I’ve been needing to post a Dade Phelan/Texas Speaker’s Race update for a few weeks now, because I held off because I needed more information and I wasn’t sure what’s going on. Now a couple of tidbits of news have dropped that pretty much requires a post…but I’m still not sure what’s going on.
State Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos has filed to run for Speaker of the House, becoming the first Democrat to do so in what is becoming a crowded race against incumbent Speaker Dade Phelan.
Snip.
With Republicans expected to maintain or even grow their current majority in the Texas House, Ramos is unlikely win her bid for speaker. It does, however, add to the ever-growing consensus that Phelan will not be speaker next session.
In theory, the Republican caucus will determine their speaker nominee by secret ballot.
The vote for Speaker of the House will take place on the first day of the legislative session on January 14, 2025.
The decision may be made long before that as part of the Republican Caucus’ nominating process.
The process of Republican legislators nominating a unified speaker candidate ahead of the official vote at the start of the session in January was adopted in 2017, in an attempt to prevent Republican speaker candidates, like then-Speaker Joe Straus, from courting Democrat support for the position.
In the years since, however, both the former Speaker Dennis Bonnen and the current Speaker Dade Phelan have released lists containing Democrat supporters ahead of the caucus vote, making the exercise a formality.
This year appears to be shaping up differently as Phelan has already gained four challengers who have promised to appoint only Republicans as committee chairs and gain Republican support first. For the first time, the caucus nomination process could be significant.
The caucus vote will take place in December as part of their retreat ahead of the session. To clench the caucus’ nomination, multiple rounds of voting can take place during a secret ballot. The winner must receive 2/3 support during the first two rounds of voting. If that does not occur, the threshold then drops to 3/5.
The widespread disillusion with Phelan over the Paxton impeachment, the school choice vote, and so many Phelan loyalists getting slaughtered in the primary, plus the vocal opposition of Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and Senator Ted Cruz to Phelan continuing as speaker, plus a secret ballot, would seem to doom Phelan’s chances of being the Republican caucus choice.
But Texas speaker election rules run things on a top-two runoff basis, not round-by-round elimination, and the process is overseen by the Secretary of State. In combination with Ramos’s run, this would seem to eliminate Phelan’s chance to be elected speaker, as Democrats would presumably support Ramos on the first ballot, while Republicans would support whatever non-Phelan candidate gets the official GOP House Caucus nod, which means Phelan is left out of the top two.
Maybe Ramos is getting high on her own supply, actually believing that Democrats are ready to “turn Texas blue,” perhaps thanks to the Democratic Party’s relentless importation of illegal aliens. But since Ken Paxton has been hypervigilant in cracking down on potential voting fraud, that outcome seems…remote.
But since the cabal backing the Straus-Bonnen-Phelan speakership line is unlikely to go gently into that good night, I must be missing something. There must be some scheme to either keep Phelan in the speaker’s chair, or elect another cabal toady in his place, that I’m just not seeing.
Phelan shows every sign of trying to finagle another term, even going so far as to declare that now he he really is for school choice after working so hard to kill it last session. I don’t think anyone believes those new spots are genuine.
Another sign that Phelan is working to win is the announcement that former Republican Governor Rick Perry has hired as a senior advisor.
Perry’s new position follows the announcement of Phelan’s new chief of staff, Mike Toomey, whose campaign finance records show numerous donations to Democrat lawmakers since 2015.
Toomey, who previously served as chief of staff to Rick Perry, has been a casino lobbyist, which garnered him between $3.4 and $6.7 million this session alone. One of Toomey’s largest clients is the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which seeks to legalize monopolistic casino gambling in Texas.
Toomey has also represented Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the group that advocated for Phelan’s impeachment of Paxton last year. Notably, Perry’s name was on the by-line of a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Paxton’s impeachment and conviction; the article was ghost-written by TLR.
As of 2022, Perry has warmed up to the expansion of gambling, becoming a spokesperson for Sports Betting Alliance, a group lobbying to legalize mobile sports gambling in Texas.
Perry will advise Phelan in a “voluntary capacity” until the start of the 89th Texas Legislature in January, according to an official press release.
A new investigative report revealed that House Speaker Dade Phelan used a state jet for campaign activities.
