addiction on gun paperwork and possessing a firearm while he was addicted to crack almost six years ago. Bidenâs sentencing for the gun charges is scheduled to take place in November. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on the gun charges, but will likely receive a lesser sentence as a first-time, non-violent offender.
The tax trial was expected to be politically damaging for Hunterâs father, President Joe Biden, until he dropped out of the presidential race in July following a public Democratic Party revolt over his apparent mental decline.
Given their shady dealings in Russia, Ukraine and China, I can certainly see why the Biden Crime Family wouldn’t want the bright sunlight of a high profile trial directed at their dealings, so a plea deal was always going to be the smart way to go. After all, Joe Biden isn’t going to be able to get the memory care he obviously needs if he’s behind bars.
The question is just how much of a sweetheart deal can the DOJ get away with offering Hunter. The average jail time for federal tax evasion is evidently 3-5 years, so I’m guessing Hunter gets 1-3 years, and that probably at a relatively cushy minimum security prison. If it’s merely probation, then the fix is truly in…
It would appear that Hunter Biden doesn’t have a nicely arranged plea deal with the DOJ after all – as prosecutors have urged the judge in the case to reject his proposal to plead guilty.
Of note, Hunter is attempting to plead guilty via an “Alford plea,” which would have to be approved by the prosecution and higher-ups at the DOJ.
It appears they were caught off guard.
So it’s not a done deal, just something Hunter’s side has floated. Developing…
I wasn’t planning on doing another Ukraine drone piece so soon after my Martian war machine post, but these new Ukrainian ground drones are pretty interesting.
The video covers three new remote platforms:
“The Termite, or termit, which stands for Track Modular Infantry Transporter, has a 300kg payload. It can carry a single casualty, or be sent with a controller so a casualty can self steer him or herself, and a more seriously injured colleague away from danger. Its modular design means it can also deliver military kit and carry offensive weapons. With a 20-hour power pack, it has front and rear cameras and night vision.”
Next: The Shablya combat platform, which is a remote control turret. “Its 7.62mm machine gun can destroy enemy armored vehicles and UAVS.” UAVS, sure, but it would have to be a very lightly armored vehicle for 7.62 to penetrate. “Easily hidden, it can also be attached to the Termite. It can be controlled from a shelter or via Wi-Fi, and it can store targets and reposition at the push of a button. It needs three boxes of 200 rounds but the barrel needs changing every 600.” The form factor is pretty striking, looking like something out of a video game. Or maybe a Vektor CR-21. And indeed, automatic versions of turrets like this have been a staple of various video games for some time.
Last is the Lyut or Fury, a four-wheeled remote-operated 7.62mm machine gun platform.
All these are interesting bits of kit that are probably well-suited to the Ukrainian battlefield, but all probably superfluous to, say, U.S. military needs. The Termite is probably 1/50th the cost (or less) than the army’s robotic mule, but its slow speed means it’s probably unsuited for evacuating wounded troops or near-front logistics resupply for an army as focused on maneuver warfare as the U.S., and unlike the robotic mule is probably unsuited to rough terrain. U.S. forces would probably use helicopters or any number of IFVs for those roles. Likewise, I don’t see much of a role for the wheeled gun platform for much the same reasons (though from time to time you read about Uncle Sam testing broadly similar remote vehicles for roles like remote demolition).
I can see more uses for the remote turrets as an area-denial weapon for certain situations, such setting up a dozen or so around bivouac perimeters with one guy monitoring the video feed. Knowing America’s modern weapon procurement trends, they would probably try to include an autonomous mode, which would do great right up until it fragged friendly troops or some kid tending sheep…
The State of Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton have been granted a nationwide stay against the Biden administrationâs new rule that would defund federally-funded healthcare providers found to be refusing patients âgender transitionâ procedures.
The Biden administration announced a rule change last April under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), described as seeking to hold the U.S. Department of Health and Human Servicesâ (HHS) âhealth programs and activities to the same nondiscrimination standards as recipients of Federal financial assistance.â
On August 30, U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle ruled in favor of Texas and Montana, ordering that the modification of the Affordable Care Act at issue is precluded from implementation across the nation.
âHere, federal agencies are attempting to impose a sweeping new social policy by manipulating and perverting the statutory text that constrains them,â Kernodle wrote in his opinion.
âNothing in these statutes authorizes HHS â or any federal official â to require healthcare providers to perform novel âgender-transitionâ procedures or force States to subsidize them.Texas and Montana seek a stay or preliminary injunction to prevent the irreparable harm that will undoubtedly follow. The Court grants the Statesâ request.â
Snip.
Texas and Montana sued HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in June for allegedly requiring âhealthcare providers and States to perform and pay for so-called âgender-transitionâ procedures â or else lose federal funding.â
The filing asserted that the new rule would âdefund healthcare providers across the country who refuse to perform or pay for experimental, unproven, and potentially dangerous âgender transitionâ procedures.â
Montana and Texas were then both granted a statewide stay the following month, banning the application of the new HHS rule.
The victorious states then requested a nationwide stay in order to extend the relief granted by the court against the HHS rule across the country.
Paxton reacted to the stay, saying in a release, âWhen Biden and Harris sidestep the Constitution to force their unlawful, extremist agenda on the American public, we are fighting back and stopping them.â
âBy blocking this destructive policy, which would have forced taxpayer-funded hospitals to conduct unproven and dangerous âgender transitionâ procedures, Texas has delivered a major victory for Americans across the country.â
For anyone that thought the Democratic Party’s creepy love of child transsexism was a passing fade, the Biden Administration’s institutional determination to mandate child mutilation services into law should belay that naive hope. It also indicates that the evil ObamaCare has wrought on America’s health care is far from over. Fortunately, the vast majority of ordinary Americans have not fallen prey to this madness, and Paxton et al. have put a stop to this particular transsexual madness for now.
Also, any appeal will be heard in the Fifth Circuit Court, which has previously frowned on the Biden Administration’s previous attempts to mandate transsexism by judicial fiat.
Russian soldiers in a Horsell Common Zaporizhia treeline got a very unpleasant surprise when a new Ukrainian drone unleashed a rain of fiery thermite death on them.
Leave it to the Ukrainians to make yet another terrifying innovation in drone warfare. I’m sure the Russian soldiers were none too thrilled to be targeted by this drone-based Martian heat ray. Thermite is easy to come by, being just powdered aluminum and rust, and burns at an infernal 4,000°F. But I do wonder how they’ve rigged it so that it does its Sparkler Rain of Death trick without catching fire itself. I suspect some sort of pressurized nozzle with a separate igniter.
I suspect this will prove a very effective tool at clearing trenches.
Now for a Brucie Bonus (as Suchomimus likes to say, based on a British game show), here’s the post title reference.
