5th Circuit Yanks Case From Clinton Appointee

October 17th, 2024

Commenter LBK alerted me to this, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals just yanked a case from Clinton appointee Janis Jack that she had presided over for thirteen years.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered the case of M.D. v. Abbott be reassigned, in addition to vacating a contempt order [Clinton appointee Janis] Jack entered.

The panel released a 36-page opinion that found Jack has shown an extensive and well-documented pattern of antagonism toward the State of Texas and its counsel, and a bias favoring plaintiffs who have strived for years to get the state to comply with orders for timely investigations into abuse allegations.

Although the panel recognized Jack’s institutional knowledge and the complexity of the civil case, the court said, “It is necessary to reconsider the continued adversarial nature of this proceeding.”

Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones, in her analysis of the history between Jack and the Texas agencies she oversees, also strongly indicated Jack erred in not recognizing the state has been “substantially compliant” in recent years with the court’s orders.

The opinion, anticipating reassignment, gives notice to that regardless which jurist inherits the case, “as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies.”

Jones said it is not appropriate “for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree.”

The Department of Family and Protective Services, in a prepared statement, said, “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit recognized the significant efforts DFPS and HHSC have invested in serving the children and families of our state. We remain committed and are grateful to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature for their continued support in furthering the well-being of our most vulnerable Texans.”

TDFPS is hardly free of sin. At one point Abbott had to instruct them to stop requiring Critical Race Theory classes. Somehow I have a feeling that wasn’t something Jack objected to…

Yetter Coleman partner R. Paul Yetter, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and appellee advocate during the Aug. 5 oral argument, has worked the case since it was first filed.

“We respectfully disagree with the panel ruling and will ask for reconsideration by the whole circuit,” Yetter said, adding the case will stay with Jack at least until the reconsideration petition is decided.

When litigation began, Jack’s role involved addressing abuses within the entire foster care program and more than 10,000 children.

In 2014, Jack issued her ruling after trial and the remedial measures were appealed to the Fifth Circuit. Although the Fifth Circuit provided the state some relief in a series of orders over a period of years, Yetter said the merits of the case have been thoroughly adjudicated and the focus has been on compliance for the past five years.

The issues before the appeals court this time are primarily focused on 38 unresolved cases involving children with intellectual disabilities that are in the state’s permanent custody.

Wait, 13 years and $100,000 in fines over 38 cases? I would imagine that most of them have aged out of the system by now. Every life is sacred, but $100,000 a day in fines for 38 cases seems…disproportionate.

Speaking in Jack’s defense, Yetter argued the judge has been “incredibly patient” with the state for the past seven years, and the Fifth Circuit did not credit Jack where she praised state officials on progress made.

“There’s been improvement, and she’s called them out and praised state officials for that,” Yetter said.

In an amicus curiae filed by Alexander Dubose & Jefferson attorney Marcy Hogan Greer on behalf of National Disability Rights Network, Center for Public Representation, New Disabled South, and Disability Rights Mississippi, Greer argued Texas has continued to fail foster children with intellectual disabilities.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission created a special “Provider Investigations” unit to investigate alleged abuses of children with disabilities “who are often incapable of advocating for themselves,” but that unit “has been plagued by incompetence, ineptitude, insensitivity, and backlog,” Greer noted.

Texas appealed a Jack contempt order in April that came with a $100,000-a-day fine. The Fifth Circuit stayed the fine and late Friday vacated it with the reassignment order.

The actual decision is here, and near the end it notes:

We take no position on issues that have not yet matured into appealable orders. However, as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies. Horne v. Flores, 557 U.S. 433, 453, 129 S. Ct. 2579, 2597 (2009) (“[T]he longer an injunction or consent decree stays in place, the greater the risk that it will improperly interfere with a State’s democratic processes.”); United States v. Mississippi, 82 F.4th 387, 400 (5th Cir. 2023)(“Micromanagement, enforced upon threat of contempt, does not reflect the principles of comity” in prison context.). Nor, under the federalist structure created by the Constitution, is it appropriate for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree. Horne, 557 U.S. at 448,
129 S. Ct. at 2593–94 (“Federalism concerns are heightened” where “a federal court decree has the effect of dictating state . . . budget priorities.”).

Nor are federal judges even suited, by training or temperament, to manage institutions, personnel, or the provision of vital state services, even if counselled by monitors. In this case particularly, the integrity of oversight may have been further put at risk by the trial court’s creation of a “fund,” based on plaintiffs’ attorneys’ foregoing their court-approved fees, that the court may evidently disburse at its discretion. Federal judges should not be personally allocating resources from the state’s taxpayers for purposes not directly tied to and controlled by the state itself in order to abide by a court decree.

Indeed.

I’m sure there probably were some significant cases of abuse at the heart of the case, but 13 years seems like a ridiculously long time for a case to drag on (though far from the longest).

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Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

5th Circuit Green Lights Voter Integrity

October 16th, 2024

Good news! The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has given Texas the green light to actually enforce voter integrity laws.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the State of Texas’ request to pause a district court’s injunction against a 2021 Texas election law, citing the Supreme Court’s guidance against altering election laws close to an election.

The order notes that the “law has been on the books for over three years, but the court did not see fit to enjoin until now.”

In 2021, Abbott signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 1, which added provisions designed to prevent voter fraud by creating additional criminal statutes, prohibiting unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, and setting more ground rules for early voting and voter registration.

The law creates an offense for “vote harvesting services” and specifically bans “in-person interaction with one or more voters, in the physical presence of an official ballot, a ballot voted by mail, or an application for ballot by mail, intended to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure.”

The “Election Protection and Integrity Act” was a centerpiece of Texas GOP legislation and received significant pushback from Democratic lawmakers at the time it passed, sparking a quorum bust as many members of the Democratic caucus fled to Washington D.C. The U.S. Department of Justice even went as far as filing a lawsuit to challenge two provisions of the law.

Six progressive organizations sued the state over the election integrity laws, with a federal judge issuing a ruling last month that declared the law unconstitutional and enjoined state officials from enforcing it.