KHOU 11 has reported that members of the Texas House have used TxDOT’s executive-style jets for activities that crossed the line between “official state business” into personal or political business.
According to state law, the jets cannot be used for attending “an event at which money is raised for private or political purposes.”
When Phelan (R-Beaumont) used the jet in September 2022 to attend a speaking engagement at the leftwing Texas Tribune Festival, he didn’t stop there. He then used the jet to attend a University of Texas versus Texas Tech football game in Lubbock.
In a statement to KHOU 11, Phelan’s office said the trip was to meet with Tech officials and paid for by university donors.
However, campaign finance records show that he accepted a $2,500 in-kind contribution for “food and beverage for campaign event” the day he got to Lubbock. He also had an $880 charge at a hotel for “staff lodging for political fundraiser.”
KHOU 11 estimated that he raised at least $37,522 for his campaign on the trip.
Yeah, probably a violation, but it seems pretty smallball stuff compared to Phelan’s other shenanigans…
Or, more specifically, why they decided to do the M1A3 rather than than M1A2SEP4. And the main reason is weight.
“This list of proposed capabilities for the new design that include:
An autoloader
New main gun new turret
Hypersonic gun launched missiles that maneuver in midair
The ability to pair with robots
Masking capabilities to reduce thermal and electromagnetic signatures
AI systems that detect incoming fire and prioritize return fire
Hybrid electric drivetrain
Reduction of crew from 4 to 3.
Reduction of weight from 75 tons down to sub 60 tons.
But the coolest thing is it’ll likely get a brand new sleek hull for the first time in 30 years.”
“US Army leadership [is] reversing course on decades of tank design philosophy to do a last minute complete overhaul from the ground up based on new lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.”
The gun-launched anti-tank guided missile is something the army has worked off and on for a long time. The Soviet’s had one, but mainly because their main guns were inaccurate at longer ranges. U.S. had a prototype ATGM that hit a T-72 at 8,600 meters. “But the Army never invested in it to go full rate production. Part of the reason for this might be because it’s also true that tank-launched ATGMs have a smaller warhead and they don’t perform as well against modern composite armor compared to the 1970s.”
So why does the army want it now? Line of sight studies in Latvia and Lithuania (i.e, the border with Russia) shows a whole lot of areas where it would be useful.
Tank optics are also a lot better now.
The new XM 360 cannon uses the same 120mm diameter, but save a full ton of weight by using composites, and delivers the same 17 megajoules of energy to the target as a conventional 140mm cannon, thanks to more efficient plasma ignition.
The Russo-Ukrainian War reveals a much more deadly threat environment for tanks. Drones are a huge threat.
“They’re going to link the new cannon to a remote-controlled, optionally manned turret by switching to an autoloader and making the turret interior smaller. That’s a lot less volume that has to be protected by heavy armor, which equates to a lot less tons of armor.” When we last checked with western tankers looking at the T-14s autoloader some six years ago, they were skeptical of both smaller crews (“all we do is maintain tanks, and they still break down”) and autoloaders (Abrams tank crews currently put shots on target faster than Russian crews with autoloaders). But since then, the Russo-Ukraine War happened and technology galloped furiously, and presumably higher crew survivability will make the tradeoff worthwhile.
M1A3 almost certainly wouldn’t have the cassette design that gives the T-72 its turret toss reputation. “Newly designed autoloading tanks can have all of their ammo secured behind a bulkhead blast shield and can work with blowout panels to prevent detonation from cooking the crew.”
“We’ve also seen from combat in Ukraine that the Abrams engine deck with it air intakes and radiators is a popular target point for drone swarms, so the army is looking at unique ways to keep the engine better protected from above without sacrificing cooling performance.”
“The new M1A3 Abrams tank would also upgrade from that puny 50 caliber machine gun to possibly the 30mm chain gun remote weapon station. The big advantage there is that it could fire specially made 30mikemikes that provide air burst capability for shooting down drones.” That sounds both awesome and the makings of an extremely complex turret with multiple automatic-feed weapon systems.
“We have to remember that systems enhancement packages was always supposed to be a stopgap temporary band-aid solution for the Abrams, because the service thought that they would do with that until a full replacement vehicle was chosen that’s how we ended up with like a dozen different variants of Abrams tanks with various levels of advanced features in the early 2000s.”
“The main difference between the M1A1 and A2 is its electronics. However, with this new M1A3, it’s now likely to have a whole brand new hull and turret. There’s conflicting reports on that, but I can’t see any other way that we get the kind of weight reductions that they’re looking for without a whole new hull.”
“The first version of the Abrams tank weighed 54 tons. The SEPV4 that was cancelled was on track to weigh over 75 tons. Add in a mine plow and it was going to break the scales at 83 tons.”
In May this year, an expert analysis board came to some sobering conclusions. “The M1A2SEP3 and 4 upgrades will improve effectiveness, but not restore dominance. Near transparency in all domains will significantly increase the lethality our forces will experience. We will continue to have to fight outnumbered, exacerbated by a low MBT operational readiness rate and aging fleet.”
“Lessons learned in Ukraine is that tanks are sometimes dead meat if they’re too heavy. They get stuck in the mud, they’re too slow not nimble enough to fire and then escape from drones that are searching for them.”
That same Latvian-Lithuanian study showed lots of no-go zones for Abrams due to their weight in muddy conditions. “From a tactical perspective a defending Force could easily mine trafficable routes, destroy bridges to complicate Abram’s combat operations during the wet season and funnel them into choke points.”
“The study recommends new band tracks to lower the ground pressure to help fix that problem along with the lighter weight.”
SEPV3’s heavier weight lowered operational range from 300 miles down to 264.
He references the role of tank in the army’s current FM3-0 Operations Guide, which you can read at the link.
Transcom says that SEPV3 is too heavy to transport for a lot of roles.
Meantime between failure for current tanks is 200 miles, which does seem worrisome.
“It will likely have the hybrid electric drivetrain that reduces fuel consumption by 50%.” He calls it the Prius of tanks, but it’s not ugly enough for that.
More stealth.
More active protection.
“The future of armored warfare, the way the army envisions it, is that they’ll be preparing for a major change to tank tactics unlike anything we’ve seen since the introduction of the Abrams in 1980 …they all seem to believe that the future will be a combination of manned and unmanned platforms that are integrated with aerial UAVs. The M1A3 is the first step in that direction.”
A major Abrams redesign was probably slightly overdue anyway, but the torrents of real-world information coming out of the Russo-Ukrainian War forced their hand to make more radical changes.
For your feel-good Saturday video, Daily Dose of Internet has complied a video of the dumbest criminal of the decade (or at least those caught on camera).
The guy who thought he could escape from the police while also towing his mobile home is an all-time classic.
Happy Friday the 13th! Harris continues to slip behind Trump despite (because?) of their debate on the network of her Best Friend Forever, Haitian immigrants in Ohio accused of eating roof rabbit, Texas blasts Biden Administration overreach (again), Conor McGregor steps into a different kind of ring, a worse than usual remake idea, and American cats meet a variety of grisly ends.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
You know that Harris bounce? Nate Silver says not so much. “I’d also note that Harris’s raw polling averages have DECLINED in most swing states since the start of the DNC. This data is NOT subject to the convention bounce adjustment. She’s had a run of pretty mediocre state polling.”
It’s not surprising that the snap polling, including by groups that conservatives trust, like Trafalgar, is showing that Harris “won” the debate. And I think that’s true. She was more polished, more prepared; she had her canned barbs. But there’s something strange going on here. While she won the debate, Democrats always come across in snap polling as winning the debates. I saw people sharing on X the history of snap polling after debates with Donald Trump, first with Hillary and then with Biden. In every one of those debates—six in total—clear majorities said that Trump lost the debate. I’m not sure what to read into that.
So, it was anger at the moderators, frustration that Trump wasn’t making a lot of the points I thought he could have made, but he was being Trump. And I’ve misjudged his appeal to voters and his electoral success so many times, so it is what it is.
But there’s something else I took away from this—and it’s showing on the screen just to the side of me here. One thing I really noticed throughout was the faces that Harris was making—very condescending, very mocking, very childish, actually. I think that’s the one thing I remember more than anything about the debate.
Now, I think Trump did a very good job, even though he didn’t make the points I thought he could have, like showing how she flip-flopped. He hit hard on the border and the economy, and I think that may have a lasting impact.