Funny how Democrat-appointed judges always seem to want to let Democrats cheat. We covered the stay here.

La Union Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) was the lead plaintiff, along with the League of Women Voters of Texas, the Texas American Federation of Teachers, the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and OCA-Greater Houston.

All of these, including the teacher’s union, are merely appendages of the social justice-infected Democratic Party.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has launched voter integrity investigations into a number of Texas counties, promised to appeal the ruling to the 5th Circuit Court.

Days later, the 5th Circuit issued a temporary stay of the federal judge’s ruling.

Circuit Court Judge James Ho, who authored the court’s decision, explained, “The district court issued this injunction after counties have already started to mail absentee ballots.”

“So Texans are about to cast ballots not subject to voter privacy protections currently on the books but rather subject to the injunction issued by the district court.”

Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, in the concurring judgment, wrote, “Because of the proximity of the injunction’s issuance to the upcoming election, issuance of a stay is consistent with both Supreme Court and this court’s precedent.”

Democrats have previously used politiqueras all across south Texas to wheedle, cajole, steal, and fake votes for Democrats. This ruling should prevent at least this one avenue of Democratic Party voting fraud for this election.

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Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | 5 Comments »

Venezuelan Gang Now In Texas Middle Schools

October 15th, 2024

It’s bad enough that Venezuelan illegal alien gang Tren de Aragua is taking over apartment complexes in San Antonio and hotels in El Paso, but now they’re recruiting Houston middle school students.

Authorities have arrested a confirmed Tren de Aragua gang member, after he allegedly recruited students from two Houston middle schools to join the Venezuelan gang.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jorgenys Robertson Cova—an illegal alien from Venezuela—entered the United States two years ago.

Cova is suspected to have recruited students from Jane Long Academy and Las Americas—both of which are located in the Houston Independent School District. He was arrested last week after being wanted in Pearland for theft and was accused of recruiting the students.

The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed Cova was part of the Venezuelan gang after observing known tattoos related to the gang on his arms that included a five-point crown and a clock and roses. Other known tattoos include stars, Ak-47s, and trains.

Via FAIR, here are some of the tattoos DPS seems to be focusing on.

Cova was scheduled for an asylum hearing in Houston on the same day he was taken into custody and booked into the Brazoria County Jail.

A Houston ISD spokesperson told Texas Scorecard that they have not been made aware of any activities related to the gang member, but will work with law enforcement to provide any information they need.

The gang has also been spotted in North Dallas, with Dallas Police officers confirming they have infiltrated the city. Members of the Tren De Aragua gang have congregated with other Venezuelans in the northern part of Dallas, nicknamed “Villa Dallas.” Since the gang’s arrival, the neighborhood has become riddled with illegal street racing, beatings, shootings, and extortion attempts.

It was bad enough when gangs recruited high schoolers, but now their dragging middle schoolers into a life of crime. Thanks, Joe Biden.

As I noted before, I never read about Tren de Aragua until the Biden-Harris Administration decided to flood America with illegal aliens, and now they seem to be popping up everywhere. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has designated Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization and is offering up to a $5,000 reward for information leading to capture of members.

There’s just no end to the vibrant diversity that Democrats have inflicted on ordinary Americans…

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Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 5 Comments »

10% Of Texas Population Illegal Aliens?

October 14th, 2024

This is a pretty startling tidbit via Texas Republican congressman Chip Roy:

Given that the entire population of Texas is some 31,000,000 people, that means that just under 10% of the population are non-citizens, the majority of which are probably illegal aliens, and most of them have probably been imported under the Biden-Harris administration.

If you were wondering how Democrats were planning on stealing the 2024 election, that’s one of the ways. Fortunately, Texas officials finally seem to have their act together for ensuring only citizens vote.

In a major reversal from her guidance just days ago, Secretary of State Jane Nelson now says non-citizen driver’s licenses may not be used as a form of voter identification.

The Texas Department of Public Safety issues driver’s licenses and personal identification cards to lawfully present noncitizens, which are clearly marked “Temporary Visitor” or “Limited-Term” and expire after one year or when the individual’s period of lawful presence ends.

An advisory from the Secretary of State issued Tuesday afternoon stated that while citizens should not use these types of IDs to vote, poll workers should nonetheless offer a regular ballot to people on the voter rolls who present a noncitizen ID. This contrasts with previous guidance from the Secretary of State’s office in 2018, which specifically stated that DPS-issued driver’s licenses and personal identification cards “should not be used if ‘Limited Term’ or ‘Temporary Visitor’ appears on the face of the card, as this indicates the person is not a U.S. Citizen.”

Instead, voters with such IDs were urged to show other forms of identification, including naturalization certificates or passports.

After backlash, Nelson has issued “updated guidance” reversing the decision:

When an individual attempts to vote by presenting a temporary or limited-term driver’s license (which federal regulations say must be issued only to non-citizens who are lawfully present in this country) election workers must require that the individual produce a naturalization card or naturalization certificate demonstrating U.S. citizenship to receive a regular ballot.

I still expect Democrats to try to harvest illegal alien votes (and pursue other avenues of voting fraud) in deep blue cities, but state vigilance has helped forestall this particular avenue of illegal alien voting fraud.

But voting fraud is far from the only baleful effects of Democrats importing such a staggering number of illegal aliens into Texas (and elsewhere). Higher crime rates, soaring housing costs, and downward pressure on manual labor and entry level jobs are all notable problems, as is the diversion of federal funds from more vital tasks to fund the Biden-Harris illegal alien importation agenda.

The Biden-Harris administration allegedly redirected funds meant for securing the southern border to advancing its open borders agenda.

The Center for Renewing America reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been using funds allocated to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to spur illegal border crossings.

Specifically, CRA Executive Director Wade Miller levied accusations against the Biden-Harris administration for propagating the illusion that CBP had enough taxpayer funding, but then moving those dollars to FEMA to advance open-border policies.

He described this process as being even more scandalous than FEMA funding illegal aliens with its own money.