What’s showing up in the focus groups—ones I’ve seen not by right-wing groups, but CNN, Reuters, NBC—there seems to be a disconnect between who they think won the debate and how they’re reacting substantively.
Trafalgar was consistent with the others, showing a 15-point win for Harris in terms of who won the debate, but no movement in who people were going to vote for. CNN was interesting—they had an even larger, 20-plus-point win for Harris, but found that on the key issue—voters’ most important issue—the economy, Trump actually improved over pre-debate polling. Similar findings came from Reuters and NBC.
Dana Walden, a senior Disney executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, is one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ “extraordinary friends,” according to a report in the New York Times.
Walden and Harris have known each other since 1994, while their husbands, Matt Walden and Doug Emhoff, have known each other since the 1980s.
Dana Walden has donated to dozens of Democrats and contributed to Harris’ political campaigns since at least 2003, when she ran for district attorney in San Francisco.
While the legacy media has yet to find any evidence of pet consumption that it’s willing to accept, there are some much larger issues regarding the crisis that has been created in Springfield through the importation of nearly 20,000 Haitian illegals.
Former Ohio State Representative Kyle Koehler has sounded a warning regarding the consequences that have followed the Biden administration’s policy that gave temporary protected status to more than 100,000 Haitian migrants, including those relocated to Springfield.
🚨🚨 BREAKING:
Former Ohio State Rep. Kyle Koehler (@repkoehler) has made SHOCKING revelations about the illegal Haitian crisis in Springfield, Ohio during a recent speech.
1.) The Haitian illegals in Ohio are given $600-$1600 per month on Debit Cards through the Refugee Cash… pic.twitter.com/aWDyVcx7b3
Among the concerns raised by Koehler are the strain on the local school system with more than 1,600 non-English speaking students now enrolled and Haitian refugees who are 20 years old being placed Freshman High School classrooms with 13 year old kids.
Koehler also voiced concern over an individual who is renting his 63 homes to the relocated Haitians for as little as $250 per month, with 20-25 individuals living in each home.
Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) has also weighed in on the controversy, saying that he too has heard from Springfield residents complaining that pets and wildlife were being abducted and that health services are being severely strained by an influx of individuals with communicable diseases like TB and HIV.
The community of 60,000 residents is clearly facing serious issues related to the open border policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
When tales of Haitian immigrants eating cats emerged on social media this week, it suddenly focused attention on the city of Springfield, Ohio, but now we are learning there’s more to the story:
“Those 20,000 Haitians did not show up overnight or uninvited. Though flown in by the federal government, they were not forced on the city by the federal government. Elections have consequences. Springfield voted for this. They signaled their virtue, their signal was seen, and virtue arrived. This is what they wanted. This is what they got. They’ll have to deal with the consequences.”
(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) Much commentary has focused on whether it’s true that pets are being killed and eaten by the Haitians, but that’s not really the point. The point is why Springfield became the destination for thousands of Haitians (who may or may not eat cats).
It’s a long story. First of all, you’ll find liberals insisting that these Haitians are not illegal immigrants. Research further, however, and you learn that most of them entered the country illegally, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border after making their way through Central America. After Haiti descended into its latest crisis, the Biden administration granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to all Haitians in the U.S., so you may say that they have been retroactively (but temporarily) “legalized.”
Now let’s talk about Springfield, which is a “blue” island of liberalism in a sea of Republican “red.” Ohio was once a battleground state, closely contested in every presidential election, and then Trump came along and the Buckeye State has now become a GOP stronghold. Springfield was a city of 58,662 residents before the Haitian influx, and the city sits in Clark County (population 136,000) which voted 61% for Trump in 2020.
You see that, if the Democrats can turn these Haitians into voters, they can make Clark County “blue,” and a similar calculus is being applied nationwide by the Biden administration’s immigration policy. Democrats insist that the “Great Replacement” is a right-wing conspiracy theory, but we can see them doing it — blatantly, deliberately, in front of our eyes — in places like Springfield. And this brings us to the late Warren Copeland.
For most of the past three decades, Copeland was the mayor of Springfield. He was a professor at Wittenberg University, a local institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Anyone who knows anything about the ELCA will tell you it is the pluperfect example of degenerate liberal Protestantism. “The ELCA has drifted so far into pagan goddess worship that to call it ‘Lutheranism’ is an insult to Luther; to call it ‘Christian’ is blasphemy,” as I wrote in 2016. Copeland was a radical obsessed with “social justice,” and the fact that Springfield repeatedly elected him as their mayor tells you something about the politics of the city. Indeed, Springfield eagerly welcomed the influx of Haitians. Read this article from December 2022:
A surge in the number of Springfield residents from Haiti has resulted in an outpouring of language assistance and additional forms of help from the Springfield City School District and others who are trying to meet their needs.
Social Justice destroys everything it touches.
Citizens have questions to City Council about vetting of Haitian refugees in Sylacauga, Alabama. City Council: “Meeting adjourned.”
For the first time in EU history, Germany is at the forefront of immigration suspension. Other EU countries will follow.
The Schengen Area…is an area encompassing 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their mutual borders.
Reuters reports Germany Tightens Controls at All Borders in Immigration Crackdown.
Germany’s government announced plans to impose tighter controls at all of the country’s land borders in what it called an attempt to tackle irregular migration and protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism.
The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement – the European Schengen zone – will start on Sept. 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.
The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, Faeser said, without adding details on the controversial and legally fraught move.
The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.
Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people in August.
Polls show it is also voters’ top concern in the state of Brandenburg, which is set to hold elections in two weeks.
Scholz and Faeser’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there, in a vote billed as a test of strength of the SPD ahead of next year’s federal election.
“The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” said Marcus Engler at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.
Seems like Germans are getting tired of all that vibrant raping and stabbing diversity…
On Wednesday, a federal court ruled in favor of Elon Musk’s X Corp in its case challenging California’s content moderation laws, citing free speech violations. X Corp filed a lawsuit to block the controversial law, which took effect on January 1, 2024.
The legislation requires social media companies to disclose details of their content moderation policies to the state or face civil penalties.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a previous lower court’s decision that ruled against pausing enforcement of the state law. The panel of three judges decided the law facially violated the First Amendment, Reuters reported.
“X Corp. is likely to succeed in showing that the Content Category Report provisions facially violate the First Amendment,” Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote in his case opinion.
In the complaint filed in Sept. 2023, X Corporation argued that Assembly Bill 587 violates the company’s First Amendment rights because it pressures “companies such as X Corp. to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally-protected speech that the State deems undesirable or harmful” which “interferes with the constitutionally-protected editorial judgments” of the company.
For free speech advocates, we often feel that other citizens have become passive observers as an anti-free speech movement grows around us, threatening our “indispensable right.”
One of the most infamous figures in this movement has been former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has long been the smiling face of censorship. As the head of the Labour Party, Blair pushed through some of the early crackdowns on free speech in the United Kingdom. He is now calling for global censorship to expand these efforts.
In an interview on LBC Radio, Blair declared:
“The world is going to have to come together and agree on some rules around social media platforms. It’s not just how people can provoke hostility and hatred but I think… the impact on young people particularly when they’ve got access to mobile phones very young and they are reading a whole lot of stuff and receiving a whole lot of stuff that I think is really messing with their minds in a big way.”
Remember, when the want to crackdown on “misinformation,” the sort of things they want to ban are opinions contrary to their social justice agenda. Such as “the Chinese coronavirus came from a lab” or “there are only two biological sexes.”
More of that voting fraud Democrats swear doesn’t exist. “Illegal Alien Charged With Stealing U.S. Citizen’s Identity to Vote in Elections. She voted in the 2016 and 2020 primaries and general elections.”
The Biden Administration wants Texas to cede Fronton Island to federal control. Texas Governor Greg Abbott told them to get stuffed.
I am in receipt of a letter from the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) to the Texas General Land Office (GLO) … given that it concerns actions taken under Operation Lone Star to secure Texas’ southern border around Fronton Island against the ongoing invasion of Texas by transnational criminal cartels — a crisis created and incentivized by your Administration,” Abbott wrote.
Abbott added that the letter “alleges that GLO has altered the flow of the Rio Grande by engaging in activities on Fronton Island without USIBWC’s approval.”