“It appears that much of the money used by FEMA to fund illegal immigration was transferred to FEMA from CBP,” Miller posted on X. “The Biden/Harris admin is defunding border security to facilitate open borders.”

Miller explained later that “Democrats set up the CBP funding levels to make it look like CBP had non-laughable funding levels, with the intent of then later transferring those funds to fund the open borders agenda through FEMA.”

While U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed that FEMA is running out of money amid the ongoing hurricane season, FEMA actually spent exorbitant amounts of money on welfare for illegal aliens.

For example, in the past two years alone, FEMA covered approximately $1 billion worth of food, shelter, and transportation for illegal aliens.

Now, not only is FEMA allegedly out of money, but the federal government has also been accused of taking taxpayer dollars from CBP’s pockets and transferring it to FEMA to continue its spending on illegal aliens.

“Absolutely nothing that Border Czar Kamala Harris and President Biden do – or intentionally fail to do – surprises me,” State Rep. David Spiller told Texas Scorecard. “They continue to consciously endanger every Texan and American by their indefensible open border policies.”

Having this many illegal aliens running around lose is an active threat to Texas and the United States. A second Trump presidency is necessary to secure the border and start the deportation of all illegal aliens.

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Posted in Border Control, Texas | 9 Comments »

Why Leftists Keep Lying About The Second Amendment

October 13th, 2024

In a world where Democrats can read and understand the plain text of the Heller decision elucidating the fact that the Second Amendment “protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia,” we wouldn’t the following video. Sadly, so powerful is the Democratic Party’s lust for complete civilian disarmament, that doesn’t seem to be the world we live in. Hence this succinct Nick Freitas video.

  • “Why, in a country founded on the principles of individual liberty and rights, is there such a huge debate over the second amendment?”
  • “Critics argue that the founding fathers never intended for the Second Amendment to apply to individuals, and today many politicians and political activists try to claim that ‘well-regulated’ means government regulation, and that the word militia means that only those serving in a state militia have the right to keep and bear arms.”
  • “But when we look back at the debates over the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, a few things show up.”
  • “For starters, the American Revolution was fresh in the minds of the founding fathers. They knew that an armed populace was instrumental in securing America’s Independence.”
  • “The notion that the Second Amendment was solely about militias doesn’t quite hold up when you dig into the writings of the time. Take James Madison, the father of the Constitution and one of the chief writers of the Federalist Papers. In his own words, he explained that the right to bear arms was an individual right essential for the personal and collective defense of America.”
  • “And he wasn’t alone. George Mason perhaps said it best when he said ‘Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, except a few public officers.'”
  • “And what’s more, there are literally dozens of similar quotes from the men who debated and ratified the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Virtually all of them recognize that the Second Amendment conveyed an individual right to keep and bear arms.”
  • “The reason for this is actually quite simple: Because the founding fathers recognize that rights are, by their nature, something that only individuals can exercise.”
  • “Because many of the same politicians who claim that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect an individual’s right to keep and bear arms also believe that some rights only belong to groups of people. But the concept of group rights runs into some major problems, because it suggests that a group collectively holds rights or privileges that an individual cannot have.”
  • “But this just begs the question if a group of people can collectively hold rights that an individual doesn’t have any claim to then. Where on Earth did the right come from in the first place?”
  • “Consider this when we talk about the freedom of speech, religion, or assembly, we don’t frame them as group rights. These rights belong to individuals and their exercise within the law doesn’t infringe on others rights. The Second Amendment should be no different, but still some claim that these rights need to be restricted or even abolished due to the undeniable fact that many have abused these rights.”
  • “But this begs the question: Are your rights forfeit the moment someone else abuses theirs? If so, we might as well just stop calling them rights and accept the fact that you don’t have rights as much as you do privileges which can be granted or take away as soon as a political elite decides you don’t need them, or it’s too dangerous for you to have them.
  • “But ironically, that’s exactly what the Second Amendment is supposed to prevent, and maybe that’s why certain politicians would like to see it gone.”

    • This loses style points for overuse of “begs the question” but is otherwise accurate.

    Replacing individual rights with collective is of course precise poison social justice warriors want to force down America’s throats…

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    Posted in Democrats, Guns, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, video | 13 Comments »

    Are Hackers About To Erase The Internet’s History?

    October 12th, 2024

    One of the more useful, long-time websites on the Internet is the Internet Archive, aka The Wayback Machine, which contains captured, iterative versions of a vast amount of the World Wide Web.

    Except that, right now, the site is offline and under attack by hackers.

  • “Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and stones and is constantly on the verge of a major security breach? It just happened.”
  • “The Wayback Machine [is] one of the most important websites in the history of the Internet, because it literally archives the history of the Internet. It’s been taking snapshots of websites, including their HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images since 1996, allowing us to remember the worldwide web in its peak form, when Amazon looked like this and weird people made weird websites just for fun. Unlike nowadays where everybody just chases algorithms on cringe factories like Tik-Tok and Instagram.”
  • It was founded by digital librarian Brewster Kahle.
  • “Unfortunately, the fate of this website hangs in the balance, as it’s currently getting pwned, boned and owned from multiple angles.”
  • “A data breach exposed 31 million email addresses and password hashes. Its Open Library lost a critical legal battle. Its website was defaced with some JavaScript graffiti. It’s been getting DOSed non-stop, and its current status is offline as we speak. What the hell is going on?”
  • “The Wayback Machine contains over 890 billion archived web pages weighing in at nearly 100 petabytes. It’s an unimaginable amount of data. If you look at one web page every second for the next 100 years, you would have looked at less than 1% of the total archive.”
  • “This data is practically irreplaceable. The only company that might be able to replace it is Google, but Google recently stopped using its own cached archive, and its search results now points to, you guessed it, the Internet Archives Wayback Machine.”
  • “We don’t know if the hackers have access to the archived website data, but if they do, and they might, they have the power to erase the history of the world wide web.”
  • “The Internet Archive will remove personal data and comply with GDPR [the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation], but some people want legitimate content to be memory-holed forever.”
  • Section on their Open Library project losing a lawsuit to publishers snipped.
  • “HIBP (which is not an STD, but rather a website that helps people find out if their data has been compromised in a data breach) was informed of the Internet Archives data breach on September 30th. It’s confirmed on October 5th. The Internet Archive gets notified on October 6th [before] making the data breach public on October 8th.
  • “The Internet Archive has been been facing aggressive DOS attacks going all the way back to May.”
  • “The website is defaced with some JavaScript library which triggers an alert message about the data breach before it’s been officially disclosed.”
  • “Right now on October 10th, the website is still being attacked and is completely offline. Things are not looking good.”
  • “What sort of sick, twisted hacker would want to mess with the Internet Archive, and why? Well, a hacktivist group called Blackmeta is claiming responsibility.”
  • “They say they’re not a bunch of teenagers, which means that they’re probably just a bunch of teenagers.”
  • According to this post, “Attributed by Radware to SN_BLACKMETA, a pro-Palestinian hacktivist with potential ties to Sudan that may operate from within Russia.” YouTuber Fireship (whose video this is) thinks that’s a false flag, but his reasons are “This doesn’t make sense and won’t get people to like you,” which hasn’t stopped those End Oil idiots. Indeed “this is stupid and makes people hate you” describes a vast array of real “activist” actions going all the way back to the Symbionese Liberation Army and attempts to levitate the Pentagon back in the 1960s, so I think Fireship’s deduction here is off-base.