“It also alleges that [the] GLO trespassed on federal land in the process of facilitating cleanup and security efforts on the Island … That agency responded in a letter … detailing that GLO has not engaged in construction activities at all, and, in any event, Fronton Island is state-owned land.”
Abbott then responded to the United States Section of the International Boundary and Water Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner’s request that Fronton Island be returned to its pre-construction conditions: “You are either unaware of, or indifferent to, what those ‘pre-construction conditions’ were.”
Before Texas secured Fronton Island, Abbott wrote, “[T]ransnational criminal cartels had assumed practical control of the densely vegetated Island and used it to terrorize Texas communities.”
He recounted occasions when authorities found the criminal cartels to be using the “thick vegetation” to “stash weapons, plant explosives, evade apprehension, and engage in open warfare against rival cartels and against state and federal officers.”
“Are you aware that your appointee is asking Texas to return grenades and rocket launchers along with IEDs to the Island?” he asked the Biden administration.
Abbott continued, “Your open-border policies have allowed an invasion at the southern border and incentivized criminal activity that threatens the lives of Texas law enforcement, soldiers, and citizens.”
“Yet … the federal government has refused to enforce federal laws — even in dangerous areas like Fronton Island.”
“I determined that Texas could not ignore an ongoing invasion of its sovereign territory,” Abbott said of his decision on October 5, 2023 to move a “heavily armed invasion force” onto Fronton Island.
He then addressed USIBWC’s complaint that Texas had built “two sediment bridges.”
“Your Administration’s letter betrays a basic misunderstanding of facts on the ground, and its claims are unsupported by either science or common sense.”
Dwight has been sending me tidbits on the ongoing meltdown among government officials in New York City following FBI raids. Like this: “Paranoid police officials meeting in parking lots as fed raids leave NYPD, City Hall in shock.” “Law enforcement sources telling The Post that they’re afraid NYPD headquarters is bugged and their words are being recorded.” Plus New York City Mayor Eric Adams evidently has several burner phones, which is both highly suspicious and probably justified. And since Adams is reportedly using the messaging app Signal, presumably they’re modern Android or iPhones, which are: A.) More expensive than classic burner phones, and B.) Probably not conducive to quick SIM card swaps, ala Stringer Bell on The Wire.
Anyway, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban just resigned.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori dead at 86. Fujimori revived Peru’s economy and destroyed the Maoist Shining Path guerillas, but in the end he too fell prey to Peru’s long history of government abuse of power and corruption. In the end, he too was corrupt and committed human rights abuses…and was still arguably the most successful (and important) President in Peru’s troubled history.
“The head of the UN wants to create a fake bank that will circumvent EU and US sanctions against Russian banks.”
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham pushed back against a Biden-Harris administration proposal to “lease nearly 150,000 offshore acres to an energy company (Hecate Energy) with no experience in wind projects.” But it’s easy to understand why the Biden Administration wants to hand the assignment to Hecate: They donate lots of money to Democrats.
Alan Dershowitz announces he’s leaving the Democratic Party over its “anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention.” One wonders what took him so long.
Remember Taral Patel the Ft. Bend democrat who faked hate crimes against himself? Now he’s facing even more felony charges. “Last week a grand jury indicted him on four felony counts of Online Impersonation and four misdemeanor charges including Online Impersonation and Misrepresentation of Identity with intent to ‘harm.'”
Self-cleaning litter box has the unfortunate downside of killing your cat.
Rick Beato interviews bassist Tony Levin of Peter Gabriel and King Crimson fame. It’s an interesting interview, especially the part about how he sold all his stuff to go on tour with Buddy Rich, only to find out that Rich’s old bassist had agreed to come back, so he was out of a job…
“Optronic Technologies, Inc., better known to backyard astronomers as the parent company of both Orion Telescopes & Binoculars and Meade Instruments, has shut its offices and storefront in Watsonville, California.” Actual manufacturing was done in Tijuana, so I’m not sure how much California’s new minimum wage law had an effect.