    • Could be pro-Palestinian sorts, who have never seemed to care about “making friends” while raping women and beheading babies. Or it could be any number of social justice types, whose Khmer Rouge-esque “Year Zero” vibe jibs nicely with wiping out the Internet’s history. Or maybe they’re trying to erase Kamala Harris’ obvious past idiocies.

    In any case, let’s all hope this attack fails, and that the Wayback Machine has robust, rotating offline backups…

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    Posted in Crime, Social Justice Warriors, video | 6 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for October 11, 2024

    October 11th, 2024

    Weird roundup this week: Lot’s of Hollywood and car news, not too much on the looming election. (Shrugs.) It’s whatever happens to catch my eye.

    It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Yes, Democrats spent FEMA money on illegal aliens.

    More than 200 people have been confirmed dead as a result of Hurricane Helene, and that total is expected to rise as search-and-rescue crews reach more remote communities. Roads have been destroyed, many towns are still without power, and people are beginning to run out of food as trucks cannot get in to provide aid.

    Amid all of this, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the architect of the migrant invasion, warns that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is running out of money to aid hurricane victims. Meanwhile, thanks to the migrant crisis his catch-and-release policies created, FEMA has spent over $1 billion feeding, housing, and transporting illegal immigrants across the United States in just the last two years.

    Before he was elected, President Joe Biden said of migrants wanting to enter the U.S. illegally, “We could afford to take in a heartbeat another 2 million.” Thanks to Biden’s subsequent policies, all supported by Vice President Kamala Harris, including the end of former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, the temporary suspension of all deportations, and the creation of the CBP One app parole program and the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans parole program, the number of illegal immigrants allowed into the U.S. by Biden has been closer to 4 million.

    Unfortunately for communities across the U.S., the ability of this country to take in millions of illegal immigrants has not been as smooth as Biden predicted. Cities, many of them controlled by Democrats, have been begging the federal government for assistance in housing, clothing, feeding, education, and providing healthcare for the flood of migrants who are straining budgets in their communities.

    In response, the Biden administration has spent tens of billions of dollars helping to ease the pain caused by their illegal migrant invasion. Local governments are required to provide education to all children, regardless of legal status, and the Department of Education helps local governments pay to educate these children. Hospitals must provide emergency care to all patients, even illegal immigrants without health insurance, and so the Department of Health and Human Services helps local hospitals stay afloat by reimbursing them through Medicaid.

    And the Department of Homeland Security helps provide food, housing, and transportation to illegal immigrants through FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program and Shelter and Services Program Awards program. When the influx of migrants was bankrupting cities across the country this past winter, Democratic mayors traveled to the White House to beg Biden for more FEMA money to help their communities “meet the growing needs of these individuals.”

    And the White House gave them the FEMA money they wanted. In just the last two years alone, the Biden administration has spent over $1 billion in FEMA funds giving local communities the resources needed to deal with the migrant crisis that the Biden administration created.

    if Joe Biden had said he wanted to let 4 million illegal aliens into the country, and subsidize their food and clothing, do you think he would have been “elected” in 2020?

  • CBS lies, altering interview of Kamala Harris on Israel:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • At CBS, an employee stands accused of doing actual journalism.

    On September 30th, anti-Israel author Ta-Nehisi Coates sat down for what turned out to be a spirited six-and-a-half-minute interview on CBS Mornings, during which co-anchor Tony Dokoupil challenged some of the claims made in Coates’ new book, “The Message.”

    The book contains several essays about some of Coates’ travels, with the longest one being about his trip “to Palestine.” It was claims made in that essay that Dokoupil zeroed in on for closer examination during their exchange:

    “I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” Dokoupil said.

    “So then I found myself wondering, why does Ta’Nehisi Coates, who I’ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second Intifada, the café bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits. Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?” the CBS anchor continued.

    Perhaps because Coates’ word is viewed as sacrosanct by woke leftists in the media, academia, and beyond despite his deeply flawed logic on issues like reparations, eruptions began almost immediately in the CBS newsroom, with tensions boiling over a week later during an editorial call:

    During its editorial meeting on Monday at 9 a.m.—the morning of October 7—the network’s top brass all but apologized for the interview to staff, saying that it did not meet the company’s “editorial standards.” After being introduced by Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, Adrienne Roark, who is in charge of news gathering at the network, began her remarks by saying covering a story like October 7 “requires empathy, respect, and a commitment to truth.”

    After quoting extensively from the CBS News handbook, she said, “We will still ask tough questions. We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door…”

    Presumably, the “bias” accusations stem from the fact that, according to the New York Post, Dokoupil is “a convert to Judaism whose ex-wife lives in Israel along with their two children.”

    “During its editorial meeting on Monday at 9 a.m.—the morning of October 7—the network’s top brass all but apologized for the interview to staff, saying that it did not meet the company’s ‘editorial standards.’”

    Though Shalt Not Question the Holy Social justice.

  • #BlackLivesMatter fraudster Tyree Conyers-Page sentenced to 42 months in prison.

    A US judge has sentenced a disgraced Black Lives Matter leader to federal prison after he was convicted at trial in April on wire fraud and money laundering charges. Sir Maejor Page, 35, of Toledo, Ohio, who uses the alias Tyree Conyers-Page, was found guilty of running a “fake charity scheme” for personal profit, defrauding donors of more than $450,000 they had given to his nonprofit Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta.

    US District Court Judge Jeffrey Helmick of the Northern District of Ohio sentenced Page on Thursday to 42 months in federal prison. He was also ordered to pay a $400 special assessment fee, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.

    Prosecutors accused Page of defrauding 18,000 donors who collectively gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to his fraudulent charity, Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta. Page took the donations and used them for his own personal benefit. He purchased entertainment, hotel rooms, clothing, firearms, and a property in Ohio that he intended to use as his personal residence, court documents showed.

    Page continued to collect donations for his “social justice” charity through its Facebook page after the organization’s tax-exempt status was revoked for failing to submit IRS Form 990 for three consecutive years. He consistently shared content on Facebook relating to social justice and racial issues in order to establish the legitimacy of his nonprofit organization, despite the fact this it was no longer tax-exempt. The convicted fraudster used Facebook to communicate privately with donors, to which he falsely claimed that their contributions would be allocated to “fight for George Floyd” and the “movement.”

    #BlackLivesMatter was fraud all the way down…

  • Elon Musk thinks that the reason so many billionaires are dumping money on Kamala is that they’re terrified Trump will release Epstein’s client list.
  • Does internal polling show Harris in trouble?

    In a recent podcast interview, the political analyst who first predicted that Joe Biden would withdraw from the presidential race revealed that private polling he has seen appears to suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is in serious trouble ahead of the November election.

    According to Breitbart, Newsmax commentator and former political director for ABC News Mark Halperin gave his analysis on The Morning Meeting with Sean Spicer and Dan Turrentine. Halperin said that internal polling could see Harris lose all but one of the seven swing states in this election, as her current lead in the national popular vote is not enough to win the electoral college against former President Donald Trump.

    “So the new New York Times poll shows her up three nationally,” Halperin explained. “We all know that three is like the bubble point, right? If she’s up three, she’s got a chance to win the Electoral College, but they’d rather be at four, and they don’t want to be at two. So three is right at the bubble. I’m not saying this Times poll’s right. But it’s in line with international polls.”

    “We all know from our contacts in both campaigns that Pennsylvania is tough for her right now. And without Pennsylvania, there are paths, but there aren’t many. There’s no path without Wisconsin,” Halperin continued. “So you see here, Tammy Baldwin’s Senate campaign poll shows Harris down three in Wisconsin. We all said yesterday, Wisconsin and Michigan are looking worse for Harris than before.”

    Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin’s (D-Wisc.) campaign had previously shared internal polling with both the Wall Street Journal and Axios, showing Harris losing to Trump in the state and Baldwin herself with a mere 2-point lead over her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde (R-Wisc.).

    Such results in private polls align with the trend reflected in public polls, with pollsters such as Quinnipiac University and Emerson College showing President Trump gaining momentum in most of the swing states, now either leading Harris or tied in enough states to win the electoral college.

    “I just saw some new private polling today that’s very robust private polling. She’s in a lot of trouble,” said Halperin. “The conversation I’m having with Trump people and Democrats with data are extremely bullish on Trump’s chances in the last 48 hours, extremely bullish. You think of the seven battleground states; which ones is Harris in danger of losing? I would say Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia. I’m not saying she’ll lose all six, but she’s in danger.”

    If Harris were to lose these six states but hold the seventh swing state, Nevada, then the result would be an exact repeat of the 2016 election, with President Trump winning 306 electoral votes to Harris’ 232.

  • “100-foot ‘Vote for Trump’ sign lit up in Amsterdam, NY after court rules against Democrat-run city for trying to block it.”
  • Others have done a better job reporting this, but Milton hit central Florida hard.
  • “Law enforcement has arrested Estefania Primera, an illegal alien from Venezuela, following reports that she was the ring leader for a gang’s sex trafficking operation in El Paso. Primera was named by a sex trafficking victim as the leader of a Tren de Aragua sex trafficking ring.”
  • “Springfield resident films Haitian migrant cutting up animal in yard of “pet-friendly” apartment complex featured on CNN.”
  • Ukrainian drones hit another Russian ammo depot.
  • They also hit a Shahed drone stockpile in Krasnodar.
  • They also hit an oil facility in Feodosia, where the fire spread for days.
  • Meta fined $101 million for storing Facebook passwords without encryption. This is like setting your smart phone unlock number to 1234…
  • The Royal New Zealand Navy manages to lose a ship to a reef. I’m sure that result had nothing to with the captain being a lesbian and that she was super-qualified and not a diversity hire…
  • People have been asking about the Texas temporary ID ruling in other threads, and now we have an update.

    Secretary of State Asks Attorney General to Rule on ‘Limited Term’ Driver’s Licenses as Voter ID. Paxton received a request from Secretary of State Nelson to rule on the validity of “limited term” driver’s licenses as voter ID.

    Texas Secretary of State (SOS) Jane Nelson issued an advisory on Tuesday that describes “limited term” driver’s licenses as an acceptable form of voter ID, though recommending other forms of photo identification if possible.

    While the Texas Election Code does not specifically designate “limited term” ID cards as a permissible form of voter ID, it does describe “a personal identification card issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety” (TxDPS) as an approved form of identification.

    As Nelson’s advisory acknowledges, TxDPS distributes “temporary term” driver’s licenses to noncitizens, provided they are an individual with lawful temporary status in the U.S.