There are rumors that Barbie director Greta Gerwig wants to make an all female Fight Club remake. That’s about as good an idea as an all-male reboot of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Comedian Kevin Hart’s chain of vegetarian restaurants in LA closed down. 1. How’s that minimum wage working out for you, California? 2. Vegetarian restaurants aren’t even profitable in LA. 3. Stick to comedy. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
A hotel in El Paso and its owner face a temporary injunction and restraining order from the El Paso County Attorney for alleged criminal activity and suspicions of housing Tren de Aragua gang members.
El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez filed an original petition for abatement of a common nuisance, an application for a temporary restraining order, a temporary injunction, and a permanent injunction against the Gateway Hotel.
“The Gateway Hotel’s reputation is as a business that does not properly document the guests that stay at the hotel, has narcotics trafficking, disorderly conduct, and violent crime,” read the lawsuit.
The first documented instance of a possible gang member was in June when police were called after a suspect shot a handgun in the air and made threats of violence.
Police later noted tattoos consistent with the gang Tren de Aragua on inhabitants of the hotel on several occasions while investigating calls of disorderly conduct and fire code violations.
In addition to criminal activity, the hotel has operated without a valid certificate of occupancy for the past six years and has failed three inspections by the El Paso Fire Department. The fire department noted holes in walls and ceilings throughout the entire building and sprinkler heads taped over.
One video cited in the suit shows individuals “partying” on the third floor with one gun being shot, men holding knives, and another holding a hatchet he allegedly used to assault individuals and cause damage to the hotel.
Additional police calls to the Gateway Hotel include failures to comply with sex offender registration, theft, aggravated assault, and narcotics—including marijuana and methamphetamines.
“Management does not attempt ‘to control the conduct of the guests and is negligently allowing gang activity to infiltrate the area,’” remarked a police officer in the suit.
Here’s a local media video:
“The El Paso County Attorney [is] filing a lawsuit for a temporary and permanent injunction against the hotel.”
There have been 700 police calls to the hotel in the last two years.
The hotel failed at least three inspections by the El Paso fire department.
The Biden Administration’s insistence on flooding the country with illegal aliens is the gift that keeps on giving. And Kamala Harris’ support for an illegal alien amnesty will insure that all the rapists, felons, thugs and murderers they brought in get to stay permanently.
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.
👀💥 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 County’s Precinct 1, sent a letter on August 22, 2024, to staff working for Constable Alan Rosen notifying them that he had recalled the warrants.
“Please 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,” 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 Duble’s blanket recall may conflict with the Texas Criminal Code of Procedures, which states that “If 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.” 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 “social justice lens” to his courtroom.
Indeed, his campaign website states “I am deeply embedded in Houston’s 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 Attorney’s Office (HCDAO) told The Texan that they had only recently been made aware of the blanket warrant recall.
“We only recently were made aware of Judge Duble’s inexplicable decision to grant fugitives a free pass in his courtroom,” said an HCDAO spokesperson. “This 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.”
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 administration’s 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 Worth—the primary charity of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth—began 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 “refugees” 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 French’s findings, the organization’s 2022 Form 990 showed they had given more than $25 million that year to the International Rescue Committee—an international immigration nonprofit whose stated mission is to “help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster, including the climate crisis, to survive, recover and gain control over their future.”
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 IRC’s expressed purpose for assisting illegal aliens is to help them “become permanent residents and US citizens.”
The IRC has stated that they’ve 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 IRC’s 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 isn’t 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 Texas—a 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 million—$19 million of which was from federal grants—in 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 “refugees” 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 families—up 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 “charities” 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 alien’s 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 Children’s (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 “prevent them from giving a partisan organization thousands of taxpayer dollars to identify the names and addresses of potentially unregistered voters without statutory authority.”
In the suit, Paxton alleges that Civic Government Solutions (CGS), a voter outreach company, was hired to “conduct services for the County that the County is unauthorized to perform.”
Paxton’s lawsuit explains that CGS CEO Jeremy Smith has made public comments about “getting people to vote for progressive candidates.” Smith is also listed as CEO of Civitech, a company that Axios described as a “progressive data startup.”
And what do you know! A search of Open Secrets shows that of 142 political donations, all went to Democrats.
“Travis 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,” said Paxton in a press release.
“Programs like this invite fraud and reduce public trust in our elections. We will stop them and any other county considering such programs.”
Paxton is arguing that the Travis County officials acted ultra vires — beyond their legal authority, in other words — 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?