    The SOS’s guidance concedes that if an individual is registered to vote and presents a “limited term” driver’s license or ID card, they may receive a ballot after being fully informed by the election judge or clerk of the “eligibility requirements” necessary to vote in Texas.

    The issue cited by the SOS is that while the limited term ID denotes noncitizen status at one point, it doesn’t mean that the individual has not since been naturalized. Transportation Code also includes the limited term ID as a valid form of identification, creating a small window for a potentially legitimate use of the document to vote.

    Additionally, if an individual presents a “limited term” ID card but is not registered to vote, they may receive a provisional ballot after election officials fully evaluate what their lack of registration and unique form of identification suggests.

    Nelson recommended using language such as, “The limited-term driver’s license/identification card you presented suggests that you are not a United States citizen. Your name does not appear on the list of registered voters. Per the Texas Election Code, to be eligible to vote in the State of Texas, you must be a qualified voter of this state,” when explaining the situation to the unregistered voter and prior to distributing a provisional ballot.

    Nelson requested on October 9 that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rule on whether a limited term driver’s license that “generates questions of voter eligibility” is a valid form of voter ID and if an election official must present a ballot to an individual who only provides such ID in person. The request is for a non-binding opinion by the Office of the Attorney General.

    Nelson also asked Paxton how ballot workers ought to treat mail-in ballots that only list an ID number or driver’s license card that is “limited term,” in regards both to “counting” the vote and for investigating “instances of fraud.”

    So Paxton will be able to nip this potential avenue of voting fraud in the bud.

  • “A former Democrat member of the Texas Senate is throwing his support behind a Republican candidate for the seat he once held. Former State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville announced his endorsement of Adam Hinojosa in the race against freshman Democrat State Sen. Morgan LaMantia, pointing to their shared pro-life values as a key reason.”
  • The Biden Recession is slamming restaurants.
  • “The most fun I had going to see the new Joker movie was in the car ride and from it, because I was listening to Warhammer 40K lore on the Horus Heresy. And just listening to that was better than seeing Joker Folie a Deux.”
  • Finally, a non-insulting use for AI? They’re going to use AI to create dubs of original Japanese anime in voices that sound like the original Japanese voice actors. This would be a big improvement on a lot of the early crappy dubs, but I can’t imagine American voice actors being thrilled at losing those gigs…
  • 95% of gamers don’t want DEI in their games. Obviously. Social Justice poisons everything it touches.
  • Oh no! Velma has been cancelled! Let’s have a moment of silence forOK that’s enough.
  • Speaking of things that have no future, Deadspin fails to get the lawsuit against it over calling a young Kansas City Chiefs fan racist thrown out. G/O Media is looking at losing a lot of money for dickish virtue signaling…
  • Social Justice video game consulting company Sweet Baby Inc. scrubs their website of just about everything, including their client list.
  • “Oklahoma-based BrucePac has issued a massive recall of nearly 10 million pounds of “ready-to-eat” meat and chicken products due to potential contamination with Listeria.” Here’s a complete list of the products recalled.
  • “Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Fisker Inc. is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and faces formal objections from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) over its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after halting production in March…The DOJ contends in filings that Fisker’s proposed $750,000 cap on recall expenses in its bankruptcy plan is insufficient to cover both parts and labor costs required for vehicle repairs.”
  • Also: “New York-based company called American Lease was less deterred by this warning and in June agreed to purchase the remaining Fisker inventory—approximately 3,300 cars for a total of $46.3 million dollars. By October, American Lease had paid Fisker $42.5 million and had taken delivery of about 1,100 Oceans. That was the plan until the end of last week, at least. Last Friday evening, Fisker informed American Lease that the Oceans ‘cannot, as a technical matter, be ‘ported’ from the Fisker server to which the vehicles are currently linked to a distinct server owned and/or controlled by’ American Lease.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Also from Instapundit: Fisker left their California headquarters trashed when they vacated.
  • “Kia cars can be hacked with a smartphone.”

    The issue originated in one of the Kia web portals used by dealerships. Long story short and a hefty bit of API abuse later, [Sam] Curry and his band of far-more-capable Kia Boyz managed to register a fake dealer account to get a valid access token, which they were then able to use to call any backend dealer API command they wanted.

    “From the victim’s side, there was no notification that their vehicle had been accessed nor their access permissions modified,” Curry noted in his writeup. “An attacker could resolve someone’s license plate, enter their VIN through the API, then track them passively and send active commands like unlock, start, or honk.”

  • Sales for once mighty Toyota are down due to a massive engine recall.
  • “1 killed, 12 rescued inside Colorado gold mine after elevator malfunctioned during tour.” Dwight pointed this out to me, mainly because I just posted a Halloween horror piece on mining disasters, including the famously gruesome Val Reef’s gold mine elevator disaster.
  • Bungled. “A founding member of the experimental rock band Mr. Bungle was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend after prosecutors in California found an audio file the victim recorded on her phone as she fought for her life. A jury in Santa Cruz deliberated for a day before finding Theobald ‘Theo’ Lengyel guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of his girlfriend Alice “Alyx” Kamakaokalani Herrmann on the night of Dec. 4, 2023, inside her Capitola home.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Trop dropped.
  • Quentin Tarantino on how John Carpenter’s The Thing inspired both Reservoir Dogs and The Hateful Eight.
  • The pianist cashed his ticket and drove an exhausting 500 miles to the concert venue on the only night he could play, only to find a broken, out-of-tune piano. The restaurant couldn’t get his order right before he had to leave to perform. He refused to play multiple times before finally relenting and, still in pain from the drive, improvised the best-selling solo piano album of all time.
  • “Democrats Perplexed Why Candidate Nobody Ever Voted For Is Slipping In The Polls.”
  • “FEMA Warns They Don’t Have The Resources To Block Humanitarian Aid For Next Hurricane.”
  • “Trembling, Bleeding Spokeswoman Issues Statement Denying That Doug Emhoff Would Ever Hit Anyone.”
  • “Thousands Of Migrant Farmworkers Head North In Preparation For The Democrat Ballot Harvest.”
  • “Lesbian Captain Crashes After Insisting Ships Don’t Have To Go Into Ports.”
  • This dog story angries up my blood, but it has a happy ending.

    • I’ve been unemployed a year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.





    Also, a hearty thanks to everyone who has already donated.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

    Getting Out The Ten Foot Pole To Talk About UFOs

    October 10th, 2024

    If the Jeopardy category is “Topics Seldom Covered At BattleSwarm,” “What are UFOs?” is a pretty good answer. While I’ve occasionally done a post, for the most part those waters are too polluted by cranks, grifters and true believers (to the extent those categories are distinguishable) to give much credence to the idea that alien spacecraft regularly visit earth.

    But since Michael Shellenberger just dropped a piece on a whistleblower saying the federal government has a secret UFO program, and since Shellenberger did such important work on the Twitter files, I am reluctantly getting out my ten foot pole* and covering the piece.

    But first some background.

    Back in the 1970s, a whole lot of otherwise rational people believed not only in the existence of UFOs, but in alien abductions, ancient astronauts, and a whole host of crackpot pseudoscience beliefs. Belief in UFOs as extraterrestrials visiting earth probably peaked then, reflected in popular media from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Project Bluebook. There was also a steady stream of UFO true believers on TV, making fairly outrageous claims on actual news programs or “true story” TV shows, be it Barney Hill getting butt-probed in a saucer or Bob Lazar’s stories of alien technology at Area 51 and how Grays will use humans as “containers for souls.”

    In terms of government UFO projects, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was a real (though unpublicized) Defense Department program that evidently ran from 2007 to 2012.

    Now back to Shellenberger:

    There is no evidence that any non-human or extra-terrestrial intelligence has visited Earth, according to a May 2024 report by the office the Pentagon created in 2022 to study unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), formerly called UFOs.

    The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) “assesses that the inaccurate claim that the USG is reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and is hiding it from Congress is, in large part,” the report concluded, “the result of circular reporting from a group of individuals who believe this to be the case, despite the lack of any evidence.”

    The former Director of AARO has since resigned his position and has repeatedly dismissed and ridiculed the topic, claiming that talk of the phenomenon is due mainly to a small group of individuals in the grip of a rumor-based religion.

    But critics say that AARO’s 63-page history of the US government’s investigation into UAPs since the end of World War II was riddled with factual errors and poor referencing, including to Wikipedia. And the document was missing historical information that appeared in the 117-page “UAP Timeline” document created by a former or existing US government intelligence officer that Public published last year.

    Christopher Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, wrote a lengthy rebuttal, concluding, “this is the most error-ridden and unsatisfactory government report I can recall reading during or after decades of government service.”

    And major political figures, including Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, have vouched for the credibility of UAP witnesses and whistleblowers.

    “I’ve interviewed solid people,” said former president Donald Trump in September, “great pilots for the US Air Force, et cetera, they’ve seen things that they cannot explain.”

    Trump has said repeatedly that the government has information about UAPs that it has not released. In 2020, during a podcast with his son, Donald Trump, Jr., Trump said, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.”

    In June of this year, Trump said that the government has information about UAPs that it has not released. “I have access,” he said, “and I speak to people about it. I’ve had actually meetings on it. And they will tell you there’s something going on.”

    In 2021, former CIA Director John Brennan said, “I think some of the phenomena we may be seeing continue to be unexplained and might be some type of phenomenon that results from something that we don’t yet understand and could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.”

    The same year, the current Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, said UAPs could constitute non-human intelligence (NHI).

    In 2023, a high-ranking former intelligence officer named David Grusch testified to Congress that the US government had retrieved spacecraft of nonhuman origin and bodies, which US government insiders told Public was accurate.

    In July 2022, the Intelligence Community Inspector General concluded that Grusch’s complaint that “elements” of the IC had withheld or hidden UAP-related information from Congress “to purposely and intentionally thwart legitimate Congressional oversight of the UAP Program” was both “credible” and “urgent.”

    At the time, Charles McCullough III, the first Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, who the US Senate had confirmed for his job in 2011, represented Grusch.

    That does not mean that extraterrestrial beings occupy or are operating the UAPs, nor that the US government and military contractors are hiding crashed alien spacecraft or bodies, as some former astronauts, former IC officers, and former military leaders claim.

    There are other explanations for UAPs. Current dominant alternative theories, including those put forward by AARO, are that UAPs are some kind of natural phenomenon we don’t yet understand, like ball lighting or plasma. They could also be part of some new US or foreign government weapons program, such as drones, aircraft, balloons, CGI hoaxes, or birds.

    Elon Musk thinks UFO sightings are probably experimental U.S. miltech. Let’s hope so.

    Other UAP skeptics say that some combination of government disinformation and social contagion, like the Satanic panic of the 1980s or the Salem witch trials, among UAP believers in the US military are driving the phenomenon.

    Is it possible that the Pentagon and CIA are still playing disinformation games with the American people to cover up unacknowledged programs? Or that intelligence and security agencies, as well as politicians, are creating a UAP hoax to frighten the public? And is it possible that whistleblowers are fabricating parts or all of their testimony?

    The US Air Force allegedly used disinformation against a UFO buff in the past to cover up a weapons program. Something similar could be happening today.

    However, no available evidence supports that theory. And so, while this possibility should not be ignored, for it to be true, it would require a complicated conspiracy with unclear motivations.

    As Senator Rubio noted last year, “Most of [the UAP whistleblowers] have held very high clearances and high positions within our government. So, you do ask yourself: What incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification – these are serious people – have to come forward and make something up?”

    Rubio also said that individuals in “high clearances and high positions within our government” with “firsthand knowledge” of UAPs were “fearful of harm coming to them.”

    Grusch and other UAP whistleblowers say the government retaliated against them and tried to stop them from going public.

    Snip.

    Existing and former US government officials have told members of Congress that AARO and the Pentagon have broken the law by not revealing a significant body of information about UAPs, including military intelligence databases that have evidence of their existence as physical craft.

    One of these individuals is a current or former US government official acting as a UAP whistleblower. The person has written a report that says “the Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades.”

    Furthermore, these individuals have revealed the name of an active and highly secretive DOD “Unacknowledged Special Access Program,” or USAP. The source of the document told Public that the USAP is a “strategic intelligence program” that is part of the US military’s family of long-standing, highly-sensitive programs dealing with various aspects of the UAP ‘problem.’”

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)’

    Supposedly the name of this secret UFO program is Immaculate Constellation.

    All this adds up to something that congress should probably look into…but far short of actual proof that extraterrestrial vehicles are visiting earth. Just because a “whistleblower” says something doesn’t make it true.

    Extraordinary claims still require extraordinary evidence…

    *Do I actually have a 10 foot pole? Actually I have a 16′ extending pole (similar to this one, though with a different brand name), which I’ve found useful for things like knocking dead branches out of a tree, or getting a Frisbee off a neighbor’s roof. Back when Dwight worked in an office, he used to borrow it to use as a Festavus pole…

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    Posted in Military, Uncategorized | 19 Comments »

    Democrats Want To Dismantle The Constitution

    October 9th, 2024

    Democrats have long hated constitutional limits on their will-to-power, and have actively tried to circumvent it at least as far back as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s court-packing scheme in 1937. Their active opposition to the Second Amendment, a barrier to their unwavering goal of complete civilian disarmament, is long established. But while Democrats have long hated the strictures of the Constitution, they were previously too circumspect to just come out and say they wanted to do away with it. In their panic at the specter of Orange Man Bad winning yet again, they’ve started saying the quiet part out loud about wanting to dismantle all the constitutional checks and balances that stand in their way.

  • We already covered how John Kerry laments that pesky First Amendment keeps global governments from supressing “disinformation.”

    “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change,” Kerry said.

    Kerry noted, “It’s very hard to govern today.”

    Just the way the founders intended.

  • Leftist fossil Fran Leibowitz went Kerry one better, saying that Biden should just dissolve the Supreme Court. I must have missed the day in civics class where the president is given the power to “dissolve” the Supreme Court. Or else Leibowitz was absent the day they covered the difference between a Republic and a dictatorship. Then again, she was evidently expelled from high school, so that may explain this peculiar lacunae in her understanding of basic American civics…
  • Finally, just today, Tim Waltz said we should eliminate the electoral college.

    Minnesota governor Tim Walz on Tuesday reiterated his support for abolishing the Electoral College and switching to a national popular vote as the sole means of electing presidents and their running mates.

    While campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris on the West Coast, Walz suggested at two different fundraisers that he would prefer to focus on winning votes across the country rather than concentrate on key battleground states that could sway the upcoming presidential election as they have done in the past.

    “I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go. We need, we need national popular vote, but that’s not the world we live in,” the Democratic vice-presidential nominee told donors in California governor Gavin Newsom’s Sacramento home. “So we need to win Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.”

    You can almost feel Walz’s palpable disdain at the necessity of him having to mingle with those rural losers in flyover country.

    To be fair, the disdain Democrats feel for the electoral college blocking their path to power is one Democrats have been expressing at least as far back as the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential race. “How dare an outrageously successful 200-year old blueprint for running a nation stand between me and absolute power!”

    • The Democratic Party’s naked contempt for the Constitution’s checks and balances is another reason voters should remove their hands from the levers of federal power. And their opposition to obeying the Constitution demonstrates, yet again, that they’re a far greater, and graver, danger to the republic than Donald Trump ever could be.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Supreme Court | 20 Comments »

    Police Raid San Antonio Apartment Complex Run By Tren de Aragua

    October 8th, 2024

    The Biden-Harris Administration’s decision to flood America with illegal alien criminals continues to bear bitter fruit. Police raided a San Antonio Apartment complex taken over by Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua over the weekend.

    Law enforcement officials have confirmed that a vacant San Antonio apartment complex had fallen under the control of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which was using it as a base for criminal activity.

    On Saturday morning, a multi-agency task force—which included the San Antonio Police Department, Texas Anti-Gang Unit, Texas Department of Public Safety, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Border Patrol, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security—cleared more than 300 vacant units at the Palatia Apartment complex on the North side of the city.

    San Antonio PD had received several complaints about the complex regarding narcotics, human trafficking, and threats to apartment personnel, according to San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus.

    “We had information that members of the transnational gang, Tren de Aragua, were in control of the area and committing various crimes,” said McManus during a press conference. “The task force processed over 20 individuals that we arrested. We confirmed that four TdA members are in custody.”

    McManus also revealed that one of the members is an “enforcer” for the gang, who collects payments or dues on behalf of the gang. Nineteen of the 20 detained were charged, with several having warrants out for their arrest.

    The weeks-long investigation by San Antonio PD—“Operation Aurora”—was part of a broader effort to disrupt Tren de Aragua’s influence in Texas.

    Authorities believe the Venezuelan gang has been involved in prostitution, selling cocaine, and other violent crimes in the city. McManus said the gang has been operating in San Antonio for “several months.”

    “We assure the community and members of the public that we are committed to their safety, and we are on top of this TDA issue that seems to have gone very public lately,” said McManus.

    McManus said this was only the first takedown of a known gang location and that they have “other places we are going to hit.”

    “We are on to you,” McManus told Tren de Aragua. “We are coming for you, and we know where you are.”

    The gang has also been spotted in North Dallas, with Dallas Police officers confirming they have infiltrated the city. Members of the Tren De Aragua gang have congregated with other Venezuelans in the northern part of Dallas, nicknamed “Villa Dallas.” Since the gang’s arrival, the neighborhood has become riddled with illegal street racing, beatings, shootings, and extortion attempts.

    As I’ve noted before, I never read about Tren de Aragua until the Biden-Harris Administration decided to flood America with illegal aliens, and now they seem to be popping up everywhere, from New York City to Aurora to El Paso, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently declared them a terrorist gang.

    What do you think the odds are that Tren de Aragua is also active in more illegal alien-friendly blue states like California, and nobody is bothering to report on it or do anything about it?

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    Posted in Border Control, Texas | 4 Comments »

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